Counterfeit Lady (James River Trilogy 1)

“In that old walnut tree by the overseer’s house.”

Clay nodded curtly and started to turn away, Nicole on his heels.

“That your new missus?” Jonathan asked.

“She is.” There was little warmth in Clay’s voice.

Jonathan grinned, showing toothless gums. “Somehow I thought you’d marry a blonde, one a little taller and plumper than that one.”

Clamping his hand around Nicole’s wrist, Clay turned away sharply as the old man’s laugh rang in their ears. Nicole was burning with questions, but she didn’t have the courage to ask them.

The twins were indeed scampering about in the old tree. Nicole smiled up at them and asked them to come down, saying she wanted to talk to them. The children giggled and climbed higher into the tree.

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She turned to Clay. “Maybe if you asked them, they’d obey.”

He shrugged. “It’s not me who wants them. I have work to do.”

With a look of disgust at him, she again asked the twins to come down. They merely looked down at her, their eyes bright and mischievous, and she knew that if she was ever to have any authority over them, she had to win this contest. She turned back to Clay. “What would you do if you wanted them down? Order them?”

“They don’t mind me any better than they do you,” he said, looking up at them in conspiracy. “If it were me, I’d go up after them.”

The twins’ giggle was a challenge, and she knew Clay’s lies were, too. Not for a moment did she believe that the children didn’t obey him. Lifting her dress, she kicked her shoes off. “If you would give me a boost,” she said.

Clay’s eyes lit up. “With pleasure,” he said as he bent and cupped his hands for her.

She knew he could have lifted her to the first branch, but he was going to give her as little help as possible. What none of them knew was that Nicole was an excellent tree climber. There’d been an old apple tree on her parents’ estate that she knew by heart. Pulling herself onto a low branch, she stood up and saw the ladder leaning against the other side of the tree. She looked down at Clay as he stared up at her, his hands on his hips, his legs wide apart. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Several minutes were spent scampering around the tree, her skirt held to her knees, showing her bare legs. She caught Alex first and lowered him to Clay, who, she was grateful to see, was willing to help her at least that much.

Mandy climbed out onto a thin little branch and grinned at Nicole. Nicole grinned back and started crawling toward her. As the branch began to crack, Mandy yelled, “You’re too heavy!” Looking down, she laughed. “Catch, Uncle Clay,” she called as she gleefully jumped into her uncle’s waiting arms.

Too late, Nicole realized she was too heavy for the thin branch. It began to break away more. “Jump!” a voice commanded. Without thinking, Nicole let go and landed in Clay’s arms.

“You saved her, Uncle Clay! You saved her!” Alex chanted.

Nicole, more frightened than she wanted to admit, looked up at Clay. He was smiling! She’d never seen such a smile before, or maybe it was that lately whatever Clay did seemed right, and she smiled back at him brilliantly.

“Let’s do it again,” Mandy shouted, and started for the ladder.

“No, you don’t!” Clay said. “She got you, and you’re hers now. You do what Miss Nicole says. And if I get one bad report—” He narrowed his eyes at them, and they backed away.

“I guess you can let me down now,” Nicole said quietly.

His smile faded, and he stared at her in a puzzled way. “I’m curious. Have you always gotten into trouble like you have since I’ve known you, or is this new?”

The smile she gave him had one slightly curled lip. “I kidnapped myself, and I forced myself into marriage with you all for your pleasure.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but Clay didn’t take it that way.

Looking down at her bare legs slung over his arm, her dress lifted to above her knees, twisted in such a way that she couldn’t pull it down, he grinned again. “I don’t know which I like better—this, or you standing in front of the light in your nightgown.”

As Nicole realized what he meant, she blushed furiously.

He set her on the ground. “As much as I’d like to stay and see what else happens, I have to get back to work.” Still smiling, he walked toward the fields.

That night, when Nicole couldn’t sleep, she told herself it was because she was uncomfortably warm. After putting on a thin silk dressing gown over her nightdress and tiptoeing down the stairs and out into the garden, she walked along the dark path, the tall hedges towering over her to the tile pool where she sat on the edge and put her feet into the water.

The night was alive with frogs and crickets and the smell of honeysuckle, making it cool and pleasant in the night air. As she started to relax, she began to think. In the years of the terror, and the year she and her grandfather had hidden with the miller, she’d never lied to herself. She’d always known that someday it would all end, and it had.