Counterfeit Lady Page 11

  The hall clock struck seven, and she wondered how on earth she was going to wait until nine before seeing him again. A quick check of the twins’ rooms showed they were dressed and gone.

  She left the house by the garden door, but as she stood there under the little octagonal porch, she paused a moment. She usually went to the left, to the kitchen. Suddenly, she turned on her heel and took the right-hand stairs that led to the path to Clay’s office.

  She’d never been in Clay’s office before, and somehow she got the impression that very few people did go there. It was shaped like a miniature of the main house, rectangular with a high-pitched roof. Only the dormers and the porches were missing.

  She knocked lightly at the door, and when no answer came she lifted the latch. She was curious about the place where the man she loved spent so much time.

  The wall facing the door contained two windows, which were surrounded, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves. The overhanging maple trees made the room cool and dark. The end walls contained oak files and a cabinet for rolled documents. She stepped fully into the room. The bookshelves were filled with books on Virginia law, surveying, and the raising of different crops. She smiled and ran her finger along some of the leather bindings. They were clean, and she knew from Clay’s habits that the cleanliness came from use instead of a dust rag.

  Still smiling, she turned toward the opposite wall where the fireplace was. Instantly, her smile faded. Over the fireplace hung an enormous portrait—of Bianca. It was Bianca at her very loveliest, a little slimmer than Nicole remembered her. Her honey-blonde hair was drawn away from her oval face, fat sausage curls hanging over one bare shoulder. Her eyes were deep blue and sparkling, her little mouth was drawn into a slight smile. It was a mischievous, impish expression, one Nicole had never seen. It was a smile meant for someone she loved very much.

  Still stunned, she looked at the mantel. Slowly, she walked toward it. A little red velvet beret lay there. She’d seen Bianca wear an identical one several times. There was a gold bracelet beside it, one she’d also seen Bianca wear. The inscription read, “B, with all my love, C.”

  Nicole stepped back. The portrait, the pieces of clothing, all went together to form a shrine. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought it was a memory set up to a dead woman.

  How could she fight this? Last night he’d said no words of love to her. She remembered with horror all the things she’d said to him. Damn him! He knew how she reacted to the least little bit of alcohol. It had always been a family joke that if anyone wanted to know any of Nicole’s secrets, all they had to do was give her two drops of wine.

  But this morning she was different. This morning, she must try and salvage what was left of her pride. She walked across the garden to the kitchen and had breakfast. Maggie kept giving broad hints about Mr. Clay returning and that Nicole should eat with him. Nicole ignored her.

  After breakfast, she went to the wash house and got cleaning supplies. Once inside the main house, she changed into a serviceable dress of midnight blue calico, then went downstairs again to start polishing the morning room. Maybe the work would help her make some decisions.

  She was busy on the spinet when Clay’s lips touched her neck. She jumped as if she’d been burned.

  “I missed you at breakfast,” he said lazily. “I would have stayed with you if it weren’t so close to harvest time.” His eyes were dark, hooded.

  Nicole took a deep breath. If she stayed here with him, she’d spend every night with him, until he finally got the woman he loved. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  He reacted immediately to her cool tone. His back stiffened. The lazy, seductive look left his face. “What is it?” His tone matched hers.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said flatly, trying not to let him see her pain. “Bianca—” It hurt her even to say the name. “Bianca will surely come to America soon. I’m sure when she receives your letter and the passage money, she will take the first ship here.”

  “There’s nowhere for you to go. You must stay here.” It was a command.

  “And be your mistress?” she flared.

  “You’re my wife! How can you forget that when you constantly remind me that you were forced into the marriage?”

  “Yes, I’m your wife. For the moment. But how long will it last? Would you still want me for your wife if your dear Bianca walked through that door right now?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “I want an answer! I think I deserve that much. Last night, you purposefully got me drunk. You knew what it did to me, that’s why I don’t remember the night you saved me from the dogs.”

  “Yes, I knew. But I also knew you needed to talk. I had no other purpose in mind.”

  She turned away for a moment. “I’m sure you didn’t. But there I was, sprawled across your lap, begging you to make love to me.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Surely, you must remember—” He stepped forward.

  “I remember everything.” She tried to calm herself. “Please listen to me. I have some pride, even if it doesn’t seem so at times. You’re asking too much of me. I can’t stay here as your wife, truly your wife, knowing that any day it may all end.” She covered her face with her hands. “I’ve had too many endings in my life!”

  “Nicole—” He touched her hair.

  She jumped away from him. “Don’t touch me! You’ve played with my feelings too much. You know what I feel about you, and you’ve used it already. Please don’t hurt me anymore. Please.”

  He stepped away from her. “Believe me, I never meant to hurt you. Tell me what you want. What is mine is yours.”

  I want your heart, Nicole wanted to scream. “The mill,” she said firmly. “It’s nearly harvest time, and I can have it running in a couple of weeks. The house looks sound, and I could live in it.”

  Clay opened his mouth to say no, then he closed it, took a step backward, picked up his hat, and turned toward the door. “It’s yours. I’ll see the deed is drawn up. I’ll also sign over the indenture papers to two men and a woman. You’ll need the help.” He put his hat on and left the room.

  Nicole felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She sat down heavily in a chair. A night of love and a morning of horror.

  Chapter 8

  NICOLE LOST NO TIME LEAVING THE HOUSE. SHE KNEW THAT her resolve wouldn’t be strong for very long. She rowed herself across the river to the mill. It sat on a hill with a long wooden trough leading from the fall of the river to the top of the water wheel. It was a tall, narrow building with a stone foundation and a brick body. The roof was of split wooden shakes. A porch ran along the entire front of the building. The water wheel itself was one and a half stories high.

  Inside the building, Nicole climbed to the second story, where two doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the wheel. As far as she could tell, the buckets on the wheel were in good shape, though the ones resting at the bottom could possibly be rotten.

  The enormous millstones inside the building were five feet in diameter and eight inches thick. She ran her hands along the stone and recognized the irregular network of quartz. The stones were of French burr, the finest in the world. They had been brought to America as ballast in the hold of a ship, then carried downriver to the Armstrong plantation. The stones were deeply grooved, with a series of radiating ridges. She was pleased to see that the stones were well balanced, coming very close together but not touching.

  Outside in the sunlight, she walked along the hill to the little house. She could tell very little about it because of the lumber nailed over the windows and doors.

  A commotion toward the river drew her attention.

  “Nicole! Are you here?” Janie was yelling as she trudged up the hill.

  The large, pink-cheeked woman was a joy to see, and they hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other every day since they had left the ship.

  “It didn’t work out, huh?”

  “No,” Nicole said. “It didn’t work
out at all.”

  “I was hopin’, what with the two of you already being married and all—”

  “What are you doing here?” Nicole wanted to change the subject.

  “Clay stopped by the loom house and said you were moving over here, that you were going to run the mill. He said to pick out two good men, take all the tools we needed and help you. He said that if I wanted to I could live here, and he’d pay me just the same.”

  Nicole looked away. Clay’s generosity was almost too much.

  “Come on, you two,” Janie yelled. “We got work to do.” Janie introduced two men to Nicole. Vernon was tall and red-haired, while Luke was shorter and dark. Under Janie’s instructions, the men used crowbars to pry the boards off the front door of the house.

  It was still dark inside, but Nicole could see it was a beautiful little house. The bottom floor was one large room, an eight-foot-long fireplace along one wall, a staircase with a hand-carved balustrade in the corner. Three recessed windows were in two walls, the door and a window in another. There was an old pine chest under one window, a long, wide table in the center of the floor.

  As the men pried the boards off the windows, very little light came through. The noise sent hundreds of little feet scurrying.

  “Phew!” Janie said, and wrinkled her nose. “It’s going to take a lot to clean this place up.”

  “Then I guess we’d better get started.”

  By sundown, they’d made some progress. The upstairs was a low-ceilinged loft, the sides of the room dropping off sharply. Under the filth, they found some beautifully crafted woodwork. The interior walls were plastered, and a coat of whitewash would make them like new. The clean windows let a great deal of light through.

  Vernon, who’d been nailing down loose roof shingles, suddenly called that a raft was coming across the river. They all went down to the edge of the river. One of Clay’s men was poling the raft ashore. It was loaded with furniture.

  “Wait, Janie, I can’t accept that. He’s done too much already.”

  “This is no time to be proud. We’ll need that stuff, and besides, it’s only out of Clay’s attic. It’s not like it was costing him anything. Now, come on and grab one end of that bench. Howard! I hope you brought some whitewash—and a couple of mattresses.”

  “This is only the first load. When I get through, you’re gonna have all of Arundel Hall on this side of the river,” Howard answered.

  Janie, Nicole, and the two men worked for three days on the house. The men slept in the mill, while the women fell each night, exhausted, onto straw-filled mattresses in the attic of the house.

  On the fourth day, a short, gnarled man appeared. “I hear there’s a woman here who thinks she can run a mill.”

  Janie started to give the man a piece of her mind, but Nicole stepped forward. “I’m Nicole Armstrong, and I plan to run the mill. Can I help you?”

  The man watched her closely, then held out his left hand to her, palm down.

  Janie was just about to speak to the man about his manners when Nicole took the offered hand in both of hers and turned it over. Janie grimaced, for to her the palm of the man’s hand was mutilated, with gray lumps all over it.

  Nicole ran her hands over the man’s, then smiled brilliantly at him. “You’re hired,” she said.

  His eyes twinkled. “And you know what you’re doin’. You’ll run your mill just fine.”

  When he was gone, Nicole explained. The man was a millstone dresser. He used a chisel and sharpened the grooves in the millstones. To do this, he’d cover his right hand with leather and leave his left one bare. Over the years, his left hand would become embedded with bits of stone. The men showed their left hands with pride. It was a symbol of their experience. There was a saying, “to show one’s mettle.” Mettle was an old English word for crushed stone.

  Janie went back to work, muttering about gloves being made for left hands, too.

  When the trough to the river was cleared of debris and the water flowed over the top of the water wheel and made it turn, there was a shout that could be heard for miles.

  Nicole wasn’t surprised less than a day later, when their first customer arrived on a little barge loaded with grain to be ground. She knew Clay had sent a man upriver and another down with word of the reopening of the mill.

  It had been nearly two weeks since she’d seen him, yet there wasn’t a moment that she didn’t think of him. Twice she’d caught a glimpse of him riding through his fields, but each time she’d turned away.

  One morning after the mill had been running for three days, she woke very early. It wasn’t light yet, and she heard Janie’s deep breathing of sleep from across the room. She hurriedly dressed in the half-light, leaving her hair hanging freely down her back.

  Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to see Clay standing in front of the water wheel. He wore trousers of light tan and high boots with a top cuff turned down. His back was to her, his hands clasped behind him. His shirt was especially white in the dim light, as was the broad-brimmed hat he wore.

  “You’ve done a good job,” he said without turning. “I wish I could get half as much work out of the servants as you do.”

  “I guess it comes of necessity.”

  He turned and looked at her, his eyes intense. “No, not necessity. You could come back to my house at any time.”

  “No,” she breathed. “It’s better this way.”

  “The twins keep asking for you. They want to see you.”

  She smiled. “I’ve missed them. Maybe you’d let them come across.”

  “I thought you could come to them. We could have dinner tonight. A ship docked yesterday and brought some things from France. There’s brie, burgundy, and champagne. They’re being brought downriver today.”

  “It sounds tempting, but—”

  He stepped forward and grabbed her shoulders. “You can’t mean to avoid me forever. What do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you how much I miss you? I think everyone on the plantation is angry at me for making you leave. Maggie serves my food either burned or raw, nothing in between. The twins cried last night because I didn’t know some damned French fairy tale about a lady falling in love with a monster.”

  “ ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ” Nicole smiled. “So you want me to come back so you’ll get a decent meal.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Don’t twist my words. I never wanted you to leave. Will you come to supper?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He grabbed her and gave her a swift, hard kiss, then released her and left.

  “I thought things weren’t workin’ out,” Janie said from behind Nicole.

  Nicole had no answer for her. She walked back to the house to start the day’s work.

  During the long day, Nicole could hardly contain her nervousness about having dinner with Clay. When Vernon weighed the bags of grain and called out the numbers to Nicole, she had to ask him to repeat the figures so she could record them correctly. However, she did remember to send Maggie a recipe for Dindon à la Daube, a boned turkey that was stuffed and served in a casserole. Maggie loved good food so much, and Nicole knew she’d probably make two of the turkeys, one for the main house and one for her and her staff.

  At six o’clock, Clay’s rowboat came to the shore with his estate manager, Anders. He was a tall blond man. He lived with his wife and two children in a house just south of Clay’s office. His children often played with the twins. Nicole asked after his family.

  “Everyone’s fine except that we all miss you. Karen made some peach preserves yesterday, and she wants to send you some. Is the mill working? You seem to have quite a few customers.”

  “Mr. Armstrong has spread the word, and more and more people are bringing their grain.”

  He gave her an odd look. “Clay is a respected man.”

  They reached the shore, and Nicole noticed that Anders kept looking upriver. “Is something wrong?”

  “The sloop should have been back by now. W
e heard last night that a ship was in, and Clay sent the sloop out early this morning.”

  “You aren’t worried, are you?”

  “No,” he said as he helped her from the rowboat. “It could be anything. The men could be having some ale with the ship’s passengers—anything. It’s just Clay. Ever since James and Beth drowned, he’s anxious if the sloop is an hour overdue.”

  They walked side by side toward the house. “Did you know James and Beth?”

  “Very well.”

  “What were they like? Was Clay very close to his brother?”

  Anders took a long time answering. “The three of them were very close. They practically grew up in each other’s pockets. I’m afraid Clay took their deaths too hard. It changed him.”

  Nicole wanted to ask a hundred more questions. How had it changed him? What was he like before their deaths? But it was not fair to Clay or to Anders to ask now. If Clay wanted to talk to her, he would, just as she’d confided in him.

  Anders left her on the garden porch. The house was as beautiful inside as she remembered. The twins seemed to appear out of nowhere and grabbed her hands to pull her upstairs. They had a long list of stories they wanted her to tell them before they went to sleep.

  Clay was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, his hand outstretched to her. “You’re even prettier than I remembered,” he said quietly, and looked at her hungrily.

  She looked away from him and started toward the dining room, her hand still caught firmly in his. She wore a gown of raw silk, the weave slightly nubby in places, the sheen gentle and subdued. It was a warm apricot color trimmed in satin ribbons of a darker apricot. The neckline was very low. The tiny cap sleeves and the bodice were trimmed with a row of seed pearls. The pearls gained luster from Nicole’s skin. Her hair was intertwined with pearls and apricot ribbon.

  Clay did not once take his eyes off her as they walked into the dining room. Nicole saw immediately that Maggie had outdone herself. The table fairly bowed under the sheer quantity of food.