Rebel Enchantress

by Leigh Greenwood

  Delilah spent the next hour helping Mrs. Stebbens finish up in the kitchen, enduring a long harangue from Lester on her behavior—with more emphasis on his being required to clean up the ale than on her pouring it over the guests—and trying to figure out how she could get back inside the parlor.

  As soon as her work was finished, she bade Lester and Mrs. Stebbens good night and went upstairs. A thin ribbon of tight shone under Serena’s door. Priscilla’s room was dark.

  Delilah changed into a dark brown gown without frills and hurried back downstairs. She tiptoed to the drawing-room door and put an ear to the keyhole. She could hear people talking, but she couldn’t understand their words. She’d have to think of something else. Just as well. She couldn’t think of any acceptable explanation for her actions if someone found her.

  She would have to go outside and see if she could listen at one of the windows. The weather had turned cool, but with the heat of so many bodies and candles in the drawing room, she doubted all the windows would be closed.

  She started to go toward the back of the house, but heard Lester moving around in the pantry, so she tiptoed back down the hall and carefully turned the handle of the front door. It opened without a creak.

  The full moon made it impossible to hide. She crouched down, keeping her body close to the house, and moved toward the first window. It was closed. So was the second. Her only hope now was the window at the side of the house, but a large thornbush stood at the corner.

  Deciding that if she was going to be caught, she’d better be on her feet, Delilah walked around the bush as if she were just wandering around outside after eleven o’clock, then dropped to a crouch again.

  Light poured from the open window. The speaker stood so near she could hear every word.

  “What we’ve got to do is get somebody inside their organization,” Lucius Clarke was saying. “In addition to knowing their plans, we need the names of their leaders, the people they listen to.”

  “Do we know any of them yet?” someone asked.

  “I’ve got a list here,” Lucius said, holding up a piece of paper, “but I doubt I’ve got everyone. Pass it around. If you know of anybody, add his name to the list.”

  “It’s all well and good to know the leaders,” someone else put in, “but what can we do to them?”

  “If they owe a debt they can’t settle, we can put them in jail. Trent here holds a note on Stowbridge.”

  “His sister’s working it off now,” Nathan pointed out.

  “You can find a reason to get rid of her if you want to,” Clarke said impatiently. “Say she’s lax or you caught her stealing. Hell, you could even say she tried to crawl into your bed.”

  Delilah gasped. Her first impulse was to climb through the window and punch Lucius Clarke in the face. Was there nothing these men wouldn’t do to collect their money?

  “If any man made such a statement,” Nathan said in a dangerously quiet voice, “I should feel compelled to knock him down.

  Delilah could hardly believe her ears. This was the third time this evening that Nathan had come to her defense. If he defended her, would he defend her family as well? She doubted it, especially if he discovered Reuben was one of the leaders. He’d be more likely to be angry because Reuben had repaid him by turning against him. She knew he was determined to collect all the money owed him—he had told her so several times—but maybe he wouldn’t go to the same lengths as the others.

  Still, all this was supposition, a waste of time. She needed to know who was on that list. She also needed to know what they were planning to do. More importantly, if Lucius Clarke found out Reuben was one of Shays’s most trusted lieutenants, could he force Nathan to put him in jail?

  “What’s the governor going to do?” Asa Warner asked.

  “Governor Bowdoin has written to all the sheriffs ordering them to call out the militia,” Lucius said.

  “That won’t be any good,” Noah Hubbard declared. “Every time they come face to face with the regulators, they turn their backs and go away.”

  “Got too many relatives among them” someone pointed out.

  “the militia captains are scared of their own shadows,” said another.

  “He’s ordered them to shoot if they have to” Lucius said.

  His words brought silence. So far no one on either side had fired a shot. Firing on the regulators would mean war.

  “He’s preparing a riot act to be read to them before anything happens,” Lucius continued. That ought to make some of them back down.”

  “But if they don’t?”

  Then we shoot.”

  “Has anyone met with the farmers to listen to their grievances?” Nathan asked.

  Everyone stared at him.

  They wrote the governor, but he didn’t waste time replying.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t talk with rabble like that,” Clarke exploded. “They’re too stupid to understand anything beyond their farms. Hell, they wouldn’t be in this mess if they could learn to live more economically.”

  Delilah’s fingers curled into claws. If she ever got her hands on Colonel Lucius Clarke, she would …

  “It’s possible their complaints are reasonable,” Nathan persisted in a cool, controlled way that was apparently beginning to irritate the men in the room as much as it heartened Delilah. “You really can’t say, can you, until you know what they are?”

  “You ought to keep quiet and listen” Noah exploded. “You don’t know anything about these people. Damn, you can’t even talk right.”

  “In England everybody knows where he belongs,” Lucius Clarke said, almost in the manner of an exasperated teacher explaining a problem to a witless student. “It’s not the same over here. These people think they have a right to do anything they want.”

  “I have noticed that,” Nathan replied. He grinned to himself; he was thinking of Delilah.

  “We’ve wandered from the point,” Asa Warner said when he saw both Lucius and Noah turn angry eyes on Nathan. “Our question is what to do now. We can work on a cure after we have things under control.”

  “I say the courts meet a day before the announced date,” Tom Oliver suggested.

  “It’s worth a try,” Lucius admitted.

  “But we’ve got to keep after those leaders,” Noah insisted. “If we can get them in jail, maybe even hang a few, this revolt will disappear like it never was.”

  “Somebody’s got to keep the list,” Lucius said. “I’m on my way to Boston and then Newport and Providence.”

  “I’ll keep it,” Noah volunteered.

  “We need someone closer to Springfield” Asa Warner said. “We can’t always be running fifty miles just to add a name to the list.”

  “How about Trent?” asked Tom Oliver. “He’s close enough, and we all know where he lives.”

  “We know too little about Nathan to trust him,” one man said.

  Another contradicted him. “It’s foolish to think he would join the rebels and rob himself.”

  Everyone had some family connection with the insurgents, and the others weren’t sure who could be relied on to put down every name turned in. Nathan had no reason to withhold any name.

  “Can you guarantee its security?” Noah demanded. He wanted the list, but no one trusted him to do am/dung not directly related to making more money for himself.

  “I’ll keep it locked in my desk,” Nathan offered. If I’m not here, you can leave a message with my aunt. No one can doubt her willingness to remember every name you give her.”

  “If we’re done, I’ve got to be going” Noah said, his disappointment obvious. “I’ve got a long ride ahead.”

  The other men quickly excused themselves, and within minutes Nathan was at the door bidding Asa Warner goodbye.

  “We’ve got to do our best to keep anybody from shooting” Nathan was saying. “This isn’t another revolution. It’s an economic crisis. Nobody’s going to win unless we all win. And it won’t ha
ppen overnight.”

  “They’re not going to wait for their money,” Asa said. “Don’t know that I can either. Your damned bloody British merchants are squeezing me dry. If they would just let us trade with the West Indies—”

  “That’s beyond our control” Nathan said. “We’d better concentrate on getting through the next few weeks with as few scars as possible. We all have to live together.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Asa regarded Nathan speculatively. “You’re mighty calm about this. They don’t want sensible advice, you know.”

  “Then well have to give them a reason to take it.”

  “I’ll think on it. Good night.”

  Delilah hid in the shadow of the thornbush as Asa Warner mounted his horse and rode off. She tried to reconcile all the aspects of Nathan Trent she had seen over the last several days. He was in turn arrogant and insufferable, as unsettled by her physical presence as she was by his, silent and distant, ready to defend her from his family and his friends, and a blunt, efficient businessman. Somewhere in this combination of behaviors and attributes was the real Nathan Trent. Or was mere someone inside him she hadn’t yet discovered.

  She started out of her trance at hearing a bolt shot home and a key turning in the lock.

  She was locked out.

  Chapter Eight

  Delilah stared at the locked doors in dismay. She hurried back around the corner of the house, but the window was shut. She was just in time to see Lester close the drawing-room door behind him. It was out of the question that she bang on the door and have to explain to Nathan why she was outside again at this hour of the night.

  Mrs. Stebbens! Did she have a key to the back door? If an explanation had to be made to anyone, Delilah would rather it be to that kindly woman. As she passed along the side of the house toward the wash-shed loft where Mrs. Stebbens slept, Delilah’s attention was caught by a light in the butler’s pantry. As much as she didn’t want to have to explain anything to Lester, he was still better man Nathan.

  Delilah could just reach the lowest pane. She gave it a sharp rap and was amused to see Lester practically jump out of his skin. When he saw her face pressed to the pane, he turned so white she thought he would faint.

  “It’s the, Delilah,” she called as loudly as she dared. “Let the in.”

  Lester peered through the pane before he opened the window. “What are you doing outside?” he demanded.

  “I was taking a walk” Delilah explained. “Mr. Trent closed the door before I could get inside.”

  “What’s wrong with knocking?”

  “Just let me in,” Delilah said, impatiently. “You can question me later.”

  “I ain’t used to the help running about in the dark,”

  Lester complained as he let Delilah in the back door. “I don’t approve of it neither.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Delilah said. “I wasn’t dunking.”

  “Don’t seem to me like you ever think,” Lester protested. “I never saw anybody stir up people like you do.” He gave her a sharp look. “You ain’t doing nothing bad, are you? And don’t give me that insulted look you give Mr. Nathan. I ain’t no fool. Better gals than you have got themselves in trouble.”

  “What could I be up to?” Delilah asked. “Everybody’s in bed.”

  “I don’t know, but never bring a poor man into a rich man’s house is what I say. Causes trouble every time.”

  “I’m not a man.”

  “That brings me to the next thing I mean to say.”

  “Don’t tell me. I can guess,” Delilah said, forestalling him. “Now I’m going to bed.”

  “Ain’t you going to tell me why you was outside?”

  “No,” Delilah said with an impish grin as she slipped off to bed.

  “That gal is up to something,” Lester said to the empty room.

  An hour later Delilah’s door opened on silent hinges. Moonlight pouring in through the window at the front of the hall turned the landing into a study in black and silver. The dark brown of the floor had become a carpet of silver crisscrossed by a lattice of thin black strips. Chairs, tables, and the spokes in the bannister cast elongated shadows whose ghostly forms strained toward Delilah as she headed down the stairs.

  She paused on the second floor long enough to make sure no light came from under Nathan’s door. The steps creaked in faint protest under her weight, but keeping close to the wall, she went down the main staircase quickly. Retreating into the darkened recess of the library door, she paused to listen.

  She heard nothing.

  Using great care, Delilah turned the knob and pressed in gently. Again a faint protest. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

  Leaning against the door frame, she took a deep breath. Her heart beat so hard it actually hurt her chest. If anybody caught her, what could she say to explain her presence in the library at this hour of the night?

  She would get a book. It wouldn’t convince Serena, but maybe Nathan would believe her. She had twice seen him reading. Delilah pulled a book from the shelf—she didn’t even bother to read the tide—and hurried over to Nathan’s desk.

  Locked! She should have expected that. She didn’t know any more about desks than she did about tea.

  She smiled at that memory as she racked her brain for a way to get into the desk. She had to see that list. And she had to learn the names added to it in the weeks to come. But how? She had no reason to need Nathan’s key. She would just have to think of something. Reuben’s life might depend on it.

  Delilah woke out of a deep sleep. She’d been dreaming about depraved English lords stalking her. She smiled to herself, turned over, readjusted her pillow so her cheek would rest on a cool spot, and started to drift off again.

  Then she heard the footsteps again. Only this time she wasn’t dreaming. They came from outside her door. Someone was pacing the hall. Who? Why? She might have been frightened if it hadn’t been clear the footsteps went back and forth without pausing when they passed her door.

  Then she heard a sound like a faint moan. Or maybe it was a whimper. Whoever it was stopped walking and halted in front of the entrance to her room. Delilah jumped out of the bed, grabbed a robe, and hurried to the door. She eased it open and peeped out.

  Serena Noyes stood in the hall, pulling at a few loose strands of hair and crying silently. She had lost her nightcap, and her gown sagged so far off her left shoulder it nearly exposed one sagging breast.

  Delilah stepped out into the hall, but Serena seemed to be in a trance, as if someone had hypnotized her. She stared into the space before her, seeing something Delilah couldn’t make out, mouthing words Delilah couldn’t hear, fearing something Delilah couldn’t identify. Tears rolled down a face that looked twenty years older than it had just hours earlier.

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Delilah said gently, draping her own wrap around Serena’s shoulders. “You’ll get chilled.” She tried to turn Serena toward the stairs. There seemed to be no tension in the older woman’s body, yet she was as immovable as if she had been carved from stone.

  From the stench of Serena’s breath, she had been drinking heavily, but Delilah doubted she was drunk. “You can’t remain in the hall,” she said, trying to coax her to move. “At least come sit in my room.”

  But Serena wouldn’t budge. Then, without warning, she started to moan, much louder this time. Delilah couldn’t understand any of the words Serena spoke, but it was clear she was frightened.

  “No.” The word was quite clear. Now she looked straight at Delilah. “No!” she cried once more and began to back away. The more Delilah tried to help her, the more frightened she became. Then, quite unexpectedly, she extended one hand in front of her as though to ward off a blow, drew the other across her face, and uttered a sharp cry.

  Delilah thought she heard two doors open on the floor below.

  Serena stumbled, and as Delilah rushed forward to catch her, Priscilla came running up the stair
s. It took both of them to help Serena to her feet. Even though Serena appeared thin and frail, Delilah had difficulty keeping her balance when Serena pushed her away.

  “I’ll take care of her now,” Priscilla said with none of the coyness she used around Nathan. It was dear she didn’t want Delilah there.

  “I found her standing in front of my door,” Delilah said, trying to explain. “I tried to get her to go back to her room, but she wouldn’t move. She seemed to think I was going to hurt her. That’s when she cried out.”

  It’s all right,” Priscilla said, turning Serena in the direction of the stairs. “She’s not fully awake. She doesn’t recognize you.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need some help?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll return your robe in a few moments”

  “Don’t bother. I only wore it to be decent.”

  Priscilla didn’t respond to the friendly overture. Still talking softly and soothingly, she helped Serena down the stairs and back to her room. Delilah remained standing in the hall, completely mystified. What nightmare terrified Serena? What had caused the difference in Priscilla?

  Delilah looked down toward Nathan’s room. No light shone under the door, but she could have sworn she’d heard a second door open. Was she mistaken? If not, why had he closed it again?

  Only Priscilla came down to breakfast the next morning. She wore her usual pastel-colored gown, overloaded with white lace trimming at the bodice and the sleeves. She had carefully curled and dressed her hair, decorating it with a profusion of ribbons, and the perpetual smile was on her lips. But there was a tightness about her eyes. She looked tired. And unhappy. No, worried.

  “Is your mother feeling better?” Delilah asked as she set a plate before Priscilla.

  “Yes, but she’s too unwell to come down for breakfast.” She spoke in the same breathy voice but without the archness or coyness Delilah had come to expect from her.