Rebel Enchantress (43 page)

Hector seemed to relax, too. “I had to find some place to stay. Ever since Delilah accused me of spying for both sides, nearly every man in Hampden County is out to kill me.”

Nathan could understand why Hector wouldn’t want to be caught hiding in another man’s house – it made him look like a coward – but there was something about his expression Nathan couldn’t decipher.

“How did you get in here?”

“It was easy. You’re gone all the time, your cousin never leaves her room, and the servants stay in the back of the house. I can practically come and go as I please.”

“What about food?”

“I can get what I want whenever I go out.”

“I’ll tell Lester to bring you something.”

Nathan was certain Hector was about to refuse. Instead he said, “That’ll be a lot easier than trying to get back to my place without being seen.”

Nathan couldn’t explain his suspicion that something was not right. Hector’s explanation seemed so reasonable. Still, he couldn’t get over the feeling that no matter how innocent Hector’s being in his attic might be, he hadn’t been told the entire truth.

Quite suddenly Nathan knew what had been wrong with Hector’s expression when he’d burst into the room. Hector hadn’t looked upset. He had looked surprised. But why surprised? Surely he hadn’t been expecting somebody else? There wasn’t anybody else.

Or was there? An explanation flashed into Nathan’s head. It came with startling clarity.

“You expected Priscilla to open that door, not me. That’s why one of our plates is sitting next to your bed. She brings you food after we’ve retired. You don’t go out to get it. You don’t leave this room at all.”

“No! That’s not true.”

“You did spy for both sides, and Priscilla helped you.”

“I didn’t! I only pretended to.”

“You had to have that note to prove your credibility with Shays. Had he started to doubt you?”

Nathan heard a near-silent footstep behind him. He didn’t turn around.

“Why did you do it, Hector? Why did you turn against people who’ve been your friends all your life?” Nathan asked.

Hector glanced over Nathan’s shoulder, and his attitude changed to spiteful anger. “Because Noah and Lucius drained me of every cent I had,” he growled.

“Why not go after them?”

“How? You hold notes on every acre I own.”

“Then you should have come to me. I’d have been happy to help you against Noah.”

“I told you to go to him,” Priscilla said from behind Nathan. Anger turned her voice from a breathless whisper to an ugly hiss. “Then you could have had your revenge and money too.”

Nathan turned around and looked into the barrel of the musket in Priscilla’s hands.

“What do you plan to do with that?”

“That depends on whether you plan to turn Hector in.”

“And if I do?”

“I’ll kill you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I may kill you anyway. I don’t trust you.”

“Make sure that’s the real reason. If you’re hoping to inherit Maple Hill, you’ll be disappointed.”

“Who else would get it? You don’t have any relatives except Mother and me.”

“I made a will when I was in Boston. Delilah inherits my entire estate. If I die, you and your mother will be destitute.”

Priscilla turned white.

“She gets nothing?” Hector asked, dazed.

“Even the clothes on her back would belong to Delilah,” Nathan told him.

“If I don’t shoot you?” Priscilla asked, recovering some presence of mind.

“I might decide to help you, for a consideration.”

“Such as?”

“Hector has to let it be known he spied for both sides. I want Delilah’s name cleared of all suspicion.”

“No! You know what Lucius will do if he finds out.”

Nathan looked from Priscilla to Hector, a question in his eyes.

“And if we agree?” Priscilla asked.

“I’ll see you have enough money to make a start somewhere else.”

“In a town. Hector doesn’t want to farm.”

The prospect of being able to get away from the farm he hated caused Hector’s resistance to collapse. “I want the money in one lump sum.”

“You’ll get regular quarterly payments for three years only.”

“I’ve got to have it all at once,” Hector insisted.

“How will it be paid?” Priscilla asked.

“I’ll set up arrangements through an agent in Boston.”

“Who’ll guarantee the money?” Hector demanded.

“I will,” Nathan replied, disgust creeping into his voice. “You’ll receive it as long as I have it to give.”

“Where will we go?” Hector asked.

“I don’t care.”

“Ipswich,” Priscilla said. “My father had family there.”

“I want to go to Boston.”

“Maybe we shall, once we’ve gotten established.”

“My cousin and I have a few details to discuss,” Nathan said, and before either of them could object, he ushered Priscilla into the hall and closed the door.

“You don’t have to marry him,” Nathan said, not mincing his words. “You deserve a better man.”

“I’ve got the man I want.”

“You’ve got a weak man who will always blame someone else for his failures.”

“But I’ll be there to see he doesn’t fail.”

“You want that?”

“Both my father and my uncle were strong men. My father beat my mother, and my uncle made her work like a slave. I hated them both.”

“Not all strong men are like that.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to take a chance. Hector loves me. Now that I’ve been proved right about this, he won’t question my decisions again”

“I’ll have a lawyer draw up the papers. You will have no claim on me after the three years are up.”

“What about Mother?”

For a moment, as he remembered Serena had been the cause of Delilah’s disgrace, cold anger flared in Nathan’s eyes, but it gradually died as he realized she was a tortured, miserably unhappy woman. She probably couldn’t have acted any other way. As he contemplated the happiness he looked forward to with Delilah, he found it within himself to set aside his rancor.

“I can never allow her in my home again, but I’ll make her an allowance sufficient to permit her to live anywhere she wants. Boston if she likes, but I think she ought to live with you. I don’t think she’s capable of living alone.”

“You’re generous.”

“I would have done more if …” He let the sentence trail away.

“If is a useless word,” Priscilla snapped. “It holds out hopes which never come to pass and delivers only heartbreak. I want no ifs. You’ll soon discover you and Delilah have more than your share.”

Nathan knew the moment he rode up he should turn back. Reuben’s two little boys squatted in front of the cabin, their gazes fixed on the closed door. He could hear the murmur of women’s voices from inside. A loud moan broke through, and the soothing murmur rose to a higher level, then fell off only to rise again to another moan. Common sense told him to go away and come back after the crisis had passed, but he couldn’t wait to tell Delilah that Hector’s confession had cleared her name. He also had to tell her he wanted to marry her as soon as possible.

He remembered the bigger boy’s name. “Daniel, is your aunt inside?”

Daniel nodded his head.

“Would you tell her to come out?”

Daniel shook his head.

“Would you tell her I want to see her?”

Daniel shook his head again.

Nathan muttered under his breath. “Will you take her a message if I give you a coin?”

Daniel thought a moment and then nodded.

“Tell her Mr. Trent wants to speak to her.”

Daniel was gone so long Nathan began to wonder if the child intended to come back.

“She can’t come out,” Daniel said when he finally emerged from the cabin. “Go away.”

“Tell her I’ll wait. Go on, tell her,” Nathan said when Daniel scemed reluctant to go inside again.

“Mama’s not feeling good. She said go away.”

“Tell her I’m not leaving until she comes out.”

Daniel shook his head and sat down. Nathan’s patience ran out. “Either you take her the message or I go inside.” Given that kind of choice, Daniel got up and went back inside the house.

Delilah came out.

“I told you not to come back.”

Nathan drew her away from the house, away from the two boys. “You didn’t think I could stay away, did you? Not with you so close.”

Guiding her around the corner of the house, Nathan took her into his arms, and kissed her with all the urgency of a man who’s had to hold himself in check for weeks. Delilah tried to resist. When she found she couldn’t, she gave in and kissed him back just as passionately.

“We shouldn’t be doing this, not with Jane inside having pains. I told you to stay away. It’s no good.’

“I want you to marry me, Delilah Stowbridge. I want you to go with me right now to post the banns.”

“Nathan, you know we can’t. You said yourself you could never trust me.”

“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean that night.”

“But you know you’ll always wonder.”

“No, I won’t. Hector has confessed to everything. Within a few days everyone in Springfield will know the truth about that note.”

Delilah’s heart leaped with joy. She had never realized how desperately she wanted to marry Nathan. Being constantly aware of the many barriers that separated them, she had held herself in check, never allowing her emotions full rein. But now everything seemed possible, and her heart soared with happiness

“But how? Why?”

“I’ll tell you later. All you need to know is he and Priscilla left Springfield for good. Now can you think about us?”

Jane chose that moment to let out a long wail.

“I’ve got to go. I only came out because you threatened to come inside.”

Nathan didn’t know whether he wanted to strangle Jane or shake Delilah until she forgot she ever had a family. Didn’t she care anything about her future, or would Reuben’s family always have first claim on her?

“Don’t you understand what I said? I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife, the mother of my children. I want you to leave here and come with me to Maple Hill.”

“I can’t leave Jane,” Delilah said, apparently shocked that he would even suggest such a thing. “Jane is in her seventh month and having pains. And do you know why? General Lincoln is marching from Boston with an army and Shays has ordered the men to move out on the seventeenth.”

“They won’t be here for days!”

“It’s what will happen when they get here that frightens me. They wouldn’t be coming unless they meant to fight.”

“They wouldn’t be coming at all if Shays hadn’t written that last letter,” Nathan said. “That convinced the governor he wanted war.”

“But Shays doesn’t want a fight.”

“Then he shouldn’t have given the order to march.”

Delilah realized they were arguing about things neither of them could control. “This is pointless,” she said.

“Then let’s talk about something else.”

“Nathan, I can’t stand here gossiping while Jane’s suffering.”

“If you won’t marry me, will you be my housekeeper?”

Delilah gaped at him. “Absolutely not. You know perfectly well I couldn’t be in that house and stay away from you.”

He grinned broadly. “That’s what I was counting on.”

“Be serious. I can’t leave here no matter what. Jane could have her baby at any time. And it’s too early.”

Nathan’s expression turned grave. Anger flared in his eyes. “Can’t you see they’re using you? Every time something happens, they turn to you. It doesn’t matter whether or not they can handle it themselves, they expect you to do it for them. Worse than that, they expect you to agree with everything they do. If you don’t, they make you feel guilty, make it a question of loyalty, of patriotism. Beware of people who call upon patriotism and God when their arguments can’t win your support. They’re depending on your better nature to get you to do what their project can’t.”

“All this may be true” – she looked at him, his honest face lined with worry, his mouth tight with anger, his eyes reflecting the pain of rejection – “it is true, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“I don’t mean to ask you to choose between us, but isn’t there somebody else who could stay with her?”

“It’s not a matter of choosing,” Delilah said. “I couldn’t marry you with Reuben going to war at any minute. How could I face Jane if my husband’s men killed her husband – my brother.”

“They’re not my men.”

“I couldn’t face myself if I left her and the boys. They took me in when Mother died. They never asked for anything or made me feel I was anything but a cherished member of their family. I would not leave her now if I loved you more than anything else on earth.”

“Do you?”

“I thought I did. Do you remember the morning I overslept, the time you came to my room to tell me goodbye?”

Nathan nodded.

“I wanted to tell you right then, but by the time I was awake, you were gone. Then you came back just before dinner. You kept teasing me, trying to get me to tell you right then. I couldn’t do that in front of Serena. It was too private. Then Lucius came and Serena found the note and you didn’t believe me.”

“I’ve already told you I was wrong. I knew the next day that you were innocent.”

“But you didn’t believe my story. You thought I made it up.”

Nathan had no answer for that.

“You once said if I wanted to marry you, I had to be willing to choose you over everything else, even my family. Well, if you want to marry me, Nathan Trent, you’re going to have to believe me before you believe anybody else.”

A long, anguished moan from inside the house interrupted them. “I’ve got to go,” Delilah said. “Jane needs me.”

Nathan reached out and caught her by the arm. “I need you, too.”

Delilah went into his embrace. Her arms encircled his neck and she kissed him tenderly. “I know, but I have to go.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Nathan said. “If there is going to be fighting, you don’t know where it will start. I want you to come to Maple Hill.”

“I’ve already told you I can’t leave Jane and the boys.”

“They can come, too. And whoever is inside with her now. There’s room for everybody.”

Delilah hardly knew whether to kiss him for his kindness or hit him over the head for being so obtuse.