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Mr. Fithian.”
    “I have heard of your exploits my whole life, sir. Allow me to present my humble admiration.” Indeed, it fairly shone from him.
    Washington nodded, disconcerted by the reminder of Patsy’s death, and confounded by admiration as he always was. He bowed to accept the compliment, his face a little red.
    “Odd accent,” he noted later in the carriage. “Odd notions, in the Jerseys. Parochial. Imagine a man that age not dancing.”
    Martha smiled for the first time since the reminder of her daughter’s death.
    “And Lee can be such a pup,” he added.
    “Yes, dear. But hardly the first young man to behave so. Will you be coming with me up the river?” she asked.
    He considered as he watched the passing countryside. “I think it would be best if I posted home to Mount Vernon and opened the house for you.” Washington smiled slowly at her. He wanted her to see that things could be as they had been before, that Patsy’s death was not the end of the world. She was showing signs of recovery, but he wanted more.
    Martha smiled at him, the old smile that showed that the real Martha was still inside the mourner.
    “You get home and make it all right,” she said. “I’ll just follow along, as always.” They chuckled together a moment, and she began a long account of the ball.
    Mount Vernon, Virginia, November 1773
    Cese had worn shoes before, but never boots. He had been given trousers in Jamaica, but here received stockings and good strong breeches of hemp twill. Queeny dressed him several times, trying clothes on him until she was satisfied.
    She walked around him like an artist with a sculpture, admiring her work. “I wan’ cut those sca’s right off you, they look so ‘landish,” she chastened him. The days had sharpened his English considerably, and she refused to help him in Benin or the trade language any longer, except to taunt him. He reached up and touched the scars. She pushed his hand away.
    “Don’ draw no ‘tention to ’em.”
    She was a tall woman, but he stood over her, six feet or more in the boots. His legs were long for his height, and the breeches and stockings accentuated the muscles of his calf and thigh. He had a white shirt from Mr. Bailey’s castoffs; the patches at the shoulders never showed under his waistcoat and the short blue jacket that Nelly had let out for him, a remnant of Mr. Charles’s younger days. He held his head straight, and placed his right hand on his hip like the white gentlemen, a rather striking affectation for a black man and one Queeny had never seen. Cese never considered it; he had been beaten as a child until he learned to hold his shield in just such a way, resting his spear hand, and the pose, alike in Africa and classical Rome, had been ingrained in him as it was in the men whose statues adorned the white world.
    The pose made Queeny a little nervous, although she couldn’t place why, but the face reassured her—an open, honest face, with a long, broad nose and large, dark, wide-set eyes still free from cynicism, his smile directed at her breasts under the boned cotton jacket she wore. It had taken her less than a day to lead him into seducing her, and she had tied him with the strings of his own notions of loyalty. Those eyes promised her some time of pleasure and comfort, as long as she could train him to his tasks and keep his arrogance at bay. He was a good man. She wanted him to stay and not go the way of Tom. But the easy confidence of his pose was troubling, and the clothes had not had the effect she expected, of cowinghim, but the opposite. What he had in common with Tom was the danger—too damn smart. Queeny was old enough to know that what drew her to them was the very thing that would take them away. She smiled, a secret, bitter smile.
    He smiled back, turning out his toes. “Hard to run in dese, Queeny.”
    “These,” she said automatically. “You jes’ learn, Caesa’. Colonel gon’ expec’ you run in those, and those