Backed into a corner, Reuben reacted as he often did. “Tom Nutting won’t take my oxen,” he shouted. “I’ll break his head first. Maybe I’ll shoot him. I should have shot Ezra Buel.”
Delilah wanted to scream with frustration. Would Reuben ever forget he had been a war hero? Once he had charged a redoubt of British soldiers and single-handedly killed every one of them. Now he thought shooting somebody was the answer to everything.
“What good will that do?” Delilah demanded. “They’ll only send more men the next day.”
“Dammit, Delilah, I can’t let my sister pay my debts. I couldn’t hold up my head if I did.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well, I do!” he thundered. His shouts woke the boys and they started to whimper.
“You go to them, Reuben” Jane said.
Reuben disappeared up the ladder to the small loft where the two lads slept.
It’s unaccountable,” Jane shook her head. “He’s ready to break the sheriff’s head and shoot Nathan Trent, but he’s as gentle as a woman with those boys.”
She paused and looked away. “Reuben isn’t the only one who feels shamed that you should have to do for us what we can’t do ourselves.” She turned her gaze back to Delilah. “But I’ll not tell you to go or stay. You must decide for yourself.”
Delilah knew what she had to do, and she knew Jane would somehow bring Reuben to accept it. She slipped outside.
The sky was unusually bright for this late in the evening. A bank of low-lying clouds deflected the last rays of the sun to the earth, immersing everything in a rosy glow. She loved being outside at dusk. She enjoyed feeling the bite of the cool, invigorating air after a hot day, the spring of the earth beneath her feet; and she liked hearing the birds in the treetops squabble over roosting places.
The evening air was heavy with the musty odor of ripe grapes fallen to the ground under the arbor next to the house. Even the rank odor of the animal yards was not wholly unpleasant. There was a comfort in familiar sounds and smells.
It really wasn’t much of a farm—at less man fifty acres it was too small to support a family of five-about-to-be-come-six—but Delilah only had to think of the hours of solitary backbreaking labor Reuben had put in to know how much he loved it. Except for a cow lot and pig pen at the edge of the woods, a vegetable garden behind the arbor, and a barnyard and chicken coop beyond that, nearly every foot of cleared land was under cultivation.
Unlike most of the yeomen, who farmed only enough land for their own needs, Reuben had cleared extra land to grow crops to sell. But prices had fallen so low it was all he could do to buy a few necessities for his family. She had to work for Nathan Trent.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she say his name without feeling a twinge of excitement. He had probably taken her into that fancy drawing room just to show her how far below him she was. Okay, so she didn’t hobnob with members of London society and she didn’t drink tea every afternoon from bone china, but that didn’t make her a social outcast. She was just as good as he was. A war had been fought to prove it.
It galled her to have to reenter his house as a servant. She had made the choice to sacrifice her pride, not her family, but she didn’t have to like it.
Anyway, it was a waste of time thinking about Nathan Trent. She’d probably never see him again once Reuben’s debt was paid. Still, even if she did not, she wouldn’t forget him. No woman could forget a man like Trent.
Daniel Shays, captain of the local militia, stopped by later that afternoon. Shays was one of the most famous people in Massachusetts. He had fought at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and Stony Point. Because of his bravery, General Lafayette had given him a fancy sword. But brave as he was, Daniel Shays was just a poor farmer, and he’d had to sell the Lafayette sword to pay his taxes.
Reuben told him what Delilah wanted to do.
“Ought to have it paid up before Christmas,” Shays said.
“I won’t let her put one foot inside that house,” Reuben exploded. “I’ll find some other way to pay.”
“I wasn’t thinking of your debt,” Shays replied. “I was thinking how useful it would be to have somebody at Maple Hill on our side.” They all looked at Shays in surprise. “Something has to be done soon,” he explained, “or the courts are going to take all our property. Abel Tucker’s place was sold up last month. It only brought thirty cents on the dollar, not enough to cover Abel’s debts, so they threw him in jail. Before that they sold a farm out from under a sick widow. Even sold the bed she was lying on.”
Reuben made a furious, strangled noise.
“People won’t stand for it much longer, and Nathan Trent and his like know it. They’ll be planning something in return. A smart young woman like Delilah might overhear some plans or get a glimpse of important papers.”
“Do you mean spy on him?” Delilah asked. She couldn’t believe he was asking her to do it. Women were never allowed to do anything dangerous.
They can confiscate our property, but they can’t sell it without a court order,” Captain Shays explained. “I have a plan to stop them from holding court, but they’re bound to try to stop us. If we know what they mean to do, we might be able to stay ahead of them until elections next spring. We intend to put someone up against every one of them. Then the General Court will change the laws that let merchants get rich while the farmers, who fought for everybody’s freedom, starve.”
So it was decided Delilah would go to Maple Hill.
But now that she was to become a spy, she didn’t want to go.
Nathan cracked the whip above the horse’s head. The quicker he got out of Springfield, the better. After his uncle’s funeral, he had deposited Serena with her friends and had headed straight for his buggy. Much as he wasn’t looking forward to picking up Delilah, it had to be better than standing about waiting for condolences from people who clearly had no desire to speak to him. Nathan saw hate in the eyes of the people who lined the path outside the church.
Now that Ezra was dead, it was directed toward him.
He wondered if Delilah felt the same way. It had been a week since he had seen her, but not a single detail of the visit had escaped his memory.
He could still see her face, rounded with the freshness of youth, her deep, blue eyes open and curious. Except for her generous lips, her features were finely drawn, her lashes long, her eyebrows narrow and thinly sketched. Her skin was unfashionably tanned, and she parted her thick, dark brown hair in the middle, allowing it to fall unrestrained over her shoulders. The coarse material of Delilah’s loose-fitting dress had neither revealed the rounded contours of her figure nor concealed the fact that her body had outgrown the shapelessness of youth. Nathan’s imagination had had no trouble filling in the details.
It had been doing so over and over for the last three nights.
He didn’t understand what it was about this country maiden that aroused his senses when more sophisticated women had failed to do so. Brazenly forcing her way into his home and using every means at her disposal to coerce him into letting her work for him, she had irritated him. Yet she attracted him so strongly he had given her the job without asking for a character reference.
He knew it wasn’t a good idea to take a stranger into his household, but he’d been unprepared for Delilah’s effect on him. Having a lovely woman in his parlor begging him to give her a job put everything in an entirely different perspective.
Besides, he lusted after her.
Lusted, for God’s sake! Not simply liked her or sympathized with her or thought she was beautiful or admired her courage. The thought of her in his bed, naked in his arms, kept him tossing, half-awake, half-tormented, even in sleep. She had seldom been out of his mind for as much as five minutes in the last seven days.
He did understand this attraction. It was a common, primitive desire for a woman unlike any he had known. A challenge of a sort. A woman of the land, of the earth, whose hips swayed like a wind in the treeto
ps, whose eyes danced like a brook across rocks, whose lips moved like the ocean against the shore, whose mere existence mesmerized him.
But seeing Delilah in much the same situation he had been in a few years earlier aroused his sympathy as well as his admiration. Most women would have looked for a husband, a way out. Not Delilah. Having found a solution, she was determined to shoulder the burden despite her family’s objections.
He was glad he could help her and himself at the same time. Indeed, he was so attracted to her that at times he had been tempted to forgive the obligation altogether, but he didn’t dare. That would invite everybody who owed him money to come hammering at his door, demanding the same thing, and he’d end up as poor as he’d been before he left London.
But Nathan hadn’t always been poor. In fact, until five years ago, he’d been the pampered only son of a rich father. Then, without warning, he had been thrown into a desperate struggle to keep his father from going bankrupt.
Yet similar as his and Delilah’s situations were, he was as far removed from her as from an enemy in war. Her brother and hundreds of colonials just like him owed Nathan thousands of pounds they didn’t want to pay back. These same people, or people like them only four years earlier had destroyed his father’s business by refusing to pay their English debts. Well, he wasn’t going to let them deprive him of a second fortune. If anybody was going to be ruined, it would be these bloodthirsty colonists.
Still, when he remembered the way the people had looked at him outside the church, he felt less sure. His uncle might not have minded being a social leper, but Nathan did.
One look at the Stowbridge farmhouse made Nathan feel like a villain. How could his uncle mean to foreclose on such a pitiful holding? And Ezra Buel had certainly meant to do that. Nathan had found explicit directions to the sheriff in his uncle’s desk.
The family he saw standing in front of the mean dwelling aroused his sympathy even more. A powerfully built young man, his pregnant wife, and his two small sons stood facing Nathan, who despite all his vows to the contrary, knew he could never dispossess these people.
But the look on Reuben Stowbridge’s face as Nathan pulled his buggy to a stop before the small group told him any kindly thoughts were not returned.
“Good morning. I’m Nathan Trent” Nathan said as he climbed down from the buggy.
“I know who you are,” Reuben growled in reply. “If I had my way, I’d shoot you before I let Delilah set foot on your place.” He didn’t nod his head, touch his cap, or offer any kind of conventional greeting. He simply stared back at Nathan, his face set, his body rigid with the effort he was exerting to keep his temper under control.
“I hadn’t expected a warm welcome” Nathan said, deciding to treat Reuben’s words as a jest, “but neither did I expect to be threatened before my feet hit the ground.”
“I will shoot you if anything happens to my sister.” Reuben’s expression didn’t change, but Nathan could tell the man’s hold on his temper was slipping. It wouldn’t take much for this angry giant to explode into violent action.
“I’m Jane Stowbridge” the woman said, her expression no more encouraging than her husband’s. “I agree with my husband about Delilah.”
“I killed a lot of Redcoats in the war,” Reuben said. “I wouldn’t mind killing one more.”
“Don’t threaten me” Nathan warned, his anger beginning to rise. “I didn’t make you borrow the money.”
His impulse was to get back in the buggy and drive away as fast as he could. If he hadn’t been certain Delilah wasn’t anything like her brother, he’d have given them a pair of oxen before he’d let her inside his home. They were crazy. They had to be. Sane people didn’t go around threatening to shoot other people the minute they set eyes on them.
Yet despite his own anger, Nathan knew he’d have shot just about anybody if it would have kept his father from losing everything. These people owed him only a pair of oxen, but they were probably no more able to handle their debt than his father had been. Some of his anger died. He might as well try to be friendly.
“My uncle’s illness kept me pretty close to home. I haven’t had much chance to meet my neighbors.”
“I’m not your neighbor, and I don’t want you here,” Reuben said.
It was clearly a waste of time to try to be friendly, so they might as well get down to business. “I looked over your loan this morning,” Nathan said, still trying to keep his tone cordial. “It’s been extended twice already.”
“Ezra was happy enough to lend us money and extend our credit until we voted him in as justice of the peace,” Reuben answered angrily. The first thing he did after the election was show up with a bunch of writs giving him the right to steal our property.”
“Then you should be relieved that your sister has come up with a way to pay off the debt.”
Reuben reacted as if he’d been struck in the face.
Nathan hadn’t meant to hurt his pride. Well, maybe he had. He didn’t like Reuben. The man’s blind anger and stiff-necked prejudice made him mad. He knew the type too well. Loud and aggressive and unwilling to listen to anyone who wasn’t stronger or bigger than they were.
“If it wasn’t for the babies, I wouldn’t let Delilah within a mile of your place” Reuben lashed out, his anger now held in only by his wife’s grip on his arm.
“Delilah is a good worker, but she’s not a field hand,” Jane put in. “You see, she’s not worked too hard.”
“What do you think I am, a white slaver?” Nathan asked, incredulous. The sooner he got Delilah and headed home, the happier he would be. “Where’s your sister? I must be getting back.”
“Afraid some debts will slip through your fingers while you’re gone?” Reuben asked with a sneer.
“My aunt doesn’t like to be left alone. Our situation is rather remote.”
“You must have enough servants about the place to hold off an army.”
Nathan gave up. Nothing he could say was going to make a friend of this man. “Call Miss Stowbridge, please. I’ll send someone over for her trunk.”
“I might bring it myself” Reuben said belligerently. “I might take it into my head to see how you’re treating her.”
“By all means, come any time” Nathan said. He hoped the angry young giant wouldn’t accept his invitation, but it was ridiculous to think he would try to keep a man from visiting his own sister.
“Now, if you would call your sister.”
“Delilah!” Reuben shouted over his shoulder loud enough to be heard halfway to the next county.
Nathan hoped she would hurry. With Reuben and his wife treating him like a blood brother to Lucifer, and the two boys staring wide-eyed as if he were the boogeyman, he almost wished he’d lingered after the funeral.
“Jane, you’d better bring her out. The sooner we get this man off our land, the sooner we can breathe deep again.”
Chapter Three
Delilah drew back from the window. She couldn’t spy on Nathan Trent.
She could have if he had been Ezra Buel. But the young man talking fearlessly to Reuben had nothing of his uncle about him, and the thought of betraying him filled her with self-loathing. True, he was handsome in a way that at any other time would have caused her to smile wistfully and dream of moonlight walks and whispered conversations, but it was the character evident in him rather than his looks that skewered Delilah’s composure and impaled her resolve. His was an honest face, straightforward, seeking to hide nothing. Why couldn’t he scowl as he had that morning at Maple Hill? She had been a fool to think she could be around him and remain unaffected.
The fact that she’d spent the last week thinking about him should have convinced her she was rapidly losing control of her emotions. But she had been so self-confident she hadn’t realized she was in danger until she’d looked out the window. Watching Nathan do his best to endure Reuben’s belligerent anger with a smile made it impossible not to admire his courage and to feel sympathy fo
r him.
This man was full of contradictions, and that intrigued her.
Two nights ago it had seemed the right thing to agree to Captain Shays’s proposal. All she had to do was keep her ears open and report anything she overheard. That couldn’t be called spying. It was more like gossiping. Everybody did that.
But then Reuben had explained that spying meant breaking into Nathan’s desk, reading his private letters, telling him lies, and breaking her word to him. She’d never intended to do anything like that.
How could she tell Reuben and Captain Shays that her sense of right and wrong was more important than preventing her friends’ families from being stripped of their worldly goods? How could she explain that it was essential she not betray the trust of a man they considered an enemy?
“What’s keeping you?” Jane asked from the doorway. “Mr. Trent is impatient to be off, and I’m ready for him to be gone. I don’t know how much longer Reuben can hold his temper.”
“I can’t do it,” Delilah blurted out.
“You don’t have to,” Jane said, not the least upset. “Reuben and I disliked the idea from the start.”
“It’s him,” Delilah said, impatient with her sister-in-law’s lack of understanding. “I can’t do it to him.”
“For heaven’s sakes, whatever do you mean?”
“The spying. I can’t spy on him.”
“Oh, that. I doubt hell hurt you if he finds out, but you needn’t worry. I’ll tell Reuben you’ve changed your mind, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“You don’t understand,” Delilah said, taking hold of Jane’s arm, hoping she could force her sister-in-law to understand why her feelings had changed. “He’s different from Buel.”
“I don’t know how you can say that about a man who collects debts by taking another man’s possessions”
How could she explain the signs of goodness she saw in Nathan Trent when she didn’t entirely understand her own feelings? How could she ask Jane to separate the man from his deeds when she couldn’t do that either? “I can’t explain it,” she said lamely, “but I know he’s different.”
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