17
Some Desperate Glory—Chapter 11
James saw Beth the moment he entered the Cameron's drawing room. He'd come to Charles Town on business. His mother and Katy had chosen to stay at Oak Point, and James couldn't say he was sorry. He was glad to have a little breathing room, glad to have some peace and quiet. His mother had insisted Bess and a few staff come along with him. She was training a housekeeper, one she intended to install in their Charles Town home since their current one was too old to continue her duties, and she wanted Bess's critical eye out of the way, apparently.
Several of his neighbors were present. Helen had invited several couples, and James wondered that she had chosen uneven numbers by inviting him. The discussion picked back up, and he listened to Robert Cameron and Jeremy Kent discuss that blowhard Howard's latest speech. James remembered the debate in the Assembly over raising a levy, remembered how he had felt compelled to stand and refute the man's assertion that they were an American nation. While he had sympathized with Howard's position, he still believed what he had once told Beth—that they should remain loyal to the crown and fight for home rule.
Catching Beth's eye, James wondered if she still believed what she had told him on another occasion, that England would grant the American colonies home rule only after Ireland had won such a right. James knew the Irish were unlikely to win their argument, but the Colonies were different. They provided so much to King George, were far more important economically than Ireland was to the empire. James could not see how the American colonies could fail, but when he listened to men like Howard, he wondered how they would ever be taken seriously by the Crown. It didn't have to be full independence. It didn't even have to be immediate independence, and he didn't understand why his neighbors couldn't see that.
Benjamin Martin had been the only man to speak sense that long ago day, and James had been surprised to hear that particular bit of sense come from the man's mouth, especially since he knew Martin was in more sympathy with the rebel's cause than the man often let on. He, like most of the men present, had heard of Martin's exploits at Fort Wilderness in the last war, though unlike many of the others in their colony, James didn't see the glory in what Martin and his fellow soldiers had done there. It was slaughter, pure and simple. There was no honor in it.
When the issue had finally been called to a vote, both he and Martin had found themselves on the losing side. South Carolina's Assembly had voted to raise the levy. James knew many men had raised militia troops on both sides of the conflict, and he gave some thought to which of the loyalist troops he might join if the time came when he had to follow his conscience.
During dinner, Beth was, as usual, quiet, reserved, while the others spoke vituperatively about the war. James noticed that from time to time Beth paled, looked briefly upset when more gruesome alleged atrocities were voiced.
He also noticed Will yet again completely ignored his wife. James wondered if the fact he was safely married to her meant Will felt he need not pay any attention to her. Given that the rest of the family and their neighbors still seemed to pretend she didn't exist, either, he was hardly surprised when she said nothing, appeared, in fact, to be attempting to fade into the background.
Honoria, on the other hand, flirted shamelessly with him, and James tried not to show how repugnant he found her behavior. He was further appalled that her parents did not attempt to restrain her. He couldn't help but compare her forward behavior with that of Beth's reserve. Beth spoke only when spoken to, as was the rule for women in their society. James found himself, not for the first time, thinking how stupid that particular rule was, how it equated a woman with children, who were also expected to remain silent unless spoken to. Of course, Beth appeared to be the only woman who actually attempted to adhere to it.
When he removed Honoria's hand for the third time from his thigh, he had had about enough, especially since Will's middle sister Maria, who was seated across from him, had decided that running her slippered foot up and down his booted calf was a good idea. He tucked his big feet beneath his chair and hoped his long legs were now out of reach. He vowed to avoid the youngest, Lydia, as much as possible since he was certain he didn't want to know what she might resort to in order to gain his attention.
Dinner finished, he gratefully retired with the men to the half of the parlor usually reserved for them. He accepted a glass of brandy and made short work of it.
Will, noticing, grinned unrepentantly at him. While his father was busy talking to one of the other planters who had been invited to dinner, Will leaned over to James and said softly, "My sisters are anxious to secure husbands before the war returns. I hope you are not offended."
James was more disgusted than offended, but he said nothing of that to his old friend who refilled his glass. "I suppose that as a married man," James said carefully, "you think the rest of us should fit our necks to the yoke."
Will laughed. "On the contrary, old friend. I pity the man who is fool enough to marry one of my sisters."
Having had just enough alcohol—between the wine with dinner, the whiskey before and the brandy after—to be less cautious with his tongue than he would otherwise have been, James asked, "And what of you?"
His old friend looked somberly at his own glass. "Anna-Elizabeth has not turned out to be quite what I expected when I chose her."
James sipped his brandy. "And what did you expect?"
Will shook his head. "That, my friend, is not something I wish to discuss."
They rejoined the other conversation, the political discussion, and James followed it half-heartedly. He was more focused on the looming choice before him: England or America.
On the one hand, he believed in God, King and country. On the other hand, he had been born and raised in this land, in South Carolina. He had lived his life alternating between Charles Town and the country where his family's plantation was. He loved his home, but he had been taught to love his King as well. He believed in the King, but he also knew the King, apparently, did not always think of his subjects across the ocean in America. Beginning with the Stamp Act in the sixties, the Crown had passed acts that, on the surface, made sense to Parliament. After all, if the Colonies had to be defended, then it was only natural those colonies assume some of the costs for the garrisons necessary to that defense. On the other, the Acts had been imposed without consulting the Colonies. James liked to believe the Colonies would have agreed to support their defense had their various governing bodies been asked, but he also wondered if the northern colonists had simply been looking for an excuse. Radicals there certainly had ideas that most rational South Carolinians balked at.
The more he pondered the political troubles, the more confused he grew. Ironically, he wished he could seek Beth's counsel.
When the pocket doors were opened and they rejoined the women, James found himself seated beside her. He found that odd, especially since Will had seemed to maneuver him into sitting beside his wife, and James found that an uncomfortable thought. What he found even more uncomfortable was the scent of the woman whom he was seated next to. She smelled, as she so often did, of lavender and woman, but it was the scent of woman that drew him. He was mildly intoxicated, and perhaps that explained why he dropped his hand to the cushion between them, slid it slowly under her skirt where he could feel her thigh beneath the layers of fabric which made up her skirts. When her own hand slid beneath the silk and then over his, he caught her fingers. He longed to feel the rest of her, longed to run his hand and his tongue over her naked skin, longed to hear her moan his name, longed to hear her make incoherent noises as he loved her.
He wondered again why Will didn't find her appealing. She was a beautiful, passionate woman, and James fed off her passion. He couldn't imagine her husband denying that fire. If there was one thing of which James was certain, it was that Will would find pleasure in the arms of his wife.
As he thought it, he moved his hand, slid it from beneath hers and lifted his glass to his lips. Beth claimed Will didn't find women appealing, and it was true Will hadn't looked at his wife in any way that indicated he desired her. Instead, Beth's husband's looks were those of ownership, those of someone looking at an object he possessed and was well aware others desired. Perhaps Will enjoyed the power of owning something others envied.
James routed his thoughts to other channels, considered the rest of the business he needed to conduct while in Charles Town. He sipped his brandy and tried to ignore Honoria's attempts to catch his attention.
There was a point where it dawned on him that he was in town alone, that neither his mother nor his sister had accompanied him to Charles Town. Beth could come to him, and no one would be the wiser.
But it wasn't true. As she had pointed out once before, the servants would know and might gossip.
He fell into a funk. He sat so close to her, so close to her all he had to do was lean a bit to his left and his shoulder would rest against hers. He could move his hand only a few inches and touch her, but he would not again. He sat in a room surrounded by her husband's family and by lifelong friends, and only the two of them knew he was more her husband than Will was. He longed to turn his head, to look his fill before he leaned in and captured her lips in a passionate kiss. He longed to lift her in his arms, carry her to bed and spend the rest of the night making love with her.
Instead, James sat beside Beth and considered all the ways he cheated her. He met her furtively in any place they could find a bit of privacy when what he wished desperately for was to take her to Oak Point as its mistress, as his wife. She was married to his best friend, to the man he had grown up with and considered a brother, but James had taken her virginity and taken her as his lover. He disobeyed the laws of God and man to lie in her arms as often as he could manage, and he risked making her pregnant and betraying their secret to Will—if to no one else.
His intoxicated brain shuddered to a halt as he thought of Beth pregnant. God, how he wished he had the right.
The hunger nearly consumed him as he sat in the close room, as he breathed in her scent and felt her heat beside him. He craved the slide of her skin against his, but he beat that back, finished his brandy and leaned forward to set the empty glass on the table before him. He waited for a lull in the conversation and tried to catch what they were speaking of only to be startled when he realized Will and Beth were coming in for gentle teasing because she was not yet pregnant.
They had been married more than a year, and James had been her lover for several months.
He slid a sidelong glance at her, and noticed the crimson color running beneath her normally pale skin. Will, sitting on the other side of her wore a jaded grin. James had an almost uncontrollable urge to wipe that amusement off his friend's face.
When he looked again at Beth, she looked stricken, embarrassed to be the focus of attention. He caught her eye, and he saw a moment of sheer terror in their depths. He changed the subject, asked Will's father about a horse James had been trying to purchase from him for more than a year. The two of them trod the same ground they had trodden before. The filly was a magnificent piece of flesh, not unlike Beth. To his surprise, Will's father agreed to accept his offer. James sat up and tried to retrace the conversation. He gave up, reached out, shook Robert's hand on the deal, told him he'd come around with the bank draft in the morning.
If he were a superstitious man, James would have considered it an omen. The question was whether or not it was a good omen or a bad omen.
-X-
The following morning he decided it must have been a good omen because when he arrived at the Cameron house with the bank draft, only Beth was at home. The maid showed him into the parlor where she sat reading, and Beth stood at his entrance. She asked the maid to bring tea and gestured toward a chair. He waited for her to resume her seat on the sofa before seating himself in the chair.
She wore a smoky, blue-gray, a color that suited her, and she stared at him, her eyes searching him. When the maid returned, Beth gestured for her to stay close. Though James would have preferred to be alone with her, even he knew it would not do for anyone to know they had been together with no better chaperone than a maid. He spoke to her of generalities, sipped tea and ate biscuits, and all the time he alternated between hoping the Camerons would arrive and hoping the maid would be called away. He knew the maid was not sufficient as a chaperone, but he knew it was better she be found with them than they be found alone together.
When he realized he had sat with her well beyond the length of an acceptable visit and no one had returned, he excused himself, asked Beth to ask Robert to call on him, and returned to his own house.
That afternoon, James allowed his servants time to see to their own amusements, and while he lay in a particularly gloomy mood on the couch in the drawing room of his otherwise empty house, he thought of Beth and how the light had slanted through the eastern windows and made a burnished halo of her hair that morning. He thought of the pale creaminess of her skin above the neckline of her gown and how her bodice had cradled her breasts.
There was a rapping at the back door. James ignored it at first. His servants were gone, and only someone who wished to see one of them would come to his back door. The knocking came louder, and he decided to go see who was there.
She had draped a heavy, dark shawl over the thick veil covering her distinctive hair and pulled on gloves that hid her skin. She wore a faded dress he suspected she had borrowed from her maid. When she looked up at him from out of the dark shadows created by the drape of the shawl, he reached for her and drew her inside. He kicked the door shut even as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled the veil and shawl from her head, molded her body against his, found her mouth with his and devoured it.
Beth clung to him, held him to her. She murmured his name again and again, and not for the first time, James wondered whether she was reminding herself who she was with or whether she was letting him know she knew it was him and not Will. She had been a virgin the first time he took her, but he knew he would never really know if she had begun sleeping with Will or not.
"Upstairs," he breathed, pulling his mouth from her soft skin.
He took her hand and led her to the servant's stairs and up them to the second floor where his quarters were. He locked the door behind them and drew her to the bed, tossed the veil and shawl he still held at a chair. He made quick work of undressing her, and her fingers were equally nimble as they stripped him of his own clothes.
For the first time he had her in a bed that was genuinely his own. As a result, he indulged in the fantasy that she was his wife, not Will's, that he had every right to have her there. He could smell the soap on her, was aware that she had bathed before coming to him. He took his time, tasted all of her, loved her as though they had all the time in the world. He pushed down the knowledge that he would have to find a way to get her out of the house unseen.
Beth had proven again and again that she had no fear of lovemaking, but this time she did something even his mistresses had never done. James had heard men talk of women putting their mouths on them, but he had doubted anyone other than a whore would do such a thing. When Beth's mouth trailed down his chest and then over his abdomen before taking hold of him with a soft hand and opening her mouth over him, his brain froze. He started to stop her, but she ran her tongue along his length and then closed over and sucked on a spot just below the tip that made him shut completely up—provided one discounted the ragged moan that escaped him. Her mouth opened and she slid it down over him as far as she could go until he felt the back of her throat, and he fisted his hands in his sheets and tried to remain still.
James was intensely focused on the damp heat of her mouth, the smooth roughness of her tongue moving along his hard length as her head moved up and down over him. Her tongue flicked over that incredibly sensitive spot below the head of his cock and moved onward. When she began to move faster up and down his length, he thought he should stop her, but it felt too good to do so. When he felt his release coming, he tried to tell her, but she seemed to know, slipped a hand below his scrotum and caressed a spot that made him forget even his own name as he came hard.
When he finally became alert again, she was kissing her way over his hip and up a lazy line meandering along his abdomen toward his chest. For the life of him, he couldn't have moved. He finally untangled a hand from his sheets as her lips closed over one of his nipples, and she drew on the nub. He ran his free hand over her exposed buttock and up her spine, and when she reached his jaw, he blindly sought her mouth with his.
He rolled her to her back and kissed her softly. She slid her arms around his shoulders and cradled his head, her fingers threading through his hair.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked on a ragged breath.
She looked up at him, her eyes similar to the green of jade in the shadowy afternoon light. "From a discussion with my cousin and from a book I read," she said softly.
"I should read more books," he said, stroking a hand down over her breast.
She gave him a sunny smile. "You do just fine without books."
He gave her a grin. Her hands rubbed up over his chest. "James," she whispered, "we cannot keep doing this."
James moved and covered her nipple with his mouth and ran his tongue over the hard tip before he drew on it. She arched up into him, held him to her breast, and he ran his hands down over her taut belly and down to her hips. He parted her thighs and settled himself between them. His fingers sought her curls, and he found her ready for him. He kissed his way to her mouth and looked down at her. "I know," he said as he positioned himself at her entrance.
As he eased into her, he wondered if the coming war would remove Will from the equation. If she were left widowed, he'd marry her at the first moment common decency allowed and not think twice about it—assuming he couldn't find a way to marry her sooner. He said nothing of that, though, savored her tight, wet, sheath as he moved within her. Her name was a ragged moan as she moved with him.
Afterward, as he cradled her against him, he thought of the other possibility—that the war might take him from her.
It seemed as though she were aware of his troubled thoughts since Beth lifted her head from his shoulder and asked, "What are you thinking about, James?"
He stretched along her, skin sliding against skin, and lifted a hand to cradle her cheek. "You were right," he said softly, thinking of the times they had spoken of the subject before. "I'm afraid the war will return soon."
"There is always a war coming."
James frowned at her. She had sounded particularly bitter when she said that, and he thought of those shadows he'd seen in her eyes before.
"I don't think most of the people who look forward to it understand that it will be fought where they live, that their homes, property, and families will be scarred by it." She sighed, and laid her head back on his shoulder. "I've seen war, James. There's no glory. There's no honor. There is only death and destruction."
He didn't know how to answer that. Her fingers stroked along his waist and her hand came to rest over his heart. "I suppose you will still fight?"
James stared at the ceiling. He'd given her his answer long ago, and it had not changed. "Yes."
"For your king?"
He nodded, and she lifted onto her elbows, leaned over him. "Don't," she said urgently. "Come with me. Let's return to my homeland. I can divorce Will there."
Closing his eyes tightly, he sighed. It was a tempting offer—to have Beth for his own—but it felt like a bribe, and it was a bribe that bore too high a price for him. He had this land in his bones and in his soul, and he couldn't walk away from it. People depended on him, and he had been raised to never shirk his responsibilities. He sought a way to explain that to her, but the only answer he could give was, "This is my home, Beth. I cannot run away." He lifted his head and pressed his lips against her own. "Divorce Will anyway, or because you've not consummated your marriage, you have grounds for an annulment. Do that."
"The scandal will force you to leave," she said. "You know as well as I do that South Carolina doesn't allow divorce. Even if I only had the marriage annulled, you could not claim me anymore than you can now." By the time she finished, it was in a broken whisper, and he drew her back down to him.
He pulled her closer, covered the hand over his heart with his own. She was right, but he thought he could withstand the disapproval of his neighbors. Then he thought of Katy, of his mother, and he knew he could not do it. The social costs would equal economic costs, and they were too high for his family and dependents.
Beth kissed his shoulder, lifted and kissed his cheek and then moved to claim his mouth. She looked down at him. "This is all there is, James," she said softly and pushed him onto his back. "This is all there can be."
He wanted to argue with her, would have, but she went astride him, rode him until they both cried their completion.
-X-
The shadows were lengthening when he awoke to a hard rapping at his closed door. James called out, asked who was there. His manservant's voice came through the thick wood. "Mr. Cameron is here, sir."
In his half-awake state, he was certain Will must have discovered what was going on between him and his wife. James froze, considered his options before he remembered he had business with Robert, Will's father. "I'll be down soon," he called.
Beth's eyes were large in her pale face. James kissed her and climbed from the bed. He pulled on his clothes, and she sat up to climb out as well. He stopped her, kissed her again, and whispered to her, "Lock the door after me. Stay here until I return." He would have to distract his staff so that she could slip away—with any luck, unnoticed.
Robert Cameron had been provided tea when James found him in his study. The older man rose and shook his hand, and James was certain he did not mistake the knowing look in the other man's eyes. "Could I interest you in something a little stronger?" he asked.
Will's father said quietly, "No, tea is fine. Helen will not forgive me if I come home smelling of whiskey." They both seated themselves, and Robert continued, "I understood you had dismissed the lovely Theresa."
James eyed the man. Theresa had been his mistress, and he had parted from her shortly after Will's bride arrived in Charles Town.
Robert read the answer on his face. "Ah. It's not wise to bring your mistress into your home, James. I realize you are not married, but it simply isn't done."
"You came about the filly," James said and rose to find the bank draft.
"I came about several things, James," the other man said, the smile he had worn until then fading, "and fillies are but part of them."
He didn't miss the plural. They exchanged papers, James accepted the bill of sale for the horse after handing over the bank draft, and they discussed her delivery to Oak Point. Their business completed, Robert settled back in his seat and stared gravely across at him. "Would you say my son is happy in his marriage, James?"
The question caught him off-guard, but he sat up and contemplated how he might answer without betraying Beth. He watched his old friend's father, wondered if the man had worked it out, and he hoped to hell Robert hadn't. James valued the man's friendship, and he was grateful the other man had stepped into his father's place as one of James's closest advisors when his father died. He'd hate to lose that, though he knew that if the man were to learn of his liaison with Beth, he would.
"I have seen them together rarely," James said carefully. It was true, as far as it went. He tried to avoid seeing Beth with her husband.
Robert tilted his head. "And you've not really seen my son without his wife."
He nodded. That was also true. He had seen far less of Will since his marriage than he normally would. That was, in part, James's choice, but he had concluded Will felt the same way. "Married men rarely continue to socialize with their unmarried friends," he said.
Will's father sighed. "I had hoped when William came home from Europe and announced he had found a bride that he would settle down, that he had—well, that he would begin taking more responsibility for his inheritance."
James really didn't want to listen to this, but he could hardly protest without having Robert ask why. He couldn't explain any honest response he might make, and he didn't want to lie, so he sat back and waited for the man to finish.
"My son has . . . ." Robert stared up at a corner of the ceiling and gave a gentle cough. He began again. "My son has unnatural tastes, James, and I had hoped he would overcome them. I fear he has not."
Beth had told him, he thought, shocked. She had told him Will was not interested in women, and James had pushed her assertion aside. He acknowledged doubts, knew Beth certainly believed it to be true, but he had still found it hard to believe that of his old friend.
Yet so far as he knew, Will had not touched his delectable little wife.
It was possible Robert meant something else, though, he thought desperately.
Robert turned a pleading look on James. "Please tell me you left a woman in your bed to come downstairs."
Horrified, James almost denied it, but that opportunity had passed when he hadn't corrected Robert's assumption he had a mistress waiting upstairs. As a result, he said, "Of course!"
God help him, for if he had to produce her in order to reassure Will's father, he was a dead man.
Then he realized the other man was concerned he was his son's lover. He moved uncomfortably in his chair, saw for the first time an entirely different possibility in his mother's continued concern over his unmarried state.
"I cannot introduce you, Robert, but I assure you she is, indeed, female." Will's father still looked uneasy, and James felt his face flame before he deflected Robert with the truth. "She's married, and you are acquainted with her husband."
The other man swallowed thickly and then froze. James followed his gaze and saw a heavily shrouded Beth walking out the back gate. He sincerely hoped the other man didn't recognize her. "I take it that is she?"
James nodded, still hoping Robert would take it no further. The figure walking away was clearly female and obviously too small to be Will. "You play a dangerous game, James, bedding a married woman."
Having apparently said his piece, Robert changed the topic to concern about the looming return of the war. They talked a further half hour about it, and Robert expressed concern about his land and his family. He told James he had half a mind to send his wife and daughters to the West Indies or to the Canadas if not Europe. James was of the opinion that Helen would refuse to go, but he held his counsel. He had, himself, given thought to his own mother and sister and their safety. He knew Charles Town would be a primary and likely first target for the British, so for the time being, he felt Katy and his mother were safer at Oak Point. If their piece of the low country became a battleground, then he would have to see what needed to be done to keep them safe.
"Do you intend to fight?"
Robert's question caught him off guard. "I will do my duty," he said, "but I have other responsibilities that come first."
"I fear, James, we will all be called on to fight regardless of our responsibilities." He sighed. "This will be brother against brother, and there will be no easy peace when it is finished."
Robert then changed topic once more. He told James he intended to amend his will. He spoke of his concern that Will wasn't ready to assume control of Hart's Crossing, but then he asked James if he was willing to serve as a trustee. James balked at first, primarily because Will was unlikely to listen to him at all were Robert to do what he proposed, but Robert told him he was concerned about bequests he intended to make to his daughters and to his wife. He worried, he told James, that Will might not properly manage them. He explained that his son was proving to have virtually no business sense. He eyed James a moment, and then he mentioned Beth, told him he intended to see that she was given a hundred acres adjoining Oak Point along with the labor necessary to continue planting, and he hoped James would at least agree to serve as one of Beth's trustees.
James didn't know what to say. Robert explained that he intended to leave the land to Beth in such a way that Will couldn't claim, sell, or otherwise deprive her of it and the income that would result from it. He told him that as he had come to know his daughter-in-law, it had become apparent that she was an intelligent young woman, and he felt certain that she could manage property. He confessed he hoped that it might help her gain some independence from his son, who apparently intended to ignore his duty as a husband and as a provider. He said that Beth needed someone who could teach her to be a planter, and he believed that James would do right by her.
It wasn't something that was all that unusual in their society, but James was cognizant that such a move indicated that Robert didn't trust his own son. Given Will had never really worked an honest day's labor, James could understand why. By doing as he planned, Robert was, essentially, insuring that Beth had resources of her own. He couldn't help wondering if Robert was aware that he and Beth were lovers, but he couldn't ask without betraying her. He told Robert there were likely better choices, perhaps someone within his own family. Robert assured him that the only ones who would likely take on the trusteeship were members of his wife's family, and he had little faith in them to observe his wishes in the matter.
He realized Robert was demonstrating great trust in him, but he also knew he was unworthy of that trust. James told Robert he didn't think he could, but the man continued to insist until he finally agreed. They shook hands and agreed on a time at which to meet Robert's solicitor and work out the details.
James remained in his study after Robert left and stared blindly out the window, deep in thought. His housekeeper came in to collect the used cups and plates, and that should have been James' first warning. Normally, she would have sent the maid.
"Mr. James," Bess said softly.
He looked up, frowned.
"I know my place," she said, and he knew that always prefaced a recounting of his latest transgression. He didn't need a conscience at the moment, but it appeared Bess intended to be just that. "I know my place," she repeated, "but I'm wondering if you know yours."
He shot her a glance. She had been here when Beth left, so he knew she was aware he had had a woman in the house.
"The next time Mrs. Will borrows her maid's dress, tell her she best borrow her shoes, too."
Bess had to be guessing, and he was about to say so when she added, "You've never shown any interest in bedding slaves, Mr. James, but that was certainly Sukie's dress that walked past my kitchen door this afternoon. That wasn't Sukie wearin' it, though, and the only person in the Cameron household who could fit into it is young Mrs. Will."
He would not lie to her, had never been able to, so he said nothing. Bess would either gossip or keep her counsel, and there was little he could do about it. He would not threaten her to hold her tongue since it would do absolutely no good. As she passed his chair, she laid a hand on his shoulder. "You were a good boy, Mr. James, never any trouble at all, and you're a good man, but this isn't right, and you know it."
James drank his dinner and mulled over Bess's disappointment in him, Robert's concerns about his son, and his own desire for Beth.
-X-
In the morning he had a heavy, aching head. The sunlight streaming into his room was about to kill him, and if that weren't bad enough, he could smell Beth on his sheets. He groaned when he heard his manservant bring his morning tea, the rattle of dishes louder than he thought necessary, and he gagged when he smelled the breakfast that accompanied it. He let Lem convince him to get up and try and eat it. It didn't stay down long, and he caught the man hiding a smile as he moved to lay out James' clothes for the day. He had business to see to that morning, and he only hoped his head didn't crack open from the demons hammering inside his skull.
He made use of the warm water Lem brought by washing, and then he attempted to shave with an unsteady hand. When he nicked himself the second time, his manservant gently pushed him into a chair and finished the job for him. He shrugged into his clothes, pulled on his boots, and hoped he could survive the day.
-X-
James stayed in town three more days. He dined with friends each evening, and the discussion at table and in the parlors was dominated by talk of war. James was tired of it, and he was disappointed he did not catch a glimpse of Beth before he left for Oak Point.
His mother and Katy were happy to see him when he arrived home, and he filled them in on the gossip from Charles Town over dinner. After the meal, he didn't adjourn to his study as he usually would; instead, he remained to talk seriously to the two women about what was coming. For some time, they discussed whether or not the women should move to town, about whether they should go to his mother's cousin in Montreal, and about James's future. His mother raised, once more, the question of a bride, and James told her he would not marry with war on the horizon. When she told him he needed a son, he countered that there would be time after the war. He left the caveat unsaid, that he would have to survive that war.
Katy asked why he would not simply marry one of the Camerons, and James shot her a look, relaxed only when he realized she had not meant Beth. He told her he saw them as sisters, not wives, and then he made a mistake. Whether from tiredness or a suicidal urge to be honest about how he felt, he wasn't sure, but he told her he had met someone he might consider marrying.
His mother gave him a tight-lipped look that made him wonder if she had guessed. Katy quizzed him, tried to get him to confess who the woman was, but he told her there was no use talking about it since he would not court her until the war was settled.
-X-
For all the talk of war, it was still some time coming. In the meantime, James got on with his life. He worked his land, he lived his life, and when he could, he met Beth for whatever time they could steal together.
By mutual agreement, neither he nor Beth spoke of war when they were together. It always upset her, and James didn't want to upset her when they had so little time alone with one another. He had always been a cautious man, and he was aware that they were cheating probability. He tried to be careful with her, tried to not take chances, but when they were together, all the promises he made himself in her absence went out of his head, and passion ruled.
When they met socially, he tried not to stare at her, tried not to glare at Will when he touched his wife, and desperately tried not to think about what Robert Cameron had said about his son. He went to Charles Town on business that could have waited when Will's parents hosted a ball, and he spent that night closeted in his study with a bottle of fine brandy. Lem had been less than sympathetic most of the following day as he nursed his aching head.
Riding home to Oak Point afterward, James thought about the rumors he'd picked up in town. He had watched his neighbors over the last few months. Some would play both sides until a definitive winner emerged, some would choose rebellion, and others, like James himself, would choose to support the Crown. It was growing more difficult to know who was choosing which side. Some, like Howard and Christopher Gadsden, made no bones about their intent to suborn rebellion. Some were unwavering in their support for the King. Others, though, were more coy, and James was dismayed to realize Will Cameron was one of them. Robert was clear about his support of the King, but Will, increasingly, refused to take a solid stance.
James worried about Beth who, while it would be presumed she would support her husband's side, had no real investment in the fight to come. That afternoon in his Charles Town house she had come the closest she ever had to telling him why the idea of war upset her so. She said she had seen war, but she had said no more than that. Each time the talk had turned to war in her presence, she had withdrawn into her own thoughts, let the talk flow over and around her, and given no indication of what those thoughts were to the audience heatedly discussing the subject.
-X-
When war finally came back to South Carolina, James, like many other planters, waited to see if it would have an effect anywhere other than Charles Town. At the Collinses one evening, he stood on the columned piazza outside the card room smoking with several other men who had escaped the crowded ballroom and thought about the ball that had introduced Beth to their neighbors. Had he been a less honorable man, he could have found a way to carry her off, marry her himself before she married Will. The scandal would have been survivable. Instead, he had sacrificed his honor to lie often with his friend's wife. Now, they were on a path on which they could do nothing but continue to walk, she as Will's wife, he as Will's friend. He drew once more on his cigar. The one choice he had was to stop being her lover, and that was not a choice he was willing to make.
Will walked up to him and said, "You seem deep in thought, James."
He grunted but said nothing. He was more than a little in his cups, and he was afraid of what he might say to Will.
"It's nearly time to make a choice," Will said softly.
James squinted at his friend but, thankfully, realized Will meant between rebellion and the Crown before he said something about Beth. "I've made mine," James said.
Will lifted the glass he carried and drank. "You should reconsider, old friend." James waited, wondered what the other man would say. "America's day is here. The King is too far away and too disinterested in us to do what will need to be done to hold the Colonies. He can't afford this war, and while they'll go ahead and fight battles, it's already lost."
He exhaled. "I will be loyal to my lawful government, Will."
"It's good to know you draw a line, James."
James kept his gaze fixed on the tree line rather than look at Will. James heard a note of accusation in his friend's voice, and he wondered if, perhaps, Will had finally figured out what was happening between his wife and best friend.
When Will moved off, James decided to retire. He stubbed out the cigar in an ashtray and entered the stuffy ballroom. Beth sat quietly with her mother-in-law, and James edged around the other side of the room. He found his own mother and Katy, told them what he intended, and wished them good night. He had seen his mother's worried look, but he heard her tell Katy he was tired, had been working long hours. It was true, but there were other reasons James wished to be alone.
Two days later they returned to Oak Point, and a week later the rumors began. Stories filtered in that Charles Town had fallen to the British. Other stories arrived that General Cornwallis was pushing into the country. James and his mother had a serious late-night conversation about sending Katy to Montreal for safekeeping since Temperance Wilkins stubbornly refused to leave.
In the years since talk had first begun of seceding from British rule, as more and more planters, merchants, and others chose sides, there had been those who chose to settle personal scores using rebellion and loyalty as the measuring sticks for selecting targets. Thus far, Oak Point and the Wilkinses had escaped punishment. James had been careful to make no enemies, just as his father had been, and it mainly worked since he was an honest businessman, a man of integrity—except when it came to his liaison with Beth.
Within weeks, James found himself listening to guns, calculating how far away they were, and he knew he would have to decide soon. He had a good overseer, but unlike many of his fellow planters, there was no other male who could be left to run the plantation, and his mother was adamantly unwilling to manage it for him. Katy simply lacked the knowledge, let alone the strength of character required. He wondered if he could appeal to Robert Cameron to watch over his interests if he chose to do his duty to his king.
In the end, the decision was made for him.