Rebel Enchantress (24 page)

Nathan reached out for the list. She gave it back to him.

“I won’t hold you responsible for it, whatever it might be. Now, do you have any more suggestions?”

Delilah gave Nathan a blank stare, not realizing at first that he was referring to the debts. It took her a moment to reorganize her thoughts.

“I have no idea what to do about Hector or Andrew Russell, but Isaac Yates and his son spend more time on their boat than they ever do on land. I’d hire him to take everything you can sell down the river to Windsor and Hartford. Yates can handle the boat, and young Samuel is a natural salesman.”

“Why hasn’t he started a business of his own?”

“Noah Hubbard controls everything around here. A body can’t do anything if Noah doesn’t like him.”

“I should have talked to you earlier. It would have saved me weeks of riding over the countryside and seeing people who didn’t want to talk to me. How do you know so much about everybody?”

“I’ve lived in Springfield my whole life. My father sold housewares. The wives, used to gather in the shop when they came into town. After being alone on a farm all week, they loved to talk. I heard a lot. What I didn’t hear there, I learned playing with their children.”

“I appreciate your advice. If it works out, I’ll take something off Reuben’s debt.”

Delilah’s expression lost its warmth. She didn’t know why Nathan’s offer should offend her so much, but it took the pleasure out of the morning and reduced their time together to a business arrangement.

“I did this because you asked–and for them.” She pointed to the list of names. “If you want to give a consideration, take it off what they owe.”

She stood up just as the door opened without a warning knock.

“Her sister-in-law is out in the kitchen,” Serena said. “Probably come to collect as much information as she can.”

Nathan was conscious of a strong desire to strangle his aunt, and leave her body under a bush.

“I’ll come right away,” Delilah said. She left without looking at Nathan.

Serena remained standing in the doorway.

“Well?” Nathan asked.

“That girl’s trying to trap you.”

“What?” Couldn’t Serena tell Delilah was angry at him.

“She wants to get you into her bed, so she can force you to marry her.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You don’t understand how it is here in America. Then aren’t allowed to take a mistress. When you get a girl in trouble, you have to marry her. If she is gotten with child and turned off, her brother will kill you. And the county will be behind him, even Lucius Clarke and Noah Hubbard.”

“I’ve not trying to bed her, and I won’t let myself be seduced.”

“I’ve been married. I know then have different needs than women, needs they sometimes can’t control.” An odd expression came into Serena’s eyes, an expression of anguish Nathan had not seen in them before. “You ought to marry Priscilla. She’s a pretty girl. Obedient, too. Then you wouldn’t need to go sneaking about with the servants.”

“I’ve not sneaking around with Delilah, and I’m not interested in getting married,” Nathan said. “Besides, I don’t think Priscilla wants to marry me any more than I want to marry her.”

“She likes you. She’d do everything you’d want her to do.”

“I’ve not going to marry Priscilla,” Nathan repeated.

Serena’s face turned hard. That girl’s going to catch you. People will laugh. They’ll say you were trapped neat as a beaver.”

“I have no plans to marry anyone at the moment, but I will not allow you or anybody else to choose my wife.”

They’ll blame me” Serena almost screamed. “They’ll say I ought to have warned you, that I ought to have turned the girl off.”

“Console yourself with the fact that you have warned me on an almost hourly basis.”

He turned back to his desk. Serena fled the room, uttering a muffled cry of frustration.

Tell the about Reuben,” Delilah said as soon as she got Jane settled in a sunny corner of the garden. A brisk wind blew across the river from the northwest, but a thick arborvitae hedge shielded the bench where they sat.

“He’s still getting more work man he can accept. He’s turned
the
keeping of the money over to me.”

That relieved part of Delilah’s worry. It also told her how seriously Reuben was taking her working off his debt. Before this his pride would never have allowed him to hand his money over to any female.

“I mean what’s he doing with Captain Shays?” Delilah asked. “Nathan says the Supreme Court indicted all the leaders at Northampton. They’re supposed to meet in Springfield next, and he says they’ll indict everybody who was at Worcester.”

“Reuben wasn’t at those places,” Jane assured her. “He and Shays are still hoping the governor will act on our petition.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“I don’t know. I don’t listen to their plans. It’s best for a woman not to know.”

“Why?”

“Politics and fighting are a man’s business.”

“But it’s a woman’s home that’s burned over her head, her kinfolks who are killed.”

“Men don’t like for a woman to ask too many questions or to tell them what to do.”

Delilah thought of Nathan. He was more than willing to listen to her and act on her advice. True, she knew more about the residents of Springfield than he did, but so did Serena and Priscilla and he hadn’t asked them.

Delilah thought of the many times her mother had tried to make suggestions to her famer. He’d always pretended he didn’t hear them. Delilah had never understood why her mother accepted such a situation. She had always thought Jane, who was so strong and so full of common sense, could control Reuben. Now she realized Jane had no more influence over her brother than her mother had had over her father.

That wasn’t going to happen to her. She couldn’t imagine letting someone like Noah Hubbard or Lucius Clarke make all her decisions. Nathan treated her better than mat, and she worked for him as a household servant.

“You tell Reuben to stay away from Day, Wheeler, Gates, and all the rest,” Delilah warned Jane. “Governor Bowdoin has declared that closing the courts is treason. They can be hanged.”

“For a little thing like keeping a judge from behind his bench?”

“He’s also ordered the militia to shoot anybody who refuses to disperse.”

“Captain Shays says the militia won’t fire on them. Reuben told me so himself.”

“Are they planning something?”

“I don’t know, but they’ve been meeting every night for the last week”

“You tell Reuben not to be a fool, Tell him I said to stay home. He won’t help you or his babies with a minnie ball in him or dangling from the end of a rope.”

“How did you learn all this?” Jane asked.

“Nathan. He gets regular information from Lucius Clarke and Noah Hubbard.”

“I don’t think you can trust him.”

“Why should he lie to me? I can’t do anything to hurt him.”

“People don’t trust him. Not even the men on his side.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, but I heard it from Agnes Porter herself.”

“You can’t believe a word Lucy’s mama says,” Delilah said, disgusted that Jane should be so gullible. “She’s just put out because Nathan didn’t show any partiality for Lucy.”

“How do you know that?”

“She got real uppity when she saw me serving. Even Serena got angry at her. Makes Serena look bad to have friends like that, and Serena doesn’t want to look bad in Nathan’s eyes, for all she would cut his heart out if it would get her Maple Hill.”

“Who does it go to if something happens to Mr. Trent?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it. Nathan’s father is dead, and he has no brothers and sisters.”

Jane seemed to be struck by a very unwelcome thought, and she subjected her sister-in-law to a very hard look.

“How do you know so much about him?”

Delilah laughed. “What do you think servants talk about all day? Nathan—what we know about him or what we suppose.”

“You shouldn’t be listening to gossip.”

“Captain Shays told me to.”

Jane looked unconvinced. “I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t like it from the beginning, but nobody listened to me. Not even you.”

“That was before you got to know him. Now it doesn’t seem right.”

“It never seemed right,” Delilah said, “but I doubt it matters anymore. He knows I would tell Reuben anything I could.”

“How?”

“I told him.”

“What!”

“He asked me. Do you think he’d have believed me if I’d said I wouldn’t breath a word?”

“I guess not.”

“I like it better now. At least I don’t feel like I’m doing anything underhanded. If I learn something, he already knows what to expect.”

Chapter Fourteen

“They closed the Supreme Court” Lucius Clarke shouted the minute he burst into Nathan’s library. “That fool Shepard let them march up and down the street until the judges were scared silly.”

“You’d better tell me from the beginning,” Nathan said, sprinkling sand over his letter. “I’ve been too busy to go into Springfield.”

“What can you have to do here that’s more important than keeping the courts open?” demanded Clarke. “We can’t do a damned thing until those judges give us the go-ahead.”

“Let’s just say I’m trying to manage my holdings.”

“If you don’t get up from that desk and find out what’s going on, you won’t have any holdings to manage.”

Nathan realized Lucius was too upset to listen to any viewpoint but his own. “What happened?” he asked.

“Shepard was so busy keeping his eye on the arsenal, Shays had a free hand with the court.”

“You’re sure it was Shays?”

“No doubt. He spoke directly with Shepard and Chief Justice Sewall several times. And that girl you have working here, what’s-her-name …”

“Delilah?”

“Yeah, her brother was right behind Shays. You can add his name to the list.”

“It’s already there,” Nathan said reluctantly.

“Not one man in the militia would fire on the regulators. I don’t think Shepard ordered it even though he got permission from the secretary of war to take a small cannon and four hundred muskets from the arsenal. He had over two hundred armed men.”

“How many did Shays have?”

“Reports say he had seven hundred when he reached Springfield. Hundreds more joined him today, but only one out of four had muskets. The rest had clubs or ax handles.”

“And you expected General Shepard to order his militia to fire on virtually unarmed men?”

“It was the best time to get them. Next time they may all have muskets.”

Before Nathan was able to give expression to his building rage, Lester ushered Tom Oliver and Eli Warner into the room. Minutes later Asa Warner and Noah Hubbard entered, leading an angry gaggle of merchants and landowners.

“Something has to be done soon,” said Silas Bennett, “or I’m going to have to slaughter my livestock. I can’t afford to feed them any longer.”

“Turn them out in your fields,” Nathan suggested.

“That’s fine for you, surrounded by thousands of acres. I have less than ten.”

“You’d have been better off letting the farmers feed the stock and taking it when you could sell it.”

“I thought I could,” Silas replied, anger making his face turn dark red. “Then they started closing the courts.”

“Can’t we stop them?” someone asked.

“Not when they have over a thousand then and the government has only two hundred.”

“They should have used that cannon,” Lucius said.

“They damned well can’t,” someone in the back spoke up. “My brother is with Shays. And misguided though he may be, I’ll not have him shot.” There was a murmur of approval.

“Then you’d better tell him to keep his head down,” Silas Bennett shouted. “I intend to demand that Governor Bowdoin force the militia to fire. And I’ve got two cousins with Shays.”

They’re committing treason” Lucius said. They should be hanged.”

While all the then wanted something done, Nathan could see they weren’t likely to agree on what to do. Much more and
they’d
be ready to shoot each other. He hurried to the folder’s pantry.

“Get several tankards of ale from the cellar as quick as you can,” he told Lester. “And tell Delilah I want to see her immediately.”

Delilah came running, her face a study in surprise, worry, and curiosity.

“I need your help” Nathan said, “but I won’t ask it if you don’t want to cooperate.”

“How?” asked Delilah. It never occurred to her to refuse Nathan.

“Shays closed the Supreme Court in Springfield today, and Tve got an angry mob in my library–about to tear each other apart. I want you to bring in the ale.”

“What good will that do?”

“None of them are so drunk or so angry a beautiful woman won’t distract them a little, at least enough to calm them down a bit. But I can’t promise they’ll be polite. Your brother was with Shays.”

Delilah didn’t have to think about it. She would help Nathan. Even now she could hear angry voices coming through the two closed doors.

“I’ll serve it in the hall,” she said beginning to take pewter mugs off the shelf and put them on a large wooden tray. “Spreading them out ought to help.”

Nathan started filling a second tray.

“You don’t have to do this. I have no right to ask you to let yourself be ogled by a lot of angry men.”

“It won’t be any different from serving the same men at my uncle’s tavern. Besides, they won’t say anything with you here.”

“You have a lot of faith in my ability to control these people.”

“They look to you for leadership whether they admit it or not. It’s just natural, I guess.”

“Because I’m richer than they are?”

“No, because you know what you want to do and won’t let anyone talk you out of it. People respect that even if they don’t agree with you.”

Lester returned with four large pitchers brimming with cool ale.

“As soon as you bring in the second tray, open the doors to the parlor and the drawing room,” Nathan said to Lester as he held the door for Lester and Delilah to pass through before him. “I want to give them as much space as possible.”