The Bartered Bride
Cheryl Reavis
Do We Marry Or Not, Caroline Holt? It occurred to Caroline that everyone in her small North Carolina community accepted the obvious reason for her agreeing to marry Frederich Graeber. She was pregnant, and the real father of her baby was unwilling. She was due in a few short months. Her unborn child would have everything to gain by Caroline making the strong, silent farmer her husband… .The Marriage Pledge "If you marry me, then the child will be mine… ." With Frederich's words ringing in her ears, Caroline made her decision. She'd become his bartered bride… and risk giving this enigmatic stranger her heart free.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u3ebb2da5-1feb-5311-9b1e-61ae79c64f13)
Excerpt (#ud17cfabb-c42c-5437-8fd5-1fcfe121a66a)
Dear Reader (#ufabad00c-2d4b-5b65-8ae4-b05827779929)
Title Page (#u3ed89f06-30b1-51cf-a8a7-002c5fe3d18a)
About the Author (#uf935848c-db68-5785-b698-ec0ed4fec81d)
Dedication (#ufa6ec948-92cc-5aba-b5cb-e2022937c348)
Prologue (#u6b3258ac-744d-5ba7-970d-5efff00578d2)
Chapter One (#u6f27cdc9-589e-5a75-9f72-92edf9e4fd09)
Chapter Two (#ud1775c66-0588-5248-a032-c51ddb79ead3)
Chapter Three (#u13343765-9fc1-5997-b6aa-f92c4359624c)
Chapter Four (#ubceaa687-3f70-5883-8b10-bffc34d70b69)
Chapter Five (#udc46ca4e-b971-57f7-bb29-63845d9e53df)
Chapter Six (#ud97298e9-afa7-510d-801c-b3bb75f85e78)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Frederich held her tightly, awash in emotion,
afraid that Caroline would suddenly remember who he was and pull away. He grazed her cheek with his rough hand, stroked the dark hair he’d been so longing to touch.
“I would do anything for you,” he whispered to himself—in German.
He held her, feeling her sorrow and his own, determined to keep her close like this for as long as she would allow it. But the horse pranced nervously, and she abruptly let go of him and slid from his grasp to the ground, hurrying into the house without once looking back.
He sat there completely overwhelmed. He couldn’t deny the truth any longer. He cared far more for this exasperating woman than he ever intended, and he wanted her—as a friend, a lover, as a wife…!
Dear Reader,
We are delighted this month at the return of three-time RITA Award winner Cheryl Reavis to Harlequin Historicals. Her heart-wrenching tale, The Bartered Bride, is set in Civil War North Carolina. It’s the story of a pregnant woman who has little choice but to marry her sister’s widower, a man whom she considers heartless, but who, over time, teaches her the healing powers of forgiveness and love.
Abigail Cooprel suddenly comes face-to-face with a man who is the very image of her adopted son in Abbie’s Child, the second book from talented newcomer Linda Castle, whose first book, Fearless Hearts, was released during our annual March Madness promotion in 1995, to loud acclaim.
Multigenre author Merline Lovelace makes history come alive in her new release, Lady of the Upper Kingdom, the dramatic story of forbidden love between two strong-willed people separated by the treachery and distrust that exists between their two cultures, the Egyptian and the Greek. And from Catherine Archer comes Velvet Touch, the sequel to her previous Medieval, Velvet Bond, the bittersweet story of a young nobleman who is sent by his king to arrange a marriage and settle a feud, only to fall in love with the intended bride.
Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you will enjoy all four Harlequin Historicals, available wherever books are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell,
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to: Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
The Bartered Bride
Cheryl Reavis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHERYL REAVIS,
public health nurse, short-story author and award-winning romance novelist, says she is a writer of emotions. “I want to feel all the joys and the sorrows and everything in between. Then, with just the right word, the right turn of phrase, I hope to take the reader by the hand and make her feel them, too.” Cheryl currently makes her home in North Carolina with her husband and son.
For Josephine, who took me to a Robert E. Lee
lecture exactly when I needed to go.
Prologue (#ulink_32c4b124-9587-5b81-bea8-8a914963df20)
North Carolina
December 1861
Someone else was in the church. He stood listening for a moment, certain now that the faint sound had come from the back of the sanctuary.
“Wer ist da?” he called out, not wanting to frighten any of the old women who might have come to polish the candlesticks or put out the hymnals for the Sunday service.
No one answered.
“Who…is it?” he managed in English.
Again there was no reply.
He began to stack the oak logs he’d cut in the wood box near the potbellied stove. He could still hear the girls playing on the front steps by the open door; neither of them had followed him inside. There was much talk among the men these days about the possibility of army deserters or escapees from the new Confederate prison in town, but neither would have been of concern to him—if he had come to the church alone. He didn’t care about the politics of this country. He didn’t care who won the newly declared war or who escaped from the prisons. He didn’t care about anything except the fact that he had Ann’s daughters with him and he had given his solemn promise to always keep them out of harm’s way.
He took a moment to look around the sanctuary. He saw no one, heard nothing, and he decided that he must have been mistaken. But then the sound came again, a faint whimper he might not have heard if he hadn’t already been listening so intently. He turned and walked quietly toward the back of the church, and he saw her almost immediately. She was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs that led to the schoolroom on the second floor.
“Bitte—” he began, but she jumped violently, startling him as well. He moved around so that he could see her better in the dim light, recognizing her now in spite of the fact that she turned sharply away from him. She wiped furtively at her eyes, bringing her feet up under her as if she intended to make herself as small as possible.
He stepped closer.
“Eli,” she said, making a great effort to look at him. She attempted a smile, but her mouth trembled and her voice was hardly more than a whisper. She turned away again, telling him something in rapid English he didn’t begin to understand.
He stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Her hair was coming down and one button at the neck of her bodice hung by a thread. If she had not been Ann’s sister and if his promise hadn’t included her as well, he would have left her sitting there.
“Caroline? You are…ill?” he said. He had neither the proficiency nor the inclination to ask anything more. Perhaps she’d had another argument with her brother Avery— in which case her current state was to be expected. He knew Avery Holt to be a bully, and he knew from Ann that Caroline did her best to provoke him. He wanted to just go, but for Ann’s sake, he stretched out his hand. Surprisingly, Caroline took it, her fingers cold and clinging in his.
“Was haben Sie?” he asked, making her look at him.
“…the children,” was all that he understood of her reply.
“Ja—yes,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward the open door. “Mary Louise is…here. Und Lise. Both— here—”
“Eli,” she said in alarm, trying to push him in the direction he’d come. “Mary Louise and Lise—please—bitte!”
He hesitated, but he understood that her distress was such that she didn’t want her nieces to see her.
“Bitte!” she said again, her eyes following his glance at the dangling button. She snatched it from its thread and shoved it into her pocket.
He stood up and walked quickly away, glancing back at her when he reached the end of the aisle. She was no longer sitting on the bottom step.
He stepped outside, firmly closing the church door behind him.
Chapter One (#ulink_581e7a69-4408-506b-b464-94c23bc307e2)
March 1862
Caroline Holt had been waiting all afternoon for her brother Avery to return. She kept walking to the window to look out across the fields toward the Graeber farm. That Avery would drop everything to answer a summons from Frederich Graeber was incredible to her. The ground had to be readied for the spring planting, and Avery despised their German brother-in-law.
It was nearly dark when he finally rode into the yard. She went hurriedly back to the churning, a task she’d let take far too long while he’d been gone. She worked the churn hard, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d been so curious about his absence that she’d neglected the butter making. He came into the kitchen immediately, leaving the door ajar much longer than was necessary and tracking in mud with no concern at all for the backbreaking effort it took to keep the rough oak floor scrubbed clean. She shivered in the draft of cold air, but she made no comment.
“Frederich Graeber wants to marry you,” he said without prelude.
She looked up from the butter churn, but she didn’t break the rhythm of the churning. The statement was so ridiculous that her first inclination was to laugh. Her brother was not a humorous man, but still she thought he must be joking. Even if he had somehow guessed how badly she needed marrying, he wouldn’t have suggested Frederich Graeber— except as some kind of cruel joke.
“I want you to marry him. I’ve already answered for you,” he said. “They’re going to announce it in the German church Sunday—Frederich will make his formal pledge to you then.”
She continued to stare at him, realizing now that he was entirely serious and that this marriage plan must account for Frederich’s summons and for his willingness of late to bring her nieces here to the house to see her.
Poor Avery, she thought. He had no inkling of the impossibility of his arrangement. For the first time in her life she felt a little sorry for him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said in annoyance. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you, Avery. And I can only suppose that you’ve lost your mind.”
He gave a little smile. “Now why would you suppose that?”
“You know I can’t marry Frederich Graeber.”
“Can’t?” he said, coming closer. His hair was sweated to his forehead. Before he had departed for the Graeber farm, he and Frederich’s nephew, Eli, had been shoveling horse manure into newly plowed ground all morning. Avery still stank of it, and somewhere along the way he must have lifted a keg of beer—to celebrate the bargain he and Frederich thought they had made.
“It’s done, Caroline,” he said, his voice still calm because he was used to having his way. Indeed, who ever said no to him? And who else refused to tolerate his arrogance but her? Certainly not their mother when she was alive. And certainly not the women here. Caroline couldn’t account for the fact that so many of them preferred the civilian Avery and his finagled farmer’s exemption to the boys who’d gone for soldiers and were fighting in Virginia—except for the fact that Avery was here, of course. And he was handsome. But his handsomeness was far surpassed by his fickle nature. The list of widows and maidens who’d aspired and failed to marry Avery Holt grew longer every day.
“I’ve already told Frederich you want it,” he said, and she abruptly looked away from him. She felt light-headed again and she concentrated hard on keeping the rhythm of the churning by fervently whispering the work poem that went with the task.
Come-butter-come
Come-butter-come
It was only at the last moment that she allowed herself to acknowledge her anger.
You-marry-the-German
This-time-Avery!
But Avery had no use for Germans—unless he needed manure shoveled or his man’s nature satisfied. She had happened upon how deftly he accomplished the latter at John Steigermann’s corn husking. The drinking and the dancing and the games on that cold October night had been incidental to the stripping of a roof-high pile of corn and John Steigermann’s daughter. Avery had bloodied a few noses to find and keep the first red ear, and Leah Steigermann was supposed to kiss him for it. She lifted her skirts to him as well—beautiful wine velvet skirts held high for Avery Holt in a cow stall, and Caroline a witness to it all because she’d thought to keep her other, too-young brother from hiding in the barn and sampling Frederich Graeber’s famous plum brandy.
Avery slammed his hand down hard on the kitchen table, making her jump. “I’m talking to you, Caroline! I don’t know why you think you can pick and choose here. I said you’re going to marry Frederich—you owe me, Caroline. You and Ann both owe me!”
“Ann is dead. Whatever you think her debt is, surely you can count it paid now. Just how is it I owe you?”
“I sent you to school in town. I stayed here working my tail off and I did without to keep you in ribbons and bread—”
“That was a long time ago. Mother’s inheritance paid for most of my schooling and you know it.”
“What about the nieces?” he asked, obviously trying a different approach. “What about Ann’s girls—you want them raised German?”
“What’s wrong with that—if German is good enough for both your sisters to marry?”
Avery swore and flung open the pie safe, looking for the fried apple pies left over from breakfast. He had married Ann to Frederich first—more than eight years ago when their mother was still alive but too addled to notice his machinations. He’d gotten the use of an acre of land with a spring out of that arrangement—when he should have been the one providing the property for Ann to bring to her marriage. At fourteen, Ann had been too young to marry—a fact that Frederich in his lust and Avery in his greed failed to notice. She endured one pregnancy after another in the effort to get Frederich Graeber a male heir until it killed her. People here pitied Frederich—not because his beautiful young wife had died, but because he had no sons. Caroline gave a wavering sigh. If the announcement was to be made in the German church this Sunday, then they must all know by now where he planned to get those.
She abruptly remembered a time last spring when she and Ann had taken the girls on a too-early picnic. The sun had been so bright that day, pinching their eyes shut and warming their faces while their backs stayed winter cold. The robins ran across the ground and the violets poked out from under the dead leaves, and Ann had told her that she was pregnant again.
And Caroline hadn’t been able to make her worry.
“Everything will be fine,” Ann kept saying.
“But the doctor in town—I thought you weren’t supposed to—”
“Life is short, Caroline,” she said with a laugh, as if she were the older and wiser sister. “If you ever came out of those books of yours sometime, you’d know that.”
Doesn’t Frederich care about you at all? Caroline had nearly asked, She had believed even then that he was a cold, indifferent man, their marriage never progressing beyond Avery’s mercenary arrangement between two strangers. Ann had never seemed to be anything Frederich considered significant to his well-being—except for that.
Don’t worry, Caroline. I’m so happy!
But she had worried—and with good reason. Ann had died of the pregnancy that gave her such joy.
Another memory surfaced. Avery had appeared then with his many complaints, disgruntled because she and Ann had picnicked too long and delayed his supper. Ann had done her best to annoy him—she was an old married woman and beyond his command, refusing to speak to him in anything but the German she was suddenly learning, provoking him to swear because he couldn’t find out anything about Frederich’s latest agricultural successes.
Remembering now, Caroline gave a slight smile, but the smile abruptly faded. She had held Ann’s hand while she bled to death from another miscarriage. Nothing the midwife tried and nothing written in the herb book had stopped the flow. Ann was twenty-two years old. She hadn’t known where she was, hadn’t known her children or Caroline, hadn’t asked for Frederich even once.
“I don’t understand,” she said in those last minutes and nothing more.
Caroline had had to go hunt for Frederich to tell him.
“My sister is dead,” she said to him, and he kept chopping wood and never looked at her. Ann had borne him two daughters, died trying to give him his precious son, and Frederich hadn’t even looked at her. It was little Lise, who was barely seven, who found the things Caroline needed to ready Ann for burial, not Beata, Frederich’s own sister, who should have done it. And it was Eli who lifted Ann into her coffin—Frederich hadn’t stopped chopping.
Work. Order. Discipline. The Germans believed in nothing else—except perhaps their medieval superstitions. The mirrors had to be covered so that Ann’s soul couldn’t escape into one. She had to be taken out feetfirst so that she couldn’t give the room a “last look.” She had to be buried with a lemon under her chin. And what a good thing it was that her baby hadn’t lived, Beata said—because Ann’s ghost would have come at midnight to suckle it.
And Avery expected her to marry into that.
“You’re past your prime, Caroline,” he said, startling her because in her reverie she hadn’t realized that he had come so close. He suddenly reached out and grabbed the plunger in the churn, stopping it and holding it fast. She tried unsuccessfully to peel his big fingers away. After a moment, he abruptly let go.
“What do you get out of this, Avery?” she asked, picking up the rhythm of the churning again, holding on to it for dear life. Perhaps there had been a reason for Frederich’s woodchopping on the day that Ann died after all, she thought. Work could be an anchor, a place to hide, a way to not think.
Ah, but to do that, Frederich would have had to be a man capable of feeling in the first place, and she knew better than that.
“I’m the head of the family,” Avery said. “It’s my duty to see you married.”
“What do you get out of this, Avery?” she asked again.
“Nothing I don’t already have,” he answered obscurely.
“Does William know what you’ve done?”
“I haven’t done anything, Caroline, that isn’t for your own good—and yes, our little brother knows. He was there when Frederich asked for you.”
She abruptly stopped churning; Avery looked up from the pie he was eating and smiled.
“You see?” he said with his mouth full. “You thought it was all my doing. It wasn’t, Caroline. The marriage is Frederich’s idea, not mine. To tell you the truth, it never even occurred to me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then ask William.”
“Beata Graeber won’t stand for her brother marrying another Holt, Avery. She despised Ann.”
“Since when do you think a man makes his plans according to the whims of some old maid relative?”
“Frederich never went against anything Beata said for Ann’s sake. Never. Ann had to live in his house like some kind of poor relation.”
“Frederich asked for you. I said yes. So there you are. You’re past your prime, Caroline,” he said again. “If he wants you, you should be grateful—God knows, I am.”
“I won’t marry my dead sister’s husband—”
“Let’s see if I’ve got this right, Caroline. First you ‘can’t.’ Now you ‘won’t.’ You’re the one who said it—Ann is dead. And, by God, you will marry him. He’s got no heir and he’s not likely to get one out of you.”
She understood then. If Frederich had no sons, then who would be his closest male heir after Eli? Frederich might leave a portion of his land to his inept, non-farmer nephew, but he wouldn’t leave the rest of it in the care of his daughters—no man here did if there was any other alternative. His daughters’ uncles might be another matter. Avery would be right there waiting, and if not him, then William—which would be the same thing. William was too timid to go against whatever Avery wanted, even if it were to take over an inherited Graeber farm.
But she didn’t understand Frederich. He was rich enough to send to Germany for a bride if none of the women here appealed to him. The German men and his sister Beata would have surely pointed out how foolish he was being. The young Holt couldn’t breed—nothing but females and dropped litters. And the old one? Why do you want a thirty-year-old wife when you’ve got no sons? they’d ask him.
Why?
She had no accord with Frederich Graeber. She had hardly spoken a dozen words to him in all the time he and Ann had been married. He’d never made her feel welcome at the Graeber house, never seemed to notice Beata’s rudeness to her and Ann both. It couldn’t be because she was aunt to Mary Louise and Lise, she thought. Frederich Graeber didn’t care in the least for his female children. Or if he did, not enough to marry a woman “past her prime.”
Except that she wasn’t past her prime, and before long everyone would know it. She had had no monthly bleeding since November; a horrible and unpredictable nausea had taken its place. She couldn’t control it, and she’d been frantic that Avery would notice. Clearly, he hadn’t.
Oh, God, she thought. What am I going to do?
The back door abruptly opened—her younger brother William bringing the cold March wind in with him. She saw immediately that Avery had been telling the truth about him at least. William knew all about her proposed marriage, because he studiously avoided her eyes. He, too, went to the pie safe in a quest for food.
“Is Eli still out there?” Avery asked him.
“He went home,” William said, looking again at the bare shelf in the pie safe as if he expected something to just magically appear. He was big for his age, taller than Avery, and he was always hungry.
“You got the horses settled?”
“Eli did it—”
“Damn it, boy, you get back out there and make sure those animals are put up right. Eli doesn’t know a damn thing about horses—”
“He does, too,” William interrupted in a rare contradiction of one of Avery’s pronouncements. “It’s farming he don’t know nothing about. He can take care of a horse good.” He glanced at Caroline, but he wouldn’t hold her gaze. He stood awkwardly for a moment. “I…reckon Frederich’s got in the habit of marrying Holt women,” he offered, still avoiding her eyes.
Why am I arguing with Avery about this? she thought.
It was only out of her habit that she sought to defy him. She had no choice about whether a marriage to Frederich Graeber took place, and neither did Avery. It was too late for a deception, even if she’d wanted one, too late for anything but the relentless unraveling of the truth. She was nearly four months pregnant, and no matter how badly she wanted it the secret could not be kept much longer.
“—he don’t think much of Kader Gerhardt,” William was saying.
“What?” she said, startled by the German schoolmaster’s name. Kader Gerhardt was the one man here she had truly respected. He was refined and educated, and she had thought him to be honorable as well. She had earnestly believed that he was somehow different from the rest of the men here. And she had loved him. She had even dared to think that her feelings might be returned, and she had never once perceived what he was really about—when she of all people should have. How could she have Avery for a brother and not have known?
My fault, she thought again. Mine.
There was something in her, something she had said or done that had made him think she wanted—
“—the nieces,” William said for the second time over his shoulder. And he was still looking for something to eat. He made do with a cold biscuit he found in a pan on the kitchen table. “Maybe Frederich wants you so you can teach them. You got enough schooling to do it as good as Kader Gerhardt. Frederich don’t think much of Kader. I heard him tell John Steigermann Kader Gerhardt wasn’t fit to teach German children.”
“William, you haven’t heard a damn thing,” Avery said. “Since when can you talk German?”
“I can’t talk it—but I know what I hear sometimes. You got to if you’re going to live around here, Avery. You should know that.”
“You watch that mouth, boy,” Avery said, choosing to take offense.
“None of this matters!” Caroline suddenly cried. This inane discussion had gone on long enough. There was nothing to be done now except to stop the marriage. “I won’t marry Frederich Graeber, and you can tell him, Avery, or I will.”
“It’s done, Caroline! Weren’t you listening? There’s no backing out now!”
She stepped away from the churn and moved to the pegs by the back door, taking down her wool shawl and flinging it over her shoulders.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“You know where I’m going, Avery!”
“Do you think you can just trot yourself over to the Graebers and tell Frederich the wedding is off?” he said incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Well, the hell you are. What reason are you going to give him? You’re not stupid enough to think you can find somebody with more money and more land than he’s got, I hope? I don’t see anybody else standing in line for the privilege of marrying you, Caroline!”
She sidestepped him, but he blocked the doorway, grabbing her when she tried to get through. His fingers dug into her shoulders; his eyes held hers. She knew the exact moment he realized that there had to be some reason for her determination. Given his own history, his mind did not have to make a great leap to decide what that reason might be.
“What have you been doing?” he said, giving her a shake. “Who have you been sneaking around with?” He roughly turned her around and put his hands on her belly. “By God, you’re already carrying, aren’t you? Aren’t you! Whose is it!”
“What?” she said, because everything was moving too fast and she was terribly afraid now.
He slapped her hard.
“You’re not paying attention, little sister. It’s not what. It’s who. Whose is it!”
“Avery, don’t!” William cried, bouncing from one foot to the other, but not daring to intervene. “Avery!”
“You stay out of this, William!”
“Don’t, Avery—what are you hurting her for?”
“Did you hear that, Caroline?” Avery said, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her around to face him. When she tried to get away, her shawl came off in his hand. He slung it aside and grabbed her arm again, squeezing hard. “William wants to know what I’m hurting you for? Tell him!”
“Avery, please!” she cried, because he was hurting her.
“Avery, please? Who else have you been saying please to?”
“I won’t tell you,” she said, forcing herself to stay on her feet, trying not to cry. She had thought herself prepared for the day Avery would know about her condition, but she wasn’t prepared for the look in his eyes now or for his bellow of rage.
He hit her with his fist, and he would have hit her again if William hadn’t grabbed his arm. William tried vainly to hang on, but Avery yanked free of his grasp. He shoved her hard, and she fell backward. She tried to roll away from him, but Avery came after her in spite of all William could do. She could hear someone gasping, and she realized that the sound must be coming from her. She stayed in a tight ball on the floor, covering her head with her hands, trying to ward off the blows, knowing Avery wouldn’t stop.
But he was jerked away from her suddenly, his feet coming up off the floor.
“Mein Gott! You kill the girl!” someone cried.
William knelt beside her, weeping loudly. “Caroline. Caroline!”
Don’t cry, William.
She wanted to say it, but no words came. He kept trying to make her sit up, as if he thought that her being upright would somehow negate everything that had gone on before. She tried hard to do what he wanted—he was crying so—but she sagged against him, her fingers digging into his shirt to keep herself from falling. Her hands shook. Her whole body shook.
Another pair of hands reached for her, and she cowered away from them, expecting to be hit again.
“Nein, Fraulein,” John Steigermann said gently, wrapping her shawl around her. “Kommen Sie—come with me. Es ist Zeit.”
It’s time? she thought, recognizing the German phrase. For what, John Steigermann?
“Avery…” she whispered, trying to see where he’d gone.
“You don’t worry about your brother. He don’t bother you now. Come.” He was a big man and he lifted her easily in spite of her protest, carrying her across the kitchen toward the back door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she heard Avery say.
“She goes to my house, Avery Holt,” John Steigermann said. “Leah and Frau Steigermann will take care of her. You keep yourself and your bad temper here until I send for you.”
“This is none of your damn business!”
“I am a Christian man, Avery Holt. It is my business.”
They were outside in the cold wind, and she hid her face against John Steigermann’s coat, the movement causing her to cry out in pain. He lifted her carefully into the buggy. She closed her eyes tightly as the horse lunged forward, and she let herself be held fast in one of John Steigermann’s big arms.
Chapter Two (#ulink_febca381-099d-5fa9-8c5c-27447c72e78d)
She was given a hot broth to drink and put to bed in a small upstairs room in the Steigermann house. The bed had been warmed, but she still trembled, and she couldn’t stop crying. She had had to have help to undress. Thankfully, it was provided by John Steigermann’s quiet wife rather than his daughter, Leah. She couldn’t bear the look she saw in Leah’s eyes, the profound relief that it was Caroline Holt who had been caught and not Leah Steigermann. Caroline wanted only to be left alone—or to die—but she knew from the whispering that went on around her that neither was likely. Arrangements concerning her were still being made without her knowledge or consent. She had no doubt that John Steigermann was a good man. He had saved her from Avery—but now what was he to do with her?
She slept finally, and she awoke to find that she had completely lost track of time. A cedar wood fire burned low on the hearth. It was daylight, and she seemed to remember being offered things to eat and drink a number of times. The sun had been shining then, too. Was it still the same day? She didn’t know.
She made it to the chamber pot and back with difficulty because the nightgown Leah had provided for her was much too long and because every muscle in her body hurt. She climbed painfully back into the narrow bed and closed her eyes. She was far too miserable to take stock of her surroundings, and yet she was surprised to note that she was actually hungry. Even so, she feigned sleep when she heard the door creak open. It was all she could do not to weep. Why were these people being so kind to her? She didn’t deserve anyone’s kindness. She couldn’t stay here—and she had absolutely no place to go.
Someone sniffed loudly, and she opened her eyes. William stood at the foot of the bed.
“Caroline?” he said, his voice tremulous and worried. He had his old felt hat crumpled in his hands, and he was as ill at ease as if he were about to call on a total stranger.
She motioned for him to come closer. Her eyes were badly swollen. She turned her head carefully on the pillow so she could see him out of the slit of vision that remained. She realized how bad she must look by his sharp intake of breath. She could see him better now; tears ran down both his cheeks.
“Don’t,” she said, reaching for his hand. His hand was chapped and tough from working outdoors, and cold from his walk to the Steigermanns’. “Don’t cry.”
He gave a halfhearted shrug and tried to do as she asked. “Are you all right, Caroline?” he asked after a moment.
“I’m all right—except that I’m not sure how long I’ve been here.”
“It’s almost two days—Caroline, I should have done something. Look at you,” he said, tears rolling down his face again. “I should have stopped him—”
“William, don’t. Come sit here.” She patted the bed beside her.
He did as she asked, sitting down heavily because he was a big, awkward boy. He jarred her painfully and she tried not to wince.
“It ain’t right, Caroline,” he said, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat. “How can this be right? I ain’t staying in that house with Avery anymore. I’m strong and I know farming. Somebody around here will hire me—maybe I’ll go to the army. I could fight the Yankees, I reckon. I can shoot a gun—”
“No!” Caroline said sharply. “William, please. Don’t make this any worse for me. I can’t worry about you, too. You stay with Avery and you do what he says.”
“Caroline—”
“Do it, William. Because I ask you to, if nothing else. Does Avery know you’re here?”
“I’m supposed to be plowing.”
“William—”
“I couldn’t stand not knowing anything, Caroline! I had to come over here.”
“I’m…glad you did, but you’d better get the plowing done now. You don’t want Avery to find you gone.”
“I hate that house with you not there, Caroline,” he said, his misery showing plainly on his face. “What’s going to happen to you?”
“I…don’t know, William. I think Mother had some relatives in Virginia. Maybe I could write to one of them. Maybe they’d let me stay there until” Her voice trailed away. Until what? She hadn’t dared think that far ahead. “Go on home now. Go on. I promise I won’t do anything or go anywhere without letting you know.”
He stood up because she pushed him, but he didn’t leave.
“Caroline—”
“I’m sorry, William,” she said. “I…didn’t mean to be so bad.”
“You ain’t bad, Caroline! You ain’t the first woman this happened to. Don’t you go saying you’re bad! And nobody else better not say it, either!”
He abruptly bent down to her, giving her an awkward hug, the way he used to when he was a small child. “I’m going to take care of you, Caroline. Don’t you worry about that.” He stood for a moment longer, then abruptly went out the door, bumping into something in the hall on his way downstairs.
“Little brother,” she whispered, trying not to cry. She gave a wavering sigh. She had never felt so bereft in her life. William’s love was unconditional and far more than she deserved.
She struggled to sit up on the side of the bed. She had lain in the dark like a wounded animal long enough. She had to get dressed. She had to think. She had to make some kind of plan. For the first time, she made a deliberate inspection of her face, hobbling to the washstand mirror so she could see everything Avery had done. She hardly recognized herself. It was no wonder William had been so startled. She tried braiding her hair, but it quickly became too much of an effort. She hunted until she found the frayed calico work dress she’d arrived in and her underclothes, and she put them on. Then she tilted the mirror on the washstand downward and turned sideways to look at herself. Avery had been right. She was beginning to show.
Poor baby—
“Caroline,” Leah Steigermann said behind her, making her jump. She smoothed the front of her dress and turned to face her.
“You are better today, yes?” Leah asked kindly, but her eyes went to Caroline’s belly.
“Yes,” Caroline answered. “Better.” She could feel her eyes welling with tears again, and she looked abruptly away.
“I’ve brought you something to eat—some of my mother’s egg custard. You’ll like it, I think. Come sit here.” She pulled a chair closer to the fireplace with her free hand, handing Caroline the custard cup, a starched napkin and a spoon when she sat down. “Go on,” she coaxed. “It’s what you need now.”
Caroline looked at the custard, then began to eat. It was quite delicious.
“You must eat all of it,” Leah said. She knelt in front of the fireplace to add another cedar log to the fire. The smell of burning cedar filled the room and a shower of sparks flew out onto the hearth and up the chimney. “I have promised my father.”
“Promised him what?” Caroline asked. She kept glancing at Leah’s profile as she deftly managed the log with the heavy iron poker. Leah was very beautiful, and spoiled, and pampered, and Caroline would never have guessed that she would attempt such a mundane task as stoking a fire.
“I promised him that I’d get you to eat something so you will have strength,” she said, still poking at the log. She looked at Caroline. “He’s coming to talk to you.”
About what? Caroline nearly asked, but the question was ridiculous. There would be but one topic of conversation for John Steigermann or anyone else—her illicit pregnancy. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying not to think about how stupid she had been.
Oh, Kader.
She had loved Kader Gerhardt for a long time. She had loved him enough to tell him so—afterward. And she had seen the veiled look that came into his eyes. She realized immediately that her love was of no importance to him. He had wanted her body, not her devotion. She kept telling herself that she hadn’t meant for anything to happen between them that day. She hadn’t gone looking for him. She’d only meant to return a book he’d loaned her—Dying Testimonies of the Saved and Unsaved. She was going to leave it on his desk, but he was working in the schoolroom. She had stood by the door for a moment watching him, surrounded by the smell of leather-bound books and India ink and wood smoke from the back draft in the small fireplace. And she had loved finding him so completely unaware.
He looked up sharply when he realized he wasn’t alone. “You shouldn’t be here, Caroline,” he said immediately. “What if someone saw you? How would it look?”
“I—I only meant to return this,” she said, flustered because he was here and because he was as cross with her as if she’d been one of his recalcitrant pupils.
He stood up from the desk and came closer. She waited, waited for his nearness so that she could savor his clean masculine smell. Kader Gerhardt didn’t stink of sweat and horses and manure. Kader Gerhardt was a gentleman.
“You cause me a great deal of difficulty,” he said, taking the book out of her hand.
“I’m very sorry to disturb you,” she said, still distressed that her unannounced presence had offended him so.
“Does…Avery know you’re here?”
“Avery? No. Avery’s in town buying seed.”
He had smiled then, and he’d been so kind. And how she had craved his kindness. She had been so grateful for it that she took the full responsibility for his passion. The thing that had happened between them was her fault. She had come upstairs to the schoolroom alone. She had let him kiss her. She had let him take her. She had let herself be completely overcome by her need for him, and she had lost herself in the touches and kisses and the rush to free her from the layers of wool and muslin that kept them apart.
And then it was abruptly over, and he’d left her lying alone, oblivious to the fact that she was shaken and still needing him so badly. She had tried to cover herself. She could hear children running and playing in the churchyard below.
“It’s nothing,” Kader said, intent now on righting his own clothes. “Just the boys playing war. They won’t come up here.”
And then he explained to her how this had all come about.
“You made it impossible for me, Caroline,” he said sadly, as if she had deliberately set out to ruin him. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“I…love you, Kader,” she said, and it was a long time before he answered.
“We will have to be strong, Caroline,” he said finally, not looking at her. “We must behave properly—for your sake.”
His idea of propriety had been to rush her from the schoolroom as quickly as possible before someone saw her there. And to make certain that she had no notion of mentioning anything to Avery. She had been devastated by his coldness. She had given him everything, and he’d only wanted her to get out.
And someone had seen her there. Eli Graeber, Frederich’s nephew, who thankfully didn’t speak enough English to understand. Since that day Kader had all but forgotten she existed. There had been no more offers to loan her books, or newspapers with the latest war news. No requests for her help with the younger children in his class. No attempts to engage her in conversation behind Avery’s back at Sunday church services. No wishes for her good health sent via William. She wondered if he knew how dire her need for good health was now.
She realized suddenly that Leah had said something that required her comment. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I said I could loan you something of mine to wear.”
“The dress I have is fine, Leah. I…don’t much care how I look.”
“Then I will go to your house and get some of your own things,” Leah decided.
“No. Please—”
“I will go, Caroline,” she insisted. “Avery won’t say no to me.”
No, Caroline thought unkindly. And vice versa.
“Eat,” Leah chided. “Please eat some more.”
Caroline shook her head. She was feeling light-headed and queasy again. “I’ve had enough, I think. Please tell your mother it’s—How much I—”
“There,” Leah said brightly, as if Caroline hadn’t been about to cry again. “The fire’s going. I’ll go tell my father to come up. Are you all right, Caroline? You are so pale.”
Caroline managed a painful smile, but she didn’t reply.
Why are you doing this? she wanted to ask. Avery certainly isn’t going to love you for it.
But she said nothing. She stared into the fire instead, feeling the heat on her battered face, and she braced herself for yet another ordeal. Leah left the door ajar, and after a moment Caroline could hear her downstairs, then John Steigermann’s heavy treading up the steps to the second floor.
“Please, come in,” she said when he was about to knock on the door. She saw immediately that his wife stood behind him. Mrs. Steigermann was such a frail-looking woman, her fragility exaggerated by her husband’s great size.
John Steigermann motioned for his wife to precede him, and he gave her the only other chair in the room. He remained standing, towering over them both. He stared openly at the bruises on Caroline’s face. It was all she could do not to turn away.
She forced herself to say what needed to be said. “I want to thank you—” she began, but he held up his hand.
“What I have done, anyone would do,” he said, but they both knew that was far from the truth. Anyone might have intervened if a man were beating his horse, but not his unwed and pregnant sister.
“There is something you need to know. Frederich is going to withdraw his pledge of marriage to you,” Steigermann said bluntly.
Caroline looked at him, not knowing what her response should be.
“There is no marriage pledge,” she said after a moment.
“Avery gave his word on your behalf,” he said. “The agreement will be set aside in the church Sunday, Caroline. You will have to be there.”
“I?” she said in alarm. “I had nothing to do with Avery’s agreement.”
“Frederich is the injured party, Caroline. And he…says he doesn’t want you. He says the baby you carry isn’t his. I know you have never said that is so,” Steigermann said when she would have interrupted. “But if the baby is his, you can say so before God in the church. You can hold him to the pledge.”
“No. I don’t want to marry Frederich. I never wanted to marry Frederich.” Her face hurt to talk. She bit down on her lower lip to stop her mouth from trembling.
“You have to be there, Caroline.”
“Why? I didn’t have anything to do with this. I didn’t even know there was a marriage planned until—until Avery—” She broke off to keep from sobbing out loud.
“There are people who believe that you and Avery were going to fool Frederich—”
“The marriage was Frederich’s idea,” Caroline said, incredulous that she had been reduced to repeating anything Avery said as the truth. “I didn’t know about it—”
“You must go to the church. It is the only thing you can do for the reputation of your family. Not for Avery, but for Ann’s daughters and for your little brother, William. You must say that the withdrawal of the marriage pledge is acceptable to you, that Frederich has done nothing dishonorable.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“You can,” he answered. “God judges us, Caroline. No one else has the right. I believe this. My wife believes this,” he said, gesturing in her direction. “But there are the others, you see. Those are the people you must face in the church. You must show them that you will stand with your head up, and you will let only God decide if you have sinned. You must do this for the sake of the baby and the rest of your family. And you must not leave Frederich to take the blame for what has happened to you.”
She realized that he was looking at her bruised face again, and this time she turned her head away.
“I believe that Avery Holt has more to answer for than you, Caroline,” he said gently. “But you are the one who must go to the church. Frederich is a proud man and he must save his honor. You must give it back to him. You must say before God that you release him from the pledge.”
“I never made any pledge!”
“Avery did. It is the same.”
“It isn’t!”
“There is the baby, Caroline,” he reminded her. “For the rest of your life you and the child will suffer the talk. It will be worse for you both if you—”
“I don’t want to do this,” she said, crying openly now.
“It’s what Frederich wants, Caroline. It’s his right to have everyone know he has done nothing wrong. What will you do? Will you run from here? Will you leave William and Lise and the little one—Mary Louise—to face what you have done?”
Mrs. Steigermann said something to her husband in German. He hesitated, then translated the question.
“My wife asks…if the father of the child is…away from here. If he is a soldier, perhaps I can send word for you—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I have nothing to say to him. Nothing.”
She hadn’t gone to Kader about her pregnancy—and wouldn’t. When she first knew that there would be a baby, she had comforted herself with fantasies of telling him. Sometimes she’d find him in the schoolroom again, only he’d be glad to see her and he’d stay glad even after she’d told him she carried his child. He’d sweep her into his arms and beg her forgiveness. He’d want them to marry immediately—
But she had no hopes of a happy ending. She had seen her parents’ loveless marriage. And Ann’s. And she knew the truth of her own situation. Kader Gerhardt didn’t care about her, and to his credit, he had never claimed that he loved her. In a moment of boredom, she had been nothing but a temporary diversion. What would he give her now if she asked? Money perhaps, but never marriage. He would deny everything, and if people did think that she and Avery had tried to trick Frederich into marrying her, who would believe her version of the truth? Her child would still be a bastard and her begging for Kader’s help would only compound her stupidity and her shame.
She forced herself to look into John Steigermann’s eyes. She saw nothing but concern there. He was a good man, a kind man—but how could he expect that she face the entire congregation?
“You know I have spoken the truth, Caroline. You know what you have to do. You will not be alone. My wife and I will stand with you.”
She abruptly bowed her head. She didn’t care about Frederich Graeber’s honor, but she did care about William and her nieces. And she cared about the child she carried. Perhaps she even cared about the German schoolmaster who had given it to her.
“You need time alone now, Caroline. We will leave you. You know what needs to be done,” he said when he reached the door. “My advice is that you ask God to help you and give you strength.”
She sat there, her mind in turmoil, hardly aware that the Steigermanns had gone.
Would Kader be there? she thought. Would he sit and watch her humiliation in silence?
Yes, she thought sadly. He would. Because they must behave properly—for her sake.
Chapter Three (#ulink_80cd7dd9-ee64-5c26-be4a-1d39a5823fa9)
Caroline had to wear her same worn-out yellow-flowered dress on Sunday morning after all. Avery might have obliged Leah by giving her one of Caroline’s better dresses, but there was a limit to John Steigermann’s free hand. He would not allow Leah to go see Avery Holt, not even for the sake of Caroline’s pitiful wardrobe. He had seen firsthand Avery’s loss of control, and he refused to permit his beloved only daughter to have anything further to do with such a violent man.
The upstairs smelled of the morning breakfast—fried ham and potatoes and cabbage and freshly baked black German bread. The smell of the food and the Schmalz, a greasy, apple and herb-flavored pork fat the Steigermanns spread on the bread, had been more than Caroline could manage. She had abruptly retreated to her small room, and she sat down to wait by the fire until John Steigermann came upstairs to tell her it was time to go to the church. If he was surprised that she would do as he asked and let Frederich officially withdraw his marriage pledge, it didn’t show. But then there was no reason for him to be surprised. His fine expectations and her obligation to him made it impossible for her not to go. It was his suggestion that they arrive ahead of the rest of the congregation. She saw the wisdom of the plan immediately. The last thing she wanted was to have to enter the church after everyone else was already seated.
The day was cold and windy. Her face looked a little better, perhaps not so swollen, but she was grateful for the loan of one of Leah’s bonnets so that she could hide from the wind and from the curious stares she was bound to encounter.
She let John Steigermann take her by the arm to escort her to the wagon waiting by the back door. She felt dead inside, not afraid so much as empty. Leah was waiting for her in the downstairs hallway, resplendent in her fine brown and coral merino wool dress and her fur-trimmed cape. Caroline kept glancing at her, acutely feeling her own shabbiness both inside and out. She wondered if Avery would have abandoned Leah if their liaison in the barn had led to a baby.
No, she thought. Leah would have brought much more to a marriage than an illegitimate child. She would have brought money and prestige and land. And the rest of the men would have given Avery a pat on the back for being clever enough to get around John Steigermann.
It was a long, cold ride down the river ferry road to the German church. The church was a square, two-story edifice of natural stone built by the German settlers who had come here from Pennsylvania in the last century. It was a fitting monument to their faith and their perseverance. She tried hard not to let it remind her of the German schoolmaster.
In spite of their clever plan, Caroline and the Steigermanns were not the first to arrive. Avery stood in the sun on the front steps. He was dressed in what passed for his Sunday finery, a severe black broadcloth coat that always needed a vigorous brushing. Caroline didn’t see William anywhere, and she guessed that Avery would have made him stay at home. She prayed that he had. The Holts had been shamed enough without William having to witness the proceedings today.
Avery was obviously waiting for her, and there was no way for her to get inside the church without going past him. She got down out of the wagon with difficulty and walked a few steps away from the Steigermanns. The graveyard that surrounded the church was quiet except for the wind in the trees and the rattle of leaves blown against the low stone wall. Her mother and father were buried here. And Ann and her lost babies. For a brief moment, she thought about crossing the wall to stand at their graves, but she knew already that she would find no comfort among their cold headstones. There was no comfort anywhere.
The Reverend Johann Rial’s house was within sight of the church. She could see the glint of the sun on the tin roof and smell the wood smoke from the chimneys. And Avery was coming toward her. She had to force herself not to turn and run. She was afraid of him, but whatever he had to say now, she preferred to hear it alone. The Steigermanns had been privy to enough of the Holt scandal.
More buggies and wagons were arriving, and Leah came to take her arm. Caroline had to force herself not to look for Kader Gerhardt among the men who were beginning to congregate on the front steps where Avery had been. Would she think less of Kader if he came—or if he didn’t?
Avery was close now.
“My father won’t let him hurt you,” Leah said quietly, and Caroline drew a long breath.
“Please, Leah. Step away so I can talk to my brother alone.”
“Caroline, he is angry still—”
“Please,” she whispered, and Leah reluctantly went to stand with her father.
Whatever Avery does, don’t let me cry, Caroline prayed.
“You deserved what you got,” Avery said when he was close enough, not caring if the Steigermanns heard him.
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “The way Leah will if you aren’t careful.”
His cheeks flushed and he reached out to grab her by the arm. She drew back instinctively, expecting to be hurt again.
“What did you tell old man Steigermann about me?" Avery said.
“I didn’t have to tell him anything. He saw what kind of man you are.”
“Damn you, Caroline! You’ve ruined everything—”
“Come, Caroline,” John Steigermann said behind her. “We go inside now. Your brother will not want to keep you out here in the cold.” He offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully. She gave Avery one last look as she walked past him. The question was still in his eyes.
Who, Caroline? Who?
“I have seen by the fine attendance this morning that you are all aware of what is about to take place today,” Johann Rial said from the high pulpit. He spoke in English now— for Caroline’s benefit, no doubt—and his eyes swept over the congregation, coming to rest on her. She felt physically ill, and she took a wavering breath. Leah reached for her hand.
Johann waited for a moment for someone’s fit of coughing to subside and for his words to be translated to the older members who spoke only German. “Those of you who are feeling relieved that my sermon has concluded,” he continued, “will be pained to hear that I have more to say. To you all. I now charge each of you to remember the Scriptures.
“Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Against Thee—and Thee only—have I sinned.
“I charge each of you to remember Our Lord’s admonishment— Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.
“It is also written that a bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord even unto his tenth generation shall he not enter.
“I further charge you that this child in Christ be not left without salvation. Brother Graeber must follow his own conscience. But I steadfastly hope that someone among you will see fit to make an honorable and Christian offer of Holy—”
Johann Rial abruptly stopped, and Caroline could hear whispering behind her and the shuffling of feet The commotion intensified, a collective murmuring and a creaking of pews as people turned in their seats.
“What is it?” she whispered to Leah, not wanting to look around.
“It’s Eli Graeber,” Leah whispered back. “He’s standing.”
Caroline could already hear him addressing Johann Rial in German, and there was more commotion among the congregation. Leah gave a sharp intake of breath.
“What is he saying, Leah?” she whispered, squeezing Leah’s hand hard. Did Eli know about her and Kader Gerhardt after all? Surely, surely he wouldn’t stand up in church and say that she had been with the German schoolmaster.
“Eli says he is willing to offer you marriage if Frederich withdraws his pledge,” Leah said.
“He what?” Caroline cried, turning around now. Eli was indeed standing—and Frederich had him by the arm.
“Sitzt sich!” Frederich bellowed, trying to make him sit down.
Eli pulled free and began to speak over the clamor around him.
“Eli says he owns half the land, half the farm,” Leah translated rapidly. “He says he has the right to take whoever he pleases—and his uncle is—”
Her translation was interrupted by another outburst from Frederich.
Sit down! Sit down! Caroline prayed, as if her litany could stop whatever Eli was doing by sheer force of will. Oh, dear God, she thought. Everyone will think Eli is the one.
Eli Graeber suddenly looked in her direction, but he was speaking to Johann Rial. Then he was making his way to where she sat, waiting at the end of the pew for Johann to join him.
“Eli wants to know what you say,” Leah said.
“I don’t say anything!” She sat with her head bowed, as if she could hide somehow. Everyone was staring at her— she tried desperately not to cry. She hadn’t expected this. In her worst nightmare she hadn’t expected this.
“Come, Caroline,” Leah said, trying to get her to stand up.
“No-please. No!”
“Caroline, Eli and Johann want to talk to you!” Leah whispered urgently.
“Leah, I can’t—I have to get out of here!”
She would have tried to run, but both John Steigermann and his wife had gotten up so that Eli could come into the pew and Leah was blocking the other way out. She was hopelessly trapped. Eli was actually going to address her here and now, in front of all these people.
“Caroline Holt,” he said.
She forced herself to look up at him, and she was immediately struck by two things. How determined he looked. And how unhappy.
“Eli, what are you trying to do?” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t understand. Then she abruptly covered her face with her hands. I can’t bear this! I can’t!
“Caroline Holt,” he said again. “Sehen Sie mich an.”
“Eli says to look at him,” Leah translated.
“Bitte,” Eli said. “Don’t be…afraid,” he managed in English.
Caroline turned away from him. Afraid? She wasn’t afraid. She was humiliated.
He held his hand out to her, much the way he had that day he found her on the schoolroom stairs.
“Come. We talk now,” he said. “You come away from all these—” He gestured toward the people around them. “Their business is—not to know—”
He stopped struggling to find the English words and simply waited, his hand still outstretched.
A farmer’s hand, Caroline thought. A hand like Avery’s. Like Frederich’s and her father’s.
“Kommen Sie,” Eli said. “I…help you.”
Help? she thought incredulously. He had made a spectacle of her. How could he help?
He abruptly reached for her hand and she let him pull her upward, not because she intended to talk to him, but because he was the only way out of this place. When had she ever talked to Eli Graeber about anything? There was only that one time, that day in the church when he’d kept Mary Louise and Lise from seeing her. How much had he understood then? How much did he understand now?
She glanced at Johann Rial. He wanted to say something very badly. Then she took a deep breath and let Eli lead her out of the pew. They followed Johann, and she meant to keep her eyes straight ahead, to look at no one in their all too public trek to the vestry. But like a moth lured into the candle flame, at the last moment, she looked at the congregation. Her eyes immediately locked with Frederich Graeber’s, and she couldn’t keep from faltering. The raw emotion, the anger she saw there, led her to but one conclusion. Frederich Graeber wasn’t made of stone after all.
The vestry smelled of hymnals and dust and candle wax. Caroline waited for Johann to stop talking. Her breath came out in a white cloud in the frigid room, and her hands felt stiff and cold. She wanted to move to the far corner away from the door, because she truly felt that if Johann hadn’t been standing in the way, she would have bolted.
“Do you understand what’s happened?” Johann finally asked her.
“Do you?” she countered. She had no idea how she’d come to be in this predicament.
“Caroline, Frederich wants to talk to you.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
The door abruptly opened, and Frederich Graeber stepped into the room. Caroline caught a glimpse of the people on the nearest pews, all of them trying to get a better look. She stood with her head up, the way John Steigermann had counseled. She was not going to cry. She was not.
Frederich glanced in Caroline Holt’s direction, but he said nothing to her, closing the door firmly behind him. “I want to know what you—and Eli—are doing?” he said to Johann in German, lowering his voice so that Leah wouldn’t hear him.
“What I am doing?” Johann said incredulously. Johann’s German was corrupted by years of speaking English and sounded wrong to Frederich’s ears. “This uproar is no doing of mine, Frederich. If anyone is to blame it is you and Avery Holt. The girl didn’t even know there was a marriage pledge until the day John Steigermann took her to his house. My only concern is for this bastard child—”
“You know what people will think!” Frederich interrupted.
“Do you think the baby is Eli’s?”
“If I thought that, Johann, he’d be dead now,” Frederich answered, knowing full well that the only reason he didn’t believe it was the horrified look on Caroline Holt’s face when Eli made his bold offer. Clearly, Frederich wasn’t the only German she held in disdain.
“Yes, and the day isn’t over yet, is it, Frederich?” Johann said pointedly. “What is it you want done—or do you even know? She is your family member with or without the marriage pledge. Are you going to withdraw your pledge? Do you care if her baby is born a bastard or not? If you don’t, then leave. I will find whatever way I can to save this innocent child—even if it is a marriage to Eli.”
Frederich made an impatient gesture. “I will not be indebted to Eli!”
“How much has he to do with your making this marriage pledge in the first place?” Johann asked bluntly.
“Everything,” he said, meeting Johann’s gaze head on.
“You would put Caroline in the middle of the trouble between you and Eli and poor Ann—”
“Poor Ann? I am the one cuckolded!”
“Ann made a wrong choice, and she is the one who died for it. I think it would be better if you did withdraw the marriage pledge to Caroline. Let Eli take her. You carry too much pain and resentment still—”
“She won’t be any better off with Eli, Johann, and you know that. Eli has lived his whole life according to his whim. Ann was one of his whims. What if he changes his mind after he’s married Caroline? Who will be looking after her and her baby then?”
“I will ask if someone else will make the offer—”
“No! I don’t want any more scandal! And I told you. I can’t—won’t—be beholden to Eli. There will be less talk if I keep my pledge—at least they won’t dare say anything to my face. Caroline Holt is my children’s aunt. She has always been kind to them, and as much as I might dislike it, both of the girls need her.”
“And you, Frederich. What is it you need?”
“I need a mother for Lise and Mary Louise.”
“Can you be kind to Caroline? Can you keep from punishing her for Ann’s sin?”
“Look at her, Johann,” Frederich said. “We are alike, she and I. Neither of us cares what happens to us from here on. Perhaps we can do something good for an innocent child, and we can make everybody else happy in the process. I will keep the pledge. I am making the Christian and honorable offer you wanted someone to make.”
“Yes, but are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Johann.”
“I don’t think she’ll marry you, Frederich.”
“What choice does she have? Now go away so I can talk to her.”
“Go away? I can’t leave you in here alone with—”
“Leah is here. I don’t want you listening to what I say to Caroline—for her sake. There are some things that are none of your business. I want her to speak to me without you standing over her with the wrath of God.”
“I don’t do that,” Johann protested. “I never do that.”
“Go away, Johann!”
Caroline watched as the conversation between Frederich and Johann Rial abruptly ended. Johann was disturbed-she could tell that much—and one of his questions had made Frederich angry.
“What were they saying?” she asked Leah, trying hard to stand calmly and not wring her hands.
“I couldn’t hear,” Leah said.
Surprisingly and more than a little reluctantly, Johann left the room. Caroline needed to sit down. With Johann gone, there was no one to stand between her and Frederich Graeber’s anger. She was so tired suddenly, and in spite of everything she could do, she swayed on her feet. She moved blindly to one of the straight chairs in the room, and resisting Leah’s help, she sat down heavily.
Frederich immediately pulled up another chair and sat directly in front of her. He needed to be able to see her face when he talked to her, and he watched her closely. She was more afraid than she was willing to let on, and she was very pale. But she was not an older version of Ann. She looked nothing like his dead wife, and if anything in this situation pleased him, it was that.
“I know what you think of Germans—” he said.
“You know what Avery thinks of Germans,” Caroline replied. “You don’t know what I think about anything.”
“I also know what you think of marriage,” he went on as if she hadn’t interrupted. Ann had told him once that Caroline was determined never to be trapped in a loveless and hurtful union like their parents’.
Caroline didn’t respond to that remark, and Frederich waited. After a moment, she reached up and took off her bonnet, as if she wanted him to see her face better. She was not beautiful. He had always thought she had a kind of wasted prettiness, the kind that would have been fine enough for any man—if only she would have smiled more. She was not pretty today. Her face was bruised and swollen, and her dark hair was roached back so that it hid nothing of the damage Avery had done.
“Do you want to marry Eli?” he asked.
“No,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I don’t know why Eli is doing this. And I don’t want to marry you. I never wanted to marry you. I didn’t even know what you and Avery had planned—” She abruptly broke off and looked away. She was not going to explain this again.
“Why doesn’t the father of this baby marry you?”
Caroline glanced at him, but she said nothing. Then she intently smoothed down her skirt as if that were much more important than his questions.
“Do I…know the man?”
Again, Caroline refused to answer.
“Are you that ashamed of him then?” Frederich asked next, and Caroline’s head came up sharply. She looked him directly in the eyes.
“Take your marriage proposal and be damned,” she said.
“Caroline!” Leah chided her. “We are in the church!”
It surprised him that he was not in the least offended. He was far happier knowing that she was still the strong person Ann had described to him. He intended only to provide her child with legitimacy, nothing more. He wanted no whipped puppy or helpless clinging vine to have to look after.
“I have decided to keep the marriage pledge,” he said, holding up his hand when she would have interrupted. “Before you are so quick to say no, I remind you that you are the one who needs a marriage ceremony. I also remind you that my children—Anna’s children—need a woman who cares about them. Beata is no mother to them. It has been hard to see them so lonely since Anna died. Perhaps you will think of a marriage to me as a way to help your sister’s children as well as yourself. If you agree to it, I give you my word that I will take care of you as best I can. But I will expect you to be a good wife. I will expect you to be civil to me. I do not take Avery’s place as someone you must do battle with at every turn—”
“How can you speak of marriage? You think I’m not fit to have anything to do with your children,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. “I do. But you are innocent in my children’s eyes and you are important to them. I have never had cause to think you unfit until now.”
Caroline looked abruptly away.
“You…don’t say anything about the baby,” she said, realizing even as she said it that she sounded as if she were actually considering the possibility of marrying him. She looked up at him. “Can you be kind to another man’s child?”
She saw a flicker of emotion cross his face. He took a moment to answer.
“The child cannot help how it got here. If you marry me, then it will be mine. There is nothing left to say about this and we are wasting time. Do we marry or not, Caroline Holt? Antworten Sie entweder ja oder nein. Answer yes or no.”
Her eyes met his briefly, but she then quickly looked away. She said nothing, her hands clutching the folds of her skirt.
“Your right to pick and choose husbands you have forfeited, Caroline Holt. You can sit and cry and live on John Steigermann’s charity or you can marry me,” he said impatiently. “If the answer is yes, we will have the ceremony right now. Everyone who is still here will be invited to stay to witness it. There will be no hiding. People already know the reason for our marrying—or not marrying. There will be no more shame about what has happened.”
“I don’t even know you,” Caroline said abruptly. “You’re a stranger to me.”
“Every person who marries marries a stranger,” Frederich said. “No one knows that better than I. But I am less a stranger than most. We are part of the same family.” He stared at the bruises on her face. “I give you my word now that I will not beat you. I will not let Avery or anyone else beat you. What else do you want?”
What indeed? Caroline thought.
The door abruptly opened.
“I can’t wait out here any longer, Frederich,” Johann said in German. “I’ve been talking to Eli and he—”
“This matter is between Caroline Holt and me. Eli has no part in it.”
“I know that, Frederich. It’s Beata I’m worried about. She’s becoming a…problem.”
“Beata is always a problem.”
“She is threatening to swoon,” Johann said in English.
“Swoon?” Frederich asked, not familiar with the word.
He smiled at Johann’s explanation of this terrible thing Beata would inflict upon him to have her way. He had no doubt that their sire would have capitulated immediately at such a dire threat from his spoiled daughter. The old man was long gone—and Beata still believed that the mere possibility of her keeling over in public would turn the world according to her wishes.
“Caroline Holt,” he said, getting up from the chair. “We have wasted enough time. Tell me now. Do we go make Beata swoon or not?”
Chapter Four (#ulink_1fdbb41d-199b-572f-9444-8ed3106ef04d)
Nearly everyone stayed for the wedding.
Forgive me, Ann, she kept thinking. She was a coward and she had no other choice. She clung to Frederich’s arm like a person in danger of drowning, far more ashamed of having to accept his offer of marriage than of her out-ofwedlock pregnancy. She stood before God and she answered the questions Johann Rial asked her until suddenly the ordeal was over. The church emptied, and a feeble celebration began. Johann brought out three kegs of hard cider from his own cellar for the impromptu wedding guests. The men swarmed the kegs, dragging Frederich off with them as they queued up to pass around a common dipper. Their congratulations were loud and boisterous, and some of them began cracking their whips in a kind of belated Polterabend, the noisemaking necessary to scare away the German evil spirits the evening before a wedding. She remembered the raucous demonstration surrounding Ann’s marriage to Frederich—Ann standing on the Holt front porch and laughing up at her dour soon-to-be-husband.
It occurred to Caroline, too, that everyone here accepted the obvious reason for her agreeing to marry Frederich Graeber. She was pregnant; the real father of the baby was unwilling. And while Eli had come to her rescue like some Sturm und Drang hero who intended to make an honest woman of her no matter what, it was Frederich’s arm she held on to. She held on to his arm, and she knew the truth. She had married Frederich because on the worst day of her life, this seemingly humorless man had dared to make light of her predicament. Neither his prenuptial promises nor her great need had swayed her the way his almost mischievous remark about Beata had. She had nearly laughed in spite of her misery, and it was as if he had given her a brief and shining glimpse of the person she used to be.
What happened to that girl? she wondered, watching as Frederich accepted another dipperful of cider. What happened to the Caroline Holt who used to dance and sing and laugh so easily? She could remember quite distinctly a time when she had been happy. Being sent to school in town when she was fifteen had been one of the greatest joys of her life. Her mother had insisted that she be educated, paying for Caroline’s three years at the Female Academy out of her own small inheritance, regardless of her husband’s wishes. But today was the first time Caroline had realized that her father had been right in wanting to keep his daughter in her place. Her mother had done her no favor in giving her a taste of the kind of life she had come from. An education was supposed to make one better, not forever dissatisfied and longing for the things one couldn’t have. Her mother had been born to live in town and go to teas and lectures and poetry readings, not she. She had been born to be a farmer’s wife, to work herself into mindless exhaustion, to bear children until she died like Ann. Her fine education had done nothing to change that. She took a quiet breath. If she was thankful for anything, it was that neither of her parents had lived to see this day. Her downfall would have done nothing but fuel the contempt they had for each other.
She jumped as John Steigermann fired a shotgun in the air. He gave her a sheepish grin and she smiled. Given the circumstances of this marriage, she needed to have the evil spirits as far away as possible. It was a shame that the Polterabend didn’t work on Beata. Her new sister-in-law hadn’t swooned after all, and every time Caroline looked up, Beata was whispering to a different group of women. Caroline had misjudged Beata in the early days of Ann’s marriage, thinking her flighty and insecure and living in Frederich’s household on sufferance much as she herself lived in Avery’s. Beata always talked nervously with her hands, her pale eyes darting away, as hard to pin down as a little boy caught with the telltale remains of a pie left cooling on the windowsill. Her torso was too thick for her arms and legs, the heaviness accentuated by a dowager’s hump. There were heavy lines in her face from nose to mouth and between her eyebrows. She was crude and vulgar and vindictive, and she had made Ann’s life a nightmare.
Caroline huddled with Leah and tried to pretend that she didn’t notice how few of the women came near after Beata spoke to them. She knew perfectly well what Beata was about. She was making sure that a hasty marriage didn’t change Caroline Holt’s status as an outcast.
She sighed and looked away from Beata’s animated discourse with yet another group of women to find Leah watching her.
“No one will believe her, Caroline,” Leah said quietly.
“Won’t they? What is she saying?”
“Beata tells lies, Caroline—”
“Tell me.”
“Caroline, it’s better to just ignore her.”
“Please, Leah. I can’t defend myself if I don’t know.”
Leah hesitated, then gave a small sigh. “She…says you’ve been going to town and lying with the soldiers who are always around the depot. She says you don’t know who your baby’s father is.”
Caroline nearly laughed at the irony. She hadn’t been into town in more than a year, and Avery had refused to take her along with him the day she’d gone to the schoolroom. But she couldn’t deny Beata’s tales. To do so, to say she hadn’t been to town in so long would only focus the speculation about who had fathered her child on the men here.
She watched Avery at the cider kegs. He had said nothing to her or Frederich since they’d come out of the church, and he was drinking heavily, pushing his way in to refill the dipper again and again. And Kader was there—apparently had been in attendance all the time, and he was clearly enjoying the celebration. She gave a sharp intake of breath as he suddenly snatched the dipper out of Avery’s grasp. He lifted it high and toasted Frederich with it, slapping him on the back and shaking his hand. Then he made some remark that caused the men to roar with laughter.
“Are you all right?” Leah asked.
“Quite all right,” she answered, and she realized that Kader Gerhardt was probably the only person here who was truly happy about her marriage.
She turned and looked the other way, determined not to let Kader see how forlorn she felt. She was so cold. Her entire body ached with it, and her hands trembled from the strain of the morning and the long time since she’d eaten. She wanted to speak to Lise and Mary Louise, but Beata keep them close by her side. How many times today would Lise have to hear about her Aunt Caroline and the soldiers at the depot?
“Leah, could you ask your father to tell William what’s happened?” Caroline said abruptly. “I promised him I’d let him know whatever I…decided to do. I want him to hear more than just Avery’s version.”
She was certain that otherwise William would never believe she’d done this thing. She didn’t believe it herself, any more than she believed that she could have actually asked Leah Steigermann for a favor.
“I’m…sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you with Avery,” Caroline said. “I know you care about him, and I thank you for your help today. I don’t think I could have made it otherwise. Avery is bound to have hard feelings, and I just want you to know that I’m…sorry.”
“Ah, well,” Leah said, immediately dismissing the apology. “What can anyone do about Avery?”
Nothing, Caroline thought. Absolutely nothing.
“I will go find my father now,” Leah said. “He will see that William is told.” She put her hand on Caroline’s arm. “You are lucky, Caroline. Your baby will have a name now. And Frederich has money and land. He’s quite handsome—you must try not to mind how the marriage happened.”
Handsome? Caroline hadn’t thought of him as ugly, but neither had she recognized his handsomeness. She looked for him in the crowd around the cider kegs to verify Leah’s opinion. He wasn’t there anymore. She finally saw him standing alone with a dipper in his hand at the stone wall near Ann’s grave.
She couldn’t keep from shivering. The wind was far too sharp for an outside celebration, particularly one as halfhearted as this one. The women were anxious to leave, and the men began seeking out Frederich again to shake his hand. Only a few people said goodbye to Caroline.
She looked around as Lise and Mary Louise came running to her, both of them clinging to her with as much desperation as she herself was beginning to feel. She forced herself to smile at their upturned faces. Blond and freckled Lise, who was so quiet and serious and old beyond her years. And Mary Louise, who was as mischievous as she was merry. Caroline wondered how much it bothered Frederich that his youngest child was dark-haired and brown-eyed like the Holts.
“Is it true what Papa says?” Lise asked earnestly. “Are you coming to our house?”
“Yes,” Caroline said. “It’s true.” She looked across the churchyard to where Frederich stood.
Why did you do this? she thought. She had no beauty, no reputation, no virtue. She had only her availability for the wedding night and any other night he felt so inclined.
Kader!
She hugged both the nieces tightly, and she couldn’t keep from shivering again. Frederich had moved to the Graeber wagon now. Beata hovered at his elbow, still talking. Both of them stared in her direction.
“Look, Aunt Caroline!” Lise said. “My tooth is loose!”
She looked down and smiled at the front tooth Lise wiggled with her tongue, then laughed as Mary Louise tried to wiggle hers as well.
“I can’t do it!” Mary Louise said, grabbing Caroline around the knees, nearly toppling her. “You do it, Aunt Caroline!”
“Silly Willy,” Lise said. “You’re just a baby. You have to be seven like—Papa wants me,” she said abruptly as Frederich gestured for her to come to him. There was no doubt in either of their minds that he meant now.
Caroline stood awkwardly, watching Lise scurry to see what Frederich wanted. Should she make Mary Louise follow? Was she to ride back with Beata and the children or had he made some other arrangement?
Mary Louise kept pulling at Caroline’s skirts, and she bent to lift her. But Frederich walked up. He said nothing, taking the child out of her grasp. His eyes met hers over the top of Mary Louise’s head. The anger was still there, she thought in dismay. She could never make peace with this man, even if she wanted to. His bitterness came solely from injured pride at his having trusted Avery Holt, and not from the fact that he’d actually ever wanted her. She was astute enough to recognize a man’s interest when she encountered it, the subtle and not so subtle looks that came when one’s brother or father wasn’t looking. She’d never gotten any such looks from Frederich. Frederich Graeber had barely acknowledged her existence. The memory of the day Ann died surfaced in her mind again. He was a powerful man, strong from his work in the fields, and she realized at that moment that, in spite of his promise, she was as physically afraid of him as she had ever been of Avery.
Mary Louise started to cry, and Frederich seemed about to say something. But then he turned abruptly and walked back toward the wagon, with Mary Louise still crying and reaching for her over his shoulder.
Caroline stood for a moment longer, then made her decision. She wasn’t going to try to second-guess Frederich. If he didn’t want her at the Graeber wagon, he was going to have to say so. She gave an ironic smile. She could see herself left standing, the Graebers riding away home, freed of the burden of her presence—but it wouldn’t be because she had let Frederich intimidate her. She had done nothing wrong—at least where Frederich Graeber was concerned.
Frederich turned to her the moment she walked up. “Where is Eli? We are going.”
“I don’t know,” she said evenly.
“Get on the wagon. I don’t expect to have to tell you everything.”
She bit down on her reply, surprised by the surge of anger she felt.
“Aunt Caroline,” Lise said, leaning over the wagon edge and holding out her hand.
Caroline took it, intending to step up on the hub of the wagon wheel. But it hurt too much to lift her leg that high. She tried with the other leg, Lise pulling hard on her hand while Mary Louise still cried for Caroline to hold her. Beata climbed in on the other side, settling herself on the front wagon seat and giving off a loud tirade in German Caroline couldn’t begin to understand. People were beginning to turn and stare, and Johann was walking rapidly toward them.
“Mein Gott,” Frederich said under his breath. He lifted Caroline roughly upward and deposited her beside his daughters, his broad hand resting directly over a bruise on her back. She couldn’t keep from crying out. Her eyes smarted, and she bit down on her lower lip. The pain stayed.
Thankfully, Eli appeared, intercepting Johann before he reached the wagon. She couldn’t bear any more heavy-handed concern from either of them today. The two men talked while Beata muttered under her breath and Frederich fidgeted impatiently.
“Eli!” he yelled suddenly, making Caroline jump.
After a moment, Eli came and took a seat beside Caro-
line. He said nothing to anyone but Lise, some remark in German that made her smile. Frederich looked over his shoulder once, then cracked his whip to get the horses moving. Beata’s muttering immediately became loud, guttural German again, the brunt of it directed at Frederich as far as Caroline could tell.
How am I going to stand this? she thought. She closed her eyes and tried to endure. She was in agony having to sit on the hard wagon seat. Her head ached and her nose ran from the cold—and she had no handkerchief. It was all she could do not to burst into tears and wail right along with Mary Louise.
Frederich said something to Beata in German as the wagon turned into the narrow road leading up to the Graeber house.
“And what does a whore like her need with clothes?" Beata answered in English, looking directly at Caroline.
Eli was out of his seat and would have put his hands on Beata if Frederich hadn’t grabbed him by his coat front to intervene. The horses pranced and reared nervously, and Mary Louise began to cry again.
“Enough!” Frederich bellowed. “By God, I have had enough!”
Beata clutched at Frederich’s arm. “You let him raise his hand to me! You let him—!”
“Be quiet, Beata! I will hear no more!” He was still holding on to Eli, and he pulled hard on the reins with one hand to keep the team from bolting, finally stopping them in the yard. He said something to Eli in angry German, silencing Beata again when she made some remark.
Please, Caroline prayed as Frederich lifted her down. Please let me get away from these people.
But she had married Frederich and the Graebers, and she was having a baby. She tried not to think about who would help her when her time came. Beata?
Oh, dear God.
Eli and Frederich began to unharness the team, both of them still arguing. She stood for a moment, staring toward the house, a brick house two stories high. Ann had been so proud to live here. She had been too young to know that a fine house meant nothing if there was no love in it. Given Beata’s present mood, Caroline wondered if she would even let her come inside without some kind of altercation.
“Aunt Caroline?” Lise said, ignoring Beata’s admonishments to take care of Mary Louise. Lise was so pale, and Caroline realized suddenly how difficult this day must have been for her.
Lise and Mary Louise were the only good things to come out of this arrangement, she thought. She looked up at the sky. The sun was low on the horizon. They had completely missed the noon meal. Both children must be starved. She took her nieces by the hand and walked along with them toward the back porch as if she expected nothing from Beata but exemplary behavior. Beata hurried past them, muttering to herself. She went into the house first, but at least she didn’t lock Caroline and the children out.
The Graeber kitchen was huge and smelled of smoldering ashes and Beata’s before-church baking. One side of the room faced the east and had two double windows to catch the morning sun. There was a trestle table in front of one of the windows and a paneled chest-settle near the huge diagonal fireplace. The fire had been banked, but it still gave off some warmth. Caroline walked with the children to the settle, needing desperately to sit down again. She began to help them take off their coats. She felt so ill at ease here. Everywhere she looked reminded her of Ann. Ann’s punched tin sewing box, the one decorated with sunbursts, sat on a small table by the settle. Their own mother’s English Stafford-shire china filled the corner cupboard. The numerous bright blue and white dishes had been Ann’s only wedding gift of any value from the Holt side of the family. And how Caroline hated seeing them in Beata’s kitchen. Ann’s heavy oak rocking chair still sat in the same corner. The back of the chair was decorated with carved roses. It had been a wedding present from Frederich, and Ann had always sat in it to feed her babies. It surprised Caroline that Beata had kept it.
There was no pig iron stove in the kitchen, only an iron box oven that sat directly on the hearth. Ann had wanted a real stove so badly. She had never really learned how to cook in the fireplace where everything had to be done over open flames or buried in hot coals. Once, she’d even set her skirts on fire.
Eli came in and began to light the oil lamps that hung on S hooks from the exposed overhead beams. She could see the room better now. The rest of the walls were lined with dressers for dishes and pots she didn’t quite remember. And there were several churns sitting about, and some small three-legged stools in the corners. One bare brick wall had been sponge painted with white lead. She had to grudgingly admit that Beata, for all her ill-tempered ways, kept a spotless house.
Eli moved from lamp to lamp, glancing at her from time to time as if he expected her to cry or run or both. He seemed to have taken over the task of acting as her champion, but she wished that he wouldn’t stare at her so. She was dangerously close to tears again.
I can’t live here with Frederich, she thought, but it wasn’t living with him that troubled her. The Graeber farm was twice the size she was used to. There would be more than enough chores for her and Beata to do. She could easily stay out of his way during the day, but what would she do at night?
Tonight?
She tried to find the numbness she’d felt earlier this morning, but it had been replaced by a kind of mindless panic. She was trapped, and the sun was going down. She had no night things. No dressing gown. No way to hide from her new bridegroom. She had only the clothes she’d arrived in. She glanced at Eli as he lit the last lamp. Perhaps he could help her. Perhaps she could just say it.
Eli, I’m afraid!
He left the kitchen for a moment and came back with a brimming pitcher of milk. Then he motioned for her and the children to come to the table. She got up reluctantly, while he found three large tin cups and filled them with milk. Then he disappeared into the pantry and returned with several pieces of cold corn bread.
“Beata doesn’t cook when she’s angry,” Lise said as if she thought Caroline needed some kind of explanation.
Caroline gave a resigned sigh. In that case, it might be months before Beata prepared another meal for this household.
“Sit,” Eli said, pulling out a chair.
Caroline hesitated, then sat down in the heavy Carver chair he wanted her to take, hoping that he wasn’t giving her Beata’s seat. All she needed was for Beata to come downstairs and find Caroline Holt sitting in her place.
Caroline Holt Graeber.
“Trink, Caroline,” Eli said, holding a cup of milk out to her.
She didn’t want to drink. She didn’t want anything. Except to run. Or to take back the marriage vows.
“Eli, I—”
She stopped because both children were watching intently, and when she didn’t take the cup, he walked to the worktable and lifted the lid on the honey pot, ladling a huge dollop of honey into the milk. He rotated the cup for a moment, sloshing milk over the sides, then brought it back to her.
“Trink,“ he said again.
She sighed, and she accepted the cup and the piece of corn bread he pushed at her. Then she drank the milk. All of it. Apparently, he’d heard somewhere of her weakness for milk and honey.
“Papa!” Mary Louise said, grinning broadly when Frederich came in the back door. He pointedly ignored Eli, but he stopped long enough to almost smile and to affectionately pat both children on the cheek. The gesture caught Caroline completely off guard. She had never once thought of Frederich Graeber as man who could be gentle with his children. He glanced at Caroline briefly on his way upstairs, and she was struck by the peculiar notion that he was feeling as trapped by the turn of events as she.
Beata must have been waiting for him on the top step, because Caroline could hear both their voices almost immediately.
And Eli stood watching her.
“Eli, don’t stare at me. Please,” she said finally, hoping he had enough command of English to understand.
Whatever he answered had something to do with Lise.
“I can tell her,” Lise said to him. “I like to talk for Eli,” she said to Caroline.
“Mary Louise needs to be put to bed,” Caroline said. “She’s falling asleep in her corn bread…” No one was listening to her. She didn’t want to have to endure any secondhand conversations with Eli. She didn’t want…anything. He spoke to Lise for a moment in German.
“Eli says to tell you this, Aunt Caroline. We…welcome you and we are glad you are here. Don’t be—” She stopped to ask Eli for clarification. “Don’t be afraid of us,” she continued. “No one can hurt you anymore.”
Caroline abruptly looked down at her hands, completely overwhelmed by how desperately she wanted to believe that. She had to fight hard not to cry.
“Eli says I’m to take you upstairs now. He says for you to rest—and try to sleep.”
She looked at him, but now he avoided her eyes.
Lise asked Eli another question.
“Come with me,” she said to Caroline after he’d answered.
Caroline nodded, then stood up. She let Lise take her by the hand, looking over her shoulder once at Eli before she climbed the stairs. He was wiping the milk mustache off Mary Louise’s mouth.
The room upstairs was Spartan and small and not the one Frederich had shared with Ann. Was this where Frederich slept now? Caroline wondered. There weren’t enough personal things in it to be sure, and she couldn’t ask Lise. She managed a smile when the child dutifully kissed her good-night, but she kept looking at the door, expecting Beata or Frederich or both and yet another unpleasant encounter.
She sat down heavily on the side of the bed after Lise had gone and took off her bonnet, hanging it by its ribbons on the one chair. She had no water to drink or to bathe in. She had no brushes or combs.
She sat there, numb again after all and staring at nothing. Then she lay down on top of the quilts and curled herself into a tight ball. All day long, she had been fighting the tears, but now that she had the privacy to shed them, none came. She lay there, huddled in her shawl, listening to the sounds of the house. Distant voices still raised in anger. Footsteps and slamming doors. The wind moaning against the eaves. And she listened to her own wavering sigh.
In spite of the cold and the strangeness, she fell asleep, and she woke a long time later when the door burst open.
Chapter Five (#ulink_e1356536-856b-5ffb-a27c-19b90c706d1e)
“Where is he?” Frederich demanded, realizing as he said it that in spite of his earlier certainty, Eli was not in the room.
“What?” Caroline Holt asked. The dazed question only fueled his anger.
“The sun is up! There is work to do! Where is Eli?”
Her hair was coming down, and it suddenly penetrated that his new wife was fully dressed and still wearing her shawl and that the bed had been slept on, not in. She sat up slowly and stared at him. Her eyes were big and afraid like a child’s, like Mary Louise’s when Beata scared her with witch stories about the cruel Eisenbertha.
But she took her own time about answering. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“I’ve said I don’t know! I haven’t seen him since—” She broke off, and looked away, as if she had to shore up her courage. “Since yesterday,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes again. “He didn’t spend the night here, if that’s what you think.”
Taken aback by her bluntness, Frederich stood for a moment, then abruptly left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Now what? he thought as he clambered down the stairs. Where could Eli be? He wasn’t in the barn—none of the animals had been tended. The cows hadn’t been milked. The kitchen fire hadn’t been lit. Between Eli’s disappearance and Beata’s sulking, nothing had been done this morning. The north field had to be plowed and his children hadn’t been fed—and wouldn’t be at this rate.
He crossed the cold kitchen and opened the back door.
“Eli!” he yelled into the backyard, as if he hadn’t already looked. He listened for a reply, but he could only hear the crows in the pine tops at the edge of the field and the lowing of miserable, unmilked cows.
He turned and went back into the kitchen, and was startled to find Caroline Holt standing there.
“Are the children still asleep?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her.
“Why, yes, Caroline,” she answered for him. “The children are still asleep. Why don’t you build a fire so the kitchen will be warm when they come down? Perhaps you could even cook them a little Frühstück since they’ve only had milk and corn bread since yesterday.
“What a fine idea, Frederich,” she continued, her sarcasm the kind born of years of practice. “I understand it may be some time before Beata decides to participate in the household again. But you see, I don’t quite know what to do with such a huge fireplace. Perhaps if you would deign to instruct me—for the sake of your children—I could accomplish—”
“You find this amusing?” Frederich cut in. By God, she was a sharp-tongued woman, whether she was afraid of him or not. No wonder her brother had beaten her—except he was certain Avery Holt hadn’t beaten her for her sarcasm. He’d beaten her for the child she carried. For ruining his dream of finally owning the acre of land with a spring he’d begged the use of these past eight years.
“Oh, no, Frederich,” she said. “I don’t find this amusing. I find this a living hell.“
Frederich turned abruptly and went outside before he laid hands on her in spite of his promise. He was angry enough to do it, to grab her and shake her until all that superiority and arrogance dropped away. She was not his better, regardless of her fine education and her airs. He knew that she had never considered him a fit husband for Ann—but Caroline Holt had been tumbled by a man she was clearly too ashamed to name. She was like any other briar patch whore in the county, and she’d do well to remember that.
The horses rumbled a greeting when he flung open the barn door, blowing heavily and leaning out over their stalls to nudge him as he passed by. But he left them standing. He had to put the cows out of their misery first.
The milking rapidly grew into yet another aggravation, because his barely controlled anger made the cows as testy and uncooperative as he felt. The wind the past few days would have dried the ground, making it just right for plowing—and here he was doing Beata’s job. Caroline Holt had been right about one thing. This was going to be a kind of hell—living in the same house with her and Beata. He ignored the fact that just such an arrangement had been his original plan and that he had once looked at Caroline Holt with a certain longing. He couldn’t deny that he found her attractive enough for his taste and that her aloofness both annoyed and intrigued him. He had never wanted a docile wife. He had wanted this marriage to make his children happy, and, in time, he had wanted to be vindicated as a man worthy of her regard and not some ignorant foreigner.
It was only when he remembered the way Ann had died that he knew the true reason for his seeking to wed her sister. He still felt the sting of Ann’s betrayal as sharply as if it had been yesterday. He cursed the day his older brother had sent Eli here to America. Eli, who had taken half the land and Frederich’s young wife. Frederich tried not to remember the look in Ann’s eyes every time she spoke Eli’s name. The question had never been whether Ann had loved Eli Graeber. The question had been how much. He knew the answer to that now, but Ann was no longer here to atone for the wrong she’d done, and it hadn’t been enough for him that she had died giving birth to Eli’s child. He still needed reparation, and Caroline was the person Ann loved best. After her children. After Eli. If he, Frederich, married her, he could make her suffer for Ann’s transgression without remorse. He could insist that she be a good German wife. He could keep her pregnant—there would be no time for books and poetry and fine airs. How Caroline would hate that, and how Ann would have hated it for her.
But the actual marriage yesterday had somehow changed everything. Caroline was in his household as a wife and therefore legally and morally subject to his will, but she was also a helpless outcast in need of his charity, beloved by his children no matter how disdainful she was’of him. He didn’t like the turn his emotions had taken. Perhaps it would have been better to let Eli—
Where is Eli, damn him?
Off somewhere feeling sorry for himself—again, he thought.
Frederich’s abrupt fit of agitation startled the cow, and she bellowed loudly, kicking over the nearly full milk pail before he could catch it. He swore and watched helplessly as the barn cats rushed forward to make the best of his misfortune before the milk seeped into the ground.
He could hear Lise and Mary Louise calling him. He left the bucket sitting and he stepped outside. They descended upon him immediately, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him along, chattering as they went. He entered the house fully expecting to find the kitchen on fire.
A meal had been laid out on the table instead—bread and cheese, jam and butter. Bacon and boiled eggs.
“Look what we made, Papa!” Lise said, pulling out his chair. “We only had two things to burn.”
“Three,” Caroline said, lifting Mary Louise into a chair. “The bacon caught fire twice. I couldn’t find the coffee,” she said, turning back to the hearth.
He hesitated, looking at her warily, as if there was some devious purpose behind all this. She glanced at him over her shoulder, and after a moment, he sat down.
“I cooked the bread, Papa,” Mary Louise said, grinning around the two fingers she had in her mouth. He reached to pull them out before she ruined her fine teeth.
“She means she found the bread. Beata hid it in the pantry,” Lise said. “We thought the water for the eggs would never boil, didn’t we, Aunt Caroline?”
“Never,” Caroline agreed without looking up from the hearth. She’d shed her shawl, and her face was flushed from working so close to the fire. She struggled with an iron pot, and Frederich tried not to look at the way her breasts moved under the bodice of her ugly yellow-flowered dress.
There were only three places set. Apparently, Caroline had not intended to join them, nor did he invite her. He lost himself in conversation with his daughters, listening to their convoluted story of how such a fine Frühstück had come about.
“Beata’s going to be upset,” Lise said.
“Beata is always upset,” he said, spreading more jam on a huge slice of bread.
“But she’s going to say we took bread she was keeping for something else.”
“For what?” Frederich asked with his mouth full.
“She never says that part,” Lisa answered, and he laughed.
“Don’t worry, little one. If Beata wants to hoard her bread, then she must come down here and guard her kitchen herself. The biggest trouble with sulking, you see, is while you’re off hiding with your long face, life will go on without you. If she stays away, there’s no telling what we might do with the rest of the food in the pantry—we might even find where she hides the coffee,” he added in a whisper.
He was smiling—until he glanced at Caroline. Then he was immediately reminded of what a disaster this morning had been.
He abruptly got up from the table. “I have too much to do,” he said, the reproach in his voice apparent even to him. He took another hunk of the ill-gotten bread and a slice of bacon with him. He had stayed in the company of his children and Caroline Holt too long. He had nearly let his anger dissipate, and he needed it if he was going to plow the north field and locate his good-for-nothing nephew.
He went back to the barn. He tossed the last bit of bacon and bread to the barn cats, and he climbed the ladder to the hayloft, fighting off a fit of sneezing that came from the dust and the pungent scent of the hay. He stood for a moment peering into the dark corners for Eli’s sleeping form. If Eli hadn’t gone to Caroline, then he had to have slept somewhere.
The loft was empty, and Frederich began pitching the hay into the stalls below. The cats mewed loudly for another handout, and Beata was awake. He could hear her complaining all the way out here.
He moved to the other side and looked over the edge. The door to the stall directly below him stood ajar, and the bay gelding that should have been there was gone.
Frederich stayed away from the house until shortly after noon. The kitchen was quiet when he came in, and he was surprised that there was no meal on the table. Even if Beata was still sulking, he expected Caroline to have at least managed something for the children. He didn’t see the girls anywhere, but she was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs.
“We observe the Mittagessen in this house,” he said.
She looked at him blankly.
“The noon meal,” he said as if to a backward child.
“Lise and Mary Louise have eaten.”
“Is there anything left?” he asked pointedly.
“I don’t know. Beata took it.”
“Took it where?”
“I don’t know,” she said again.
He swore under his breath and went looking for whatever Beata might have put aside for him—or missed hiding. There was nothing. He looked up from his search to see Caroline standing nearby.
“Have you…found Eli?” she asked, not quite meeting his eyes.
“One of the horses and a saddle is missing. Eli had some money put by. I expect he is long gone.”
“Oh,” she said, as if she hadn’t considered that possibility.
When he looked up again, she was putting on her shawl and opening the back door. “Where are you going?”
He saw the rise and fall of her breasts as she took a deep breath before she answered him.
“This—marriage—isn’t going to work. I’m going to ask Avery to let me come home.”
The remark took him completely by surprise, and his temper flared. He had given her the only chance she would ever have for any kind of respectability and she was about to throw it away?
“Avery will not let you come home,” he said bluntly.
“You don’t know that—”
“He made too much of a show among the men of disowning you.”
He walked into the pantry looking again for something Beata might have forgotten to hide. He supposed that the loss of her secret hoard of bread must have convinced her as nothing else could that the rest of them hadn’t suffered enough from her self-imposed absence. Certainly it would be much more difficult to cook and eat without her if no one could find any food. He wondered what terrible thing he had done in his life to deserve Beata. And Eli. And Caroline Holt.
When he came out of the pantry, Caroline was no longer in the room. He leaned over the table to look out the window. She was walking across the field he should have had plowed by now, her gait strong for a few steps then hesitant, as if she were being forced to give in to the pain she still had from Avery’s beating.
Good riddance, he thought. Let her grovel in front of Avery. And when he sent her back again, perhaps she would understand her situation better.
He looked around at a small noise. Both his daughters stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“Papa?” Lise said tentatively. “Did you let Aunt Caroline go?”
He sighed. “She went, Lise. There was no letting or not letting.”
“Aren’t you…worried? Uncle Avery—he might hurt her again, Papa. And we promised.”
“Lise, I can’t tie your Aunt Caroline to the kitchen table so she’ll stay here,” he said, trying not to be influenced by how hard she was trying not to cry. Lise was a gentle soul; she was concerned about all living creatures—whether they deserved it or not.
“Eli said we wouldn’t let anyone hurt her again. He promised, Papa.”
“Lise, there is nothing I can do,” he said, in spite of the fact that he’d made the same promise himself.
“Couldn’t you just—?”
“This is not your business.”
Mary Louise was tugging on his trouser leg. “What is it, Mary Louise?” he said more sharply than he intended.
“I think we might cry, Papa,” she advised him.
“Then you’ll just have to cry. Life is full of crying. I can’t fix everything.” He was very careful not to look into her upturned face, into those begging Holt-brown eyes.
“Can’t you please just fix this, Papa?” Lise asked. “Don’t let Uncle Avery hurt her again. Please, Papa! All you have to do is just stand there while she talks to him—he wouldn’t hurt her if you stood by. I know he wouldn’t!”
Her mouth trembled, but she worked hard not to give in to it. Clearly, Lise expected him to stand guard indefinitely.
“Your Aunt Caroline left by her own choice—”
“No, she didn’t, Papa! She left because Beata is going to be mean to everybody if she stays. Papa—”
He held up his hand to stop her.
“You don’t worry about your Aunt Caroline. You don’t worry about any of those people over there.”
Caroline heard the back door slam, and Frederich caught up with her before she reached the edge of the Graeber land.
“I have something to say to you, Caroline Holt. This is—”
“What do you want, Frederich?” she interrupted. She stopped walking, and she forced herself to look him in the eye.
“What do I want? I want to keep you from making the scandal any bigger than it already is.”
They stared at each other. She abruptly looked away.
“What is wrong with you?” he said angrily. “You behave as if you have some choice about what you will do! You don’t. You are pregnant. Avery doesn’t want you or your brat. It falls to me to keep my family from becoming any more of a laughingstock than it already is. I am going to keep the family’s honor—the honor you drag through the mud as if there is nobody to suffer the consequences but you. There is only one thing to be done. You don’t start everybody talking all over again about the marriage. Do you understand?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t!”
“My daughters are crying—Beata is starving us to death hiding everything she can get her hands on—Eli has disappeared! All this is your fault. Do you understand that? Going to Avery—begging Avery—will only make our trouble worse. Worse for you—worse for—”
She looked away from his penetrating gaze. She did understand after all. She understood perfectly. How terrible for Frederich to have to keep her when he wanted so desperately to be rid of her.
“Frederich, I—” she began, looking back at him. But he was staring at her clothes. “Come,” he interrupted. “We go see Avery now.”
“Go see—Frederich, you just said you didn’t—”
“You are beginning to stink. You need your clothes. We’ll go and get them, and you don’t say anything to your brother about this notion you have of coming home. You can manage that, surely.”
He took her by the arm to start her walking, letting go almost immediately as if he found touching her distasteful. And he kept giving her wary glances as they crossed the field.
“Say nothing!” he admonished her as they neared the house, and she had to bite her lip to suppress an angry reply. She wasn’t stupid about everything. Just her choices of lovers and husbands.
She could see John Steigermann standing in the yard-perhaps advising William of her marriage as she’d asked. Under better circumstances and with a different companion, the walk here would have been pleasant enough. It was cold still, but without the biting wind of yesterday. Spring always came quickly in this part of the country; winter one week and budding leaves the next. She noted with some surprise that she was looking forward to the dogwoods and jonquils just as she always did. And she noted, too, that she was actually going to try to have a civil conversation with Avery after what he had done.
Better to ask for her clothes than for sanctuary, she thought.
John Steigermann and William and Avery were all staring at her as she and Frederich approached. They would, of course, be surprised to see her out today. She was newly married and should be attending to her wifely duties.
“Ah!” John Steigermann said immediately, waving her closer. “Frederich! Caroline! Come hear this. You will want to know the news.”
“What news?” she asked, glancing at Avery as he swallowed whatever unpleasant thing he would have said to her if both John Steigermann and Frederich hadn’t been there.
“The army has gone through again foraging supplies,” Steigermann said. “Penn Palmer says they took every decent horse he had. Steal is what they do. Paying with pieces of paper no one wants to honor. I say we go to the garrison in town—we see what they will do about paying real money for what they take. And look at this, Caroline,” he said taking a folded newspaper from his coat pocket. “You will read what this says, yes? I can’t read the English so good.”
She took the paper he handed her. “New call for troops,” she read aloud. “The following is under proclamation of the President, extending the call under the Conscript Act, to embrace all residents of the Confederacy between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, not legally exempt—”
John Steigermann frowned and motioned for Caroline to keep reading.
“Foreigners,” she went on, “who are actual residents, will be called upon to do military service in defense of the country in which they reside.”
“Let me see that,” Avery said, snatching the newspaper out of her band and reading it himself. “That’s what it says. I’ve got my farmer’s exemption—but this is going to get a lot of you Germans if you aren’t careful.”
“And how can we Germans be careful, Avery?” Frederich asked. “Do we go hide in the woods and leave the women and children to work the farms?”
“You can go into town and see about a farmer’s exemption the same as I did,” Avery said.
“That is not so easy when the man who takes the bribe changes every week.”
“It isn’t a bribe, Frederich. It’s a fee.“
“Call it what name you will, Avery Holt. It is what it is.”
Caroline stepped away as the discussion became more heated. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She was tired from the walk. And from arguing with Frederich, and before him, Beata.
Isn’t there someplace where I can just live in peace?
“Caroline,” William said.
She looked around at him. He was standing awkwardly, clearly embarrassed by her new status and not knowing what to say.
“Hello, William,” she said, forcing a smile she didn’t begin to feel.
“I got something for you,” he said, motioning her toward the house.
Avery glanced at him but didn’t intervene.
“What is it?” Caroline asked, letting William take her by the hand.
“I got your clothes all together,” he said. “I reckon you’re going to need them until Frederich can buy you some more.”
“William—”
“I got your dresses bundled and everything else in Mama’s old straw valise—I reckon the handle will stay on. I was going to sneak them over to you first chance I got. But since you’re here, I can give them to you now. And I reckon you’ll be wanting your books and all—me and Avery sure ain’t going to be reading them.”
“William—”
“It’s all right now, ain’t it, Caroline? You’ll be all right with Frederich, won’t you? You know I never in a million years thought he’d be the one you’d end up marrying. See, I never thought you’d marry at all—” He broke off, apparently realizing that his comment was less than tactful. “It’s good Frederich could come over to help you carry this stuff,” he decided, and he was looking at her so earnestly.
I have to come home, William.
She pursed her lips and tried to say the words, but she couldn’t manage it. William was so happy for her. He thought she was safe now.
“I’ll get your clothes,” William said, turning and bounding up the steps into the house.
She stood there still wanting to ask Avery—to beg him to let her come home. Surely, surely, he’d let her. He wouldn’t lose face. She could tell him that people would think the better of him—John Steigermann would think the better of him if he did this for her.
Frederich came and stood next to her as if he could feel her wavering, and William bounded out of the house with her dresses and the valise.
“Here you are, Caroline,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, Frederich, you’re not mad at Caroline anymore, are you?”
Frederich took the valise out of William’s hand without answering.
“There is more to bring or not?” he asked Caroline.
“I can get your books, Caroline,” William suddenly offered. “Since Frederich’s going to be carrying your things for you. I can put them in a pillow slip, all right? I’ll be right back—”
He was off running again.
Caroline abruptly bowed her head. How could she let Frederich haul her back? And how could she ask Avery for anything?
“Stay here,” Frederich said, slinging the valise at her because the ground was too muddy for him to set it down. “I will speak to your brother.”
She stood there, meekly holding everything she owned in her arms, feeling like the fallen woman she was as she watched Frederich approach Avery. Her brother was wary at first. And he kept glancing at her, his righteous indignation all too apparent.
“Ja! Gut!” John Steigermann said, listening intently to whatever Frederich said.
She couldn’t hear anything else.
What now, Frederich? she thought.
She kept making the same stupid mistake. She kept putting her trust in men who didn’t care. Avery. Kader. And now Frederich, who seemed to actually think he could stand a marriage to a woman pregnant by another man.
After a moment, Frederich and Avery walked into the barn and closed the door, leaving John Steigermann standing. Frederich came out again, leading one of Avery’s saddle horses.
“Caroline, we’ll go now,” he called to her.
She walked to where he stood, hating the meekness of every step she took.
“Your brother is going to lend you a horse so you don’t have to walk back,” he said.
She looked at him doubtfully, then handed him the valise and let him lift her and it onto the horse’s back. She said nothing, trying not feel his broad hands on her waist or the pain he caused on her bruises when he hoisted her upward.
William came running with the pillow slip full of books.
“Say hello to the girls from Uncle William,” he said, handing it up to her. His farm boy hands had left smudge marks on the crisp, starched whiteness of the pillow slip.
She forced a smile, her eyes meeting Frederich’s over the top of William’s head.
Frederich took the horse by the bridle, watching Caroline closely to see if she was going to return with him quietly after all. His right hand hurt. His knuckles were bleeding.
“Do me a favor,” he said to John Steigermann in German. “See about Caroline’s brother. See if I’ve killed him.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_24a8d60c-47e5-5fd0-9c3e-410938120d13)
Caroline slept fitfully and woke early. She had taken the precaution of bolting the door, but she was still surprised that Frederich hadn’t bothered coming to her bed. She was surprised, too, to find Beata already in the kitchen when she came downstairs. She had resolved sometime during the night not to concern herself about Beata Graeber. She would think of nothing but the children—Ann’s and her own unborn child. And she wouldn’t think about Kader or Frederich. She would fix her attention firmly on the girls and on her baby to come, and in doing so, she might tolerate—at least tolerate—living here.
But the sight of Beata’s smug expression when she came into the kitchen immediately put an end to her determination to endure. She had no defense against this woman, and she braced herself for whatever Beata wanted to say. She didn’t have long to wait.
“So! Caroline!” Beata said with a slight smile. “Who did you find to sleep with last night? Ha!”
Beata’s chopped-off laugh set her teeth on edge. She closed her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip to keep from making some retort she’d surely regret later. Both children sat at the trestle table, looking from her to Beata and back again.
“It doesn’t matter what you say to me, Beata,” she said quietly. “But it matters a great deal where you say it.”
“They will know sooner or later the kind of woman you are. It might as well be—”
Beata broke off because Frederich was coming in from the barn. He greeted Lise and Mary Louise, patting both of them on the cheek as Caroline had seen him do once before. This fatherly side of Frederich still amazed her, but thankfully he had nothing to say to her. Indeed, he studiously avoided looking in her direction at all. He looked at the table instead and said something to Beata in German. Beata immediately took offense. Frederich spoke louder. After a moment, Beata whirled away from him and went to the dish cupboard to get another plate.
Her plate, Caroline realized.
Beata set it on the table in a huff, all but throwing the knife and fork that went with it.
“Beata has no manners,” Frederich said in English to Lise and Mary Louise as he sat down. “I do not expect to ever see either of you behave in this way.”
“I won’t wait on that—!” Beata shouted, biting off the epithet she didn’t quite have the nerve to use.
“Nor anyone else, either, it seems,” Frederich said. “I have twice the work to be done with Eli gone. I can’t do yours as well. I intend to have peace in this house. You will see to the kitchen—and I don’t mean to hide everything like a silly vindictive child. Caroline will stay out of your way. She won’t bother anything that is yours. Do you understand that, Caroline?”
He looked in Caroline’s direction. Her back was rigid and her chin up. And she was looking at him as if he’d just done something to remove all doubt from her mind that he was as uncivilized and crude as she’d always suspected.
He forced himself to hold her gaze, forced himself to not to let his eyes stray to the soft swell of her breasts. She was almost pretty this morning, in spite of the bruises on her face. Her hair was brushed and braided. She looked clean, freshly scrubbed. He could just smell the soap she’d used to wash in. And the dress was different—pink-checked instead of the faded yellow calico.
But he would not allow himself to be affected by any improvements in her personal appearance. Caroline Holt carried another man’s child, a child he still thought of as a bastard regardless of their sham of a marriage. She still insisted on behaving as if she’d done nothing wrong. She made no excuses. She clearly disdained any kind of forgiveness. She had no remorse for the shame she’d caused the family—his family. “I have asked you a question,” he said evenly. “Do you intend to answer me or are you as ill-mannered as my sister?”
Caroline and Beata both protested.
“Sit down!” he bellowed.
They sat.
“Good,” he said, looking from one to the other. “Caroline, you will take care of the children. Do you understand that?” He glanced at Beata, who was about to flutter her hands and make another protest.
“Yes,” Caroline said, hating the meek sound of her voice. It’s only for the children, she thought, trying to find her resolve again. I don’t want them upset by all this animosity.
“Are you learned enough to teach Lise here at home so that she doesn’t have to be sent to the school?” Frederich asked.
“Yes,” she said again.
“Good. Then I want her taught here. We will say grace now—”
But Beata had stood it as long as she could. She burst forth in angry German.
“Kader Gerhardt will not go hungry because I take my one child out of his school!” Frederich snapped in English. “You always tell me my children make too much work for you. Caroline will take care of them now and the schooling.”
Caroline sat in silence, making some attempt to follow Frederich’s German table grace and taking the bowls of fried ham and fried potatoes and fried cabbage and fried apples Lise handed to her when it was over. But, for once, her stomach didn’t rebel at the sight and smell of heavy German food. She was hungry, regardless of the ill will at the breakfast table, and she ate more than she had in days. There was practically no conversation except when Frederich wanted this or that handed to him and when Beata chastised Mary Louise for giving up eating to wiggle.
Caroline looked up several times to find Frederich watching her, and she stared back at him. She would give in on matters concerning the children in order to keep peace in the household, but he wouldn’t intimidate her about anything else. Yes, her presence was nothing if not disruptive and yes, she was perhaps indirectly responsible for Eli’s glaring absence—but there was nothing she could do about it;
For heaven’s sake, what? she thought when she caught Frederich staring at her yet another time. She longed for a decent bath, but she had made a point of effecting one of sorts in the freezing upstairs room. She’d changed her clothes. She didn’t stink any longer, as he’d so rudely pointed out yesterday. She was trying to keep her manners at least on the same level as Beata’s. She’d agreed to everything he wanted.
Beata said something to Frederich in German and he scowled. But, for once, Caroline thought that whatever Beata had said had nothing to do with her. She tried William’s trick of trying to understand without having any command of the language. It didn’t work.
“I’ve lost a day getting the plowing done,” Frederich said in English.
He was looking at her again, but this time as if he expected some response. She took it for the complaint it was.
“What do you want me to say, Frederich? I’m sorry? Very well. I am sorry.” She abruptly stood up and began clearing her place the way she would have if she’d been at home, but then she stopped. “Forgive me, Beata,” she said. “If I understand the rules, this is your job.”
She left Frederich and Beata sitting and went upstairs. Better to pace the confines of the room she’d been given than provoke another altercation. She was surprised that Frederich would remove Lise from the German school and still more surprised that he would ask—tell—her to teach the child, regardless of William’s theory that Frederich’s need for someone to school his children was at the heart of his marriage proposal in the first place. If Frederich already thought that Kader was unfit to teach German children, he could hardly think her a suitable alternative.
She walked to the window and looked down on the yard below. Frederich was harnessing the great Belgians he used for plowing. She watched as he kissed his daughters goodbye. Had he always been this kind and affectionate to them? she wondered. Or only since Ann died?
She stepped abruptly back from the window because he looked upward in her direction.
The weather had turned much warmer, and she took the girls outside to their own small garden to work. The three of them spent the morning turning the soil and weeding. Ann had helped the girls do this last year. She had been full of life then, full of hope and anticipation about the arrival of her new baby. It was only when Caroline pulled the covering of leaves away from a row of jonquils that she came close to crying. Their mother had brought the jonquil bulbs from her parents’ fine garden in town after she’d married their father, and Caroline in turn had given an apronful to Ann when she’d gone to Frederich.
I miss you so, she thought, gently uncovering the tender green shoots. I miss you and Mama both. She looked up to find Lise and Mary Louise gone quiet and obviously worrying about her state of mind.
“Don’t cry,” Mary Louise said, her eyes big. She reached out to give Caroline little sympathetic hit-and-miss pats on the arm. “Papa can bring you candy next he goes to townpeppermint candy, Aunt Caroline. Then you’ll feel better. Don’t cry.”
“I won’t,” she said. “But I think I need a hug and a kiss until the peppermint gets here.”
She was immediately swamped with affection. She was so glad to be with the girls. She was glad, too, that Frederich didn’t seem interested in her except as a children’s nurse. Perhaps she could stand it here—if she didn’t have to worry about whether or not Frederich would spend the night in her bed.
She abruptly looked up at the sky. The sun was lowering. “I think we’ve missed the Mittagessen,“ she said, getting up from her knees.
“No, we didn’t,” Lise said. “Beata didn’t call us.”
Exactly, Caroline thought but didn’t say.
They walked hand in hand back to the house. Apparently Frederich had eaten and gone, because Beata had already cleared the table. She glanced up when they came in, but she didn’t interrupt her dishwashing.
“I don’t wait a meal forever,” she said. “You heard me calling you.”
Caroline took a deep breath. “No,” she said evenly. “Apparently Lise and Mary Louise—”
“If you chose to ignore me then you go—”
“—and I have all gone deaf!”
“—hungry!”
Beata turned her back.
“The children need to eat, Beata,” Caroline said, trying hard not to lose her temper.
“Of course they do,” Beata said, but she made no move in that direction.
Caroline waited. Finally, Beata looked around at her.
“If I understand the rules,” she said, “that is your job.”
“Fine,” Caroline said. She didn’t mind putting together a meal for the children; she just didn’t want to have to fight Beata tooth and nail to do it. She managed to melt cheese on bread she toasted in the heavy iron skillet with legs—without dragging her skirts through the hot coals or burning the bread.
The meal was pleasant enough, the rest of the day was pleasant enough, at least until Frederich returned. The sun was nearly down when he came in. He was ill-tempered and clearly exhausted. Caroline took the children upstairs almost immediately after they’d eaten to keep them out of his way. He was the old Frederich she remembered, and she didn’t want Lise and Mary Louise any more distressed by the day’s events than they already were.
She waited until they were both asleep and the house quiet before she unbolted the door and came downstairs again. She felt assured now that, for the moment at least, Frederich had no intention of demanding his conjugal rights, but she was still far too restless to retire. She intended to flagrantly take some wood from the back porch so that she could have a fire in her room upstairs. She wanted to create a warm, quiet place to read for a time before she went to bed. She had always been able to take pleasure in little things, a talent she would sorely need in this house.
She made her way to the worktable in the kitchen without lighting a lamp, then felt along it toward the back door. The moon was shining when she stepped outside, the night quiet and frosty. She could make out the wood box in the dark, and she loaded her arms with one log and several smaller cut pieces, hoping she hadn’t included a spider. She stood for a moment looking out across the field toward the Holt farm. Avery was still awake. She could see a light from the house shining through the trees. She wondered idly why he hadn’t come today to fetch the horse he’d loaned to Frederich. That he’d loan it in the first place was amazing enough. That he hadn’t come after it today was incredible.
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