An idea sprang full-blown into Nathan’s head. “Go find Jacob Pobodie. Tell him to round up every man on the place and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes. Tell him I said to hurry.”
It had to be Serena. Lester wouldn’t have ventured anything without Serena’s backing. He had been a fool to leave her in control of the house and think she wouldn’t take every opportunity to punish Delilah for his attentions. He supposed it was his fault as much as Serena’s, but he had to do something about it now. Either that, or Serena was going to have to find somewhere else to live.
He was in the process of putting on a shirt when the repair of a small tear caught his eye. A cursory glance told him someone else had sewn up that one. He couldn’t possibly have done any work that fine. He went through the pile of shirts in his drawer. Every darn had been picked out and redone.
Delilah. It had to be. But when had she found the time, what with ironing, polishing silver, and oiling the floors? His anger rose up all over again. It boiled over when he reached the main hall and found Delilah on her knees, working oil into the floorboards.
Nathan knelt down, took the brush out of her hands, and pulled her to her feet. “You’re done with this,” he said, holding his voice as steady as possible.
“But I haven’t finished the hall.”
“Tommy will finish it when he can find time. You’re not to touch that brush again, or to do ironing or polish silver.”
“Who told you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I would have found out the minute I saw you on your knees.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Something I should have done in the beginning.”
“She can’t help herself. She hates me so much she can’t see reason.”
“I realize that now. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own worries, I’d have seen it before. Go change your clothes. I’m going to find my aunt.”
But he was spared the effort. “I thought I heard your voice,” Serena said as she emerged from her sitting room at the back of the house. “Priscilla and I were just trying to decide whether to wake you or let you sleep until midday.” She stopped when she noticed Delilah and the can of oil. “You don’t have to do that now,” she said nervously. “I told Lester.” All of her buoyancy and confidence evaporated as she looked at Nathan out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t like to have an unfinished task hanging over my head,” Delilah said.
“Nor do I,” Nathan put in.
The sound of his voice made Delilah look at him.
Serena glanced desperately about as though seeking some means of escape.
“It had to be done,” she said. “Somebody had to do it.”
“I asked you to change none of my orders, but I had hardly left when you began seeing how many burdensome tasks you could give Delilah.”
“If she told you that, she’s—”
“She never said a word.”
“I told Lester she could take as long as she needed.”
“How was she supposed to finish the floors between redoing every scrap of ironing and polishing the silver as well as carrying out her other duties? And knowing how well she sews, I imagine you’ve set her to work on one of your dresses.” It was a random shot, but it hit center target.
“Amelia Cushing can’t do half as well.”
“You pay Mrs. Cushing. Are you paying Delilah?”
“But she’s a servant.”
“Anything outside her assigned duties deserves extra compensation.”
They were interrupted by the entrance of several men into the hall from the back of the house. When Serena saw they were tracking in the dirt on their boots, she positively swelled with fury.
“How dare you enter this house,” she screeched. “Get out before you ruin the carpets!”
“I sent for them,” Nathan said. “How else are we going to remove your furniture?”
“My furniture?” Serena repeated, totally uncomprehending.
“Your bed, tables, and wardrobes. I suppose you will want the chairs from your sitting room as well. You and your men can begin with the sitting room, Mr. Probide. Rear of the hall on the left.”
“What’s to go?”
“Everything.”
“And when you finish with the sitting room, start on the bedroom. You’ll need to ask Mrs. Noyes to help you with that.”
“What are you doing?” Serena shrieked.
“I’m moving you to the overseer’s cottage.”
“Nothing, absolutely, nothing will induce me to set foot in that place.”
“If you can’t walk, you will be carried.”
“B-but why?”
“You seem unable to live in my house without trying to order its running. I’m equally unable to live in a house where my orders are countermanded the minute I turn my back. This way we won’t interfere with each other.”
“But I can’t move to that place. It’s damp and the plaster is falling. How could I entertain my friends?”
“However you like.”
Priscilla emerged from the sitting room. “Mother, have you gone mad? Jacob Pobodie says you’re moving to the overseer’s cottage.”
“Nathan is forcing me to go.”
“You can’t do that,” Priscilla said.
“I can,” Nathan stated.
“But in the name of Christian charity and common decency—”
“Your mother exhibits neither. She has consistently scorned me and flouted my decisions.”
“I was only trying to make you understand—”
“She didn’t mean to.….”
Chapter Eighteen
“Nathan, may I speak with you a moment?” Delilah asked.
“I hope you won’t try to dissuade me.”
“There’s something you need to consider.”
“Jacob,” Nathan called when he saw Mr. Pobodie enter the back hall.
Pobodie ambled toward him at a majestic adagio. “Yes, sir?” he said.
“When you finish with the sitting room, get one of the ladies to help you with the bedroom.”
“I’ll go with Mother if she leaves,” Priscilla threatened.
“I expect you’ll need more men,” Nathan told Pobodie. “I want everything finished before noon.”
Serena sent forth a long, drawn-out sigh and fainted in a dramatic heap.
“Your mother needs you,” Nathan said to Priscilla. Then he turned on his heel to follow Delilah into the library.
“You can’t move her into an overseer’s cottage,” Delilah hissed even before the door closed.
“You know, you’re beautiful when your eyes flash like sapphires. You should always wear blue. It deepens the color of your eyes.”
“Everybody will turn against you when the word gets around. Even Asa Warner.”
“I saw some blue velvet in a shop in Boston. I was tempted to buy it for you.”
“Everybody knows Serena is difficult, but no one will countenance your throwing her out.”
“I also saw a necklace made out of some blue stones. They probably weren’t valuable, but they match your eyes.”
“Listen to me!” Delilah practically shouted. “I can’t stay in this house if Serena and Priscilla leave.”
That got Nathan’s attention. “Why?”
“I’d be alone with you. Reuben wouldn’t allow it even if I wanted to.”
“Don’t you want to stay?”
“We’re not talking about what I want. We’re talking about a scandal because you ousted your own aunt and cousin because of me. A worse scandal if I stay here.”
“I’ll ask you again. Do you want to stay here with me?”
“Not like that. I’ll come to you with honor or not at all.”
Nathan didn’t look wholly displeased with her answer. “I don’t mean to remove her permanently. If she promises to do what I ask, she can return in a day or two.”
“Tonight.”
“That won’t be long enough.�
�
“Even one night would be too much.”
“I don’t understand Americans,” Nathan said, exasperated. “Last year Lord Ethelston banished his mother to the dower house. He even cut off her allowance for a month and allowed her just one maid. Everyone praised him for it. I attempt to chastise my aunt by a couple of nights in an overseer’s cottage and you say the townspeople will be ready to stone me.”
“I don’t know anything about England, but here we feel your family is your responsibility, no matter how bothersome that might be.”
“Serena is more than bothersome,” Nathan replied. “It doesn’t make any difference.”
“Does it make any difference that she is determined to make our lives miserable? Does it make any difference that every time she does something to you, I want to choke the life out of her?”
“Only to me,” Delilah said, her gaze softening. “To everyone in Springfield, you owe her more than me.”
“The hell I do,” Nathan exploded. “If she can’t stay here without always clawing and biting at you, she’ll have to go. And I don’t mean somewhere close by like the overseer’s cottage. Priscilla, too.”
Delilah found it difficult to be angry at Nathan when he talked like that, but she had to remind herself she was acting in everybody’s best interest, hers included.
“Maybe that’s part of why America is different from England. We don’t have a class of people who can treat others as they want and not care what ordinary people think. We have to work together. If somebody in the community needs something, others lend a hand whether it’s providing food, building a barn, taking in crops, or fighting a war.”
“That’s all very laudable.”
“But this kind of involvement requires everybody to act according to the community’s idea of proper behavior. If you were married and Serena refused to get along with your wife, you’d be justified in putting her out. But you’d have to make decent provision for her.”
“That’s why I—”
“But you can’t do such a thing before you’re married. And to mention my name would ruin me.”
“We could move to Boston.”
“We’re not talking about what we would do. We’re talking about you and Serena. As far as Springfield is involved, I don’t come into it at all.”
“But you’re at the center of it.”
“I can’t be.”
Nathan continued to look at her with a tender concern that nearly melted her resistance. Why couldn’t falling in love be easy?
“I’ll let her come back in a few days if she promises to leave you alone, but I’m putting you in charge of the house.”
“You can’t do that either.”
“Is there anything this community of yours is going to allow me to do? And in my own home, I would like to point out. It’s more of a tyrant than Serena.”
“As long as I’m a servant in your house, you can’t do these things.”
“Then marry me now.”
“You promised to give me a month.”
“That was before you put my household at the mercy of every female within a hundred miles.”
Delilah smiled sympathetically. “It’s not that bad. You can do just about anything to control your own household, and the men will take your part.”
Nathan grabbed Delilah and drew her to him. “I don’t care about the good people of Springfield, and I don’t care about Serena. I just care about you. I love you, Delilah, more than I ever thought I could love anybody. It’s all I can do to see you in this house day in and day out and not touch you.”
“Reuben—”
“I’ll hell with Reuben! I’m sick of hearing his name. I don’t keep my hands off you because of Reuben. I’d shoot him if that were the only way I could have you. I’m sorry. When it comes to you, I don’t have any of your finer feelings for my fellow man. I want Serena out of the house, because if she continues to hurt you, I’m afraid I’ll kill her.”
Delilah’s eyes were so misty she couldn’t see Nathan’s face. The adorable idiot. Did he think she was so fragile she couldn’t stand a little hard work? Didn’t he know as long as he continued to be so fiercely protective of her there was nothing Serena Noyes or anybody else could do that had any power to touch her?
Delilah smiled at his lack of understanding. “Don’t you understand that Serena can’t hurt me? You’re the only one with that power. As long as you love me, I won’t care if I have to oil every floor between here and Boston.”
Nathan held her close to his heart. “I won’t let you work on your knees, not for Serena, not for anyone.”
“It doesn’t matter. It won’t last.”
“Don’t you understand? I want to do things for you. I want to give you gowns, jewels, houses, servants. I want to lay the whole world at your feet.”
Delilah laughed with happiness. “I don’t want the world. I think it would soon become a great burden. I want only you. If we wait, if we’re patient—”
“Wait! Be patient! God, how I hate those words. Once I waited, I was patient, and what happened? Lady Sarah Mendlow completely and utterly destroyed me.”
“I don’t know what occurred,” Delilah said, correctly divining Nathan’s meaning, “but maybe she did you a better turn than you know.”
Nathan gave her a hard look.
“You were never meant to be a suppliant in another man’s house. If you come asking for something on your knees, and it’s granted, you can never stand upright afterward. That would destroy you.”
Nathan held Delilah close and buried his head in the crook of her neck. “I wish I’d met you long ago,” he said softly. “I might not be so bitter now.”
“Think of Serena in the same way. She’s frightened and she’s confused.”
“Will she ever understand?”
“No, but as much as you would like to, you can’t throw her out of your house.”
“I’ll think about it. In the meantime, as much as it pains me, I’ll stay in Springfield.”
“But that would be worse. You can’t—”
“I’ve spent enough time thinking about Serena for one morning,” Nathan said, banishing his aunt from his mind. He slipped an arm around Delilah and guided her over to the window. The garden was bare, the hillside long stripped of its color, but the raw majesty of the landscape never failed to lift his spirits. “How is Mrs. Wheaton doing with her flax? While I was in Boston I found an English agent who will pay gold if I can deliver top quality thread.”
Delilah had finally convinced Nathan to try the American custom of having a big hot meal at midday and a simpler, cold meal in the evening. Serena chose to eat her dinner in the cottage, but Priscilla came to the table.
“I’ve noticed a change in you over the last few days, Priscilla,” Nathan observed. “Somehow you seem less submissive—or would you prefer accommodating?—than before.”
“I’ve never wanted to be submissive or accommodating to you,” said Priscilla, her soft voice in stark contrast to the angry glitter in her eyes. “I’m only here tonight because of Mother.”
“How about the night you came to my bedroom?” Nathan asked. “I got the impression you were more than willing to be accommodating then.”
Delilah was shocked to see Priscilla blush. Nathan had asked her to eat with him, but she insisted upon continuing with her duties until Reuben’s debt was paid.
“You weren’t interested in me, were you? Just how much money you might be able to scare out of me? You would have succeeded, too, if your mother hadn’t been so afraid of what Delilah might do behind her back.”
“I’ve never been interested in you,” Priscilla replied, fury underlining her words. “I wouldn’t marry you if you begged me on bended knee, not even for Mother’s sake.”
“Calm yourself. I won’t ask for your hand, and certainly not on my knees.” They stared at each other like circling combatants.
“And Mother?”
“I think that rests with you.”
“How do you mean?”
“She’s obviously unable to control herself. Even without the brandy, I doubt she could keep to any resolution she made.”
Priscilla looked mortified at the mention of the brandy, but she didn’t appear to be ready to back down. “Are you saying she can move back into the house?”
“On two conditions, one of which applies to you”
Priscilla’s body stiffened. “What are they?”
“Serena must agree to relinquish all control of the household. She’s free to let everyone else believe things are as they always were, but I want it clearly understood that I make all decisions.”
“And your condition for me?”
Delilah thought Priscilla looked unusually nervous. Could she possibly believe that after virtually fighting her off for months, Nathan intended to make physical demands on her?
“You must stay home to make sure she keeps her promise.”
Priscilla flushed again, but she was clearly relieved.
“I don’t wish to know where you go or what you do—that’s between you and your mother—but she clearly can’t control herself.”
“Is that all?”
“Should there be more?”
“I thought you might make some announcement” She glanced significantly at Delilah who stood by the sideboard. “After all, it’s unusual to keep servants in the room when discussing family business. Unless they’ve already become part of the family.”
Nathan couldn’t see Delilah’s body stiffen at Priscilla’s words, but he could feel it.
“I think your mother should be present for any further discussion. Ask her to join us in the drawing room next evening.”
Both Delilah and Priscilla looked questioningly at him, but he resumed eating and soon directed the conversation into different channels.
“I don’t think I should be present,” Delilah said as soon as Priscilla left. “There’s nothing to tell them about me.”
“On the contrary, there’s quite a lot.”
On that enigmatic note, Nathan got up from the table, leaving Delilah to wonder what he meant to say. Her abstraction was so pronounced that both Lester and Mrs. Stebbens noticed it.
“Give me that,” Lester said when Mrs. Stebbens started to hand Delilah a beautifully crafted serving dish. “The way she’s mooning about, she wouldn’t know it wasn’t a tin cup.”
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