Counterfeit Lady (James River Trilogy 1)

Clay sat in his library, drinking steadily while Maggie and the midwife tended to Bianca.

Maggie quietly opened the door. “She lost the baby,” she said quietly.

Clay looked at her in amazement. Then he smiled. “Lost the baby, did she?”

“Clay,” Maggie said. She didn’t like the look in his eye. “I wish you’d stop drinking.”

He poured another glass of bourbon. “Aren’t you supposed to comfort me? Shouldn’t you tell me there will be other children?”

“There won’t be,” the midwife said from the door. “She’s a heavy woman, and when she went down those stairs, she went hard. There’s a lot of damage inside her, especially to her female workin’s. I’m not sure she’s gonna live.”

Clay drained the bourbon and refilled the glass. “She’ll live. I have no doubt of that. People like Bianca don’t die easily.”

“Clayton!” Maggie commanded. “You’re taking this too hard.” She went to him and put her hand on his. “Please stop drinking. You won’t be fit for a day’s work tomorrow if you don’t.”

“Work,” he said, and smiled. “Why should I work? What for? For my darling wife? For the son she just lost?” He drank some more bourbon, then began to laugh. It was an ugly laugh.

“Clay,” Maggie said.

“Get out of here! Can’t a man be alone once in a while?”

Slowly, the women left the room.

When the sun came up, Clay was still drinking, still waiting for the forgetfulness the drink would bring.

In the fields, the hands started their day’s work. It was unusual not to see Clay watching them. Toward afternoon, they began to slow down. It was nice not to have the boss looking over their shoulders. By the fourth day, when Clay still did not come to the fields, some of the men didn’t bother to go to work at all.

Chapter 19

IT WAS AUGUST OF 1796, ONE YEAR LATER.

Nicole stood on top of the hill and looked down at her property. Putting her hands at the small of her back, she massaged her tired muscles. It helped to ease the pain if she could see what had caused her fatigue. The hot August sun blazed down on the tall tobacco plants. The cotton would soon be bursting its pods. The golden wheat, almost ripe, waved gently in the breeze. The sound of the millstones, grinding evenly and steadily, floated up to her. One of the twins yelled, and Nicole smiled at Janie’s sharp reprimand.

It had been well over a year since her marriage had been annulled. She realized that she marked all time from that hour in the judge’s office. Since that fateful day, she’d done little besides work. Every morning, she was up before daylight, seeing to the mill, to the crops that were planted and harvested. The first time she’d taken her crops to market, the men had laughed, thinking they’d be able to get her produce for a low price. But Nicole wouldn’t allow herself to be cheated; she drove a hard bargain. When she left the market, she was smiling, while the male buyers were frowning and shaking their heads. Wesley walked beside her and laughed.

This year, she’d enlarged her land holdings. She’d used all her crop money from last year and bought more land. She now owned one hundred twenty-five acres of land on the high side of the river. It had good drainage, fertile soil. She had a little trouble with erosion, but she and Isaac had spent some of the winter months laying stone fields. They’d also cleared the new land. It had been hard, cold work, but they’d done it. Then, early this spring, they’d set out tobacco plants, then seeded the other fields. There was a kitchen garden, a milk cow, and chickens by the house.

The house itself had not changed. Every penny had gone into improving the land. Adele and Gerard had one side of the attic, Janie and Nicole the other. The twins slept on pallets downstairs. It was a crowded existence, but they’d all learned to get along. Janie and Gerard rarely spoke to each other, each pretending the other didn’t exist. Adele still lived in a dream world of prerevolutionary France. Nicole had been able to persuade her mother that the twins were her grandchildren and that Adele must personally help educate them. For days she’d be an excellent tutor. She’d spice the children’s lessons with fascinating tales of her life at Court. She told about when she was a child, about the odd habit

s of the king and queen of France. At least, the habits sounded strange to the children. Once Adele told the story of how the queen had her clothes brought to her every day in wicker baskets lined with new green taffeta. The taffeta was never reused and was given to the servants. The twins had dressed themselves in green leaves and pretended they were Adele’s servants. She was delighted.

Yet, sometimes, some little thing would set Adele off, and her fragile peacefulness would be shattered. Once, Mandy tied a red ribbon about her neck and Adele saw the child. It reminded her of her friends’ executions, and she screamed for hours. The twins were no longer frightened of Adele’s screams. They merely shrugged and went away or ran for Nicole to go to her mother. After a few days, in which Adele cringed in fear talking of murder and death, she’d return to her fantasy world. Never was she aware of the present, that she was in America, that France was far away. She knew only Nicole and the twins, tolerated Janie, and looked at Gerard as if he didn’t exist. She was never allowed to meet strangers, who frightened her horribly.

Gerard seemed to be content that his wife had no idea who he was. Once she saw Nicole, Adele seemed to forget all the time she’d spent in jail and the time at Gerard’s parents’ house. To Nicole, she spoke of her husband and her father as if they were still alive, as if they would come home at any moment.

Gerard stood away from the rest of the people in Nicole’s house. He made himself an outsider. He had not been the same since the day Nicole had slapped him. He would go away for days at a time and return in the middle of the night, giving no explanation of where he went. When he was at home, he often sat by the fire and watched Nicole, stared at her until she dropped stitches in her knitting or stuck a needle in her finger. He never said anything more about marrying Nicole, but sometimes she wished he would. At odd times, when she caught him staring at her, she wished he’d confront her and they could have a good argument. But she felt foolish every time she thought of it. He wasn’t doing anything wrong when he watched her.

Whatever was said of Gerard, he pulled his weight at the mill. His hand-kissing manners and his thick, rich accent brought as much business as Nicole’s low prices. An extraordinary number of young women came with their fathers to have their grain ground. Gerard treated them all like French aristocrats, young or old, fat or thin, ugly or pretty. The women simpered and giggled as he took their arms and led them around the mill. He never took them out of sight of their fathers.

Only once did Nicole have a glimpse of Gerard’s thoughts. A particularly plain young woman was rolling her eyes in delight as Gerard kissed her palm and murmured in French over it. By a trick of the wind, Nicole happened to hear what he said. Although he was smiling, he was calling the woman a piece of pig’s offal. Nicole shuddered and walked away; she didn’t want to hear any more.

She straightened her back and looked across the river. She hadn’t seen Clay since he’d told her Bianca was pregnant. In a way, it seemed ages ago, yet at the same time it seemed like minutes. There wasn’t a night she didn’t think of him, long for him. Her body betrayed her often, and many times she wanted to ask him to meet her in the clearing. She didn’t care about her pride or her higher ideals. She only wanted him, strong and hot against her skin.

She shook her head to clear her vision. It was better not to dwell on the past or to remind herself of what was not. She had a good life now, with people she loved around her. She had no right to be lonely or thankless.

She stared at the Armstrong plantation. Even from this distance, she could see that it wasn’t being cared for. Last year’s crops had been allowed to die in the fields. It had hurt her to see it, but there was nothing she could do. Isaac had kept her informed of what was happening. Most of the paid servants had left long ago. The indentures of some servants had been sold, along with nearly all of the slaves. Only a handful of people remained.

This spring, some of the bottomland had been planted, but that was all. The upper fields lay bare, with only rotting stems in them. Isaac said Clay didn’t care and Bianca was selling anything she could find to pay for her clothes and the constant redecorating of the house. Isaac said the only person on the plantation who had any work to do was the cook.