“Well, I guarantee you that this one will be. And in time for Christmas.”
Then he left her with her eyes shining like a child with a secret and returned to his studio.
In Samuel’s studio, Hannah sat in her usual place by the windows, where the even southern light illuminated her.
She felt chilly in spite of the roaring fire in the fireplace, her thick, flannel petticoat and the warm wool shawl around her shoulders. But it was November after all, and cold weather spread its chill throughout New England.
She risked a glance out the window despite Samuel’s admonition to sit still.
The day was pewter gray and cheerless, with the trees stripped bare of their leaves, their brown skeletal branches clawing at a sky that threatened sleet or snow later that day.
“You’re doing splendidly, Hannah,” Samuel said. “One more sitting, and I shall have all the sketches I need to do an engraving.”
When Hannah had first begun to sit for him several weeks ago, she found it most disconcerting to have Samuel’s pale, ghostly eyes stare at her while he worked. His scrutiny was so penetrating that she felt as though he must know her more intimately than her own husband.
“What were you thinking of?” Samuel asked. “Your expression changed so suddenly.”
His keen artist’s eyes saw too much.
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“The truth be known, I haven’t been feeling too well lately,” she replied.
Samuel stopped sketching. “You do work yourself too hard, Hannah. You should let Millicent do most of it.”
But work helped her to forget her remote husband and her own loneliness in the midst of the boisterous Shaw family.
Without warning Hannah felt as light-headed as that fateful summer day in the tobacco field. The studio wheeled to one side and the world went black.
She heard someone calling her name from a great distance, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself cradled in Samuel’s arms, his pale, worried face floating above hers.
“Wh-what happened?” She struggled to rise.
“Lie still for a moment. You fainted.”
Hannah did as she was told, and the world swung back into focus.
Samuel assisted her to her feet and steadied her with a secure arm around her waist. “Why don’t you lie down on your bed and I’ll get Mrs. Hardy?”
Hannah nodded and let him escort her to her bedchamber, where she lay down and waited for the housekeeper.
Mrs. Hardy bustled in a minute later, her silvery eyes dark with concern.
“Land sakes, Hannah…” When she noticed Samuel lingering in the doorway, she shooed him away and closed the door.
The housekeeper sat on the edge of the bed and rested her hand on Hannah’s forehead. “Now tell me what happened.”
“I fainted,” Hannah replied.
The housekeeper’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she asked Hannah several personal, embarrassing questions in her usual blunt manner.
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When she had her answers, Mrs. Hardy chuckled and slapped her thigh.
“Leave it to my Reiver. The only thing wrong with you is that you’re breeding. In the family way. Going to have a baby nine months to the day, I’ll bet.”
Hannah felt the same stunned disbelief she had experienced when Uncle Ezra told her she was to marry Reiver Shaw. “I—I can’t be.”
“You’re a married woman. You most certainly can. Surely your mama told you that.”
“There must be some mistake.”
Mrs. Hardy shrugged. “All the signs are there.”
She was going to have a child. Her thoughts screamed mute denial.
“Babies may scream and mess and break your heart, but they keep the human race going,” Mrs. Hardy said. “And if it’s a boy and the Shaw heir, just think how proud your husband will be!”
Hannah said, “I’d like to be alone now, if you don’t mind.”
The housekeeper nodded. “I suspect you need some time to get used to the idea.”
She patted Hannah’s hand and left, closing the door behind her. Hannah heard muffled voices behind the door as the housekeeper said something to Samuel, then silence and retreating footsteps.
A baby…
Hannah rolled onto her side and drew up her knees, curling into a tight ball of denial. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that Reiver’s fumblings beneath her nightshift could do this to her. But they had. Once again, fate had played a cruel trick on her. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and let the tears flow.
When she could cry no more, she rose, straightened her skirts, and went to the washbasin to bathe her red, puffy eyes in cold water.
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Now that the tears had washed away her initial shock, she was ready to assess the situation calmly and rationally. She rested her hand against her still-flat belly, thought of Reiver’s child growing within her, and felt a surge of hope.
How could a man not love the mother of his child?
She hoped Mrs. Hardy hadn’t told Samuel the real reason why she had fainted. She wanted Reiver to be the first Shaw to know.
Hannah told him later that night, just as they were getting ready to retire.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, just finishing plaiting her hair into one long braid for the night, when Reiver came in and headed for the oil lamp, which he always extinguished before undressing himself and joining her in bed.
“Don’t turn out the light yet,” Hannah said, her heart pounding. “I have something to tell you.”
Reiver’s hand fell away and he looked at her, puzzled. “What is it?”
Hannah swallowed hard and focused her attention on the thin blue ribbon at the end of her braid. “You’re going to be a father.”
Silence. Stillness.
She risked a glance at her husband. He stood there, his wide jaw slack, his face as white as the first snowfall.
When he found his voice, he managed to croak, “You’re…?”
Hannah nodded, her cheeks flaming.
“Oh, my God! Hannah, that’s wonderful.” He reached her in two strides and knelt at her feet, his head bowed as he took her hands and brought them to his lips as if paying homage to a queen.
Again, Hannah felt this new life conferring a strange and wonderful power on her.
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“You’re pleased?”
“Pleased…I’m the happiest man in the world.” He rose, but to her dismay he didn’t take her in his arms and hug her to him like the cherished wife she wanted to be. “This child shall be the first Shaw of my generation, and if it’s a son…” His eyes sparkled in anticipation.
“I hope it will be.”
Reiver stepped back, his customary reserve returning. “Under the circumstances, I think it best that I sleep in the spare room. I wouldn’t want to hurt you or the baby.”
So Hannah would be spared her husband’s advances until the baby’s birth, sometime in the spring, if Mrs. Hardy’s calculations were correct.
“I think that would be best,” she agreed.
To her surprise, he leaned down and brushed his lips stiffly across her own.
“Thank you, Hannah.” Then he blew out the lamp and left her to the darkness and her own thoughts.
Reiver’s own thoughts both soared and plummeted as he walked down the dark, narrow hall and settled himself in the spare room’s cold, hard bed.
He was going to be a father. He felt happy, excited, proud, and thankful all at once. Then he thought of Cecelia, and his joy soured.
Reiver pulled the blankets more snugly around him and listened to the November wind keening through the eaves and rattling the windows as if demanding entrance.
He would have to tell her at the first op
portunity.
Several weeks later Reiver took the sleigh into Hartford to break the news to Cecelia.
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Six inches of snow had fallen several days before, but now the roads were packed down and the fifteen-mile trip passable. Seated in the sleigh with a thick rug over his lap and a hot brick warming his feet, Reiver looked out over pristine, snow-covered fields and houses with threads of pale gray smoke rising lazily from their chimneys. His thoughts were not on the brown-and-white winter landscape, but on his conversation with Samuel just before leaving early that morning.
Helping to hitch Nellie, Samuel said, “Both James and I couldn’t be happier for you and Hannah. She’ll make a fine mother.”
“I’m sure she will,” Reiver agreed.
“Have you told Cecelia?”
Reiver looked at his brother, whose face was red and pinched with cold.
“Not yet. That’s why I’m going into Hartford.”
“If she has any sense, she’ll have nothing more to do with you.”
Those words haunted Reiver for the rest of the long drive.
When he arrived at Cecelia’s house, which looked as though it had been dusted with sugar, he knocked at the front door, and within minutes Cecelia appeared, surprised and delighted. Today her glossy chestnut ringlets were brushed smooth and pulled back into a simple chignon of the type Hannah favored.
“Get out of the cold this instant, Reiver Shaw,” she said, shivering, pulling him into the warm parlor.
Then she was in his arms, providing a special warmth of her own.
He wanted to wait and tell her about the baby after he had given her the peace offering hidden deep in his coat pocket, after he had made long, leisurely love to her upstairs. But he couldn’t.
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So before Cecelia could take his coat, he looked at her unflinchingly. “You should know that Hannah is going to bear my child.”
“Hush,” she said, hiding her surprise by putting her fingertips against his lips. “That part of your life has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t exist when you’re here.”
Reiver had never heard such sweet words. Samuel was wrong. Cecelia wasn’t going to end it after all.
She pulled off his coat. “Come upstairs.”
He reached back into his coat pocket and took out a small box. “Not until I give you this.”
Her brown eyes danced. “What is it?”
“An early Christmas gift. Open it and see.”
Cecelia gasped when she opened the box and saw the earbobs glowing dully with dark wine-red garnets and white seed pearls. “Oh, Reiver, they’re beautiful.”
“They were my mother’s most precious possessions, the only jewelry she ever owned. I wanted you to have them.”
He wanted his mistress to have them, not his wife. The significance of his gesture was not lost on either of them.
Cecelia slipped them in her earlobes, then took Reiver’s hand. “Come upstairs. Now.”
“Where is your maid?”
“Visiting her mother. She won’t be back for hours.”
He grinned and followed her upstairs.
Once they were in Cecelia’s bedroom, Reiver flung the heavy drapes aside to let in winter’s cold watery light, for he wanted to see every curve and hollow of her supple ivory body as he made love to her, needed to watch her rising passion
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darken her brown eyes to onyx and see her rosy lips part in abandon. When he turned, he found Cecelia standing at the foot of her bed, one delicate hand curved around the turned maple post, only her bright eyes betraying her impatience.
He crossed the room and started undoing the tiny buttons running down the back of her gown, his excitement rising as he worked. When he was through, he slid his hands beneath the unsuspecting Cecelia’s arms and grasped her breasts, pulling her against him so she could feel his arousal through her petticoats.
“Reiver!” she gasped, and shuddered when he thrust his tongue into her ear, mimicking other intimate invasions to come.
“Sweet Cecelia,” he whispered, squeezing her breasts harder, frustrated because he couldn’t feel her nipples beneath the thick corset cover. When he released her, she was trembling and so weak-kneed that she had to grasp the bedpost for support.
Almost delirious with desire, Reiver stripped himself quickly, his skin too hot to notice the room’s slight chill, for the fire had long since died in the grate.
Cecelia shrugged out of her gown, but he became impatient with her slowness, so he ripped off her petticoats and unhooked the offending corset for her.
This time he wanted her to ache sweetly from his lovemaking so his passion would linger in her memory long after his departure.
When they were both naked, he tangled his hands in her soft chestnut ringlets and brought his mouth down hard on hers, his questing tongue possessing her and demanding absolute surrender. Cecelia complied with a soft whimper, pressing herself greedily along his length, her eager fingers clutching his smooth muscular shoulders.
He moved away, his hands cupping her breasts, teasing the erect nipples with the callused balls of his thumbs. As he squeezed and tugged he reveled in 64
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the way Cecelia arched her back in blatant invitation while she tried to stifle her moans and failed.
“Dear God, Reiver, have mercy!”
“Not this time, my love.” He replaced his hands with his mouth, sucking and nipping with wild abandon until Cecelia shrieked and almost swooned with pleasure. Reiver laughed in triumph as he swept her into his arms and carried her over to the bed, where he flung her down on the smooth scented sheets and dived in after her, imprisoning her body with his own.
Their mutual passion ignited beyond bearing, the lovers devoured each other with feverish hands and mouths, their rising groans shattering the room’s stillness. When Reiver finally took her, he turned Cecelia over on her knees despite her feeble protestations. Watching her voluptuous curved flanks bounce and rock with his every thrust and her hands clench helplessly at the rumpled sheets, he felt on the verge of exploding.
His head tipped back and he howled his own release just as Cecelia screamed his name and shuddered along his length.
Later, when they had slaked their desire with each other’s body, they lay with their limbs entwined beneath a cloud of warm, deep quilts. Reiver wished she would at least congratulate him on the possibility of fatherhood, but she didn’t and wouldn’t. Cecelia had put his other life with Hannah out of her mind.
To her, it no longer existed, and he had to respect her need to deny it.
Reiver propped himself up on one elbow and drank in Cecelia’s delicate loveliness, her heart-shaped face and rosebud mouth. “It’s getting late. I have to go.”
“Must you?” she murmured, running her small hands over his muscular chest.
“I suppose I could stay a little longer.”
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And he did.
On Christmas morning, while the rest of the family was at church services, Hannah took one last look at her gift to Reiver—the framed engraved portrait of herself that Samuel had done—before wrapping it.
She stared at it in wonder. Surely the beautiful woman regarding the world through grave eyes was not her.
When she had protested to the artist that he had misrepresented her, Samuel smiled enigmatically and said, “But that is how I think you will look one day.”
Hannah ran her fingertips along the smooth wooden frame. Is this how Samuel saw her, as a beautiful woman with such a worldly, knowing air far beyond Hannah’s limited experience of life? She didn’t feel particularly worldly or knowing.
A sudden bout
of the nausea that had been plaguing her all morning—
indeed for the past month—sent Hannah running for the washbasin. When she finished retching, she rinsed her mouth and lay dawn for a while, then returned to wrapping her husband’s gift.
No sooner did she take it downstairs than she heard the front door open and the rest of the family came trooping in, stamping their feet noisily to shake the snow from their boots and mumble, “Brrr!” and “Damn, it’s cold outside!”
“How was Reverend Crane’s sermon?” Hannah asked.
“So boring I fell asleep,” Reiver replied.
Samuel laughed. “You have to learn to sleep with your eyes open, as I do, then no one would glare at you so disapprovingly.”
Mrs. Hardy said, “We saw your aunt and uncle in church.”
“Did they ask after me?” Hannah said.
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Reiver replied, “They bustled off before we could speak to them.”
“Just as well,” Hannah said.
James removed his hat and unwound his scarf. “Are you feeling better, Hannah?”
“Much better,” she replied, collecting coats. “I was sorry to miss the service.”
“If the Good Lord can’t forgive you under the circumstances…” Mrs. Hardy brushed some snow from her silver hair. “Now, let’s sit down to Christmas dinner, shall we?”
After a sumptuous feast of roast goose, the family gathered in the parlor to exchange gifts.
Hannah was delighted to see that James and Samuel were pleased with the wool stockings she had knit for them, and she in turn loved the leather-bound edition of Ivanhoe that they both had given her. But she nervously watched Reiver open her gift to him.
When he looked at the framed engraving, a peculiar expression flitted across his features and was gone in an instant, leading Hannah to believe she had imagined it.
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