Cheryl Reavis

by The Bartered Bride

  She had to make him move down a step or two so that she could open the door at the top of the narrow attic stairway. Her hand rested on his shoulder. He felt her touch much deeper than that.

  “This is where you stayed? When you lived here?” he asked as he followed her into the room.

  But it was more than a room. As far as he could tell, the space took up the entire top floor of the house. He stood awkwardly, looking around him.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter—but I needed a place away from…”

  She didn’t go on, but he understood. It would have been hell for a quiet, bookish person like her to live in the same house with Avery Holt. She would have needed some kind of sanctuary. It occurred to him that it must have been hell for her to live with him as well.

  Everything looked swept and tidy. The bed—her bedhad a high headboard with oak leaf carvings and a thick feather mattress. The pile of quilts covering it had been turned down. He found the gesture both endearing and erotic.

  She had other small candles lit, most of them on the hearth where a fire had been laid. He could see a stack of books in the shadowy recesses of the room, perhaps the same books she’d brought to his own house that day William had given her her belongings in a pillow slip. But she hadn’t been up here long enough to arrange all this—she must still stay here sometimes, he thought. Beata had written to him, complaining bitterly about Caroline’s sleeping in her brother’s house every night after all the men had gone for soldiers—and her implication had been anything but that Caroline was sleeping alone. But Johann Rial had taken it upon himself to explain the situation to him in a lengthy letter, answering all the questions that he, Frederich, would have had too much pride to ask. He had believed Johann, and he knew Caroline well enough to know that she still grieved for her child and that she would want some kind of respite from living with Beata.

  His eyes strayed to the bed again, and this time Caroline caught him at it. She glanced quickly away.

  So, he thought. He wasn’t nervous by himself after all.

  He set his rifle and blanket roll on the floor near the hearth and knelt down to light the fire. The wood had been well laid and it caught immediately. When he stood up again, Caroline was still standing where he’d left her.

  Come here, he almost said, but he immediately changed his mind. He was taking no chance of offending her—or scaring her, from the look on her face now.

  He walked to her, but he said nothing. He allowed himself the luxury of simply looking at her, at her pretty face and her hair, at the swell of her breasts his coat didn’t hide.

  His eyes returned to her face in time to see her lips purse with the question she didn’t ask.

  What are you doing?

  “I am looking,” he said as if she’d asked it. Looking as long and as much as I like.

  There was a sudden cessation in the rattle of sleet against the windows and the roof, but he didn’t let it interrupt his intent. She stood very still, suffering his inspection, glancing at him from time to time and clearly trying to decide what he might be about next.

  He took her by the hand and led her to the bed.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  It surprised him that she did so. He knelt in front of her and began to untie her shoes. Startled, she tried to move away.

  “I can do it,” she said. He could see her breath in the freezing cold.

  “I need you to let me do this for you,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I need these things to remember. Do you understand?”

  She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t pull away again.

  He removed her shoes and left the stockings, then stretched up to unbutton her—his—coat. He didn’t take it off her, though she obviously expected him to. The room was so cold still; she was having to hold herself rigid to keep from shivering.

  He abruptly stood up and pulled back the quilts, lifting her into the bed still fully clothed and covering her carefully. Then he walked back to the fire to add another cedar log. The room smelled of burning cedar now, and the noise of the sleet beating against the windows and roof had given way to the soft, powdery whisper of snow.

  He looked out the small high window near the chimney. There was nothing but blackness, no lights from the Graeber house visible through the bare trees.

  When he turned and walked back to the bed, he saw that her eyes were closed, and they stayed closed even when he sat on the edge beside her.

  “Caroline?”

  She looked at him. “I’m doing what you were doing,” she said. “Finding things to remember.”

  “What things?”

  “The smell of the cedar burning,” she said. “And the candles. I can hear the snow against the roof and the wood pop and hiss as it burns—and you walking across the floor. When I was a girl, I used to think about—about—”

  She abruptly stopped and looked away.

  “About what?”

  She gave a quiet sigh.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to think any worse of me than ydu already do.”

  “Tell me,” he said again. “I want to know what you thought about when you were a girl.”

  “All right,” she said, looking at him again. “I thought about a night like this. With my husband—here.”

  The log he’d just added fell out onto the hearth, causing a shower of sparks to shoot into the room. He got up and walked to the fireplace, pushing the log back onto the andirons again.

  Not Kader, he thought as he worked. She wouldn’t have known him then.

  He forced the thought aside. He wanted to believe that she no longer thought about the schoolmaster—just as he no longer thought about his own past. But that was by choice on his part. The past was too painful to be remembered.

  He stood up, realizing that he was wasting time worrying about Kader Gerhardt, and he took off her brother’s coat. He was acutely aware that she watched him. He took off his tattered CSA uniform jacket and pulled out his shirttail before he sat down on the bed again to remove his shoes. He was so weary suddenly. Not just physically, but weary of spirit as well. He had told Caroline the truth. He just wanted to be with her. He wanted to forget everything—all the ghosts that wandered through his life to haunt him. He wanted only the pleasure she could give him.

  She made room for him when he climbed into bed.

  “This reminds me of when I first came to this country,” he said.

  “This?”

  He smiled. “Being in bed with all the clothes on. I stayed with the Pennsylvania relatives that first winter—the oldest daughter was being courted by a young man from the next farm. He would come to visit—it was so cold there—and they would go to bed with all their clothes on to stay warm while he convinced her to marry him.”

  “Bundling,” she said. “I think it’s called bundling, but I didn’t think anyone did that anymore.”

  “Well, it was a shock to me—just off the boat. Nothing should have shocked me then but that surely—” He broke off and didn’t continue.

  “Did she marry him?” Caroline asked after a time.

  “I don’t remember,” he said, looking in her direction. He had been careful not to touch her yet, and he marveled that he was actually talking to her—as if they were an old married couple. Talking—when that was the last thing he wanted to do.

  She had turned a bit toward him, and he reached up to touch her braided hair, letting his fingers work into the end of the long braid to undo the plaiting. He wanted very much to see her with her hair unbound. She suffered this without comment.

  “You have beautiful hair,” he said, because it was true and because he felt he should say something.

  “Thank you,” she said with a primness she must have learned in her town school. “Frederich—”

  He stopped trying to undo the braid and waited for her to speak her mind. He had no doubt that there was something she wanted to tell him.
He knew the look. In the months they’d lived in the same house, he’d learned that about her, too.

  “Say whatever it is you want to say, Caroline,” he said when she didn’t go on.

  But she shook her head and sat up and took her arms out of the coat, pulling it out from under her and spreading it on top of the quilts..

  “I don’t want to say anything,” she said, looking anywhere but at him.

  She lifted her mostly unbraided hair out of the way and began to undo the buttons on the bodice of her dress. He took over the task after the second one, and if that alarmed her, it didn’t show. He helped her get the dress over her head and the petticoats down. He brought a corner of the quilts up around her shoulders, noting that her chemise was very plain except for the ribbon ties. No lace. No embroidery. He could see the thrust of her breasts against the muslin.

  He caught her hand and placed it on the top button of his shirt. She hesitated, then began to undo each one as he had for her. He watched her face as she worked, wondering if he should tell her how long he’d thought about this—about her willing participation in the first time they would make love.

  She felt his scrutiny, and she suddenly stopped.

  “Frederich, don’t,” she said. “Regardless of what you think, I’m not—I don’t know what’s expected of me. I don’t know how to behave. Don’t give me something improper to do just so you can be offended—”

  “I’m not offended, Caroline,” he said, reaching up to touch her face with his fingertips. “I’m living something I’ve thought about for a long time—come here. Come here,” he said again, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her. She was stiff and unyielding for a moment, then she relaxed against him. “Why do you think I took your shoes away from you the first thing?” he asked, teasing her now and giving her an abrupt squeeze. “So you can’t run off. So I can get you to bed and keep you there." He kissed her on the cheek and then on the ear, making her give a nervous laugh.

  But then he was serious suddenly. He cupped her face with his hand so that he could look into her eyes.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said. “I hate it that you’re always so afraid. I’m not Kader Gerhardt. I won’t hurt you. I want you, Caroline. I want to look at you and touch you. I want to be inside you—” He kissed her eyes and her mouth and her eyes again. “We have so little time. Don’t hide from me,” he said, because her eyes had remained closed after the last kiss. “Caroline.”

  She opened her eyes. He thought that she might cry.

  “Is there nothing about me that pleases you?” he asked.

  She looked at him a long time before she answered. “Your body,” she said finally. She took him completely by surprise, and he showed it.

  “You’re very strong,” she went on quickly. “You work so hard and your strength never fails you. The girls and Beata—and I—we all know we’re safer in this world because of you—I’m sorry,” she suddenly whispered. “I’ve said the wrong thing. I told you I don’t know how to behave.”

  He lay there with his arms around her, staring into her eyes, regardless of how much she didn’t want that now, and trying to decide if she was telling him the truth. The fire popped loudly, and one of the candles began to flicker and smoke. He dared to kiss the corner of her mouth.

  “What else?” he asked shamelessly.

  She gave a small sigh. “Your…eyes,” she went on, surprising him further. “Because they’re so blue.”

  “Yes, blue,” he agreed.

  “And…so sad,” she said, bringing up a hand to touch his face. “So…sad, Frederich.”

  She kissed him then, gently on the mouth, lingering until he felt it deep in his belly.

  His arms tightened around her. His hand slid to cup her breast. “Caroline…”

  “We have so little time,” she reminded him, and she kissed him again—she kissed him, releasing all the hunger and the need he’d had all these months.

  He tried to show some restraint, but the ribbons on her chemise had come undone, giving him access. The scent and the feel and the taste of her smooth white skin left him trembling. And she was clearly surprised that he would touch her breasts in such an intimate way. He was certain suddenly that Gerhardt had never done that, and the thought pleased him immensely. He suckled her gently, then harder, making her body arch in pleasure.

  He had on too many clothes. They both had on too many clothes. He abruptly sat up and pulled his shirt off over his head, then removed his trousers underneath the covers with no thought as to where they went when he kicked free of them. Then he sought the drawstring on her drawers—he no longer had drawers of his own to worry about regardless of her diligence in sending him several pairs. She didn’t protest his attempt to untie the string, but neither did she help him. When they were both naked, he gathered her to him again, stopping long enough to look into her eyes. She looked back at him, and if she was afraid now, he couldn’t tell.

  “My beautiful Caroline,” he whispered to her in German as his mouth covered hers—because he was afraid to say it in English.

  He kissed her long and hard. His hands stroked the length of her, until her body rose to his touch, until she sighed, until he found the hunger in her that matched his own and her knees parted. He moved her under him and kissed her again.

  “Caroline,” he whispered, because he wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to know that it was he, Frederich, who would take her now, and he would do it with a love and a respect he could never voice. He had no words for the intensity of his feelings for her, none in English or in German.

  “Caroline,” he said again, and she reached up to place her hands on his shoulders, her eyes locked with his when he entered her. The pleasure was so intense that he nearly cried out with it.

  “Love me,” he said in German, and then again, “Love me.”

  And whether she understood him or not, she wrapped herself around him and gave him the oblivion he so desperately needed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Caroline reached down to draw the covers over them both. She thought that he was awake, but she wasn’t certain, and she lay there, listening to his quiet breathing. His arm was still thrown over her, but he had turned his face away. If she moved her head slightly, she could press a kiss against his shoulder. She wanted to very badly, but she didn’t do it. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands over him and feel the lean muscled hardness of his body.

  After a time, he turned his head to look at her and to kiss her mouth gently, so gently that once again she had the sudden inclination to cry.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

  “You are overcome with regret now that it’s done?”

  “No,” she said truthfully. She regretted nothing and she felt no embarrassment at what had passed between them. She turned slightly so that she could see his face. “I didn’t know it would be like this with us.”

  “It wouldn’t have—if we had married the way I intended—without all the…trouble.”

  He was much closer to the truth than he realized, she thought. If there hadn’t been the “trouble,” she would never have married him at all. She gave a quiet sigh. She hardly recognized herself anymore. He had said once that she felt only contempt for him—and it had been true—then. But somehow, living in the same house with him, watching him with his children, having him take care of her when the baby died, had changed everything. She had changed. She had become an entirely different person almost without her notice. She’d come from the “prissy Holt,” who feared marriage and who held the Germans in more disdain than she would have cared to admit, to the woman who shamelessly lay abed with Frederich Graeber and who was more than a little happy to be there.

  “Will you tell me something?” she suddenly asked, realizing that perhaps she was not so changed after all. “Will you tell me about your German wife?”

  He stiffened against her, as if that was
the last thing in the world he expected. He moved away from her and turned over onto his back to lie staring up at the great wooden beams that supported the roof of the house.

  Caroline waited.

  “There is nothing to tell,” he said after what seemed to her a long time.

  “Her name at least?”

  He turned his head to look at her. “Her name was Sybilla.”

  “Did Ann know about her?”

  “Ann? No. Not unless it came from the same person who told you.”

  She ignored the remark. “You loved her—Sybilla?”

  “Caroline, this is not something I want to talk about. I don’t ask you about Kader Gerhardt.”

  “But I can tell you about him—now.”

  “Can you? You…you don’t care that he will marry Leah?”

  “I—it hurts my pride that he cared so little for me and my child. But I won’t let him and his indifference rule my life. I didn’t know what he was about. God knows, with a brother like Avery, I should have, but I didn’t. I thought only beautiful women like Leah Steigermann had to worry about being seduced. I didn’t realize that there were men like Kader—men who knowingly lie to achieve the conquest and then excuse themselves by reasoning that the woman must have known all the attention and the flattery meant nothing. I was so starved for kindness then—perhaps I wouldn’t let myself think a man so thoughtful and so refined could have only seduction in mind. But I have suffered the consequences for my stupidity—”

  “Your marriage to me, you mean?”

  “No, that is not what I mean—”

  “‘A living hell’ is what you said.”

  She abruptly sat up. “And you said for me to stay away from you—why do you always do this? Why do you make me think that there’s a chance for us to have some kind of truce and then spoil it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Something in us both, I think—”

  She attempted to move away from him, and he caught her arm to keep her from getting out of bed, pulling her to him and making her lie down again.