by Jody Hedlund
She didn’t share her suspicions with anyone. But every so oft, she would catch Mary’s face turned toward her, a puzzled expression creasing her dainty features, as if she sensed something different.
As the summer days lengthened, Elizabeth waited for John night after night in her bed, her ears alert to his every move. Disappointment crashed through her each time she heard the muffled thump of his straw mat unrolling onto the floor in front of the hearth. Her heart grieved that yet another night would pass without him.
By midsummer she knew she had to face the possibility that he wouldn’t take the initiative to seek her out.
“Perchance he will find affection for me again if he knows I am carrying his child,” she whispered into the sticky air of the dark night. She lay on her back and smoothed a hand over the gently expanding roundness of her abdomen.
With a push against the sagging mattress, she peered through the crack in the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. The urge to understand his rejection rose inside her like a swift summer storm. How could she live another night not knowing why he stayed away from her?
She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat on the wooden box frame. Should she go to him? Did she dare?
Her heart pattered with an unsteady rhythm.
Before she lost courage, she slipped her bare feet to the floor and made her way across the room. Her hand shook against the door, but she pushed it open and tiptoed to where he lay.
He was tangled in a sheet. Her face flushed when she realized he wore nothing underneath the thin covering. His back faced her, and as she lowered herself to her knees, her breath caught at the sight of the splotchy scars pulling his skin taut.
Slowly, carefully, she skimmed her fingers along the edge of one of the scars. He had suffered agonizing burns during the war to dethrone the last king. He’d nearly lost his life to put the Puritans in power—all for the sake of the Gospel. Would his scars be for naught now that a new king ruled England?
The uneven skin was hot underneath her fingertips. She let the outline of the burn mark lead her fingers through the maze on his back.
His breathing grew heavier.
She ignored the urge to retreat and glided her fingers to his shoulder and down his arm. Then tossing aside all caution, she lowered her face and pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades.
He didn’t move.
Growing bolder, she brushed aside his thick hair and moved her lips to the back of his neck.
He gasped and turned. His thick arms wound around her and pulled her down to him. His chest rose and fell against her pounding heart. Then his lips chased after hers until they met in crushing passion.
“Elizabeth,” he murmured against her lips.
Pleasure rippled through her. This was what she wanted. This was where she wanted to be. “I love you.” Her declaration came out unbidden, soft and breathless.
His movements, even his breathing, ceased. He was still for a long moment, and then he struggled to sit up, pushing her away from him.
In confused desperation she reached for his hands, for his arms, for anything to keep the connection. But he strained away and shook his head. “I cannot do this, Elizabeth. I cannot.”
She sat back on her heels and bit her lip to hold back a cry of frustration.
“Go back to bed.” His voice was hoarse.
“Why? Why can’t we be together as we were before?”
“I wasn’t fair to you before—taking from you, but having nothing to give in return.”
“We can let that be a part of our past. Surely we can start again?”
“No.”
“If only you would talk to me. Please tell me what I’ve done wrong to make you loathe me.”
“Loathe you?” He gave a short laugh. “I don’t loathe you.”
“You must surely find me disagreeable to reject me this way.” Her breathing was labored as she tried to hold back the sobs that wanted releasing.
“You are not disagreeable. The problem lies the other way around. You are too agreeable, too pleasing, too tempting.”
“ ’Tis a problem? Shall I make myself unpleasant, then?”
He gave a groan. “No.”
She gulped hard and pushed down the ache in her throat. “What then? Tell me what I may do to please you.”
“You can do nothing to please me. I’m a marked man. My days are numbered. It’s only a matter of time before they plunge the arrow into my breast.”
“Perhaps. But what has that to do with us? Can we not be husband and wife while God gives us the chance?”
“When the time comes, it will already be hard enough. Let’s not make it more complicated than we must.”
She was beginning to understand. “ ’Tis better not to love than to love and to lose it?”
“Methinks that sums it up.”
She thought back to when Thomas was a babe and John’s resistance to loving his son for fear of losing him. “Do you not think we would be wiser to cherish each moment we have as God’s gift? I would say ’tis better to love and be loved, if only for a day, than to have not loved at all.”
“The matter is complicated.”
A lone cricket’s chirping somewhere in the room suddenly chorused as loud as a hundred of them.
“You came to me before,” she said softly, shyly. “Why must that change now?”
His sigh was ragged. “I must continue to be steadfast in sharing the Gospel as long as God wills it. I can’t sacrifice more of my work, not now. I’m busier than I ever was before. I can hardly keep up with my tinkering, much less your demands—”
“Are not my demands only what God intended for marriage? Surely He would have more for us than mere coexistence.”
“I did not think you had demands of me, Elizabeth. And that is one of the reasons I believed you were the right wife for me.”
“I am the right wife for you. If you would only let me help you—”
“I’ve said it before—you must help me by taking care of the children. That is the primary reason the elders pushed me to remarry, and you know that.”
“But must it change us?”
“Don’t make this harder than it must be, Elizabeth. I cannot give you the time you crave.”
The weight of pressure inside her chest was rising. She held her breath to keep back the sobs.
“And I wouldn’t want the worry of having another child. It would be nothing but a burden.”
“Burden?” she choked out the word and resisted the urge to lay a hand on her stomach.
“I would not wish to leave you helpless and with child.”
“Would God not take care of me—of us all—just as He has always done?”
“Go back to bed, Elizabeth.” He rolled onto his mat and turned away from her. “You would argue with me all night, but I will not let you persuade me otherwise. I have made my decision in this matter, and it is final.”
Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, her legs tangling in her night shift. With tears blurring her vision, she stumbled away, desperate to get back to her bed, where she could bury her face and let her sobs loose.
* * *
In the following weeks Elizabeth couldn’t hide her sadness. As much as she tried, she knew Mary could sense it. And the girl seemed to know the source as well.
“Father is gone altogether too often these days.” Mary sawed through an apple with a dull knife on the wooden block Elizabeth had arranged before her in the grass.
Elizabeth’s sharp blade methodically clanked as she made swift work of slicing. Without a pause she grabbed another apple from the pile next to her, her knife making neat, even slices, thin enough for the stringing and drying process.
“He’s too strong-willed,” Mary said, as if the expert in such matters.
Elizabeth didn’t respond. Even if she had the words, she was in no mood to discuss John. Of late, her tears flowed easily, and thinking of him and his refusal to love her was a sure way to rouse all of the hurt
she carried in her heart.
A glance at Thomas told her he still slept. In the shade of the apple tree, with the gentle breeze fingering through his red hair, not even the sight of his sweet face brought her joy as it usually did.
She finished her apple and laid down her knife. Then she put a hand on her lower back, arched it, and tried to work out the ache that came much more quickly in recent days. Her gaze darted to Johnny and Betsy in the field, chasing each other instead of gathering nuts as she had instructed them.
She didn’t have the energy to reprimand them. She sighed and shifted her sore hindquarters. Her movement awakened the life inside her with a sudden flutter of thumps and taps. The sensation was becoming more common, especially at night when she lay motionless in bed.
It was getting harder to hide her condition. She hadn’t told anyone, but lately Sister Norton had begun to look at her differently, and she’d seen others whispering and casting glances toward her swelling middle.
The excitement she had initially felt upon realizing she carried John’s child had long since deserted her. John’s one word haunted her. Burden. A babe would only be a burden to him.
Mary stopped working and lifted her face toward the cottage, her keen senses alert. “Father?”
Elizabeth’s heart gave a lurch. She struggled to push herself off the ground, stood, and fluffed her petticoat to hide the babe, as had become her habit.
She turned and saw John striding past the garden, coming toward them. His eyes were riveted to one place, her stomach.
She took a step back under the shade of the low-hanging branches and wished she could disappear. Sooner or later the confrontation was inevitable. She had just hoped it would come later.
He stopped in front of her and stared at her midsection. “Mary, I need to talk with Elizabeth—in private.” His voice was terse and left no room for disagreement.
Mary cocked her head as though she wanted to say something.
“Go.”
Mary pressed her lips together and then shuffled off, making her way toward Milkie’s lean-to. When Mary was a safe distance away, John took a step closer to her. Branches caught in his wind-tossed hair.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Methinks you very well know what.”
She did know what. She just needed more time to figure out how to answer him. “What is what?”
“You know what.”
“What?”
He growled. He ducked his head and stepped under the canopy of branches, closing the distance between them. He grasped her arm and drew her toward him.
She didn’t want to resist him.
“This is what.” He splayed his hand across her stomach, stretching his fingers, feeling the fullness there.
She couldn’t hide from him any longer. She bit her lip, as emotions bubbled up from the pool of anguish deep inside.
“I had to find out today from Elder Harrington that my wife is going to have a baby.” His grip on her arm tightened. “My wife is with child, and I’m the last person in the whole of Bedfordshire to know.”
She cringed at the hurt in his voice. “I didn’t tell anyone. Truly I did not.”
“You should have told me.” He pulled her closer.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Are you well?” He searched her face, the fear in his eyes making them almost wild.
She couldn’t stop herself from cupping a hand against his cheek. “I am as well as always.”
His gaze locked with hers and searched deep inside her, seeming to test the truth of her words.
“I have had no problems. I’m as healthy as I have ever been.”
“Truly?”
She smiled, her heart warming at his concern. “Truly.”
His breath swooshed, and the warmth fanned over her lips. She only had to tilt her face upward, and he could not resist her nearness. His lips quickly claimed hers. At first soft and tender, the pressure of his kiss awakened a longing deep inside her, and she couldn’t keep herself from responding with all of the passion that had lain dormant in her heart. For a moment she forgot about everything, and she let her love for him swell up and overtake her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He wrenched himself away from her and dragged in a shuddering breath.
She touched her trembling lips. “I was going to when I first suspected it. But then you told me you didn’t want another child. You said it would be a burden.”
“A new baby won’t be easy for either of us and is certainly not what I would have planned. If I am gone, you will find yourself poor and alone with another child to care for. And I will only worry all the more about the family I’ve left behind.”
“Then don’t leave us, John.” She reached for his jerkin and grabbed it in both hands. “Please, you don’t need to leave. If you would but abandon your preaching, then we could live together as husband and wife without fear. We would have no worries over this new babe.”
It took a moment for her to realize his body had grown rigid. He started to pull away from her.
She leaned into him and wound an arm around him. She nuzzled her face into the bare spot above his collar. A quiet desperation urged her on and gave her uncharacteristic boldness. She must sway him. This was her chance to convince him to give up the preaching that was putting him in danger.
“Wouldn’t you want to be with me and the children?” She brushed her lips against his neck and made a trail of kisses to his ear.
He trembled and his grip on her arm tightened.
She arched into him and stood on her toes to reach his ear. “God wouldn’t have you neglect your family in order to serve Him.” She kissed his ear. “Most surely God wouldn’t have you place yourself in danger when it can so easily be avoided.”
His breathing grew louder, and his heart hammered against her chest.
Again she kissed his neck, savoring the saltiness of his hot skin.
With an anguished groan, he pried her away and took a step back. “You don’t understand God’s call on my life, Elizabeth, or you wouldn’t speak this way.”
She reached for him, but he stepped out from under the tree, putting distance between them.
“God’s calling may change. Mayhap He’s now calling you to something different than preaching. More writing?”
“He wouldn’t have me quit the fight when it gets rough. It’s not His way to give up.”
Her mind darted, frantically searching for the argument that would persuade him to renounce his dangerous way of life so he would be free to stay with her and love her. “What if it is merely your pride standing in the way? What if you don’t want to stop because you don’t wish to concede victory to your opponents?”
Anger flared to life in his eyes again. “Say no more.”
“The work of preaching in Bedfordshire doesn’t rest on your shoulders alone. God could accomplish His purposes without the help of John Costin.”
“Enough, Elizabeth.”
“Or perchance you have grown so puffed up with your ministry that it’s become more about your fame than about God’s—”
“Enough!”
His roar was loud enough to draw the attention of the children and waken Thomas, who sat up with a wail.
John’s jaw was tight with the strain of keeping his voice low. “You don’t know me. You shouldn’t presume to understand more about my motivations than I myself do.”
Elizabeth clenched her fists at her side. Holding up her chin, she refused to cower from the lightning flashing in his eyes. She was losing her chance. She could feel the moment slipping away. “Please, John. All I want is for us to be together, to be a real family. Truly, that is all.”
His face was dark with anger. He spun away from her and then gave her one last look. “I take my preaching orders from God and God alone. I cannot and will not listen to the prattle of a foolish young girl.”
Elizabeth watched him stalk toward th
e cottage. Frustration and hopelessness swept through her like the aftermath of a storm, leaving debris scattered painfully throughout her heart.
She plucked an apple from a nearby branch. Then with a cry she hurled it to the ground and stomped it with her foot. She mashed it again and again, until all that remained was a mush of soggy pulp.
Her chest burned. Tears stung her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her breath came in large heaving gulps as she stared at the flattened remains of the apple.
John Costin had done the very same thing to her love. He had thrown it down and trampled, until he had broken her heart and destroyed her last hope of ever gaining his love.
Chapter
31
There is a warrant for your arrest, Brother Costin,” Brother Burgess said in greeting.
John ducked inside the farmhouse and dropped his tool bag to the floor. “Methinks there is hardly a day that goes by without word of threat against me.” John cupped his hands at his mouth and blew on them, trying to bring back warmth. The air had finally grown too damp and cool for them to meet outside, and after the long walk, he was grateful to be inside on this November day.
Brother Burgess peered outside, scrutinizing the road before he closed the door.
John strode to the long table in the center of the room and took the mug of cider Sister Burgess offered. He gulped down half of the sweet liquid before the silence of the others in the room began to haunt him.
He licked the froth from his lips and glanced to the somber faces of those already gathered for their meeting. Unease settled in the pit of his stomach. He thumped his mug on the table. “My enemies may rant, but they have no just cause against me.”
Brother Burgess sniffed several times and rubbed his sleeve across his red nose. “We have reason to believe it’s not merely a threat this time.”
“Word reached us that Mr. Wingate has issued the warrant. He’s made it known that if you preach, you’re to be arrested.”
“I should have known.” Francis Wingate was a staunch opponent of the Independents. His family had suffered heavy fines during the Protectorate, and it was no secret he was eager to avenge the past. Moreover, he was William Foster’s brother-in-law. That alone was all John needed to grow pensive.