A Matter of Principle (35 page)

Sydney bit back a responding smile and shook her head. “No, Anne. Thank you.” Anne closed the door softly, leaving them alone once more.

“
You will need to wear a shirt to bed,” Sydney commented, climbing to her feet and corking the bottle of emolument “Even so, I fear I’ll have to change the sheets tomorrow.”

“
Um-hmm.” Nicolas did not move.

Sydney pulled a clean shirt from his dresser and draped it over his back.

“
That feels good… Holds the heat…” he grunted. His breathing settled into a deep rhythm.

And then, he snored.

Chapter Twenty Six

March 31, 1822

St. Louis

Candidate Hansen Embroiled in Paternity Dispute

Legislative candidate, Nicolas R. Hansen, has fathered a child out of wedlock according to Lady Lily Atherton Kensington of Raleigh, North Carolina, formerly of Cheltenham. Mrs. Kensington expects to be confined in August with a child she says the candidate fathered.

Mr. Hansen’s wife, Siobhan Sydney Hansen, practices midwifery. Her assistant is one of Mrs. Kensington’s own house slaves, whom Mrs. Hansen is training to deliver Negro women of their infants. Mrs. Kensington, who has been visiting her brother on their shared estate, graciously made the slave girl available to Mrs. Hansen, and transported her on demand to the Hansen estate, nearly two miles distant.

It was often Mrs. Kensington’s practice to await their return at the Hansen estate, at which time she could transport the girl home on top of her carriage. These are the opportunities ~ when she and Mr. Hansen were alone in his manor ~ that Mr. Hansen pressed his full advantage and claimed her affections.

Mrs. Kensington further explains that Mr. Hansen did pursue Mrs. Kensington at one time for the purpose of marriage, but when she declined, he quickly married the current Mrs. Hansen in her stead.

Sir Ezra Warpold Kensington, husband of Lady Kensington, has stated that he will accept Hansen’s child, and raise it as his own heir, once the couple has returned to Raleigh. Mrs. Kensington indicates that they intend to return as soon as she is able to liquidate her half of the Cheltenham estate she shares with her brother.

April 1, 1822

Rodger knew the woman was lying. He’d done enough of it in his own life to recognize it immediately in someone else.

But it made a dashed good story.

“
Is that what I’ve come to?” he wondered aloud, walking home at the end of the day. “In all things? Or only where Hansen is concerned?” A man passing him from the opposite direction glanced up at his words, making curious eye contact. Rodger touched the brim of his hat and kept moving.

Do not speak out loud
, he chided himself.
Not when you are alone in public!

The claim that Hansen had bedded this young woman repeatedly since his marriage was ludicrous. She was undoubtedly beautiful—even in her delicate condition—and beautifully attired. And she smelled very good. But Rodger had seen Hansen and Siobhan together from the beginning. Rodger would bet his life that Hansen would not stray from her bed for anything. Or anyone.

So why write the article?

Because it made a dashed good story.

“
And because he banished Devin from me, and then killed Edward,” Rodger reiterated his litany of injustices. “He must pay.”

Rodger sighed, turning the last corner. He pulled his collar up against a soft spring rain that had begun to drift from a featureless dusky sky. Revenge was tasting less sweet. It required an enormous amount of effort, and seemed to be having little of the desired effect. Certainly it was a thorn in Hansen’s side. How could it not be? And it must have aided Beckermann’s cause; he seemed to be the leading legislative contender in St. Louis proper.

But this was not so in the outlying areas. Those people did not all receive the
Enquirer
, so his campaign to discredit Hansen had little effect there. Instead, they flocked to meet the man and listened to his words. He was one of them, and he understood the peculiarities of their rustic lives. His own estate thrived because of his physical labors. He inspired their trust.

And all Rodger could attack was his character. His politics, his ideas, and his goals were all perfectly reasonable. Perfectly well thought out. Perfectly modern.

Rodger’s breath caught. A ripple passed through his lower belly and trickled down his inner thighs. He hated Hansen, then, for an entirely different reason.
Damn the man.

April 8, 1822

Sydney’s bleeding had stopped days ago. She had no lingering physical symptoms of the miscarriage, save the unexpected blade of mourning that pricked her at the oddest times and made it hard for her to breathe.

“
It was never a child,” she told herself each time, and wiped the inevitable tear.

Nicolas was kind, solicitous, concerned. He inquired about her health and her mood. He made light conversation about the spring weather. He offered her books or articles to read. And he spent hours in his study with his fiddle, as if the instrument’s sad tones spoke of things he could not put into words.

Sydney sat on the staircase outside his study door and listened, imagining how Nicolas looked when he played. How his long fingers moved over the Hardanger’s frets. How he held the bow so tenderly yet firmly in his hand. She wished she was the bow.

Because he did not touch her. At all.

That loss gutted her even more than the other. She put her best face on it, trying to be content and serene in his presence. She smiled, conversed in return, read what he offered. She knew he was worried about the campaign; how could he not be? But he never mentioned it to her.

This night, she reached the end of her endurance.

She sat down to supper with him in the dining room and stared without appetite at the soup Anne set before her. Her throat constricted. Her shoulders began to shudder. Unable to hold herself in check any longer, she groaned in ragged, staccato gasps.

“
Sydney? What’s amiss?” Nicolas sprung to her and knelt beside her chair. “
Min presang
?”

She could not put words to her pain any more than he could. She covered her face and rocked forward and back in her seat, crying without control.

Nicolas pushed her chair away from the table, scraping it from the rug onto the polished wood floor. He grasped her wrists and pulled her hands down. “Sydney! Look at me!”

She would not; could not. She swayed slowly from side to side, eyes closed. Nicolas let go of her wrists. Before she realized his intent, he stood with her cradled in his arms.

“
Bring some tea upstairs,” he instructed someone, most likely Anne.

“
Yes, sir.”

Sydney leaned her head against his chest. She smelled his shaving soap, and could hear his heart beating, strong and insistent. Though her breath still came in spasmodic gulps of hysteria, she relaxed her legs to ease his burden.

He carried her down the hall and took the stairs two at a time. In their room, he laid her on the bed, on top of the covers. He pulled her shoes off, she heard them drop on the floor, and he stroked her face, pushing her hair back.

“
Sydney? Please, tell me what’s amiss,” he murmured. “I’m here,
min presang
. I’m here.”

Her voice strained awkwardly past her tears. “No… you are not.”

“
I am! I am right here!” His alarm was evident. “Open your eyes! Do you not see me?”

Sydney did, then. “Yes, I see you. That is not what I meant.”

“
What then?” Nicolas’s beautiful blue eyes owned her. She wanted to climb inside them and never come out.

It was too much effort to be gracious. “You no longer touch me.”

Nicolas recoiled as though shot. His face drained of color.

“
What?”

“
Ever since that night. In St. Louis. You have not touched me.” Sydney spoke between sob spasms.

“
I…that is… you need to—to heal,” he stammered.

“
Not only that. You don’t even take my hand.”

Nicolas stood and paced around the bed. He ran his hands through his hair. The scar on his cheek whitened.

Sydney reached reflexively for her wedding ring and turned it around her finger. Anne knocked on the door and brought in the tea. Sydney sat up and reached for the tray, her eyes fixed on the coverlet. She set it on the bed in front of her.

“
Thank you, Anne.”

“
Is there anything else, ma’am?” Her voice was kind.

“
No.”

Anne closed the door softly. Sydney poured tea and added milk. She did not look at Nicolas who continued to pace and fidget.

Hands on his hips, hands through his hair. Gazing out the window, gazing into the fire. Jaw and fists clenching. Sydney finished her cup of tea before he stopped and faced her.

“
The thing that eats at me, the thing I cannot get beyond, is that you did not trust me,” he declared.

The cup rattled in the saucer. “Trust you? In what way?” she asked, confused.

“
You did not trust me enough to tell me there was a child.”

“
But there was not…”

Nicolas slammed his palm on top of the dresser. “Do not play games with me, Sydney! You understand what I mean!” he shouted.

Sydney cringed.

Nicolas saw and softened a bit. “Why did you not tell me?” he pressed.

She swallowed and got her grit up. “I knew it would frighten you.”

Nicolas straightened. “Only that?”

Sydney shook her head. “And all the other things.”

“
What other things?”

Sydney held her hand in front of her and ticked off her fingers as she said them.

“
The hectic campaign schedule, the upsetting articles in the paper, Lily’s demands on Rickard and her threats of mischief against you… The fire in the apartment and the attack on the road.”

Nicolas spread his hands out to the side. “None of that is as important as a child!”

“
But I knew it would upset you. Distract you.” She paused. “Anger you.”

Nicolas dropped his hands. He crossed to the hearth and grabbed the rocking chair. He pulled it closer to the bed.

“
Anger me,” he whispered; it was so quiet Sydney almost did not hear him.

He heaved a deep breath and sat in the chair, elbows on his knees, and resting his forehead on the heels of his hands.

“
Oh, Sydney.”

“
Was I so wrong about that?” she ventured.

He did not answer at first. Then, without moving, “Even so, you should have told me.”

Sydney adjusted her stance on the bed. “It was not the
same
, Nicolas. How do I explain this to a man?”

“
With words. Specific words,” he responded, jaw flexing.

Sydney thought a minute. “I was nauseated, but not all the time. And on
that
day, I woke up feeling wonderful for the first time in over two months.”

Nicolas shrugged. “And how was that hard to explain?”

Sydney rolled her eyes. “There is more to it than that!”

“
Go on, then.” He rolled his finger in a circle like a wheel.

“
When I have carried before, my bosom was hot and heavy feeling; tender, sore to the touch. Even my clothing hurt at times. But not this time.”

“
Oh.” Nicolas sat back in the chair, pondering. “Was there aught else?”

“
I bled in January, but only for a day. Do you remember that?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“
Why did I bleed at all, if there was a baby?”

“
I am beginning to see your point.”

“
And if there was a baby, and I bled, did it kill the baby?” Sydney pushed her palms against her cheeks. “Or maybe it died first?”

Nicolas considered her for a long time. Silent and somber, the fire behind him incongruently haloed his form in the darkening room. He looked away, rubbed his finger over his lip. He closed his eyes, jaw jutting, and then opened them again. His voice was low and rough.

“
The fact remains that you did not trust me enough to tell me any of it.”

Sydney gazed at him, her heart breaking under the weight of his torment. “I was afraid.”