Laura remembered Rye’s stiff, forbidding pose the day before, how he’d turned his back on her, and her own impetuous words on the street. Could he be thinking of escaping Nantucket and its triangle of tension by simply turning to DeLaine Hussey and the frontier, accepting the challenge of both?
The thought haunted Laura continuously until the day when she returned to the cooperage to collect the lid she’d ordered. She fully intended to confront Rye and question him about his intentions for the future. But she was not to be given the chance, for when she arrived, it was to find only Josiah there. She had the distinct impression, though, that Rye had been on the watch for her and had hurriedly escaped to the lodgings overhead, for when she entered, Josiah was standing near the foot of the steps, looking up.
“Good morning, Josiah.”
He nodded. “Daughter.”
“I’ve come for my cover.”
“Ayup. And it’s ready.”
He fetched it, handed it to her, then watched while she held it almost caressingly. She looked up directly. “I... I wanted to talk to Rye. Is he here?”
The shrewd blue-gray eyes roved about the cooperage, but Josiah answered with deliberate evasiveness. “Y’ don’t see him about anyplace, do y’?”
“No, Josiah, I don’t see him,” she replied pointedly.
“Then it’ll be a bit difficult t’ talk to him, won’t it?”
“Is he deliberately avoiding me?” she asked.
Josiah turned his back. “Now, that I can’t answer. Y’ll have t’ ask him next time y’ see him.”
“Josiah, has there been a man named Throckmorton around here talking to Rye?”
“Throckmorton—well now, let’s see ...” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Throckmorton ... mmm ...”
“Josiah!” she said with strained patience.
“Ayup. Come t’ think of it, there has been.”
“What did he want?”
Josiah pretended to be busy cleaning the top of the tool bench, making a lot of racket as he rearranged tools. “I don’t listen to all the prattle of everybody who comes drifting in here t’ talk t’ that son o’ mine. If I did, I wouldn’t get a lick o’ work done.”
“Where was Mr. Throckmorton from?”
“From? What do y’ mean, from?”
“Was he from the Michigan Territory?”
Again Josiah scratched his grizzled chin, finally turning to face her, but assuming an expression of little concern. “Well now, seems t’ me I did hear him mention Michigan, not that I paid much attention.”
Laura’s heart seemed to rattle against her ribcage. “Thank you, Josiah. What do I owe you for the lid?”
“Owe me? Don’t be silly, girl. Rye’d tar ’n’ feather me if I tried t’ take any money for it.”
Momentarily, her heart lifted, then she could not help asking as she looked down at the newly hewn cover. “Did he make it or did you?”
Again the old one turned away. “He did.” At that moment Laura heard a floorboard creak overhead. She looked up at the ceiling and said loudly, “Tell him thank you, Josiah, will you?”
“Ayup, I’ll do that. I’ll be sure t’ do that.”
Several minutes later, Rye came down the steps and paused with his foot on the last riser, his palm resting on the upright post there.
“She’s gone,” Josiah grunted. “No need for y’ to skulk any longer. Y’ weren’t foolin' her, though. She knew y’ was up there.”
“Aye, I heard her thankin’ me.”
“Things’ve come to a fine pass when y’ leave an old man t’ tell lies to y’r woman,” Josiah grumbled, “and all the time y’ hidin’ over m’ head like some sneak-thief.”
“If she were really my woman and mine alone, there’d be no need.”
“News of Throckmorton and his business here’s got her scuttled.”
“Not enough to leave Dan, though.”
“How do y’ know when y’ wouldn’t let her have her say?”
“If she’d decided, she’d have come up those steps and nothin’ would have stopped her. I know Laura.”
“Aye, I suspect y’ do, though y’ didn’t see the look on her face when she mentioned Throckmorton. Who d’ you suppose told ’er about him?”
“I haven’t any idea, but the man’s been talkin’ to others besides me. Plenty on the island know his business here.”
“And have y’ been considerin’ his offer?”
Rye’s eyebrows drew together until they almost touched, but he didn’t answer.
Josiah picked up a tool, turned his back and stepped to the grindstone, testing the dull blade with a thumb while asking nonchalantly, “Well, then have y’ been considerin’ the offer of that hussy?"
Rye jerked around to stare at his father’s back. The way Josiah pronounced the word, it was questionable whether he meant it as a surname or a slur. “Aye, I’m takin’ her up on it.”
Josiah peered back over his shoulder to see Rye with a caustic smirk twisting one corner of his mouth.
“She makes a damn fine orange cookie.”
“Humph!” The whine of the grindstone against steel cut off further conversation.
***
The final clambake of the season was held each year when the last of the winter stores had been put up and the beaches were not yet frozen. Cap’n Silas was the perennial tender of the firepit and could be seen each year on the day before the bake, gathering the indispensable rockweed from the stones and mussels on which it grew. Patiently, he filled burlap bags, each with nearly a hundred pounds of the yellowish-brown weed that contained small air sacs that flavored the food as the sacs burst. Bag after bag he dragged to the location of the clambake, heedless of the winds that gusted up to forty miles per hour—normal for this time of year. “We’ll find a lee,” he said, and they always did.
The hearty islanders thought little of braving the elements for a squantum such as this, the reward being the succulent scallops and clams that had been dug along Polpis Harbor and waited in baskets along with potatoes, squash, and cheesecloth bags stuffed with sausage, which would all be steamed along with the seafood.
On the day of this year’s clambake, Rye and DeLaine Hussey arrived at the dunes in the late afternoon to find a large gathering already there and old Silas reigning over the building of the fire, ruling each step of the procedure like a despot. A shallow depression had been dug in the sand and was being lined with wood, then filled with rocks. “This is the tricky part,” old Silas preached, as he did every year. “Got t’ build y’r mound so’s air c’n filter around every rock, else y’ll get no draw t’ heat ’em proper!”
DeLaine leaned close to Rye and whispered behind her hand. “Oh, thank heavens he told us!”
Rye chuckled silently, then drew his brows together in a mock scowl. “Got t’ have good draw,” he whispered back.
Rye Dalton had not been particularly anxious to spend the day with DeLaine Hussey, but her humorous remark seemed to loosen him up. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, and he realized he’d never spent enough time with her to know whether she had a sense of humor or not. It suddenly dawned on him that he knew very little about her. Standing now beside the pit in the buffeting winds, he made up his mind to enjoy the day as best he could. He was thankful the Morgan family, still in mourning, would not be joining the group.
Silas lit the fire, and true to his word, he’d laid it skillfully. Soon it spread and grew. Tankards of apple cider were warmed over it while the picnickers waited for Silas’s final word that it was time to proceed. When the rocks began to crack and flake, he carefully spread them out and covered them with a layer of rockweed. On top of that went the food, then another layer of weed. Rye lent a hand as several men threw a tarpaulin over the mound, but this was the only role Silas assigned to anyone but himself. He took over again to weight the tarp with sand, sealing in the heat. At last the pit was steaming, and the crowd dispersed for the kite flying that had become traditional on this day.
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As DeLaine and Rye ambled away from the fire, he studied her from the corner of his eye. She wore a simple bonnet of stiff blue silk that covered her to the ears. A caped woolen coat was buttoned high beneath her chin, and her hands were warmed by gray gloves. Rye turned up the collar of his pea jacket and resolved once again to enjoy himself.
They stood on a bluff with the wind at their backs and let out the kite to join the others that soared above the turgid ocean below. The breakers came pounding in, sending spray up toward the kite tails, which dipped and waggled, as if teasing the waves.
It had been years since Rye had flown a kite, and it brought a sharp smack of freedom as he watched the colorful triangle battle the wind, then crack smartly like a sail beneath a halyard. He looked up and watched the kite grow smaller. Suddenly, beside him, DeLaine laughed. He turned sharply to find her face tilted skyward as she held the string and felt it tug against her gloved hands.
“Did you know that when we were children I used to dream of doing this with you?"
“No,” he answered, surprised.
She glanced at him. “I did. But you know what they say.” Again she turned toward the kite. “Better late than never.”
Rye could not think of a single thing to say, so he stood with his hands in his pockets, studying the kite.
DeLaine’s voice was a deep contralto. “I used to envy Laura Traherne more than any other girl I knew.”
Rye felt himself coloring, but DeLaine concentrated on the kite.
“She had you to follow everywhere, and such ... such freedom, for a girl. I always envied her that freedom. While the rest of us were tucked away in our keeping rooms learning to tat and embroider, she was off running barefoot on the beaches.” Now DeLaine turned and looked up at Rye’s crisp jaw, outlined by the side-whiskers she’d longed to touch ever since she’d first seen them. “Am I embarrassing you, Rye? I don’t mean to. It’s all right, you know, that you love Laura.”
His eyes flew to her face and found hers steady and assured.
“Everyone on this island knows how the two of you feel about each other. I just want you to know that I know, too, and it makes no difference to me. I intend to enjoy being with you because it’s something I’ve wanted for a long, long time.”
Again Rye was speechless, his lips open in surprise.
Abruptly, Delaine became gay and lilting again. “Tell me, Rye, have you seen Portugal?”
“Aye, of course.”
DeLaine pulled in a deep draft of air through flared nostrils and studied the faraway horizon. “I’ve always wanted to see Portugal. It’s out there—just imagine—I’m looking at it right now. I’d give anything to see it, or to see anyplace besides this stifling little island. I’m sick to death of it, and of the smell of whale oil and tar.”
“That’s not the impression y’ gave me the night y’ brought up the Female Freemasons. Y’ talked as if y’ were proud of Nantucket and its ... whalers.”
“Oh, that.” She gave a self-deprecating grin. “I was just saying that to see if I could get your attention, you know that. I couldn’t care less if a man’s killed a whale or not.” The wind caught a wisp of her hair and blew it across her lips, and Rye quickly looked away. “Tell me, Rye, is it true what they say, that you’ve been asked to go to the Michigan Territory, where they’re settling a new town?”
He cast her a sidelong look, but she was studying him, so he quickly turned his attention to the waves below. “I’ve been asked.”
“Oh how I envy you, too, being a man! Men have the freedom to make so many choices.”
“I haven’t chosen t’ leave Nantucket.”
“No, but you can if you want to. Just like you could choose to go whaling. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, about how women have to stand by idly and let the years march along while waiting for something to change the course of their lives. I thought about Laura and how different she was, flaunting convention and doing what she pleased, and I thought, DeLaine Hussey, it’s time for you to do as you please! And so here I am, telling you things that no lady ought to tell a man. But I don’t care anymore—I’m not getting any younger, and I’m still single, and ... and I ... I don’t want to be.” DeLaine’s voice had grown soft, as if she were making wishes to herself. “And I would give anything to be given the choice of starting a new life in a place like ... like the Michigan Territory.”
Rye studied her profile while she studied the kite. My God, the woman was proposing marriage! “DeLaine, I—”
“Oh, don’t look so stricken, Rye, and don’t bother saying anything. Let’s just have a wonderful day and eat buckets of clams!” She smiled brightly while he realized she was probably feeling quite chagrined at what she had just admitted. He had never before pondered the plight of a woman who wishes to marry but is never asked.
Without warning, the kite broke loose and soared away above the Atlantic.
“Oh look!” DeLaine lifted a hand to touch the brim of her hat, which fluttered in the brisk wind. She laughed again and the sound was carried eastward, where a quartet of gulls swooped and called. “It’s heading for Portugal.” The front of her coat lifted, too, and flapped against his trouser legs.
He smiled and took her arm, swinging back toward the fire. “Portugal’s got nothin’ as good as Nantucket clams. Come on.”
They trudged back to the sunken pit, their moods once again carefree.
Cap’n Silas reversed the process he’d carefully overseen an hour before, removing the canvas in a great billow of steam, then pitching aside the limp seaweed whose tangy flavor lifted through the salt air.
Rye and DeLaine sat side by side on a blanket, eating succulent clams and scallops, tender vegetables, and spicy island sausage that never tasted quite as good when prepared in a roasting oven. They licked their lips and laughed and ran the backs of their hands across their chins and found themselves more at ease with each other as the evening wore on. When the meal was finished, nearly every man in the circle lit a pipe or a cigar.
“You don’t smoke,” DeLaine noted.
“Never had t', I just breathed the air m' father left behind.”
Again they chuckled, and Rye clamped his arms around his crossed and updrawn legs while DeLaine thought of how many years she had waited for this night.
It was dark by the time the charcoal had cooled, sending the islanders straggling back home along the beach. Though the wind had died with the coming of night, it was still cold, and now the damps crept in from the ocean to sneak down inside collars and up beneath petticoats.
Rye and DeLaine made their way back toward town silently. Now and then their shoulders bumped. She clutched the neck of her coat while watching the dark flare of her skirt on each step.
“Are y’ cold?” he asked, seeing her shiver.
“Isn’t everyone on this island at this time of year?”
“Aye, and the worst is yet t’ come.” He had never touched DeLaine in a personal way before, but he draped an arm around her shoulders now, chafing her coat sleeve while their breaths created white clouds of mist on the night air.
They came to the streets of town, where an occasional lantern created a puddle of light in the murky darkness. DeLaine lived in a silvery clapboard house near the square, and as they reached its picket fence, Rye dropped his arm, opened the gate, and let her pass through before him. Her steps slowed as they neared the door, then she turned to face him.
“Rye, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and I’m sorry if—”
“There’s no need t’ be sorry about anything, Delaine.” He studied her upturned face in the shadows. She was smaller than Laura, and her scent was different, spicy instead of floral. With a small jolt, he realized it was the first time he’d thought of Laura all evening.
DeLaine studied his face; he stood so near that her hem brushed his pantlegs. “Rye, there is something I have wanted to do ever since that night at the Starbucks’ dinner party. Would you mind very much if I ... indulg
e myself?”
He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to kiss DeLaine Hussey, but there was no way to avoid it gracefully. “By all means,” he replied quietly. But instead of rising up on tiptoe, she carefully removed one glove and raised her bare hand to embrace his cheek and the swooping side-whiskers.
“Why, they’re soft!” she exclaimed.
He chuckled as she ran the backs of her fingers over the opposite jaw, then tested the first one again, toying with the facial hair, running her fingertips over it.
“Of course they’re soft. What did y’ expect?”
“I ... I don’t know. They make your jaw look as hard as an anvil, and I just expected the whiskers would be ... well, sharp.”
Her palm had fallen still, but she did not withdraw it. It was very warm on Rye’s cheek in the cool, damp night. “Have y’ always been such an impetuous woman, DeLaine Hussey?”
“No, not always. I was taught, like all well-bred young misses, never to let my feelings show.” But her fingertips trailed to the hollow of his cheek while her words died away into a whisper. The night was thick around them, while from the windows of the house candlelight painted their profiles a dim orange.
“DeLaine, what y’ said today ... I’ve no way of knowing what—”
“Shh.” She placed a single fingertip over his lips.
It, too, was warm and lingering, and the invitation was unmistakable in her touch and her eyes. He’d had no desire ever to kiss another woman except Laura. He had no intention of taking DeLaine Hussey to the Michigan Territory. But she was female, and yearning, and the finger on his lower lip gently glided across its width, and without warning Rye’s blood set up a wild coursing through his loins.
What the hell, he thought. Try her.
He gently bit the tip of her index finger and reached for her waist with both hands. As he bent to press his mouth over hers, she raised up and lifted her arms, twining the fingers of the gloveless hand into the thick hair at the back of his head.
He had been manipulated by her all day long and Rye Dalton knew it, but for the moment it didn’t matter. He was lonely and vulnerable and she tasted faintly of butter and smelled of sandalwood, and her mouth opened so willingly it surprised his own into doing the same. She made a soft sound in her throat and pressed herself close, until the front of her coat met the sturdy wool of his peajacket. DeLaine Hussey, he thought. Who ever would have guessed this would happen with her? She moved her mouth and head in gestures of invitation, slipping her palm into the warm recesses of his collar, and natural curiosity took over in Rye. He ran his hand up the bulky side of her coat to the place where her breast swelled beneath it, and she brought her midsection firmly against his. Again came a throaty sound of ardor, and his hand moved between them to unbutton first his own jacket, then her coat, before slipping both arms inside against her warm back.