A Prince of Norway: Nicolas & Sydney: Book 2 (The Hansen Series - Nicolas & Sydney)

by Kris Tualla

  “Thank you again, sir,” she whispered.

  When the woman was gone, Nicolas opened the drawer with the heavy pewter flask and downed a swallow of brandy. He sighed and considered how blessed his life had become.

  The next candidate was a young man in his late twenties. As he fidgeted in the entryway of the manor, his eyes skittered around the space, taking in every detail. Nicolas watched him, unseen behind the door of his study, and didn’t like what he saw. He had a strong feeling this particular person was not as he seemed. Or more likely was exactly as he seemed.

  “Best of luck to you!” Nicolas gently pushed the man out the door as their brief interview ended. If his instincts were right, there was no way that snake would be let loose in his garden.

  The third prospect was too old, older than his foreman John and half as robust. The fourth was an obese woman in her thirties whose knees were so bad she couldn’t manage to walk up the stairs to the spare bedroom. The fifth smelled so bad, Nicolas told her the position had been filled and didn’t let her in the house. Frustrated by the continuing parade of unsuitable applicants, he contemplated changing their travel plans, though he couldn’t puzzle out how to make that work.

  Then candidate number eleven or twelve—Nicolas had lost count—knocked at the door, and introduced himself as Jeremy McCain. Nicolas led the young man into his study. Tired of wasting time, he went straight to the heart of the matter and fired questions at the boy.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Have you experience running an estate?”

  “No, sir. But I am a fast learner and hard worker.”

  “What was your last position?”

  “I was assistant to the owner of a dry goods store in Oakville.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  The young man stared straight into Nicolas’s eyes. “My wife was treated poorly by some women in the town.”

  That statement piqued Nicolas’s curiosity. “You’re married?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “How long?”

  “Almost a year.”

  “And how, exactly, was your wife treated poorly?”

  Jeremy McCain leaned his lanky form back in the chair and directed his own question at Nicolas. “Do you own slaves?”

  Surprised by Jeremy’s forthrightness, Nicolas answered without thinking. “No. Neither did my father before me.”

  Jeremy nodded. “All right then.”

  “Your wife?” Nicolas prompted.

  “My wife’s mother was Sauk Indian. Her father was a French fur trader.” Jeremy watched Nicolas intently. “Her mother left the tribe to follow the trader and Anne—Anehka—was born a year later.”

  “How old is Anne?” Nicolas was startled into wondering if any of his visits to the Sauk had resulted in half-breed offspring.

  “Twenty.”

  Nicolas considered the intense young man. “Why did you ask me about slaves?”

  Jeremy’s voice was controlled, though one foot wiggled and his cheeks were splotched with angry scarlet. “If you owned slaves, then you would consider one race superior to another. My wife’s parentage could be a problem and I wouldn’t work for you.”

  Nicolas was impressed, and that was not an easy thing to accomplish. Jeremy radiated confidence and strength of character. And lurking beneath his businesslike surface, there was something quite likeable about the young man. Nicolas stood and offered his hand. “I like what I see, Mr. McCain. Can we agree to terms?”

  Jeremy stood as well, but didn’t take Nicolas’s hand. “Please, Sir, call me Jeremy. I do have one request.”

  Nicolas waved his proffered hand in curious invitation. The boy surely had grit. Nicolas respected grit.

  “Could my wife be allowed to work here as well?”

  Nicolas’s brow puckered in consideration. “Perhaps.”

  “She wouldn’t need the stipend, only board. She would share my room, of course.” Admittedly a young husband, Jeremy blushed at his own words.

  Nicolas forced his grin not to appear. “I believe that to be reasonable. Her assistance to Addie, my housekeeper, would be appreciated I’m sure.”

  “Then I accept.” This time Jeremy held out his hand. Nicolas took it. Jeremy’s firm handshake was a little moist.

  “Well, Jeremy. Shall we take a look around the property?”

  For the first time that day, a smile split Jeremy’s face. With a deep sigh and a wag of his head, Nicolas saw the weight of the world lift from the younger man’s broad, thin shoulders. “Yes, sir, Mr. Hansen!”

  Chapter Four

  May 9, 1820

  The wagon was piled with traveling trunks and rolled bedding. Nicolas drove; his foreman John Spencer sat beside him. Sydney, with Kirstie on her lap, nested amidst the luggage with Stefan and Maribeth. Gray-haired and teary-eyed, Addie Spencer waved them off, wiping her eyes with her ever-present white apron. Jeremy and Anne McCain stood beside her on the porch.

  “The place is in good hands, Nick,” John opined with a backward glance. “You done well with those two.”

  Rickard Atherton rode up alongside the wagon. His auburn hair was tied with a leather thong, though wavy strands mutinied repeatedly and curled around his ears. He was almost as tall as Nicolas but not as broad. He narrowed his beautiful hazel eyes and shaded them with one hand.

  “If you’ve no objections, I should like to accompany you to St. Louis.”

  “Happy to have your company, Rick. But what’s your purpose?” Nicolas asked.

  Rickard blushed adorably—Sydney had thought him stunningly handsome since the first day she met the two friends—and pushed a wide-brimmed hat lower on his brow. “It's Bronnie, actually. She has a taste for a certain kind of chocolate and I can’t get it in Cheltenham. Thought I might surprise her tomorrow at dinner.”

  “You mean Miss Price, Onkel Rick? My teacher?” Stefan’s bright blue gaze considered his uncle from under one flat palm.

  He grinned at his nephew. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Sydney poked Nicolas from behind. See? He cast her a sly sideways glance and shifted on the bench in amused acknowledgement.

  Nicolas was the more beautiful male of the pair in her estimation. The dark, changeable blue sky of his eyes captivated her, and his thick blond hair was a fitting golden crown as it turned out.

  Conversation between Nicolas, John and Rickard about what needed attention on the estate during Nicolas’s absence helped pass time. The bumpy two-hour journey to the docks of St. Louis was otherwise uneventful, except for Stefan’s frequently repeated queries as to how much farther was it? Finally Nicolas stopped the horses and whirled to face his son.

  “Stefan. Today’s the shortest of all of our days. If you ask that question one more time, I’ll be forced to tie a rag over your mouth!”

  Stefan’s eyes widened and he leaned against Sydney’s leg as Nicolas ranted on. “We’re going to a great lot of places and we’ll be gone a very long time. You’re forbidden to ask that question again! Do you understand my words?”

  Stefan nodded and pressed against Sydney, seeking protection from his father’s irritation. She squeezed his shoulder, sent Nicolas a chastising glare, and hit upon an idea.

  “Stefan, let’s make a map of our journey! Then each day, you can mark down where we are and where we’re going. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, Mamma.” He ventured a small smile and glanced up at Nicolas.

  “You can even keep a list of how long it takes us to get from one place to another, so you can guess how long the next part will take,” she continued. Nicolas relaxed some and tousled his son’s hair in a non-verbal apology. Then he winked at her.

  Nick’s still learning new habits, she reminded herself.

  “Can I draw on the map?” Stefan asked her.

  “Certainly!”

  “Can I make sea monsters on the water part?”

  Nicolas quirked his brows. “Where did you learn of s
uch things?”

  Stefan squinted up at Nicolas. “From Alex McAvoy’s pappa. He said there’s a sea monster in a locked mess in Scotland.”

  Rickard laughed, and then turned it into a cough when Stefan appeared offended.

  “Ah, of course.” Nicolas turned, hiding his twitching grin. He slapped the reins and the horses strained forward.

  “Can we make the map tonight, Mamma?”

  “Let’s do.” Sydney smoothed Stefan’s perpetually unruly auburn locks. They were wavy like his uncle Rickard’s. Like his mother Lara’s must have been.

  Sydney hugged her stepson. It was a shame Stefan never knew her.

  May 10, 1820

  St. Louis

  Steam-powered paddleboats still caught attention at the docks, being a recent addition to Mississippi River travel. This particular paddleboat had the name Missy O prominently painted on her bow. She looked clean and bright and sturdy.

  The boat’s purser herded the Hansen party to a pair of rooms out of the eight tucked in the upper deck. Their two whitewashed cabins were spacious, about nine feet square, and had shuttered windows. Both were furnished with a built-in platform bed on top of a bank of drawers, a small table and two little wooden chairs.

  Nicolas eyed the bunk, which Sydney doubted reached six feet in length. He shrugged.

  “I expected as much. The floor will do.” Then he tossed her a mischievous grin. “But I’ll come visiting.”

  His words sent a pleasant shiver of anticipation up her thighs.

  She tugged on his arm until she could reach him with a solid kiss. “See that you do, husband.”

  Sydney helped Maribeth and Stefan settle into one cabin; Kirstie would share her bed—and Nicolas her floor—in the other. The boat shuddered and belched. They all scrambled outside to watch the marvelous new vessel propel itself.

  White steam clouds above them danced an airy reel with black billows of coal smoke. Accompanied by a loud creaking groan, and the ch--ch-chant of the steam engine, the huge paddles aft-ship began to rotate. Water drops sluiced off them and scattered like sparkling gems in the sun.

  Stefan jumped up and down on the deck, his excitement uncontainable. Maribeth stood gripping the rails, rooted to the boards, eyes darting and cheeks flushed. Sydney slipped her hand into Nicolas’s and squeezed. He squeezed in return. The St. Louis shoreline backed off and they were on their way.

  “This is it, min presang,” he said, gazing down at her with impossibly blue eyes. “Our adventure has begun.”

  At the end of the day, with Stefan finally tucked in bed, Sydney sat in one little cabin chair and nursed Kirstie to sleep. The baby’s blue-gray eyes turned violet in the fading pink sunlight retreating through the small window.

  After losing two sons during her first marriage, this beautiful daughter was such a blessing that it made Sydney’s heart ache. She laid the slumbering Kirstie on the bed, kissed her hair and the back of her neck, and surrounded her with pillows to keep the four month-old infant from rolling off the mattress. After refastening her bodice and smoothing her hair, she went in search of her husband.

  Nicolas stood on the foredeck in the waning sunlight, legs braced wide and hands clasped behind him. Chin pointed into the wind, his nostrils flared and his long blond hair danced around his jaw.

  The brushed cotton shirt Sydney made him for Christmas was pressed against his broad chest by the breeze. He was so magnificent, he took her breath away.

  “Hello, husband.” Sydney slipped her arms around his waist.

  “Hello, wife.”

  “Is the world under control?”

  Nicolas’s laugh vibrated deep in his chest. “That it is. Are the children asleep?”

  “Kirstie is. Stefan’s in bed, though my guess would be he’s wide awake.”

  “I’ll go see him before we retire.”

  They remained entwined on the deck until stars surrounded the waning half-moon. The steady chug of the coal-powered engine and the mesmerizing splash of water off the rotating wooden paddles offered a unique harmony.

  “This is quite a journey,” Sydney whispered. “Never could I have guessed my life would take such a turn.”

  “And I never expected to return to Norway.” Nicolas rested his chin on Sydney’s head; they were silent for a pace.

  “But I’m glad to go,” he added, his deep voice nearly swallowed. “And I’m so very glad to have you with me.”

  May 21, 1820

  Louisville

  “Mamma? Are you coming?” Stefan squirmed outside her cabin door. “Pappa said we’re almost there!”

  When Sydney and Kirstie appeared on the deck, Nicolas held Stefan on his shoulders like a god and his progeny, limned in late morning gilt. The farms that flanked Louisville were already in view.

  “What time are we expected to dock?” Sydney’s heart was trying to climb up her ribs and look out her mouth, so eager it was to reach her childhood home—and her long-missed mother.

  Nicolas peered down at her. “In less than an hour, so says the boatswain.”

  The Louisville dock was crowded. Landlocked necks craned for glimpses of familiar faces onboard as the Missy O nudged toward the pier. She teased the wooden abutment twice before tucking herself against its side.

  Ropes flew through the air and dockhands looped them around iron grappling hooks to secure the steamboat to the dock. The engine belched a snow cloud of steam and the paddle wheel stilled.

  “Siobhan! Hansen!” Robert Bell’s Scots-tinged baritone carried over the din of the day.

  “Da!” Sydney stood on tiptoe and waved to her father. She smiled so widely her face hurt.

  A jumble of introductions and re-introductions bubbled through the Hansen party as they gathered beyond the gangplank. Sydney cried her joy in deep gulping sobs, and Nicolas assured Stefan that such a thing as happy tears truly did exist.

  Robert laughed and draped his arm around his only daughter. “Aye, it’s so good to see you again, girlie!”

  It required a full, maddening hour to get their trunks off the paddleboat and loaded into Robert’s wagon. Once on their way, Sydney wondered if the horses were actually slowing down as they neared her parents’ home. She handed Kirstie to Maribeth and stood in the wagon to get a better look.

  “Sit down then, girlie,” her father chided, grinning. “We’ll get there and soon enough!”

  Nicolas looked over his shoulder at his wife and smiled. Sydney’s breath caught as she considered him. She saw the man her mother would see, so completely different now from the man Sydney met last spring. And so diametrically different from her first husband. The one who betrayed her. And then tried to kill her.

  “De er slik vakker,” she whispered. You are so beautiful.

  Nicolas laughed. “Just because you know how to say it, doesn’t mean it fits every occasion!”

  “It fits this one well. Trust me, husband.”

  The wagon rounded the last bend and Sydney saw the white two-story clapboard house nestled in a quilt of horse pasture. A figure on the porch stood up and shaded its eyes against the low angle of the sun.

  “Mother!” Sydney jumped from the side of the moving wagon. She caught her balance and ran toward the house, skirts hiked well above her knees. “Mother!”

  The figure descended the porch steps and ran forward, skirts hiked in the same manner. “Siobhan! My darling girl!”

  By the time Sydney reached her mother, she was sobbing wildly. Until this moment, she couldn’t admit how much she had ached for her mother’s calm and nurturing presence during the horrific turbulence of the past year.

  And to be called ‘Siobhan’ again—after living for more than a year as ‘Sydney’—reached a part of her that she thought had died.

  “So many times I needed to talk to you!” she croaked through her sobs.

  “My poor child, your Da told me everything!” Ciara Bell was four inches shorter than her thirty-one year-old ‘poor child’ but that didn’t prevent her from enc
asing her in a sturdy maternal hug.

  The wagon stopped and everyone dismounted. Sydney turned and reached out with one hand as she wiped tears with the other. “Mother, this is my husband, Nicolas Reidar Hansen.”

  Nicolas extended his right hand. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, madam.”

  Sydney watched her mother’s eyes travel up Nicolas’s solid six-foot-four-inch frame and land in his navy blue orbs. Slowly she laid her hand in his.

  “Mr. Hansen. I believe you are even more than I was expecting.”

  Nicolas blushed. “Please call me Nicolas, madam.”

  “And you must call me Ciara.” Her fingers began to wiggle as her eyes dropped to the baby resting over Nicolas’s shoulder. “And this must be my granddaughter?”

  Nicolas deftly laid Kirstie in Ciara’s arms. She pulled the babe close and pressed her against her bosom.

  “I never thought… I mean, it seemed as though…”

  “I know,” Sydney beamed at her mother. “I feel the same.”

  Ciara’s smiling gaze fell to Stefan. “And who are you?”

  “Stefan Atherton Hansen. I’m six-and-a-half.” He pointed to Sydney. “She’s my mamma.”

  “And so she is!” Ciara’s voice choked a bit. “And I’m your grandmother.”

  “Pappa and Mamma told me already.”

  Ciara gazed at the bright-eyed, baby in her arms who was gnawing industriously on her fist and drooling everywhere. “Your sister is beautiful, Stefan.”

  “She can’t talk yet.”

  “No, I don’t imagine that she can. But I can see that you’re ready to teach her when the time comes, are you not?”

  Stefan nodded emphatically, his auburn hair flopping into his eyes as usual.

  “And this is Maribeth, our maid and my other right hand on the journey.” Sydney pulled the shy girl forward. She dipped and nodded in a brief curtsy, blushing.

  “Welcome to you as well, dear.”

  Sydney looked to the front door. “Where is Andrew?”

  “Courting. Across the river in Jeffersonville.”