Ambrosia

by Rosanne Kohake

  She gave a short nod and proceeded stiffly up the steps.

  “As I told the corporal,” she began once she was comfortably seated in the chair Drayton had offered her, “I am here to speak with you about a personal matter...a matter of some urgency.’’ She hesitated, avoiding his eyes as she added, ‘’A matter of some delicacy.’’

  Drayton took a seat at his desk and leaned back, inclining his head in curiosity. There was a short space of silence before Susannah spoke again, her voice calm in spite of her anger, in spite of her reluctance to broach such a subject with a total stranger.

  “I will try to be brief, Major, but I think it best to be­ gin at the beginning. I arrived in Charleston with two other women in December, almost three months ago. We were sent here by our church, to open a school for illiterate freedmen and their children, which we since have done.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I digress.” She drew a deep breath and began again, the words coming faster, her voice trembling a bit. “The very morning of our arrival, while we were still trying to locate the house our agent had purchased for us, there was a commotion in the street. I hurried forward to see what it was, and I discovered a young woman, lying facedown in the street. I thought at first that she had stumbled and fallen, and in doing so, had struck her head. But I found instead that she was seriously ill, burning up with fever. No one seemed to know who she was or where she was going, so Mrs. Gaines and Mrs. Caldwell and I took it upon ourselves to care for her.” She paused, searching Drayton’s face for some sign he understood what she was talking about. His expression was indifferent. “She was very, very ill,” Susannah went on hurriedly. “She required constant attention for several days. We even called in a physician, though Mrs. Caldwell and I have had years of experience in nursing-’’

  “Are you requesting a donation for your good Christian work, Mrs. Burton?” he interrupted impatiently.

  “Certainly not, Major!”

  “Then I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.” “But you must know her, Major,” she pleaded earnestly. “She called you by name. She was delirious, and I could not understand much of what she said, but I know that she called for you- ‘’

  Susannah stopped short at the sudden change in his eyes. He had gone so pale it frightened her, and his expression was one of total vulnerability. He closed his eyes. “Ambrosia,” he whispered.

  For a long time he said nothing more. The silence in the room was poignant. His eyes opened then, and the pain and despair in them took Susannah completely by surprise. “She called for me, you said?”

  Susannah nodded. “Many times.”

  He lifted his chin and hardened his expression, reminding Susannah very much of a small boy trying to be a man. “Is-is she dead?”

  She resisted an urge to place a comforting hand on his arm. “She is very much alive, Major,” she assured him. “She was very ill for a time, but she recovered completely from the fever.”

  Drayton let out his breath and ran a hand anxiously through his hair. He rose from his chair and paced nervously across the room, back and forth, back and forth, without a word. He was in dire need of a good stiff drink. Between his anger and his relief, he did not even know what he was feeling anymore.

  She was alive. Thank God for that. He almost felt like he had died himself a few moments ago, when he’d thought her dead. With his back to Susannah he closed his eyes and let out a sigh while his fingers kneaded the tense muscles at the back of his neck. She was too strong to die, he thought, too much of a fighter. And yet, that night she had seemed so small and so broken. ...

  “There is more.”

  With a start, he whirled to face her, his eyes wide and somewhat dazed. “More?”

  Susannah nodded. “Perhaps you’d better sit down again, Major.”

  He obeyed her order without protest, all the while regarding her warily.

  “I have good reason to believe that she is in a family way.”

  Susannah watched him closely as she broke the news, carefully trying to gauge his reaction. She expected the surprise, but certainly not the smile that began to play about his mouth, or the grin that eventually followed. He actually seemed pleased with the news.

  “Did she send you here?” he asked abruptly.

  Somewhat disconcerted, she met the hopeful gleam in his eye and slowly shook her head. The hopeful gleam faded, as did his smile. “She doesn’t want to see me, does she?” His tone was edged in bitterness.

  Susannah bit her lip nervously, and while she was still trying to think of how to respond, Drayton’s fist struck the desk with a resounding thud. Her head snapped up. “Then what the hell is she planning to do about the child?”

  Susannah winced at his rather untoward choice of language. “Well,” she began carefully, “she spoke of leaving Charleston-’’

  “Leaving? Is that all she spoke of?” he pressed none too gently. “She hasn’t tried to end it?”

  Susannah gave him a look of total bewilderment, as if he were quite mad. “End what?”

  He let out a long breath and rose to begin pacing again, this time with crisp, angry steps, all the while muttering under his breath, “Of course she would not end it. She probably knows nothing of such things. And even if she did, she would not consider-’’ He stopped short and faced Susannah. “She would have left without even telling me?”

  Susannah gave a helpless shrug and he began pacing again. She watched him uneasily. She wished she knew more about him, about what had been between Ambrosia and him. He was not responding at all as she had expected.

  He turned to her suddenly, his eyes bright with anger, his tone demanding more than inquiring. “Where is she?”

  Susannah frowned. “I-I must know your intentions before I reveal that to you, Major.”

  He glared at her. “My intentions!”

  She nodded.

  His mouth twisted in a cold sort of smile. “My intention, Mrs. Burton,” he returned succinctly, “is to make Ambrosia my wife the moment I get my hands on her.”

  Susannah’s eyes widened in amazement. Without a single word of prodding he intended to do the honorable thing. She let out a long sigh, relieved that she would not need to persuade him. He did not look to be the type who was easily lead. She withdrew a card from her pocket and gave it to Drayton. “This is the address of our school.”

  He glanced at it and then at Susannah. “I shall be forever indebted to you, Mrs. Burton.”

  He gave a polite nod as he took up his hat and gloves and made to leave. Susannah stood up and followed him to the door. “You-you’re not going to her now?”

  “Is there any reason why I should wait?”

  “No, of course not. Only-” Susannah frowned as she hurried along beside him. ‘’Only-only-’’

  He stopped at the top of the stairs. “Only what, Mrs. Burton?”

  “She may not be there,” Susannah said finally. “She spends a few hours every other day at the boardinghouse next door.”

  He snorted his displeasure as he drew on a pair of heavy buckskin gloves. “And what, pray tell, does she do at this boardinghouse?”

  Susannah’s voice was small. “A number of things she ought not to do in her condition.”

  He met Susannah’s eyes with a fierce scowl, then jerked the brim of his hat low on his brow and marched down the stairs.

  Chapter 22

  The hall and stairway were in sore need of paint, the ceiling stained with recurrent water leaks, the plaster walls cracked and spotted. Ambrosia grimaced as she dipped the scrubbing brush into the heavy pail of water and glanced about the landing. She hated this place almost as much as she despised its new Yankee owner, who refused to make necessary repairs, who rented every inch of what had once been an elegant home to poor whites and drunkards and derelicts. Ambrosia was grateful she hadn’t known the previous owners of this place or of t
he place that was now the Vermont Christian School. Too many fine people had been forced to leave Charleston, people who belonged here, people her father had known intimately.

  She let out a lengthy breath through clenched teeth as the door slammed on the floor below and the telltale scuff of heavy boots was heard on the stairs. Zachary Skinner, the owner of the building and her employer, generally “chanced by” on the days she cleaned the halls and followed her about, making comments on everything she did. Ambrosia would not have minded that so much if he hadn’t persisted in looking at her like a hungry wolf drooling over a fat chicken. That look, and the way he had managed to “accidentally” brush her breasts and buttocks far too often in the past month, made Ambrosia’s flesh crawl at the mere thought of facing him again. If she hadn’t needed the money so desperately, she would have doused him thoroughly with the bucket of strong lye soap and water, and told him what he could do with his filthy Yankee tenement house. But she couldn’t afford the luxury of losing her temper just yet.

  She fixed her eyes on the scrubbing brush and moved it vigorously over the planked wooden landing, trying not to think about the lecherous eyes that were probably on her already. The footfalls came nearer and stopped. Her fingers gripped the brush tightly and she clenched her jaw, scrubbing, scrubbing.

  A pair of freshly polished black leather boots moved to block the next stroke of her brush. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. The boots were not Mr. Skinner’s, whose feet were ridiculously small for a man of his girth and always spattered with mud or something worse. Slowly, hesitantly, her eyes drifted upward. Her breath caught and she stared at him for a long moment, feeling a joyous excitement at the sight of his dark face, his blue eyes. She started to smile, but quickly caught herself, realizing she had no reason to smile. She lowered her eyes. He was her enemy, and she had promised herself that she would never feel anything but hatred and shame if she saw him again. She certainly wanted no part of the temporary “arrangement” he had offered her. And there had been that pretty dark-haired girl at the market that day, clinging possessively to his arm. At the thought of that girl, Ambrosia suddenly realized that there was a good chance he no longer wanted her at all. He might have come here strictly by chance, she thought, feeling shame and self-loathing that she had ever thought otherwise.

  Drayton heaved a sigh as he drew off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, torn between the desire to take her into his arms and an equal need to give her a piece of his mind. She ought not to be working in a place like this, especially not in her condition. Her skin was pale and she was so damned thin it almost hurt to look at her. Her cheeks were hollow, the squared line of her jaw much too prominent, and her eyes were too bright and enormous for her face. For a moment, she had almost seemed pleased to see him. But that moment had quickly passed. She was not happy to see him now.

  He took off his hat and stooped down, his hand covering both of hers, effectively stopping the vigorous movement of the scrubbing brush. Ambrosia looked up, startled. His face was only inches from her own. She swallowed hard and lowered her eyes again, fixing them on the lean tanned fingers which covered hers. A hot blush crept into her cheeks and her voice came small and timorous. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

  She heard the familiar cocky tone and felt a surge of anger. Her eyes flashed indignantly. “I work here.”

  “So I see.” He glanced about, scowling at the peeling paint and chipped plaster, grimacing as he drew a deep breath of the tainted air. He wrenched the scrubbing brush from her hands and shook his head, pretending to study it intently. “Not the most pleasant of working conditions... and it couldn’t pay as well as Maggie’s...”

  She wrestled the brush away and dunked it in the pail, sloshing a considerable wave of water on the floor. She was pleased when a bit of it dulled the brilliance of one of his shiny black boots. “What do you want?” She tossed him the question as she began to scrub fiercely at the floor.

  “I wanted to see you.” His voice was gentle and Ambrosia felt her heart begin to pound. “I was very concerned about you.”

  A part of her actually wanted to fling herself into his arms like a helpless woman, to allow herself to feel his strength, to allow herself to cry. But she could never do that. “And now you’ve seen me,” she returned with a flippant shrug. She took the scrubbing brush to the comer and worked industriously at the buildup of dirt there. “You have nothing more to be concerned about.”

  There was a moment of silence. Drayton’s cheeks flexed with irritation. “We need to talk, Ambrosia.” His voice had changed again. He was giving her an order.

  “We have nothing to talk about.”

  He grasped her shoulders hard and brought her abruptly to her feet. His eyes were hard and bright as they met hers. “Do you realize that you left me that morning without a single word of explanation?”

  Her eyes were narrowed and every bit as bright as his. “I owed you no explanation.”

  “Are you trying to tell me,” he said slowly, “that what happened between us meant nothing to you?”

  For what seemed like an eternity, she could not answer. It had meant far too much to her, and she had spent many nights trying to rationalize away the feelings she could not explain. But then the flames of Heritage flared in her mind, and the softness left her expression. She had lived with that memory too, these past weeks, and she wanted no part of Drayton Rambert.

  ‘’It meant I drank too much brandy,’’ she said finally, “and made a very bad mistake.”

  His disbelieving eyes questioned her statement for a long moment. Slowly he released his grip on her shoulders and turned his back to her, letting out a weary sigh. He leaned forward against the curved banister, his fingers turning white as they dug into the wood, his eyes becoming distant as they pondered the steps that wound below.

  “I am bound by honor to marry you,” he announced after a long silence.

  For an instant Ambrosia was stunned. He had offered her marriage! But something in the way he had offered it was very wrong. Bound by honor, he had said. Not by love or by choice. It was as if he was simply doing his duty, carrying out an order that resulted from his taking her virginity. Insulted, Ambrosia gave a derisive snort. “What do Yankees know of honor?”

  He whirled to face her, his jaw taunt, his eyes piercing. “I will not see my child born a bastard, Ambrosia.”

  A startled gasp burst from her lips and she felt herself trembling inside. Her bravado crumbled. “H-How did you know about that?” she whispered, her hand instinctively covering her stomach.

  “It’s true then?”

  She turned away and blinked back a tear. His proposal had little or nothing to do with her. He knew about the child. His pride would not allow a part of himself to be born in shame. No wonder he had seen fit to offer marriage. “Are you so certain the child is yours, Major?” she flung back at him, feeling hurt and angry and not daring to ask herself why she felt those things. “How do you know I haven’t had other men?”

  He straightened abruptly, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He grasped her arm and turned her about to face him squarely, meeting the familiar intransigent gleam in her green eyes, and beyond that, something else...fear? uncertainty? hurt? Whatever it was, it lessened his anger. He lifted his hand to touch her cheek and bent close to her, his eyes pleading. She swallowed hard and tried to pull away. ‘’Is the thought of marrying me so repulsive, Ambrosia?” he breathed. He paused, allowing his lips to play warmly over hers. “Do you feel nothing when I touch you?”

  She turned away, wishing she could hide the shudders that echoed through her with every touch of his mouth. It frightened her, to know he had such power over her senses.

  “I am not so naive as to place value on any such feelings,” she managed to say.

  He raised his head and gave a small smile. “It’s a be
ginning.”

  Her jaw tightened defiantly and her eyes were hard. She knew all too well where such “beginnings” led. She would be expected to serve him like a slave, to obey his every command, to give up what little freedom she had as a woman and what little pride she had regained these past months. She looked at the floor. “You’re a Yankee. You don’t really expect me to marry a Yankee, do you?”

  “I didn’t expect you to come to me that night, Ambrosia.” He saw her stiffen and clench her fists at that, her face twisting with sadness and regret. A distant look came into her eyes then, the look of a lost child waking from a nightmare. He knew that look, knew she was thinking of the man she loved, the man who had held them apart, even that night. The knowledge filled him with jealousy and despair... and pity.

  “I do not expect you to forget him,” he said in a brittle tone.

  She started, staring at him in bewilderment. He had read her mind.

  “But I give you no choice as to the marriage,” he went on coldly. “I would pray, Ambrosia, that you care enough about the child you bear to see that he has a name.”

  His words stung her and filled her with guilt. It had been her greatest fear these past weeks, that the baby would suffer from her mistake, that an innocent child would be made an outcast because of the circumstances of his birth. She would have lied to protect the baby, of course, but such lies had a way of being discovered. And even if she could keep the secret, Ambrosia had cried more than once over the kind of life she knew her child would have, a life of poverty, of dirty tenement houses, like this one, a life of hiding from the truth.

  Drayton was right. The child deserved a name. Even if it was a Yankee name. Even if it meant she would have to endure the hell of a loveless marriage and the humiliation of an unfaithful husband.

  “The child might be a girl,” she snapped. She scowled at the grin that lit his eyes, as if that possibility actually pleased him. Before she could think of something else to say, he pulled her rather roughly into his arms and kissed her long and hard, until every shred of her resistance had melted away. Her hands slid shyly about his neck, her lips quivered, then parted at the gentle insistence of his tongue. She swayed against him, her body suddenly remembering everything about a night that seemed an eternity ago. It was only when a loud, scandalized gasp echoed in the hallway that the passionate moment came to an abrupt halt. “Miss Lanford!”