“Have you kissed many women, Brother Blum?” she asked suddenly. Boldly.
Catharina. He almost choked at the shocking question, hitting so true to his thoughts, so close to home. “Er … once or twice.”
“Many women once? Or many women twice?” she asked, a teasing interest in her voice.
He dared to look at her and made his stand. “I am a respectable Single Brother, Sister Till. What makes you think I have kissed any women?”
Her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. “Any man so sure of his attraction is bound to steal a kiss or two from time to time.”
Her perception was too keen, he thought, and she would see right through him. He gave her his best grin. “I have four beautiful sisters who dote on me.”
Her ladylike sniff dismissed his answer. “Displays of familial affection don’t make men cocky.”
She looked at him with a challenging twinkle.
“Come, come, Brother Blum. Is not confession a salve for the soul?”
Perhaps, he thought, teetering on the precipice of all his little venial sins. Confession was a hazard, and he could never tell all. But he sucked in a breath and challenged her in kind.
“Are we talking about kisses on the forehead, kisses on the cheek, or”-he paused dramatically, hoping to dampen her starch-“real kisses on the mouth?”
“You would be the expert there.” Her mouth, her pretty, kissable mouth, curved into a smug smile. “But, kisses on the mouth, I think.”
He groaned. “You take no prisoners, Sister Till.”
She laughed. Again. And inside him, a brand new happiness sprouted wings and took flight. She was clever, she was bold, and she was not afraid of him, for all his size and might and–well, he could admit it, for she had said so–for all his charm.
“Very well, then. Remember, when I am done confessing, that you asked for this.”
“I shall remember, Brother Blum. Everything.”
In his experience, confessions went better when he told the truth and told it fast.
“Seven women once, three twice, and one five times.”
“You kept track!”
“Mmm.” He admitted it reluctantly. She sounded scandalized, not what he would have wished. But what else could a good Single Brother, a spirited young man, do with all those feelings, those sensations? With so many pretty Older Girls and Single Sisters yet unclaimed and wondering about kissing as much as he?
“Counting your own sisters?”
“Of course not My family thrives on hugs and kisses. I kiss and hug them all the time.”
Abbigail’s brow knitted. “Tell me about the one you kissed five times.”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard,” he said. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
They were strolling again, but slowly. Slowly, because Sister Rothrock was now in sight, attended by some kind Brother, and Nicholas was in no hurry to end this unexpected playful interlude with the surprising Sister Abbigail. He was at his ease for the first time since he had left home. And he would bet the profits from his first trading trip that Abbigail Till had never allowed such outrageous talk with a Single Brother, much less encouraged it.
On second thought, perhaps she had. She showed a raw talent for badinage.
He volunteered no more. He had had a near escape. He had almost named his Catharina without giving her reputation a thought.
Then he remembered his drunken interlude with the seductive tavern wench.
Danke Gott, Abbigail had asked him only about kisses.
By the time they neared Sister Benigna, Abbigail was at the end of her tether. Nicholas had only held her hand, but she felt as though she had been touched all over. Sweet sensation streamed through her body like a morning breeze. Her feet did not touch the ground. Her throat ached with nameless feelings, fleeting as the plumes of clouds that raced above them in the sky. And her hand, singled out for his attention, tingled with the imprint of his fingers.
She pressed her lips together in dismay. Her little ruse to take her mind off Nicholas Blum’s compelling touch had miscarried. Teasing him about kissing Single Sisters had tumbled her own thoughts down a mountain of imaginings, new and wild and too intriguing.
As she and Nicholas approached Sister Benigna, the Brother attending the Widow stood and barreled toward them. It was Christian Huber, glowering, his gaze honing in on the point where Abbigail’s hand clasped Nicholas’s arm. “’Tis fortunate I came along to attend to Sister Rothrock while you rambled,” he complained.
Abbigail flushed, guilty but angry at his presumption. “We would not have left her, but she insisted.”
“She cannot even stand,” Huber charged as if it were their fault.
“Is she worse?” Abbigail asked.
Not waiting for an answer, Nicholas released her, hurried toward the Widowed Sister, and sank to her side. Abbigail caught up in time to hear his rueful, caring tone. “Ah, Sister, you should have told us this was serious. We never would have gone. You should have let Brother Huber take you home.”
Sister Benigna waved his concern away. “What is serious, Brother Blum, is my size. I saw no reason for Brother Huber to struggle alone when I knew you would soon be here to help.”
“You cannot walk,” he said worriedly.
“I am not sure, in truth, that my right ankle will bear my weight.”
Nicholas nodded. “I can still carry you.”
Bending over them, Brother Huber gave a censorious cough. “Surely, Brother Blum, you could fetch a cart”
Nicholas gave him a blank look.
“Such contact between Brothers and Sisters-it is not allowed,” Brother Huber explained stiffly.
“Those precepts don’t apply where there is injury,” Nicholas snapped, then turned to the injured ankle. “Sister, may I see if it is broken? I shall try not to hurt you.”
Sister Benigna gave him a weak smile and lifted her skirt a fraction of an inch, revealing a plain white threaded stocking.
Brother Huber puffed up. “Brother Blum! You are not a doctor!”
“No.” Nicholas took her thickening ankle in his large hands. “But I have tended sprains and strains, my brothers’ and my own.”
“’Tis wrong of you … Brethren do not…”
This exchange fascinated Abbigail. She had never seen Sister Benigna coy or Brother Huber at a loss for words. And she was quite impressed to see Nicholas so attentive to the former and dismissive of the latter.
“Brethren do not what, Brother Huber?” he asked steadily, touching the Widowed Sister’s stocking lightly and continuing to talk to her. “It is swelling rather rapidly, here, you see, over the inside bone.”
Sister Benigna winced and jerked away.
Hovering over them, Brother Huber swallowed hard. “Brother Blum, you must stop.”
Nicholas looked displeased. “I am sorry to hurt you, Sister.”
“That is not my point!” Christian Huber protested, then found his tongue. “Only a true physician should attend an injured woman. We must remain steadfast in the separation of the sexes, not because we are a saintly people, but because we are not. We choose to separate ourselves to prevent opportunities for sin and seduction. The stroll you took alone with Sister Till is scandal enough.”
A muscle in Nicholas’s jaw clenched, and he carefully rested Sister Benigna’s ankle on the ground. Then he stood and squared off in Christian Huber’s startled face.
“There was no scandal attached to my walking out here with Sister Rothrock and Sister Till,” he said, his voice low and deliberate. “And there will be no scandal attached to mine and Sister Till’s stroll out to the sawmill and back again alone.”
Huber took a step back from Nicholas’s hot anger, and Sister Benigna spoke up. “Surely, Brother Blum, he means to say no ill of Sister Abbigail.”
Nicholas stepped toward him and repeated Sister Benigna’s exhortation icily. “Surely, Brother Huber, you mean to say no
ill of Sister Abbigail.”
Inside, Abbigail smiled. She thought her new defender quite magnificent, his cobalt eyes hard and his hands clenched into fists.
Huber’s fastidious features crimped in angry opposition.
“No talk, and no scandal. Do you understand?” Nicholas said, his words a growl, his tawny hair shining like a lion’s mane in the sun.
Brother Huber’s short “Yes” was terribly begrudging.
“I think Sister Rothrock’s ankle is not broken, but we must help her home. You and I together, one man on either arm.”
Stiff-necked, Brother Huber helped, and Abbigail walked along behind, nursing a new worry for Nicholas’s sake. Brother Huber’s understanding was not acceptance, and she knew he hoarded insults like a squirrel saves nuts.
10
Dressing for bed that night, Abbigail looked across the town. A moonless dark had settled over Bethlehem. In nearby neighbors’ homes, candles glowed at upstairs windows. Thinking of the good people behind each and every door, she wondered what constituted scandal. It had been her life’s achievement to avoid it, yet she did not know precisely what it was.
Did scandal happen only in the deed, or was it started in the heart?
Was a touch as wicked as a kiss?
Would the wanting of it make it so?
Did scandal begin only when you were discovered?
Or could you be a scandal to yourself?
She drew her wrapper around her simple summer shift, noting how white and virginal it was.
But her thoughts were not pure, and the sensations coursing through her were not innocent, and they scandalized her. For Nicholas Blum appealed to her, amused her, and amazed her beyond anything she had ever felt for a man.
And he had awakened her desire.
Even now all over town, candles were snuffed out as couples, Married Brothers and Sisters, went to bed. She knew enough of love to realize that she knew nothing of the ties that bound them, nothing of ordained desire. The town crier called the eleventh hour. It was getting late. Still she watched. Eight houses over, she could see the upper stories of the Brothers House where all Single Brothers slept. In the distance, one window glowed faintly. She imagined it was Nicholas up late, studying his notes, striving to become the man he seemed to think he had to be.
She liked him as he was. She had privately applauded as he masked his frustrations and mastered a room full of inventory he had never seen. She approved of the care he had given Sister Benigna and appreciated his stands against the insulting gentleman customer and the pious Brother Huber on her behalf.
But more than that, he was kind to her, and he made her laugh.
She let down her hair and braided it. The single coil fell down her spine, hot and heavy. A block away, the single light still burned. She closed her window and turned down.her bed, worrying about her new sensations.
It was not scandalous-it could not be wrong-for a Single Sister to admire a Single Brother.
But now, since she had walked with Nicholas alone beside the banks of Monocacy Creek, she wanted him to touch her again. Some new spirit was hammering away inside her, fragile yet bold as a chick testing its beak against its imprisoning shell. In the dark secrecy of her room, she feared she would risk anything–anything–to discover the taste of one of his heartfelt kisses.
A month later, Abbigail determined to catch up on the cloth. A dozen bolts in rainbow colors stood on end outside their storage bins-China silks, calico from India, and linen loomed in Bethlehem. She finished dusting the bins, then brandished her feather duster like a sword at Christian Huber.
“The red flannel is to be stored, not displayed,” she repeated to him.
They were alone in the store’s front room after the noonday meal. Her father had gone upstairs for his afternoon nap, and Abbigail hurried to organize the cloth while he slept.
“Everybody buys red flannel,” Huber said.
“Not in summer. Don’t cross me on this, Brother Huber. ‘Tis already July, and hot. No seamstress in her senses works flannel now.”
Strange, she thought with gritted teeth, how much more boldly the man would state his mind with Nicholas away. Nicholas’s first solo trip to nearby Nazareth had taken him a day; his second, to Philadelphia, three. This trip he had gone to Philadelphia again. Four days had turned to five, and he was unaccounted for. The hot July days were ripe for epidemics.
She schooled herself not to worry.
Stubbornness fixed Huber’s aquiline features. “Brother Till said not to move it.”
“So he says every year. Then he buys more, which never sells before autumn. Now I move it. Women want the lighter linens, calicos and silks-not this. Take it to the back room.” She thrust a heavy bolt of bright red flannel at Huber.
His arms curled to receive it, but his thin lips thinned. “Brother Till will be displeased.”
She plopped a second bolt of flannel on top of the first. “Everything displeases Father,” she snapped, then bit her lower lip. She tried so hard to show respect. She hated it when Brother Huber’s sanctimonious manner made her snide and snippy.
He shifted the load as if to protect his back. “You will make trouble for me with him.”
Exasperated, she thrust a bolt of sunny summer calico back into its bin.
A mellow baritone spoke firmly from the hall. “You already seem to be in trouble. With Sister Till.”
Nicholas Blum was back, his brown coat dusty from travel. He strode through the hallway, confidence squaring his broad shoulders and excitement brimming in his cobalt eyes. Abbigail’s breath caught, hard as she fought her wayward desire.
Huber flushed with anger. “Sister Till is not my superior.”
Nicholas’s fine blond eyebrow climbed in admonition. “She is mine, Brother Huber, and I am man enough to say so.”
Abbigail clamped down on her relief. Unlike Nicholas, Huber nagged, questioned, and resisted her direction. Her father countenanced this, and no one else ever had the mettle or the moment to take him down a peg.
Huber, still holding the heavy cloth, shifted. “I mean,” he said with pique, “I answer to Brother Till.”
“As do I,” Nicholas said smoothly. “Therefore, it behooves me to attend to his daughter’s wishes. I would not presume, however, to speak for you.”
Huber ignored him and pointedly looked down at her. “Where did you say you wanted these?”
“In the back room.”
He sighed with exaggerated patience. “Customers can better see them on the higher shelf out here.”
“But when I am alone, I cannot get them down.”
Her answer seemed to stifle if not satisfy him. He left the room, making much of the chore and complaining of his back.
Nicholas’s blue eyes sparkled with complicity at Abbigail. She busied herself putting bolts away to conceal a pleased smile. Pleased that he had rescued her.
Too pleased that he was back.
She took out a rumpled bolt of silk. “Welcome home, Brother Blum. You are late again, it seems.”
Pure sunshine lit the handsome angles of his face. “Getting the wine required a wait. Tis well I took the four-horse hitch.”
She tilted her head in challenge. “Can I assume you filled the wagon with aught else? Long trips should be successful.”
He grinned, unapologetic. “Measured in money spent or time taken?”
“A man can spend a very great deal of money in five days.”
He pulled a purse from his waistcoat pocket and turned it upside down. Empty. “Indeed, I spent every last pence as planned.”
“Five days away was not my father’s plan.”
He shrugged. “Yesterday the wheel horse threw a shoe.”
Smoothing the slippery silk onto the cumbersome bolt, she gave him her best skeptical look. “I thought you had apprenticed to the blacksmith.”
“There was no forge at hand.” He paused earnestly. “Do you know how hard it is to bend iron with your bare hands?”
She cocked her head. He could be teasing. “How hard?”
“I managed,” he said, serious as a stone, as he took the heavy silk in one hand and slid it into the highest bin. “Then I salvaged the bent nails and straightened them with my teeth.”
“Liar!” She scowled. She hated being gulled.
His disarming shrug admitted all. And her resistance to his charm melted like pond ice in the spring.
“Come,” he said, enticing her with a gesture and his voice. “See what I procured for us. The wagon is in back, near the cellar, for unloading the wine.”
Then he touched her elbow and steered her toward the hall. His fingers were warm, and his easy courtesy acknowledged her femininity. A bright gladness shivered through her. She had missed him. Had needed him-the teasing, the quick mind, the lightness of heart, the camaraderie. Nothing scandalous there, she tried to reassure herself. But it was a dangerous course of thinking.
She dredged up a safer subject. “Did you truly spend all my father’s money?”
He walked round to the back of the wagon, untied the heavy tarpaulin, and started folding it back. Brother Huber sauntered out, his aquiline nose almost quivering with interest.
“All of his, as he instructed me,” Nicholas said. “And most of mine.”
“Yours!” Huber burst out. Her father had refused Huber that latitude.
Nicholas flopped the heavy cover back another fold and glanced at Abbigail over his shoulder. “I have your father’s consent. After finishing his business, I can make my own purchases.”
Huber’s lips crimped with disapproval. “Brother Till cannot mean to let you to conduct business for yourself!”
“It is by arrangement, naturally,” Nicholas said to Huber, then turned to explain to Abbigail. “Our fathers agreed to that before I came.”
How unlike her father, she thought.
“How interesting,” she said. “Were you successful? For yourself, I mean?”
Pride, she thought, restrained the smile that threatened to break across his face. Pride, and the hovering presence of Brother Huber, whose envy contorted his ascetic features.
His Stolen Bride Page 9
