Free Mood Indigo by Parris Afton Bonds

heated her skin that much more.
    “This—she is your maidservant?” Susan asked, her bewildered gaze traveling up the long length of Jane’s frame.
    “I—” Jane remembered to drop a curtsey to Susan and Bram. “I had not meant to listen, but . . .” With a limp gesture her hand indicated the ell room behind her. “I—uh, found myself trapped by your entrance.”
    “Say no more,” Susan said graciously.
    Bram grinned. “Now I understand the reason for the gossip. Were your maidservant as old as Methuselah, Ethan, the subject of Meg O’Reilly living under the same roof would go unheralded.”
    Past Bram, Jane saw the glint in Ethan’s eye. He knew all the time she was in the ell! “I’ll fetch refreshments, master,” she added, deli ghted at the irritation that immediately darkened his eyes.
    To her surprise, Susan offered to help. “There are so few women for neighbors,” the young woman chatted amiably as she followed Jane into the kitchen. “I do hope that we will see more of each other.”
    Jane eyed her from beneath her fringe of weighty lashes as she withdrew the wooden tumblers from the cupboard and set them on the long trestle table. Never did a lady mix sociably with a servant. Yet Susan talked easily while Jane filled the tumblers from the crock of sassafras tea and passed her one.
    “My linen is the whitest in Chesterfield County. You’ll have to make Ethan let you come over so that I can show you the secret. It’s all in the bleaching the flax. I lay the flax on a high rock where the sunlight lingers longer . . .”
    She broke off, choking, and Jane sighed. “I’ve not much experience in making sassafras tea.”
    Susan managed a smile. “I’ll”—she cleared her throat—“be glad to show you how sometime. But, oh, for a cup of real East India tea.”
    When they joined the men, Susan pressed Jane to stay. Ethan’s stolid expression gave no clue as to his feelings on his maids ervant’s inclusion with the company. At first the men dominated the conversation with their talk of the renewed threat of Indian warfare in the West and the Cherokees scalping and burning settlers’ cabins in South Carolina.
    When both women’s faces paled, Ethan turned the subject to crops. “Fortunately, England has put a bounty on indigo, so I’m not dependent on the pricing of the London market.”
    “But you’ll admit it’s unfair that we have to sell our crops and manufactured products only to English agents and have nothing to say about their prices,” Bram decried. “Many of our Tidewater planters are in debt up to their ears to these unscrupulous agents who do them no good!”
    “I’m afraid my husband is a rabid Whig at heart,” Susan laughingly apologized. “If he and Samuel Adams had their way, we would declare ourselves independent of England, as unthinkable as the idea is.”
    “It would seem you already have,” Jane murmured, catching from the corner of her eye the surprised glance Ethan sliced in her direction.
    “Why, yes, I suppose so. But I don’t understand politics, much less like to talk about the subject. And if— well, it would never happen, but if a state of war were ever to occur, why, I don’t think I could be brave if Bram went off to battle and left me alone, Meg.”
    Jane started at the mention of the unfamiliar name. She felt guilty about her deception in the face of Susan’s cordial friendship. It was understandable why Ethan was in love with Susan. The young woman was kindhearted and very attractive. Unintellectual and without guile, she was conspicuou sly devoted to her handsome husband. If she was aware of Ethan’s love, Jane sensed that never a word or look would the woman let pass that would divulge that knowledge.
    At one point, as the couple prepared to leave, Jane was able to draw Susan away from the two men. It was only a few minutes Jane had to retrieve the letter from her room and press it into Susan’s hand. “Please,” she quietly implored