Patricia Rice (38 page)

Violence begets violence, Papa John had said. It seemed most likely that violence just killed the soul.

* * *

Pace listened to her walk away, then slowly returned the rifle to its rack. He didn't understand what was happening. He'd never in his life meant to hurt Dora. He wanted to protect her, to take care of her, to give her all the things she wanted. But he'd be damned if he knew what she wanted. He had never seen her act like this before.

There had been those times as a little girl she'd come racing to his defense, he supposed. She had been cute and a little annoying. She'd grown up, however. She'd become this quiet, modest little waif who talked in hushed tones and never gave evidence of anger except in an occasional disapproving glare. The wild person who had raged and ranted at armed men tonight was not the Dora he knew. Had childbirth changed her so?

But he found even his own reactions strange. Instead of charging out there, dragging Dora back in the house, and driving the bastards off at the end of his gun, he'd let her rage. He'd almost admired the way she threw herself at them, making them look the fools they were.

And she hadn't needed a gun to do it. He had been proud of her, until she turned her back on him.

He knew why she'd turned her back on him. And he didn't like it. Pace put his boots up on the desk and stared at the guns hanging on the wall. He'd come a long way since fists and pitchforks were his only choice of weapons. He wasn't smaller than the other boys any longer. He could beat the tar out of them even with his crippled arm. But the war had taught him how to shoot, and how to shoot well. Returning to anything less effective seemed foolish.

But he recognized the hunger in him for what it was. He wanted Dora's approval. She was the only person in this world who had ever looked at him with complete acceptance and approbation. He felt that shelter of approval deteriorating rapidly. It left him naked and vulnerable. He didn't know how one little woman could do that to him, and he didn't think he liked it.

He didn't need her. He could ride out of here tomorrow and make a life for himself anywhere he went. He was an educated man. Somewhere out there he could find a place that needed a gimpy-armed lawyer.

He could even find other women. Women were easy. He knew more beautiful women than Dora, voluptuous, passionate women who could give him the sex he'd been deprived of all these months. Maybe that was half his problem. He needed a physical release Dora couldn't give him. But all he had to do was remember why Dora couldn't give him what he wanted, and he knew he couldn't leave.

He had a daughter now, a child he hadn't wanted and Dora certainly hadn't asked for, but his own flesh and blood just the same. He knew what not being wanted felt like. His father had made it painfully clear that he considered Pace an unpleasant surprise. He wouldn't allow any child of his to ever feel that way. Frances would have the home and loving parents he'd never had. Dora would show him how to do it.

It gave him something worth living for. Dora could always find a better husband, but Frances could never have another real father, one who would love her just because she was his. He could do that. He
would
do that, just as soon as he figured out how to keep Dora from throwing things at him.

He heard his daughter's hungry cries and smiled. He and Frances were in this together. Dora couldn't resist both of them.

As he climbed the stairs, Pace knew he wasn't doing Dora any favors. He would make a rotten husband. He had a bad temper, and he was a lousy farmer. But she had seen something worthwhile in him once. Perhaps he could make her see it again. And then maybe he could figure out what it was and go back to the path he'd lost somewhere along the line.

Dora looked up with surprise when he entered the bedroom, but if there was fear in her eyes, she hid it. She didn't smile but returned her attention to the nursing infant. Pace felt a tug at his groin as his gaze fell to her breast. It had been a damned long time since he'd suckled there. The desire that hit him now shouldn't be so remarkable. He'd gone without a woman for nine long months. After Dora, he'd not had the desire for camp whores. The remarkable part was that he hadn't felt desire for any other woman except this one for a damned long time.

He didn't even know why he desired her. She was small and delicately made, scarcely the voluptuous type he'd preferred in the past. She had no coloring to speak of. Her hair was so fair as to be almost silver, and her cheeks were as translucent as his mother's best porcelain. But when she looked at him with those glorious blue eyes, he saw an angel, and he had no desire for anyone else. When given heaven, who would settle for second best?

He'd obviously stuffed his brain with too much poetry in school, and it came out now when he was tired. But he continued on his chosen course, sitting in the armchair to remove his boots, hanging his coat in the wardrobe. Dora had left the lamp on, and he knew she followed his movements, but neither of them spoke.

He waited until the child finished before approaching the bed. He'd disposed of his shirt and wore only trousers for decency. He felt Dora's hesitation when he removed the infant from her arms, but she surrendered her burden without protest, allowing him to place Frances in the cradle. He kissed the squirming infant on the forehead, then lay her on her side and rocked her until she settled. She would have his hair, he decided. He hoped she would have her mother's eyes.

When he came back to the bed, Dora blew out the lamp. Pace smiled at her belated modesty, but he didn't chide her for it. He felt a trifle nervous himself, and for no significant reason that he could think of. He knew it was too soon after the child's birth to force himself upon her. He didn't know how soon he could take her in that way. She was too frail to bear the burden of too many children. He'd have to be careful with her.

He wished he knew who to ask about these things, but Dora was the only person he knew who might have the answers. He didn't think it an appropriate conversation at the moment.

He left on his drawers so as not to alarm her unduly. He climbed into bed and felt her resisting the sagging of the mattress toward his heavier weight.

"I thank you for trying to protect me," he said gravely.

To Pace's surprise, Dora burst into tears and turned her back on him, burying her head in the pillow to muffle the sound.

He knew he was being facetious when he said it, but he hadn't expected such an emotional reaction. Actually, he'd hoped she would laugh. He hadn't heard Dora laugh in a long time. He supposed the blame for that lay with him too.

Cautiously, he touched her arm. She didn't pull away, but she didn't turn to him either. "I'm sorry, Dora. You just surprised me, that's all. I scarcely knew it was you out there."

"I didn't know myself," she wept. "I don't know who I am anymore. I feel awful inside. I hate those men and all the others like them. I'm tired of their threats and insults. I want to fight back, but I can't. I can't do anything. I'm so perfectly, awfully useless, and I don't know what to do about it."

She pounded her pillow until Pace thought the feathers would fly. He grabbed her fist and held it wrapped in his own. "Dora, if someone is threatening you, I want to know about it. We're in this together. You're not alone anymore. When you were little, you bashed your doll over the heads of my enemies. Give me the right to do the same to yours now."

She sniffled and allowed him to hold her, but she didn't turn to face him. "The whole world is a threat to me, and I'm tired of facing it. You can't help me, Pace. I have to do it myself."

She still wore her hair short, but it had grown long enough to curl at her nape and form in wisps around her face. Pace smoothed them back with his large hand. "You felt safe with the Quakers, didn't you?"

She grew silent in thought, then answered, "Yes, I suppose. At least, I did not feel so alone with them, and they offered no harm."

A world where men and women spoke softly and never carried weapons was a world totally alien to the one Pace knew. He felt an odd longing for the peace such a world offered, but he knew he would never fit in. Obedience wasn't his strong suit. He had strong opinions and acted on them without need of consulting others.

The Quakers would no doubt break their own rules to shoot him should he ever attempt to join their numbers. But Dora had found security with them, something she couldn't find with him. After tonight, he didn't think she needed that security as much as she thought she did. But he wasn't the one to correct her.

"Would it help... Do you think you would like to attend church with me?" he asked cautiously.

That brought her around. She turned and stared at him through the darkness. "Thou never attended church in thy life. Pace Nicholls."

He shrugged. "I was baptized in one once. My mother used to attend. Josie goes upon occasion. It might not be such a bad idea. You could get out and about more, meet people, make new friends. Then maybe you wouldn't feel so alone."

The thought frightened her. Pace could tell it from the way she stiffened beneath his touch. He couldn't blame her. The godly people in church despised him for the most part. She wouldn't find it easy facing those people who had mocked her speech and habits all these years. He didn't know why he had suggested it in the first place, except that he'd felt guilty at depriving her of the solace of her Meeting and friends across the river. It had been a bad idea. He'd look for other ways to make her accepted.

"Dost thou think... Mayhap thy mother would go?"

Ahh, damn, now he'd done it. Now he would not only be stuck going to church, he would have to take his damned mother with him. He'd rather face a squadron of armed soldiers.

Chapter 29

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life:

by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

~ Charles Caleb Colton
Lacon
(1825)

Easter services had already passed, and it was too soon for Frances to go out the first Sunday after Pace made his incredible offer. But on the second Sunday, Dora made it clear that she would take him up on it.

She couldn't talk Harriet into getting dressed and appearing in public, but she dressed Frances in a long cotton gown adorned with eyelet and lace and a matching bonnet and daringly made over an old gown of Josie's for herself. She wouldn't have chosen jonquil yellow for herself, but it was a far cry from the shades of gray she'd worn these last years. Dora felt extraordinarily feminine wearing the layers of old-fashioned petticoats Josie had discarded. She felt even more so when she saw Pace looking up at her with desire in his eyes when she descended the staircase.

"I've never seen you in anything like that," he murmured, catching her hand but standing back to admire the effect. He spun her around to admire the satin bow, then twirled her back again, poking inside the baby's bonnet to admire his daughter's sleeping face. "You both look beautiful."

Dora shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "I feel foolish. Does the hat look all right? Thy... your mother says Josie will not mind if I wear it, but it looks dreadfully expensive."

Eyes filled with compassion, Pace stroked her cheek. "You look perfect but don't change for my sake, Dora. You can wear your gray and say your thees and thous all you like. I know you well enough to see beyond them."

Dora hugged the infant in her arms. "But others don't. Others see only what is on the surface. Plain Speech and Plain Dress were meant to avoid the appearance of vanity and to equalize us, but they do not work in this new world. If th... if you must be a farmer, than I will be a farmer's wife. I want us to be accepted here, Pace, if not for our own sakes, then for our daughter's."

He couldn't argue against that. Pace lifted the sleeping infant from Dora's arms and escorted them out to the waiting carriage.

She had ironed the finely stitched pleats of Pace's linen shirt herself the night before, and she admired the effect beneath the high collar and necktie. His overlong auburn hair was not fashionable, nor was his cleanly shaven face, but Dora thought him the most handsome man she'd ever met. She wanted to stroke the high taut cheekbone he presented to her as he took up the reins. She wanted to kiss that long, determined jaw. But she merely took Frances into her arms and returned her gaze to the road. She was little more than two weeks out of childbed. She had no right thinking like that.

They arrived early, but people already waited on the church steps and milled about the carriages. Dora feared they all turned to stare when Pace pulled up, but she refused to give in to her fears. She did this for Frances.

And for Pace, but he wouldn't let her admit that. Pace needed acceptance as much as she did. He had enemies, but good people lived here too, people Pace had helped, women whose children Dora had helped birth or nurse. The whole town couldn't despise them because of their beliefs. Someone must hold out a hand of friendship.

It didn't look like it, though. Dora held her chin up as Pace helped her out of the carriage, but she could almost hear the silence. No one called a friendly greeting. No one made small talk about the weather or their appearance. People whispered behind lifted hands. But no one said anything directly to them as they entered the cool darkness of the church.