Rebel Enchantress (36 page)

Delilah hurried over to it, turned the knob silently, and eased the door open. A light disappeared up the steps. Delilah breathed a sigh of relief. Priscilla was going back to bed. Whatever she had taken, she didn’t mean to take it from the house.

Delilah lighted the candle, picked out a book, snuffed the candle, and left the library. She had barely placed her foot on the third step when she heard one of the bedroom doors on the second floor open. She dashed into the drawing room across the hall. Keeping the doors slightly ajar, Delilah watched until Priscilla came down the stairs. She wore a cloak and heavy shoes, the ‘kind she’d wear if she planned to go out.

Priscilla was the spy!

She padded softly toward the back of the hall. Then Delilah heard the back door open and close. Book in hand, she scurried down the hall and through the pantry into the kitchen. She watched Priscilla round the corner of the house and head toward the river. Racing back down the hall, Delilah reached the library window in time to see Priscilla go down through the garden and take the path heading north along the river.

Once more Delilah hurried to the kitchen. She grabbed an old cloak Mrs. Stebbens kept hanging by the back door, then looked down at her slippers. They would soon be ruined by the cold, wet ground. Her gaze fell on a pair of boots. Tommy had put by the back door in case of snow. She stuffed her feet into them before letting herself out the door and hurrying toward the garden.

Delilah pulled the cloak more tightly around her. Despite the rain, it was bitterly cold, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. The ground would freeze before morning. She hoped Priscilla wasn’t going far. They both might catch pneumonia.

Delilah had to run to catch sight of Priscilla. The exertion sent blood hurtling through her veins, and in fifteen minutes Delilah didn’t feel the cold so much.

Forty-five minutes later, Priscilla was still striding along. They had already passed several houses, their presence being heralded by barking dogs on two occasions. Delilah breathed a sigh of relief when Priscilla at last took an inland path, but she cursed her luck when she lost sight of her as the path twisted and climbed up from the river bottom through the trees. She would never have known where to look if she hadn’t seen a light coming from a small cabin once she came to a clearing.

Being very careful not to make any noise, Delilah approached the cabin from one side and then crouched down until she was next to a window. Very slowly she stood up and looked just far enough around to be able to see inside. She was rewarded by seeing Priscilla and Hector Clayhart together. Priscilla handed him a piece of paper. It had to be the note she had taken from Nathan’s desk.

It must be the list of insurgent leaders, but what good was that now? Everybody already knew the leaders. Still, there must be something important about it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of stealing it and meeting at night.

Whatever it was, Delilah had to stop them.

She stepped out of the bracken and dead leaves under the window and went up on the porch. Priscilla and Hector were kissing passionately when she opened the door. They leaped apart, shock and surprise on both their faces.

“Now I understand why you didn’t want to marry Nathan,” Delilah said.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Priscilla. “How did you find us?”

“I followed you. I was in the library when you stole that paper from Nathan’s desk.”

Hector looked down. The paper was in his hand. Instinctively he put it in his pocket.

“You couldn’t have been. I saw no one.”

“I was hiding behind the settle. Does Nathan know you have a key to his desk?”

“I didn’t take anything important.”

Delilah decided she had to appear to know more than she did if she was to force any information out of them. “You took the list of names Lucius Clarke gave Nathan. Why?”

Bull’s-eye! Both Priscilla and Hector lost color.

“It’s a letter I wrote to Ezra Buel long ago,” Hector told her. “I asked Priscilla to get it back for me.”

“Let me see it.”

“It’s private.”

“I won’t read it.”

Hector made no move to remove the paper from his pocket.

“Why did you take the list?”

Neither of them answered.

“I know you want to use it to incriminate Nathan”

“No.” Priscilla’s protest lacked conviction.

“Give it to me, and I’ll forget all about it.”

“No.” That was Hector.

“Either you give me the list, or I’ll tell Nathan the minute I get back.”

“You won’t if you don’t leave here.”

“What do you propose to do? Keep me locked up here until you’ve ruined Nathan? Or something worse?”

“No,” Priscilla said, fright causing her to lose any desire to remain silent. “Hector wouldn’t hurt you. He only wanted to give the note to Shays so hell—”

“Shut up!” Hector commanded.

Now Delilah understood. “You’re the one who informed on Shattuck. You’ve been spying for both sides.” A flash of scorn hot enough to scorch Hector’s cheeks flashed from her eyes. “I could understand your helping either side as long as you believed in its goals, but to lie to both of them!”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You accepted their trust. It’s the same thing.” She seemed to have difficulty finding adequate words to describe her feelings of disgust. “If Reuben ever finds out what you’ve done, he’ll shoot you. As for your friends … I imagine you’ll end up wishing Reuben had gotten you first.”

“Nobody will know anything about it because you won’t leave here.” Hector pounced on Delilah and dragged her to a low-backed chair and forced her to sit down. She didn’t even try to escape. She just glared at him scornfully.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Of course he isn’t,” Priscilla answered when Hector didn’t reply immediately.

“I’ll keep you here while I decide.” He began to tie Delilah to the chair with a sheet pulled from the bed.

“You’d be better advised to let me go. Nathan will search the countryside inch by inch when he finds I’m missing.”

“Why should he care about a serving wench?” Hector asked sarcastically.

“Because he’s asked this
serving wench
to be his wife.”

Hector stared at Delilah in patent disbelief.

“Ask Priscilla if you don’t believe me. He even kicked Serena out of the house because she was rude to me.”

“He’d kill you himself if you hurt her,” Priscilla said.

“Nathan Trent?” Hector laughed cynically. “He’s too much of a dandified fop to box his own shadow.”

“You’re wrong,” Priscilla said. “He may seem quiet, but he’s a dangerous man.”

“If Nathan doesn’t get you, Reuben will,” Delilah said, making no attempt to get away from Hector. “I don’t imagine you think he’s too foppish to fight you.”

The look on Hector’s face showed how much he feared Reuben.

“Of course if I can get that paper back in Nathan’s desk before he finds it missing, nobody need ever know it was taken,” Delilah said.

“Why would you want to protect us?” Priscilla asked.

“I don’t. I’m interested only in protecting Nathan,” Delilah explained. “If people think he has anything to do with spying, even if it’s not true, they’ll never accept him.”

“But why should you care?”

“No woman wants her husband to be an object of suspicion and dislike.”

“What will you do for us?” Hector asked.

“Isn’t keeping Nathan and Reuben from killing you enough?” Delilah asked. Hector flushed.

“Hector didn’t do this without a good reason,” Priscilla said, equally willing to defend the man she loved. “He was only trying to get back some of what Noah and Lucius took from him.”

“Why didn’t you go to Nathan?” Delilah demanded. “Surely Nathan would help the man you mean to marry.”

“How did you know?” Priscilla asked.

“No woman would do what you’ve done unless she loved a man very much,” Delilah said in a softer tone.

“Her mother won’t let her marry a pauper,” Hector said, his broken pride manifest in his unsteady voice.

“Then don’t ask her. Talk to Nathan, work something out, but let me return that note before it’s too late.”

“You won’t tell anyone?” Priscilla asked.

“I’ll never tell a soul unless it’s to protect Nathan.”

Priscilla looked undecided.

“Are you crazy?” Hector exclaimed. “We can’t let her go.”

“I thought this was a mistake from the beginning,” Priscilla said. “I begged you to talk to Nathan, but no, you had a better way. What has it gained us? Not one damned thing. Delilah’s right. If people find out what you’ve done, they’ll kill you. Maybe not Reuben or Nathan, but somebody will.”

“Maybe I should have talked to Nathan, but it’s too late now. We can’t let her go. Come on.” He grabbed Priscilla’s arm and pulled her toward the door.

“We can’t leave her here. She’ll freeze to death.”

“She should have thought of that before she followed you” Hector said, pushing Priscilla out the door before him. He turned and faced Delilah. “Let Nathan comb the countryside. By the time he finds this place, you won’t be able to tell him anything.”

Delilah tried to pull her hands free, but she’d been so confident Hector and Priscilla would give her the note she hadn’t noticed he had tied her so securely she couldn’t move her arms or her feet. She looked around the cabin hoping to get an idea about how to free herself, but except for the bed, the cabin was bare.

She tried to stand up and pull her hands over the back of the chair, but Hector had tied them to one of the slats. She couldn’t free her hands unless she could find a way to break the slat.

With a painstaking effort, Delilah jumped her chair in the direction of the doorway. If she could beat the slat against the door frame, maybe she could crack it. One attempt convinced Delilah she’d break her hands long before she broke the slat. Winded, she slumped in the chair while she considered her problem.

Clearly she could not untie the sheet. Therefore, she had to attract someone’s attention and keep herself warm while she waited for Nathan to rescue her. By hopping around the room, she was able to locate some matchsticks on a shelf. It was impossible to reach them with her hands, but she nudged them with her nose until several fell to the floor.

Before she could even think of the pain it would cause, Delilah turned her chair over.

The sheets bit into her wrists and ankles, but instead of thinking about the pain, Delilah twisted her chair around until the matches were within reach of her fingers. It wasn’t difficult to pick them up, but she didn’t know if she could strike one. A fire was already laid. If she lighted a matchstick, her next problem would be to ignite one of the slivers of lighting wood next to the fireplace and somehow insert it in the grate between the pieces of wood.

That was a lot of ifs, and everything depended on her being able to light a matchstick. Ignoring the pain in her wrists, Delilah maneuvered her chair toward the fireplace until she could reach one of the bricks. She would use its rough surface to light the matchstick.

The first one broke. So did the second, but she managed to light the third. However, once it was lighted, she was unable to pick up the piece of lighting wood. Just as she was about to drop the matchstick, let it burn out on the floor, and try again, she smelled burning cloth. Somehow her wrists were twisted about so the match flame reached the sheet. She couldn’t see what part of the sheet was being burned, but if she could burn it through, maybe she could free herself.

She could only guess when the flame went out. She broke three more matchsticks before she lighted another. She could hear cloth tear when she pulled with her full strength, but it held. Delilah used up all her matchsticks before she was able to light another.

And still the sheet held.

She began the agonizing journey back to the shelf. From it, she dislodged two more matchsticks. This was her last chance.

She broke the first one. She broke the second as well. Her only choice now was to search around for one of the broken pieces and hope it was long enough to burn through the rest of the sheet. She had to roll the chair until it was practically on her hands before she could reach a broken matchstick. But was it enough to burn through the rest of the sheet?

Luck was with her. She was able to light it without breaking it again. Soon the gratifying smell of burning cotton assailed her nostrils. She held the matchstick in place until it scorched her fingers. Dropping the charred end, she said a short prayer and pulled with all her strength.

She was rewarded with a satisfying rip. Two more tugs and Delilah’s hands were free of the chair slat. With great effort, she was able to raise her arms over the back of the chair. Tucking her body into a tight knot, Delilah passed her feet through her arms and brought them in front of her. In a matter of moments she had untied her ankles. She had just cut her wrists free with the knife she’d found on the shelf next to the matchsticks when Priscilla entered the cabin.

The two women stared at each other.

“So you got yourself free.”

“Yes.”

“What were you going to do?”

“Why did you come back?”

Priscilla hesitated then held out her hand. “To give you this.” It was the note.

“Does Hector know?”

Priscilla shook her head. “He’s sleeping. I made a copy. This is the original.” The note had the additions and deletions in Nathan’s hand. “You promise you won’t say anything to anyone.”

“Not unless I must to protect Nathan.”

Priscilla handed the note to Delilah. “I’ll give you the key when I get home.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I have to stay. If Hector knew I gave you the original, he’d follow you.”

“He’s not worthy of you,’ Delilah said.

“He’s the only man I want.”

Loving Nathan as she did, Delilah could understand. “Don’t stay too long,” she said, and left without a backward look.

It was past three o’clock when Delilah finally crawled between the sheets on her bed. She meant to stay awake until Priscilla returned, but she fell asleep less than an how later.