by Jo Goodman
Salem sighed deeply. "Ashley, let me help you. Your shirt isn't even properly buttoned."
She sniffed. "Leave me alone. You couldn't take your leave of me fast enough a few moments ago."
"Don't you understand what happened?" Could it be she didn't know what drove him to leave her. Mentally he struck himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand.
"What am I supposed to understand? This is still new to me. You're the only man I've lain with."
He ignored her bitter denial. "Did you hear the bell?"
"What of it?"
"Ashley, that ring means we're expected at breakfast. If we're not there in ten minutes, Tildy will send someone to get us." He tilted her chin upward, answering the unasked question in her expressive face. He spoke steadily, confidently. "I'm not ashamed of anything we've done, or of anything we were about to do, but I'll not have the privacy of our moment intruded upon."
"Oh."
"Precisely." Taking her further silence for acquiescence, Salem tidied Ashley's riding habit, pulled a stray blade of grass from behind her ear, and straightened the ribbon askew in her hair.
The quiet that followed their journey back to the house was an uncomfortable companion. Ashley would have spoken but was wary of Salem's deep concentration and reluctant to disturb his thoughts. For Salem's part he couldn't help but think the interruption had been as timely as it had been painful. It was true he was unashamed of his desire, but he admitted to a certain regret that he had not tread more carefully. He had taken advantage of the upheavals in her life. He had hardly given her time to adjust to the fact he wasn't her brother before he was demanding that she think of him as a lover. Didn't he owe her more consideration before he asked her to think of him as a husband?
But then he remembered the way she had opened herself to him. Her eyes had pleaded with him to love her. Did she really require his restraint? He grimaced. And if she did, could he give it?
Salem glanced at Ashley. Her face was averted, but he guessed it would be as stiffly proud as her carriage. She was a sprite with steel in her spine and something very generous and loving in her heart. He wondered if he were worthy of her.
Chapter 8
Ashley sat on the veranda steps, her head resting against one of the column supports. She lifted her chin a tad, exposing her throat to the cool evening breeze that swept up from the river. She closed her eyes, the peace of this night's scene already imprinted in her mind.
Salem, his brother, and father had circled chairs at one end of the porch and were speaking of political matters. Most of the exchanges were given to a quiet intensity that rather alarmed her, but she took her cue from Charity and Salem's sisters, who seemed not in the least concerned their men were talking treason. Their heads were bent over needlework frames while they stitched covers for the dining room chairs.
Ashley smiled faintly, waving a bothersome fly from her face. Leah seemed to enjoy the sewing, her young face serene as she plied her needle. Rae, however, stabbed at the material as if she wished herself elsewhere.
"Are you finding it hot already, dear?" Charity asked, her hand never faltering as she worked her sampler.
Ashley came out of her reverie. "A little. I can't remember being quite this warm at Linfield in June."
"You won't mind it so much after a few weeks."
"Salem says this is nothing compared to your summer heat."
"Don't let him scare you." Rae grinned. "We've all survived it so far. You can come swimming with Leah and me. There's a lovely spot in the river."
"It—it sounds refreshing," she said weakly, her arms hugging her middle. "Perhaps I will—sometime." She missed Charity's thoughtfully raised brow. "Rae, would you consider letting me work your piece for awhile? I'd like to do something to help."
Rae pretended to think it over, causing her mother's lips to twitch. "Well, if you really want to," she said. "After all, Mama, you said we should make Ashley feel at home."
"You're incorrigible, Rae. But, yes, if Ashley dislikes idle fingers, then she may take your work." Her eyes twinkled as Rae nearly bounded from her seat. "And tomorrow I'll have Jacob make a frame for Ashley so you needn't share."
Rae's slender shoulders sagged at the thought of such a short reprieve. The exaggerated resignation on her face was comical. Ashley patted her arm as she rose to take her seat "Perhaps the frame will take a few days to make," she said.
"I doubt it," Rae said unhappily.
"If he had it done by Christmas it would be too soon for Rae," Leah stated. "She doesn't like the needlework at all."
Ashley's eyebrows lifted. "Truly? I hadn't noticed."
"Oh, she's good at it when she sets her mind to it," Leah said confidentially. "But she'd much rather be in the thick of the discussion Papa is having."
"I didn't think any of you were paying attention to them."
"Of course we were," Charity said. "It would be difficult to ignore them. They tend to get quite heated."
"But none of you look as if you mind all the talk of treason."
"Treason!" That raised Rae's hackles. "It is not treason to want to defend yourself against George's tyrannies. Throughout the Colonies people are rallying. Look to Lexington and Concord!"
"Rahab!" Charity said sharply. "Ashley knows little of our problems. To her we must seem treasonous indeed. And she would not find herself alone. Many think as she does."
"I'm trying to understand," Ashley said softly. "Lexington is in Massachusetts, isn't it? 'The seat of the rebellion' is how the duke once referred to that Colony. It would seem he was right."
"What they started, we Virginians will finish," Rae said importantly.
Leah looked up from her sewing. "You sound as if you want to be in the thick of things."
Rae's green eyes sparkled. "I'd be a member of the Sons of Liberty if they'd let me."
"The Sons of Liberty?" Ashley asked. "Who are they?"
"Troublemakers," Charity spoke succinctly.
"They are fine spirited men," Rae said. "Who make certain people do not forget King George's oppressions."
Charity's brows lifted skeptically. "Most of their reminders are against the law and destructive. They stir unrest where none is needed. It would not surprise me if they incited the trouble at Lexington two months ago."
"Mama!" Both girls gasped.
"You know as well as I do that the British marched to Concord to seize munitions stolen from the crown in the first place. And no one knows who fired that shot at Lexington. It could have been one of the Sons looking for a beginning."
"Mama, I didn't know you felt this way," Rae said sadly. "I thought you wanted independence."
"I do, Rae. But I do not want war. I want none of my sons—or daughters—lost to me because of this cause." Her eyes were suspiciously bright, and Ashley's heart went out to her. How helpless she must feel in the face of the events around her. As if the battles at Lexington and Concord were not enough, the McClellans had received word earlier in the day of a battle at Bunker Hill on the seventeenth. Ashley remembered how Charity had greeted the news. While everyone else was toasting the Colonial victory, she was curiously quiet, even emotionless, and it was then Ashley began to suspect Charity's fears. "My family will always be my concern," she finished quietly, with the fierce intensity of a lioness who felt her pride being threatened.
Rae moved quickly to her mother's side. She rested her head on Charity's lap, her auburn hair spilling softly on the folds of her mother's gown. She hugged Charity's legs. "I didn't mean to upset you. Oh, Mama, I do love you!"
Ashley blinked rapidly as Charity's hand stroked her daughter's bright hair. "I know you do, honey. And you mustn't mind me when I go on so. I want to be out from under George's scepter as much as any McClellan."
"Of course you do, dear," Robert said, coming up from behind and resting his hand on Charity's shoulder. "Surely no one has said differently."
"No, it's just that—"
"She has a very sensible co
ncern for her family's well-being," Ashley said tartly, rising from her chair as Salem approached. He looked as if he were ready to treat her solicitously, as he had these past three days while others were present. She knew that he could hardly bear to touch her. He scrupulously avoided her except when he had no choice.
"If no one minds, I'd like to retire now," she said.
Salem was about to say he minded, but his mother frowned and gave him a small, negative shake of her head. "You go ahead, dear," Charity said, exchanging a concerned look with her husband. "I was telling Robert earlier that you should rest more often. This heat saps the strength."
"Yes," Ashley replied, avoiding the questioning eyes of all the McClellans as she slipped past Salem into the house.
Rae leaped to her feet. "Wait, Ashley. I'll go up with you!" She caught Ashley in the hallway. "Did our talk upset you?"
"No. Nothing like that. I'm just fatigued, that's all. You go back to the others. I'll be fine."
"If you're certain?"
"I am." Ashley hoped her smile would reassure her. Inside she felt as if she were breaking.
Taking breakfast in the spacious dining room, early morning sunlight filtering through the bay windows, was one of Ashley's very favorite things. Serious topics rarely passed anyone's lips, and this morning was no exception. Laughter cleared the cobwebs from her brain as she watched the affectionate teasing between Noah and the girls. Even Salem's watchful eyes on her couldn't dampen her enjoyment of the sibling byplay. Undetected, she made a little face at him as she tucked into her eggs.
"Leah, would you stop teasing your brother?" Charity asked plaintively. "He cannot help that he turns green merely taking the schooner to Norfolk."
"That wasn't the problem last night, Mama," Leah said knowingly. To Noah's consternation she pretended he kicked her under the table and announced to everyone, "He and Salem were drinking out by the summerhouse last evening. Rae and I could hear them laughing from our room. They were both drunk when they went to bed last night."
"Yes," said Rae. "But only Noah got sick."
"Thank goodness!" Charity said feelingly. "He's much more civil about being ill than Jerusalem."
That brought a groan to Salem's lips while everyone but Ashley chuckled. Rae spoke to answer her questioning look. "Surely you must know how awful Salem is when he's ill. Mama says you had to care for him on the voyage."
"It was an—experience," she said carefully.
"That's very generous of you." Rae chortled. "He turns this house upside down when he's under the weather. I can't imagine he was any different with you."
Ashley began to feel uncomfortable. "I—I don't know. It seemed that he slept most of the time. What does he do here?"
"She asked, Salem," Rae pointed out. "I didn't offer the information without an invitation."
"You prompted without conscience. But I suppose there's nothing for it but that you tell all. I'm surprised she hasn't been forced to listen to these unflattering stories already."
"Now, brother," Noah said placatingly. "It is your turn to be the victim."
Salem's eyes narrowed. "Now I know why Gareth married and moved to Williamsburg. And why his visits are so brief."
Rae would not be turned from her subject. "Salem always sleeps when he's ill," she told Ashley. "Even when he wakes, he sleeps. Did that happen to you?"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"When he had the mumps as a boy he disappeared from his room. Mama found him in the stables. Sound asleep. And he never remembered how he got there. When he had the chicken pox he picked a fight with Gareth but couldn't recall how he got a bloody nose. Then there was the time Tildy and Mama had to wrestle him to the ground to keep him from going downstairs, buck naked, while Papa was entertaining important people in the study."
"I had some sort of swamp fever that time," Salem reminded everyone dryly. "I can hardly be held responsible."
"He doesn't remember any of it," Leah said and giggled. "He made it to the end of the hallway before he was brought down."
Salem appealed to Ashley. "I'm afraid there are more unsavory stories, but you only have their word for it. As far as I know I'm a model patient. You could do much to stop them. Tell them how well behaved I was on the Oleander."
Ashley's chair scraped noisily against the hardwood door as she pushed away from the table. She was very pale, and the hand that had gone instinctively to her abdomen trembled ever so slightly. "Ex—excuse me. I don't feel well of a sudden. Please—I'm—I'm sorry." She spun on her small feet and ran from the room.
Salem stood to follow. "Sit down," Charity commanded, parental authority ringing in her tone. "I shall see to her. She needs a woman now. I believe you have done enough damage." She left the room, her spine stiff.
"What did I do?" Salem asked everyone, sitting slowly.
Robert elucidated. "I don't believe it has escaped anyone's attention that there is some sort of problem between the two of you. You haven't gone riding together since her first morning here. You let Noah escort her and Mother to town for the dress fittings."
"You only speak to her when one of us is around," Rae said sharply.
"You never seem to want to be with her," Leah added.
Salem looked pointedly at his brother. "And you, what do you have to say?"
Noah lifted his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Me? I enjoyed taking Ashley to Williamsburg—and I'll enjoy taking her anywhere else you don't want to."
Salem threw down his linen napkin in disgust. His chair grated even more noisily than Ashley's had. He stalked out of the room and out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.
To the amazement of his children, Robert chuckled heartily. "Well, if there was any doubt, it's been laid to rest. Only a man in love slams a door in quite that manner."
Everyone grinned at that and, undaunted, finished breakfast in fine humor.
Upstairs, affairs were not progressing so merrily. Charity had walked into Ashley's room only to hear from Meg that after delivering her breakfast to the chamber pot, Ashley had run down the backstairs and was going to the stables. Exchanging distressed glances, Charity and Meg waited at the window for Ashley to come tearing across the lawn on Kingdom's back. It did not happen. When they saw her leave the stable at a sedate pace, they slowly sunk to the window bench, sharing soft sighs of relief.
"Oh, ma'am," Meg said quietly. "I was sure afraid—"
"Nonsense," Charity answered briskly, blinking to stay the tears in her bright blue eyes. "She means the babe no harm. I'm ashamed I thought otherwise for even a moment."
Ashley placed her hand protectively over the swell of her abdomen as Kingdom unerringly made his way to the little clearing where she had begged Salem to love her. Would she feel less afraid, she wondered, if he had disregarded caution and taken her then? Would he have realized she was no innocent or would he have accepted that he had given her his child then? It was futile to torture herself with these questions, yet they were not easily dismissed. How was she to explain her babe when he had no memory of lying with her? Would he doubt the child was his?
She drew in her breath sharply with the pain that thought caused and urged Kingdom to increase his pace slightly. She remained curiously dry-eyed as she considered how much longer she could keep the truth of her condition a secret. Ashley felt certain Charity knew she was pregnant and quite possibly Meg suspected as well. They had cared for her on her first day at the landing, and for all that she had been skin and bones, her waistline was thick and her breasts heavy. It had occurred to her, given her family history, that it was not unlikely she carried twins. The thought was as heady as it was frightening, and she wished she did not shy from telling the whole of her problem. It was the thought of distressing any of the McClellans with her troubles that kept her silent. They would be solicitous and caring, but in the end they would offer the one solution that she could not abide. It would never serve to force Salem into marriage.
Sliding
from Kingdom's back, she tethered him to a tree, then sat by the spring and removed her shoes and stockings. She dipped her feet in the cold water, kicking indolently while she leaned backward, resting on her elbows. She did not have to close her eyes to imagine herself at Linfield. Here, in the lush verdant clearing with water trickling underfoot and thick moss beneath her, the atmosphere was much the same as she remembered. The more she thought on it, the less disagreeable it seemed to return home. It seemed preferable to accept a forced marriage for herself than to place Salem in the same position.
She could stand it, she told herself staunchly. What did she care if Bosworth was naught but an old man with designs on her youth? He wanted her at least, and of late Salem had not shown the same. There was little that Ashley could imagine worse than marrying Salem when he did not desire her. He would strain at the confining boundaries of wedlock, and though she knew he would never be unfaithful, he would come to resent her. She doubted she could bear that emotion, not when she had come to know his tender affection. She would not trade on what he felt for her and force his hand. It appeared the only pass open to her was to leave the landing.
Heavy-hearted she dried off her feet with the hem of her dress and slowly pulled on her stockings and shoes. Rather than mount Kingdom Ashley led him from the clearing on foot, reluctant to carry out her decision with unseemly haste.
* * *
She was alone in the music room, finishing the last of Rae's needlework, when Charity found her. Ashley only had to glance up the merest second to see that not only had she been found but that she had been found out. She put her needle down and slid the wooden frame to one side as Charity closed the door behind her.
Charity sat in the love seat opposite Ashley and for a time said nothing. She regarded her with keen blue eyes, searching out each one of the secrets. When she spoke, she said the one thing Ashley had never expected to hear.
"I was carrying Jerusalem when I married Robert." Ashley could only blink at this announcement. "I thought knowing might give you cause to change your mind about leaving us. Meg's told me that you've put a valise aside."
