Nobody's Angel (23 page)

Susannah, looking from the bucking mule to Ian's long body sprawled nose down in the dirt, snickered. Catching her eye, Em did, too. By the time Susannah reached Ian's side, she was laughing so hard that tears streamed from her eyes. Emily, beside her, was in like case.

"Oh, dear," Susannah said unsteadily as Ian still hadn't moved. "Do you suppose he's hurt?"

"I—I hope not." Like Susannah, Emily was practically holding her sides. Laughter erupted from both of them in great bursts, though Susannah exercised a truly heroic effort to control her amusement as she hunkered down at the fallen hero's side.

As she touched his shoulder, Ian rolled over and sat up, his expression disgusted. As Susannah had foretold, he was now considerably dirtier than he had been just a few minutes before. He was so dirty, in fact, that she and Emily went off into fresh gales just looking at him as he tried to brush himself off.

"You knew that was going to happen." His eyes accused her.

"I did not."

"Yes, you did. You did it on purpose."

"You're being childish again." She tried to speak severely, but it was hard when giggles kept threatening to erupt.

Ian opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again with a speaking glance at Emily. Realizing that he was perfectly capable of saying whatever it was he meant to say with or without an audience, Susannah glanced up at her sister.

"You may as well go back to the house, Em. I doubt we're going to get any more planting done today."

"Do you mean it? Thank goodness! My legs feel as if they're ready to fall off! Do you want me to help you catch Old Cobb?"

"No, go on. He'll come better to me anyway. Be sure and put the roots where it's dry."

"I will." Em shot a wide grin at Ian, who still sat in the dirt with his knees drawn up before him and his arms resting on his knees. "Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome." If there was a sour undertone to that, it appeared to sail by Em without touching her. Clutching the basket of roots under one arm, Em trudged off toward the house, the very picture of exhausted relief.

Before Susannah could properly register that she was now alone with Ian, his hand shot out to close over her wrist. When she looked down at him, surprised, his smile was silky.

"So you think I'm funny, do you?"

"Just a little. Sometimes."

His eyes narrowed at her. "I'm tired of being the butt of your jokes. Maybe it's time to move on to something I find amusing."

"Such as?" The question was a mistake. Susannah knew it as soon as it left her mouth.

His smile widened, turned wicked. "You'll see."

Then, with a sudden tug on her wrist, he brought her tumbling down into his arms.

"Now let's see you laugh," he taunted as he held her, struggling, on his lap.

"People can see—the girls—let me up this instant!" Susannah cast a frantic look around. They were out in the middle of an open field that was bordered on one side by the public road and was within shouting distance of both house and barn. Anyone could come along and discover them together.

"Let me up!"

"Not till you're as dirty as I am." And with that the scoundrel tumbled her in the just-plowed field, rolling over and over with her caught up in his arms until her hair tumbled from its bun and her skirt twisted about her legs and a generous coating of dirt covered her entire person.

"Ian! You've probably uprooted half the field!" she protested when at last he turned her over onto her back and let her lie there, panting, while he leaned on an elbow above her. But then, as she took a good look at herself and him, she had to laugh again. If there had ever been two filthier people in the world, she had never seen them.

"You're beautiful when you laugh." He'd been grinning, too, but the grin died as he looked down at her and his eyes turned serious.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"Not."

"Now who's being childish?" he countered. "If I say you're beautiful, you're beautiful. I'm counted something of a judge, you know."

Susannah wasn't sure she liked that. "I'll just bet you are," she said dryly.

He sensed her withdrawal and picked up her hand to press it to his mouth. "I'm thirty-one years old. I've had women. I won't deny it. But there has never been anyone in my life like you."

"How many times have you said that, I wonder?"

Ian had the grace to look slightly abashed. "All right. A few. But this time I mean it."

Susannah eyed him. The amusement left her face, and her expression suddenly bordered on grim. "You want something from me, I know. What is it, your freedom? Do you think you can romance me into tearing up the Articles of Indenture?"

He was holding her hand now, rubbing his thumb lightly over a small, swelling blister at the base of her forefinger. "Would you believe me if I told you the only thing I want from you is—you?"

For a moment, as his words sank in, Susannah's heart seemed to stop beating. Covered with dirt as he was, he was still so dazzlingly handsome that it hurt her to look at him. He had lost the ribbon that bound his hair, and the thick black locks hung loose around his face. His mouth, that perfectly carved, always sensual mouth, was twisted into a whimsical little smile. His eyes beneath the thick black slashes of his brows were as gray as the storm that threatened. As he met her gaze, there was no smile in them at all.

She could almost believe him.

Susannah snorted at her own idiocy.

"Believe it or not, I'm not that big a fool," she said crisply, and, before he could prevent it, she rolled to her feet.

Then, without ever once looking around, she walked to the end of the field where Old Cobb was contentedly pawing up the just planted tubers and chomping them down. Pretending to be headed for another target entirely, she waited until his attention was distracted and then grabbed his harness. He threw up his head and brayed his displeasure, but she had him fast. Patting his nose consolingly, Susannah began to lead him toward the barn. If he chose, Ian could bring the plow. If not, she would send Ben back for it. But until she had had a chance to sort through everything that had happened and how she felt about it, she would not put herself within Ian's reach again.

As she had told him, she was not that big a fool.

22

Despite her exhaustion, Susannah did not sleep well that night. She came in, endured Em's and Sarah Jane's exclamations over her dishevelment and Mandy's ominous silence. Clearly Em had recounted the scene in the field for her sisters' delectation, and Sarah Jane had chimed in with what she had observed in the kitchen that morning. As a result, her sisters were agog. Always they had taken Susannah's presence in their lives as a given, regarding her as so much older than themselves as to be in almost a different generation. Certainly they took it for granted that she had no interest in men. Now their view of her was threatened, and suddenly their relationship was turned topsy-turvy. Mandy oozed jealousy, while Em regarded her oldest sister with sudden awe and Sarai i Jane adopted a motherly manner toward her that made Susannah feel like an errant child.

She was too tired even to eat supper. For the first time in any of their memories, Susannah went straight up to bathe and then fall into bed, leaving the other three to serve the meal and clean up. Sarah Jane and Em, alarmed at this unprecedented abdication, carried up the tin bath and the steaming kettles of water to fill it on their own initiative. Mandy, for all her pouting, brought Susannah a plate of toast. After reassuring them for what must have been the dozenth time that there was nothing wrong with her that sleep wouldn't cure, they finally left her alone, though Sarah Jane and Mandy looked worried and Em almost frightened. Susannah knew that she was dismaying them, but she was just too tired to worry about anyone else's upsets save her own. Just for this one night, she had to take care of herself. Susannah sank into the tub with a long sigh, meaning to indulge in the luxury of a good soak, which she scarcely ever found the time to enjoy. But in the end she was too tired to do more than wash quickly, soap and rinse her hair, and get out. She fell into bed with her hair still damp, only to awaken more than once. Part of her problem, she suspected, was that she was accustomed to sleeping with her window open. Tonight she had closed it and wedged it shut with a stick.

When the cock crowed the following morning, sheer force of will had her up and about as usual. She was still tired, more from emotional upheaval than from anything else, she suspected, but she refused to give in to it. Sarah Jane trailed down to the kitchen after her, clearly concerned lest Susannah be sickening with something. Susannah assumed the mantle of her old self with determination, and it wasn't long before Sarah Jane was responding to her just as she always did. Her sister made no mention of Ian, and for that Susannah was thankful. During the long, restless night she had come to an inescapable conclusion: she had to put Ian, and the brief explosion of flaming passion they had shared, firmly from her mind. Their bound man must once again become merely Connelly to her, because there was simply no other choice. At this point, what had happened between them was an aberration, one isolated incidence of surrender to the weakness to which the flesh was prey. Such a fall from grace as she had taken could be forgiven, by herself and by God—if it happened once. But even if she wished to, which she emphatically did not, she could not sustain an existence as Ian's paramour. The role of illicit lover was not for her. Such a deliberate choosing of a path rife with secrecy and sin went against every bit of moral fiber that remained to her. Besides, it was only a matter of time before they were caught together, and then the scandal would taint not only herself but her sisters and would probably kill her father. Even if they were not caught, there would, sooner or later, be consequences of the most unmistakable kind. At the thought of conceiving an illegitimate child, Susannah felt physically ill, and it was then that her decision was irrevocably made. The cost of loving Ian was simply too high.

The only way that she could even consider continuing their relationship was if she married him. But, as Sarah Jane had pointed out, to marry a bound man would create its own scandal. Though, were she truly in love with Ian and were he truly in love with her, she would be willing to weather the storm of that. But he was not in love with her, she knew it as well as she knew that the cock would crow the next morning. Should marriage be broached between them, Susannah would be forced to question his motives. Seven years was a long time for a man to be legally enslaved. It was quite possible that he would be willing to marry her in exchange for his freedom. But Susannah would not marry a man, not even Ian, who chose her for such a reason. She had too much pride and too much fear of the hurt that she must inevitably suffer. For it would be fatally easy to let herself love him, and to love Ian Connelly when he did not love her back would be, for Susannah, hell on earth.

That one glorious lesson in carnal love would have to last her the rest of her life. She only hoped that there was not already a child growing inside her that must forever bear the burden of her shame.

Surely God would not be so harsh.

But to be safe, she made Him a bargain: if He would let her not be with child, then she would end her relationship with Ian once and for all. All that remained was to tell Ian of what she had decided.

But it did not help her resolve to feel Ian's eyes on her during breakfast, even while he discussed with her father various equitable means of distributing church funds among the needy and she replenished bowls and mugs and chatted with her sisters. It did not help to find Mandy watching Ian like a cat at a mousehole or to see Em glance from herself to Ian and then at Sarah Jane more than once. It did not help to know that she had not yet found the courage to address Ian to his face as Connelly, though she had managed to greet him with composure when he entered the kitchen and pass food and drink his way.

It would take time and effort to brick over this fissure he had opened up in her heart. But brick it over she would, simply because there was no other choice. If even contemplating giving up the joy and laughter and, yes, the physical passion that her relationship with Ian had brought into her life hurt, then hurting was the price she had to pay for her sin. Take what you want, an old saying went. Take what you want, and pay for it.

The first step, the one she dreaded most, was telling Ian—no, Connelly!—what she had decided. His reaction was not likely to be pretty, but she meant to stand firm. She had fallen from the path, but she meant to go forth and sin no more, as the Bible exhorted a different sinner.

But persuading him of her resolve was likely to be one of the two hardest things she had ever done in her life. The other was giving him up.

Hiram Greer arrived unexpectedly in his buggy just as they were getting up from the table. As one who considered himself a close family friend, he entered through the back door with only a courtesy knock. As stocky and red- faced as ever, he was clad in an obviously new frock coat in a deep shade of maroon that was an unfortunate match to his complexion. He swept his hat from his grizzled head as he entered and greeted the ladies with a polite bow. The Reverend Redmon was afforded a handshake and a clap on the arm. Even Ben came in for a nod, but Ian he completely ignored. Mandy, who usually was only as nice to Greer as she had to be, positively beamed at him as he announced that he had come to steal her from them for the morning, if she was agreeable. He had to go into town, he said, and thought she might like to accompany him and do some shopping. Mandy clapped her hands in what appeared to be genuine delight as he said this, though all three of her sisters looked at her with astonishment. It was unheard of for Mandy to agree to spend fifteen minutes that she didn't have to in Greer's company.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Greer. I'd truly enjoy that—if it's all right with Pa, of course." Mandy turned a dimpling smile on her father, who looked taken aback.