Rebel Enchantress (7 page)

“No, I don’t,” Serena snapped. “And to think you’re forcing this wretched girl on me the very day my beloved brother was laid in his grave. You have no consideration for my feelings, Nathan Trent, and no respect for your uncle’s memory.”

Delilah felt a twinge of sympathy as Serena dabbed ineffectually at her eyes.

“I’m not as gullible as your friends, so you can put away that handkerchief and stop pretending an affection you never felt,” Nathan said with brutal frankness. “After what you said when you heard the conditions of his will, I’m surprised you didn’t shovel the dirt over him yourself.”

“I would have if it would have changed anything,” Serena said, dropping all pretense. “Ezra was hard and cruel. I don’t suppose you’ll be any different.”

“That will depend on your attitude toward me,” Nathan stated. “Miss Stowbridge would like to know her duties.”

Serena directed a hate-filled glare at Nathan before turning her cold gaze on Delilah. “You can help Lester clean up, keep the rooms dusted, lay the fires, and empty the grates. You ought to have some experience in that, even in a farmhouse.”

“Is that agreeable?” Nathan asked.

Delilah nodded her head. She recognized deep-seated enmity in Serena Noyes’s eyes, but she also saw fear. What hold could Nathan have over this embittered woman?

“Your uncle would never have settled for a servant girl in exchange for his money,” Serena hissed, a look of scorn and triumph mingling in her eyes. “He’d have taken the oxen, the plow, and the farm if necessary, but he’d have had his money. That’s how he built Maple Hill.” She pointed an accusing finger at Delilah, a look of loathing on her distorted features. “She’s how you’re going to lose it.”

“I don’t intend to lose my inheritance,” Nathan said.

Delilah could see him struggle to hold back the words balanced on the tip of his tongue.

“You’re just like your father,” Serena almost screamed. “There’s no Buel in you. You’re all Trent, soft and weak. If Ezra had left Maple Hill to me, I’d have thrown the wretches out months ago.”

“Even Uncle Ezra believed in giving people a chance,” Nathan said, dismissing the subject. “Now I think you ought to show Miss Stowbridge to her room.”

“Put her where you want. I’ll have nothing to do with it.” Serena Noyes turned and stalked away.

Nathan forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly. He wanted to get out of the house before the wave of exasperation, which had been building inside him all day, swept away the last of his self-control. But after his aunt’s disgraceful display of hostility, he couldn’t leave Delilah without some explanation. He weighed his words carefully.

“Aunt Serena expected to inherit Maple Hill. She hates me so much she can hardly stand to set eyes-on me.”

“Then why doesn’t she leave?” Delilah asked. They had started to climb the ornate staircase situated midway in the hall.

“Uncle Ezra left me everything, even the linen and china. I’m to provide a home for her until her daughter marries.”

“Can’t you give her an allowance and let her live somewhere else?” Delilah knew this was none of her business, but she couldn’t imagine Nathan sharing a roof, even one as large as Maple Hill, with such a shrew.

“Another of Uncle Ezra’s conditions prohibits me from allowing Serena to live anywhere except Maple Hill.”

“Surely you can ignore that.”

Nathan smiled, rather grimly Delilah thought. “Apparently he didn’t trust me not to. He saddled me with a set of trustees for the next two years.”

“No wonder the poor woman is eaten up with bitterness.”

“I wouldn’t mind her being bitter at Uncle Ezra,” Nathan said. “It’s her anger at me I find difficult to tolerate.”

As they reached the upper landing, they paused before a double dormer window with a superb view of the maple-lined avenue leading up to the house. Those trees were all that remained of the stand of sugar maples that once covered the hillside and had given the estate its name.

“Why does she hate you?”

“I’m an Englishman.”

Delilah felt a stab of shame. After seeing how ugly that attitude was in Serena, she was embarrassed to have felt the same way herself. “But you’re her nephew.”

“My uncle came to Massachusetts forty years ago to escape being impressed into the navy. After he became prosperous, he invited his sisters to join him. My mother stayed in London and had a son, and Aunt Serena came to Massachusetts and had a daughter. It’s difficult for her to see the cause of her ruined hopes staring her in the face day after day.”

Delilah wondered why she felt no sympathy for Serena. They were actually in somewhat similar situations.

“I can see how you might sympathize with her” Nathan said, “but it’s unfair to hold me responsible for everything that’s happened in her entire life.”

His words merely increased Delilah’s feeling of guilt. Hadn’t she done the same thing?

Nathan led her to the back of the hall, where he opened the door to a small but bright and cheerful room. The yellow-painted walls were plain, the woodwork was unadorned; but the bed, piled high with mattresses and pillows, was covered with a cotton print bedspread which matched the curtains at the single dormer window. A chair, washstand, and wardrobe were the only other pieces of furniture.

It’s not very large,” Nathan apologized, “but I’m afraid you won’t get to spend much time here. There really is a lot of work to be done.”

It was to be her own. Delilah thought it was the most beautiful room she had ever seen. “It’s perfect,” she said, unconsciously comparing it to her own tiny loft at home.

“Talk to Aunt Serena if you want anything else.”

Delilah looked up quickly, surprise in her eyes.

“She will calm down before long.”

Delilah could have sworn she saw a trace of tolerant amusement in Nathan’s eyes.

“She hates change, but she’s been complaining more than Lester about needing help.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I told you and you spoke to your aunt?” Delilah had already decided to stay as far away from Serena as possible, but as she spoke she realized the real reason for her suggestion was a desire to hold on to some contact with Nathan.

“I won’t be around very much,” he said. He had turned to leave the room, depriving Delilah of the chance to see his expression, but she thought there was a different sound to his voice. “I have a lot of property I’ve never seen. I can’t be a good landlord until I know what I own. Now you must meet Lester. He’ll be your real boss.”

For the first time Delilah wondered about the wisdom of coming to Maple Hill. Serena Noyes obviously disliked her. Nathan Trent would be gone much of the time. And now she was being turned over to a third person, probably one whose only interest in her was getting as much work out of her as he could. Delilah felt abandoned.

Unlike the two upper halls, which had large windows at each end, the downstairs hall was lit only by the fanlight above the front door. Runners on the stairs and hallway deadened the sounds of their steps, and in the fading light of the late afternoon, Delilah felt like a ghost floating through the house.

“Most of the time you can find Lester in the butler’s pantry or the dining room,” Nathan said as he opened the door to a room at the back of the hall. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves loaded with china, crystal, and plate. A tall, gaunt, gray-haired black man sat at a low table, polishing a large silver serving spoon. “When he’s not here, he’s in the kitchen.”

“You needn’t be looking at me like you seen a spook,” the man said, not unkindly, as he waved the large spoon at Delilah. “I get to tell you what to do.” He lifted himself out of the chair. “Here, you finish with the polishing while I see to setting the table. Before you know it, Mrs. Stebbens will be hollering for me to fetch the first course, and me without the linens laid out yet. Don’t stand about with your mouth open, gal. Ain’t you never seen a black man before?”

“Of course I have,” answered Delilah, quickly recovering her composure. “I can also set a table.”

“What would the likes of you know about setting any table in this house?” Lester asked, condescension clearly written on his thin features. “You polish that silver nice and bright, and I’ll see about teaching you to lay out a table the way proper folks do it. But not until you have every piece shining so bright it’d put your eyes out to look at it in the sunlight.”

“I was told I would help wait on the table,” Delilah said with a certain hauteur of her own. She wasn’t about to become a servant to a servant.

“And have you breaking up the china? I may let you hand around the dessert if you’re careful, but you ain’t getting your hands on the soup tureen or one of them serving dishes. Why, it’d take you five years to pay for them.”

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Nathan said, turning toward the door. “Remember, let my aunt know if you need anything, but Lester will probably be able to take care of you.”

“You’d best talk to old Lester,” the black man said the minute the door closed behind Nathan. “Mrs. Noyes was born with a real nasty streak, and she’s been improving on it ever since.”

Delilah looked despairingly at the closed door through which Nathan had just disappeared.

“He ain’t going to help you none,” Lester said. “The only man that’s going to stand between you and that screech owl is me, so you better get to work on that silver while I see to the table.” He paused before he went through the door, turned back, and gave Delilah an appraising look. “Now that I think of it, it might be better if she don’t see much of you for the next few days.”

“She knows I’m here.”

“Sure she does, but if she don’t see you, it won’t bother her so much.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will,” said Lester as he turned and opened the door. “You most surely will.”

Delilah seated herself at the table and picked up the spoon Lester had been working on. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. It had a double-line border and a heavily embellished initial—B—engraved on the handle. The only piece of silverware Delilah could remember seeing was a small cup someone had given Reuben when he was born. They had sold it during the war. She looked at the shelves around her. There was enough silverware in thus one room to pay off half the debts in the county. What right did Nathan Trent have to own so much expensive tableware when hundreds of people around him were struggling just to put food on the table?

She felt an irrational urge to snatch up that big china serving dish and smash it on the floor. Why couldn’t Nathan give up just one of these pieces for Reuben’s debt? It wouldn’t mean anything to him. He probably wouldn’t even know it was missing.

But Delilah dismissed the idea almost as soon as it occurred to her. Nathan might forgive the debt, but that wouldn’t cancel it. Only when she had paid back every shilling could she leave Maple Hill with her family pride fully restored.

Then
she might smash a piece of his china.

She picked up a cloth and began to polish the spoon. She would turn her back on Nathan Trent just as quickly as he had closed the pantry door on her. Her only loyalty was to Reuben and to the others who were laboring under debts and struggling with high taxes. No, she didn’t owe a single thing to Nathan Trent or his kind.

But Delilah couldn’t dismiss Nathan that easily. She still felt a lingering excitement, a tantalizing remnant of what she’d experienced while sitting next to him during the buggy ride. She had never been around a man as attractive as Nathan Trent, and it was impossible for her to simply forget him. He was too tall, too handsome, too alive. But it wasn’t just his looks. It was what he did to her that was so shocking.

He made her feel funny all over.

When she was close to him, an ache pervaded her whole body. If he smiled, she was light-headed; if he frowned, she felt she had no head at all. Her breath seemed shallow, her chest tight, and her voice a mere whisper. First she was too hot; then she felt cold. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so strange.

Her mind was no better. Not only had she begun to question her reasons for coming to Maple Hill, she was starting to question Captain Shays as well. No sooner did she decide Reuben had a right to keep his oxen than she also decided Nathan had the right to collect the debts owed him. The moment she determined Nathan was the enemy and should be treated as one, she realized he was just as much a citizen of Massachusetts as she was.

She laid the spoon down, took up a large fork, and began rubbing it very hard. She didn’t want to think about it. Everyone would be better served if she kept her mind on her work and off Nathan Trent.

Nathan mounted the steps two at a time and went quickly to his room. He knew it was callous to desert Delilah so abruptly, albeit it was better to leave her with Lester than his Aunt Serena, but he didn’t want to be around her any more than necessary. She was too damned enchanting. As long as it was only a matter of physical attraction, there was a chance he could control his interest. He had known many beautiful women in London, some more beautiful than Delilah. Realizing they were beyond his reach had made it possible for him to think of them without uncontrollable longing and desire.

He pulled his clothes off and, in his haste to change and be gone, unceremoniously tossed the discarded garments on the floor. He wanted to be out of the house before Priscilla had a chance to corner him. That was one woman he did look upon with longing and desire—a longing to get away from her and a desire never to see her again. He reached into the cupboard for one of the two clean shirts left there.

For all practical purposes, Delilah was just as much out of his reach as any grand lady in London, but he had been thinking of her lustfully from the moment he had set eyes on her. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the next four months. He couldn’t stay away from home all the time.

Maybe he could go to Boston and see what was happening in the General Court. No, he had to stay closer to Maple Hill and put his estate in order. And that meant putting Delilah out of his thoughts.

But he found himself bedazzled by a pair of dark blue eyes. There was nothing special about them. There must be thousands like them in Massachusetts. Still, something about this pair would not let him go. And, of course, her mouth was too wide. She had only smiled once, but instead of thinking her smile showed too many teeth for classic beauty, he had wanted only to know what had made her smile, and had wanted to see her smile again.