On other evenings, the three of them made careful conversation about their day’s work. Tonight, silence ruled the room, raking her nerves like chalk on slate. What was Huber thinking? How long before the animosity that had flared this afternoon blazed up again?
She had had no chance to speak to Nicholas about the mortifying moment when Huber had spied her hand on his. But she had to. She had told herself a dozen times that she had done no wrong in offering him her small comfort. Nor had he in accepting her gesture.
Christian Huber would see it differently, however, and to their detriment.
Edgy with uncertainty, she rose and went to close the window curtains for the night. A warm summer breeze rippled through them, caressing her cheek like the touch of a hand. Like Nicholas’s strong, tender hand.
Outside, neighbors dotted the street, heading for Gemeinhaus where Singstunde, the evening song service, was held. A father in a dark tricorn held back hatless sons from headlong gallops toward the last worship of the day. The white caps of women dipped and bobbed as mothers and daughters walked along the tamped dirt public roadway in front of the store, her home.
All families, she thought with a familiar pang. The Single Brothers and the Single Sisters Houses were just across the way. The Single Sisters who had been her childhood friends were married now with families of their own. Her heart tugged at the sight of wives and husbands. Every night, she watched them trickle past, happy in their companionable unions, proud of daughters and sons. While every night she, married to bolts of cloth and cases of wine for others’ kitchens, faced her own isolated solitude.
Isolated except for her burgeoning friendship with Single Brother Nicholas Blum. Which the Brethren could never countenance. In the main, Brother Huber had gotten that right: Men and women were kept separate because human nature tended toward sin and seduction. The pairing of couples was in God’s hands.
She had not sinned with Nicholas, but in her heart she was already seduced.
What was wrong and what was right blurred for Abbigail again. She wanted to honor her soul and preserve her reputation. Her own self-respect, her father’s acceptance, and Nicholas’s good opinion hinged on doing both. So, she suspected, did Nicholas’s regard. Nevertheless, her heart yearned for what her mind would not allow her to dream of.
His presence, all around her.
She had to go to Singstunde tonight. Go with Nicholas, and explain their danger should Huber decide to slander them before her father and the town.
She turned from the window. “I must attend services tonight,” she said to Brother Huber. “Will you stay with my father?”
Huber looked up from his scriptures, disapproving. “’Tis not proper for you to walk out alone.”
“’Tis not proper for me to go so seldom. I have not been this week.”
He gave her a bland, insistent smile. “Then I shall escort you.”
“That would be most kind,” she said formally. “But Father cannot be alone in his present state.”
“Of course not,” Huber said condescendingly. “Brother Blum can keep him company.”
“You know Father’s ways better than Nicholas. He can accompany me.”
Huber rose ponderously, righteously. “Brother Blum, you mean to say,” he said sternly. “I caution you, Sister Till. I was silent this afternoon, but this … this connection between the two of you … it grows worse and worse.”
Too true, she thought, her face burning. Her careless blunder with Nicholas’s name betrayed her sentiments to both men.
Behind them, Nicholas’s chair scraped the floor and she turned. He had loosened his stock, and his tawny mane was in disarray. He pushed back from the desk and stood over Huber, his blue eyes dark with barely contained rage. “I am aware of no impropriety for which you have the right to scold Sister Till.”
Abbigail twisted the edge of her apron in her fist, alarmed. However much she secretly thrilled at Nicholas’s ready defense, two hulking men glaring at each other over her was the last thing she intended. Or could afford.
Huber made a squeak of indignation. “Touching her-not an impropriety? Rubbish!”
So he had seen everything, she thought, dismayed.
Nicholas lowered his powerful voice. “Christian compassion is not rubbish, Brother Huber. Sister Till touched me briefly, concerned that my letter from home brought unhappy news.”
“A likely excuse!” Huber said in obvious disbelief. “How can I be sure that that is what happened?”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened. “You cannot,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “But you have her word, and mine. It will be awkward for you to doubt us both. Disrespectful to her. Offensive to me.”
Tension swamped the room. What to do? Stop them. Act! They might hit each other, but they would not hit her. Gathering courage, she moved between them, two boulders of mutual aversion, and boldly clasped their forearms.
“Brother Huber, Brother Blum. We must not fight over whose word to believe. Or over who should go to worship.”
Nicholas bowed politely, acquiescing.
Huber stiffened. “We are not fighting.”
“Quite right,” she answered sharply. “We are disagreeing. And since we disagree, we cannot all be pleased. I will go to Singstunde, and Brother Huber will stay here for Father’s safety. I insist. You both know Father empowers me to speak in his stead.”
Huber’s mouth worked like a landed fish. His unspoken protest–He shouldn’t-hung in the air.
“Brother Blum can do me no harm in such a public venue as the Saal,” she added.
Huber found his voice. “He can ruin your reputation,” he spit out.
Abbigail fisted her hands at her side, her disgust of him mounting. “Fourteen years of dealing with strange men in my father’s store has not ruined my reputation. Working here with you has not ruined it. Brother Blum cannot ruin it in one night.”
Huber’s demeanor went black. “’Tis all folly, and reckless disregard for everything that we purport to be.”
Bafflement replaced the anger on Nicholas’s face, then that plain earnestness she had seen only twice and admired so much. And as surely as birds sing at sunrise, she knew that she could love this man with her whole heart.
“We are supposed to be kind to one another, Brother,” he said, reasonable again. “We are supposed to worship. Neither Sister Till nor I have been to evening worship in a week. If she still wishes it, I will take her safely there and bring her safely home.”
“I cannot believe that Brother Till would approve,” Huber said, with an ugly glare that promised retribution. But he resumed his seat and took up his Bible in a strained silence.
“We should go now or be late,” Abbigail told Nicholas in a moment. Lateness would be a scandal as well, she thought, if they arrived together.
Nicholas hastily straightened his stock, swatted road dust off his brown coat, and shrugged into it. Outside in the twilight, he paused at the bottom stair, his gaze on a level with hers where she stood three steps above him, his eyes glinting with recovered humor.
“Apron, Abbigail,” he softly chided.
“Oh!” She bunched it in her hands, tinned on her heel and hurried inside. It was soiled from the wagon, had been barely fit for supper, but she had not had time to change. It would not do for services. She unpinned it, flung it on its peg, and joined Nicholas in the street.
What Was the man up to? He had used her given name again. Again, with studied indifference to Brother Huber’s warning about improprieties.
The day’s heat had abated, and the twilight hour settled softly down. They fell in behind two families headed for the Saal and walked to the corner of the block without a word. An uncomfortable silence, she thought, owing to all that had happened that afternoon.
She edged into the purpose of her walk. “I do thank you, Brother Blum, for defending me to Brother Huber. He can be … overly punctilious.”
Nicholas’s dimple flashed wickedly. “Is that the word? I w
as thinking pious, priggish, pompous, and possessive. Vain too, but that spoils our alliteration.”
She agreed but knew she shouldn’t laugh. “So many words to choose from. And so severe.”
“You could pick just one, I suppose. They’re hard won but freely given.” He looked down at her kindly. “How do you bear him?”
“I pray.”
He laughed. “I will have to try that.”
“Nicholas, be serious.” She clapped her hand to her mouth, but there it was, it just slipped out. It felt so natural to call him by his given name. Nicholas, the devil in him. Nicholas, the patron saint of gifts.
“Very well, I will. I can, you know.” His voice shifted to the low, earnest tone that resonated to her bones. “I am the one who should thank you for standing up for me. It wasn’t necessary, especially as it riles him. It wasn’t deserved. I knew about the flour. I should have remembered about the coins.”
They had reached the next corner, and the gathering crowd. Abbigail was startled to realize that she had not noticed it. All her attention was riveted on Nicholas, and her sympathy. “Brother Huber is too literal in his belief, too willing to find fault.”
“It makes him a good bookkeeper.”
“But he was too hard on you.”
“Nein, ‘twas my own stupid fault. Sometimes I rush.” He made an impatient gesture with his hands. “Sometimes I am rash.”
She thought of how his restless energy filled rooms. “Sometimes?”
He looked down at her abruptly and caught her smile.
“Very well then, most of the time,” he conceded gracefully.
They parted at the steps to Gemeinhaus, and Abbigail found a seat on the women’s benches in the Saal. The candlelit room was quiet but for the reverent slide of shoes and deferential rustle of skirts. Peaceful, a place for her to calm tumultuous emotions. She sat far back, as she had with Sister Benigna, knowing in her heart that she wanted only to watch Nicholas again.
He sat in the middle of the men, already known and liked by many, to judge from the respectful greetings he received as they entered the Saal. The burnished gleam of his tawny hair under the golden candlelight lifted her spirits. Despite Brother Huber’s disapproval of him, despite Nicholas’s own irrepressible irreverence, she believed him to be a serious Christian man. He had a good heart. He loved his family. He was courteous to her difficult father. He even tolerated Huber. And he had a tender, friendly way with her that made her laugh.
The brass band had begun its first chorale. She pulled herself together for the singing-and for the sound of his voice. The verse began and sopranos, tenors, and baritones blended with the trumpets and trombones. Instantly she picked out the voice of the man who seemed to have become her friend. Knowing him better now, she heard its resonance uppermost, its higher ranges as easy as his humor, its low notes as reassuring as his earnest strength.
To think that Brother Huber would spoil it all. He exaggerated danger, saw sordid passion in an innocent touch. She was above that. Brother Blum was too. They were friends. No one could say she should not admire the man. Enjoy her time with him. Sharpen her wits against his humor. Assuage her loneliness with friendship.
Harmless friendship.
But it would be hard.
Walking home with Nicholas in the moonless night could easily become Abbigail’s secret pleasure, she thought, his very size a shelter, his relaxed pace an invitation to confide. A few worshipers carried torches, and candles in windows of the homes they passed cast faint rectangles of light onto the street She stumbled over a rut.
In the dark Nicholas drew her hand protectively under his arm, a thoughtful gesture but indiscreet. “We forgot the torch.”
“By now, I should know my way.”
His head inclined toward her. “But I am sworn to bring you home safe.”
Because of Christian Huber. Nothing had been resolved with him. No doubt he awaited their return. The thought of his too-keen interest in their behavior angered her all over again. “I am so sorry you must contend with his pompous, pious prying,” she said, deliberately repeating his words.
Nicholas chuckled, apparently unconcerned. “Yes, I thought it trouble enough to contend with you.”
“You are incorrigible!” Despite her worries, she laughed. “I take his interference this afternoon very seriously.”
“Indeed, as I do. But did you see his face?” Nicholas whispered wickedly.
Abbigail was not sure how to answer. Was he gloating that they had given Huber a setdown? Or trying to relieve the distress that she still felt? She gave him credit for the latter and tried to strike a lighter tone.
“His suspicions would be harmful if anything were going on between us.”
He smoothly guided her around the corner. “But nothing is,” he said lightly.
Nothing to you, she thought, her chest suddenly hollow.
But Nicholas cared for her, she would swear it. His every word and gesture said he did, earnestly, even intimately. She could not think he meant to seduce or even trifle with her. Unless … perhaps Salemites were more relaxed about Single Brothers spending time in the company of Single Sisters. And Nicholas had lived with four spirited sisters in his father’s house. Surely that accounted for his easy manner with her and his too-easy dismissal of Brother Huber’s prying eyes.
But she was no fool. And not about to be made one. She had known all along that she was too old, too short, too plain, too bold for such an eligible man as Nicholas Blum. She could be as casual and as nonchalant as he. Not Sisterly but sisterly.
Which gave her the right to admonish and advise.
“Even so, we must take care,” she warned. “Everything I know of Brother Huber-”
“Which is rather more, I suspect, than you may want to know.”
She sniffed, trying to ignore his too-sharp insight and his playful interruption. “Everything I know of him tells me he will leave no stone unturned until he finds us out in some trumped-up transgression. Which means he will see complicity in my passing you the cabbage.”
“Damning evidence of dalliance,” Nicholas said in a grave tone.
“Seriously, Nicholas. Prudes see sin in sidewise glances. Unless we take the greatest care not to appear familiar, he will ferret something out.”
“I am taking care, Abbigail. Besides”-he patted her hand reassuringly-“I am practically betrothed.”
Abbigail broke the hold he had on her and stopped stock still.
“Betrothed!”
He stopped too. “Well, practically.”
Her heart sank to her stomach and blood rushed to her head. In that instant she knew that what she felt for Nicholas far exceeded the bounds of friendship. But he must not suspect the involvement of her heart. She used her sisterly, inquisitory voice.
“How can you be betrothed? No banns are posted.”
“That would, ah … um, take a bit of explaining.”
“It certainly will. Given that betrothal begins the moment the bride consents and the banns are posted. Weddings then usually take place within three weeks. And you are quite unmarried.”
The darkness masked any blush, but consternation colored his voice. “The Elders refused to cast the Lot for me. They sent me here to learn a trade and clear my debt before they would even think of my setting up a household.”
“You have debt?”
“I accrued some debt. On land. They held that against me. Danke Gott, I did not name her to them. I told no one of my hope that she would be my bride.”
“You just told me.”
In the low light, she could see his hand rub his jaw, “I meant to assure you … that you are safe from… seduction.”
“I certainly feel safe now,” Abbigail said ironically her heart battering her ribs like a bird’s, trapped in the cage of her illusions, in the foolish spinster hopes she had allowed him to awaken. She had let herself be misled by the generous charm that Nicholas would extend even to a plain spinster who tormented him.
Misled by her own too gullible, too pathetic imagination.
He reached for her hand. “Abbigail, I-”
She snatched it back. “Must you call me Abbigail?” The angry words spilled out. “A man practically betrothed to another woman must surely call me Sister Till.”
“Abbigail,” he said, contrite yet stubborn. “I care for you. You make it bearable for me here.”
Not bearable for me, she thought miserably. But she couldn’t let him suspect the foolish hope she had begun to harbor-foolish and so new, she’d barely understood it until he confessed.
“I am glad,” she said instead.
They were the bravest words that she had ever spoken in her life. She was glad she knew him, glad she had befriended him, glad for him if he truly loved the other woman. It was just that she was also so, so sorry. She smoothed her skirts and continued slowly walking toward home. A refuge too far, and yet too near, for her to ask him all she wanted to know.
“So, since I am now the only person in the world who knows of your hopes, it is safe for you to tell me all about her.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not? Ah. You are sworn to protect her too.” She tried not to sound too sarcastic, determined to keep her remarks light.
“Um … in a manner of speaking. Her reputation is in my hands. I want to protect that.”
“From me? I can see how you would want to protect her from me! Think, Nicholas. Who would I tell? She is from Salem, is she not? A woman I don’t even know.”
A torch bobbed past, lighting Nicholas’s troubled brow. “No, I cannot name her,” he said.
“You don’t trust me.”
He became very serious. “I do trust you. More than … more than anybody. Surely you understand. I do not have permission. The Lot was never cast.”
His Stolen Bride Page 11
