Anne followed her mother to the wash tub, so preoccupied with Josiah she failed to notice her mother fussing with her clothing.
“You are a mess, Child. Wherever have you been, gone all night? That boy—”
Anne jerked from her mother’s touch. “I will see to my own dress, thank you.”
Her mother drew sharp pause.
Anne bristled, though she sought a soothing tone. “I am more than capable of seeing to my own garments. Perhaps you can help with the bath water?”
The words seemed to appease her mother, who frowned but left Anne alone behind the curtain.
Anne worked free of her clothing, her heart and mind on what she and Josiah had shared. Would it always be so wonderful? She prayed so. A look down at her naked body left her wondering if she somehow looked different. Would her mother be able to tell? A small bruise had appeared on her left breast, and at once she revisited Josiah’s tender, greedy explorations—his mouth tasting her freely, his hands everywhere at once. The thrill that shot through her was completely inappropriate for the light of day, but she relished in it nonetheless.
“What is this?” Her mother stood holding a pot of water, but her attention was downcast to Anne’s bare breast.
She quickly moved her hand from where it lingered. She had hoped to hide the bruise, but also the way she had absently retraced Josiah’s caress. Touching oneself was expressly forbidden—a sure sign of the devil’s temptation into evil—and though Anne had not done so with intention, her mother’s watchful eye would see what it wanted.
Anne feared she had already seen too much.
Her mother poured water into the tub. “Where did you stay the night?”
Anne touched the water, finding it to be a bit cold. Nevertheless, she stepped into the tub, folding herself into its bottom. Reaching for the soap, she said, “In an old cabin just off the road. The storm grew quite fierce, so we found shelter.”
Her mother’s face dark with suspicion, she asked, “You could not shelter here?”
“The weather grew treacherous. We chose to get off the path.”
“Your path is precisely my concern.”
Anne met her stare evenly. “You need not worry, for my future is sure.”
Her mother’s countenance turned tight and angry. “I warned you of getting too close to that boy. I forbade it.”
“He is no boy, Mother, but a man. And I intend to marry him.”
“Speak it not, child. Just because he offered…comfort one night does not mean he is an honorable man worthy of your hand. By the look of you, I suspect it means quite the opposite. I am ashamed. My own daughter, involved with a drifter.”
Anger flared along with her defenses. “He is no drifter. He is college educated. He came here not adrift, but with great purpose.”
Her mother’s eyes flashed her ire. “He has made you impure with his lies. He can have no great purpose if he came in need of employ, and his education cannot be worth much. Why would he see to our repairs if he had greater abilities? He is nothing, child, and even less if he has soiled you.”
“You are wrong. Dead wrong. Josiah loves me, as I do him. As I have for years.”
Anne’s pronouncement drew her mother’s sharp attention. “What do you mean, as you have for years?”
“He is my friend and Samuel’s.”
The words were met with something far different from the surprise Anne expected. Her mother reacted not with relief or sadness, but with utter defeat.
“He is Josiah Cromwell, Mother, and he is not here to find employ, but to seek my hand. He wanted only to prove himself to you first.”
All the fight seemed to flee. Looking as if she had just aged a great many years, her mother shook her head. Her voice thick and tired, she said, “I feared he might be the same. But Anne. Your hand? No matter that he found his way into your skirts—he will be granted no such thing.”
“But Mother! He is a wonderful, skilled man. He can help Father with the repairs, and he has a good head for business. He is the ideal match. Surely you do not wait for a man of great fortune to stop at our meager inn in search of a peasant wife!” Her father’s assurance that a match had been found came to her, a harsh and bitter reminder. But it would not stand. Josiah was the one for her.
“Anne, you misunderstand. It is not Josiah’s station that makes him an improper match.”
Anne’s indignity came not from the fact she sat in an inch of cold bathwater, but from the terrible injustice of her mother’s words. Her tone biting, Anne spat, “Then what is left? Why do you judge him so harshly?”
“Because he is not who he claims.”
“What do you mean? He is precisely the same Josiah I knew as a child.”
Her mother shook her head. “He cannot love you if he has kept the truth from you.”
“What truth, Mother? What has he kept from me?”
“Samuel. This man you claim you love…killed your brother.”
Chapter Thirteen
Josiah waited outside for a long while, half expecting to hear shouting from inside. When it did not come, he circled the inn on foot before letting himself through the front door. The Scudders were nowhere to be seen—and not a sound to be heard—but the old woman sat in place. He still could not find comfort with her presence, but inexplicably, she seemed to beckon him.
Something in her eyes leached understanding.
Josiah turned a nearby chair and faced her. “You know my name,” he said.
The old woman’s eyes bore into him. After a long moment, she offered a slow, slight tip of her head. In the barest of whispers, she said, “Cromwell.”
Josiah’s heart thundered, but he had nothing to lose. “You know of my past?”
“Verity.”
Verity? Or verily? The difference was everything. Now truly shaken, he said, “You…you know of my mother?”
“Ye.”
Yes? Or did she address him as you? Oh, how his head pounded. Suddenly Josiah’s past with Samuel seemed the least of his worries. “What do you know of my mother?”
“Gone.”
“She died some years ago, yes.”
“Not just dead,” the old woman said. “Hanged as a witch.”
Josiah’s last pieces of hope fell to the ground and shattered. No one knew of his mother’s execution. He had been but an infant at the time of her death, and while his father assured him he had hidden the truth from common knowledge, he had warned Josiah of his lineage—a lineage that had become terribly dangerous in light of the current events in Salem Village. Had he fathomed it could really come back to him he would have stayed as far from Anne as possible, even before he knew of Elizabeth’s conviction. Certainly after. Hadn’t that secret died with his father? Records seemed to indicate that to be the case. Until recently, there had been no reported witchcraft hangings in New England since 1663.
Josiah’s head spun. It was evident his mother’s execution had not been sanctioned by the court, nor had her killers been prosecuted by one. The circumstances were their own tragedy, but they made this old woman’s knowledge all the more shocking. With her advanced years she could have witnessed the events just two decades prior, but had there been witnesses, he expected the account would have been documented somewhere, somehow. With witnesses, his mother could not have been so callously erased. His father had sounded so sure…
Josiah’s thoughts tumbled into one another. Had he ever known the truth?
He looked over his shoulder, and seeing or hearing nothing of the Scudders, he turned back to the woman and asked, “Do you know why she was hanged?”
“She fought.”
He sat back, not ready to leave this woman, but not expecting her to go on. Susannah Scudder indicated the woman did not speak at all, yet she had already spoken volumes. Her words, though few, had changed him considerably.
“A young girl with a babe. You.”
Startled, Josiah looked up from a study of his own hands. Leaning forward, he nodded
and met the woman’s deep green eyes. “Yes, I am her only child.”
“She had a friend.” The woman looked over his shoulder in the direction of the cooking room, though not a sound drifted from elsewhere in the house. “She felt the betrayal.”
“She betrayed a friend?”
The old woman shook her head.
“A friend betrayed her?”
“Her friend did not come to her aid.”
“Is that why my mother died? Because of betrayal?”
“Things are seldom as they seem,” the old woman said, her attention drifting to the window.
Josiah wanted to shout at her—to ask how she could know such things—but he tamped down his turmoil and forced himself to listen at the slow, painful pace she granted him. At least she managed to string together sentences.
“Guilt is a terrible burden.”
He swallowed, knowing all too well that truth. “Please,” he begged. “Who carries this guilt?”
“I will not say, but you should know this, Josiah Cromwell.”
He waited, the whole of his world weighed on her next words.
“She knows your lineage. She knows who you are.”
Who? Who knew?
The old woman placed a withered hand on his arm. “She will protect hers at any price.”
“Who will?”
Brilliant green eyes peered at him imploringly. “If you stay here, you will ruin her.”
The warning sent a terrifying chill down his spine. He could easily dismiss the woman’s ludicrous threat if not for her unexplained knowledge of his mother. No one had mentioned his mother to him in years.
“Josiah.”
This time, the voice was sure. Clear. And that of his beloved Anne. He rose, a bit unsteadied by her bleak tone. Hours had passed since she had shared her body with him, promising her love and a future despite the odds. Her auburn hair had been wild, her forest green eyes bright with desire. Now, she stood somber. She had clearly bathed, and those reckless strands were pulled in a neat, severe bun at her nape. Her rumpled, muddy clothing had been traded for fresh, clean attire. Though she was still lovely, she exhibited absolutely no warmth. He could not help but wonder at her cold regard.
Had she learned of his lineage?
She stood stiffly, her face etched with pain. “I have a query, and I need assurance you will tell me the truth, no matter the cost.”
Though her words struck him with dread, he would no more lie to her than he would die by his own hand. “Always,” he said, bracing himself for a topic that had not been broached for more than a decade. How would he tell her he was indeed descended from a woman executed for witchcraft? If word got out, Anne herself could be accused by association—an association that had already ended at least one life. Silently, Josiah vowed he would never let that happen to Anne…even if it meant he would lose her, he would keep her sheltered from his past. “I will always tell you the truth.”
“Very well then. Did you kill Samuel?”
Josiah took a step back. He had not been prepared for such a question, and now feared greatly his shock would condemn him. But it could do no worse than the truth, for he could offer her nothing more.
“I was there.”
“Did you kill him, Josiah?” Her tears glistened, lit by the same brilliant sunlight that had shed an intimate glow over her bare, beautiful body that very morn. “Tell me the truth.”
Josiah’s heart shattered, but he had not carried guilt for so many years for naught. He had not killed him with his own hand, but by his guilt, it was all the same. Samuel would be alive if not for Josiah. “It is true,” he said. “He is dead because of me.”
The bitter shock that crossed her face was gone in an instant. He admired her strength, even as he knew it would be his downfall, and watched as she straightened. Her spine stiff and her chin held high, she said, “Please go.”
He stared at her, and though his chest ached, his thoughts fired in rapid succession and with surprising clarity. Her pain devastated him, but the accusation could not have come at a better time. She wanted him gone, and with the secrets of his past lurking far closer to the surface than he ever imagined, his only chance of keeping her safe from his lineage was to abide by her wishes. Allowing her to think so terribly of him would leave him broken, but as long as she held those beliefs she would not seek him.
And thusly she would not die because of him—because his mother had been murdered as a witch. He had but one choice. “Anne—”
“How you could not tell me this?” The smallest of cracks appeared in her façade. “All those times we spoke of my brother, yet you could not speak the truth? You spoke of loss and sorrow and never once did you accept the blame!”
“You are wrong,” he said, “for I have always carried this blame with me. I have never been free from it or denied it, nor have I prayed for its release. The guilt is my own.”
“You falsely professed to share my sorrow—”
“My sorrow is as genuine as yours.”
“But not your truth.” She bit down on her lower lip, the rise and fall of her chest visible across the room. “I cannot be with you, Josiah. I will not be with a dishonest man. There will be no future for us, and there is no place for you in this house. You need to go.”
“I could not bear to see you hurt,” Josiah said. Though he knew he had to go and must not convince her otherwise, he could not bite his tongue. “My heart and intentions have always been true.”
“If that were the case, you would have told me from the beginning. You would have told me the day he was lost.”
“What was I to say? I wanted to bring comfort, Anne. Not pain.”
“You brought nothing, Josiah. You were there and then you were gone. There was no comfort in losing you, too.”
The soft harshness of the words nearly broke his heart. “You were not mine—”
“No.” She shook her head, setting loose that strand of hair he adored. “You said it yourself. You said it while we were joined. You said I have been yours all along. Or was that another of your untruths?”
Josiah blinked. Had she really just shouted their relations for the whole of the house to hear?
“You had chance after chance to tell me the truth about Samuel, but you did not. And I will not be with a man I cannot trust. I will not be with the one who killed my brother.” Anne wiped at her eyes, but she stood true. “You need to go. Please.”
Words tempted his lips, but he stopped them. As devastating as the possibility of losing her, it was better now than after his past caught up with him. An accusation in Elizabeth’s past had led to her death, and though to his knowledge Anne was not descended from an accused witch, he could not take the chance she might be associated with one. He could beg forgiveness for Samuel’s death, but if successful, where would that lead?
To the gallows?
Salem had become a terrible place, and his secret more dangerous than he could have ever guessed. He would seek the source of the old woman’s knowledge and the truth of his mother’s death, but there was only one way to do it without risking Anne’s heart or her life.
He would have to go.
With that realization, the devastation in his heart was greater than any pain he had ever known, but he did not hesitate in giving the only piece of him he had left. “I love you,” he said. “Know that. Know that above all else.”
She stood firm, saying nothing, but her tears fell like a rain-swollen stream. And there they were, facing the brunt of the storm. He had vowed never to walk away from her, but he would deny her nothing. Not even this.
He lingered, committing every detail of her to memory, but quickly dismissed the task. He would rather carry with him the memories of their night together—of her sprawled beneath him, her body open, her soft whispers and sounds of pleasure. Those memories would have to last a lifetime, for he would love no other.
Her countenance had not broken. His Anne would not fall apart. She would offer no second chan
ces—not after his supposed betrayal.
And there at his back, in quiet observation, sat a woman—almost assuredly a relative of Anne’s—who knew the secret that would ruin not just his life, but Anne’s. He would not let Anne meet Elizabeth’s fate. He had no choice.
His heart had broken, but he would not need it.
Not where he was going.
Without another word, Josiah turned and walked out.
Chapter Fourteen
Weeks passed.
Terrible weeks.
Though Anne had sent Josiah from her life—and for good reason—she could not help but want for him. At the time of his dismissal, she had not wanted his excuses or his explanations. It was enough for her that he admitted his role in her brother’s death. But his admittance did not change the tenderness of his touch. It did not erase the look in his eyes or the promises that had spilled from his lips. It did not take her memories.
It did not heal her heart.
But her broken heart was far from her greatest worry. Anne’s monthly courses had ceased, and in the weeks since her cycle delayed she had fallen increasingly ill. Though Anne had confided in no one—not even Prudence—she harbored little doubt as to her condition.
She was with child.
At one time Anne had longed for the day she would start a family. Her young dreams had centered around Josiah, and for a brief time—perhaps even as they joined—she wanted for this very day. But Josiah was gone. He had not fought. He had simply done as she asked and disappeared from her life. And with the terrifying realization that she carried his babe, she wanted nothing more than to go back and allow him to say whatever it was she had not let him say. She could not imagine he would have actually been responsible for Samuel’s death, yet she had sent him away on that very premise. And now she was alone, and in a most shameful state.
Anne touched her hand to the gentle swell of her lower belly. Her love for Josiah had not waned. Might she tell him of his child? A warm feeling spread through her chest, but then his cold admittance cut through the warmth. Josiah had killed Samuel. He had said so himself. But why? What possible reason could there be?
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