Rebel Enchantress (14 page)

“Take it off,” Serena demanded turning to Delilah.

“If Priscilla can’t wear it—” Nathan began.

“I’ll not have
her
wear it,” Serena said vindictively. “Take it off. Now!”

Delilah eyed Serena with a look Nathan had never seen before. It wasn’t rage. In fact, she didn’t seem angry at all. It wasn’t hatred, though it was fairly obvious Delilah held his aunt in contempt. It was more like a call to battle.

Instinctively he became alert.

Delilah whipped off her apron and swiftly began to undo the buttons running down the front of the dress. The moment Nathan realized what she meant to do, he started to speak. One look at Serena stilled him.

Serena’s jaw dropped, and her eyes seemed to start out of her head. “Not now … I didn’t mean …”

“You said
now,”
Delilah said coolly as she allowed the dress to drop to the floor. She stooped, retrieved the garment, and tossed it at Serena.

She stood before them in her petticoats. Pink colored her cheeks, sword points flashed from her eyes, but not the slightest hint of embarrassment could be found in her stance. She actually defied Serena to rebuke her.

Nathan couldn’t help but admire her. He didn’t know any respectable woman with the courage to undress before a man, but judging from the look on Delilah’s face, she wasn’t even aware she had committed a breach of decorum. She looked as proud and defiant as Athena.

Quite unexpectedly Nathan had an idea.

“Don’t we have a great deal of leftover cloth in the attic?” he asked Serena.

“Bolts of the stuff, and most of it completely unsuitable “ Serena said, apparently relieved not to have to deal with Delilah’s state of undress. “I can’t think what to do with it.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Nathan replied. “Miss Stowbridge, since my aunt doesn’t want it, you may have it. Your coloring is so very different from my aunt’s and cousin’s you may find quite a lot of that material useful.”

Nathan winked at Delilah. No doubt about it. She was so stunned she couldn’t reply at once. Serena, on the other hand, could.

“You did say you didn’t want it, didn’t you, Aunt?” Nathan asked just as Serena opened her mouth to protest.

“I-I don’t,” Serena said, her tongue stumbling over the words at the shocking thought of Delilah being given so much expensive material, “but Priscilla may.”

“You said you’d die before you’d let me be seen in a single piece of it,” Priscilla whimpered. “I remember because I especially liked the blue dress I gave Delilah.”

“Naturally it’s difficult for a girl of your complexion to wear strong colors,” Serena said, trying to find a way out of the situation, she had created for herself, “but something may be contrived. In any event, Delilah can’t have all that cloth. Half of my acquaintances aren’t so well provided for.”

“I wouldn’t think of embarrassing your friends by offering them our castoffs,” Nathan said in mock horror. “And I wouldn’t even attempt to divide it among the farmers’ wives. It would take more than Solomon’s wisdom to do that.”

“Burn it.”

“What?” Nathan and Delilah asked in unison.

“Burn it,” Serena repeated. “That’s what we do with everything else we have no use for.”

Nathan hadn’t realized until now the depth of Serena’s animosity toward Delilah. He looked straight at his aunt so there would be no mistaking his meaning.

“Miss Stowbridge shall have as much of the cloth as she desires. When she’s properly dressed, maybe you won’t be ashamed for her to serve your friends. Do you sew?” Nathan asked, directing his gaze to Delilah.

“Adequately.”

“Are you quick?”

“I guess so,” she replied, at a loss to understand his meaning.

“Good. I would prefer that you serve lunch in something other than your shift.”

Only now did Delilah realize what she had done and become embarrassed. “I have other clothes.”

“But I have developed a particular abhorrence for that brown dress.”

“I have other dresses.”

“All brown, no doubt,” he said. Then he smiled.

Delilah didn’t know why she had never noticed his smile. It quite turned her knees to rubber. What it did to her resolution was even more calamitous. That collapsed entirely. She’d had no intention of accepting the material. Now she couldn’t turn it down.

“I couldn’t possibly sew up a dress and get my work done,” she said, hardly knowing why these words were coming out of her mouth. Was she so anxious for his attention she would simper and fawn like Priscilla?

“Who sews for you?” Nathan asked Serena.

“Amelia Cushing, but I don’t see—”

“See that a message is sent to her at once. I want her to start on Miss Stowbridge’s dresses today.”

“I will not—” Serena started to say, chagrin and fury distorting her features.

“What a good idea,” Priscilla chimed in before her mother could quite swallow the angry denunciation trembling on her lips. She seemed to be the same old Priscilla this morning, but there was an unfamiliar quality
to
her voice as she looked straight into her mother’s eyes. “I don’t see why she shouldn’t have something nice, Mama.” She cast her mother a particularly penetrating look and said, “She has been very helpful. And if Nathan wants it …” The thought was left unfinished, but the simpering smile was back full strength.

“I’d rather make my own dresses,” Delilah told Nathan.

“What will you wear until then? I really won’t have you in that brown dress.”

Delilah’s eyes went inadvertently to the green gown still in Serena’s grasp.

“She can wear my dresses, can’t she, Mama?” Priscilla asked. Only it sounded more like an order than a request.

“It’s certainly better than having her dresses made by my own dressmaker,” Serena said, still obviously staggered by the morning’s events. “I could never hold my head up in Springfield again.”

“Then it’s decided” Nathan stated. “Miss Stowbridge will sew her own dresses. In the meantime, she will borrow some from Priscilla.”

“She can use my patterns, too,” Priscilla offered.

“She can not,” Serena contradicted. “She may be dressed in a style totally unsuitable for a servant, but she will not wear a dress of the same pattern as my daughter.”

“I don’t want to,” Delilah said. “I prefer a more simple style.”

“I’ll leave it to you,” Nathan said, clearly dismissing the subject. “I will be having several people to dinner on Thursday.”

Serena dominated the conversation from that point, asking about the guests, attempting to add her friends to the list, and being firmly refused by Nathan.

Delilah, buoyed by the knowledge that Nathan not only cared how she looked, but that he had defied his aunt to provide her with some new clothes, was too happy to care about being cut out of the conversation.

“What’s got you dancing all over this kitchen?” Lester demanded, suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Delilah said.

“When a gal says nothing with that look in her eyes, you’d better believe it’s something,” Mrs. Stebbens observed. “Now come on child, tell us what’s got you so head over heels.”

“I’m to have some new dresses.”

“Is that all?” Lester said, disgusted.

“No, it is not all,” Delilah said, piqued.

“There are a lot of bolts of very expensive cloth in the attic, and Mr. Trent said I’m to have every bit of it if I want.”

“You won’t get it,” Lester said. “Mrs. Noyes will see to that.”

“She already tried, but Nathan said I could have it anyway. He even asked her to call her seamstress to sew for me. Priscilla offered me some of her patterns.”

“Gawd!” Mrs. Stebbens said.

“I don’t believe it,” Lester exclaimed. “Mrs. Noyes would die rather than allow that.”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Delilah replied with a rather unladylike hunch of her shoulders. “I said I wanted to do my own sewing and make my own patterns.”

“That’ll be a waste of material,” Lester said as he left the room, a fresh pot of coffee in hand.

“Nasty man,” Mrs. Stebbens said, but she quickly forgot Lester in her excitement. “Do you know how to sew?”

“Well enough.”

“Would you like some help? I’m wondrous fine with a needle. Mrs. Noyes precious Amelia Cushing can’t do no better.”

Delilah jumped at the offer. The only dresses she’d ever made were the plain brown ones Nathan disliked.

“Are you sure? You’ve got your work here.”

“There is a mortal lot of cooking to be done,” Mrs. Stebbens said with a sigh, “especially with him wanting all kinds of English dishes I never heard of for this party.”

“I know how to prepare English food,” Delilah said. “My father liked Mother to fix dishes out of a cookbook she’d inherited from her mother. I can help you if Lester will allow it.”

“He won’t have any say,” Mrs. Stebbens said. “If I leave, Mrs. Noyes will have to take over the cooking again. She’d do just about anything before she’d let that happen.”

Later, when they were able to take a few minutes to go to the attic and look over the bolts of cloth, Mrs. Stebbens went into raptures.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said in awed tones. “There must be twenty bolts here. And he said you could have it all?”

“Every bit.”

“We’ll start with this,” Mrs. Stebbens said, picking out a bolt of white muslin decorated with tiny sprigs of dark blue flowers and one of a green and red-striped taffeta. “We can save the velvet and brocade for when it gets cold.”

“How about this?” Delilah asked. She held up a piece of crimson colored silk.

“Oow, that is lovely. I doubt you could wear it without giving Mrs. Noyes palpitations.”

Delilah laughed. “Maybe I’ll save it until she’s away.”

“What a lot of doodahs,” Mrs. Stebbens commented, digging among the ells of ribbon, pieces of lace, and bolts of gauze. “This will be ever so pretty.”

“I want it to be prettier than anything Priscilla gave me,” Delilah said.

“I thought you wanted a dress for day use.”

“It would be a waste of this material to keep it for spilling coffee and splashing grease. Besides, I can wear my old gowns in the kitchen.”

“Mrs. Noyes will have a fit.”

“I don’t care. I’ve never had anything really nice, and I’m not going to let Mrs. Noyes ruin it for me.”

“Atta girl” Mrs. Stebbens said, and she reached for the silk.

They were cutting out the muslin on the kitchen table when Nathan came in. Delilah was glad the scissors were in Mrs. Stebbens’s hands. She’d have ruined the piece of cloth the minute she set eyes on those breeches.

Why did he have to wear them? They were stretched so tight there wasn’t a wrinkle anywhere. Today they were a pale yellow, a perfect match for his gold waistcoat and tan coat, but Delilah couldn’t think of anything except those breeches. She could almost feel the muscles in her arm straining to reach out and touch his tempting buttocks. She hid her hands behind her back so Nathan could not see her fingers clench and relax.

Delilah despised herself for thinking like a trollop. A decent girl wouldn’t be so powerfully affected by a man’s body. Anybody could tell you that. It only made it worse that this man was an Englishman and her enemy. She felt like a traitoress.

“I want a few words with you about the food for Thursday evening,” he said. He watched, fascinated, as Mrs. Stebbens continued to cut the material, following lines only she could see.

“Tell me,” Delilah said. “She’s concentrating.”

“I want a round of beef and a saddle of mutton.”

“We don’t have any beef or mutton in the smokehouse,” Delilah told him.

“Then slaughter some,” Nathan said as though the solution was obvious. “Of course there’ll be fish, and I’ve been promised a dozen quail.”

Delilah was staggered by the amount of food he seemed to think should be served at an ordinary meal.

“I suppose you’d best choose the vegetables. Six ought to be enough. And a pie, a cake, and some pudding for dessert. Or maybe they would prefer a sillabub. Lester’s taking care of the wines. I hope he can find at least three to go with the meal, but I’m afraid we may have to settle for two.”

“Are you meaning to serve all that at the same meal?” Mrs. Stebbens asked. The recital had finally distracted her attention from the cutting, and she stood poised over the table, her gaze fixed on Nathan’s trim body. “And at eight o’clock in the night.”

“This is a small dinner by my mother’s standards,” Nathan said. “I can remember many evenings when we spent more than a few hours at table.”

“How do you ever keep your figure?”

“By not spending the whole time eating,” he replied with a smile that caused Delilah’s heart to turn upside down.

“But it’s still hot,” Delilah said.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“People shouldn’t eat heavy food in the summer. Besides, most of it will be left over. With the little bit this house eats, it’ll spoil.”

She knew she should hold her tongue. It was none of her business what Nathan chose to eat or do with the food he couldn’t use, but the thought of so much going to waste when so many went hungry made her angry. She didn’t dare think of her own family. She wouldn’t be able to limit what she said.

“I take it you disapprove?” Delilah knew Nathan didn’t like having his decisions questioned.

“People here eat their big meal at midday and then have a little something cold in the evening.”

“But this is a party.”

“We don’t have parties at night, not with all that food and drink. People have to get up early the next morning to go to work.”

“We get up in the morning and go to work in England, too.”

“I don’t see how, not if you eat like that every night,” Mrs. Stebbens said, sparing Delilah the onus of making all the objections.

Nathan looked thunderous, as if he were ready to bite off somebody’s head. Delilah felt guilty. He didn’t need her and Mrs. Stebbens coming down on him, not when everybody he came into contact with seemed to be aligned against him.

“I’m sorry,” Delilah said. “We shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that we’re not used to doing things your way.” Nathan’s expression was still formidable, but Delilah thought she detected a change in his eyes. “I don’t suppose it would do us any harm to try your way. You seem to get along in spite of it.”