She’d seen these men at their worst, knew their rare merits and many faults like the wares of the colony’s storehouses, and, sadly, wouldn’t give a farthing for most. Something beyond their narrow world of drudgery and hardship.

A rumble went through the gawking men as they pressed forward like the tide with a great swell of anticipation.

Thankfully, the Seaflower proved a worthy distraction with so many women at the railing. “My best to Widow Brodie and those noble hounds of yours,” she called after him, trying to dismiss the topsy-turvy feelings his scarce appearances always wrought. More men were amassing, gazes riveted to the tall-masted ship that had been home to the coming brides for three months or more. But truly, that was what the occasion felt like amid so many merry masculine voices and rollicking laughter. What was she to call the tobacco brides’ arrival? “The coming carnival?” With a shake of his head, Xander turned away, the edges of his dark cloak furling and unfurling like a sail in the wind. “I’m off to Rose-n-Vale.” “You won’t stay for the-” Flummoxed, Selah left off. He gave a slightly mocking sweep of his hat. She hadn’t expected to see him today as the brides came in, widower though he was. A flush she tried to tamp down warmed her winter-pale face. And now he was looking her way, amusement-or was it disdain?-in his gaze. One of Virginia’s “ancient planters” who was not so ancient but among the surviving few who’d landed first and defied death since the settlement’s founding nearly thirty years before. With the wrist of an able swordsman to boot. Dressed in their Sabbath best, hair and beards freshly trimmed, some almost beyond recognition save Alexander Renick. But first, the colony’s officials assembled at the forefront of the welcome. Each groom would pay one hundred fifty pounds in good leaf tobacco for a bride, an extravagance denied many.

At first sighting a quarter of an hour before, the men of James Towne had been the first to gather, those long suffering souls enflamed through the wants of the comforts of marriage. Noisy gulls flew overhead, screeching as if they, too, were welcoming the long-awaited ship. All around her swirled the reek of salt water and fish, tobacco and tar. Surely no other woman aboard the coming Seaflower could claim that.

Secret Admirer by R.L. Stine