Nobody's Angel

by Karen Robards

  Susannah breathed a little easier. Apparently Ben had seen nothing untoward. "Perhaps Craddock is already in the barn milking the cow."

  Ben shook his head, but before he could say anything more, another step on the porch brought Susannah's head swinging around. This time her worst fear was realized. Ian walked into the kitchen. He was clad in a white, col- larless shirt and black breeches, though not the same ones he had worn to exit her bedroom, Susannah thought. These were older, well-mended garments, presumably from the same source as his church clothes. He wore no coat or waistcoat, and his silver-buckled shoes had been exchanged for sturdy work boots. His hair was wet, as though he had recently stuck his head into a bucket of water, and slicked back into a ribbon at his nape. He had shaved, and the cheeks that had so recently been rough with black stubble were smooth again. If she had not known better, Susannah would have guessed from his demeanor that he had just passed a long night of untroubled sleep. Certainly he appeared alert, and even restless. His eyes were gleaming as they immediately sought her out.

  For an instant, just an instant, as her gaze met his, time seemed suspended, and Susannah forgot to breathe. He was so tall, so masculine, and so very handsome that the mere sight of him was enough to stop her breath. He was her illicit lover now. At the thought, her whole body tingled, and with the best will in the world not to do so she had to drop her eyes and turn away. To cover her confusion, she moved to the flour bin and began to dip out corn meal into a bowl for the morning's breakfast.

  "Good morning, Connelly.'' Sarah Jane's composed greeting made Susannah conscious that she had not said so much as a word to the new arrival, where ordinarily she would have spoken to him much as Sarah Jane had. She had to compose herself and start behaving normally or she might as well hang a sign about her neck proclaiming what she had done.

  "Miss Sarah Jane," Ian replied. His deep clipped voice sent a shiver down her spine. Stop it! Just stop it! Susannah told herself fiercely, and she drew in a long breath of steadying air. She could not be sure, not with her back turned, but from the prickle at the nape of her neck she thought he was watching her still. Glancing over her shoulder, she discovered that she was right. His eyes were on her, their expression disturbing.

  Dear Lord, if he continued to look at her like that, the fat would be in the fire indeed!

  "Susannah, have you seen my History of Plymouth Plantation? I seem to have mislaid the book, and I wish to use a passage from it in Sunday's sermon." Her father was frowning abstractedly as he entered the kitchen fully clad except for his coat. His preoccupation with his book was fortunate, Susannah thought, because it prevented him from observing her guilty start.

  "It is in the bookcase to the left of the door as you enter the parlor, Pa." She had to work to keep her voice steady.

  "Good morning, Sarah Jane. Good morning, Connelly," the Reverend Redmon said, as their presence impinged on his consciousness. Glancing back at Susannah as they murmured replies, he added, "Did I hear you go out last night?"

  "Mary O'Brien was ill again." Susannah knew her answer was terse, but it was all she could do to talk at all. Would her father somehow sense the tension that wound her stomach into knots? If Ian still watched her with that expression in his eyes, would her father notice and guess what they had done? At the thought, she felt physically ill.

  "You took Connelly with you, I assume?" It was no more than a casual inquiry. Susannah knew that, but still she could not help the fiery color that crept up her neck to her face.

  "I went with her, Reverend," Ian interposed, and Susannah knew that he did it to protect her. He, at least, must be aware of the torment her father's presence was causing her.

  "It was good of you to rouse yourself at so late an hour. I appreciate your care of my daughter more than I can say."

  Shame and guilt twisted together to squeeze Susannah's heart until she thought it must wither. Her back to the men, she bent over the flour table, her fingers sinking deep into the cool meal.

  "It was my pleasure, sir, believe me," Ian said. Susannah, listening, hoped that she was the only one to hear the undertones that lay hidden beneath that statement. Unable to bear being in the same room with the pair of them a moment longer, she dropped a handful of meal into the bowl and glanced at her father. He was looking at Ian, his expression one of total innocence. Of course he was unaware of the undercurrents that swirled around the room. Even if told point blank of what she had done, her father would never believe such a thing of her. Guilt stabbed Susannah anew.

  "Shall I fetch your book, Pa?"

  "No, no. I shall get it myself and take it upstairs with me. I fancy I have a little time before breakfast?"

  "About half an hour."

  "Good." The Reverend Redmon took himself off. Susannah, desperate for a moment in which to compose herself, sought some means of temporarily ridding herself of Ian as well.

  "It will be a while yet until the food is ready. If—if you will take the grain from Ben and feed the chickens while he milks the cow, it would be a great help." Though she spoke to Ian, Susannah still could not bring herself to look directly at him. She threw the words over her shoulder while she made a great show of adding more meal to the already heaping amount in her bowl.

  "Yes, ma'am." If there was a slight derisive edge to Ian's voice, Susannah tried not to hear it. Though she immediately bent her head to her task again, she was aware of him with every nerve in her body as he took the pan of grain from Ben and, with Ben following, headed out the door.

  Left alone with Sarah Jane, Susannah's shoulders, which she hadn't until that moment realized had been tensed, slowly relaxed. That is, until she turned around with bowl in hand to find Sarah Jane regarding her speculatively.

  "I do believe Connelly has an eye to you, Susannah," Sarah Jane said. "He was certainly particular in his attentions yesterday. And the way he looked at you . . . ! Why, it practically made me shiver to see!"

  Susannah felt herself redden. "Don't be silly, Sarah Jane," she said briskly, and moved toward the fire. She would add the corn meal to the water she had already set to boil to make corn mush for breakfast.

  "You fancy him, don't you? I can quite see why. He's the handsomest man I've ever laid eyes on, even if he is a bit frightening. At least, he frightens me. I daresay it is different with you. You've always been so brave, after all. But, Susannah . . ."

  "That's quite enough, Sarah Jane. You are letting your imagination run away with you." Susannah, her back to her sister, threw a pinch of corn meal into the boiling water with rather more savagery than the task called for.

  "Perhaps I am. But just in case I am not, pray do not lose sight of what he is, sister. And that is a convict, and our bound servant, be he ever so handsome. He's not to be thought of as a husband for you, and there is no possibility of anything else."

  "You sound like me lecturing Mandy." Susannah managed a strangled laugh.

  "He doesn't look at Mandy the way he looks at you, so in my opinion that makes you the one in danger."

  "I don't need your advice, Sarah Jane!" Susannah threw a hunted look over her shoulder at her sister.

  "Don't you?" Sarah Jane asked quite gently. Coming to stand beside Susannah, she took the bowl from her hand. "Then why are you using this to make corn mush?"

  Looking down at the bowl, Susannah was left speechless as she saw that the substance she had been adding to the kettle a pinch at a time was not corn meal at all, but ordinary flour.

  21

  Late that afternoon, Susannah was so tired she felt ready to drop. The day had been unusually hot, though it was beginning to cool down just a little as the broiling sun progressed in its westward migration. With Craddock gone, doubtìess off on another drunk, the most onerous of the physical chores had fallen to her and Ben. Ben was at that moment mucking out the pigpen; Susannah, with Old Cobb the mule's sporadic help, was plowing the west field. Emily trailed along behind her, setting roots into the furrows so that they might, at some date that se
emed impossibly far in the future, harvest a crop of sweet potatoes. Mandy was in the house preparing the evening meal, and Sarah Jane was out delivering baskets of food to needy parishioners.

  "Gee up. Old Cobb!" Susannah said for what must have been the hundredth time, jiggling the reins against the mule's shiny brown back before reaching down to grab the tall handles of the triangular-shaped wooden plow as he started forward. Old Cobb was deaf as a post, and talking to him was useless. But talking to animals was a habit of hers, and, whether he heard her or not, Old Cobb understood the jiggling of his reins. Flicking his ears back and forth, he took maybe three dozen plodding steps before stopping again.

  "Drat this mule!" If she had been prone to swearing, Susannah would have sworn a blue streak. Old Cobb was as cantankerous as an ailing octogenarian, and she wasn't in the mood to cater to his idiosyncrasies just then. She was wringing wet with sweat, dirty as a pig, and still had over a quarter of the field yet to plow. The reins looped around her neck chafed her skin. Blisters were forming on her palms. Her legs ached, and her back felt as if it would break in two at any moment. If rain did not threaten for the morrow, she would have called a halt and had Ben, or Craddock if he returned in a condition that permitted him to work, finish up the next day. But everything from the sheer oppressiveness of the heat to the behavior of the fuzzy brown and yellow caterpillars as they crawled across the ground foretold a storm blowing their way, and the sweet potato crop needed to be put in before it hit.

  "Susannah, I am so tired."

  Susannah glanced over her shoulder to discover that Em, who had caught up with her, was stretching, a hand pressed to the small of her back. Like Susannah, Em wore a deep-brimmed sunbonnet and her oldest frock. Her sleeves were turned back to well past the elbows and her skirt tucked up at the waist so that most of her muddied- to-the-knee petticoat was in plain view. She looked as miserable as Susannah felt, and Susannah had to smile at her.

  "I know. I am, too. Come on, let's get this done, and then we'll go in and sit and let Mandy and Sarah Jane dish up supper."

  As Em didn't usually do much when it came to putting supper on the table, this inducement didn't hold the appeal for her that it did for Susannah. But still, when Susannah gently jiggled the reins to get the ornery old mule going again, Em fell in behind, bending every few inches to push a potato root into the churned-up soil.

  They had nearly reached the end of the row when Susannah, glancing up, spotted Ian. He was in the act of straddling a split rail fence about hallway up the field. Just the sight of him sent a thrill through her body, tired though she was. She had not set eyes on him since breakfast, when Pa had conscripted him to translate some book of French sermons he had unearthed and hoped to use in his preaching. Now, watching Ian stride toward her, his long legs eating up the distance between them, she was stricken with an attack of shyness that was almost painful.

  But it was clear that no such affliction troubled him. If it did, he would certainly not be striding toward her so purposefully.

  Willing herself not to blush—though she was already so red from the heat that it was possible no one would be able to tell if she did—Susannah pulled Old Cobb to a halt and turned to wait for Ian to catch up with her.

  "What . . . ? Oh." Em, coming up behind her, looked puzzled until she followed Susannah's gaze to Ian, who was almost upon them. Susannah, leaning tiredly on the plow, realized that he was angry only when he stopped in front of her and she found enough calm good sense to permit her to look up into his face.

  "What the devil do you think you're doing?" Ian demanded. The greeting was not what Susannah had expected, and for a moment she blinked in surprise. He stood with feet planted apart and fists on hips, glowering down at her. With his black felt hat shading his face and his shirt loosened at the neck and rolled up to his elbows, he looked maddeningly fresh and cool. As her eyes swept him from head to toe, Susannah felt even dirtier and sweatier than before, and she didn't much like the sensation.

  "It's called plowing, I believe." If her reply was tart, it was an exact expression of how she felt. Her embarrassment receded as her temper warmed, and Susannah suddenly had no trouble at all facing him.

  "It's a man's work. You have no business doing it."

  "Unfortunately, at the moment I have no man to do it for me. Craddock has taken himself off again, and Ben is employed elsewhere. This is not the first time I've plowed a field, believe me."

  "Give me the reins. I'll do it. You may take Miss Emily's place and plant the seeds."

  "Roots," Em interjected, clearly fascinated at this exchange. Both principals to the conversation ignored her.

  "You? Plow?" There was a scornful note to Susannah's laugh, and to her expression, too, as her eyes ran over him. "Don't be ridiculous."

  Straightening, she grimaced at a twinge in her back and lifted the reins, ready to send Old Cobb on his way again. Ian stopped her by the simple expedient of grabbing the leather straps just above where she held them.

  "Damn it, Susannah, I am not utterly useless. Give me the reins."

  Neither noticed the widening of Emily's eyes at Ian's easy familiarity toward her older sister.

  "You cannot plow." Susannah, stating an established fact, spoke flatly.

  "Can I not?"

  "We both know you cannot. As a farmer, I'm sorry to remind you, you are utterly useless."

  "Give me the reins."

  "All right. All right! If you wish to try, you may certainly do so. Only let me warn you that you may get a trifle dirty in the process."

  His eyes narrowed at her tone. Then, with a swift glance at Emily, who was watching him as if he'd suddenly grown a second set of ears, he merely reached to lift the reins from Susannah's neck by way of reply.

  Susannah, following his eyes to her spellbound little sister, let him put the reins around his own neck without additional comment. She stepped out from behind the plow and, with her arms folded over her bosom and her head cocked derisively, watched him position himself in her place.

  "So plow," she said when he glanced at her.

  "I will." He turned his eyes to the mule. "Giddyup!"

  Old Cobb just stood there, swishing his tail back and forth. With another sideways glance at Susannah, who, for all her combined exhaustion and annoyance was starting to grin, he slapped the reins authoritatively against the mule's broad back.

  Old Cobb, unfortunately, never did take well to authority. He gave a honking bray of extreme insult and bolted. With the reins looped around his neck, Ian never had a chance. One moment he was snapping them against the mule's back, and the next he was flying over the plow to land face first in the dirt. His fall freed the reins and sent his hat sailing. Old Cobb galloped, braying and kicking all the way, to the extreme far end of the field.

  Susannah, looking from the bucking mule to Ian's long body sprawled nose down in the dirt, snickered. Catching her eye, Em did, too. By the time Susannah reached Ian's side, she was laughing so hard that tears streamed from her eyes. Emily, beside her, was in like case.

  "Oh, dear," Susannah said unsteadily as Ian still hadn't moved. "Do you suppose he's hurt?"

  "I—I hope not." Like Susannah, Emily was practically holding her sides. Laughter erupted from both of them in great bursts, though Susannah exercised a truly heroic effort to control her amusement as she hunkered down at the fallen hero's side.

  As she touched his shoulder, Ian rolled over and sat up, his expression disgusted. As Susannah had foretold, he was now considerably dirtier than he had been just a few minutes before. He was so dirty, in fact, that she and Emily went off into fresh gales just looking at him as he tried to brush himself off.

  "You knew that was going to happen." His eyes accused her.

  "I did not."

  "Yes, you did. You did it on purpose."

  "You're being childish again." She tried to speak severely, but it was hard when giggles kept threatening to erupt.

  Ian opened his mouth, then clamped it shu
t again with a speaking glance at Emily. Realizing that he was perfectly capable of saying whatever it was he meant to say with or without an audience, Susannah glanced up at her sister.

  "You may as well go back to the house, Em. I doubt we're going to get any more planting done today."

  "Do you mean it? Thank goodness! My legs feel as if they're ready to fall off! Do you want me to help you catch Old Cobb?"

  "No, go on. He'll come better to me anyway. Be sure and put the roots where it's dry."

  "I will." Em shot a wide grin at Ian, who still sat in the dirt with his knees drawn up before him and his arms resting on his knees. "Thank you so much!"

  "You're welcome." If there was a sour undertone to that, it appeared to sail by Em without touching her. Clutching the basket of roots under one arm, Em trudged off toward the house, the very picture of exhausted relief.

  Before Susannah could properly register that she was now alone with Ian, his hand shot out to close over her wrist. When she looked down at him, surprised, his smile was silky.

  "So you think I'm funny, do you?"

  "Just a little. Sometimes."

  His eyes narrowed at her. "I'm tired of being the butt of your jokes. Maybe it's time to move on to something I find amusing."

  "Such as?" The question was a mistake. Susannah knew it as soon as it left her mouth.

  His smile widened, turned wicked. "You'll see."

  Then, with a sudden tug on her wrist, he brought her tumbling down into his arms.

  "Now let's see you laugh," he taunted as he held her, struggling, on his lap.

  "People can see—the girls—let me up this instant!" Susannah cast a frantic look around. They were out in the middle of an open field that was bordered on one side by the public road and was within shouting distance of both house and barn. Anyone could come along and discover them together.

  "Let me up!"

  "Not till you're as dirty as I am." And with that the scoundrel tumbled her in the just-plowed field, rolling over and over with her caught up in his arms until her hair tumbled from its bun and her skirt twisted about her legs and a generous coating of dirt covered her entire person.