Rebel Enchantress (6 page)

“Now wait a min—”

“Why can’t you leave him alone?”

Nathan realized it was useless to try to explain that, even though he was English, he had had nothing to do with her father’s death, her mother’s decline, or the loss of their property. If he could keep her talking, maybe she would work off some of her anger toward him. He didn’t relish having such hostility in his house.

“Tell me how Reuben got into trouble. Remember, I just got here,” Nathan explained when he saw her well-stoked wrath about to explode. “There’s a lot I don’t understand just yet.”

“Why should you want to understand? All you have to know is everybody owes you money. If they don’t pay, you can take whatever you want.”

“Indulge me,” Nathan said, wondering how Delilah could show so much anger toward him and still be appealing. “Pretend I’m a friendly uncle you’ve gone to for help.”

“You’re hardly older than Reuben. And you’re not the least friendly or you wouldn’t have threatened to take Reuben’s oxen. Besides, I wouldn’t go to any Englishman alive.”

“Okay, look at it this way,” he said sharply, his patience wearing thin. “We’ve got to spend the next hour in this buggy. If we don’t talk about something, I’ll die of boredom. Then I’ll probably take it out on the horse, or you.” Delilah turned her startled gaze upon his face. “You’re absolutely burning with reproaches you want to fling at my head. I give you permission to fling away.”

“I don’t know that I can
fling
them at you, not rightly” she admitted. Now that Nathan had given her permission to blame him for everything, she felt reluctant to do so.

“Don’t worry about who is to blame,” he said, his tone a little less harsh. “Just tell me what happened.”

“It started before the war,” Delilah began, “the War of Independence.” She was unsure of what to say, even why she bothered to say it at all, but she felt a need to explain it to him, to have him understand it wasn’t Reuben’s fault.

“Everybody thought once we drove the British out, things would be all right.” She looked down at her hands rather than at Nathan. It was hard to talk about the British, knowing he was one of them. “Instead, they got worse.”

“Why?”

“King George wouldn’t let us sell anything to England, only buy. Then the merchants demanded we pay with gold. Pretty soon we didn’t have any left. So the states started printing paper money. They even paid their soldiers with it. Reuben thought he was being smart to turn his into land right off, but then the cost of everything started going up and the price of what he could grow went down. Nobody would take paper money anymore, and nobody had gold. The taxes got so high people could hardly pay them.”

“Is that what happened to Reuben?”

Delilah fell silent a moment.

“Reuben’s a good farmer, and Jane is a good manager, but, well you see, Reuben likes to do things for people. Nothing much, just a few pennies once in a while, but money never stays in his pocket. When it came time to pay the taxes, he didn’t have enough.”

“So he borrowed what he needed from my uncle and couldn’t pay him back.”

Delilah nodded her head. She couldn’t help but feel ashamed of her brother’s debt. It was a blow to their pride.

“Whose idea was it that you work for me?”

Delilah’s head jerked up. “Mine. Do you think Reuben or Jane would have suggested such a thing, even if they had thought of it? They’d starve first.”

Nathan’s head did a little jerking of its own. “Have you forgotten that until just a few years ago everyone in Massachusetts was English? Or do you think the mere act of crossing an ocean has transformed you into a different race? I can’t see that this savage land has cleansed your souls of pride and covetousness, or any other sin. In fact, if my uncle’s correspondence is any indication, greed and lust for power run unchecked throughout the colonies. England might not be the perfect society, but at least we are civilized.”

They rode for a while longer without speaking, and Nathan was aware his anger was being drained away by a very different kind of feeling, one that was a direct consequence of Delilah’s presence. He gripped the reins a little harder. His body grew stiff from leaning imperceptibly away from her. No woman had ever so affected him.

Her mere presence filled him with excitement. She was truly lovely, but she was unforgiving—and she probably cursed his very existence. What could be appealing in that? Yet he wouldn’t have stepped down from the buggy if he had been given the chance.

Give up! Get your mind off Delilah. Think about your loans, Lucius Clarke, the General Court.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting, or maybe I should say afraid of, but you’ll be well cared for at Maple Hill. You won’t be overworked, and you’ll be returned to your family not a whit worse off than the day you left.”

“I didn’t expect you would hurt me.” Her utter complacency caused Nathan’s desire to flare. Shocked by the burning intensity of his feeling, he spoke harshly to hide the truth from her.

Then what in the blazes did you expect? You and your family acted as if I were a first lieutenant of the devil come to cart you off to my private chamber of horrors.”

Delilah couldn’t help but laugh. It helped cover some of her embarrassment. “I guess we have acted pretty badly,” she admitted. “I doubt if I could explain it to you.”

“Try,” Nathan said, a sharpness in his voice. “Since we are to live under the same roof, I should feel a good deal more comfortable if I didn’t have to wonder whether your fondest wish might not be to sink the carving knife into my back rather than the Sunday roast.”

Delilah felt herself blush.

“I don’t want to do anything to harm you.”

That’s a relief. For a while there I was wondering if I might not be better off trading you for someone a little safer.” He felt Delilah looking at him, hard. “I don’t yet know what it’s like to live in the colonies, but in England we’re not used to going to bed in fear of our servants.”

“You needn’t be sarcastic.”

“I’m surprised you noticed,” Nathan shot back. “What with holding me personally responsible for the war, the ruin of your family, and the loss of God only knows how many oxen, horses, cows, and pigs, I don’t know how you found time to notice sarcasm.”

“A deaf man could notice sarcasm in an Englishman,” Delilah replied, nettled by the truth of his accusation as well as his ungentlemanly conduct in putting his feelings into words.

“You aren’t going to try to convince me your treatment of me has been subtle, are you?” Nathan asked.

“Nothing about this situation is subtle. I hope you don’t expect me to face the loss of everything I own without showing anger. I can’t do it. Could you?”

Honesty made Nathan shake his head.

“It may not be fair to blame you, but you
are
an Englishman, and if England hadn’t closed her markets to us, this might not have happened.”

“And I just happen to be the one who holds your brother’s debt, even though I’m not the one who lent him the money and it wasn’t my fault he went into debt.”

Delilah nodded.

“You can’t imagine how much better it makes me feel to know you have no compunction in blaming me for everything that happens, regardless of where the blame should rightly be placed.”

“How dare you imply I’m unfair.”

“Aren’t you?”

“You hold my brother’s note,” Delilah persevered. “You could forgive it.”

“Then I would have to forgive all the other debts owed me.”

Delilah looked uneasy. “Well …”

“Would you forgive them if it meant you had to sell your house, maybe even your farm?”

“But you’re rich.”

“Would you have all the landowners pauper themselves, or is it just me you’re trying to ruin?”

Delilah didn’t answer, but she seemed. He had no right to accuse her of trying to ruin anybody.
He
was the one causing all the trouble.

“And what are the farmers going to do when they run out of money a second time and need a loan to pay their taxes, or to buy a new bull or have a few drinks?”

“You don’t have to be insulting,” Delilah said. “Nobody expects you to give away all your money …”

“I’m relieved to hear that.”

“… but there must be some way for people to pay back their loans without losing their property.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve done?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then the other farmers can too. It’s better than my giving everything I have to a lot of strangers. I daresay they wouldn’t do it for me.”

Delilah knew several farmers who would probably forgive a debt to a particular friend, but she was certain if they were in Nathan’s place, every one of them would do exactly what he was doing. In fact, to be perfectly honest, several would have been even worse than Ezra Buel.

“Is that what you’re hoping, that the farmers will all figure out new ways to pay their debts?”

“I’d much rather have my money than a lot of oxen. I haven’t been here long enough to know all I should about my uncle’s affairs, but he’s got too much money tied up in small loans to suit me. I want some venture capital.”

“What is that?” Delilah asked, bewildered.

“Money to invest,” Nathan explained. “Some people can get rich farming, but a man has to go into business if he wants to become wealthy.”

Delilah didn’t know what he was talking about. Everyone she knew was a farmer, even rich Ezra Buel had been one.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

So Nathan explained how a farm was basically limited in the amount of goods it could produce. But when it came to manufacturing goods for sale, the only limit was the size of the market and the strength of the competition. He talked about bankers, shipowners, factors, and lawyers. He talked of rates of interest, margins of profit, costs of doing business, and the difficulty of finding cheap raw materials. He explained how a man could begin with just himself and end up with hundreds of people working for him.

“Everything depends on the cities,” he finally explained. “There people can’t grow or make all the things they need and want, so somebody has to do it for them. The more of something I sell, me more money I make.”

Delilah wondered if Reuben had thought of that. Probably not. All he wanted was a chance to live out his days in the familiar ways. He would be lost in the world Nathan Trent wanted to create. Jane, too, though she would get along better. Jane could adapt. She doubted Reuben could.

But what about herself?

She knew the answer immediately. She hardly understood any of what Nathan had said, but it sounded like a challenge, possibly even a dangerous one. And that excited her. She liked challenges; she even looked forward to them.

A thought struck her. Had she agreed to spy on Nathan because it represented a challenge?

No. Spying was deceitful, and she hated dishonesty. She had agreed to spy on Nathan because she’d had no other choice. But she was aware of an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling that had appeared sometime after she’d given her word that she would act as a spy.

What was it? It made her nervous and apprehensive but not uncomfortable, wary and distrustful but not afraid, excited and expectant but not pleasured. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew instinctively it was dangerous and it had something to do with Nathan. Something about him was a threat to her.

Delilah pulled her mind back from these thoughts. There would be plenty of time for soul-searching later. They were approaching Maple Hill. She felt as though the bars of debtor’s prison were about to close around her.

Chapter Four

“What’s she doing here?” Serena Noyes stood squarely in the middle of the hall.

“She’s here to help Lester” Nathan explained.

“Then take her back where she came from. I won’t have her kind here.”

Delilah resisted a desire to draw close to Nathan. Though she hadn’t been willing to admit it, even to herself, the closer they had come to Maple Hill, the more apprehensive she’d become.

To be met by a shrill harpy the minute she stepped inside the dark hall was almost too much of a test of Delilah’s courage. She remained rooted to the floor, unable to retreat or move forward to meet Nathan’s aunt.

“She’s doing it to pay off her brother’s debt.”

“I told you I won’t have her in my house,” Serena repeated. “She’s poor, dirty, and probably stupid.”

Delilah tensed, her gaze riveted on Serena’s angry face. All thoughts of running away were forgotten. She might be poor—she had never expected to be anything else—but she wouldn’t stand for anyone calling her dirty or stupid.

“I bathe regularly,” she said, looking squarely into Serena Noyes’s watery blue eyes. The challenge was unmistakable. “In fact, one of
my
requirements is that I have the use of a tub and hot water
every evening.”

“The cheek of her,” exclaimed Serena, but her voice betrayed a note of uncertainty.

“Neither am I stupid,” Delilah continued. “My work will soon give you reason to know that.”

“I doubt you’ll find much scope for proving anything in the wash shed,” retorted Serena spitefully.

“Miss Stowbridge will work with Lester,” Nathan stated firmly. “Now that he’s got someone to help him, you and Priscilla can entertain more frequently.”

Serena directed a venomous look at her nephew. “I won’t have that girl serving my friends.”

“As you wish,” Nathan replied, unperturbed. “We need to settle on sleeping quarters. Which room should she have?”

“The loft above the laundry.”

“I thought one of the rooms on the third floor would be suitable,” Nathan said. Delilah could see the tension in his jaw as he spoke.

“You mean to house a common servant under the same roof as your own family!” It was not a question. It was a screech of disbelief.

“It’s only a temporary situation. She will return to her brother’s home as soon as the debt is repaid.”

“It would be better if you had taken his oxen.”

“I have assured Reuben Stowbridge and his wife that his sister will be safe while she is here. I can only do that by keeping her under my own roof. Don’t you agree?”