The woman snorted. “Never a day! Or my name’s not Mary Clark!”
Abbigail retreated to her room, wishing she could bury herself in counterpanes and quilts. She had kissed that thief, that womanizer, with all her heart.
Heaven help her bear the shame of facing him tomorrow.
The shame of her father’s unyielding vendetta. For Sister Benigna, ministering angel that she was, had had no effect on that.
The shame of loving Nicholas still, in spite of his wanderings.
Abbigail barely slept a wink, too filled with misery and jealousy and, most shameful of all, anticipation. For whatever Nicholas had done with that slatternly red-haired woman, Abbigail wanted to see him again, to exonerate him from her father’s accusations, to see for herself that he was safe.
Well before first light, Mary Clark tapped lightly on their door. “Coach’ll be ready in a quarter hour. I made ye a bite to eat.”
The busy buxom woman was good at her work. Probably at all aspects of her work. Abbigail buried her head in a pillow stuffed with musky straw and wished her to the devil. But the clatter and bustle of travelers below forced her from her bed.
Mary Clark caught her at the bottom of the narrow stairs and took in her ravaged face. “Blast me, miss, I only meant to tease, not vex you over Nicholas,” she confessed, her good heart shining in her face. “He is a lusty one, but true in his own heart, I’d swear it.”
“Not true to me,” Abbigail said.
Mary Clark cocked a brow in disagreement. “’Twas plain as day that the man’s heart was all bound up with someone else.”
Catharina. Abbigail smothered a sob of desolation and fled to the coach. All bound up, indeed. In love and, likely now, in marriage. But she’d known of his allegiance for some time, hadn’t she? She gathered up the pieces of her solitary spinster heart and vowed to face him-if she must face him-like a distant friend.
Catharina did not need the cold, mean September drizzle that set in after her wedding to dampen her spirits further. A gentle heart, a peaceful soul, she had never felt quite the mix of misery that churned in her stomach as she and her husband of an hour entered the one-room log cabin that was their new home. Catharina Baumgarten Blum’s home.
The wrong Brother Blum, her dream gone up in smoke.
How to lay a dream to rest?
Oh, Nicholas. If only the image of his wounded face had not followed her here. If only the thought of him did not still pull at her heart. If only she had had the nerve to say no to the Elders, no to her mother. No to Matthias Blum. She rehearsed her mother’s litany: She would come to love him, she believed in time she could.
Here, in their new home. Around town, this cabin was fondly called The Hatchery. Newlyweds lived here until their broods outgrew it. Young families of the sort that she and Matthias would be expected to produce. Her heart put in an extra panicky beat. Love him or not, she was his wife.
Stone-faced but courteous, Matthias held open the plain plank door without touching her. Her heart sank. She had lost Nicholas and his brother over one reckless, disastrous kiss. During the wedding and the feast afterward, Matthias had not left her side. Hope had blossomed that he would put his hurt aside.
He had not.
Dull evening light cloaked the little room in shadows, and sweet-scented flowers bloomed in a vase on the mantel. The Single Sisters had scrubbed the modest cabin clean, but Catharina took no comfort in this bower for her wedding night.
Without a word, her new husband headed for the hearth. Banked coals glowed against an unexpected September chill that rose from the cabin’s tamped dirt floor. She crossed her arms over the stiffness of her new linsey-woolsey wedding dress. He fanned the fire, then ht a reed and proceeded around the room, striking up pools of light that banished the gloom.
She watched in dread. She had never been alone with a man at night. She watched, entranced. Despite the stains he tried to hide, his hands were strong and manly, yet shaped as if the Sculptor of Creation had molded them for grace and elegance. One hand held the reed and the other curled protectively around the flame as he paced the room. His long strides and great height shrank the little space they shared.
How would they ever fit together here on their current awkward terms of distrust and error? And with her thoughts of Matthias’s affront and Nicholas’s desire settling like shadows in the corners of the room. She said a silent prayer to vanquish Nicholas from her thoughts.
Matthias lit the lantern that swung above the hearth and moved on. On the sturdy oak table in the center of the room, two expensive beeswax candles flared, revealing more of the Sisters’ preparations. They had laid a late repast of sweetcakes, Strudel, a jug of fresh fall cider, and a flask no doubt containing brandy made of peaches, from the orchard out behind her mother’s farm. The orchard where she and Nicholas…
She wrung her hands in dismay; she had to let him go.
Matthias was her reality now. Before Nicholas came home, she had been content with the Lot’s decree. In faith, she was determined to make her marriage work, to make amends, to make Matthias happy he had chosen her. If only they could muddle past yesterday’s disaster. Her head spun at the thought. Seeing Nicholas had been sweet And kissing him sweeter–for one moment But being caught with him had mortified her. And seeing Matthias’s pain … She had never known remorse like this.
He lit a cobbler’s glass beside their cushioned chair, and the snug little room brightened till it almost hurt her eyes. Then the brilliance mellowed, cloaking them in a golden glow that recalled her lifelong dream of having her own cozy home.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, awed.
An odd look strained across his face. “’Tis but a one-room cabin.”
“I never had a room to myself.”
“You don’t now,” he said stiffly.
“Oh!” she said, flustered, desperate to think of a more proper thing to say. “I only meant…”
A slight, civil smile softened Matthias’s expression. “I know what you meant. We have spent our lives squeezed in with families, then crowded into dormitories with Single Brothers and Sisters. At home you no doubt shared a room with Maria, and I had”—the handsome planes of his face, marked by the candlelight, went stark-“Nicholas,” he concluded harshly.
Dismayed, she tightened her arms around her bosom. Nicholas would always be a fact of their lives. But how to assure his brother, her husband, of her commitment to her vows? How to assure herself? Gathering her courage, she circled the laden table to Matthias’s side. Boldly, she laid her hand on the deep cuff of his dark sleeve.
“Brother Blum-Matthias,” she corrected herself. “We cannot banish him from our past or cast him out of our thoughts.”
He stared at her hand as if it were a snake. “I would cast him to the devil.”
She stood her ground. “I vow to you that he does not deserve that.”
His dark features twisted. “I do not deserve this.”
No, he did not. Her heart moved with unexpected sympathy. Would to God she could have spared him this. They could have started properly, happily. They could be finding joy in one another, could begin to build the little family-no, the large one-that was all her heart’s desire.
“None of us do,” she whispered, bringing her hand back to the relative safety of her own body.
For one tense breathing moment, he searched her eyes. “No,” he agreed. “You deserve … better.” And taking up a book-a book! on their wedding night-he sat in the cushioned chair and began to read by the generous light of the cobbler’s glass.
She fidgeted. What was she to do with herself? With him?
Her new husband would not touch her; he spurned her, hated her.
The small clock on the mantel chimed a late hour. Feeling more awkward than ever in her life, she walked the few steps to the low rope bed and began her nightly ablutions. The Single Sisters had been here, too, setting out scented soap, rosewater, and an embroidered handcloth, rare among the Brethre
n’s women. She was touched by their thoughtfulness, and miserably self-conscious.
It did not help one whit that her husband turned his back to her. He did not seem to notice the splash of water as she washed her face and hands for bed.
Nicholas would have looked. She was sure of that She squelched that errant thought with savage determination. She didn’t want him looking at her now, she realized in a flash. Truly. She had made righteous vows to another man.
With a shiver of anticipation, she sat on the fresh counterpane. It was a gift from her mother, kept in a treasured hope chest begun when Catharina was four teen. She ran her fingers over the fine ridging of its appliqué.
They were shaking.
Bending forward, she unlaced her best Sunday shoes, polished this morning to a fare-thee-well. The second shoe slipped from her hand and thunked onto the clean-swept dirt floor. Not even for this did her husband’s dark head look up from the thick German tome.
Torn between rejection and relief, she unlaced her bodice, untied her skirt, and stepped out of it and the extra petticoats she had worn to the wedding.
Heat splintered through her body. She had never undressed in front of a man. But she had imagined it. Had imagined someone removing every pin, tie, lace, stay, and buckle, slipping every stitch of gauze and batiste and linen off her.
Had imagined someone’s hands on her.
Matthias’s hands, stained but strong and beautiful. The thought did not displease her.
Still, he did not turn around to see. Even so, once she had stripped down to her shift, she hesitated to change it for the one made for her wedding night. Instead, she opened the heavy paper wrappings, cringing each time the paper crinkled. He had to hear, he had to know. His own sisters had made the gown and given it to her with pomp and circumstance … and sly, delighted giggles.
And she had planned to be so proud to be their sister, to be the first to make them aunts. That hope lay sodden in her chest. For her to become a mother, her husband would have to take an interest in her. Her heart twinged with hurt. She took out the gown anyway and spread its fine linen across her lap.
Oh, it was beautiful, creamy white and fresh as dawn. Four pairs of hands had stitched for days to create the confection. Its delicate tucks would just show off her breasts. Discreet tatting would outline her throat. And at the hem, she found–flounces! How daring! How unlike the sisters’ usual dress, plain for generations. She could have smiled.
She could have cried. With a surge of anger, she pulled the fine linen on and fluffed the fabric out around her like a tent. Then she contrived to step out of her plain shift with perfect modesty. Had he been looking, she thought with injured pride, he would not have seen a thing!
He wasn’t looking. He was going to sit there till dawn. She had to go to sleep, but would not let him dismiss her without even a good night.
Pulling on her wrapper, she padded softly to his chair, gathering her courage. “’Tis time for bed,” she said. But her voice cracked.
He looked up then, his gaze traveling the length of her body, lingering, devouring, then pointedly avoiding. She shifted uncomfortably, then lifted her chin. Hurt and hunger warred in the sky-blue depths of his eyes. Let him take her, she thought, willing him to let the barriers down.
His eyes lowered like shutters, barring night. “You go on. You’re tired.”
“’Tis our wedding night!” she cried. The words just came out, pinched and wet with unshed tears of aggravation.
He lay the large heavy book on the small table, open, and stood up. To her rattled senses, he towered over her.
“So it is,” he said mildly. Ever so gently, he inclined his head and kissed her cheek.
As if she were his little sister! A gasp of protest lodged in her throat.
“And I bid you a good night,” he added in a controlled masculine rumble that fired her senses, even as it enflamed her heart. Then he sat down and picked up his blasted book!
Catharina knew herself to be the mildest of mild souls, and so she did not know whence came either the notion or the nerve to do what she did next. Taking a ladderback chair from the old oak table, she put it in front of him and sat down with a purpose. “We cannot start this way. You do not understand.”
He pressed his lips together. Quite nice lips, she noted, even thinned with resistance. Then he spoke with maddening detachment “But I do. You love my brother-”
“No, I-”
“You gave every appearance of loving him. And my brother loves you. For me to have … relations with you as my bride is untenable. Unconscionable.”
Untenable? Unconscionable? Catharina’s head spun. He hadn’t listened to her, and she didn’t understand those smart Blum words.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He crossed his arms, closing her out with his formal address. “I am an ordinary man, Sister Catharina. Plainspoken and true. I never had my brother’s charm, his way of making friends, his ease with women. All my life I’ve fought wanting to be him. Wanting to have his place in my father’s heart, in my sisters’ eyes. ‘Twas envy, plain and simple, low and mean.” His mouth twisted, more with self-reproach, she thought, than the envy he regretted. Understanding touched her heart, and his words sparked hope. Among her schoolgirl friends, such confessions promised greater intimacy
“’Tis a great irony, then, is it not?” he went on in the same dark tone. “I cannot bring myself to bed the woman he loves. The woman who loved him.”
Never? she wanted to ask, the instant she recovered from his blunt admission. Are there no prospects for us? But she feared his answer.
“I pledged myself to you, not him,” she said instead.
His brow furrowed, control broke. “I saw you kissing him. I heard what he said. If you were not lovers, you soon would be.”
Anger stiffened her spine. Never would she have so abandoned virtue. “Then why did you not call our wedding off?”
For heart-stopping moments, he went absolutely still. Light from the cobbler’s glass danced across his face. She wanted to touch it, touch him with the dismay and tenderness she felt for his dilemma.
“I can live with our marriage, but I could not expose you,” he said at last. “I could not have lived with bringing you dishonor. Nor even him.”
“A simple kiss is no dishonor.”
He smiled politely, his meaning closed to her again. “So you say.”
A moan of indignation escaped her, and an alarming realization. “I can never prove my innocence to you.”
“You proved it. Both of you.”
“But you married me. We are the ones who are married, you and I.”
That smile again. Its perfect control chilled her. “So we are. In Christian charity.”
“Matthias! Please. I want a family. Children. Happiness.”
He looked at her, blinking, sadly, as if to say, So did I. But he had regained his mild demeanor, his perfect control. And he dismissed her by simply taking up his book.
She went to bed while he still read, pulling up the counterpane while the light still glowed. He was too perfectly in control of his emotions, of his life. Whereas she had bumbled badly. She hadn’t meant to, but she was paying nonetheless. She would pay no more. She would bring perfection to his household, and somehow win him over.
Her perfect husband had just gotten himself a perfect bride.
19
“Nicky! Are you in there?”
“Nicky, Mama sent us!” The twins clattered up the plank steps and banged through the door of Nicholas Blum’s tin shop. In five long days of tedious work since Sunday’s festivities, he had realized that he had no future but as a humble tinsmith. He was a man without a trade he cared for. A Single Brother still. A man without a bride. In time he might get over losing Catharina, but he missed the merchant’s life.
Or was it the friendship of the tiny tyrant who had trained him for it? No matter. On firing him, Till had made it clear he would never take him back.
&
nbsp; His sisters swept into the smoky front room of his shop, their Little Girls’ skirts swirling dust devils of metal filings into the air. Beneath the light of one frugal candle, he hastily scooped his afternoon’s work into a drawer to keep them from seeing. Their birthday was coming up next week, and he was making miniature cups and saucers, a teapot, sugar caddy, and creamer so they could set a pretty table for their dolls. His work was exacting. But it beat repairing lanterns, wash basins, and sugar boxes in his new side trade as tinkerer to the universe, his once-large world shrunk to the narrow confines of his shop. The harmonies of Singstunde ended, and he hid here from a jewel-toned mid-September evening under the setting sun.
If truth be told, he was hiding from reminders of his folly in coming home to rescue his stolen bride. If his luck held, it might be days before he ran into the newly married couple about the town. Never mind that avoiding them meant skipping services and risking further censure. He refused to worry about that.
The twins sniffed around the room like curious puppies, their ever-present dolls trailing from their hands. Christina admired a mended kettle. Margaretha claimed his lap.
“We have a secret,” she said.
Despite his glum mood, he chuckled. “’Twill be no secret if you tell me.”
She primmed her mouth. “Then we won’t tell.”
“We have to, silly,” said Christina, the serious one, so like Matthias as a boy that Nicholas almost shivered. Heaven forbid that his beloved sisters should ever come to such an impasse as his and his brother’s.
“Maybe I’ll tell and maybe I won’t,” Margaretha chanted, tempting him to banter.
Whatever their purpose, he welcomed their arrival. It broke the exile he had sought in the day since his brother’s triumph. Still it rankled to sit here with nothing for company but his own stupidity. He had closed his shop for the day.
“Dare you,” he challenged, sure of Margaretha’s response. The twins were now the only females who looked up to him-and the only ones he wanted to look at.
Except for one so far away he couldn’t hope to see her.
His Stolen Bride Page 19