She recalled the afternoon she'd come upon Emily sitting on the foot of their bed—in their bedroom—talking to Jakob. She'd been decidedly uncomfortable with that. She'd dismissed it at the time. But now... The earth tilted beneath her feet, and her head spun dizzily. She looked at Anton, but no longer saw him. There was no air in the barn to breathe, and there was nowhere to go. Nothing to think. Only acute feelings. Swirling confusion. Emptiness.
Jakob's determination for a house entered her mind. Was his intent to separate himself from the woman he had once cared for, the one married to his brother? But, he'd told Lydia he'd never been with a woman before. Had he lied?
Emily had warned Lydia the day she was waiting for Jakob to return from the bridge. She'd said something about all men sampling the wares.
Lydia wilted against the rough wood of the high table. Jakob had never told her he loved her, only that he needed her, desired her, wanted her. She fulfilled the needs of his body, but perhaps not those of his heart.
"No," she whispered. The tack room blurred in her vision. Emily was having a baby.A baby that should rightfully be hers? Only days ago she'd told him a child didn't matter anymore. But she'd fallen in love with him. Hopelessly, fiercely, foolishly in love with him, and it did matter. It mattered very much.
Mortified, she recalled Jakob's words that first time. "I'm sorry to tell you," he had replied in disgust, "but it's not that easy. It sometimes takes many times."
Her head snapped up. She sucked in her breath. Many times. With Emily?
Anton met her eyes. "You okay?"
"No." She pushed her weight away from the worktable. "I don't know if I can forgive them."
"I'm sorry."
She should just go to him and ask him. Shouldn't she? But she couldn't bear to confront him and have him confess it to her face. She would die of hurt and humiliation.
Tears choked her throat, and she couldn't speak. She nodded and stumbled from the barn. A chill wind snaked inside the open front of her jacket, but she didn't notice. How could she watch Emily grow larger and larger with Jakob's child? How could she look at Emily again? How could she see that burgeoning mound under Emily's ample breasts without imagining Jakob planting his seed within her? Shock and disappointment sickened her.
Impossible.
Lydia had been woefully ignorant of human nature before she'd come here. Jakob had lied by omission. Lydia tripped on the wooden porch stairs and caught her balance.
Did Jakob know the child belonged to him? Maybe he didn't know. She couldn't be the one to tell him.
She steadied herself against a column, picturing Emily that first day in the bakefront, how beautiful she'd been.
Lydia gripped the back-door handle. It was too much to consider. She couldn't stay. She had to leave so she could think.
"I took your crullers out of the oven." Annette looked up from the steaming flatiron in her hand. "Lydia! What's wrong?"
Lydia shook her head, ran past her, clambered up the stairs. Flinging open the storage door in the room she shared with Jakob, she grabbed her worn leather satchel.
"Lydia? What are you doing?"
Blindly she yanked gray dresses from their hangers and folded them carelessly.
"Lydia!"
She straightened from the floor, and carried a pair of shoes to the satchel lying open on the bed. "I'm leaving."
"Where are you going?"
Finally Lydia turned and looked at her sister-in-law, saw the pain and worry etched into her lovely face. "Where am I going?" She had no idea where was she going. She had nowhere to go. With her grandmother gone, there was no one in Accord. She couldn't go back there now. She had nothing and nowhere to run to. But she had Jakob and Emily to run from. "I don't know. It doesn't matter."
"Why, then? Why are you leaving?"
"Because I can't stay here any longer. Jakob doesn't love me. He never did."
"I can't believe that."
"I have to get away and think." Lydia opened a drawer. The green kid belt and white spangled fan mocked her. No doubt the gifts had eased his conscience. She'd brought nothing to this marriage with her; she would take nothing when she left.
Digging beneath lacy handkerchiefs, she found the silver coins he'd given her. Except these. She needed the coins until she found a job, a means of supporting herself, but she would pay him back. Hastily she tossed the last of her belongings in the bag and closed it.
"Lydia, please don't do this—" Annette's voice broke, and she stretched forward a hand, pleadingly, entreatingly. "You're frightening me."
Lydia hugged her. Her unrealistic dreams had been shattered. "Thank you for being my friend, for everything. Take good care of the baby. You'll be a wonderful mother."
Fleeing down the stairs, she ignored Annette's tearful question. "What will I tell Jakob?"
Jakob returned for the noon meal and glanced around. "Where's Lydia?"
Annette set a platter of biscuits on the table and turned away. "I can't say for sure."
Jakob sat, grabbed a biscuit and took a bite. "What do you mean? I didn't see her outside, so she's either upstairs or in the pantry. Root cellar, maybe?"
"No. She's none of those places."
Neither Emily nor Anton had come to eat either. Annette attended to Nikolaus in the high chair. Jakob glanced from his father to Franz. They looked as puzzled over the unusual circumstances as Jakob. The room seemed unusually large and quiet without the other family members. "Well, then, where is she?"
"I told you, I can't say for sure."
The biscuit stuck in his throat, and he swallowed. "But you know she's not here?"
"Yes."
Confused, he persisted. "Annie, will you please tell me what you do know?"
She faced the sink, but her hands lay idle on the side. "She's gone. That's all I know."
A nagging uneasiness wound his nerves taut. His sister-in-law's evasiveness disturbed him. The whole atmosphere of the house felt wrong.
He jumped up, bolted up the stairs two at a time and flung open their bedroom door, surveying the room. It was clean and quiet, only a corner of the bed's coverlet rumpled.
In the storage closet under the eaves, her green and yellow dresses hung side by side on the wire he'd placed there for her. Her gray dresses were gone, as was her satchel. An unbearable ache knotted his chest.
Her hairbrush and pins were missing from the washstand. The faint scent of lavender lingered from her morning bath, sending apprehension curling through his belly. His misgivings stabbed a withering blow to the very core of his being. His heart thudded dully, painfully. Where was she?
Like a madman yanking open drawers, he discovered the gifts he'd bought her in the cities. Stockings, bracelet, belt, hankies, all of it lay in mute, mocking silence. Fear chilled him, and his heart thudded against his rib cage.
He surveyed the room they'd shared the past months, confused. Her Bible was gone from the night table. Alarmed, he opened the lid and stared into her empty trunk. His knees quaked, and he sank to the bed's edge.
Gone.
Lydia was gone.
But where? Why? Last night they had made splendid, all-consuming love on this bed. He'd slept with her bare limbs entwined with his, and awakened to the scent of her hair beneath his nose. This morning she'd kissed him so boisterously, he'd had to force himself out of the room and down to breakfast or he'd have taken her back to bed and learned new ways to pleasure her. The last look they had exchanged over coffee had held a promise for the night ahead. Tonight. Where would she be tonight if he didn't find her? What had happened between this morning and now?
Coming unglued, Jakob stalked from the room, his boots thundering on the stairs.
"What the hell is going on?" he shouted at the Neubauers sitting at the trestle table.
Johann glanced up as if his youngest son had shown up for dinner stark naked. Franz angled a look toward his wife.
Annette stood at the sink where Jakob had left her, her fingers grippin
g the edge. Slowly she turned and faced Jakob. Her tawny eyes revealed pain and a trace of tears, intensifying his apprehension.
"Where is she?" Jakob asked again, trying to keep his voice normal.
The screen door squeaked, and Anton entered the kitchen, drawing up short, as if automatically sensing the room's tension.
Annette met Jakob's eyes. Almost imperceptibly she nodded toward his brother, the gesture saying, "There's your answer."
"Where is Lydia?" Jakob growled again, this time directing the query at Anton.
Anton closed the door behind him. "I told her."
"Told her what?"
"About the baby."
"What baby?"
"Yours and Emily's."
Infinitely confused, Jakob shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you and my wife."
"Wha-at?" Jakob choked.
"Don't deny it. Emily told me."
"Told you what?"
"That the baby is yours."
"Have you lost your mind?" Jakob shook his head again, trying to clear his thoughts. Emily had told Anton that he had gotten her pregnant? He gawked at Anton in surprise, and sensed embarrassment scorching his cheeks. The accusation seemed almost incestuous
Anton studied him. Jakob didn't recognize the dull despondency in his brother's eyes.
Jakob's body went slack with hurt and disbelief. "And you believed her?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, I believed her. There's been something wrong between us for as long as I know."
"And you think it's me." A creeping numbness had set in, and Jakob focused his attention on trying to understand what his brother had to say. "You know me better than that."
Anton glanced toward his father and Franz. "She said it. I believed it."
"And you told Lydia what she said?"
Anton nodded, obviously a little less certain of his possession of the truth.
"And she believed it, too." It was a statement of fact, not a question. Jakob grappled with the information, a tumult of emotions whirling for prominence within him. Fury. Panic. Grief.
Anton placed both hands over the lower half of his face and dragged them downward. "I made a mistake, didn't I?"
The two brothers stared at one another. No words were going to erase the harm that had been done. Jakob ached inside and out. His own brother had believed him an adulterer.
Filled with pain, and a rage so intense he couldn't see clearly, he squeezed his eyes shut. Emily had lied to Anton, and Anton believed her. After growing up side by side with him, sharing work, faith and home, Anton thought him capable of such a thing? His pride and honor were riddled with withering injury.
And Lydia... That she thought him capable of such an act after what they'd shared was the ultimate betrayal. He had been betrayed by her disbelief. Where was her childlike faith? Where was her trust? Where was she?
"I have to find her."
"She took Carolina," Anton offered.
"You let her take a horse?" Jakob's temper had reached the boiling point. "You broke her heart with a lie, and watched her go? You son of a—" Jakob drew back, gathering every ounce of anger and frustration, and hurtled his fist into Anton's jaw with bone-crunching ferocity.
"Jakob!" Annette cried.
Sprawled on the floor, where Jakob's savage blow landed him, Anton rolled to his back and threw an arm across his eyes. When he pulled it away, Jakob read the misery in his haunted eyes.
At the sight, he adjusted his senses from seething to determined. He unclenched his fists, and his vision cleared. Anger wouldn't do any good. He took a deep breath, regret already consuming him. Why take his frustration out on his brother? There wasn't any time to waste on Anton. He had to find Lydia. His wife was gone, and he had to go after her. There was only one place she could have gone—Accord.
Grabbing his hat and jacket, he slammed the door behind him and left his family gaping.
Chapter 23
Roiling gray clouds obliterated the sun, and the temperature was dropping. Ominous thunder split the heavens, and Carolina sidestepped, shudders rippling down her withers. Lydia tightened the reins and spoke to her mount, hoping to comfort herself. Lightning branded the sky.
Never had Lydia been so frightened. She'd been in a rush to escape before Jakob returned or she came face-to-face with Emily. Now she recalled Johann's and Jakob's warnings about the hazards of travel. She was vulnerable without the gun they'd coached her to carry. The guns belonged to the Neubauers, however, and she wouldn't have taken one, even if she'd thought to.
The wind whipped Lydia's scarf from her head, and she tugged it back up, her cold hands fumbling with the woolen square under her chin. Carolina plodded on, following the direction Lydia prayed was taking them to Butler. She was hungry. If she didn't come upon the town soon, she'd have to stop and spend the night out in the open. In the morning she would find the town. Already this plan didn't seem as wise as it once had.
Her mind wouldn't grant her peace. What about Jakob's reaction when he found her gone? Would he be annoyed? Guilty? Relieved?
What about Emily. She thought she'd seen the lace curtains in Emily's room fall back into place as she'd steadied Carolina against the fence rail and mounted.
Tears filled her eyes again. How unfair of Jakob to plant her in his family and allow her to care for them. How doubly unfair that he'd entreated her to love him from her soul, when he couldn't return the emotion.
Lightning forked across the darkened sky, followed by distant thunder. Carolina shied, and Lydia wished she had brought the more docile, less skittish Freida.
"Easy, girl," she said to the horse and to herself. To the heavens she petitioned, "sie Gott, be with me. Guide my way."
Her entire life, she'd been taken care of, provided for—first by her father and the colony, and later by Jakob. Now she had only herself and God to depend on.
Minutes later, her prayer was answered by a sound. She reined in Carolina so that she could listen. The noise was something man-made. She cocked her head and listened again. An off-key piano. Digging her heels into the horse's sides, she galloped toward the sound. Relief swept through her at the lights she spotted ahead. Now she would find a place for the night!
"Thank you, God. You alone never let me down."
Jakob jerked the collar of his slicker up under his ears and adjusted his dripping Stetson. Rain had pelted him for the last half hour, most of it managing to find its way down his collar to soak his shirt. He didn't know who he was angrier with now, Emily for the abominable lie, his brother for passing it on, or Lydia for believing it and causing him this grief.
Reining Gunter to a halt on the narrow brick street, he looped the reins around the post of the nearest gas lamp. He dreaded an encounter with Etham Beker, but he had to find Lydia. He glanced at the second-story windows. A dim glow shone from only one. The children would be asleep. Was his wife lying on a cot next to her sister? What would he say to her?
Fortified by indignation, Jakob loped up the walkway. His loud knock echoed into the night. Silent seconds passed. He pounded again, rousing a sound from inside.
The door opened, and Etham Beker filled the doorway, dressed in black pants and a gray shirt. It was the first time Jakob had seen him without his white shirt and tie. Etham drew himself up. He wasn't as tall as Jakob, yet with his black hair, beard and supercilious expression, he was an imposing figure. He didn't invite Jakob in out of the rain.
"I want to see Lydia."
No expression marred Etham's sober face.
"I want to see my wife."
"Beg a pardon, Herr Neubauer," Lydia's father said, his words clipped. "You have misplaced your wife?"
His words chafed Jakob's already well-abraded temperament. He stared into those fathomless black eyes and swallowed his humiliation. "My sister-in-law did something that hurt Lydia. She left the farm this afternoon, and I thought she would come here."
Etham Beker had the gra
ce to look concerned. "Nein. She is not here." He seemed to read the disbelief on Jakob's face. "I do not lie." Resignedly he took a step backward, opening the door into the dimly lit kitchen. "You will have to see for yourself."
Unspoken between them was the memory of Jakob's gun leveled at Vater Beker's chest. Tracking mud over the immaculate kitchen floor, Jakob stopped midway.
Christine Beker stepped from the hallway and spotted him. A long, fair braid fell across her shoulder and across the front of the wool robe she wore. Soft curls hung at her ears and forehead, giving her a young, pretty look.
"Herr Neubauer?" Worry erased the soft look and wrinkled her forehead. "Is something wrong? Has something happened to Lydia?"
Jakob's heart fell in his chest. Lydia wasn't here! It was obvious that her Mutter was surprised by his appearance. Immediately he regretted causing her concern. "I'm sorry, Frau Beker. I was sure she'd be here."
Confusion and worry coiled a tight knot of tension in Jakob's belly. Lydia knew the way to Accord. She may have fallen or been hurt or attacked somewhere along the way. He had carefully looked for signs of her passing, but he wasn't much of a tracker. He should double back and look more carefully, in case she lay bleeding or unconscious. Where else would she go?
"What is it?" Lydia's mother asked.
"I'm sure she's okay. She probably just went to our neighbors'."
"Did you—have a misunderstanding?" she asked hesitantly.
That was an understatement. "Sort of." He turned back toward the door. "I have to find her."
"Jakob." When she spoke his name, he stopped.
He turned back and glanced between her and her husband—the one fair as daybreak, the other dark as midnight.
"You will let me know that she is safe?"
Etham remained silent, and Jakob was grateful. He managed a smile for Christine. "I'll let you know."
He stepped back into the rain and considered the only other possibility. Butler. She couldn't have gotten any farther than that.
Though he wanted to spur the horse to a run, Jakob didn't dare, for fear the animal would lose his footing in the mud or stumble in a hole in the dark. The slow pace was doubly frustrating. Despite the slicker, he was soon wet to the skin, out of sorts and heavy hearted.
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 26