The Vow (2 page)
She thanked Shaw for his sympathy, then added, “If you’ll excuse me, I have nine more bushels of tobacco to pick.”
Shaw swore under his breath, looped the reins around the wagon’s brake, and jumped down. He climbed over the low stone wall effortlessly and strode over to Hannah. “I think you’ve picked enough tobacco for one day,” he said.
“I’m taking you home. Now.”
Hannah regarded him as if the sun had addled his brains. He wasn’t much taller than she, but his broad shoulders and stocky build told her that he was strong enough to tuck her under his arm and carry her off. “I can’t go home until I finish picking tobacco,” she said, stepping back apace.
Reiver Shaw placed his hands on his hips. “Look at you. You’re as white as a sheet and the sweat’s pouring off you. You stay out here and you’ll die of heat exhaustion in five minutes.”
“It’d be preferable to slavery,” she muttered, turning away to return to her work.
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Shaw took her arm and turned her around to face him. “What’s that old skinflint doing to you?”
He works me in the fields until I’m exhausted
, Hannah wanted to say.
Then his
wife makes me work in the house. She calls me lazy and threatens to beat me, and her
sons threaten me with worse.
But all she said was, “It’s none of your affair, Mr. Shaw. You’ll only get us both into trouble if you interfere.”
A stubborn glint appeared in the man’s eyes. “I’m not afraid of Ezra Bickford.”
“Well, I am!” Hannah regretted her impulsive words the moment she blurted them out. Desperate to convince him to leave her alone, she placed a hand on his arm. “I know you mean well, Mr. Shaw, but Uncle Ezra doesn’t take kindly to outsiders interfering with his family. You’ll do me a much greater kindness if you let me return to my work.”
“I’m taking you home. And don’t worry about your uncle. I’ll deal with him.”
Before Hannah could blink, Shaw placed his hand beneath her elbow and urged her forward. When she balked, he gave her a stern look. “I can’t leave you here to die, Miss Whitby, whether you want to or not. Now, are you coming with me willingly, or shall I have to carry you?”
One glance at his implacable expression told Hannah that he meant it. She sighed and let him escort her to his waiting wagon.
Reiver prayed this chivalrous act wasn’t going to cost him Ezra Bickford’s good graces, but he never could resist a pair of wide blue eyes and graceful feminine figure. His brother Samuel always warned him that women would be his downfall.
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The Vow
He glanced across at the puzzling Hannah Whitby. She may have accepted her fate, but she wasn’t resigned to it. She sat as far away from him as she could on the wagon seat, her back stiff and straight, her long fingers knotted tightly in her lap as if she was preparing herself for the ordeal to come. She looked straight ahead, so her bonnet’s rim hid her face, but Reiver didn’t need to look at her to recall its beguiling ivory beauty.
He drove in silence down the dusty, tree-lined road winding its way around Ezra Bickford’s land. Reiver knew all his neighbor’s property by heart, the several hundred acres of rich tobacco fields, woods, rolling hills, and the land adjacent to Racebrook.
He thought of that Racebrook land with a lust that almost became a physical ache in his groin. He would do anything to get that land.
He glanced over at Hannah again. “You must find Coldwater vastly different from Boston,” he said, attempting to draw her into conversation.
“Yes.”
That’s all she said, leaving Reiver to listen to the clopping of hooves, the rattling of wheels, and the buzzing and thrumming of cicadas on a hot summer day.
Since he was a man who prided himself on his winning ways with women, he tried again. “I’m sure I would prefer being a doctor’s daughter to a farmer’s niece.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes startled. “How did you know my father was a doctor?”
Reiver shrugged. “Coldwater is a small town. When your mother eloped with Dr. Horatio Whitby, it was gossip fodder for years.”
“How do you know? That was nineteen years ago. You couldn’t have been more than a boy at the time.”
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“I was only eight years old, but our housekeeper was much older, and she remembered it well.” He didn’t tell her that according to their housekeeper, most of the townsfolk disliked Hannah’s mother because she put on airs and thought herself too good for the likes of Coldwater. “She never came back, did she?”
Hannah’s shoulders relaxed a little. “We came for Aunt Ruth’s funeral last year, but that was all. Mother never liked Coldwater. She thought it was…”
Hannah’s voice trailed off and she blushed.
“Too sleepy?” Reiver suggested. “Too dull?”
She smiled sheepishly as if he had caught her thinking forbidden thoughts.
“‘Provincial’ was the word she often used. She may have been born on a farm, but she preferred the liveliness and variety of city life, and I must confess, so do I.”
Reiver knew that in Boston Hannah had lived in a fine, large house with an army of servants to cater to her every whim. Here, she was no better than a servant herself. He suspected she endured her altered circumstances by building a wall between herself and the town her mother had hated.
“And what about you, Mr. Shaw?” she asked. “Have you always lived here?”
He nodded. “My two brothers and I were born here and will no doubt die here.”
“I’ve heard that one of your brothers is an artist.”
“That’s Samuel, my middle brother.”
“Is he very good?”
“I suppose he is, but then I’ve always thought drawing and painting pictures was no occupation for a twenty-five-year-old man. But he often has money when the rest of us don’t, so I can’t criticize what he does, now, can I?”
Hannah smiled at that.
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The Vow
Reiver added, “My youngest brother, James, likes to build things and take them apart to see how they work. I’m sure he’ll be a great inventor someday.”
“Perhaps he’ll invent machines for your silk mill.”
Reiver’s brows rose in surprise. So the reserved Miss Whitby hadn’t totally removed herself from the goings-on in provincial Coldwater. “Perhaps he will.”
The moment he turned the wagon down the drive leading to the Bickfords’
house, he felt Hannah stiffen. By the time they halted before the old gambrel-style farmhouse built just after the Revolutionary War, Hannah’s face had become a blank, expressionless mask, all the life and warmth drained out of it.
There, sitting beneath the cool shade of a stately oak tree, was Ezra Bickford, sipping apple cider that was undoubtedly as cold as the day was hot.
He was a short man in his early forties, and so gaunt that Reiver wondered if he starved himself just to save a few pennies; he also wondered if Bickford wore such old, well-mended clothes so he wouldn’t have to spend the money on new ones.
“Afternoon, Shaw,” Bickford said, his small dark eyes on Hannah. Even when he spoke, he doled out words by the teaspoon.
“Bickford.” Reiver jumped down and rounded the front of the wagon to help Hannah down.
He grasped her around the narrow waist, waited while she balanced her hands on his shoulders, then swung her down. The moment Hannah’s feet touched the ground, her uncle set down his tankard and came sauntering over.
“Why’d you bring the girl home?” Bickford asked in his soft, rasping voice.
“She almost fainted in the field,” Reiver replied, treading carefully so as not to antagonize Bickford. “If she stayed there another minute, she’d die of heat prostration. You wouldn’t want her death on your hands, would you?”
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Bickford hesitated for a moment as if calculating how much money he’d lose if that happened. “’Course not.” He looked at Hannah and nodded toward the house. “Tell Naomi I said you could have some water and rest.” He didn’t say for how long.
“Thank you, Uncle Ezra,” Hannah said politely, but not subserviently. She turned to Reiver. “And thank you for your assistance, Mr. Shaw. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“And it was a pleasure meeting you, Hannah,” he replied with a smile. “Be sure to stay out of the sun.”
She smiled fleetingly and left.
Bickford watched her disappear into the house, then turned to Reiver. “Don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl. Too weak for farm work. Just like my sister.”
“Some women are more delicate than others,” Reiver said. “Your niece looks like she belongs in a ballroom, not a tobacco field.”
Bickford’s face registered no emotion. “The girl’s got to earn her keep. Like the rest of us. Can’t have her lazing around. Like her mother used to.”
Reiver thought he detected a note of jealousy and resentment in the other man’s flat tone, but he made no comment, just ran his hand down Nellie’s glossy bay rump and said casually, “Have you thought any more about selling me the Racebrook land?”
“Thought about it.”
“And?”
“Haven’t decided.”
Old bastard, Reiver thought.
He’ll keep me dangling for another six months.
But all he said was, “You know where to find me when you do.”
Bickford nodded, his dark eyes revealing nothing.
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The Vow
Because he knew Bickford was too miserly to offer him refreshment, Reiver decided to leave. He climbed into his wagon, gathered the reins, and wished the man a good day before urging Nellie into a trot and heading back home.
“Don’t tarry now, girl! The men are waiting for their dinner.”
At her aunt’s harsh command, Hannah grabbed the steaming bowl of buttered summer squash in her left hand and balanced the platter of roast pork along her right forearm, praying the tinware wouldn’t burn her fingers and go crashing to the floor. All she wanted was to get through another evening meal without mishap. She flew out of the kitchen, her Aunt Naomi following with the breadbasket.
In the small dining room just off the kitchen, Uncle Ezra sat like some wizened potentate at the head of the long plain trestle table, his small suspicious eyes watching Hannah’s every move as if just waiting for her to make a mistake.
Zeb and Zeke sat together on one side and Nate on the other, next to Hannah. He made sure he always sat next to Hannah.
“It’s about time,” Nate said, scowling.
“She sure is slow, ain’t she?” Zeb said.
Zeke added, “We’ll have to teach her to move faster, right, Zeb?” He poked his brother in the ribs and Zeb whinnied at some private joke.
Unlike their mother, who was as small and sturdy as her husband, the Fisher boys were tall, hulking young men, with identical sly gray eyes always looking to take advantage, and black, unkempt hair as straight as an Indian’s. Hannah had dubbed the trio “Naomi’s gargoyles” because of their fearsome, stonelike faces.
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She ignored them and set down the dishes gingerly, looking to Aunt Naomi for permission to sit. Her aunt sat down herself at the foot of the table, then nodded curtly for Hannah to take her seat. Once Hannah sat down, Uncle Ezra said grace and the boys dug in, hairy arms reaching and greedy forks spearing as if this were their last meal. Not once did their mother admonish them to mind their manners.
Hannah’s stomach growled. She watched everyone else help themselves, and only when they piled their plates high did she dare take what was left, and there was precious little. After all, Aunt Naomi had told her, the men worked hard and should be given first choice at mealtimes, whereas women should eat abstemiously so they wouldn’t get fat.
Aunt Naomi regarded her with resentful, rain-gray eyes. “Just look at her wolfing down her food. I thought you said you were sick.”
“I was, Aunt Naomi,” Hannah replied, keeping her eyes on her plate. “It was so hot in the field, I almost fainted.”
“Aw, a little heat never hurt nobody,” Zeb said.
Hannah felt the toe of Nate’s boot lift her skirts and stroke the side of her foot. She managed to kick him away without the others suspecting what was going on, then glared at him.
He only leered back. “Hannah doesn’t know what real heat is,” he said, his taunting gray eyes dropping down to her breasts and lingering there.
Hannah’s cheeks reddened, and she turned her attention back to her food before her aunt decided she was too sick to eat and divided her meager portion among the boys.
“She’s just lazy, right, Ezra?” Naomi looked across the table at her husband.
“You’re too hard on her,” Ezra said. “The girl isn’t used to living on a farm.
Got to make allowances.”
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The Vow
Hannah looked up in surprise. This was the first time she had ever heard her uncle defend her. It must have taken aback her aunt, too, for Naomi stared at him in shock. She recovered herself quickly enough.
“She’s had six months to get used to it, but she’s always ailing or she moves too slow.”
Hannah said nothing, just ate and took her mind away to that secret place where they could never reach her. She knew her detached air irritated Aunt Naomi and her potato-brained boys more than any fiery outburst.
“You listening to me, girl?” Aunt Naomi snapped, reaching over to tweak Hannah’s arm.
Hannah winced. “I always listen to you.”
“No, she’s not,” Nate said, slipping his hand beneath the table so he could squeeze Hannah’s knee. “She’s got her head in the clouds again.”
She didn’t even flinch because she had been expecting his usual daily assault, but she was ready for him this time. Her hand shot beneath the table and she clawed at his vulnerable wrist with her fingernails.
Nate yelped in surprise and almost jumped out of his Windsor chair.