Hannah Howell (30 page)

“I need your mark on this piece of paper, Mr. Morrisey,” Clover said, and pulled a small bill of sale she had written up out of a pocket inside her cloak. “It simply says that, for the sum of forty-two dollars, you will relinquish all claim to the child.” She pointed to the bottom of the paper. “I want you to make your mark here and make a thumbprint right next to it.”

Even as she pulled from her bag the ink, quill, and paper Morrisey needed, Clover asked Willie, “Are you hurt?”

“Just some bruises. Ain’t nothing broken. I just be a mite stiff ‘cause that punishment hole ain’t too big.” He looked at her in awe. “Am I free then?” His eyes widened when she nodded. “I could hug you, ma’am, but I’m powerful dirty.”

“You can hug me after you have had a bath.” She smiled when he grimaced at the word
bath,
revealing that, despite his sad condition, his spirit was undaunted.

“Where am I going now that I be free?”

“Well, you can come and live with us, but since you
are
free, it must be your own decision.” When she saw that Morrisey had finished putting his marks on the paper, she held the man’s belligerent gaze and asked Willie, “Were you being punished for spending time with me?” Morrisey lowered his hand to his loins and Clover smiled coldly. He had not forgotten her threat that day at Ballard’s.

“Nope. I forgot to do the milking.”

Clover suspected that the milking had not been done because the boy had been with her and his punishment was for that visit as well, but Morrisey
had had enough wit to claim another reason. Since she had no weapon and probably lacked the backbone needed to shoot a man anyway, she decided to let well enough alone. The important thing was Willie’s freedom.

Morrisey thrust the paper at her. Clover took it, studied his mark, and put it back in her pocket. She signaled her mother to take Willie out to the wagon and then tossed the money onto the table. Morrisey snatched it up so quickly she was not sure it even touched the surface of the table.

“I have found this transaction extremely distasteful, Mr. Morrisey,” Clover said. “The child is no longer yours. If you ever touch him again, I will see that you pay dearly for it.” She nodded at Bess. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Morrisey.” She hurried out of the house, briefly wishing there was something she could do to help Bess and her children and knowing there was nothing.

As she climbed onto the wagon seat next to Adam, waving aside his offer of assistance, she looked at her mother and Willie seated in the back. Willie was eating a scone Molly had packed for him, struggling valiantly to obey her mother’s gentle commands to eat slowly. Clover almost dreaded cleaning him up, for she knew that once the dirt was washed away, she would see the results of Morrisey’s brutal hand all too clearly.

“Lord above, did he crawl out of a mudhole?” cried Molly as she gingerly helped Willie from the wagon.

“Actually, Molly, you are almost right,” Clover said
as she hopped down from the seat and went to help her mother out of the wagon. “He has been in a punishment hole since the day he rescued me. He needs a good scrubbing.”

“He does that.”

“I should go and thank MacGregor.” Willie tried to squirm free of Molly’s grip on his arm.

“Mr. MacGregor be doing some business. He will not be wanting a dirty little boy rushing over and interrupting.” Molly towed him toward the house. “You can thank him when you are clean, though I be thinking he might not recognize you.” She looked back at Clover. “Your man said to come and join him when you get back. He be in the stables with a Mr. Potsdam, talking horses.”

“I think some of the twins’ clothes will fit Willie,” said Agnes as she followed Molly into the house. “We will burn those rags of his.”

Clover laughed softly as she watched Molly drag a reluctant Willie into the house. She then looked toward the stables. It was not going to be easy to meet Ballard’s best customer when she was still feeling somewhat shaken from her dealings with Morrisey. She would much prefer to have a long hot bath, but Ballard was eager for her to meet Mr. Potsdam, a member of the area’s small society.

“Adam?” she called, halting the farmhand as he started to drive the wagon back to the barn. “What is Mr. Potsdam like?”

“Good man. Money. Pretty manners. A gentleman,” he replied before continuing on to the barn.

“Succinct,” she murmured and, taking a deep breath, headed for the stables.

Although Adam’s reply had been terse, Clover
felt she knew the sort of man she was about to meet. It was to feel equal to and comfortable with men like Mr. Potsdam that Ballard had been seeking a wife with her particular qualifications. She wished she had thought to ask Ballard just how much of a proper lady he wanted her to be.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the stables. She spotted Ballard at the far end, discussing the merits of a yearling whose stall they leaned against with a slender, silver-haired gentleman. She was just nearing Ballard’s side when he turned toward her.

“Clover, did everything go weel?” he asked, taking her hand and drawing her close.

“A complete success. Much better than I expected.”

“Good. There is someone here I would like ye to meet. Clover, may I introduce Cyril Potsdam. Cyril, my wife, Clover.” He grinned and winked at her. “How was that?”

“Very proper.” She smiled and shook Cyril’s hand. “I am pleased to meet you, sir.”

“I have been eager to meet you.” He kissed her hand and smiled when she blushed. “I am pleased to see that you have recovered from your ordeal.”

“Thank you. I am very resilient and my kidnappers were not the most intelligent men.”

Cyril laughed, then grew serious again. “We are all looking for the rogues. Rest assured, we will find them.”

“I hope so, although there must be a lot of places for them to hide around here.”

“Not as many as there used to be, loving,” Ballard said. “I ken it might look wild and empty to ye since ye have always lived in a town, but there are nae so
many free and open places as there were in the beginning. Those men will eventually chance being seen. We just have to wait until they are and hope they are seen by the right folk, ones who will come and tell us.”

“Your husband is correct, Mrs. MacGregor,” said Cyril. “It will not be long before we put an end to this threat.”

Clover smiled and thanked him, but did not share his confidence. She had grown somewhat fatalistic about Thomas Dillingsworth and whatever twisted plans he had concerning her and Ballard. Nothing they had done so far had stopped Thomas, and she did not believe they would suddenly get lucky.

After a few moments of pleasant conversation, she left the men to dicker over the yearling. She smiled to herself as she walked back to the house. Mr. Potsdam was a pleasant gentleman, refined and well-mannered, and he did not care a jot about Ballard’s lack of bloodlines or education. One thing she had learned while a part of society was how to see the person behind the fine manners and social niceties. Cyril Potsdam held none of the prejudices that often cursed the upper classes. He liked Ballard MacGregor for the man he was.

She briefly considered telling Ballard he did not have to learn fine manners to be accepted as an equal by men like Cyril Potsdam, then decided it would not make any difference. Ballard was learning everything he could to please himself. Mr. Potsdam did not care if Ballard knew one wine from another, but Ballard wanted to be able to stand toe to toe with any man as an equal. He sought to avoid those painfully awkward
moments that so often occurred when one entered an unfamiliar world.

Clover’s musings came to an abrupt halt when she entered the house and found Willie sitting at the table. Molly and her mother had wasted no time in scrubbing him from head to toe and dressing him in clean clothes. Clover doubted she would have recognized him, except that he was eating with his distinctive lack of restraint.

She sat down opposite him and studied him carefully. His skin had a faint coppery tone. His hair, a thick rich black, fell past his shoulders to ragged ends. Several faint scars marred his body from past beatings, and more vivid bruises recalled his recent ordeal. She could also see that, with a little care and plenty of food, Willie would grow into an extraordinarily attractive man.

“You are very handsome,” she said, and smiled when a hint of color bloomed in his high-boned cheeks.

“I ain’t never been so clean. Molly and your ma sure do know how to scrub a feller till he fair squeaks.” He took a drink of cider, then asked in a small voice, “I am really free of Morrisey?”

“Yes, you really are free of him.”

“You ain’t gone and paid him the whole sixty dollars he asked for, has you?”

“No. I suspected that if he saw a goodly pile of silver coins, he would agree to a lesser amount just to get his hands on them. He did. I put forty-two dollars on the table and let him stare at it until he was tempted into agreeing to my offer.”

“So now I belong to you and MacGregor.”

It was flattering to see how pleased he was with his
new situation, but clearly he did not understand the concept of freedom. Either he had not listened to her back at Morrisey’s or he simply did not understand. She put the paper Morrisey had signed on the table between them.

“You belong to no one, Willie. I recalled that you cannot read and took the chance that Morrisey cannot read either. Yes, I paid Morrisey some money, but I did
not
buy you. This paper says Morrisey accepted money to release you of all obligations. It is rather like the manumission papers some slaves get from their masters when they are made freemen. You belong to no one, Willie. You owe no one. You are your own man. You can go or stay as you please.”

“I ain’t rightly sure I understand this. Can I stay here?”

“Of course you can and for as long as you like. You are welcome to be a part of this family. I just want you to know that you do not
have
to do anything unless you want to.”

He nodded. “I will pay you back, ma’am.”

“I do not expect you to.”

“I know that, but I will.”

He turned as the twins burst into the house. In a moment he was off and running with them. Clover hoped that was how it would be from now on. Willie would have to do his share of the chores, as the twins did, but he would also get to be just a child.

“Ballard?” Clover called, frowning as she sought a glimpse of him among the apple trees.

She stopped and, with her hands on her hips, looked around. Someone was playing tricks on her.
Damien had told her that Ballard wanted to see her in the orchard, dragging her away from a discussion of Willie’s future with her mother. Yet now there was no sign of Ballard. She was about to go find her mischievous little brother, and give him a scolding that would leave his ears ringing for the rest of the afternoon, when she whirled around, took a step back toward the house … and walked right into a grinning Ballard’s arms.

“You wretch!” she cried, and swatted at him. “You scared me half to death.”

“Is your heart pounding?” he asked, pulling her tighter against him.

“Of course it is. It always pounds when some great fool terrifies me.” She slipped her arms around his neck as he lifted her up in his arms so that their faces were level.

“And is your blood running swiftly through your veins?” He slowly dotted kisses over her face.

“I should say so.”

“Feeling a wee bit light-headed?” he asked as he steered them toward a thick knot of trees.

“A touch.” She squeaked with surprise when he stepped behind a clump of birches at the far end of the orchard and set her abruptly down, so abruptly that she stumbled and landed with a thump on the blanket spread out at their feet.

It was hard to hide her amusement when Ballard yanked off his boots, gracefully sat beside her, and then tumbled her onto the blanket. There was a certain gleam in his eye that told her exactly why he had lured her there.

She looked around and saw nothing but trees: the neatly set out orchard in front of them, and the
encroaching forest on the other three sides. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm but not hot, and a perfect place to make love, as Ballard so clearly wanted to. She did not feel even the smallest tickle of shyness or embarrassment over the thought of indulging in such intimacies in the bright glare of day. Instead, a swift, heady rush of excitement made her head spin.

Clover smoothed her hand over the blanket they were sharing and gave Ballard a look of sweet, wideeyed admiration. “I did not realize what a skilled farmer you are, husband. ‘Tis not every man who can grow blankets, ones already woven and seamed.”

Ballard gave her a disgusted look before he kissed her. After his meeting with Potsdam, he had been wandering through the orchard, checking the apple trees, enjoying the peacefulness and fine weather, and suddenly he had wanted Clover—badly. It had been easy to draw her out to the orchard, but he wondered if she would want to celebrate the beauty of their surroundings the same way he did. She was responding to his kiss with all her usual passion, but he was not sure if that meant what he hoped it meant. Although she rarely allowed modesty to disrupt their passion anymore, making love under a tree in the middle of the day was very daring, even for him.

He finished kissing her and rolled onto his back, tugging her up against his side.

“Potsdam invited us to his home for dinner a fortnight from this Saturday,” he said.

“That will be nice,” Clover murmured, a little confused. She had been so sure Ballard wanted to make love, but now he acted as if he just wanted to sit with her privately for a while and talk.

“Ye did a fine job of getting Willie out of Morrisey’s clutches. I was worried ye would come away empty-handed. I ken weel how that would have upset ye.” He rubbed his hand up and down her arm and wondered how long he should spend putting her at her ease before he let her know what he really wanted.

Clover caught him looking at her. That gleam was still there. He
did
want to make love to her, but was holding back for some reason. She shifted slightly so that her body was partly sprawled on top of his and kicked off her shoes.