by Lorin Grace
“Then they won’t be too surprised next week when the reverend reads our intentions.”
Sarah’s feet tangled. “Our what?”
“Before you so eloquently communicated to me behind the Church, I was going to tell you I love you and beg you to stay.”
“You were?”
“I still can if you would like, but I am really hoping the kiss said pretty much the same thing.”
Sarah knew her cheeks were flaming again. “I was hoping you’d give me a reason to stay.”
“Marry me?”
Half the congregation witnessed Sarah’s answer through the open window.. Those who missed the moment heard it from Stella, who ran inside the church to tell her mama, “Aunt Sarah is kissing the doctor!”
Reverend Porter ended the sermon early, since no one was listening anyway.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
“Whatever are you doing?” Tim kissed Sarah behind the ear, causing a splotch of ink to mar the paper. “I thought you were just changing your dress so we could leave.”
Sarah sat at Emma’s old dressing table, the only piece of Emma’s that hadn’t been replaced by new bedroom furniture. She stared at the letter she had started to write. Once it was done, she would run out of excuses to delay. It was silly to be nervous, but she was more wound up than Miriam had been on her wedding day. “I promised Parmelia I’d write her all the details of the wedding and send it in care of Joe in Indiana. I hope she doesn’t regret her decision to join John in his move. She was as exited to go as John was to have someone who could cook well and monitor Lettie on the trip.”
Tim placed another kiss at the nape of her neck. “I don’t think you need to do that this very moment. We haven’t even been husband and wife for three hours yet.”
Sarah dipped the pen in the inkwell, her hand shaking. “But I have been so busy these past three weeks. I don’t want to leave anything out.” Sewing had occupied most of her time. The first order had been a dress that wasn’t a mourning color, because black or gray would not be proper for her own wedding, then a new nightgown trimmed with the yards of blue ribbon she never could bring herself to give her nieces.
Tim rested his chin on her shoulder. “You left out the part where Rose spit up on your dress after her christening.”
“Well, that wasn’t one of my favorite moments, but I did put in her full name—Rose Amity Barns Dawes. Are you sure Mrs. Reynolds will take good care of her while we are gone?”
“Of course. She was Ichabod’s nurse and Mother’s undercook.”
Another kiss distracted her. Sarah had to dip her pen twice to remember the next line.
“I see you also left out Reverend Palmer clearing his throat halfway through our kiss.” The words tickled Sarah’s ear, and a quick glance in the mirror confirmed her suspicions—she was as pink as her dress. Tim’s eyes met hers in the reflection before he added yet another kiss to the nape of her neck.
“That was at the end of our kiss.”
“No, I may have ended it then, but I wasn’t half done. And I would very much like to finish that kiss.” He turned her around on the stool.
A shiver ran down Sarah’s spine.
“Only if I finish it now, we may never leave, and we must soon, if we are to arrive before sunset.” Tim removed the pen from her hand and replaced it with his own hand. “Come, you need to see your wedding gift. Close your eyes.” He led her into the parlor, where Mrs. Reynolds rocked Rose in her new cradle from Samuel and Lucy.
“Open your eyes.”
“A bookcase!” Sarah traced the heart shape in the wood of the door. “When did you ask Samuel to build this?”
“The day I asked him for your hand, right after supper while you helped with the dishes.”
“He said this wood was for a chest for a bride the night I told––You asked him then? What if things had gone poorly at the meeting. You couldn’t have married a woman mired in scandal!”
“I only ever was going to marry the woman I loved. Open the door.”
Sarah did as she was bidden. A matching silver handled brush, comb, and hand mirror finer than Swanson’s ever carried lay on the shelf. Sarah picked up the brush and ran her thumb over the bristles.
“Samuel also explained a family tradition that I would very much like to keep, starting tonight.” Tim took the brush from her but didn’t return it to the shelf.
Sarah couldn’t keep from blushing. One hundred strokes each night by her husband’s hand. Thomas and Emma had no idea what they had started so many years before. She rose up on her toes and thanked him as a not-so-very-proper wife should, not caring that Mrs. Reynolds was still in the room.
“Now, Mrs. Dawes, we’ve dallied long enough.” Tim wrapped an arm about her waist.
“You still won’t tell me where we are going?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I want to be your husband for the next three days, not someone’s doctor.” Tim assisted her back to standing.
Sarah bent and placed a kiss on Rose’s brow. “But what if something happens to Rose? Please tell Mrs. Reynolds at least.”
“I left a sealed note with Samuel. He is only to open it if there is a true emergency.” Tim led her to the front door.
Relieved, Sarah climbed up in the buggy. When Tim sat beside her, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Now will you tell me?”
“Not yet.”
As the town disappeared behind them, Sarah again tried to learn of their destination by kissing her new husband’s cheek. “Now?”
Tim slowed the horse and parked in the shade of a tree. “Not until I finish our interrupted kiss.” Tim completed the kiss and whispered, “Seabrook, New Hampshire. A little cottage overlooking the Atlantic,” against her lips before starting another.
Suddenly Sarah wanted nothing more than to see the sun rise over the ocean standing in the security of Tim’s arms. She broke off the kiss. “What are we waiting for?
The End
Historical Notes
The year 1816, or “eighteen hundred and froze to death,” also known as the year without a summer, changed the face of the northern hemisphere. The North American drought that started in 1815 continued into the winter, starting off 1816 with mild temperatures and below-normal levels of precipitation. Without Doppler radar, rapid worldwide communication, or scientific knowledge, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere valiantly fought the enduring frost and famine. Many in Europe looked westward for their salvation, while those in the new world looked farther west still, all in hopes of escaping the largest natural disaster the world had ever known.
It would be almost one hundred years before scientists made the connection between the April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora and the devastating summer. There is very little exact weather data for the area of Massachusetts where I set my story. A handful of professors, as well as some weather enthusiasts who owned thermometers, took daily temperature measurements. The newspapers reported some weather phenomena after the fact.
Period newspapers show mounting alarm as the summer progressed, and there were some who claimed that things such as the red and yellow snow in Italy and the unusual sunspot activity signified the end of the world. I tried to stay as true to fact as I could with only regional and sometimes anecdotal information available. It did snow in Boston on June 7, and on the eighth, Cabot, Vermont, received eighteen inches of snow. Various parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts also reported snow. My use of six inches of snow that day may not be accurate for the exact spot where my imaginary Wilson family lived, but it is representative of the weather in the region. Two weeks later, on June 23, someone in Salem, Massachusetts recorded a temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit, but by Independence Day, there were several reports of men wearing their greatcoats to the festivities
and of wells freezing over.
1816 is the only year to record killing frosts in every month from May to December in New England. In late July and through August, many local newspapers, such as the one in Haverhill, encouraged farmers to try planting again. However, the frosts the first week of September destroyed the late crop as well. One diary mentions starvation among the poor of New England as early as July. Canada’s crops had been decimated, and they halted all exports of food and begged for relief.
Facing finical ruin, many farmers gave up, land offices opened throughout New England, and farmers moved to Ohio and Indiana, most leaving between September and December. The migration continued into 1817. Meanwhile, Europe suffered the same fate, with 65,000 Irish dying from typhoid and famine alone. No European country was untouched as they also experienced famine, although in some cases it was from too much rain rather than drought. Perhaps not realizing things in the new hemisphere were just as bad, a wave of European immigrants looked westward for salvation.
There are several excellent books as well as documentaries on the year 1816. I encourage you to read up on that year. Connections to the westward expansion and the industrial revolution are fascinating. Fun fact: some claim that without the eruption of Mount Tambora, there would be no Frankenstein. As an author, I think Mary Shelley would have written her story anyway.
Both Dr. Warrens mentioned in the book were real doctors. The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and the Collateral Branches of Science was started in 1812. Massachusetts General Hospital was approved by the Massachusetts legislature in 1811 but did not accept its first patient until 1821. Part of Massachusetts General Hospital included the McLean Hospital, also known as the “Asylum for the Insane,” which opened in 1818. The property was purchased in December of 1816. The Friends Asylum, established by Philadelphia’s Quaker community in 1814, was the first institution specifically built to implement moral treatment for the insane in the United States and was mostly run by laymen. Sarah most likely had heard of both; however, in June of 1816, she was unlikely to know of the location of the proposed McLean Hospital.
The seventeenth century Massachusetts Fornication Law is still on the books today. In 1816, fines for most laws were still written in pounds and schillings, which would be converted into dollars by the court. Still, it was no secret that many marriages started out in haste, but the expectant couple was not usually fined. Fines and jail time were used most often to encourage a reluctant father to take responsibility for his actions.
Bradford Academy, and later Bradford College, did exist. The academy was started in 1803 to provide a coeducational “high-school” type curriculum. Girls were always in the majority of students, with many of the male population choosing to attend Atkinson Academy. In 1836, the Bradford Academy became a women’s college, but facing financial difficulties, it eventually opened its doors to men in 1971. In 2000, the college closed its doors forever. The campus still stands in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where the buildings are now a part of Northpoint Bible College. One of the academy’s early graduates was Harriet Atwood Newell, an early American missionary who died en route to Burma.
In researching, I stumbled upon many interesting tidbits, some of which I snuck into the pages of this book. The one I enjoyed most was the wife-wanted ad as it appeared in the Worchester Gazette on July 24, 1816. I included it in its entirety in the book. However, the editor found the ad as atrocious as I did and prefaced the ad with this paragraph:
Who wants a husband?—A fine opportunity now offers to someone who possesses the unfashionable qualifications which are required in the following advertisement.—We are pleased with the prudence of the gentleman in required the lady to be able to make good coffee; though, perhaps, this very requisite will prevent his ever accomplishing his object. For, very few—but here comes the advertisement.
About the Author
Lorin Grace was born in Colorado and has been moving around the country ever since, living in eight states and several imaginary worlds. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Graphic Design.
Currently she lives in northern Utah with her husband, four children, and a dog who is insanely jealous of her laptop. When not writing Lorin enjoys creating graphics, visiting historical sites, museums, and reading.
Lorin is an active member of the League of Utah Writers and was awarded Honorable Mention in their 2016 creative writing contest short romance story category. Her debut novel, Waking Lucy, was awarded a 2017 Recommend Read award in the LUW Published book contest.
You can learn more about her and sign up for her newsletter at loringrace.com
Waking Lucy
Lucy dreamed of marrying Samuel, until she woke up as his wife.
Don’t miss the first book in the series.
Reforming Elizabeth
Elizabeth Garret is out of control. Can her great aunt and a disgraced preacher succeed in reforming her?
Remembering Anna
The key opens a box, unlocks the past and defines the future.
Mending Fences
The fence that once brought them together now keeps them apart.
Contemporary Romance
Mending Christmas
One shattered window.
Two bruised hearts.
And twelve days until Christmas.
Contemporary Romance
