The Vow (7 page)
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The Vow
A dull flush crept up Reiver’s face and he lowered his head like a bull about to charge. “Has my wife been talking about our private life to you behind my back?”
“She didn’t need to. I’m not blind.” Samuel jammed his hands into his pockets and stared out at the horizon of colored trees. “Do you remember how Ma and Pa were with each other? How he would hug her when he didn’t think we boys were looking? Do you remember how Pa would listen—really listen—
when Ma spoke, and how her eyes would follow him wherever he went?”
Reiver’s lip curled in a sneer. “All I remember about Pa is that he was always drunk. If Ma’s eyes followed him, it was to make sure he didn’t pilfer the money we boys brought home.”
“They loved each other in spite of Pa’s weakness,” Samuel insisted. “You just never saw it.”
“How could she love him? He was a drunk who never worked two days together in his life! He lived off the money we boys earned, or have you forgotten?”
“I’m not here to argue about Pa. I’m talking about Hannah.” Samuel paused.
“She’s falling in love with you.”
That caught Reiver by surprise. “Did she say that to you?”
“She’s got too much pride for that. I doubt if she even realizes it herself. But I know women well enough to recognize the signs.”
Reiver said, “You spend too much time with women, little brother. You’re getting as soft as they are.”
That old childhood insult failed to sting Samuel, but he had to resist the strong urge to smash his fist into Reiver’s face.
When he saw that he couldn’t get a rise out of his brother, Reiver turned to return to the mill.
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Samuel caught his arm. “You have to give Hannah a chance. And she’ll never have it if Cecelia’s still a part of your life.”
Reiver shook his hand off. “You spend too much time thinking and talking, Sam. I don’t want to fight with you. I’ve never told you how to run your life, so don’t start trying to run mine. And if you tell Hannah about Cecelia, you’ll regret it.”
With that threat poised like drawn daggers between them, Reiver stalked off toward the mill, his broad back stiff with anger.
“Blind, thickheaded fool,” Samuel muttered to himself. He leaned into the wind and headed back to the house. He had an idea.
He found Hannah in the parlor, seated in a wing chair by the window, intent on mending James’s shirt.
She inspected her fine, almost invisible stitches and smiled in satisfaction.
“There! It’s finished.”
Samuel looked around the room to make sure Mrs. Hardy or Millicent wouldn’t interrupt them, then said, “Hannah, would you pose for me?”
Her hand flew to her chest in surprise. “Me?”
“Yes. I’d like to sketch your portrait, or make an engraving. You may give it to Reiver as a Christmas gift, if you’d like.”
“Your family celebrates Christmas? Mine did, too, but most New Englanders don’t.”
“My mother was from New York and insisted we celebrate the holiday just as she did when she was little.”
“Do you think Reiver would like such a portrait of me?” Her voice trembled with uncertainty.
“I’m sure he would. And we would want it to be a surprise, so we wouldn’t tell him.”
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“When would we start?”
“Tomorrow morning, as soon as he goes to the mill.”
Hannah’s expression grew wistful. “My mother sat for her portrait just before she died. It was never finished.”
“Well, I guarantee you that this one will be. And in time for Christmas.”
Then he left her with her eyes shining like a child with a secret and returned to his studio.
In Samuel’s studio, Hannah sat in her usual place by the windows, where the even southern light illuminated her.
She felt chilly in spite of the roaring fire in the fireplace, her thick, flannel petticoat and the warm wool shawl around her shoulders. But it was November after all, and cold weather spread its chill throughout New England.
She risked a glance out the window despite Samuel’s admonition to sit still.
The day was pewter gray and cheerless, with the trees stripped bare of their leaves, their brown skeletal branches clawing at a sky that threatened sleet or snow later that day.
“You’re doing splendidly, Hannah,” Samuel said. “One more sitting, and I shall have all the sketches I need to do an engraving.”
When Hannah had first begun to sit for him several weeks ago, she found it most disconcerting to have Samuel’s pale, ghostly eyes stare at her while he worked. His scrutiny was so penetrating that she felt as though he must know her more intimately than her own husband.
“What were you thinking of?” Samuel asked. “Your expression changed so suddenly.”
His keen artist’s eyes saw too much.
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“The truth be known, I haven’t been feeling too well lately,” she replied.
Samuel stopped sketching. “You do work yourself too hard, Hannah. You should let Millicent do most of it.”
But work helped her to forget her remote husband and her own loneliness in the midst of the boisterous Shaw family.
Without warning Hannah felt as light-headed as that fateful summer day in the tobacco field. The studio wheeled to one side and the world went black.
She heard someone calling her name from a great distance, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself cradled in Samuel’s arms, his pale, worried face floating above hers.
“Wh-what happened?” She struggled to rise.
“Lie still for a moment. You fainted.”
Hannah did as she was told, and the world swung back into focus.
Samuel assisted her to her feet and steadied her with a secure arm around her waist. “Why don’t you lie down on your bed and I’ll get Mrs. Hardy?”
Hannah nodded and let him escort her to her bedchamber, where she lay down and waited for the housekeeper.
Mrs. Hardy bustled in a minute later, her silvery eyes dark with concern.
“Land sakes, Hannah…” When she noticed Samuel lingering in the doorway, she shooed him away and closed the door.
The housekeeper sat on the edge of the bed and rested her hand on Hannah’s forehead. “Now tell me what happened.”
“I fainted,” Hannah replied.
The housekeeper’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she asked Hannah several personal, embarrassing questions in her usual blunt manner.
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When she had her answers, Mrs. Hardy chuckled and slapped her thigh.
“Leave it to my Reiver. The only thing wrong with you is that you’re breeding. In the family way. Going to have a baby nine months to the day, I’ll bet.”
Hannah felt the same stunned disbelief she had experienced when Uncle Ezra told her she was to marry Reiver Shaw. “I—I can’t be.”
“You’re a married woman. You most certainly can. Surely your mama told you that.”
“There must be some mistake.”
Mrs. Hardy shrugged. “All the signs are there.”
She was going to have a child. Her thoughts screamed mute denial.
“Babies may scream and mess and break your heart, but they keep the human race going,” Mrs. Hardy said. “And if it’s a boy and the Shaw heir, just think how proud your husband will be!”
Hannah said, “I’d like to be alone now, if you don’t mind.”
The housekeeper nodded. “I suspect you need some time to get used to the idea.”
She patted Hannah’s hand and left, closing the door behind her. Hannah heard muffled voices behind the door as the housekeeper said something to Samuel, then silence and retreating footsteps.
A baby…
Hannah rolled onto her side and drew up her knees, curling into a tight ball of denial. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that Reiver’s fumblings beneath her nightshift could do this to her. But they had. Once again, fate had played a cruel trick on her. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and let the tears flow.
When she could cry no more, she rose, straightened her skirts, and went to the washbasin to bathe her red, puffy eyes in cold water.
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Now that the tears had washed away her initial shock, she was ready to assess the situation calmly and rationally. She rested her hand against her still-flat belly, thought of Reiver’s child growing within her, and felt a surge of hope.
How could a man not love the mother of his child?
She hoped Mrs. Hardy hadn’t told Samuel the real reason why she had fainted. She wanted Reiver to be the first Shaw to know.
Hannah told him later that night, just as they were getting ready to retire.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, just finishing plaiting her hair into one long braid for the night, when Reiver came in and headed for the oil lamp, which he always extinguished before undressing himself and joining her in bed.
“Don’t turn out the light yet,” Hannah said, her heart pounding. “I have something to tell you.”
Reiver’s hand fell away and he looked at her, puzzled. “What is it?”
Hannah swallowed hard and focused her attention on the thin blue ribbon at the end of her braid. “You’re going to be a father.”
Silence. Stillness.
She risked a glance at her husband. He stood there, his wide jaw slack, his face as white as the first snowfall.
When he found his voice, he managed to croak, “You’re…?”
Hannah nodded, her cheeks flaming.
“Oh, my God! Hannah, that’s wonderful.” He reached her in two strides and knelt at her feet, his head bowed as he took her hands and brought them to his lips as if paying homage to a queen.
Again, Hannah felt this new life conferring a strange and wonderful power on her.
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“You’re pleased?”
“Pleased…I’m the happiest man in the world.” He rose, but to her dismay he didn’t take her in his arms and hug her to him like the cherished wife she wanted to be. “This child shall be the first Shaw of my generation, and if it’s a son…” His eyes sparkled in anticipation.
“I hope it will be.”
Reiver stepped back, his customary reserve returning. “Under the circumstances, I think it best that I sleep in the spare room. I wouldn’t want to hurt you or the baby.”
So Hannah would be spared her husband’s advances until the baby’s birth, sometime in the spring, if Mrs. Hardy’s calculations were correct.
“I think that would be best,” she agreed.
To her surprise, he leaned down and brushed his lips stiffly across her own.
“Thank you, Hannah.” Then he blew out the lamp and left her to the darkness and her own thoughts.
Reiver’s own thoughts both soared and plummeted as he walked down the dark, narrow hall and settled himself in the spare room’s cold, hard bed.
He was going to be a father. He felt happy, excited, proud, and thankful all at once. Then he thought of Cecelia, and his joy soured.
Reiver pulled the blankets more snugly around him and listened to the November wind keening through the eaves and rattling the windows as if demanding entrance.
He would have to tell her at the first opportunity.
Several weeks later Reiver took the sleigh into Hartford to break the news to Cecelia.
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Six inches of snow had fallen several days before, but now the roads were packed down and the fifteen-mile trip passable. Seated in the sleigh with a thick rug over his lap and a hot brick warming his feet, Reiver looked out over pristine, snow-covered fields and houses with threads of pale gray smoke rising lazily from their chimneys. His thoughts were not on the brown-and-white winter landscape, but on his conversation with Samuel just before leaving early that morning.
Helping to hitch Nellie, Samuel said, “Both James and I couldn’t be happier for you and Hannah. She’ll make a fine mother.”
“I’m sure she will,” Reiver agreed.
“Have you told Cecelia?”
Reiver looked at his brother, whose face was red and pinched with cold.
“Not yet. That’s why I’m going into Hartford.”
“If she has any sense, she’ll have nothing more to do with you.”
Those words haunted Reiver for the rest of the long drive.
When he arrived at Cecelia’s house, which looked as though it had been dusted with sugar, he knocked at the front door, and within minutes Cecelia appeared, surprised and delighted. Today her glossy chestnut ringlets were brushed smooth and pulled back into a simple chignon of the type Hannah favored.
“Get out of the cold this instant, Reiver Shaw,” she said, shivering, pulling him into the warm parlor.
Then she was in his arms, providing a special warmth of her own.
He wanted to wait and tell her about the baby after he had given her the peace offering hidden deep in his coat pocket, after he had made long, leisurely love to her upstairs. But he couldn’t.
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So before Cecelia could take his coat, he looked at her unflinchingly. “You should know that Hannah is going to bear my child.”
“Hush,” she said, hiding her surprise by putting her fingertips against his lips. “That part of your life has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t exist when you’re here.”
Reiver had never heard such sweet words. Samuel was wrong. Cecelia wasn’t going to end it after all.
She pulled off his coat. “Come upstairs.”
He reached back into his coat pocket and took out a small box. “Not until I give you this.”
Her brown eyes danced. “What is it?”
“An early Christmas gift. Open it and see.”
Cecelia gasped when she opened the box and saw the earbobs glowing dully with dark wine-red garnets and white seed pearls. “Oh, Reiver, they’re beautiful.”
“They were my mother’s most precious possessions, the only jewelry she ever owned. I wanted you to have them.”