River Lady

by Jude Deveraux

  After two weeks of treatments, Nicole, her hands in Leah’s clean, soft, shining hair, stood back. “Do you think we can show her now?” she asked with a smile.

  “Wait.” Regan laughed. “Put this on, Leah.” She held out a deep green silk taffeta dressing gown, embroidered with tiny, colorful birds.

  “I couldn’t.” Leah hesitated, but Nicole’s look stopped her. Leah dropped the plain muslin gown she wore and slid her arms into the silk, her eyes rolling slightly at the feel of it. “It’s lovely.”

  “All right, now stand right here,” Regan ordered, posing Leah before a full-length mirror that was draped with a bed sheet.

  When Regan, with a flourish, pulled the sheet away, Leah made no reaction—because she had no idea who the person in the mirror was. She turned to see who was behind her, but when the reflection moved also, she stood still.

  The woman in the mirror was not just pretty; she was beautiful. Long, thick auburn hair cascaded about her shoulders, down her back, and big green, intense eyes looked out of a square-jawed face marked with a full, sensuous mouth. Tentatively, Leah lifted her hand to touch her own cheek—and the next minute she collapsed in a heap on the bed while Regan and Nicole laughed.

  “I think we’ve succeeded,” Regan said in triumph, then her head came up. “I want to show her off. Just a bit, right now.”

  “It’s early,” Nicole warned.

  “Come along, Leah,” Regan said, taking Leah’s hand.

  Regan led Leah through a part of the house she’d never seen before, through long hallways, past a vast dining room. “Does this place have an end?”

  “You’ll learn your way around. Now we’re going to Travis’s office.”

  “Wesley’s brother?”

  Regan gave a short laugh. “Wesley is usually thought of as Travis’s little brother.”

  “Not to me,” Leah said with confidence.

  Travis was sitting behind an enormous desk, ledgers open before him, one of his clerks beside him. Regan stood Leah before the desk and when the clerk looked up, his mouth dropped open in amazement. Travis glanced up, saw the man’s expression, and turned to look at Leah.

  “Good God!” he said, sucking air through his teeth. “She’s not—.”

  “She is,” Regan said proudly.

  “Fetch us some tea,” Travis commanded his clerk. “And stop gawking! Here, sit down. Leah, is it?”

  As if she’d always been treated as a lady, Leah demurely sat on the upholstered chair Travis held for her. The robe had parted somewhat and was exposing a great deal of cleavage, which Travis was enjoying. He looked up to see Regan glaring at him.

  “Filled out some, hasn’t she?” he said with a grin.

  The tea arrived almost instantly with two maids and a butler carrying a big silver tray, all three of them and Travis’s clerk gaping at Leah.

  “Out! All of you!” Travis commanded.

  Leah sat still, returning all their looks with curiosity, wondering who they were and what their jobs were.

  When the room was clear, Travis poured tea for Leah into a fragile porcelain cup and held it out to her with great politeness.

  “I am hungry,” Leah said and noisily moved her chair closer to the desk where the tray of cakes and sandwiches had been set. She blew loudly on the tea, slurped it so it bubbled through her teeth, set the wet cup down on the wooden desktop, then picked up three small pastries, mashed them in her saucer, poured cream from the silver pitcher over them, and began eating the concoction with her teaspoon. Halfway through she looked up to see Travis, Regan, and Nicole gaping at her.

  Nicole was the first to recover. “We have a bit more work to do yet,” she said softly before sipping delicately from her teacup.

  “That you do,” Travis said with a grunt.

  Leah resumed eating.

  Three days later Leah swore she hated those little cups and saucers that looked so pretty but seemed to always be falling apart in her hands. Regan threatened Leah’s life if she broke one more piece of expensive imported porcelain, so Leah again tried to learn how to handle them.

  “What does it matter how you eat as long as you get it inside?” Leah half cried as Nicole again corrected her use of a fork.

  “Think of Wesley,” Nicole said, using the phrase as a slogan to urge Leah on—and it always worked. The women used Wesley to entice Leah, to force her to be patient and learn the manners she needed to know. And they got the whole story from Leah about how she’d met Wes, how she’d loved him forever.

  After Leah had been at the Stanford Plantation for two months, her father, Elijah, was found dead in the river. Travis paid for a funeral that was beautiful. For the first time since she’d married Wesley, Leah saw her brothers and sisters. Each of them had gained weight, were unbruised and clinging to the hands of the people who’d taken them in. They looked at Leah with wide eyes, not even sure who she was, and left with their new families; Leah shed tears of joy because they seemed so happy now.

  Once, Leah looked across her father’s coffin and into the gaze of a beautiful young woman. But before Leah could even look her fill at this vision, Regan nudged her and Leah turned away. When she looked back, the woman was gone.

  “Who was she?” Leah asked later.

  “Kimberly Shaw,” Regan answered tightly.

  The woman who was supposed to marry Wesley, Leah thought, feeling very smug. She may have wanted him but I got him.

  Seeing the woman, Leah resolved to work harder so she’d please Wesley when he returned in the spring.

  Leah set her cup down easily, quietly, as if she’d always known how to eat and drink properly, leaned toward Travis, and smiled prettily. “And do you think this new cotton gin will help speed production? You don’t think the cotton market will collapse like the tobacco market did?”

  Regan and Nicole leaned back in their chairs and watched their protégé with pleasure. It had taken months of work, but Leah was passing the test. They’d never attempted to instruct Leah in what to talk about, merely how to say the words, so they were surprised when her main interest was farming. But of course she’d never been able to read—and they’d not yet tried to teach her how—so Leah talked of what she knew: farming.

  And Travis was eating it up, Regan thought with disgust. Sometimes, when Regan was talking about household problems, she’d see Travis’s eyes glaze over, but with Leah asking about his beloved fields, horses, and blacksmith shop, Travis was practically on the edge of his seat.

  “In the morning,” Travis was saying, “you can ride out with me and have a look at the tobacco.”

  “No,” Nicole said softly. “Tomorrow Leah goes home with me. I have been away too long and it’s time we dressed her.”

  “She looks dressed to me,” Travis said appreciatively, looking at the low-cut muslin gown Leah wore.

  “Travis,” Regan warned, ready to tell him what she thought of his ogling of Leah.

  Nicole laughed and prevented the impending quarrel. “No, Leah must go with me. The fabrics I ordered have come at last and my seamstress is there. Also, I’ll start teaching her how to manage a plantation. She can start on someplace small before tackling this monster of yours, Travis.”

  After a frown, Travis smiled, then took Leah’s hand and kissed it. “I’m going to miss your pretty face around here but Clay’ll take care of you.”

  Later Regan walked with Leah to Wes’s bedroom. “Nicole has an army of French craftsmen at her place. She and Clay went back to France last summer and returned with people Nicole had known when she lived there. Her dressmaker used to work for the queen. Now sleep well because you’ll leave early in the morning. Good night.”

  Leah removed her dress, an altered one of Nicole’s, put on a clean nightgown, and slipped into bed. It was July now, she thought. There was all the winter to go and then spring before Wesley would return to her. Touching her clean, soft hair, she knew she looked very different, and she prayed that she’d please him when he returned. More t
han anything, she wanted to please him. “I will be the best wife in the world to you,” she whispered and fell asleep smiling.

  In the morning before it was even light, Nicole and Leah were escorted by Travis to the dock. In the five months that she’d been there, Leah had barely seen the plantation except from her window, because she’d always been inside with Regan and Nicole, practicing her walk, her grammar, her table manners, how to sit, how to stand, whatever ordeal could be imagined for her.

  At the dock, Travis bent and kissed her cheek, and touching the place, Leah looked up at him in wonder. “We’ll miss you,” he called as a man helped Leah into the waiting sloop.

  Smiling, she waved to them until they sailed out of sight. How heavenly, she thought, how warm and kind and loving everything was. For moments she could almost forget what it was like to be angry twenty-four hours a day.

  She turned to Nicole, who was watching her. “If Wesley were here it’d be perfect,” Leah said laughing, hugging herself.

  “I hope you’re right,” Nicole murmured, mostly to herself, before looking away.

  Chapter 4

  At the dock of Arundel Plantation waiting to greet Nicole were identical twin boys, six years old, and two beautiful seventeen-year-old twins who were introduced as Alex and Amanda. Clay waited impatiently while everyone else hugged his wife, then he swept her into his arms for an embarrassingly passionate kiss, after which they walked away, each holding one of the boys’ hands and looking into each other’s eyes.

  “They’re always like that,” Alex said half in disgust.

  “They’re in love, you idiot,” Amanda snapped before turning to Leah. “Would you like to see the cloth that came in? Uncle Clay says it’s for you.”

  “I have better things to do, so if you ladies will excuse me,” Alex said as he mounted a beautiful roan horse and rode away.

  “We don’t need him anyway,” Amanda said. “Come on, we have to hurry. Madame Gisele is awful when she’s kept waiting. If she bullies you too much, just threaten to send her back to France. It makes her keep quiet for a few minutes at least,” Amanda confided.

  As Leah and Amanda walked together, Amanda chattering away, Leah was watching the early morning bustle going on about her as people went in and out of what seemed to be hundreds of buildings. Leah asked questions.

  “The overseer’s cottage, workers’ quarters, ice house, the stables through there, the kitchen,” were Amanda’s answers. “She’s upstairs waiting for us.” Amanda led Leah through an octagonal porch at the back of a big brick house, up some beautiful stairs, past tables covered with freshly cut flowers. “Mom—I mean Nicole—likes lots of flowers. Here we are, Madame,” Amanda said politely to a tiny little woman with a big nose and fierce black eyes.

  “You have taken your time,” Madame Gisele said in such an odd way that Leah didn’t quite understand her.

  “It’s her accent,” Amanda whispered. “Took me awhile too.”

  “Out!” Madame commanded. “We have work to do and you are in the way.”

  “Yes, of course,” Amanda said, laughing as she curtsied before leaving the room.

  “Insolent girl!” Madame snapped, but there was affection in her voice. Then her eyes were on Leah, walking around her, examining her.

  “Yes, yes, a good figure, a bit large in the bosom but your husband likes that, no?”

  Leah smiled, turned red, and began to study the wallpaper of the attic room.

  “Come, come, don’t stand there. There’s work to be done. Show me what you like so we can begin.” She motioned toward shelves along one wall that were loaded with bolts and rolls of fabric.

  Leah stuck out her finger to touch a piece of deep blue velvet. “I…I don’t know,” Leah said. “I like everything. Nicole and Regan usually—.”

  “Ah!” Madame Gisele cut her off. “Madame Regan is not here and Nicole is no doubt in the throes of passion with that magnificent man of hers and she will be of no use for days. So! Now you must learn to rely on yourself. Stand up straight! No dress will ever hang properly if your shoulders droop so. Have some pride in yourself. You are a beautiful woman, you have a rich, handsome husband who will return to you soon and now we will dress you splendidly. You have much to be proud of so show it!”

  Yes, Leah thought, she is perfectly correct. I do have a lot to be proud of. She turned toward the fabric. “I like this,” she said, touching a rust-colored velvet.

  “Good! And what else?”

  “This and this and…this one.”

  Madame Gisele stood back for a moment, looked up at Leah, then gave a short laugh. “You may look frightened but you’re afraid of no one. True, no?”

  Leah considered the question seriously. “Nicole and Regan are so sure of themselves. Everything they do is perfect.”

  “They were born to wealth but people like you and me…we have to learn. I will help you, that is, if you aren’t afraid of hard work.”

  Leah smiled at that, remembering the feel of the plow harness about her shoulders. “People who live in houses like this don’t even know what work is.”

  “You will do,” Madame Gisele said, laughing. “You will do.”

  What followed for Leah were days of measurements, pinnings, and being bullied by Madame.

  “Lingerie!” the little woman said repeatedly. “You may have to forego silk for everyday wear on that nasty farm you’re going to, but underneath you’ll be a lady.”

  At first Leah was shocked by the semitransparent garments of Indian cotton, but she soon grew to like them. Madame and her workers created a stunning wardrobe for Leah with many plain, everyday dresses of printed muslin and several silk and velvet creations for whatever society existed in the new state of Kentucky.

  And always, Madame helped build Leah’s confidence. “You are a Stanford now and entitled to the privileges that go with the name.”

  Unconsciously, Leah began to stand straighter, and within another month, she acted as if she’d always eaten her meals at a table and worn satin dresses.

  When the fall harvest was in and Clay could relax, he began to spend time with Leah. Each morning they went out together and he taught her to ride.

  “I like her,” Clay told Nicole one night. “She’s very serious, always wanting to please, trying to learn everything at once.”

  “It’s for Wesley,” Nicole said softly, looking up from the needlework in her lap. “Even after the way he’s treated her, leaving her after their one night together and again leaving her after their marriage, she still believes the sun rises and sets on that man. I just hope…”

  “You hope what?” Clay asked.

  “Wesley is so much like Travis and when either one of them gets something in his head it’s not easy to change.”

  “And what do you want to change?”

  “Kimberly,” Nicole answered.

  Clay gave a snort of disgust. “Wes was saved when he didn’t marry that bitch. Kimberly believes the world should be laid at her feet, and, unfortunately, it generally is.”

  “And most often it’s put there by Wesley. I don’t think he’s going to easily forget Kimberly.”

  “He will,” Clay said with a chuckle. “Wes isn’t stupid, and after he spends a few weeks alone with a beauty like Leah, he’ll never even remember that Kimberly exists.”

  Nicole had her own ideas of the stupidity of men when it came to pretty women, but she said nothing as she turned back to her sewing.

  It was that winter, as work on the plantation began to slow down, that Leah discovered weaving. When Nicole showed Leah the loom house, Leah was reluctant to leave. The beautiful cloth, the coverlets taking shape under the women’s hands, shuttles flying, treadles working smoothly, fascinated Leah.

  “Would you like to try your hand on a loom?” asked a big blonde woman who Nicole introduced as Janie Langston.

  “I’m not sure I could do that,” Leah said hesitantly. There seemed to be thousands of threads on the loom going in and out of
looped strings, with a metal comb tied to a wooden bar.

  “Would you like to try?” Janie urged as Leah reverently touched a piece of woven cloth.

  “Very much,” Leah said positively.

  Nicole led Leah around more of the plantation, but Leah didn’t see much of it because her mind was still on the fabrics she’d seen. “Do you really think I could make something like that?” Leah asked while she was supposed to be looking at the dairy cows. She’d milked cows since she could walk and they didn’t interest her, but the idea of being able to create such beauty did.

  “Yes, Leah, I believe you could. Would you like it if we went back to the loom house now?”

  Leah’s eyes sparkled in answer.

  Leah spent the next months seldom more than a few feet away from Janie, who taught her everything from caring for sheep, shearing, and dyeing to spinning, dressing a loom, and weaving. And Leah took to it all as if she’d been born with a shuttle in her hand.

  In the evenings she sat behind a spinning wheel and the threads she produced were even and very fine. During the days she put her stool near the loom heddles and pulled threads through according to Janie’s intricate pattern without a single error and without losing her patience. When she wove she threw the shuttle straight through and brought the beater back with a great deal of strength.

  In January, Janie said it was time to learn to draft her own patterns.

  “But I can’t read,” Leah said.

  “Neither can my other weavers. Now, first you learn to draw your pattern.”

  In the next few weeks Nicole twice found Leah asleep over a table covered with pattern drafts, intricate graphs of blocks of numbers and treadling charts, as well as tie-ups. She’d extended the numbers to draw the six harness patterns on paper to check herself for errors. There were names such as double chariot wheel, double bow knot, velvet rose, snail trail, and wheel and star.