Rebel Enchantress (37 page)

Nathan wakened her with a kiss.

Delilah struggled to fight through the bonds of sleep, aware of the softness of lips upon her own, of feathering kisses across her eyelids, of the soft brush of his warm breath against her skin. Her arms encircled his neck, imprisoning him. He laughed softly.

“Open your eyes.”

“I can’t,” she murmured sleepily.

“Don’t you want to look at me when I talk to you?”

“I’ve memorized every part of your face.” Something nagged at the back of her mind. Something she wanted to tell him.

Nathan sank down on the side of the bed. “Very well, lie there like a sleeping Venus. Just listen. I have to be away for most of the day, but I’ll be back before nightfall. Will you be waiting when I return?”

That was what she wanted to tell him. “I’ll always be here. I’ll never go away.”

“I hope you mean that,” Nathan said, his kisses tender and sweet.

“I do.” The mists of sleep began to close in on Delilah. “I have something else to tell you,” she said, trying to free her brain of the fog which clouded it.

“You can tell me later.”

“I must tell you now.” But it was hard to wake up. Easier to sink back into oblivion.

“It’ll keep until tonight. I’ve never seen you look so tired. I’ll tell Mrs. Stebbens not to wake you.”

“It’s important” Delilah said, but she was already drifting away.

“Tell me tonight,” Nathan said.

He kissed Delilah back to sleep.

Delilah came awake slowly. She lay in bed, eyes closed, and stretched luxuriously. Her legs ached as never before. What on earth could she have done to make her so stiff?

Then she remembered Priscilla and Hector and the note.

Her eyes flew open. The sun poured in her window. It must be close to noon. Delilah jumped out of bed and dressed at a record speed. She was driven by pangs of guilt at leaving Mrs. Stebbens and Lester to cook and serve breakfast alone. Then she remembered Nathan would be gone for the day, and she slowed down. Priscilla and Serena never came down to breakfast when Nathan was absent.

Still she had her work, she had to get the key to the desk from Priscilla so she could return the note, and she had to tell Nathan she loved him more than anything else in the world.

She pinned her cap to her hair, adjusted the neckline of her dress, and hurried downstairs to face Mrs. Stebbens’s probing questions, Lester’s inescapable scolding, and Tommy’s complete indifference.

Chapter Twenty

Delilah was irritated. Even though Serena hadn’t gotten up until noon, she had immediately sent her off on an errand. Though Delilah had been allowed to take the buggy, she still got behind in her work. Everything seemed to fall to her today. Worst of all, she couldn’t find Priscilla. The young woman had disappeared; no one knew where she had gone. Desperate to return the paper before Nathan returned, Delilah ventured to speak to Serena.

“Priscilla’s whereabouts are no concern of yours”

“There is something I must ask her.”

“Tell me. I’m completely in her confidence.”

“It’s rather private.”

“What can you possibly have to say of a private nature to my daughter?”

It required all of Delilah’s ingenuity to get away without telling Nathan’s aunt everything. Then, to completely ruin her day, Priscilla came in five minutes before dinner and rushed up to her room to change. Delilah probably wouldn’t be able to return the paper until everyone had gone to bed. She hoped Nathan didn’t look for it this evening.

The back door to the kitchen burst open, and Nathan strode in, mud-spattered from riding over countryside still soggy from yesterday’s rain. Nonetheless, Delilah thought him the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

Oblivious of everyone else, he swept her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

She blushed furiously.

“I thought I’d better warn you to set a place for me,” he said.

“Your place is already set,” Delilah said as she tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of his arms.

“What do you mean coming in the back door?” Mrs. Stebbens asked, scandalized. “If people get to hear of it, they’ll think you’re touched in the head.”

“I wanted to kiss Delilah without having to explain to my aunt and cousin,” Nathan said without the least show of embarrassment.

“In that case, it’s all right,” Mrs. Stebbens said. “Anybody who knows Mrs. Noyes can understand that.”

Nathan took a more secure hold on Delilah. “What was it you wanted to tell me this morning?”

“Not now,” she hissed.

“What did you say?” Nathan teased.

“I’ll tell you later,” she said, still in a whisper.

“I suppose it’s the cold in my ears, but I can’t understand you.”

“There’s nothing to understand,” Delilah snapped, out of patience with his joking. “It’s been so long I’ve forgotten. Besides, I’d never talk confidences here, not with three pairs of ears straining to hear every word I say.”

“If this meat stays on the spit much longer, it’s not going to be fit to eat,” Mrs. Stebbens announced. “Lester’s ready to ring the bell. You’d better hurry if you want to change your clothes.”

Nathan didn’t want to leave.

Mrs. Stebbens vacillated. “Of course I could hold off a spell if you wanted to have a quick chat.”

“He may, but I don’t,” Delilah said. “He took the whole day to get home. He can wait another hour to hear what I have to say.”

“’Tis a cruel maid you be,” said Mrs. Stebbens, grinning from ear to ear. “Take care he doesn’t seek consolation elsewhere.”

“If he gets discouraged that easily, he’s welcome to look anywhere he pleases,” Delilah snapped, becoming truly angry. Didn’t anybody understand that she wanted to talk to Nathan alone, that this was not something she could joke about? She wrenched herself out of his arms.

“I’ve got work to do. And you have to get dressed”

Nathan looked a little surprised and hurt.

Mrs. Stebbens started to make a remark, but the expression on Delilah’s face caused her to change her mind.

“You’d better hurry up and get dressed, Mr. Nathan. I think I smell the haddock. It’s about done.”

“In the library, after dinner?” Nathan asked.

Delilah looked a little less irate. “When I’ve finished helping Mrs. Stebbens clear away.”

“Is it worth waiting that long?” Imps danced in his eyes again.

“Nathan Trent, if you can’t wait a few minutes for something that’ll affect the rest of your life, then you’d best not waste any more time.”

Nathan studied her so closely Delilah couldn’t prevent a telltale flush from flaming her cheeks.

“Change your clothes before I change my mind.”

Nathan grabbed her and kissed her soundly again. “Will it mean I can do this every night?”

“Get out of here this minute, or I’ll take a rolling pin to you,” Delilah threatened, but she was smiling too broadly for her words to have any meaning, at least the one she’d intended.

“I’ve decided I’m not hungry.”

“And I’ve changed my mind,” Delilah exclaimed. “You’d exhaust the patience of a saint, and God knows I’m no saint.”

“I’m a sinner, too. Can we sin together?”

Delilah took refuge in the larder and locked the door behind her.

“I think you’d better go,” Mrs. Stebbens said, grinning more broadly than a proud mama. “You’ve flustered her so much she may leave Lester to do the serving alone.”

“Wish me happy, Mrs. Stebbens. Wish me very happy.”

“I do, sir. We all do. Now get along. Other people have to eat even if you’ve lost your appetite.”

Mrs. Stebbens chuckled as Nathan left the kitchen. “You mark my words, there’ll be wedding bells before the month’s out.”

“There’ll be murder when Mrs. Noyes hears about it; Lester prophesied. “She ain’t never going to let herself be displaced by no serving maid, not if she dies for it.”

“She won’t have any say. You knock on that door and tell Delilah it’s all right to come out. Unless you’ve a hankering to serve the dinner by yourself.”

“The old master must be turning in his grave to see what’s going on in his house.”

“He’s turning all right,” Mrs. Stebbens declared, emphatically, “but it’s on the devil’s roasting spit. If anybody ever went straight to hell, it was Ezra Buel.”

The door opened and they both stared in shocked silence. Serena had entered the kitchen.

“Mr. Trent has returned home. Be so good as to set a place for him.” She spoke with such condescension, such hauteur, Mrs. Stebbens was moved to respond.

“Mr. Nathan’s already been to the kitchen with his orders. Dinner’s to be put back ten minutes.”

Serena cast Mrs. Stebbens a fulminating glance and stalked out.

“That’s done it,” Lester said. “You’re in for it now.”

“I’m not in for anything, and if that old crow doesn’t know I’m more important to Mr. Nathan than she is, it’s about time she did. And that ain’t a spot on what Delilah is to him.”

Delilah thought the meal would never come to an end. Serena seemed determined to postpone each course until every dish arrived at the table cold or overcooked. Priscilla, who hadn’t bothered to pay attention to Nathan in weeks, acted as she had when Delilah had first come to Maple Hill. And Nathan kept making leading comments to Delilah, which caused her to blush, Priscilla to watch her covertly, and Serena to glare at her with lethal menace.

She nearly sighed with relief when she heard the furious pounding on the front door.

“Why would anyone come visiting during dinner?” Serena asked after Lester had been dispatched to discover the meaning of the disturbance.

“They probably heard about our superb cook,” Nathan said, fully enjoying a beef brisket Delilah had worked two weeks to help Mrs. Stebbens learn to prepare to perfection. “I didn’t find anyone in Boston who could cook English dishes as well as this. Where did Uncle Ezra ever find her?”

That question was destined to remain unanswered. Lucius Clarke, followed by Noah Hubbard, Tom Oliver, Asa Warner, Eli Beck, and a half-dozen others burst into the dining room despite Lester’s efforts to convince them to wait in the drawing room.

“They’ve closed another court, and Shays has sent out another letter,” Lucius announced without preamble. “Listen to this:

The seeds of war are now sown. I request you and every man to supply men and provision to relieve us with a reinforcement. We are determined to carry our point. Our cause is yours. Don’t give yourselves a rest and let us die here, for we are all brethren.

“Does that sound like a man who wants peace or one who means to start a war?”

“I think we should go into the drawing room,” Nathan said. It was impossible to continue their meal with so many men squeezed into the room.

“How can you care where you are?” Lucius demanded.

“Because I can’t think in this crush,” Nathan said. “If you wish my attention, you’ll have to come to the drawing room. Delilah, bring some ale for our visitors.’

“Behold!” Noah shouted as though he had just become aware of Delilah’s presence. “There stands the spy.”

Every head in the room turned to Delilah, the men’s looks so angry, so dangerous, it was all she could do to stand her ground.

“Anyone charging a member of my household with treason had best have proof,” Nathan said. The look Delilah knew so well affected even such an emotional person as Noah Hubbard.

“But our spy said so,” Noah insisted.

Nathan ignored Noah. “Into the drawing room. Lester can bring the ale,” he said to Delilah just before he left.

“I’ll bring it. “I’ve done nothing, and I’ll not run away.”

“I wonder what he means by ‘our spy’?” Serena said to Priscilla. “I would give half of everything I own to prove that little slut a liar.”

“I’m sure Delilah would never sell information to the regulators, but she was in the library last night.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Nathan said she could use it any time she liked. I figured she went down to get a book.”

Serena jumped to her feet and ran to the library as fast as her feet would carry her, too quickly to see the smile of malicious triumph on Priscilla’s face.

“Now what about this letter of Shays?” Nathan asked as soon as the men reached the drawing room.

“It’s not so much the letter,” Lucius explained, “but the fact he named a committee of seventeen, mostly former officers in the Continental Army, to raise companies in the county of Hampshire. They’re all to be under Shays’s command.”

“As long as the legislature does nothing about his petition, it was to be expected.”

“But those seventeen are the very ones on the list I gave you.”

“How can you know that?”

“Our spy told us,” Noah chimed in. “He said Shays joked that Lucius Clarke had chosen his lieutenants for him. There’s only one copy of that list, and I saw you lock it in your drawer. If Shays knows about it, he had to learn about it from someone in this house.”

A coldness encircled Nathan’s heart. He tried to keep his mind from thinking what it was impossible not to admit. He tried to tell himself there was an obvious explanation for all of this, one that had nothing to do with Delilah, but fear had taken hold in his heart and was rapidly putting down roots.