A Matter of Principle (9 page)

Sydney rested her hand on his arm. “We’ll drop the idea for now.” Her gray-green eyes met everyone else’s, then moved to his. “But please do consider it, husband. Will you?”

Recognizing a compromise when it slapped him across the cheek—was that another qualification?—Nicolas dipped his chin to the dinner guests. “I will. I promise.”

“
Good! Now might we eat?” Rickard rang for dinner.

November 10, 1821

Sydney sat on the bed, her fists kneading Ruthie’s lower back while she counted through the birth pains. She was called out in Cheltenham a couple times a month now and twice had been called to Millspring, just to the north. Her reputation as a capable midwife was growing.

“
That was good, Ruthie. Very good. How are you feeling?” Sydney motioned for Taycie to bring another hot compress; Rickard’s mulatto slave was now her apprentice. The girl complied quickly.

“
Alright, I guess,” the young woman answered. “It hurts a lot, but, well, I reckon I can stand it.”

Sydney lifted Ruthie’s knee, removed the cloth between her legs, and replaced it with the hot one. “After this, I’ll rub some more oil on you. Then I’ll check you again. I believe we are almost there.”

“
Yes—” Her words were stopped by the onset of another pain.

Sydney turned to instruct Taycie, but she was already setting the oil on the bedside table within Sydney’s reach, along with dry cloths from Sydney’s bag. Sydney watched the slave girl retrieve the string for tying the cord, and Sydney’s knife to cut it, from her leather satchel and set them on the table as well.

“
Thank you, Taycie,” Sydney said softly. “You’re learning quickly.”

Taycie blinked her light amber eyes, self-conscious in the public praise. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Ruthie’s housekeeper slipped into the room. She tiptoed to where Ruthie’s mother dozed in a chair and tugged on her sleeve. The older woman snorted, opened startled eyes, and swiped her palm over her face before turning quizzically to the intruder.

“
I beg your pardon, ma’am,” the housekeeper said in a tense undertone. “But the midwife is here.”

“
Yes, of course she is!” The older woman pushed herself straighter in the chair and flipped a hand toward the bed.

“
No, ma’am. I refer to the
other
midwife.” She glanced at Sydney.

Sydney’s heart skipped and sweat prickled her skin. She had never met Berta O’Shea. Their paths had not crossed at any social events, nor did the woman attend church with the Lutheran pastor. The disconnected thought,
perchance she
’
s Catholic like me,
flitted across Sydney’s mind.

When Sydney decided to become a midwife, she did so for herself. Her initial experience with guiding a babe from its mother’s body and holding it while it took its first breath and opened its eyes to the world for the first time, was so astonishing that she knew this was her calling. Besides, she wasn’t squeamish; pain and blood didn’t frighten her. She didn’t choose this path with the intention of supplanting Mistress O’Shea.

But that is not how Berta would see it.

Berta O’Shea had been in attendance at the birth that killed Nicolas’s wife Lara and Stefan’s twin. She would logically feel threatened by Sydney’s presence in Cheltenham. For that very reason, rightly or wrongly, Sydney had never sought her out. Without preamble, Berta pushed into the room, taking charge.

“
Thank you, dearie. I shan’t need you now.” She dismissed Sydney with barely a look.

Ruthie grabbed Sydney’s hand, gripping it so tightly that Sydney’s garnet wedding ring bruised her knuckle. Sydney looked from Ruthie’s wide eyes to her mother’s silently flapping lips; it was not Sydney’s place to decide which midwife stayed.

Berta moved to the bed. “Thank you,” she repeated, tapping her toe.

“
Count!” Ruthie grunted, and closed her eyes.

Ignoring Berta, Sydney turned to the natal woman, kneading her back and counting in her ear.

“
What are you doing?” Berta demanded when the contraction ended.

“
I don’t believe we have met.” Sydney slid off the bed and extended her hand. “I am Sydney Hansen. Nicolas’s wife, and”—might as well get this over with—“I’m a midwife.”

Berta fell back a step, visibly shocked at all the information Sydney lobbed at her. “What? Hansen? Nick Hansen?” Her eyes scoured the room, picking up the clues she had not taken time to notice. “You’re a midwife?”

“
I am. I learned in Norway over the last year.”

Ruthie moaned. Taycie tapped Sydney on the shoulder and placed a fresh compress into her hand. “I believe you should check her now,” she whispered.

“
Thank you, Taycie.” Sydney determined that Berta could do what she wished, but Ruthie deserved her focused attention for now. She spoke softly in Ruthie’s ear and lifted her knee to check her inside. As she did so, a gush of water splashed over her hand.

“
How long have you been here?” Berta demanded.

Sydney looked at the clock. “It’s past nine in the morning and I was summoned at four. Five hours. Why?”

“
This is her first child. How can you think she is so close? She’s not even screaming yet!”

Sydney bit back all the things she wished to say. Instead, she offered Berta a chance to examine Ruthie. “You have more experience than I do. Perhaps you would care to confirm my estimation?”

Berta stepped to the bed and lifted Ruthie’s knee. She inserted her fingers, causing Ruthie to gasp and tighten. Her countenance shifted.

“
You are correct, Mistress Hansen,” she growled and pulled her hand away.

“
Please, call me Sydney.” Taycie lifted Sydney’s hand and wrapped it around the bottle of oil. Sydney sat on the bed again. “Excuse me, Mistress—”

“
O’Shea. Berta O’Shea.”

Sydney poured a little oil on her fingers and began to massage the opening to Ruthie’s womb. “This, along with the hot compresses, will help your skin stretch,” she explained.

“
It feels nice,” Ruthie murmured. Another pain began. Sydney counted her through it. Ruthie’s eyes opened abruptly. “I need to shit!” she blurted.

“
That’s the baby,” Sydney assured her. “Taycie?”

Taycie hurried to the other side of the bed and the two women propped Ruthie on pillows. She grabbed her knees the way they told her to. Berta watched, visibly fascinated, and obviously offended.

“
Do you wish to help?” Sydney asked, hoping Berta would say no.

Before the woman could answer, Ruthie’s face turned into a tomato. She strained and groaned. The top of a head, lightly smeared with golden streaks, appeared. Berta stepped forward and pushed on Ruthie’s stomach until the pain passed.

Sydney wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but she daren’t say anything. Berta O’Shea had been Cheltenham’s only midwife for over a decade. Obviously, the majority of her women lived; she must know things that Sydney had yet to learn.

After four long pushes, the baby’s head emerged. Sydney wiped its mouth and nose and instructed Ruthie—and Berta—not to push any more. With the next pain, she maneuvered the shoulders out. A sturdy boy slipped onto the sheets.

“
It’s a boy!” Taycie announced. She smiled sheepishly at Sydney; Taycie loved to be the one to make the proclamation.

While Ruthie and her mother fussed over the new heir, Berta puttered around the room, looking busy and important in her extraneous position. Taycie meticulously repacked Sydney’s satchel. After promising to return in a week to check on them, Sydney said a cordial farewell to Berta O’Shea.

“
It was a pleasure meeting you, as well,” the woman responded, though her voice was much cooler than her words.

Once mounted on her mare, Sessa, and headed toward the Hansen estate, Sydney spoke over her shoulder to Taycie. “I noticed what you did back there. Don’t think I didn’t.”

She felt the slave girl stiffen. “Ma’am?”

“
Keeping things moving! In the midst of Mistress O’Shea’s disruption, you made sure the compresses were changed, that Ruthie was examined, and that I had the oil.”

“
Oh!” Her body slumped again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“
That was perfect, Taycie. You kept focused on Ruthie and what she needed. Not on some flustered intruder.”

“
Thank you, ma’am.” Sydney could hear the smile in her voice.

“
You’ll be a fine midwife, Taycie. And soon.”

Sydney guided Sessa to the stable and called for Leif.

“
Ma’am?” His head appeared, upside-down, hanging from the loft.

“
Take Taycie back to Atherton’s, will you?”

“
Yes, ma’am!” He disappeared, and then scrambled down the ladder. Leif reveled in his responsibility as midwife-assistant-retriever, and never grumbled when he was tapped for that duty, even in the wee hours of the night. Sydney suspected he imagined himself as some sort of dashing rogue, riding the gelding Rusten pell-mell through the forest to the next estate and back again, a rescued maiden clinging to him for her very life.

Jeremy stepped from a stall and helped the young woman from the saddle. Sydney dismounted after her. Jeremy shook his head.

Sydney laughed. “You’ve been with us long enough now, Jeremy. You should be accustomed to my riding astride!”

“
Should be,” he agreed, with a grin. He took Sessa’s reins and led her to her stall. His good-natured, “But I ain’t!” floated back to her.

Chapter Seven

November 15, 1821

Nicolas saw the four men dismount from the carriage and approach his front door. For a moment, before he noticed Rickard Atherton, the sight of Sheriff Busby turned his innards to water. Unwelcome memories of his arrest and beating, buried for nearly two years, surged into his consciousness before he could quench them. In spite of the frigid day, spitting sleet and gusting wind, sweat filmed his skin. Nicolas shook out his hands, blew a long breath, and walked toward the house.

“
Gentlemen!” His deep voice echoed back from the stone façade. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Rickard met him first. “You’re not to be arrested this time!” he joked, and grasped Nicolas’s outstretched hand. “Though when you hear why we’ve come, you may prefer it!”

“
Come now, Atherton!” Ashton Caldecott chided with smooth, middle-aged panache. “It’s not like that at all!” He shook Nicolas’s hand and smiled, laugh lines etched deeply around vigorous brown eyes. “Might we have a word?”

Nicolas nodded the remainder of his greetings. “John. Sheriff. Come in out of the weather, will you?” Nicolas led the men into the house. “Anne!” he bellowed.

Her dark head protruded through the kitchen door. “Yes, sir?”

“
Coffee to warm these gentlemen. And a bottle of brandy?”

“
Yes, sir.”

Nicolas guided the assemblage into the drawing room. The brandy and five glasses appeared. Nicolas poured.

“
Thank you, Hansen!” Nathan Busby made himself comfortable on the settle. “You know how to make a man welcome on a ghastly day like today!”

“
Which begs the question, Sheriff.” Nicolas sat in a chair facing him. “Why exactly
have
you all come out on a ghastly day like today?”

The men had scattered on the available seats and now exchanged barely restrained glances, their anticipation blatant.

“
Nick,” Rickard began, “these men—and I—believe that you should run for the Missouri State Legislature.”

“
Gud forbanner det,
Rick!” Nicolas swore and slammed his glass on the low table. “We’ve already had this discussion!”

“
Atherton told us what you said,” John McGovern interjected. “But we’ve considered all of the landowners in St. Louis County, and we feel you are the best option for a candidate. You are a landowner, you are well-educated, and you are very well thought of in the community.”

“
But you, Caldecott!” Nicolas swung his hand toward the older man. “You are the one who follows politics the most ardently! Why don’t you run?”

Ashton leaned back in his chair. “Frankly, Hansen? I’m annoying.”

Nicolas’s mouth opened and slapped shut. He had no retort for that accurate assessment.

“
We’ve put quite a bit of thought into this.” John’s quiet voice carried the weight of his argument.

Nicolas turned to Rickard. “Rick, you’re a wealthy landowner. You’re well-educated, popular… Why not you?”

Rickard folded long arms across his chest. “I actually gave it some consideration, Nick. It’s true, I am well-liked and I have a decent education. But I’m afraid my past reputation as—how should I put it?—as a bit of an adventurer, precludes my candidacy.” He blushed. “I see no reason to give Mr. Herbert Q. Percival, Esq. more ammunition than he’s likely to fabricate on his own.”

Nicolas scowled. “What’s he got to do with this?”