“What are you about?” she whispered.
“I need to talk to you.”
She turned and met emerald eyes that blazed with smouldering passion. They singed her.
On a hitching breath, she let her eyes wander over him. The staid Holland collar and plain black doublet and black homespun breeches, so drab on all the other men, seemed to accentuate his tall, leanly muscled frame and dark-haired handsomeness.
Stomach bottoming out, knees weakening, she leaned against the meetinghouse. “We have nothing to speak of. You are simply my mistress’ neighbour.”
“What I did—what we did was wrong. We have to make it right.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She darted a look behind her. “We’ve done nothing.”
“We should marry with all haste. I’ll speak with Goody Wilson today.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be a Goodwife rather than a bondslave? To have respect and position?”
Goody Rosalind Marlowe.
Fierce hankering consumed her like hunger for food or air. To be his beloved, cherished wife and helpmate… Something that would never, could never, be.
Not as long as Patience haunted him.
“Thomas, I don’t think…”
“Hear me out. At Harvard College I will earn good wages. I do intend to keep a farm but I will be able to afford servants to help with the things that must be done. Your life would be very comfortable.”
She held up a forestalling hand. “Nothing happened. Nothing.”
His jaw hardened. “You think, if we simply deny it, it shall go away.”
His eyes pierced into hers. Weakening her resolve. Making her remember their shared passion. Making her believe in the impossible.
She tore her gaze away, glancing towards the harbour where sunlight glistened on the sea and white gulls flew against the flawless blue sky. Simplicity. Purity. It was what she loved about this new world. It gave her something larger and higher than her coveting to cling to. She drew renewed resolve. By the providence of God, she’d been given a fresh start. She wasn’t about to turn it into just another prison, tied to a man that would never respect her.
A man that didn’t truly want her for a wife.
“Thomas, we must forget.” She spoke without looking at him and made to leave.
He grasped her arm, detained her.
She whirled to face him. “Are you mad to put your hands on me in the open?!”
His eyes widened and he dropped his hand.
Equal parts fear and anger trembled through her. “Fornication is a whipping offence—maybe not for a Goodman like yourself but certainly for a penniless bondswoman like me.”
He hardened his jaw. “Forgive me—but you must listen. It is for that reason that we must marry with all due haste. That and the sin of it.”
“What sin? Nothing happened!”
“Rose, pray do not be difficult.”
Contriteness softened her heart. She must make him understand. Despite the risk of being caught in a public display, she touched his arm. “Listen to me, Thomas… This heat, it has everyone to their wits’ end. You’re not yourself. Neither of us was.”
“We committed a sin and it must be made right.”
“Nonsense. It was madness, brought about by the excessive heat and the restlessness we both shared. If you wish to take a wife, you need only look about you for someone of equal standing. Someone who shares your faith.” She waved her free hand. “I don’t share the depth of your belief.”
A flicker of disapproval crossed his face, so brief anyone could miss it. But she didn’t. There was a sense of being let down, disappointment, as if she’d expected him to say it didn’t matter. Of course it mattered. It was too great a part of him.
“Our actions have taken away all other considerations for us.” He paused and compressed his lips. “Other couples start with less. We can learn tolerance and make an unequally yoked marriage work.”
“Oh.” She was too stunned by his resigned pragmatism to say more. Every part of her recoiled from a marriage where extreme tolerance would be needed to make things work. Just the very words conjured up an image of two strained, unhappy people gritting their teeth and ignoring each other. It wasn’t what she wanted. She’d seen warm, happy marriages here. She wanted one for herself. If she wanted to merely be at a man’s beck and call, she’d have let Mr Boger continue to sell her to other men.
Thomas would always hold her input as something inferior, not to be respected. He would never be able to forget her past. Nor would he be able to accept her lack of conversion to his faith. Not every Goodman in New Balcombe was as devout as Thomas. Some of them were quite lax in their devotion to religion and warm to their wives and children. She preferred marriage to a man like that. No matter what her heart wanted in the meantime.
“No, I will not marry you,” she said flatly.
Chapter Three
His jaw tensed. “Rose, you place me in a very difficult position. With your denial to wed with me, you make a sinner of not only yourself—but me as well.”
“Well, in your eyes, I was a sinner before, an actress. I cannot believe God will use this one event to tip the balance. As for you, I assume a lifetime filled with goodness will not be totally eradicated by one night’s forgetfulness.”
His eyes frosted. “I seek to find a solution, to avoid unpleasant consequences to our lapse, and you mock me.”
“I’d do anything to put you off a marriage between us and for you to leave me in peace.”
He looked stunned, as if she’d slapped him. Then his expression grew remote once more and he walked away.
She leaned against the wall of the meetinghouse. She hadn’t thought of how their laying together would affect his conscience. She had hurt him. Struck him to his deepest levels by successfully tempting him into sin.
The knowing settled like a layer of stones against her heart. She would never, ever want to hurt Thomas of all people.
She had hurt the man she loved. Seduced him into sinning against his beliefs.
On an inward moan, she closed her eyes and balled her fists, digging the nails into her palms. If she could take it all back, she would—wouldn’t she? Or would the joy of knowing him prove once again too tempting, no matter how fleeting?
But if the price for enjoying the pleasure was marriage for life to man who didn’t value her then she didn’t want to pay.
Suddenly, she didn’t like herself very much.
* * * *
It was Monday. Goodman Rockwell and Mistress Jameson’s wedding day. Hannah was keeping company with the other girls of her age and Thomas had found a place apart from the others, towards the back row of benches placed on the lawn in the hot summer’s evening.
The sun lay on the lowest point on the horizon, a huge yellow ball. Two red ringlets that escaped her cap blazed like flame in its light. Those fetching tendrils framed her heart-shaped, sun-bronzed face with its sprinkling of freckles across her nose.
She looked so different now than she had that first day in London. Dressed in a sad shade of dark purple homespun gown and her white cap, she looked natural, earthly, beautiful.
She looked like someone’s wife.
She was laughing, her mouth open. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew they would be dark, velvet brown and sparkling.
She was looking up into the face of Goodman Johnson’s eldest son, a young man positioned to inherit a farm twice the size of the one Thomas was leaving.
After he left, Rosalind would surely marry but never young Johnson or someone like him. Yes, wherever she went in town, men’s eyes followed her. But she had no dowry. Johnson’s father would never agree.
Only someone like Thomas, a widower, an established householder, could have the freedom of will to marry a penniless outsider like Rosalind.
What would happen to Rosalind? Would she be stuck in a life of endless toil? Would the man she married
be thoughtful or careless?
A crushing sensation pressed his chest. Would—could any man possibly love her as much as Thomas did? Would another man attend properly to her sensual needs?
It wasn’t his concern. She wanted no part of a marriage with him. So that relieved him of all responsibility.
Didn’t it?
God help him, he couldn’t put the worry from his mind.
“When are you going to do something about that?”
The words pulled Thomas from his thoughts. He turned towards Patience’s father, startled, for he hadn’t heard him sit down. Goodman Samuel Hopton. Samuel’s face was pleasant as always but his pale grey eyes, so like his daughter’s, seemed to peer too deeply.
Thomas shifted on the wooden bench and turned his attention back to his tankard of rum punch, peering into it as if all the answers to love, life and death could be found there.
“Thomas?” The older man’s voice was gently insistent.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean are you going to ask that girl to marry you?”
Thomas brought the cup to his lips and drank deeply.
“You think if you remarry that you will betray Patience?” Samuel’s tone grew more insistent.
Thomas continued drinking even though the taste of the sweet brew had begun to pall.
“Thomas, she’s dead and you’ve no sons. It’s plain there’s attraction between you and that girl.”
Thomas could feel Samuel’s eyes on him. Probing. The man’s sharp perception was always unnerving but never more than now. He took a deep, somewhat ragged breath. The cup was empty. He could no longer hide in it. He put the tankard down and faced his former father-in-law.
Samuel was smiling, a tolerant, fond expression. “You think it would be a betrayal if you gave in to a feeling for a girl…a former actress, someone that Patience wouldn’t have approved?”
Thomas forced a smile. “I think you should worry less about me. I shall be fine.”
“Well, are you going to marry her before we leave for Harvard College?”
“I don’t—”
“Oh, Thomas, stop being such a loggerhead.”
“Did it occur to you that she doesn’t want me for a husband?” Admitting that truth belaboured Thomas. Left him drained.
“Bah!” Samuel waved a dismissive hand. “It’s clear she’s just as soft on you as you are on her.” His pale eyes grew stern, accusing. “You didn’t say the right things. You didn’t court her the right way. You refuse to open your heart. Women sense these things.”
Guilt pricked him. He wished he had more drink. “She’s not the wife for me, so it matters not.”
Samuel’s expression sobered. “You were not always so happy with my Patience. You forget.”
Thomas flinched inwardly. The unhappiness in his marriage had been mostly his fault. In the beginning, his blood had frequently run too hot. It had been hard not to let his disappointment get the better of him. He would find fault and they would quarrel. But then he had come to know Patience. To understand what made her the way she was. He found the will to suppress and sublimate his carnality.
“Patience was raised by her mother’s parents,” Samuel said.
“Yes, I know. She was deeply attached to them and mourned their loss deeply.”
“They were good people but they interpreted the word of God in a most legalistic way. I followed the sea. After my wife died, what could I do? I had to leave Patience in their care. They raised my child to believe as they did. They put their coldness upon her.”
Thomas’ heart pounded. He didn’t wish to speak of Patience in such personal, irreverent terms with anyone. Especially not her father.
There were things Samuel could never know. The abuse she’d suffered in her first marriage. It would break the older man’s heart. Having lost his own father before he was even born, Thomas had been as glad of gaining a father-in-law as he had of gaining a wife. He would never willingly hurt this man.
Samuel shook his head slowly. “You and your knotty-headedness. You’re going to allow something precious and rare to slip from your life.”
Thomas’ breath froze, his chest tightening. It was as if he breathed, then the full force of feeling would overcome him. He focused on counting slowly backwards from one hundred. After a moment, he could breathe again. “I had something precious and rare and God saw fit to take it away from me.”
He got up and walked away without another look back at Rosalind.
* * * *
Samuel stayed blessedly quiet, while driving the horses in the cart, on the way home.
Thomas held Hannah’s small frame steady with one arm as she slumped against him, asleep.
His thoughts wouldn’t give him peace.
Patience had hated her first husband because he had abandoned her by day for his studies and had lain with her at night, cold and without consideration for her pleasure. He’d also been possessed of a nasty temper and a tendency to solve problems with physical force. And, in her disappointment, she had grown to hate men and their selfishness.
Thomas had tried so very hard to understand.
Disappointment had soured Patience to the point she couldn’t fully love. Oh she’d been glad of a husband to give her position and respect…
Inwardly, he cringed. How could he even think such about his Patience?
Aside from the dissatisfaction of their marriage bed, she’d been the best of wives. Hardworking, devout, scholarly. Able to engage in deep discussions on many topics.
Yes, she’d been prone to overwrought worries and nit-picking criticism.
He’d been the one mostly at fault. Too consumed by sensuality to keep from resenting her preferences. She’d been perfectly willing to do her duty. He’d been the one to place conditions on how he expected her to respond.
She held you to blame for the sins of another man.
The thought came unbidden.
His heartbeat increased and he took a deep breath, willing the betraying thought away.
“She’s asleep?”
Samuel’s voice was a welcomed distraction.
“Aye, she sleeps,” Thomas replied, unable to keep the terseness out of his voice.
The horses were slowing to a stop in the little courtyard in front of the house. Mrs Shorter approached, her arms held out. “Goodman Hopton, Goodman Marlowe,” she said by way of greeting.
Thomas handed Hannah down, carefully.
Her compressed lips and wrinkled forehead spoke of her disapproval to have Hannah out so late. But she said nothing and took the child to the house.
Thomas followed Samuel to the barn. They put away the cart and tended the horses.
“Well…”
Thomas frowned, smoothing a blanket over one of the horses. “Well, what?”
“It’s still that, is it?”
“Still what?”
“You are afraid.” Samuel leant back and sighed. “You are afraid of life. And yourself.”
“Father, I am not afraid.”
“You were always afraid. In your youth you ran from your fears in all those sensual excesses. Now you think to hide in strict, legalistic denial. But, Thomas, that is not the way God intended. He intended us to enjoy the pleasures of this world while keeping balance with his will. He intended for a man to have a wife and to share a sensual, earthly love with her and to make children. You have no living sons. You must think of what you will do with the rest of your life. You must not let fear cause you to deny yourself happiness.”
Thomas sighed. “I am too old, Father, too old for lectures.”
“A man is never too old to hear the concerns of those who care for him.”
“Aye, maybe so.” Thomas stood. “But a man has to walk his own path.”
“Well, it would be an absolute sin.”
“For a man to walk his own path?”
“No, if a man were to lay with a woman whom he had no intention to wed. Now that would be a grievou
s sin.”
From his seat on the wooden barrel by the door, Samuel stared up at him, steadily and unblinking. “You must court her. You must find a way to convince her.”
* * * *
Rosalind knelt and plunged her hands into the stream that made a boundary line on Goody Wilson’s farm. Her hands were sticky and purple from picking blackberries all afternoon. As she scrubbed herself, the cool water invited her to linger.
She unbuckled her shoes, hiked her skirts, shed her stockings, then immersed her feet. Her wiggling toes glowed white in water that glimmered like diamonds in the afternoon sun. The refreshment seemed to cleanse not only her flesh but her spirit.
She sighed, trying to release even more of her pent-up angst.
Her mind was so weary. She’d spent too many sleepless nights, torn inside with guilt. Guilt over the way she had dealt with Thomas. By seducing him into betraying his deeply held moral beliefs, hadn’t she proved herself to be wicked?
Just as wicked as he’d thought her to be all this time.
But I loved him, longed to know his touch. If only once.
It was no proper defence. She’d spent too long amidst people like Mr Boger and her gentlemen. She’d been accustomed to people abusing her and taking advantage.
She’d become just like them.
She’d taken advantage of Thomas in his weakest moment.
That wasn’t a loving act.
She could no longer deny the truth.
“Rose.” The word carried on the warm breeze, half sensual whisper, half prayer. An answering tingle spread like wildfire through her belly.
Maybe the whisper had been only her imagination. A trick of the wind.
“I was coming to see you.”
That had been no trick of the wind. She opened her eyes and looked up into Thomas’ face.
He looked hollow-eyed. Tired.
Had guilt kept him awake as well?
You could make things right. With one word.
No! She would not lock herself into a self-imposed gaol. She would not live out her days haunted by the likes of Patience Marlowe.
A better woman would fight for him. If you truly loved him, you wouldn’t leave him to suffer, alone with his ghost…
A Midsummer's Sin Page 4
