Cheryl Reavis

by The Bartered Bride

  “Here,” Mary Louise said, looking up at him. “He’s not lost. I got lost and Aunt Caroline got lost and—but Papa didn’t—”

  Caroline and Beata both stepped forward, Beata reaching the child first and snatching her up off the floor.

  “You see!” she said, immediately turning on Caroline. “She is sleepwalking again!”

  “Give her to me, Beata,” Caroline said, reaching out for Mary Louise, because her eyes were big and afraid.

  But Beata turned away and kept going. “I don’t give her to you! You are no more her aunt than I am! Who are you to take her? You let soldiers stay in this house—my brother should have never married you!”

  “I want to talk to that child!” the officer said loudly, but Beata ignored him, holding Mary Louise closer and railing in German as she mounted the stairs.

  “The little girl is sleepwalking again,” Johann said, stepping into the man’s way when he would have followed. “She did so after her mother died—and it appears that it has come back now that her father’s been away. I’m sure that Frau Graeber would rather that you had not been made aware of the animosity that exists between her and her sister-in-law, but, please, do not cause the lady of this house or the little one any more distress tonight. Perhaps in the morning—”

  “We have been put on the alert for deserters, Reverend,” the officer said, clearly unmollified. “The biggest group of conscripts came from this vicinity. That child’s father, I think, is one of them—and she believes that he is here.”

  “I can assure you he is not,” Johann said truthfully. “Do you want to search the house? Frau Graeber will not object—if the word of a man of God isn’t good enough.”

  “Mrs. Graeber,” the officer said, suddenly turning to Caroline. “Where is your husband?”

  She looked at him evenly and told the truth as far as it went. “We had word that he and both my brothers and Miss Steigermann’s fiancé were in the line at Fredericksburg three weeks ago. The fighting was very fierce there, I’m told—but I’m sure you’ve heard all about it.” There was just the slightest pause before the word “heard,” just enough to convey the reproach Caroline intended. “Search the house if you like. You will find nothing but our continued hospitality.”

  He stared at her across the room. “I can assure you, ma’am, your hospitality is both recognized and appreciated. I will not search your house, but I will see the child in the morning. I bid you good-night.”

  Caroline gave him a slight nod and took Leah by the arm.

  “Good night, Mr. Rial,” she said to Johann.

  She walked slowly up the stairs with Leah, putting her finger to her lips when Leah would have spoken while they were still in earshot.

  “I’m going,” Caroline whispered when they were in the upstairs hallway. “Please, Leah, take care of the girls for me.”

  “Going where?”

  “I have to look for Frederich,” Caroline said, still whispering. She grabbed up the coat she’d left by the back stairs. “I have to warn him.”

  “Caroline, shouldn’t you wait until the soldiers are asleep?” Leah asked, wringing her hands.

  “No, I’m going now—before one of them decides to sleep on the bottom step and I can’t get out.”

  “But what do we tell them if they miss you?”

  “Tell them I went to the privy. Tell them Beata and I quarreled again and you don’t know where I went.” She buttoned Frederich’s coat and pulled her shawl up over her head.

  “Caroline, it’s so cold out—”

  But Caroline didn’t hesitate, giving Leah a quick hug before she slipped down the stairs. She could hear the soldiers talking when she reached the bottom, and she waited long enough to determine that all of them were accounted for before she opened the pantry door and crept inside. She was in total darkness. She didn’t dare light a candle; the soldiers might smell the burning wax or see the light under the door. It had been someone’s idea to put a small outside entrance in this thick-walled room as a way to bring in potatoes and turnips without having to drag them through the house, and she had to feel along the wall for it, realizing finally that Beata had baskets and wooden boxes stacked directly in the way. She set about trying to move them, carefully, one at a time, her heart nearly stopping when several of the baskets toppled over.

  But the noise apparently hadn’t penetrated into the kitchen, and she went about finding the door again.

  It was locked. Caroline lifted the handle and pulled it as hard as she dared, but she couldn’t open it. She tried again and again, finally resting her forehead against the cold wood.

  Now what?

  She looked over her shoulder. The sounds from the kitchen were much quieter now, and she would have to be quieter as well.

  Maybe it isn’t locked. Maybe it’s just stuck.

  But she couldn’t budge it. She began running her hands along the door frame, searching for a latch of some kind. She found nothing. She tried to reach higher, thinking that Frederich might have put it out of a climbing child’s reach.

  Nothing.

  Her eyes were growing more accustomed to the darkness. She could see some light coming through the cracks in the door that opened into the kitchen. She would have to wait until the men were all asleep and slip across the kitchen and outside that way.

  She leaned against the wall and slid downward to sit on the floor and wait. Her hand immediately touched a piece of wood at the bottom of the door—a wedge, she realized. The door wasn’t latched. It had a piece of wood jammed under it to keep it closed.

  With some difficulty, she pulled the wood out. The door immediately swung open. She scrambled upward and hurled herself through it to the outside, moving as fast as she could go in the dark toward the Holt farm. It was only when she reached the shelter of the woods that she dared to stop and look behind her. There was no activity from the house. No one had heard her and sounded the alarm.

  She gathered up her skirts and began to run.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Frederich heard her long before she saw her coming through the trees. The night was so cold and the sound of her footsteps echoed across the frozen ground. He recognized her immediately, but he stayed in the shadows and watched her go into the house.

  He waited—for her to come back out again—for whoever might be following her to catch up. He looked upward at the night sky. There was no moon visible, no stars. He marveled that she had been able to find her way, except that she, unlike him, had been born here. She had been a child here, played in these woods and along these paths. Of course, she would know the way, even in the dark. All the time he’d been hiding around Avery’s abandoned house, he had expected her to come to him—with no real reason for him to do so, except that he wanted it. She’d been greatly taken aback by his arrival, but civil to him, if barely. And just when he’d given up the idea of seeing her one last time, here she was, and he was all undecided again.

  But then, he had always been undecided when it came to Caroline Holt. He didn’t want to risk capture. He fully intended to return to his company as soon as he was satisfied that his family—that she—was all right, but he had no delusions. He knew that if he was caught, he would indeed be hanged. He was a foreigner, a German. And conscripts as a whole were considered cowardly and undependable in battle by the military and the civilians alike. Even so, he waited, knowing that he should be well on his way into town before daylight.

  But then he suddenly moved out of the place where he’d been hiding. He was wasting time, when he knew better than anyone that he had no time to spare.

  Caroline could find no sign that Frederich had been in the house. The place was deathly quiet. She didn’t call out to him. She moved carefully in the dark and touched the pig iron stove. It was cold. She couldn’t keep from shivering. Her teeth chattered as she tried to find the candle she’d brought in her pocket. She fumbled along the shelf near the stove for the tin matchbox, her fingers finally locating it, but not where she
expected it to be. Perhaps Frederich had been here after all, she thought.

  She lit the candle at the moment the back door opened, startling her so much that she dropped it and the match tin on the floor, scattering matches everywhere, the lit candle flaming brighter in its downward fall.

  “Put that out!” Frederich said, and she immediately fumbled along the floor to reach it only to have the flame die of its own accord. It rolled away from her fingers and she left it lying.

  “I thought you’d gone,” she whispered, her voice shaking with the cold. He didn’t come any closer. She couldn’t see his face. “I came to tell you the soldiers are still at the house. I was afraid you’d come back while they were—”

  “Are you sure you didn’t bring them with you?” he interrupted, and her heart sank. What if she had?

  “I don’t think so. These aren’t men who would want to be out on such a cold night. The officer asked me where you were—because Mary Louise woke up and came looking for you. He may suspect but he isn’t sure—”

  She looked up sharply at the sudden burst of rain—no, sleet—against the house. The bad weather she’d expected all afternoon had finally arrived.

  “Have you had anything to eat?” she asked, looking back at him. She could just make out his form in the darkness. “I’ve got some apples in my pockets. Your pockets,” she amended. “It’s your coat I’m wearing. I thought you would need it—”

  “I’ve stolen one of your brother’s coats,” he said, his voice strained.

  “If you don’t want apples, I can look for whatever else might be here to eat,” she went on in a rush. “But I’ll have to light the candle—if I can find the candle.”

  She thought that it had gone the way of the scattered matches, and she got down on her hands and knees to feel for it in the dark. She found a number of the matches and the tin box they were in, but no candle.

  “I don’t want anything to eat,” he said, coming close to her. He reached down and took her by the arm to bring her to her feet again. “I haven’t been waiting for you here so that you could bring me apples.”

  “You’ve been waiting?” she asked, trying to see his face in the darkness.

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “Yes! Did you think I deserted the army to get apples? I came home to see you, Caroline, so that I could talk to you. So that I could tell you how it is with me. I’m afraid I’ll die and never get it said—” He abruptly released her and moved away again. She followed after him, coming as close as she dared.

  “I am so tired of this,” he said after a time. “We are never going to understand each other.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “No, Caroline Holt, you do not. I was wrong to come home. I was wrong to stay here trying to see you. I’m leaving now. With the weather this bad, I’ll have a better chance to get to town without being caught. Kiss my daughters for me…”

  He flung the door open and she shivered in the blast of cold wind. It reminded her suddenly of that cold March day when Avery had come home to tell her of her impending marriage.

  He slammed the door closed behind him, and she stood for a moment before following him.

  “Frederich,” she whispered. “Frederich!” she said louder as she opened the door.

  The sleet pelted down; she could hear it clicking against the porch boards all around her. The steps were already icy. She had to hold on to the railing to keep from falling.

  “Frederich,” she called, trying to catch up to him as he walked rapidly away from the house toward the path in the woods. “Frederich!”

  He didn’t slow down. She had to run hard to try to close the distance between them.

  “Frederich,” she said when she was close enough for him to hear her. “Whatever—you came—to say, I want you to— say it. My baby is—gone. The reason for this so-called-marriage is gone. If you want it, you can be—free of me now. I know—I owe you my life. I owe you—your—freedom—”

  “I can never be free of you,” he said over his shoulder, still moving away from her in the dark.

  “The marriage can be—ended legally—you’ve done your duty—even Johann would agree. I have no reputation—to lose. I won’t hold you to the vows—”

  “I don’t want to end marriage!”

  He stopped walking so suddenly she nearly ran into him. “I don’t want…to end marriage,” he said again, his voice gone quiet, his back still toward her.

  “Then what do you want?” she said in exasperation.

  He turned around, but she still couldn’t see his face in the dark. The sleet beat against them both. She couldn’t stop shaking in the cold.

  “I want us to be together,” he said. “I’m tired of being your enemy, Caroline. What little is left of this night, I want to spend with you. I want to lie in your arms and I want to forget everything else. I want you to make me forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done—”

  He abruptly started walking again, and she grabbed his arm, all but falling against him. “Frederich—”

  “Let me go now, Caroline,” he said gruffly. “Before we hurt each other any more—”

  “No—wait—the question you asked me today, Frederich—I am glad to see you. I am! I’ve been so afraid for you. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. I couldn’t bear it!” She held on harder when he would have put her aside, nearly falling again.

  But then he abruptly stopped trying to get away from her. He simply stood there, suffering her undignified attempt to detain him.

  “I want you to come back with me,” she said, trying to see his face in the darkness.

  “Did you not understand what I want from you? I can be more blunt if you didn’t—”

  “Come back with me!”

  He whirled around and gripped her by both shoulders; she thought he was going to shake her—he was surely angry enough to do that and worse. But he swore instead, German words she didn’t precisely understand. He took her by the hand and began walking toward the house again, pulling her along after him.

  He all but carried her inside, flinging his gear to the floor and reaching for her as soon as he had kicked the door closed. His hands pulled at the front of her coat, freeing enough buttons so that he could touch her. She closed her eyes and arched against him when his hand found her breast.

  But this was not what she wanted. This was far too much like that shameful time with Kader, rushed and furtive and illicit, with no love and no respect.

  “Wait,” she said, pushing against his chest to keep his hands out of her bodice. “Frederich, wait—Frederich!”

  He abruptly stopped, his breath coming in heavy gasps.

  “Please,” she said, trying to slip from his grasp.

  “What—?” He lurched after her, catching her easily and pulling her to him.

  “No—not here. I want to make a place for us,” she said, trying to hold him at arm’s length. “I don’t want my wedding night on the kitchen floor. Give me—just a few minutes. Then come to me—find the candle I dropped and come upstairs—please—”

  “Caroline—”

  “Please!” she whispered urgently.

  He gave a heavy sigh.

  “Frederich, I need to do this!”

  “All right,” he said after a moment, because he knew her well enough to know that there was no way short of brute force to do otherwise. But he held on to her as long as he could, letting her fingers slip through his, trying to see which way she went in the dark. He heard her going noisily up the stairs, bumping into something that caused her to cry out along the way.

  “Caroline?”

  “It’s all right. You’re going to need that candle,” she assured him, and he smiled in the darkness. After a moment, he could hear her overhead, then not at all.

  He took a deep, ragged breath and tried to find the lost candle. His hands still trembled, more with desire than from the cold. He knew perfectly well that he should go now, before the army came looking for him, be
fore he had the time to think about this amazing turn of events. The risk he was taking was great, and he prayed to God that Caroline was right, that these home guard soldiers were not the sort of men who would relish being out in the cold if they could help it

  He found the candle finally, when he stepped on it and cracked one end. It took him a moment to fix it, and he moved away from the window before he lit it. Then he used it to look around the room, wondering how long “a few minutes” might be. He’d been here in the kitchen a number of times in the past, but he’d never been upstairs. He and Avery had had a kind of grudging, mutual agreement to help each other when the need arose, and he’d come inside with his brothers-in-law to drink lemonade or coffee, depending on the weather. Caroline had almost always been there, aloof and unapproachable.

  Come back with me.

  That she should have said such a thing to him was incredible. He still half expected to wake up and find himself among a dozen snoring men in a makeshift log-and-mud hut in Virginia.

  He had no idea of the time. Before midnight? After? How long did he have with her? A few hours? Or no time at all?

  Caroline.

  He picked up his gear and walked toward the stairs. She was waiting for him on the first landing, another wavering candle in her hands. She said nothing, and neither did he. He simply followed her—wherever she wanted to take him, he didn’t care.

  She had uncovered her hair. If he had had a free hand, he would have reached out to touch the thick braid that hung down her back. She led the way to the second story, then up another flight of stairs to the attic space.

  “Do you think we can have a fire?” she asked along the way, her voice so matter-of-fact that it unsettled him. He was nervous about this sudden change in their relationship. Why wasn’t she?

  “The windows are very small,” she went on. “I don’t think anyone who passed by would see the glow in this weather.”

  “They’ll smell the smoke, Caroline,” he said.

  “Oh. Yes. I didn’t think—”

  “It won’t matter,” he said quickly. “If the soldiers come here, it will be because they believe they have a reason. A smokeless chimney isn’t going to keep them away.”