Now Face to Face by Karleen Koen Page A

me, and my servant, too. No real harm in that. Who are you?”
    “Jordan Bolling was my brother-in-law. I married his sister, may she rest in peace. Klaus Von Rothbach, madam.”
    Barbara was bristling still, furious that Bolling should have walked his horse into her, should have acted and spoken as he had. He had made an enemy of her before she had had time to decide whether to be one.
    “And you, unlike your uncle, are not angry with me? Why not, sir?”
    “Did you know Jordan?”
    “I never met him.”
    “Then you did not urge him to gamble, did you? Or risk his plantation on the play of a hand of cards? Jordan did a foolish thing of his own.”
    Barbara considered him, his calm reasonableness.
    “I came in peace. I wish you no harm. I apologize a thousand times, and that is still not enough, for my uncle’s behavior.”
    His courtesy, in such contrast to his uncle’s rudeness, was calming her a little, as did the fact that they conversed in French, the language of all that was civilized. She looked him over more carefully. He must be at least thirty. He had a Gypsy, impish face, flat cheekbones to it. The sun had browned that face a warm color.
    “You’re correct; a thousand apologies are not enough, Mr. Von Rothbach.”
    “‘Captain’—I am captain of a sloop for my uncle, and so I am known as Captain Von Rothbach here,” and he smiled, acknowledging her earlier angry scoffing at colonial titles. The smile transfigured his face, making it a wonderful triangle of mouth and cheekbones. Barbara found her interest in him piqued. He had intelligence and wit.
    “Warn your boy, please, that he must behave himself here. The laws concerning slaves are very strict.”
    “I don’t know the laws about slaves.”
    He had pulled himself up into the saddle; now he looked down at her from atop his horse. “Then, if I may, I will ride over one day and instruct you.”
    Barbara cocked her head, smiled a small smile. Flirting was another of her flaws. You mind yourself, Bab, her grandmother said, in her mind. I am minding, Grandmama. It does no harm to flirt with an attractive man.
    He remained where he was. “May I ride over one day, Lady Devane?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Without my uncle. I come as a neighbor and friend.”
    At this moment, a neighbor and friend sounded delightful. “Perhaps.”
    “I’ll take that as a yes.”
    He was riding away, through the yard, into the high grass of the meadow, his back rising straight up from the saddle.
    “Pig,” said Hyacinthe.
    “He is not a pig, I don’t think.”
    “The other one is.”
    “Yes, he is.”

     

    K LAUS FOUND his uncle squatting with his back against a tree in the woods near the first creek. His horse grazed nearby. Klaus dismounted.
    “Your behavior was inexcusable, unforgivable. I thought I was going to have to strike you myself. What possessed you?”
    “I could see nothing but her standing in what was Jordan’s yard, her with her patches and painted face. She doesn’t belong here, and Jordan does—only Jordan is dead, buried at an English crossroads, not even allowed the sanctity of a graveyard, because he killed himself. What word do you have on the sloop?”
    “Your sloop can’t be repaired for almost two months. What shall we do? The carpenter hasn’t the cured wood he needs, but must send to Maryland for it. Odell is as nervous as an old woman about the barrels.”
    They smuggled tobacco to the Dutch West Indies in barrels branded “Flour” and “Pork.” Klaus sailed the sloop into the second creek, and they loaded the barrels from the storehouse there.
    “We’ll do as we always have.”
    “We can’t.”
    “This one last time we can.”
    “How will you keep her from noting it?”
    “I’ll leave that to you. Take her riding. Keep her distracted.”
    “I have your permission to call on her, then?” Klaus was ironic.
    “You have my permission to do anything you please until the barrels are loaded.”
    “And once the