A Matter of Principle (40 page)

Sarah shrugged, glancing shyly at Sydney. “We have not been at all uncomfortable.”

“
Even so,” Sydney stated. “It will be an improvement for all involved, will it not?” Then she nodded at Sarah. “I’ll see that Nicolas does all he can, to get you moved in time for the birth.”

Sarah froze. “How did you know?”

Sydney laid her hand on Sarah’s arm. “I have been through it myself, have I not?”

Sarah nodded, her gaze jumping to Anne and back.

“
Have no fear, Sarah. This child will grow old in your presence,” Sydney assured the worried slave.

“
Thank you, ma’am.” Tension left Sarah’s body in a rush and she gripped the framework holding the last of the matted wool.

“
See that you eat enough to grow a strong, healthy child!” Sydney admonished. “Even if you have been nauseated.”

“
You have seen?”

Sydney nodded. “Only once. And I wondered then.”

“
Does Jack know?” Anne asked.

A soft smile spread over Sarah’s smooth, brown face. “He does.”

Sydney noticed a shadow pass over Anne’s expression. She wondered, then, if Anne wanted a child. She and Jeremy had been married almost as long as Sydney and Nicolas, but as far as she knew they had never conceived.

Nicolas rode into the yard that evening, just at dusk. Half-an-hour later and they would have been picking their way through a moonless forest.

Sydney ran to the stable where Jack and Jeremy were unsaddling the horses. Nicolas lifted her into his embrace and spun her around. He smelled of dust, horse sweat and smoke. His mouth held the yeasty remnants of beer.

“
Have you missed me, witch?” he teased, setting her on her feet.

“
No,” she teased back. “I cast a spell over your clothing and your breeches have kept me well.” Nicolas’s laughter exploded from his massive chest.

Jack and Jeremy exchanged awkward glances. In the midst of his mirth, Nicolas noticed.

“
It is a joke!” he explained. “We find the accusations amusing!”

“
It’s not that, sir,” Jeremy countered. “We were merely hoping that she does not share such knowledge with our wives!”

“
No, sir,” Jack added with a wink. “We do not wish to be supplanted!”

A fresh burst of Nicolas’s laughter rung across the estate.

April 20, 1822

Nicolas stood on the spot where Jeremy wanted to build his cabin. It was in the woods, and overlooked the creek. Nicolas pointed to the water, dancing along like little Kirstie on a butterfly chase, and looking no more menacing.

“
That creek—”

“
Yes, I know,” Jeremy interrupted. “Swells mightily at times. I marked the boundaries last year, in case that knowledge ever became important.”

“
Did you?” Nicolas was impressed.

“
See that stake there?”

Nicolas turned and nodded.

“
That’s the highest it came. And John said it was a very wet spring.” Jeremy rested his hands on his hips and surveyed the surrounding forest.

“
So you’ve set your spot a good ten yards back? That is first-rate thinking,” Nicolas approved.

“
And, since my cabin will be wood, not stone, I want to build it in the shade. A protection against summer’s heat,” Jeremy continued.

“
And the bare trees will allow sunlight in the winter,” Nicolas continued the logic.

“
Yes, sir. And there is one more thing.”

Nicolas raised his brows in question.

“
Do you see the size of these trees? They have been standing a hundred years or more.” Jeremy pointed at several examples.

“
Yes. And?”

Jeremy’s brown eye’s twinkled. “The twisters haven’t gotten ‘em yet!”

“
Ha!” Nicolas stuck out his hand to shake Jeremy’s. “Mark out your foundation and let’s get to work. We’ll see it done by autumn.”

“
Yes, sir!” Jeremy grinned and shook the proffered hand.

“
And get Sarah and Jack into the manor before the babe comes,” Nicolas continued.

Jeremy looked quickly away.

Nicolas walked in a small circle, perusing the plot and pretending to make mental measurements. He waited for the younger man to speak.

“
Might I ask you a question, Mr. Hansen?” His voice was low and strained. “It’s rather personal in nature.”

“
Of course. But please call me Nicolas. Or Nick.”

“
Yes, sir. Nicolas.” Jeremy’s face mottled with embarrassment. “Has your wife ever, I mean, have there been times when she, um… refused you?”

Nicolas sucked in a breath. What was going on with the young couple? “Only one week, to be honest. And that was to prove to
me
that I could not live without
her
.”

Jeremy’s brows dipped over a crooked smile. “Did it work?”

“
I groveled,” Nicolas confessed.

“
But she wanted you, true?”

“
True.” Nicolas paused. “Does Anne not want you?”

Jeremy turned away. “She does. Well, she says she does. And when we, um, kiss and, um touch, she responds as though she wishes to complete the act.” He sighed heavily, and faced Nicolas again. “But then she pushes me away and cries.”

Nicolas sat on a fallen log. “Has it always been that way between you?”

Jeremy wilted. “No, sir. Nick. It started after the trouble.”

“
Oh… The fire in the stable while I was in Norway.”

“
Yes, sir.” Jeremy sat next to Nicolas on the log. “Last July.”

“
What is she afraid of, do you think?” Nicolas probed.

Jeremy stared at the creek. For a while it was the only sound in the forest. “As best I can make out, she is afraid of making a baby. Another half-breed, like herself.”

“
Well, to put a finer point on it, the child would be three-quarters white,” Nicolas pointed out.

Jeremy shrugged. “I said so.”

“
And she didn’t consider that before marrying you?”

Jeremy shrugged again. The two men sat without talking. A squirrel high above them got into a raucous argument with a jay, and pine needles rained down on them. The jay flew off, frustrated in its attempt to steal an acorn. The squirrel disappeared into a hole in the tree’s core.

“
As I see it, you have to find two solutions,” Nicolas began. “The first one is easy. Use a sheath to catch your seed.”

“
There are such things?” Jeremy gaped. “Where would I procure one?”

“
You can make them yourself! From sheep’s intestines.” Nicolas smiled. “Tied off like sausage casings.”

Jeremy’s face lit up with understanding, looking like he wished to jump up and butcher a lamb on the spot. “Of course! And the other solution?”

“
That one is much harder, because it means flinging your children in the face of ignorance.”

Jeremy nodded. “I’m strong enough to protect them.”

“
Is she?”

“
She has faced it all her life.”

Nicolas rested one hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “And that may be precisely why she wishes to spare them.”

Jeremy pulled a deep breath and hissed it out between his front teeth.

Nicolas stood. “But until that problem is solved, begin with the other. I believe we should have lamb for supper tonight, don’t you?”

Chapter Thirty

April 26, 1822

Cheltenham

The sheep were sheared, the wool processed. The butchering of meat filled the smokehouse while Anne and John kept practiced eyes on its progress. Addie planted her garden with Anne’s help. And construction began on the McCain’s cabin.

Nicolas enjoyed chopping wood. He loved the swing of the axe, and the resounding jar of its contact with the log. The crack of a trunk splitting down its length made him feel powerful; a master over nature. He loved the sweat and the effort.

He paused to wipe his brow with the rag he tucked in his waistband, and sniffed the air. Rain was coming, he was sure of it.

Nicolas and Jeremy had planned the cabin together. Instead of a root cellar dug underground, Jeremy wanted an undercroft, a half-underground room that would be accessed from a short outside door, as well as a trap door in the floor.

“
That way, if the creek floods higher than we ever expect it to, the rooms are still another four feet off the ground,” he explained to Nicolas. “And in a bad storm, we won’t have to go outside to get to our supplies.”

Nicolas commended Jeremy on his forethought. “Now, if you might find a way to get your water pump and your privy indoors, you’ll live like a king!”

Nicolas pondered those possibilities for his own home as the carriage bore him and Sydney to St. Louis yet again. Sydney read the newspaper as they rode.

“
Might we have time to see a play this trip?” she asked, peeking at him over the top of the publication.

“
Perhaps.” He dragged his thoughts back inside the conveyance. “What is advertised?”

“
A local production called
She Has Her Ways
.”

“
If we can fit it in, I have no objection.”

She went back to reading and he went back to engineering. She turned a page.

“
Here is something about you!”

“
Really?” Nicolas frowned, irritated. “I had hoped they might leave me alone.”

Sydney read silently for a minute. “It is actually rather complimentary.”

Nicolas lifted the top edge of the publication to see the front page. “You are reading the
Enquirer
, are you not?”

“
I am.”

“
Hmph.” Nicolas let go of the page. “I wonder what madness has possessed them?”

Sydney smiled. “Shall I read it to you?”

“
If you must.”

Nicolas Hansen’s Far Flung Campaign

Legislative candidate, Nicolas Hansen, took his campaign on the road in weeks past, visiting several rural communities in the western regions of St. Louis County. Hansen spoke to groups of men in town halls, taverns, schools and churches. He was generally well received, due partly to the fact that this publication seldom reaches that far into the county, so most there are ignorant of the endless controversies that Mr. Hansen seems to foster.

Being a land-grant owner himself, Hansen’s credibility in the outlying areas remains high. In addition, many rural farms are small, not requiring slaves. Hansen’s anti-slavery ideals are more easily grasped in such places.

Adding to Hansen’s popularity in those areas is Mr. Winston Beckermann’s lack of campaigning anywhere outside the city of St. Louis, proper. When asked to comment, Mr. Beckermann responded, “While I commend Mr. Hansen for his efforts, it is the men of the city who will take the time to vote. I prefer to give them my full attention.”

Sydney lowered the newspaper and gazed expectantly at him.

“
I expect that attitude might bite him back in the end,” Nicolas muttered.

“
And if it works for him?”

“
Then I am not the man for this position, I don’t suppose.”

Sydney tilted her head. Her gray-green eyes pinned him and she bit her lower lip. “What has you discouraged, husband?”

He shook his head. “Nothing in particular. I am feeling as though I want to either get on with the job, or be done with it. This constant travel, being away from home, from Kirstie and Stefan, and not able to care for my home the way I should, is wearing on me.”

“
Your home is doing fine,” Sydney insisted. “You have capable people, in whom you have placed your trust and given a reason to succeed. They have risen to the challenge. In fact, they are thriving.”

She smiled suddenly.

“
What?”

“
Did you and Jeremy discuss anything besides building his cabin last week?” she asked.

One corner of Nicolas’s mouth lifted. “Why do you ask?”

Sydney leaned toward him, giving him a chance to see inside her décolletage. “Because, of a sudden, Anne has been smiling more, and Jeremy cannot take his eyes off of her!”

Nicolas chuckled and explained to Sydney about their situation and his recommendation.

“
Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well it’s no wonder, then!” She ran her hand up his thigh. “I can only imagine how I would feel.”

Nicolas leaned forward and took her mouth with his.

“
I have an idea, wife,” he whispered. “Let’s get supper, and a bottle of wine, and take it to our room and lock our door.”

“
A naked picnic in front of the fire?” Her eyes grew smoky and his body reacted.

“
We’d miss the play,” he warned.