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you'd be in the
tobo fields tending to Cary's Finest." The planter wiped his sweaty face
with a silk handkerchief and added in a low aside, "Word has flown that
you've shipped another handsome crop of sweet-scented to England, eh, Adam?
Quite a tribute to James, I'd say, poor bastard. By the by, if you ever tire of
managing Briarwood, I'd be happy to hire you on at my place. Just name your
price. I'd pay a pretty sum to have a crop master like you supervising my
leaf."
    Adam had to fight the instinct to tell Grymes he'd do
far better cultivating turnips in his impoverished soil, but he held his
tongue. The last thing he wanted to do right now was discuss tobacco.
    "I'll keep your offer in mind," he lied,
eager to end their discourse. "Excuse me."
    Resuming his powerful strides, he didn't care if the
somewhat affronted planter kept up with him or not. As Adam approached the
group gathered near the gangplank, Benjamin Carter, a wealthy town merchant as
stout as Robert Grymes, nodded a greeting and stepped aside to admit Adam to
their circle.
    "I heard about the fever," Adam said tightly,
shooting another glance at the crowded railing, only to be disappointed again.
"Has the physician finished his inspection of the ship?"
    "Not yet," answered the heavily jowled older
man, his expression grim as he shook his bewigged head. "Nasty bit of
business, this. At least half the passengers lost and two-thirds of the crew,
including Captain Keyes. Damn pity. He was an honorable man. Traded with him
for years, just like the Carys."
    So the feisty old salt had finally met his end, Adam
thought, distressed by this news. He had liked Samuel Keyes, almost as much as
he had liked James Cary. He had listened to the two men swap many a tale in
front of a roaring fire at Briarwood. Now they were both gone. And Camille?
    His every muscle taut, he found it difficult to voice
his next question. "Is there a list of surviving passengers? James Cary's
daughter was to be on this ship. Captain Keyes had gone to England to fetch her
home."
    "Cary's daughter, you say?" blustered Robert
Grymes, who had joined their group and been listening to their exchange in
openmouthed disbelief. "Good God!"
    Benjamin Carter's face was even more grave as he held
out a rolled document. "The physician's aide just brought us their
official list. Perhaps you might want to take a look first . . ."
    Adam took the document from the merchant, his breath
dammed in his chest as he ignored the apprehensive glances from the silent men
surrounding him. He unrolled the stiff paper and read quickly, his eyes drawing
like a magnet to one name.
    Camille Cary.
    A tic flashed across his tightened jaw, and he tried
not to show his immense relief.
    She was alive. His ambitious plan for revenge was still
intact.
    "Well?" came Robert Grymes's demanding query.
    "She's on the list." Adam's pronouncement was
greeted with a collective exhalation of breath.
    "Splendid!" Robert enthused, a smile
splitting his round, sunburned face. "I shall extend an invitation this
very day for her to share supper with us at her earliest convenience. I'm most
eager for Miss Cary to meet Matthew, my eldest son."
    I'll wager you are, Adam thought dryly, noting the
shrewd, speculative gleams in the eyes of several of his companions, whom he
knew to have unmarried sons.
    As one of the richest heiresses in the Tidewater,
Camille was already creating a stir and she hadn't even set foot on Virginia's
soil. Yet she had been causing a tumult in his own life since he had learned
that the wealthy tobacco planter James Cary had an only daughter being educated
in England who would return to the colony one day to be wed. When his period of
indenture had finally ended and he had become a free man, Adam had looked no
further than Briarwood for a job.
    He had hired on as an overseer five years ago at the
age of twenty-four. Even then he had known that he would somehow marry her, and
no one would keep him from it. Not Matthew Grymes.