Patricia Rice (36 page)

The strong, competent man she had always known she could rely on looked as lost as a stallion in a parlor. But already he had learned to adjust his hold so he could support the baby's head and keep the blanket pulled around wiggling toes. He would learn quickly. Now, if she could just pray that the streak of violence would go away...

She wouldn't think about that. In answer to his question, Dora murmured, "Harriet Elizabeth."

A dead silence followed her reply. Before Pace could object, his mother snorted and answered, "I always hated the name Harriet. They'll call the poor little thing Harry half the time. If you're so foolish as to use my name, use Frances. That's my middle name. It's much prettier than Harriet."

Dora lifted her gaze to Pace, but he stared at his mother as if he'd never seen her before. Apparently coming to some decision, he nodded and placed the infant in Dora's arms.

"Frances Elizabeth," he murmured. "Do I get to call her Frankie?"

He spoke so low only Dora could hear him. She shot him a glare, but the mischief dancing in his eyes so reminded her of the boy she had once known, that she couldn't deny him. She shifted the bundle in her arms and touched his bearded jaw. "Thank you."

Pace looked startled, then a little pleased. "Maybe I should have been a doctor," he whispered back.

Dora managed a smile, but with the babe snuggled against her breast, she could no longer keep her eyes open. With the memory of the light in Pace's eyes warming her, she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

When Dora woke the next morning to infant cries, Pace had been replaced with Delia, who showed her how to nurse the starving child. With no men in the quarters any longer, there were no nursing women either. Unlike Josie, Dora would nurse her own babe.

She slept the better part of the day away, aware that Josie stopped in for a while and that Harriet came and went, but too exhausted to care about much else. She knew Pace had returned to the fields. She'd had Delia pull back the draperies so she could see the sunshine. Not until the shadows of evening filled the room did she wonder if Pace would come.

To Dora's relief, he arrived with her supper tray. He pulled the fried chicken apart so she wouldn't have to balance the tray on her lap while cutting it. She noted the mashed potatoes and gravy and remembering the time she'd brought the same for him and he'd thrown it at her, she lifted a questioning eyebrow in his direction.

"It's not beans," he warned her before she could say a word. "It's the only thing I could think of to order them to make. Be grateful."

"Unlike some people I know, I am always grateful," she admonished. "But why did you order the menu? Josie was here."

He returned his attention to his tray. "The news of Lee's surrender has feelings riding pretty high. She thought she'd stay with her parents for a little while, maybe go up to Cincinnati and visit her cousin."

"It won't get better anytime soon, will it?" Dora asked sadly.

Pace shook his head. "People don't forget easily, and there're those who won't let them forget. General Palmer is sending out squads of Negro soldiers now, looking for slaves who haven't already volunteered. The federal government says their families are free as soon as they join, so they're joining right and left. A squad went through town today."

Dora's head went up. "Solly?"

Pace nodded. "I told him he was already free, that he could have the papers without joining up, but he liked the uniforms and the promise of pay better than I can give him, and with the war nearly over..." He shrugged.

"Ernestine and her children?"

"Where would they go? I gave her some things from the attic to fix up her cabin, so she's content for the moment just knowing she's free. But I have to come up with funds to pay her."

"And feed and clothe her and the children," Dora added. "Solly can't do it." She studied his face. "Would it be better to sell the farm?"

Pace's lips closed in a grim line. "No."

They found more domestic subjects to discuss. They found it easier talking of the diaper cloth needed from the mercantile than asking how the neighbors reacted to the news that the South had lost. A new cradle mattress made an easier topic than the possible repercussions from the Union army against Southern sympathizers.

And Dora didn't dare mention the question of Pace's night riding. Homer's death had not entirely faded from her mind. A man had died, and she knew in some way, Pace was responsible. She had difficulty imagining this gentle man hovering over his daughter's cradle, reverently touching the tiny hands of his newborn infant, as the same man terrorizing the neighborhood with torches and nooses.

But she had seen both sides of Pace and knew the violence existed. She had married him knowing it. She just hadn't learned yet how to deal with it.

She only knew that if his violence ever turned against her child, she would be gone so far and so fast, that he would never find her again. She had discovered something inside her that gave her more strength than her mother had.

Oddly enough, she thought that strength came from Pace.

Chapter 27

My grief lies all within.

And these external manners of laments

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,

That swells with silence to the tortur'd soul

Shakespeare,
Richard II

Infant whimpers disturbed the silence of the darkened room. Dora dragged herself from thick clouds of sleep, wishing she had succumbed to the desire to keep Frances in the bed beside her. But foolishly, she had hoped Pace would join her. He hadn't. The sheets in the place beside her were cold.

Before she could untangle the covers and force her aching body to sit, a noise in the corner of the room caught her attention. She hadn't expected anyone's help. The door hadn't opened. But someone whispered to the crying child.

Before she could wake enough to scream, a shadow stood beside her, handing her the thrashing, unhappy bundle.

"She's wet."

Pace. Dora stifled a giggle of relief. She took the soggy infant from his hands and reached for the stack of cloths beside the bed. He was here, not out riding through the night. Happiness soared through her, happiness she had no right to feel. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You were sleeping like a log. I didn't want to disturb you." He stepped back from the bed as she efficiently unwrapped the soaked diaper, cleaned the wailing child, and wrapped her up again.

"This is your bed. You're entitled to sleep in it." Dora tried to sound pragmatic, not terrified or questioning or any of those other things she felt. What was happening between them scared her. She feared she would do or say something wrong that would destroy these tentative feelings or drive him out into the night again. She wanted to make things right, but she didn't know how.

"You need your rest," he muttered, but he didn't move away as Dora unfastened her gown and guided her daughter's questing mouth to her breast.

Darkness cloaked any embarrassment she might have felt as the child sucked. Dora adjusted the pillow and leaned back, enjoying the closeness of the moment. She had never felt close to anyone but Pace, and he had held her away from him for so long that she was ready and eager for any human touch. Having both Pace and the child at hand was heaven.

Carefully, she said, "You will not disturb me, Pace. Lie down and get some rest."

He hesitated, then made his way to the empty side of the bed, sitting on the edge to remove his boots. "I'll put the babe back in the cradle when you're done. You shouldn't be up and about yet, but I didn't dare disturb Annie. She has her hands full with my mother and everything else."

"I'm not an invalid. I can put her back to bed. Without Solly's help, you must be exhausted. Go to sleep, Pace."

She heard the rustling of his clothes and knew he surrendered to his exhaustion even as he protested. She wished she could see more in the darkness, but she satisfied herself with knowing he was here with her.

"What happened to your 'thees' and 'thous'?" he asked with interest as he lowered his heavy weight to the bed.

More conscious of the size of Pace's shoulders and forearms as he propped himself beside her than on what she said, Dora considered his question. She didn't know the answer. "My Plain Speech?" she stalled, uselessly. He just waited for her reply. "Sometimes I forget. I was not born to it. Thou art a bad influence, I suppose."

She raised the babe to her shoulder to burp her, but she could tell she in no way distracted Pace's gaze. He rested on his side, propped on one elbow. She sensed his need to touch as strongly as she felt her own.

"The Smythes are gone. You no longer attend Meeting. None will know if you talk like the rest of us. What is the purpose of keeping it up?"

The infant exhaled a milky gasp. Dora rubbed her back a little longer, then set her to the other breast. She winced at the tug on her sore nipple, but the rush of pleasure that followed eased the pain. When Pace reached to stroke the soft dark down on the child's head, warmth flooded through her. This was the way it should be.

"Would it please thee if I stopped?" she asked with curiosity.

His fingers wandered, stroking a baby-fine cheek, then measuring the texture against that of Dora's breast before retreating. "I like the way you talk. Your voice is soothing. And it's the content of your words rather than the method of your speech that matters to me. I just thought it might make it easier for you if you didn't always have to remember to speak like the Quakers." He lay back against the pillow to stare at the ceiling.

That brief touch sufficiently exposed the fragility of her feelings. She wanted Pace desperately, as her husband, as her lover, as her best friend. She played games with the devil to want so much. But she ached with the need to be close to him, ached so much that she tried imagining he felt the same.

"I would find it just as difficult remembering not to use it," was all she said aloud.

"That makes sense." He turned a questioning gaze to her. "Would you like to attend Meeting again?"

"I can't." Matter-of-factly, she lifted the nearly sleeping infant to her shoulder one last time. "I married outside of Meeting, without the Elders' approval."

He muttered a pithy curse, then reached for the baby when Dora lowered her from her shoulder. "Well, there's one area in which I excel—wrecking lives." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and returned Frances to her cradle. When the baby uttered a protest, he stood there, rocking her until she settled again.

"Thou didst not wreck my life, Pace Nicholls." Dora sighed in comfort as she lay down and pulled the covers over her. "I made my own choices, and I do not regret them. Now come to bed."

He hesitated, then obeyed. Carefully, he made no move to touch her. "Then you're crazier than I ever thought you were."

Dryly, she said, "Thank thee," and turned her back on him.

* * *

Days later, Dora was up and about, but she hadn't yet dared descend the stairs. Harriet had ventured out of her own room to see the baby, but this day, Dora had returned the favor by visiting her. The older woman looked more alert and younger than she had since Dora had known her, but she still seemed reluctant to leave the shelter of her room.

As Harriet watched Dora rock the fretting infant, she said petulantly, "I think it extremely selfish of Josie to take off with Delia like that when she knew you would need her. How will you get anything done carrying a babe around?"

Privately, Dora rejoiced that she didn't have to leave her daughter with the careless Delia, but she preferred soothing her mother-in-law rather than irritating her. She just smiled and patted the baby's back. "I'll find ways. I've been thinking. We had a good apple crop last fall, and those left in the barrels are getting wrinkled. If I cooked them down into sauce, do you think I could sell them in town? Then I'd have enough money to buy jam jars, and I could put up the strawberry crop and maybe even get some blackberries come summer. My jams always brought good money in town."

Harriet snorted and gave her a venomous look. "I suppose I should be happy you're not planning on working out in the tobacco field like a darky. I don't know what this world's coming to these days."

"It's changing, Harriet," Dora said softly. "And I can't make Pace bear the whole burden. He's paying Ernestine and her eldest to work the tobacco field. It's tiresome but not any harder than my kitchen garden, and they can use the money to buy their own clothes, I guess. But Pace won't see any cash until that tobacco gets sold. We have to do something. It's for certain Joe Mitchell won't let the bank lend us any."

"That boy takes after his father. Pace will know where to find the money, I venture," Harriet said in a tone of gloom that expressed her apprehension as to the money's source.

Pace had already inquired into the disposal of the horses, Dora knew. When told the army had taken them, he hadn't inquired further. She should have told him right there and then that she used the funds for paying the taxes and remind him of the confusion that resulted, but he hadn't been in a reasonable frame of mind at the time. She felt as if she walked a tightrope whenever she was with him. He could be gentle and considerate when he wanted, but most of the time he walked around with a black cloud over his head that terrified her.