She looked up, met his gaze, felt her pulse trip under the penetrating power of those blue eyes. She’d forgotten how bonny he was without his beard, could scarce find her own tongue. “Good morning, Master Kenleigh.” She started to ask him how he’d slept, but felt a bit awkward given that she had banished him to the cold of straw and barn. “Thank you for the water.”
He dropped the firewood one piece at a time onto the sizable pile already next to the fireplace. “You’re welcome.”
Strange it was to talk with him this way, as if he were a friend or acquaintance. Too flustered to braid her hair in his presence, she simply used the thong to tie it back. “I’m afraid I overslept again. I’ll soon have breakfast ready.”
He nodded, strode outside again. Beyond him, she could see that the horses already roamed the paddock.
While he carried in the rest of the firewood, she measured cornmeal into boiling water, cut salted pork into thick strips, set them on the fire in an iron skillet to fry. Then she hurried to the well for more water for tea.
By the time he’d carried the last load of firewood inside and had fed the rest of the livestock, she had breakfast on the table.
They ate in an awkward silence at first.
Then he spoke. “How long have you been out here, Mistress Stewart?”
“Almost four years. Andrew traded a team of horses and a wagon for the claim to the land and the cabin shortly before we were wed. And you, Master Kenleigh?”
He didn’t answer her. “The people who started this farm returned east to escape the war. Yet you and your husband chose that time to build a life here. Why?”
Bethie sipped her tea, willing herself to meet his steady gaze. “Andrew came over from Ulster with my father when they were young lads. It had always been his dream to have a farm of his own. He worked off his indenture, tried farmin’ back east, but he kept movin’ west, startin’ over. He said the frontier was the only place a man could truly breathe free.”
“Is that where you were born—Ulster?”
“Nay. I was born on my father’s farm near Paxton, but my parents came from Ulster.” She did not like to talk about her family.
He finished his breakfast, leaned back in his chair, one arm draped lazily over the back of the chair beside him. “Lots of settlers in this part of the country have been killed in this war.”
“Aye. I knew a woman who...” She looked into her teacup. “I was so...”
“Afraid?” He finished her sentence, his voice soft, almost soothing.
She closed her eyes, remembered nights of sleepless terror. “Aye. But Andrew wouldna leave. He said no Frenchman or red Indian would drive him from his land.”
“He’s dead. Why do you stay?”
Shocked by his brusque words, the cold tone of his voice, she could only stare at him.
Because I have no place to go. She thought it, but she did not say it. Any answer she might give would come too close to her secret shame, too close to the truth. And she would not speak of that with anyone.
Shaken, she stood, walked to the hearth, picked up the milk pail. “Poor Dorcas. I nearly forgot her. She’ll be aching with milk by now.”
And with that, she turned and fled to the safety of the barn.
***
Nicholas brushed the mare’s dusty gray coat, certain the animal hadn’t received a proper grooming or a bath in months. She was filthy and shaggy, and wax had built up between her teats, proof she hadn’t been bred in some time, perhaps ever. Not that he blamed Mistress Stewart. She had more than enough to contend with, and as pregnant as she was, she could not be expected to run a farm on her own. He blamed the old fool who’d been her husband.
Mistress Stewart. Bethie.
He’d wanted to ask her what plans she had for the birth of her child, but he had hurt her today, had roused her grief. He’d seen the color leave her face the moment he’d spoken. He’d seen the pain in her eyes. Her husband, the man whose child she carried, was not yet three months in the grave.
“He’s dead,” Nicholas had said with all the sensitivity of a rock. Perhaps he’d spent too many years talking to his horse.
But, damn it, she should not be out here! She should be on her parents’ farm near Paxton, where the women of her family could fuss and fret over her, where her father could send for the midwife and see to it that his daughter was brought safely to bed when the hour came.
He supposed she hadn’t made the journey home because she was too far along by the time her husband had died. She would have had to forsake her livestock and all her belongings to travel a long distance on horseback, pregnant and alone, across icy rivers and through the mountains in the cold and dark of winter. Taken together, he could see why a woman wouldn’t find that appealing. No doubt she’d felt safer remaining here than trying to make her way back home.
It was far too late now to attempt any such journey. From the look of her, the baby would be born within the month. That meant the baby would be born here. There was no help for it now.
