The Right Hand Of The Father

chapter 6

“Are you leaving sir?” Alexander’s voice caught him off guard as he started down the front stairs toward where Cato had already saddled Nelson. 

He stopped in his tracks and turned to see his secretary hurrying out of the house, his arms filled with papers and ledgers and his dark hair escaping from it’s queue. 

“Is there some business that prevents me from going into town?” He asked as Alexander slid to a stop in front of him. 

The past six weeks had been a torment. Not that Alexander had been a bad choice of secretary. He was an excellent secretary. Had found three ledger errors in his very first day and poured over one of George’s contracts and found an error in how it had been written regarding how his sugar was processed. Convinced George that it was worth talking to the other planters and they’d found that they had all been duped. Gone together to the processing plant and demanded recompense or they’d take their business elsewhere. Took the money and then promptly agreed to set up a cooperative mill. Within a week Alexander had managed to get that mill situated on his property and written an initial contract that was honest but would still net him a solid profit from his investment within the year. 

In less than a month he’d potentially earned back the nine hundred pounds that George had lost with Stevens and Hadley. 

His ledgers had never been so complete. His papers had never been in better order. His correspondence never so nicely handled. Provisions that he didn’t even know could be retrieved from New Orleans began to appear and his dinners were suddenly better than they’d been in ten years. The boy had somehow arranged for lobsters to be delivered last week. Fresh lobsters from a ship that docked that very day. Had sent Cato with the wagon and a trough to fill with water and cover before he came back with live lobsters for George and some of the other planters to feast on as they discussed plans for their new sugar mill. 

Every morning he woke to find his breakfast waiting in the dining room. The tea just how he preferred it. A newspaper by his plate. Small ink dabs next to articles that Alexander thought he would want to see first. 

He’d eat and make his way out to inspect the fields and would find Nelson already saddled. A few apples in a saddlebag with a small cloth bag of bread and cheese and a filled waterskin in case he got hungry.

He’d come back for luncheon and Alexander would be waiting at the door to take his coat. Would pour the wine himself. Would behave like a footman, attentive to all of George’s needs. 

He’d only managed to get the drop on the boy once. Had looped out of the yard and sneaked back into the main house through a side door five minutes after he’d left and saw the boy sitting in the kitchen, eating a small bowl of porridge and working on papers as Sadie— the cook— and her daughter Daniella teased him and poured him fresh milk. Saw the way the younger woman’s eyes had flicked to Alexander constantly. The way she hovered. 

His stomach had twisted in jealousy as she rushed back and forth to fetch for him. At the way Alexander had smiled at her in thanks.

Meanwhile, he’d found himself in New Orleans each week visiting one of the boys he favored. Ben or Abe usually. Once he’d thought to rid himself of the urge for Alexander by going to visit Anna instead. Had tried to tell himself that it was just that the boy fussed over him like a wife. That was his problem. It wasn’t that Alexander was truly any more handsome than any other boy in New Orleans. He was attractive yes but not so much that he should be tormenting George to such distraction. 

It was that it had been ten years since he’d had someone to fuss over him. Someone to make sure he had the wine he preferred. Who dusted the dirt from his lapels when he came in from the field. Who made sure his papers were laid out just so. That his tea had just a touch of lemon on the rim and not in the liquid itself. Who made sure there were fresh flowers in a vase to brighten the room. Who aired out his study after he’d met with other planters so the haze of cigar smoke didn’t choke him for days.