The Flame and the Flower (45 page)

Brandon quieted as he stared down the now empty lane. He shook himself and ran his fingers through his hair and turning, gave Jeff a hand up. He looked toward the house, his wild rage being rapidly replaced by concern for Heather. A worried frown wrinkled his brow by the time he reached the first step, and he paused before his wife who fell into his arms, laughing with almost hysterical relief as she spread tearful kisses on his throat and chest and dabbed with the end of her apron at the dirt on him and the tears in her eyes. Thinking her truly overwrought and unable to find another explanation for her behavior, Brandon guided her tenderly to a chair to try to soothe her.

Brandon questioned Hatti a moment later, and Jeff found himself again on the verge of using force to restrain him as the story unfolded. Brandon rose to his feet, his cheek flexing tensely, vowing to kill Bartlett, and Heather's heart jumped into her throat.

"Please," she gasped, catching his hand. She drew him down again before her and pressed the palm of his hand against her abdomen. He felt his baby moving vigorously within her. She gazed into his eyes and smiled gently as she reached up to caress his cheek. "I've had enough excitement for the day. Let's finish here and go home."

When Jeremiah Webster first glimpsed the house prepared for him and his family, he thought it to be the Birmingham house and remarked what a fine place it was. The three Birminghams looked at him in some surprise, and Brandon hastened to correct him. The man's jaw dropped in astonishment, and it was several moments before he regained his wits and turned to his wife.

"Did you hear, Leah? Did you hear? This here is to be our house."

For the first time since they had met, the woman spoke with tears brimming her eyes, her shyness forgotten for the moment.

"It's too good to be true." She turned to Heather as if to reaffirm what her husband had said. "We're to live here? In a real house?" she half questioned, still uncertain.

Heather nodded to assure her and flashed a soft, warm smile to her husband for his kindness to these people as she took the woman's arm.

"Come," she murmured gently. "I'll show you around inside."

As the two women entered the house with Mr. Webster following close behind, Jeff gently nudged Brandon who stared after his wife.

"A few more good deeds, Brandon, and you'll be her knight in shining armor."

As the month of March grew middle-aged, the days waxed warm and sunny. Brandon found that preparing the mill for production demanded most of his time, and he saw little of his wife or home. Both he and Webster made many trips between the mill and the logging camps upriver. Great rafts of logs were floated down to rest in the backwaters behind the mill and await the first greedy screams of hungry saws. Most of the old stock of lumber in the millyard went to repair and rebuild the tumbledown shanties that had housed the slaves. Two families and some half-dozen single men had come from New York on Webster's urging to add their experience to the crews.

The hot, dusty days and the cool, damp nights formed a dreary pattern for Heather with both Brandon and Jeff absent from the house. She fought the lassitude of monotony and found brief moments of relief in small things. A spring shower broke the month's drought and paved the way for a night of pounding rain. The next few days brought a pleasant metamorphosis to the land, and Heather was amazed at the sudden change caused by the rains. Almost overnight the burnt, dry browns of winter were replaced by the verdant, blushing greens of spring. Magnolia trees sent their rich scents across the countryside and purple cascades of wisteria fell from the trees where it clung. Azaleas, oleanders and assorted lilies threw their riotous colors across the woodland and pungent dogwood delicately graced the glens. Ducks and geese ranged overhead and the forest came alive with abundant animal life.

In the midst of this grandeur Heather felt her time approach. Her burden lowered in her belly, and when she walked her stomach cleared the way. Despite the beauty of the land she ventured out but rarely. She felt herself clumsy and slow, but whenever she sought to move, she always found a hand ready to assist her. When Brandon was gone, either to the mill or the logging camps upstream, it was Jeff, or Hatti, or Mary, but someone was always near.

A score of family friends came out to pay their respects to her and welcome Brandon home. It was on a Friday afternoon when they ventured forth. The pits had been readied for roasting early that morning, and young boys set to turning sides of beef and pork. Kegs of ale were cooled in the chilly waters of the creek, and food prepared in abundance.

Reverend Fairchild and his wife and brood of seven were among the first to arrive, and soon after, Abegail Clark's huge, black landau came smartly up the lane without pausing to halt before the big house. The party grew light as the day grew long, and Reverend Fairchild was sorely set to keep some men from imbibing too much and with routing the young couples from behind the bushes where they were wont to lie and exchange poetic phrases. Brandon ordered several kegs of ale set out beneath the trees and Jeff in kind brought out a hogshead of his own aged bourbon. Spirits grew high and private kegs were brought out and tapped, ostensibly for comparison with the Birmingham wares. Children ran and played across the great lawns and consumed many pitchers of lemonade. The women collected in groups and stitched samplers while the men admired the horses and the women and seemed unable to decide just whose keg bore the sweetest brew.

It was Sybil Scott who drew most everyone's attention at some time during the afternoon. She wore a daringly low gown of some considerable cost and was pursued consistently by a paunchy, middle-aged merchant whose intentions were clear to everyone but her. She evaded his pawing lunges with shrill giggles, somewhat overwhelmed by this unusual attention from a man and the absence of her mother's restrictive hand.

Heather's eyes widened as she saw the formerly reticent girl now giggling and flirting with her suitor and meeting his roving hands with only token resistance. Seated beside her, Mrs. Clark showed her anger by sniffing loudly and stamping her umbrella on the ground.

"Maranda Scott will rue the day she gave her daughter freedom. That poor young girl will end up broken hearted. He buys her wealthy clothes and gifts and makes no further promises, and she's been too long protected to deal with a man and that one especially. Poor girl, she needs a guiding hand."

"I thought she seemed like such a shy young girl," Heather murmured, rather confused at the change.

"Sybil, my dear, is not young," Mrs. Fairchild commented. "And most certainly seems to have lost her shyness."

Mrs. Clark shook her head sadly. "It's obvious since she failed to catch a Birmingham, Maranda has given up on her."

She glanced at Heather, who for all her roundness was startlingly beautiful in that mysterious way expectant mothers are. She wore a gown of light blue organdy with frothy ruffles at the throat and wrists, and her hair was caught in a mass of soft ringlets with narrow blue ribbons falling over the cascading curls. Even so obviously pregnant, she was the envy of many.

The grand dame continued, now speaking directly to Heather. "You must know by now that Sybil had her eye set for your husband, though I can't see where she, poor child, ever thought she had a chance with him. He rarely gave any of even the prettiest girls of our church a second glance, and then, of course, there was Louisa, who we must admit is a beautiful woman. Even then Sybil held some hope for herself, but that day she saw you I believe she finally realized her dreams were ended. It was a shame the way Maranda encouraged her to believe Brandon would notice her. He hardly knew the poor girl was alive." Nodding toward Sybil she stated flatly, "This is Maranda's fault, what is happening now, but she sits in her house and damns Brandon and will not think of her daughter."

The woman's voice ended full of ire and she stamped her parasol on the ground as if to emphasize it. Down the lane Brandon and Jeff were walking toward them when Sybil, trying to avoid her heavy handed suitor, darted around a tree and almost collided with them. Brandon stepped aside and nodded a greeting and continued on his way without so much as a second glance. The poor girl's eyes widened as she recognized him and the blood left her face. She stood staring at his back dejectedly, all the gaiety driven from her day by his mere presence, and she watched him take a chair beside his wife.

Sybil's view was obscured when a barouche came up the lane and stopped in front of the seated group. As the richly dressed Louisa descended from the carriage leaving her beau looking rather surprised at her hasty departure, Heather put her needlework down in her lap and waited for her to approach. Louisa smiled brightly as she strode forward and warbled a gay greeting. Her new beau climbed down and followed her but she ignored him, bestowing her full attention upon her former fiancée. She frowned when Brandon rose to stand behind his wife's chair, and then she turned to consider Heather.

"My goodness, child," she smirked, her eyes dropping to the round belly. "This will probably ruin your figure for the rest of your life."

"What would you know of it, Louie?" Jeff asked sarcastically.

She disregarded him and spun around, showing off her attire as well as her voluptuous figure. "How do you like my new gown? I found the most talented couturier. He does such wonders with a bolt of cloth and a bit of thread." She wrinkled her nose as if in distaste. "But he's such an odd little man. You really must see him. It would almost make you laugh." She looked pointedly at the younger girl. "But then he's one of your countrymen, darling."

She flitted away to talk to a group of young couples nearby as her beau turned to greet Brandon.

"Heard tell you got married, Brand," Matthew Bishop drawled.

Brandon slipped his hands to Heather's shoulders as he introduced her to the man.

"Matt and Jeff went to school together," he explained to his wife.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bishop," she murmured, smiling.

The man glanced first to her stomach and grinned, then his eyes rose to her face and he seemed surprised at what he saw.

"This is your wife?" he questioned, almost incredulously. "Why, Louisa said..."

He stopped, realizing what he had almost let slip. He had thought it odd when Louisa ranted and raved to him about the homely little beggar who had used witchery to snatch Brandon from her. He had found it hard to believe Brandon that anxious to be caught or the type to take an unappetizing wench to bed much less to wife. He should have known the man would have found the prettiest to warm his bed.

"I believe the jest is on me," he smiled. "You have a most lovely wife, Brand."

Louisa hurried back in time to hear his last comments and scowled at him as she took his arm, but she turned to smile at Brandon.

"Darling, you give the most fabulous parties," she simpered. "Even when there were just the two of us, your parties were never boring."

Brandon seemed oblivious to her as he bent to ask his wife of her comfort, but Abegail was not so silent.

"You seem to dote upon parties, Louisa. As to men—it's not often that you've displayed the taste to limit your affections to just one."

Jeff gave a hearty chuckle and winked at the old woman. Louisa glared at them both. She turned her attention to Heather in time to see the girl rub her cheek lovingly against her husband's hand and murmur a reply to him as he bent over her. Jealousy raged within her. Her eyes fell to the handkerchief Heather was monograming for her husband and her eyes narrowed slyly.

"Whatever do you have there, darling? Do you waste your time with trivial sewing? I thought you would have more important things to attend to, married to Brandon." She cast a glance toward him. "But then, I suppose there are few real pleasures you can indulge in when you're that far along with child. As for myself, I..."

"Sewing is a gentle art, Louisa," Mrs. Fairchild interrupted, paying close attention to her own needlework. "One which you might do well to learn. It occupies the hand and keeps the mind from less desirable pursuits."

Deciding she could not successfully ruin Heather's fun without someone barging in to protect the little mouse, Louisa strolled away, bested for the moment but never beaten. There'd be another opportunity to shred the girl's confidence to ribbons, and she was patient. She smiled up at her new beau and rubbed her breast against his arm to tease him. He was not as handsome as Brandon nor half so rich, but he would do until she connived to get that arrogant and talented stud in her bed again.

Forever the bachelor on the make, Matt pulled Louisa behind a large bush and into his passionate embrace. He taunted her in turn with his own body, and his parted lips sought hers as his hand slid inside her bodice to caress her warm, abundant flesh.

"Not here," she murmured, pulling away slightly. "I know a place in the stables."

Hatti came out the front door with a tray of lemonade for the ladies, and Mrs. Clark greeted her warmly as she served them.

"Aren't you ready to leave this den of iniquity and come live with me, Hatti?" she iniquired. "We older folks must stick together, you know."

"No'm," Hatti declined with a chuckle. "I'm gonna have a new Birmingham to bring up shortly and Master will have to kick me out before I leave this place and Miss Heather. A team of Master Bran's mules couldn't pull me from here."