Rebel Enchantress (25 page)

The argument had become so strident by the time Nathan opened the library door, he thought he wouldn’t be heard over the hubbub. But after a long dusty ride from town and a hot dispute, the call for refreshments penetrated even the most heated brain. Within a matter of minutes everyone had left the library to seek out the ale being served in the hall.

And a chance to feast their eyes on Delilah.

She wore a hunter green gown trimmed with cream lace. The cap on her head didn’t cover the abundant hair cascading unhindered around her shoulders, a view of which was enhanced by the very low neckline of the gown.

Nothing hindered the men from looking their fill. Not even the arrival of Serena Noyes.

By the time Lucius and Noah had filled Serena’s head with the threat posed by the regulators and their inability to understand why Nathan didn’t seem to be concerned about the safety of his property she had worked herself into a rage. Feeling like a woman wronged, she rounded on Nathan.

“You’re not going to do anything, are you?” She didn’t even wait for Nathan to answer. “I told you from the beginning what would happen, and you didn’t listen to a word I said.”

“I’ve heard everything you said. Many times over,” Nathan said wearily, but Serena swept on.

“And you brought that woman into the house, knowing she would tell her brother every blessed thing she knew’

“What does she know, Serena?” Nathan demanded. “What can she tell anyone that everyone doesn’t already know?”

“She could go through your papers, listen at keyholes, look in your room. Anything. You’ve given her the run of the house”

“My desk is always locked, there’s nothing of importance to overhear at keyholes or elsewhere, and she couldn’t very well clean out the grates if she couldn’t go into my room, could she?”

One of the men snickered. Serena, rightly deciding he was laughing at her, lost all ability to reason. She saw Nathan as the man who had taken the wealth which should have been hers and was about to lose it, thereby casting her into eternal poverty.

“He’s not one of us,” she said, addressing the men in the room. “I’ve tried to tell him what to do, but he won’t listen. I think he’s in league with the regulators.”

“Don’t be daft, Serena,” Lucius Clarke said. “He has more to lose than any of us”

“He doesn’t care,’ she said. “He plans to go back to England. He thinks you’re all fools, imbeciles. I’ll prove it to you,” she shouted when she saw none of them believed her. “I’ll show you what he really thinks of you.”

She rushed up the stairs.

“You sure she’s not suffering from brain fever?” Asa Warner asked Nathan in a half-whisper.

“She’s never gotten over my uncle leaving his money to me. And she can’t understand why I don’t do everything the same way my uncle did.”

“Why don’t you?” Asa asked.

“T'm looking for a better way.”

“Have you found it?”

“In some cases.”

Serena came running down the steps, her skirt billowing behind her.

“Look at these” she said, flinging a handful of caricatures into the air to flutter to the floor at the feet of the nearly twenty men gathered there. “Now tell me I’m a silly old woman who doesn’t know what she’s talking about”

“Where did you get those?” Nathan demanded.

His voice was quieter and more deadly than Serena had ever heard it. It terrified her. She desperately wanted to run away, but she had gone too far. Besides, these men would be on her side when they saw what he thought of them. They wouldn’t let him hurt her.

“I found them in your room,” Serena flung at him, but she literally shrank before the fury that blazed from his eyes. A fury so hot she felt scorched.

There were seven drawings, each of one of the men present, and each fiendishly lever. They were so telling, no one had to ask for names.

By God, I’ll kill you for this,” Noah Hubbard shouted when he saw how Nathan had drawn him.

Lucius Clarke made a sound which could only be described as a cry of extreme anguish.

“I think this one of me is rather funny,” Asa Warner said.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d been made to look like some kind of strange goat,” Tom Oliver cried.

“That’s a satyr” Delilah said.

In their anger at Nathan, they had forgotten her.

“What is that?”

“A Greek woodland deity known for its riotous and lascivious behavior she explained.

“You drew this of me?” Tom snarled, turning to Nathan.

“I drew it,” Delilah announced. “I think you know why.”

Tom blushed. It would be impossible for him to explain to anyone what had happened in the library a few days earlier.

“You’re a liar!” Serena screamed. “Nathan drew those. I found them in his room in one of his drawers.”

“I don’t know where you found them,’ Delilah said coolly, “but Nathan came upon me when I was drawing them. He took them away and made me promise not to do any more.”

“I don’t believe you,” Serena said.

“Why should you draw pictures like this?” Lucius asked.

“Because I despise you for what you’re doing,” Delilah burst out. “Every one of you has more money than you’ll ever need, yet you’re doing everything you can to squeeze more out of men who are so poor they can barely feed their families. Then you turn around and whine like whipped dogs when they close a court so you can’t sell your booty. You’re contemptible.”

The men were speechless. No one had ever had the courage to lay their sins before them so clearly. Certainly not a woman who looked more like their favorite daydream than a ranting revolutionary

“Return to the kitchen,” Nathan said. “Lester will serve my guests. I shall speak to you when I’m done here.”

Delilah didn’t mind going. She didn’t know why she’d defended Nathan. It hadn’t been thought out. She had simply realized he was in trouble, and before she’d been consciously aware of what she intended to do, she’d heard herself say she had drawn the caricatures. She didn’t know how he had reacted. She had looked only at the others. She had to convince them Nathan was innocent of creating those malicious pictures.

“I don’t believe you did these drawings,’ Serena protested. “I don’t think you can draw”

“Nevertheless, I did.”

“Prove it. Draw another one. Right now”

Delilah felt uncomfortable. She could draw; she’d always fiddled during odd moments, and she had often been complimented on her designs for quilts, embroidery, weaving, anything else she made herself. But she saw true artistry in Nathan’s work. His drawings were brilliant. She couldn’t do anything nearly that good.

“I’d rather not.”

“I knew you were lying” Serena exclaimed triumphantly.

“It’s one thing to draw a picture of someone when you’re alone and angry,” Delilah explained. “It’s quite another to do it with someone staring over your shoulder!

“They won’t care about anything the likes of you can do. Draw”

“If you insist, but ill need pen and ink.’

“And a fresh piece of paper,” Noah said.

“There’s plenty in my desk,” Nathan offered. ‘Have you chosen your subject?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like him to pose?”

“No. I can remember the features quite easily.” A few simple lines quickly drawn and a picture began to emerge. It was something she’d done often over the last few weeks, sometimes in flour on the kitchen counter, much to Mrs. Stcbbens’s amusement, sometimes in the soft garden dirt. Once in a sandy spot by the river. It took her less than a minute to complete.

She handed it to Nathan. A muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched, but he managed to keep his face composed.

“Let me see it,” Serena demanded.

“I don’t think you should.”

“I will see it,” she cried.

Nathan handed it to her without comment.

Serena’s face registered total incomprehension at first. Then, in quick succession, shock and horror and fury.

“You vile creature; she moaned. “You cruel, wicked girl.” The picture slipped from her weakened grasp and fell to the floor. Noah picked it up.

“It’s you,” he said to Serena. “She’s knocked you off clean as a whistle.”

The men passed the picture around, to their considerable enjoyment. None of them could see the difference in the strokes, the detail, or the incisiveness of the characterization. They saw only that Delilah had created a wickedly funny caricature of Serena.

“Return to the kitchen,” Nathan said to her, but his eyes remained on his drooping aunt. “I trust you’re satisfied?”

“Satisfied!” Serena cried, indignation giving her strength. “You let her make fun of me and then ask if I’m satisfied?”

“You insisted she draw another picture.”

“She drew only one,” Serena screeched. “You drew the others.”

But dearly no one believed her.

“Ill prove it,” she said to the nervous and embarrassed men. “And I’ll prove he’s consorting with those people behind your backs.”

“Listen to me, and listen well,” Nathan said to his aunt.

That look was back in his eyes. Serena tried to back away, but there was nowhere for her to go.

“I have borne with your unending lamentations over Uncle’s leaving me his fortune. I’ve suffered your ‘castigations against my character and my family, but I will endure no more. If you ever enter my room or search it, if you accuse me before my friends of perfidy and treason, I shall turn you out of this house
within the hour.”

“You can’t mean it,” Serena gasped.

Several of the guests murmured in protest.

“The hour you put it to the test will be your last under this roof.”

Serena crumpled up and sank to the floor in a dead faint.

Nathan looked dawn at her in disgust. He longed to turn his back on her, but he couldn’t. Even if he hadn’t had guests, he wouldn’t have done it.

“I’ll take her upstairs, he informed his guests. “Go on with you discussion”

He lifted Serena easily. Mare frail than she looked, she weighed very little. He carried her to her room and deposited her on the bed. She showed no sign of reviving, so he went to Priscilla’s room and knocked on the door. No answer. After knocking once more without receiving a reply, he opened the door and looked in.

The room was empty.

Not one to waste time with idle speculation, Nathan rang the bell. Delilah came in answer to the summons. She stopped in the doorway when she saw Nathan bending over his aunt.

“I need someone to stay with her. Priscilla’s gone, and I have to go back downstairs.” Delilah didn’t move. “I’ll ask Mrs. Stebbens if you like. After what she said about you, I wouldn’t blame you if you refused.”

“It’s all right.”

“Just one more thing I have to thank you for.”

Delilah slowly approached Serena’s bedside.

“Why did you defend me?” Nathan asked.

Delilah thought of pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. She thought of trying to say something clever. She even thought of running away.

But she did none of these.

“They would expect something like that from me. But if they thought you had done it … ” Words failed her. She couldn’t think of a single consequence that didn’t make her cringe inwardly.

Nathan finished for her. “On top of being a Redcoat and not approved of by them, it might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Would they have shot me?”

“I don’t know what they would have done, but you don’t need any more enemies. And if Noah Hubbard thought you had done that drawing of him, he would have hated you for the rest of his life. Lucius Clarke might have challenged you to a duel. He did challenge a man once. And killed him.”

“So you decided to sacrifice yourself.”

“It wasn’t a sacrifice. I just confirmed what they already thought”

“You more than confirmed what I thought of you.”

Delilah was embarrassed by the undisguised admiration in his voice. But she heard something else as well—it had nothing to do with admiration—and that excited her.

“What made you do those drawings?” she asked, an aroused twinkle in her eyes. “They were the most wicked things I’ve ever seen.”

“You never told me you could draw,” he countered. “That was an adept picture you did of Serena.”

“It could not compare to yours. They are brilliant. You ought to be an artist.”

There was that same flash of pain again. Clearly she had pricked some old wound, a deep one which still had the power to abrade him.

But you haven’t told me why you drew them”

“Because of you.”

“You can’t blame that on me.”

“I was angry about the way they’d treated you that first night. I knew I couldn’t fight them all, so I did the next best thing. I drew the most abominable sketches I could.”

“People don’t appreciate being mocked.”

“Why should you protect me? You don’t even like me”

“That’s not so” Delilah realized too late that the speed and vehemence of her denial told Nathan far more than she wanted him to know about her feelings. The warm look in his eyes was positively burning now. And he was no longer standing still. He was moving toward her.

“I wanted to protect you, but I haven’t.”

“You’ve always protected me,” Delilah contradicted. “I’ve felt perfectly safe from the moment I climbed into your buggy.”

“You’re wrong’ Nathan said, so close now she could feel the heat of his body. ‘You were always in more danger from me than anyone else.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, but she knew

“I wasn’t brought up among men in the habit of denying themselves pleasure. From the minute I saw you standing on the doorsteps, I wanted you. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I even laid plans to seduce you, but something always kept me from attempting it”

“What?”

“You weren’t the kind of woman who would be seduced. By the time I figured that out, I knew I didn’t want just a few minutes or hours with you. I wanted to be with you all the time.’

“ That’s impossible. Your friends would be certain you’d taken up with the enemy if you were more than friendly with me” But she sounded like a woman hoping to be convinced she was wrong.

“I don’t care what that lot downstairs thinks.”