He didn’t release her hand as they walked across the plantation to the stables, where Clay put a soft leather side-saddle on a palomino mare for her, lifted her into the saddle, and headed for the kitchen. Maggie smiled broadly as she handed Clay the bulging saddlebags.
They rode for an hour, leaving the higher ground where the house and dependencies were, and went to the lower fields. The flat, rich bottomland followed the river in an arch that half encircled the higher ground of fields planted with cotton, tobacco, flax, wheat, and barley. To the east of the house were pastures where cattle and sheep grazed separately, and everywhere there seemed to be barns and tool sheds. They stopped once to feed apples to a pair of enormous draft horses. As Clay talked to her about the quality of cotton, the ways of curing tobacco, she watched him, saw the pride of ownership in his eyes, how he cared for his land and the people who worked for him.
The sun was high in the sky when Nicole looked across the river and saw something that was very familiar to her—a water wheel. Staring through the trees at the stone and brick structure, she was flooded with memories. She and her grandfather had always lived in luxury, their every need had been satisfied before they had thought to want it, but when the Revolution had sent them into hiding they’d learned to survive. They had dressed as the miller and his wife did, and they had worked as they did. Nicole had scrubbed the kitchen twice a week, and she had learned to run the mill when the men went away to deliver grain.
Smiling, she pointed across the river. “Is that a grain mill?”
“Yes,” Clay answered without much interest.
“Whose is it? Why isn’t it running? Could we see it?”
Clay looked at her in astonishment. “Which one should I answer first? It belongs to me, and it isn’t running because I’ve never hired anyone to run it and because the Backes mill my grain. And, yes, we can go see it. There’s a house farther up the hill. You can just see it through the trees. Would you like to go across?”
“Yes, I would.”
There was a little rowboat moored at the edge of the river, and Clay threw the saddlebags in, helped Nicole inside, and rowed them across. Standing back, he watched as she tramped across the overgrown path and started walking around the mill.
“It looks to be in good condition. Could I see the stones inside?”
Clay took the key for the big lock on the double doors from its hiding place, watching as Nicole inspected the grooves in the stones and muttered things about bolting cloth and a good millstone dresser. When she finished her inspection, she started asking more questions, until Clay held up his hand in protest.
“Maybe it would be quicker if I explained,” he said. “When my brother was alive, we could run a bigger place, but now, with just me, I decided the mill was too much. When the miller died last year, I didn’t look for another one.”
“But what about your grain? You said the Backes have a mill.”
“A small one. It’s just easier to send it over there than to worry about running this place.”
“What about the other farmers? Surely people like Janie’s father need a mill. Or do they go to the Backes’ too? Isn’t it far away?”
Clay took her hand and led her outside. “Let’s eat lunch, and I’ll answer all your questions. There’s a pretty place on the top of that rise.”
When the lunch of cold baked ham, pickled oysters, and apricot tarts was spread on a cloth, Clay was the one who asked questions. He wanted to know why Nicole was so interested in the mill.
Nicole was very aware of him, close to her, that they were alone together in the quiet, secluded woods. “My grandfather and I worked at a mill for a while. I learned a great deal about them then.”
“Your grandfather,” he said as he stretched out, his head on his hands. “We’ve been living in the same house for some time, yet I know so little about you. Did you always live with your grandfather?”
Looking down at her hands, she was silent. She didn’t want to talk about her family. “Not long,” she said quickly, and looked back at the mill. “Did you ever consider selling the mill?”
“No, never. What about your parents? Were they millers, too?”
It took Nicole a moment to understand what he meant, and the idea of her elegant mother—her hair elaborately dressed and powdered, three tiny star-shaped patches at the corner of her eye, in a gown of heavy brocaded satin—working in a mill made her want to laugh. Her mother believed bread originated in the kitchens.
“What’s making you laugh?”
“The idea of my mother working in a mill. Didn’t you say there was a house here? Could we see it?”
Quickly, they gathered the lunch things, and Clay showed her the house, which was completely boarded. It was a simple one-room house with an attic, old-fashioned but strong and sturdy.
“Let’s go back across the river. There’s something I want to talk to you about and a place I want to show you.”
Clay did not row them straight across the river but went upstream, past the planted fields, stopping at a point in the bank that looked to be impassable. The shore was thickly covered with shrubs, and willow trees dripped into the water.
Clay stepped out of the boat and tied it to a stake hidden by the bushes. He offered Nicole his hand and helped her to stand on the approximately one foot of sand at the edge of the river. He grabbed an enormous myrtle bush and pulled it aside, revealing a fairly wide path. “After you,” Clay said, following her. The myrtle bush slipped back into place, once again hiding the path.
The path opened into a grassy clearing that was completely surrounded by trees and shrubs, and it was like entering a large, roofless room. Along two sides were flowers, a riot of them. Nicole recognized some of the perennials. Though heavily choked by weeds now, they were surviving and producing.
“It’s lovely,” she said, twirling about, the sweet grass about her ankles. “Someone made this. Surely it didn’t grow naturally.”