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the slave house. A new mistress has come. Lady Devane she is called, from across the sea, from England, where the king of us all lives. You are to obey her as you did Master Bolling. That’s all.”
    Scratching at his freckled hands, which burned always from sun, Odell walked to his own cabin, by the slave house, near the first of the two deep creeks that made this plantation worth what it was. This afternoon he had been summoned from the fields by a slave boy dressed as finely as he had ever seen a man dressed; he could hardly believe his eyes. Or his ears: The boy told him that his new mistress was here and wished to see him.
    New mistress? What new mistress? His thoughts awhirl, he had gone to the kitchen house to talk to the slave there, old Mama Zou, who knew everything she shouldn’t, but there were two young women with her, preparing a supper for themselves and the Governor of this colony. The Governor. Governor Spotswood himself had come all the way up the river to First Curle. Odell Smith had never seen the Governor, had heard of him only.
    One of the young women was a countess. Odell had never seen a countess, either. She was the one with hair a lighter shade than his, but with red in it nonetheless, with big eyes and a face shaped like a heart. He had been too surprised to stutter more than a few words and scratch at his hands helplessly.
    The Countess had been full of questions for him: Where were the slaves? When could she explore the plantation and the other quarters of it across the river? Was he drying tobacco? When could she see that? Would he join her and the Governor for supper? He would not.
    What was Colonel Bolling going to say? That was the question in Odell’s mind now as he walked up the plank steps of his cabin. It was bad enough for that duchess in England to send someone over from England to look over them, but to send a woman? And here he was with a storehouse filling higher with barrels of Colonel Bolling’s contraband tobacco, tobacco they did not send to England, as was the law, but sold in islands south of here for a better price.
    Why, this countess owned the creek out of which they’d ship those barrels; she owned the storehouse in which they sat. What if she discovered their smuggling? What were they going to do?
    Odell was not much of a scholar. He knew enough to write his name, order goods, figure hogsheads, read bills of lading from the tobacco ships. How would he put everything into a note? He did not even have paper. All the paper was in the house, where she was. On second thought, after he had locked the slaves in, he would ride over and tell Colonel Bolling in person. That way, it became not his problem, but Colonel Bolling’s. Colonel Bolling would see to it, the way he saw to everything.
     

     
    I N THE early morning, in the attic bedchamber in the small main house of First Curle, Barbara lay dreaming in bed. She dreamed of Devane House, dreamed she was walking from one ornate chamber to the next, all about her polished marble, mirrors, gilded paint, intricate carving, inlaid floors. The furnishings were exquisite, the finest men made: footstools, chests, armoires, cabinets; Chinese vases as tall as she was. On the footstools and chairs were stiff crewel, colored threads, satins, velvets, striped silk, tassels.
    She searched for Roger, walked through room after room, through echoing galleries and large parlors, searching. She knew he was here, just ahead of her, just a chamber beyond. She could feel it. She had to speak to him. It was imperative that she speak to him. In one of the chambers was Jane, her childhood friend, with her children. Barbara picked up a little girl who grabbed the necklace she wore, a necklace of rubies and diamonds. Be careful of your necklace, Jane said.
    Necklaces I have by the dozens, Barbara replied, but no beautiful babies like yours.
    Barbara set down the child. She opened doors that led to wide terraces that overlooked expansive gardens that