by Kris Tualla
Nicolas beamed.
“I like it, Mamma. You look pretty,” Stefan approved.
“Thank you all. Now finish that cake!” Sydney met Nicolas’s gaze. The hunger she saw had nothing to do with the confection being sliced and served. “It has been a long day and I fear I shall need to retire soon.”
She winked at her husband.
March 21, 1822
Cheltenham
Nicolas set his fork down on his plate. The carcass of a slice of pecan pie lay, gutted, before him. “I cannot eat another bite.”
Sydney laughed. “I don’t imagine you could!”
“Betsy!” Nicolas shouted to Rickard’s cook. “What are you trying to do to me?”
The elderly black woman opened the door to the kitchen. “To you?” she squealed in twinkle-eyed indignation. “Don’t you know how much I needs to cook to fill you up?”
Nicolas looked to Rickard. “Are you going to allow her to insult me this way?” he teased.
“Brother, the shoe most definitely fits.”
Betsy disappeared, her delighted laughter filtering through the door. Bronnie lifted the coffeepot and poured for everyone. “Don’t abuse her too badly, Nicolas. I haven’t learned all her cooking secrets yet!”
Rickard shook his head. “Darling, that will take more decades than she’s got left to teach!”
“We have a wonderful cook back in North Carolina! Don’t we, Ezzy?” Lily spooned sugar into her coffee. “I do miss the meals we enjoyed there.”
“You are free to go home, little sister,” Rickard said smoothly. “You don’t have to stay here any longer, now that the weather has turned.”
Lily glared at him.
“I’m sure you want to birth your husband’s child in his own house?” Rickard continued, smiling. “Don’t you?”
Sir Ezra cleared his throat. “Lily, my love, did you have something you wished to discuss with Nicolas?”
Lily’s glare shifted. “Yes.”
“In that case, shall you retire to the study?”
“No.”
Sir Ezra’s brows arched. “No?”
“No! I am tired of all these secretive sessions!” Lily declared. “I want to have this matter out now, here, with everyone present!”
Sydney and Bronnie exchanged horrified looks. “Is that wise?” Sydney blurted.
“Wise or not, that is how I wish it.” If Lily were standing, Sydney knew she would have stamped her foot.
“If you insist, I shall need to fortify,” Rickard said. He stood and lifted a bottle of brandy from the sideboard. “Nick?”
Nicolas nodded. Sydney watched the scar on his cheek blanch white. Hands in her lap, she spun her garnet wedding ring around her finger. Lily lifted her chin, a defiant display for the unfriendly crowd.
“Out with it, Lily,” Nicolas barked. “What did you want to discuss with me?”
Lily sniffed. “I have not received what I came to Cheltenham for.”
Nicolas snorted. “Half of Rickard’s estate? What has that got to do with me?”
“I asked you for your help. Or do you not recall that?”
“I believe by ‘asked for help,’ you mean to say ‘threatened with blackmail,’ do you not?” he growled.
Lily shrugged. “Call it what you will. You did not rise to the request.”
“Lily, be reasonable!” Sydney interrupted. “Nicolas could not possibly force Rickard to do anything at all! It doesn’t matter what threat you hold over him!”
“What I believe is that none of you has taken me seriously.”
“Lily?” Bronnie’s voice was soft. “Don’t.”
Lily sneered at her sister-in-law. “Don’t? That’s all you can say? Don’t?”
Rickard considered his sister coldly. “I am warning you, sister. Do not show disrespect to my wife.”
Lily flipped her hand at Rickard. “At any rate, the point of this meeting is that I do not, as yet, own half of this estate. Therefore, I will publicly name Nicolas as the father of my child.”
A burst of protests tumbled around the dining room. Ezra calmly sipped his wine.
Lily stood and pounded the table with both fists. Silverware jumped and one crystal goblet tipped over, bleeding wine onto the tablecloth. “How do you know he is not!” she cried.
Silence.
“How do you know he is not?” Lily repeated. She pointed at Sydney. “I know every time that woman goes out at night to deliver a baby! I know every time Nicolas is home, in bed, alone!”
“Good, God, Lily!” Rickard slumped in his chair, incredulous. “You couldn’t have…”
“Indeed I could have!” Lily retorted.
“But I could not have.”
All eyes shifted to Nicolas. “I could not have fathered your child, Lily,” he stated.
“And why not?” she challenged.
“I can no longer father any children.” His face ruddied; the scar grew even more visible.
Lily rested her hands on her hips. “Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that you, the mighty Nicolas Hansen, cannot complete the act?” Her voice drizzled sarcasm.
“That is not what I said, Lily.” Nicolas made eye contact with each one at the table. His humiliation was clear to every one of them. “Thanks to your particular machinations—which resulted in my arrest and subsequent injury—I no longer seem to… that is… I’m sterile.”
Lily whirled to face Sydney, who sat silent and unmoving, staring down at her supper plate.
“Is that true?” she shrieked, panic animating her features to comic levels. “Is he without emission?”
Sydney shot an angry glance at Lily. “Wouldn’t you know that if you bedded him?”
“Not without emission, without seed!” His male pride wounded, Nicolas blurted far more information than was seemly in mixed company. Sydney dropped her gaze back to the china.
“Sydney!” Nicolas prodded. “Tell her!”
How could she answer that question when she did not know for sure? Sydney thought she might actually burst into flames, her face was so hot. Perspiration prickled her skin and trickled down the groove of her back.
“Sydney? Why won’t you speak?” Nicolas’s tone gentled.
Sydney’s look begged his understanding. “It’s a very private matter, husband.”
Lily had recouped her aplomb. “It’s no matter. I shall claim it anyway!”
“What?” several voices responded.
“Everyone will believe me!” Lily grinned triumphantly. “Especially after all else that has been written about you!”
“Have you no shame?” Rickard bellowed. Lily narrowed her eyes at him.
“I. Have. No. Property!” she screamed. She grabbed her wineglass and threw it across the room. It hit the fireplace and shattered. Shards of crystal fractured like fireworks.
“Gud forbanner det all til helvete!” Nicolas jumped to his feet. “Lily! Stop it!”
“Or what?” she taunted.
Nicolas’s fists clenched. Sydney was sure that if he could reach her, he would pummel her.
“Give me time!” Rickard interjected.
“You have had five months, brother!” Lily objected. “What have you not accomplished, that may now become suddenly possible?”
“I—I don’t know. But I am asking, nonetheless.”
“I shan’t wait forever.” Lily threatened. “I want to leave this uncivilized Territory—”
“State,” Rickard corrected.
Lily laughed, cruelly. “North Carolina understands how to be a proper state! And I choose the gentle civility of that population over these Missouri bumpkins!”
“Lily?” Sir Ezra’s soft voice startled with its intensity.
She turned, visibly irritated. “What?”
“I don’t think you mean to ignore a reasonable request.” He nodded toward Rickard. “Not if it leads to a successful outcome.”
Lily tapped her foot and pinched her lips together. “Oh, very well!” She f
aced Rickard again. “I shall give you ten days.”
“Ten days?” Bronnie was outraged. “What might he accomplish in ten days?”
“It’s not my concern. I only want what is mine. Failing that, I shall take whatever steps necessary.” Lily turned to face Nicolas and leaned her fists on the table. “Perhaps, Rick, your best friend would be willing to buy half the estate?”
“What!” Nicolas was stunned.
Lily continued, “And perhaps then, dear brother, you might give me the cash from the sale?”
“That’s outrageous!” Rickard objected.
“What makes you think Nicolas has that kind of money?” Bronnie added.
Lily lifted one brow. “He’s a prince, isn’t he?”
“You are being ridiculous, Lily!” Nicolas sneered.
Ezra pushed to his feet. “Darling, I believe you have made your case quite clearly. Are you ready to retire?”
Lily straightened. “I believe I am, dearest. I can’t think of anything else to say.” She took her husband’s arm. “Ten days, Rickard. I shall go to the newspaper in ten days.” They walked out together; backs straight and chins high.
Sydney was light-headed. She knew the pounding of her heart must be audible to everyone present. Why didn’t they say something?
With a hand shaking like a baby bird, she reached for her wineglass and drained it.
***
Nicolas was silent on the ride home. Sydney’s main concern was keeping her meal down. The rich food did not mix well with the stress of the ugly confrontation under the best of conditions.
Nicolas dropped Sydney at the front door before taking the horses and rig to the stable. She climbed the porch steps, but once he was around the corner, she ran to the edge and vomited over the railing into the bushes below. She remained standing, head resting on her arms until she was sure the spasms had passed. Strength gathered and equilibrium restored, she went inside the manor and upstairs to their bedroom.
Nicolas came in several minutes later. He stood behind Sydney while she brushed her hair at her dressing table. His blue eyes were black in the candlelight.
“Who knows about the gold?”
Sydney stopped brushing. “I’ve not mentioned it to anyone. Not ever. Have you?”
“I told Rickard that I sold my lands in Norway. I did not, however, tell him for how much.” Nicolas ran his hand through his blond locks. “I need a haircut.”
Sydney turned to face him. “Did you tell him you gave half of the money to Gunnar?”
Nicolas nodded. “I believe that I did.”
“So even if he managed to come up with a figure, he would halve it.”
“True.”
“Do you know how much his land here is worth?”
“Well, the panic of 1819 is past, so land values are coming back up. I would guess that in Pennsylvania where they were once a hundred and fifty dollars per acre in 1818, by now they are back up to a hundred dollars an acre. Since we are a bit more remote, the cost would be lower. But since we became a state, the value would rise,” Nicolas speculated.
Sydney did some mental figuring on her own. “If you priced the land at seventy-five an acre, half of his estate would be close to nineteen thousand dollars.”
“Rickard doesn’t have that.”
Sydney paused. “Do you?”
Nicolas nodded. “We’ve spent a bit. But I still have income besides, remember.”
The two were silent for a pace.
“Is there any way for Lily to know?” Sydney ventured. “About the gold?”
Nicolas began to pace around the room, tugging at his clothes, undressing. “If she knows I sold my land, she may be guessing. But land in Norway does not sell for the same amount of money as here.”
“Why not?”
“To begin with, you cannot farm the steep side of a mountain, no matter how powerful the view.” Nicolas disappeared under his shirt then reappeared outside of it. “Mountains, however, make for secure borders. That was a consideration for my Viking ancestors, to be certain!”
“If she is thinking a hundred and fifty an acre for ten thousand acres…”
“That makes me one of the wealthiest men in the country!” Nicolas laughed. “I was lucky to get the six dollars an acre I did get. It was worth three when we arrived.”
“You did handle that well,” Sydney complimented.
Nicolas knocked his bare heels together and bowed at the waist. “Thank you, madam.”
“But the question remains: will you offer Rickard a loan? Or perhaps, buy his land from him and lease it back?” Sydney posited. “Or stay out of the business altogether and let him deal with Lily as best he might?”
Nicolas shook his head. “I do not know the answer to that, min presang. I shall have to wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty Three
March 26, 1822
St. Louis
Sydney woke up and looked at the clock. It was past eight. The sun did not shine into their west-facing apartment in the mornings allowing them to rest a while longer. Because the events they had to attend so often lasted until late at night, that was a blessing. But Nicolas complained, nonetheless, about the hours they kept.
“I am growing fat and lazy!” he said to her. “I need to go home and work.”
“Sheep shearing time is near. Will you go home for that?” she asked.
A wistful expression had spread over his countenance. “I never thought that I would miss that forbannet smelly, messy, sweaty task! But I long for my muscles to ache with a day’s work well completed. Not my head to ache from a night’s forced indulgence!”
“Then let’s plan it!” she suggested. “Send word to Rickard that you will be there.”
He did so. And after tonight’s Tulip Ball, they would go home for a solid week.
And be there for Lily’s deadline.
Do not dwell on that now, she chided herself. Much can occur in five days!
Nicolas sighed deeply and stretched, his long limbs extending beyond the mattress in all directions. He collapsed into a curved heap once again.
“I shall be glad to sleep in my own bed,” he grumbled, his voice rough with sleep.
Sydney ran her hand over the landscape of his body. Still firmly sculpted, he had grown softer. That was not all unfortunate; it made for a more comfortable pillow when she lay against him. She slid her fingers through the blond curls of his chest, raising gooseflesh on his arms. And raising other things as well.
“Are you in a particular mood this morning, Mistress Hansen?”
Sydney smiled and rubbed his chin. Golden hairs sprouted like stalks of straw not yet harvested. They made a scratchy sound that did not resound any farther than the limits of their blanketed nest.
She was in a good mood, she realized with a start. And she was not nauseated. Not in the least.
How long? She counted quickly. If her last ‘course’ was really only a showing of blood, she would be entering her fourth month soon. But if she conceived after that, she was approaching three months.
Nicolas’s fingers walked up her thigh, under the nightgown that was twisted around her hips.
“I promised Leif pancakes for breakfast,” she whispered, even as she moved her legs for him.
“We’ll take him out for waffles,” Nicolas suggested, finding his target.
Sydney gasped. A thrill rippled through her belly.
“Yes… waffles,” she breathed. She sat up and pulled the nightgown over her head. It floated to the floor. “He’ll like that.”
Nicolas pushed the blankets out of the way and pulled her on top of him. Sydney found herself responding more completely than she had in months. She was ravenous; she could not get enough of him. She pressed, squeezed, twisted; pulling his hands and mouth to her. She demanded more and she gave more. When she peaked, she clapped one hand over her mouth to keep from crying out so loud that Leif and Vincent would hear her.
They collapsed together, panting; sweating in th
e chilled morning and sighing moans of fulfillment.
Nicolas stared at her, jaw slack. “Å min Gud! Where did this vixen appear from? Are you a witch after all?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.” She raised her head and swept her dark hair back with her forearm. “If I am, do you wish me to leave?” she teased.
“Never!” Nicolas shook his head against his pillow. “Never. Å min Gud…”
Someone knocked on their chamber door. They made wide eyes at each other and grinned with their shared secret.
Nicolas cleared his throat. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but do we have plans for breakfast?” Vincent’s voice passed, muted, through the panel.
“Waffles. We shall go out for waffles,” Nicolas called out. Sydney heard Leif’s whoop of glee. “Give us a quarter of an hour.”
“Yes, sir!”
Twenty minutes later all were suitably dressed, and they donned their coats and cloaks. Leif opened the apartment door, his eagerness betrayed by a gurgling stomach.
“Are we ready?” Nicolas asked.
As if in answer, the door across the hall opened and a young man stepped out. Without a word, he tripped down the stairs and burst through the leaded glass front door.
Leif stepped away from the apartment door and pushed it quietly shut. “That was him!” he whispered.
“Who?” Nicolas paused, brow creased in consideration. “The man Stafford met with?”
“Yes!” Leif glanced from Sydney to Vincent and back to Nicolas. “You do remember what I told you about that night?”
“I do.” Nicolas rested his hand on Sydney’s back. “Let’s go on to breakfast. I need to ponder on this some.”
Leif opened their door at the same time Sam Stafford opened the other. Sam startled, his eyes rounded. “Hansen?”
“Good morning, Mister Stafford.”
“Wh—what are you doing here?” His eyes followed the departed man’s path.
“We have taken these rooms to use while our presence in St. Louis is required,” Nicolas answered.
“Oh?” Sam was not recovering from the surprise very well.