Patricia Rice (24 page)

Ignoring Eavin, Nicholas splashed water into the washbowl and began unfastening his shirt. Eavin hastily began changing Jeannette's clothes into the fresh ones brought down last night. Michael glared at both of them and then up at the black maid appearing in the hall doorway and watching anxiously.

'The place is a bloody circus," Michael muttered as Eavin lifted the wailing infant and handed her over to a relieved Annie. He winced at Eavin's scowl as she sailed by with her nose in the air, and when both women disappeared in the direction of the stairs, he returned a defeated look to the man lathering his face.
 

"You win this time, only because I know Eavin and how she feels about men. But so help me God, if you lay one hand on her against her wishes—and I know she's a temptation to a man to do so—"

Nicholas lifted an insolent brow. "She is that, and there's a damn sight more men around these parts than me. I'll not ask you what happened between you and that man you killed, because I've killed before and know how it happens. But in return, I'm expecting you to keep that surly temper to yourself and away from Eavin. She's having a difficult enough time protecting herself without having to protect you, or herself from you."

Michael rubbed his hand through his rumpled curls and nodded acknowledgment. "Sure, and you have the way of it there. I wasn't sartin if you knew Eavin wasn't as she seems, but you have a discerning eye, and I apologize. She's my baby sister, and I haven't done as I ought for her, but I'm tryin' to mend my ways."

"Good." Nicholas nodded curtly and returned to his mirror and razor. "Then I'll see you at breakfast. I'm thinking about buying more of that high ground farther up the river for cotton. We need to talk about it."

Nicholas heard the other man's affirmative and the sound of his departing footsteps as he applied the razor to his jaw. He had handled the situation with adeptness, but the man in the mirror exuded none of the confidence he should have felt.

Remembering the peculiar smokiness of long-lashed eyes as they woke from sleep, Nicholas cursed and wiped the trace of blood from his nicked chin.

* * *

"We has a mass ever' week with singin' and prayin' and our own priest in that church out back. Sometimes they come over from the other houses. Marster Nick don't mind. He's the one what done told us we can use that place. He's not like the old marster."

Annie was gently rocking the satisfied infant while Eavin made some attempt to return order out of the chaos created by the last few days in the nursery. She had grown fond of the young black "mammy," as Annie referred to herself, and this discussion had come about from their mutual wish to offer thanks to God for Jeannette's recovery.

Eavin had learned early on that the slaves considered Nicholas a godsend after their previous owner, but she had not heard of his donation of a church before. She lifted a questioning eyebrow as she added another linen to the growing basket of laundry.

"He's given you a church and priest? I've never seen the man attend mass himself."

"Oh, he comes now and then." Annie cautiously lifted the sleeping infant to return her to the crib. "They's several white folks done come. It don' make no matter. You can come too iffen you want."

Eavin didn't have to ask why Nicholas had never told her of the black church. She was quite certain it wasn't a place that white ladies attended. But she wasn't a lady, and she had a sin on her soul that needed cleansing as well as a gratefulness to a God who hadn't punished her with Jeannette's innocent life. It wasn't a moment's work to make her decision.

"Do you think we could get Clemmie to watch Jeannette while we go to church tomorrow?"

It was scarcely the same as attending a cathedral, but Eavin hadn't expected it to be. The small whitewashed building had no windows, and the seating consisted of split logs on legs, but the overall aspect was the same.

There was an open space at the far end of the building for the priest and a massive split log raised higher than the rest for an altar. Untutored hands had drawn and painted symbols of religious significance on the stucco walls, and interspersed throughout were various icons of some meaning to the persons hanging them.

The slaves filling the seats wore a proper holy mien, but Eavin noted they whispered and nudged one another and threw looks over their shoulders just as in any church she had ever known. Annie made room next to her, and Eavin was surprised to find Jess on her other side. Caught between the two black women in their Sunday-best cottons and bright
tignons
in imitation of the women in the city, Eavin had no chance of escape even if she wanted it.

As an elderly black man strode solemnly to the front of the room, followed by a string of younger people Eavin assumed to be a choir or attendants, she heard a rustling in the back of the room and turned to watch as did everyone.

Her eyes met Nicholas's as he bent his head and removed his hat to enter the doorway. She felt her heart give a jolt, and she turned to face the front again before she could recognize the message in his eyes.

They had spent the last day and night avoiding each other. Eavin prayed that he was here for the same reason as she was—to cleanse his soul from their sin and the temptation to repeat it. Her body ached even now with the memory of his touch. She wouldn't allow herself to think of what else she ached for.

She turned her concentration to the preacher at the front of the room. He didn't speak in the Latin phrases with which she was familiar but in the heavy patois of Santa Domingue. The mixture of French and African with a hint of English was as untranslatable as Latin, but the people around her seemed to understand. They murmured and exclaimed and gradually began to rock as the choir chanted to the beat of a crude drum fashioned from a hollow log.

A few tallow candles smoked on the altar, providing the room's only illumination. The scent of the candles mixed with the stench of unwashed bodies and lye soap and cheap rosewater. The heat of a May sun cooked the wooden roof and mingled the smell of resin into the growing cauldron of fumes.

Eavin fanned herself with the palmetto leaf that Annie had warned her to bring. She wore a new gown of thin muslin, but the long sleeves clung to her arms and her chemise stuck to her back. Out of respect, she had worn her light stays, but she wished them to the devil right now.

The priest's chant caused the choir to sing louder as they competed for attention, and Eavin's breath constricted in her lungs. The crowd swayed to the rhythmical beat of the drums, and she felt compelled to move with them. A fire on the earth floor near the altar generated little heat, but the smoke climbing with the air currents added to the general miasma until Eavin's head spun with the noise, the fumes, and the swaying.

The choir shuffled their feet as the priest threw herbs on the fire to make it flare. An excited cry from the audience was repeated throughout the smoky room. Eavin's dizziness became something else, something more elemental as the drums throbbed and the heat and the fumes and the droning chant drew the crowd into a single being.

She realized the people at the front of the room were dancing, but it didn't seem in the least strange. She felt the need to move drumming through her own veins. Annie's voice rang out next to her, and Eavin wished she knew the words so she could join in. The cloud of smoke became thicker and lower, snaking around the room's inhabitants with the will of a live thing.

People rose from their seats and rumbled the ground with the pounding of their feet as the chanting and the drums grew more intoxicating. Jess grabbed Eavin's arm and pulled her upward, but this change in altitude had the effect of separating her from the rest, making her uneasy.

Rather than cleansing her soul of temptation, the drums and the strange fumes sent earthy messages. Eavin was totally aware of Nicholas in the rear of the room, could feel his gaze crawl over every inch of her skin. As she watched the impassioned dancing of the men and women at the front, she recognized the sexuality of their movements and felt the desire flowing through their veins.

A man turned to Annie, grasping her by the waist as he writhed closer with the beat. Annie slipped from his grasp, but Jess pushed Eavin forward. She stumbled and fell into his arms, but before black hands could catch her up, a pair of rough brown ones caught her from behind and pulled her out of reach.

"It's time to leave,
madame
," Nicholas whispered in her ear as he dragged her backward through the swaying, writhing crowd in the aisle.

Eavin caught a glimpse of Jess laughing, flashing her white teeth as she stepped generously into a man's arms and continued the rhythm of the dance, and then the crowd closed around them, and Nicholas was her only anchor.

His body was necessarily close to hers as he pushed a path toward the back of the church. Even through the sweet fumes of smoke Eavin was aware of his masculine scent, and the beat of the drums echoed that of their heartbeats by the time he reached the door.

Their eyes met before the door opened. Eavin read the amber glow easily, felt the taut tension of his lean body as he held her, saw the trickle of sweat on the brown column of his throat, and she could not look away.

Then the door opened to blinding sunshine and he shoved her through.

Eavin recognized his French curses for what they were as she stumbled over a patch of weeds and righted herself. Nicholas had released her as soon as they were outside, but they might as well have been in an illicit embrace for all the difference it made. She could feel him as surely as if they were in bed together, and she didn't dare face him.

"Undoubtedly one of his better sermons," she heard him say dryly from behind her. "Rather like adding manure to the corn crop to make things grow. The place will be burgeoning with life nine months from now."

That brought things down to a saner level. Covering her barren womb with one hand, Eavin raised the other to wipe the perspiration from her brow. The fierce sun burned away any lingering fumes from inside. She was aware of Nicholas right behind her, knew how close his hand had come to touching her waist when she had stumbled, felt his need as she did her own.

"I thought Annie said it was a church." She was surprised by her horrified whisper.

'To them it is. They are reaching another plane they consider higher than the daily toil of living. Man tries to get closer to God by whatever means he has available. I can think of a lot worse."

Nicholas had his hands in his pockets as he strode toward the house. Eavin wasn't fooled by the gesture. He had made her aware of how to look at a man and recognize the physical evidence of desire. She looked now and was ashamed of herself for doing so. She hurried to keep pace with him. At least she hadn't been the only one foolish enough to be affected.

"I don't think I wish to be enlightened any further by asking for examples."

Nicholas slanted her a cynical smile. "I suppose you feel holier surrounded by expensive incense and organ music in the light of stained glass windows that undoubtedly cost the fortunes and lives of hundreds of working men."

Sarcasm didn't offend her. "It's easier to think of God in those surroundings. I'm not certain anyone was considering God back there."

Nicholas stopped abruptly and caught her by the shoulders, swinging her to face him. "No, they were thinking of lying naked in the grass and making love all afternoon under the sun. How much closer to God can you get?"

Eavin didn't know whether his words or his touch shocked her more. The hands gripping her shoulders were a more passionate embrace than she had ever suffered in her husband's care. One step forward and she would be in Nicholas's arms, finding out what it meant to lie naked in the grass and make love. The tension between them was that strong. His eyes held hers, and Eavin felt the power of their language. A shiver coursed through her as she realized she had the same power over him as he held over her. A flicker in his eyes revealed his recognition of the same.

It was enough just to know. Eavin stepped backward at the same time as Nicholas lifted his hands.

He shoved them back in his pockets and walked more slowly toward the house. "Daniel found your article most amusing. He means to run it in tomorrow's paper. I may have to put you on two payrolls."

Eavin had forgotten that hastily written sketch. She didn't even remember mailing it. In fact, she knew she hadn't mailed it. She sent Nicholas a suspicious glance. "I don't remember giving Mr. Fletcher any article."

"I did." He betrayed his confidence with his tone. "You left it on my desk, so I assumed it was safe to read. You're good, even if your pen is a trifle poisonous. Daniel wants to hire you on a regular basis. He sent several suggestions for future satires."

Eavin didn't know whether to feel betrayed, angry, or delighted. She sent Nicholas an anxious glance, but there was none of a man's usual repugnance for a woman who spoke out of turn. She supposed a gentleman who defied convention by owning radical newspapers and smuggling ships might have a slightly different outlook than most.

"You are not offended?" she asked curiously.

Nicholas heard her tone but refused to look down at her again. He could see the flash of those green eyes behind smoky lashes in his sleep and didn't need to embed them more deeply in his memory. Instead he took her question intellectually and tossed it around.