Rachel's Choice Page 6

  He exhaled sharply. Maybe Rachel’s husband would come home from the war, and then Chance wouldn’t be tied up here for months. Maybe, but he had the sinking feeling that he sometimes got when he listened to a witness lie on the stand.

  Chance didn’t believe Rachel’s husband was coming back. Either James had left her for good, or the man was dead and buried. The question was, did Rachel know the truth? And if she did, why was she lying to him about James being alive?

  Susan groaned and her skin wrinkled so that it rolled in waves over her back. “Shhh,” Chance soothed. And then, almost without realizing what he was doing, he began to hum an old tune he’d often heard Miss Julie sing as she cooked.

  Susan stopped wiggling, and encouraged, Chance softly continued.

  Oh, my darlin’ black-eyed Susan,

  Oh, my darlin’ black-eyed Susan,

  All I want in God’s creation,

  Is that sweet gal, and a big plantation;

  My darlin’ black-eyed Susan,

  Oh, my darlin’ black-eyed Susan …

  Then, somehow, here in this barn, with the earthy smells and the soft hiss of streams of milk hitting the bucket, Chance found a few minutes of peace … something precious he hadn’t experienced for a long time.

  Chapter 6

  Miraculously Chance’s fingers didn’t stiffen beyond use, the cow didn’t kick over the bucket, and he carried enough milk to the kitchen door to please Rachel.

  “It’s not what I’d have gotten,” she said, “but it’ll do. You’ll be better with practice.”

  “That’s a comforting thought,” he grumbled.

  She handed him a green plaid shirt, soft from being worn and washed many times, and a pair of gray twill trousers. Through the open door, he could smell the coffee perking on the stove, but Rachel’s own scent—that of a clean and desirable woman—was stronger.

  “Biscuits nearly done?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light. It wouldn’t do for her to realize that he was thinking of her as a woman, rather than an employer. Not when they were alone together on this farm. He forced a boyish grin.

  “The biscuits have to finish browning. You’ve plenty of time to wash.” She glanced back and opened the door wider. “Bear,” she ordered the mastiff. “Go with Chance.”

  The big black dog moved reluctantly past her and fixed Chance with a malevolent glare.

  “Afraid I’ll make a run for it?”

  “No.” She chuckled. “Just afraid you’ll get bitten by a blacksnake, Reb. You’ve already been attacked by a cow.”

  He scowled at her. It was hard to be cross with a red-cheeked woman with flour on her nose and a dimple on one rosy cheek, but he gave it his best shot. “I asked you not to call me Reb. It was part of our bargain. If you break yours, what’s to hold me to mine?”

  She nodded. “You’re right, I suppose. It just comes natural. It’s not like I was saying something that wasn’t true. You are a rebel, a traitor to your country.” She regarded him intently.

  “That’s incorrect. I’m a Virginian, not a citizen of the United States. We seceded from the Union, remember? Officially I’m a citizen of the Confederate States of America. I could only be named a traitor if I enlisted in the Union army and then deserted to the opposing forces.”

  “You talk pretty,” she said. “But all those words don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

  “My name is Chance. Is that simple enough for you?” he countered.

  Her cheeks flushed a darker hue. “What kind of name is that for parents to give an innocent baby?”

  He stroked the stubbly beard along his jaw. “I told you before, Chance is a nickname. I was christened William Chancellor.”

  “Sounds more likely,” she granted him. “They must have guessed you intended to read for the law.” Turning away, she rattled in a drawer and produced a shaving brush and mug and a straight razor. “These were my granddad’s,” she said. “You’re welcome to borrow them for as long as you’re here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He touched an invisible hat in mock salute.

  She sniffed indignantly. “You may win at words with me, but you and your kind will never win this war. And all the dying and the lives destroyed and farms burned and children left without fathers will be for nothing.”

  The easy camaraderie between them suddenly evaporated. “We didn’t start this,” he said, thinking back to the fields of fallen men and the sky so black with smoke that you couldn’t see the sun. He could almost smell the stench of blood, the spilled bowels, and the charred grass and timbers.

  “Didn’t you? Didn’t your people attack Fort Sumter, South—”

  The odor of burning bread drifted through the doorway.

  “Something’s on fire!” he said, breaking free of his haunting memories.

  “My biscuits!” She turned back to the stove and snatched open the oven door.

  “Don’t burn your—” he began.

  “Ouch!”

  A metal pan bounced off the floor, and Chance dropped the clothing and the shaving articles onto the ground. When he reached Rachel, she was standing amid scattered chunks of bread holding out a fastreddening hand.

  Chance took hold of her waist and steered her toward the sink. He saw tears in her eyes, but she bit her bottom lip and didn’t cry. “Put your hand out,” he ordered. He pumped cold water over her burned palm. “That should take some of the sting out of it.”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s better.” She held her hand under the spout again. “It’s all right. See, it’s not even blistering.” She spread her fingers for his inspection.

  “Good,” he said. “I was afraid you’d really burned it badly.” He handed her a clean tea towel, and as he stepped closer, so did she. Her protruding belly brushed against him, and as it did, he felt the strangest sensation.

  Their gazes met, and she sucked in her breath sharply.

  “Was that what I thought it was?” he asked.

  “The baby kicked you. Haven’t you ever felt one do that?”

  “I …” He felt awkward talking about something so intimate, but a sense of wonder and his innate curiosity overcame his reluctance. “I didn’t know they were that strong … before they were born, I mean.”

  “You should be on this side. Sometimes I think I’m carrying a mule instead of a baby.” Her features softened. “Want to feel it again?”

  “Could I? It wouldn’t hurt it? Or you?”

  Her eyes brightened with amusement. “No, it wouldn’t hurt me or the babe.”

  Chance held out his hand tentatively, and she took it in hers and laid it high up on her apron under her full breasts. For a moment he didn’t feel anything, and then there was a definite movement, followed by three strong thrusts.

  Chance swallowed, dropped his hand, and moved away. “It’s a wonder you get any sleep nights with that going on,” he observed. He’d never taken much notice of pregnant women before, and he had to admit that he’d gone out of his way to avoid contact with that part of a woman’s world. But he didn’t think of Rachel as fat or cumbersome as he had those other females.

  Instead, oddly enough, Rachel’s advanced condition made him feel protective and something more … something that was uncomfortable to admit to himself.

  She was almost a mother, and she was another man’s wife. Only a cad of the worst sort would imagine … Chance turned away, afraid that the growing tension in his loins might show.

  Think of the baby inside her, he told himself.

  He took a deep breath and then another. Yes, he had to think of Rachel’s delicate condition, not her full, ripe breasts or the delicious feminine glow about her.

  Having the baby pushing against him seemed a miracle of sorts. For the first time he thought of the child to come not as part of Rachel but as his or her own person. And he hoped mightily that he was wrong, that Rachel’s man wasn’t dead or a runaway, and this little one would have a papa coming home from the war. He wanted Rachel and the baby to have
a strong man to put food on the table and to cut firewood to keep the house warm in winter. He didn’t want to think of Rachel Irons as a widow or her infant as an orphan. Neither of them deserved that. They should be cherished and cared for.

  He looked back at her, hoping that she had missed what could have been an awkward moment between them.

  Rachel’s cheeks flushed crimson. “You’d … you’d best see to your bath,” she said stiffly, gesturing toward the door. “I’ll salvage what I can here and start the sausage cooking.”

  “If you’re sure that you’re all right?”

  She nodded. “It was a stupid thing to do. Burning the biscuits, I mean,” she said in a rush. “I’m fine. My hands are tough,” she assured him as she gathered the fallen biscuits off the floor. The broken pieces went into a pail; the best of the bread she brushed off and put on a plate on the table.

  He picked up the bucket of milk. “Where do you want this?”

  “Set it in the sink. I have to strain it through a cheesecloth before … before I put it down the well to keep it from souring.” Rachel had gathered a mantle of dignity around herself and was suddenly his jailer-employer again.

  “We wouldn’t want the dogs to get the milk after all the work I had to—”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “They’d never touch the milk. What kind of dogs do you have in Virginia that you can’t trust them to stay away from—”

  “Ill-trained ones, I suppose.”

  She folded her arms. “Go on with you,” she said. “And don’t forget to shave. I’ll admit, I’m curious to see what’s hiding under that thicket on your chin.”

  “Are you insulting my beard?”

  “You probably should shampoo your hair with turpentine. I didn’t notice any nits when I nursed you, but you may have crawlies.”

  “I don’t have lice!”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I suppose you’d know if you had an infestation, but I’ll have no vermin in my house.”

  “I assure you, ma’am,” he replied with icy formality, “I’d be the first to know. The lice are so big on Pea Patch Island that the prisoners toss them into the soup to add meat.”

  He felt his bowels twist as he remembered the thin gruel of potato skins and the wormy bread that the Union army considered decent rations. “The truth is, the boys up there are surviving on rats and rotten bacon.”

  Rachel’s brown eyes dilated with compassion. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ve heard stories about the deaths, but we assumed that disease—”

  “Hundreds,” he said flatly. “Thousands. No one knows for certain. There is no medical care, no decent shelters for the sick, no clean water. The island reeks of the dead. The Yanks stack the corpses like firewood and row them across to the Jersey shore to bury in mass graves.”

  She paled. “It’s why they call it war, isn’t it? Men die.”

  “They die,” he repeated. “When they’re starved and left in the rain without proper shelter or their wounds are allowed to fester. They die when they drink water that horses have—”

  “Enough,” she cried. “You’ve made your point.” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I … I’m sorry if I seemed uncaring. I’m not so hard-hearted to wish anyone to suffer so.” Her eyes flashed as she delivered a parting shot. “Even if you Confederates do as much or worse to our men at Andersonville.”

  “It seems there is enough callousness for both sides.”

  She blanched. “It does trouble me to think that any here in Delaware could be so cruel to any human being, rebs or not.”

  Cruelty isn’t strong enough, he thought. Depravity and madness, perhaps. “I assure you that if I had any bluebacks, they’ve all drowned in the salt waters of the bay.”

  She raised a dark eyebrow questioningly.

  “Lice. The Yanks call them gray-backs, and we return the favor. Pea Patch is alive with bugs, mosquitoes, greenhead flies, lice—”

  “No more, please,” she protested.

  “I rest my case.”

  Rachel folded her arms over her stomach. “You are the darndest man for words I’ve ever laid eyes on. You could talk the comb off a banty rooster.”

  Chance turned and headed toward the door. He could almost swear his head was itching, but he refused to scratch. A man had to keep some dignity about him, even if he had to suffer for it.

  Rachel sank into a chair. Her back was aching, and she felt all hollow inside. What was it about Chance Chancellor that made her tongue as thick as a butter paddle?

  “I’ve been too long alone,” she whispered to the orange tabby curled on a window seat.

  What was she thinking to allow herself to be so free and easy with this stranger who had invaded her home?

  She rose and took her broom from the corner and began to briskly sweep up biscuit crumbs. Work had always filled her days as thoughts of her coming child eased the uncertainty of her future.

  She had to admit to herself that if Chance had been anyone but a rebel soldier, she might have welcomed his friendship. But only a foolish woman would forget why he was here and what he represented.

  In Richmond, before the war, a gentleman such as Chancellor would have considered himself far above her in class and situation. He was educated, probably wealthy, and no doubt had a wife and children at home.

  Still, she hadn’t mistaken that look in his eye when she’d let him touch her belly. Even a country wench with eight years of formal schooling knew when lightning passed between her and a man.

  Pole-axed, her grandmother had called it. There was a Lenape word for the sudden attraction between a male and female. It translated roughly as struck down, but Rachel couldn’t quite remember it. The meaning was plain enough.

  She tried to ignore the warm flush of pleasure that radiated through her as she remembered that slow appraisal Chance had given her.

  He was a very attractive man, and no doubt he was accustomed to having the ladies at his beck and call. But she wasn’t fool enough to think that he cared about her for her own sake. He’d been a long time without feminine companionship, she imagined. But if he thought she was ripe for a quick roll in the hay, he would be greatly surprised.

  Men were men, and she’d often thought that the good Lord had made them with more brawn than brain. She could not fault Chance for lusting after her in his heart. So long as he kept his hands to himself and remembered that he was here on her forbearance, they’d have no problem … so long as she could control her own wayward thoughts.

  She’d thought that she’d given up on the foolishness between men and women when James had destroyed the love they’d shared. “Damn you!” she murmured.

  If James hadn’t gone to war … if he hadn’t come home an angry stranger …

  She flung the broom back into the corner.

  It must be the pregnancy that was making her so fanciful. Women told her that they’d done all sorts of strange things before the birth of their children—craved unusual foods, taken odd notions. She would not allow herself to fall victim to an escaped rebel prisoner because her reason had been squeezed out by tight apron strings.

  Chance Chancellor could put his wide shoulders and his big hands to a plow. She’d see how sweet he talked after a long day of planting or hoeing weeds. And once she had a babe at her breast, she’d be too full of thoughts for her new son or daughter to stare at a man with calf eyes.

  But how were they to plow without an animal to pull the plow? And if they couldn’t work up the ground, there would be no way to put in a crop. She didn’t have a dollar to her name, and a decent mule would cost fifty at least. Then, if by some miracle someone would sell her a beast on credit, the soldiers might come and take that as well.

  Still wrestling with the problem, Rachel set the table and put the sausages on to fry. She beat several eggs with milk and salt and pepper, and slid them into a pan.

  The door opened and Bear ambled inside. Rachel glanced toward the entrance and gasped in astonishment. Chance Chancellor was
far younger, clean shaven, than she had guessed—and far more handsome. He filled her kitchen doorway with a lazy grace.

  “I guess that means you approve.” He grinned at her and ran a hand over his damp chin.

  I do, she thought. Oh, I do.

  She forced herself to speak sternly. “So long as you come clean to my table, you may shave or not to suit yourself.”

  “You should have gone for the law, madam,” he teased. “You’d make an imposing judge. The defendants would tremble in their boots when you entered the courtroom.”

  “Don’t mistake my kindness for sympathy,” she said testily. “If you overstep your bounds, I’ll not hesitate to shoot you as I would any mad dog.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “If I’ve offended you, my apologies.”

  “Sit,” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She brought the food, and they ate in silence. Rather, Chance ate, and she toyed with her eggs and sausage.

  It was hard for her to keep her eyes off him, but she’d not give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d perturbed her.

  “This is the Sabbath,” she said when he was finished. “If I hurry, I can take the rowboat upstream and walk to late services at our church. Turn the cow out into the pasture and clean out her stall.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “You’ve had your days of rest,” she replied. “I’ll take your healing wound into consideration, but chores must be done on a farm, and I can’t do everything myself.”

  “How do I get the cow to go where I want her to go?”

  “I’ll show you how—this time. From now on, you must tend Susan yourself. I’ll expect you to bring her in for milking before supper.”

  He followed her outside. They crossed the hard-packed farmyard in silence. Rachel had her hand on the wooden door latch when Lady began to bark.