Or, knowing full well she did not, was he merely trying to provoke some emotional response from her?
How could a man and woman who cordially detested each other live in the same house? Year after miserable year? She and Ethan had only been married a couple of months, and already the strain was beginning to tell. The tension, the unhappiness—she knew it showed in both their faces.
If only they could have remained in Williamsburg, where the crepe myrtle was just beginning to bloom. Where there was some hope of learning about Terence. The many ac¬ivities of the public session would have kept Ethan too busy to pay her much notice. As it was, the two of them seemed to snap at each other like curs over a bone.
Yet she owed him an allegiance, difficult as it was to come by. He had saved her from her father’s wrath. The day her father sailed back to England, after discovering, too late, her marriage with Ethan—that day she was able to put her bitter childhood behind her forever.
She pushed the hair from her face and furiously stirred the fragrantly simmering bayberries. Other women might waste their lives in such a miserable union, but she would not! When this ridiculous war was over—surely, with England’s military power, in the next several months—she would divorce Ethan Gordon. Scandalous—but then she had faced down scandalmongers often since her arrival in the colonies. She would do it again. Whatever it cost to be at Terence’s side, she would pay.
Both One-eyed Peter and Josiah leaned on the lower half of the Dutch door. Josiah’s large, expressive brown eyes sought out Porhatra’s slender form, and not for the first time Jane wondered if Ethan also took an interest in the docile Indian maiden. When he entered the house, he would only nod dutifully at Jane but greet Porhatras in that low, guttural language so unlike his usual soft-spoken drawl.
Did he seek company for his empty bed in the arms of the Indian maiden? The thought stung Jane’s pride anew— and set off dissonant images in her mind. Images of Ethan winding Porhatras’s braids about his hands, of him kissing the delicate Indian woman’s soft, full lips.
Jane held up the ladle for Peter to see the transparent green wax drip. Not wanting to display her ignorance to Ethan, she had once again turned to the one-eyed servant for help. Josiah had explained patiently that bayberries were the best source for candles, since bayberries did not melt in the summer heat as did tallow candles. “Is it the right consistency yet?” she sighed.
“That it is, mistress. Now all that remains is pouring it into the candle rod molds. Here, let me tote the kettle.”
He pushed open the door and crossed the brick floor to heft the kettle for her. His large hands carried the weighty cast-iron kettle over to the molds as if it were a wicker basket. King George, who entered on Peter’s heels, sniffed curiously at the mixture that bubbled over the sides.
“Oh, mistress!” Peter chuckled, “you forgot to tie the wicks above the cylinders!”
The strain and tension that had been steadily building were released in her laughter, which bordered on hysteria. Josiah and Porhatras stared at her, for they failed to see the humor in the situation. “No wicks, no candlelight!” she gasped, wiping the laughter’s tears from the corner of her eyes.
“Peter! Josiah!” All four in the kitchen turned to find Ethan standing in the hall doorway. His dark eyes moved from one to another, glaring at them in reproof. “Icabod cannot hoe the cornfield alone.”
Peter ducked his head with an “Aye,” and, putting down the kettle, shuffled around Jane and Ethan. Josiah and Porhatras, with King George trailing, his tail tucked under him, slipped out the door to leave the two alone.
Jane’s eyes narrowed. “There was no reason for you to growl at the men. They were only helping me.”
“I won’t have my wife making eyes at every male in the vicinity, mistress. This is Mood Hill, not a jaded English salon.”
Her nails dug half moons into her palms. “This is not a gaol!”
“For all that it may be, thee is my wife, Jane. And thee will behave in a seemly fashion.”
“Your wife in name only!”
The stringent line of his lips eased slightly. “Would thee have it otherwise?”
“No! Do not twist my words. I meant that only a rector’s recited words bind us. No love, no duty hold me here. I shall leave when the time is right.”
He caught her shoulders, his thumbs anchoring beneath her collarbone. His eyes were whorls of black smoke. “Thee shall never leave. God, not a rector, has joined us together.”
The unrelenting edge in his voice severed all the plans she had been weaving. “What do you know of God?” she struck out in her fear. “You pious hypocrite—reading your Bible while you covet your neighbor’s wife!”
She saw the pain that flashed across his face, followed by a sardonic twist of his lips. “That is the second time thee has made the accusation. Do I detect jealousy in thee, Jane?”
She swung back to the kettle. “You detect absolutely nothing. I feel absolutely nothing.”
“Really?” His fingers touched the tendrils that curled at her nape beneath her lace cap, and her flesh tingled in a not unpleasant reaction. “Sometimes”—his breath warmed her neck—“sometimes, I would swear otherwise.”
She whirled, her lips parted to refute his statement, but he was already striding out the door toward the stairway.
Later that afternoon, in the beautifully furnished bedroom that was now hers, she drew back the lace-ruffled curtain from her unshuttered window and watched her husband stroll from the far field with the men who worked for him. From that distance, she could not see his marred visage; but she could make out his straight carriage, his light tread, and his solid build that made him seem a Goliath.
Never did he mistreat her, and before the others he addressed her with the high respect a husband would his wife. And alone? She did not know; for they managed to avoid being alone. A pang of guilt pricked her, for in her own painful dilemma, she had given no thought to what he must be suffering. Longing for one woman denied him, marrying another because . . .
As the thought slowly took form, she chewed on her lip in agitation. The laughter of the men’s camaraderie drifted up to the open window—and she knew then. One-eyed Peter, Icabod, who had to leave his family to find work; the deaf-mute Josiah; the club-footed Porhatras; and herself, a titled lady reduced to a servant’s station when she fled England to complete fate’s prophecy—why, we’re all misfits—misfits like himself.
The curtain material wrinkled between her fingers. Her husband’s compassion had purchased all of them! The thought was devastating to her pride. Her pride had enabled her to hold her head high in the worst of the times she had faced since indenturing herself. By looking down on him, castigating him, she could retain that pride. And now . . . what had she left?
The afternoon sky darkened, and Josiah pointed to the heavens. She glanced upward in expectation of a thundercloud. But the cloud she beheld was not spawned by a storm.
A cracking noise came with the black cloud as it neared, and only then did she realize that the indigo field, as well as the smaller fields of crops were suddenly aswarm with locusts. Below, the men ran for the fields, tearing their shirts off as they went. Stunned, she watched while they began beating at the tender indigo stalks, infested now with the locusts.
The men smashed at the insects, and she was sickened by the crunching noise that could be heard even from the distance of the house; yet, inexplicably, she turned to fly from the bedroom. She skimmed down the stairs, yelling, “Porhatras! Come!” Not even waiting for a reply, she grabbed up the Indian corn broom from the kitchen comer and dashed outside toward the fields.
The bodies of the feeding locusts cracked beneath her shoes. She swung the broom to ward off the hideous insects that lit on her arms and shoulders. Her skin crawled with revulsion. Still, she soon forgot herself, to flail at the plague of locusts devouring the indigo plants. Their clicking drone drowned out all other sound. As she grimly beat the air and ground, thei
r wings seemed to saw at her face. She kept her lips clinched tightly, more afraid that she might vomit than that a locust might fly in her mouth.
She looked up once to see Porhatras on her knees between rows of indigo, deftly scrunching locust after locust between her thumb and forefinger. Shudders shimmied up Jane’s spine, and she knew for certain she was going to be sick. Yet somehow she continued to kill the locusts.
Time ceased for her, and her body moved automatically. Sometime later she realized that the droning had ceased. In a daze, she looked around her. Porhatras was rising to her feet, a savage look of triumph distorting her handsome features. Icabod crooked a tired grin, and Peter slapped Josiah’s back. “We did it, my friend! We beat the locusts!”
The sickness she had thrust from her rose rapidly in her throat, and she spun from the others, one hand clamped at her mouth, the other clutching at her stomach. Ethan caught up with her before she reached the nearest sycamore and held her by the waist as she doubled over. Her stomach retched in painful dry heaves. She began to cry. Tearless sobs wracked her body. She hated her weakness, always crying in moments of crises.
“ ’Tis all right, Jane,” his low voice consoled. “ ’Tis over with.”
“Oh, God!” she wept. She tore from his grasp, running for the house.
At the well she dipped her hands in the bucket and washed her neck and face and hands feverishly, as if by doing so she could rub out the revulsion of the afternoon. Ethan found her there. She looked up as, shirtless, he strode toward her. “I hate it here! I hate it, do you hear me!” she gritted.
He caught her wrists and drew her to him. “I know. I know,” he soothed, pressing her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “ ’Tis not an easy land. ’Tis only for the strong of heart. And thee is strong, Jane.”
She realized he understood what she was feeling—the horror of the afternoon, the shame at her weakness—and sensed he was trying to make her feel better. His large chest was bare, and his flesh, the color of cognac, glistened with sweat beneath her fingertips. For a long moment she allowed herself the pleasure of being held this way. His smooth skin made her forget the crackly bodies of the locusts, the brown slime that oozed when they were crushed. But she doubted she would ever forget the clicking noise their wing sheaths made at her ears.
Almost regretfully, she pulled away from Ethan. The sudden longing for Terence was a bittersweet pain. With a tremulous smile, she said, “I’m all right now.”
But she wasn’t. She would not stay in that hated land a day longer than need be! Reaching the kitchen door, she turned to watch Ethan head back toward the others who trudged out of the fields. His warm, resonant voice, thanking them for their efforts, reached her ears. She pivoted and rushed inside. There was time.
Speeding up the staircase, she reached Ethan’s room and crossed to the secretary. She took a sheet of parchment and dashed out the same letter to Terence as before. Though he might not receive this letter either, by writing it, by corresponding, she was doing more than marking time. Emotionally the writing of the letter was a catharsis for her; yet intellectually she recognized that little could be done until the silly war was over. Silly, because Parliament in its obstinacy had provoked it.
When she went to look for the blotting sand, her fingernail snagged on something. Curious, she drew out the offending object—a mere sheet of blank paper but with an hourglass hole cut from its center. Why would Ethan—
“I told thee to ask before rifling through my desk.”
She whirled, thrusting the cutout behind her into the drawer. Ethan, with that soft, Indianlike tread of his, had managed to come within a foot of her without her hearing. “I’m—I’m sorry. But I wanted to write a letter—to my father—assuring him that all was well—tell him about the episode with the locusts.”
She knew she was stuttering, but she could not help herself. Ethan’s dark gaze was formidable. “Odd,” he drawled. “Because I would have sworn thee did not have a close filial relationship with thy father.”
She colored. “He is still my father.”
“I see. ” He reached around her and picked up her letter from the desk top. “The salutation is to Terence, mistress,” he said in a sardonic tone.
His calm self-assurance angered her. She tried to snatch the letter from his hand, but he held it out of her reach. “You have your Susan to yearn for,” she spit. “Leave me my own dream!”
“Jane, I will never leave thee. Thee is my responsibility. Just as thee shall never leave me.” With a quiet deliberation he shredded the letter and, walking to the hearth, tossed the shreds into the fireplace.
She wanted to fling herself against him. For an instant she wished she were a man that she might call him out in a duel. “You’re more of a tyrant than King George could ever be! You—you beast!” The last she flung inadequately at his broad back and stalked from the room.
He was not to let her forget her parting volley.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ethan was leaving. He and Icabod were to drive two wagonloads of dye cakes to Ethan’s warehouse in Williamsburg. Jane approached the wagon parked near the shed and watched the men load the layers of dye cakes. Ethan straightened and looked down at her from his elevated position in the wagon’s bed. September’s early morning sun mellowed the angles of his face, casting that corduroyed portion of skin beneath his cheekbone into shadow. The faded brown cotton tunic clung with perspiration to the wide span of his chest.
“Aye, mistress?”
Suddenly shy before the three field hands, she smoothed her apron. Why didn’t she ask him that morning, when he came into her bedroom to tell her he would be gone for three or four days? But he had caught her relacing the drawstrings of her bodice. Lazing in the doorway, he had been unable to repress the twitching of his mouth as she struggled to close the gaping material that revealed the deep plunge between her breasts. And she had been too distraught at his presence to pose her question then.
She shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up at her husband who hunkered down on the wagon’s bed. “I— may I ride into Williamsburg with you—Ethan?” There, she had said his name in a wifely manner for the benefit of Icabod, Josiah, and Peter.
Fists planted on narrow hips, Ethan drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. She knew he was not fooled by the warm inflection she gave his name. “ ’Tis impossible, mistress. The Secret Committee is demanding the Oath of Loyalty from every citizen now. And from certain seditious statements thee has made, I do not think thee will willingly give the oath.”
“I shall say nothing to betray my feelings.”
“Without saying a word, thee betrays thy feelings. The look in thy eyes—the way thee holds thy head—’tis enough to set off a man like Wainwright. To set off any man,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Then, at a curious glance from Icabod, he said more briskly, “ ’Tis more than that. Dunmore has seized Norfolk. Detachments of British soldiers are raiding nearby villages and plantations. ’Tis not safe to be on the road now. In my absence Peter will defend Mood Hill from the marauding soldiers.”
Concern for Mood Hill but not her. Stung, she struck back through the safer subject. “The Crown is only doing its duty. What would your Quaker teachings have a parent do when its child rebels? Sit idle while the child throws a temper tantrum?”
“There is something absurd, mistress, in a continent continually governed by an island.”
Neither was really listening to what the other said. They were at it again. Baiting each other. “The colonies can still reconcile themselves,” she declared heatedly. “It’s not too late for harmony to be restored.”
His mouth tightened. “Can thee restore prostitution to its former innocence?”
Icabod cleared his throat. They both looked at him, then realized they were not alone. Ethan turned his back on her and hefted another skid of dye cakes into place. Clearly he considered the discussion—and her request—put to rest. She threw a contemptuou
s glance at his back and stalked off to the kitchen.
Yet she stubbornly refused to give ground. Before the wagon with its cargo of indigo could roll away, she strategically grabbed up a farmer’s felt, wide-brimmed hat and hurried outside, handing it to Icabod. “For the sun,” she explained, eyeing his pink balding head.
“Why thank ye, lass,” he said gratefully.
She slid Ethan a glance. But he kept his hands on the reins and his eyes straight ahead. He was not going to give her a chance to ask again. Arguments obviously did not work. She walked around to Ethan’s side and stood on tiptoe, her hand braced on the brake. “Good-bye, Ethan,” she said sweetly, offering her face up for a kiss.
Her husband’s startled expression delighted her. But the swift peck he rendered was not the thorough kiss of before. And he snapped the reins over the team, as if the Hounds of Hell were on his trail.
Over the next three days she moved about the house in a huffy mood. King George prowled restlessly with her. Even Porhatras forsook her beloved mistress to seek consolation in the perfect afternoon. The fair Indian maiden, clothed in a sleeveless buckskin shirt and a pink plaid calico skirt, sat outside the kitchen in the shade of the roof’s overhang and strung on linen thread the harvested apples intended for drying.
In the kitchen Jane pared the sweet and sour apples into the brass kettle suspended from the stout crane in the open fireplace. From her view through the open upper half of the Dutch door, she saw Josiah’s lanky frame approach with another barrel of apples. She could hear Porhatras’s musical voice greet the field hand and saw the way his thin face lightened. Did he truly understand anything the Indian woman said? Or did it matter to him? Doubtlessly not. His crinkly eyes announced his lovesickness.
Jane peeled ruthlessly at the apple. Another Indian summer was upon Mood Hill, and she was more a prisoner than ever. She would have it out once and for all with Ethan when he returned. She would declare her intention to go to Williamsburg more often. After all, she was no longer a servant. She was a wife. She now had the freedom of choosing what she wished to do. She would no longer bow before his autocratic behavior.
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