His father and brother caught up to him halfway down the street. It was just as well they did, for he had no plan and no direction.
“Son, you are exonerated,” his father said firmly.
He stopped on his heel. “Strange. I do not feel exonerated.” He felt violated, snared in a net of his own making. A net of reputation. He always had been guilty-of pranks, misdeeds, and venial sins. But how did a man prove himself innocent when there was no evidence either way? The damage had been done the moment Till arrived in town spreading allegations.
“We know you would not have done it,” Matthias added, in what seemed to Nicholas a sacrifice of noble-mindedness, given what lay between them. What crueler irony? The righteous brother who stole his bride now defended him of theft.
“Proof of my innocence will be far to seek,” Nicholas said, suddenly savage. “As will proof that I did not compromise your wife’s affections.”
It was a bright night in the sleeping town, the full moon high. It shone on the resentment that flashed across his brother’s face.
“Restrain yourself, Nicholas,” his father interceded. “We will get to the bottom of this together.”
“With a hearing?” He gritted out the words, bridling against the insult of it.
“Till insists. The entire case must be laid out before the Board.”
Brother Ernst caught up to them and said sympathetically, “We’ll clear this up, Nicholas. Don’t worry. No one thinks you a thief.”
Till did, and Abbigail had entertained the notion. Nicholas had seen it in their faces, and it galled him and provoked him.
Nicholas and his father came home in such disorder that Abbigail had a fleeting fear that the watches had turned up. Jacob Blum dispelled that notion with a hearty recounting of the mess they’d made upturning Nicholas’s shop. But the Elders would still hold a hearing. Nicholas stood by the mantel, grave and silent. Abbigail’s father came in limping, his gout flaring with his disappointment.
“The hour is late, daughter. Come. We must go.”
Retha Blum was gracious. “You will stay here, of course, Brother Till. And Sister Till and Sister Rothrock.”
“Thank you, no,” her father said crossly. “I will stay at the Tavern. Sister Rothrock will stay with her friends and my daughter with the Single Sisters.”
Jacob Blum offered to conduct Sister Rothrock to friends if that was her preference. She had not seen them in years and was eager to go.
Retha Blum clasped Abbigail’s cold hand in her warm ones. “I fear the Single Sisters House will not do for you. It is full to overflowing. Town girls past the age to enter it are turned away.”
“A private home, then,” her father said.
“Most have barely room for their own children. In Salem, we grow families faster than we build homes. We may be your only choice, Sister Till, certainly tonight,” Retha Blum said matter-of-factly.
Abbigail could not bear to stay here, in Nicholas’s home, her father objecting and her testimony against him impending. “Then I shall take a room at the Tavern.”
Nicholas gave her the sternest look. “A public tavern, even ours, is unsuitable for Sister Till.”
Abbigail grimaced, feeling all the awkwardness of her position. “I cannot possibly impose …”
Retha Blum squeezed her hand and gave her a kind smile. “Let us not quarrel over this. Take our offer as a token of our friendship. And our belief in our son. He is cleared. You are not our enemy, Sister Till.”
Her testimony would prove she was. But under Retha Blum’s gentle insistence, Abbigail agreed to stay, her stomach churning with dread. Nicholas was not in the clear. Her father would make her testily. She could not lie about what she had seen.
20
The next night when the clock chimed two, Nicholas woke to nagging concerns and took to the streets. Tomorrow the Elders would convene, with his conduct their inquiry. Frustrated that the watches had not been found, Till had pressed for a meeting sooner, but the Brethren’s deliberate ways did not permit rushing to the hangman. On hearing Till’s objection, the chief Elder, Brother Marshall, suggested that he pray for patience.
Tonight, a waxing harvest moon blazed the sky as Nicholas walked off his restlessness. He had searched every scrap of belongings he’d brought back from Bethlehem, things overlooked last night: saddle, saddlebags, the lining of his battered portmanteau. Try as he might, he could not recall what he did with the watches. Perhaps he could go bang his head on some convenient rock until he unlocked the key to their theft.
The key. It all turned on that blasted key.
The stocky night watchman emerged from behind the linden trees that fringed the Square.” Wie gehts, Nicholas? Come to keep me company?” Samuel Ernst asked.
“The chimes woke me.”
“Ich verstehe dich. I cannot sleep through troubles myself.”
Nicholas merely nodded, the night bright enough for Brother Ernst to see him.
“Everyone prays it will go well for you tomorrow,” the man added.
Nicholas blew out a harsh sigh. “Prays and … gossips, do they not?”
He knew they did. Custom in his tin shop had been brisk with snoops and meddlers. Or the merely curious and concerned; he must force himself to think benignly of his fellow Brethren.
Brother Ernst cleared his throat nervously. “Ach, you must understand, Nicholas. Your return, the fight, the wedding, and now this. Visitors come from Bethlehem, who just happen to be the man you worked for-and his pretty daughter.”
Anger spiked through Nicholas. “What about his pretty daughter?”
Brother Ernst lifted his hand as if to erase any affront. “Nothing of truth to it, I am sure.”
“But there are rumors.”
“They do not bear repeating.”
“Except to me, the object of those rumors, Brother Ernst. I can fight rumor with fact.”
“Some may think he brought her because you …” Samuel Ernst started walking.
Nicholas fell in beside him. “Because I…?”
“Because you and she … Ach, Nicholas, everyone knows your eye for pretty women. It is easy to imagine you and Sister Till … and her father finding out-”
Nicholas let out a low roar of indignation. “Abbigail? Abbigail is innocent of…” He trailed off, remembering the sweet heat of her against him on her bed.
“Abbigail, Brother Nicholas?” Samuel Ernst prompted him.
“Sister Till is my friend! She has the strictest notions of propriety, the highest regard for her reputation.”
“That is not the impression.”
“Hang the impression!” Nicholas exploded. “We worked together in the store, day after day, under the uncharitable, watchful eye of that dour old man. She has sacrificed her life to him, her happiness.”
“No one here knew that, of course,” Samuel Ernst said defensively.
With his bare hands, Nicholas stopped the man. “Brother Ernst, I beg you. Defend her name to anyone who speculates idly about what is not. What could not be.”
“’Tis clear you care for her …”
“Of course, I care for her,” Nicholas snapped, roused to her defense. “She lives an admirable life of strictest duty. I wouldn’t harm a hair on her sweet head.”
“I see, Nicky,” Brother Ernst said gently, pulling away.
“Stop the rumors. You have much credit among us. Credit I have lost, so that any word from me could do her harm. If anyone slanders her, call them what they are-idle gossips, trucking in wicked lies.”
Samuel Ernst agreed, wished Nicholas well, and left him in the Square.
His life at a standstill. Last night he had endured his inquisition, disbelief pounding his senses, while Abbigail looked on. He could not fathom why Georg Till had turned against him, his abrupt departure notwithstanding. During his summer at the store, he had rearranged tired old stock until it sold. He had brought in new stock that flew off the shelves. He had turned a neat profit for Till and laid a
side some money for himself.
He had found his talent. So why had he thrown it over to return to this backcountry town to rescue Catharina? Was it jealousy of his brother? Or the dream of his young manhood? He had thought to rescue Catharina and wrest control of his life from the stifling shelter of the Brethren.
Another signal failure.
Restless, Nicholas struck off across the Square, down the street, across the meadow that rolled gently down to Tanner’s Run. He had fished there as a boy, swum, built dams, splashed water in friends’ faces. He envied that boy. Full of boundless energy, endless optimism, a wicked sense of play, and yet charity for everyone.
He sat on a large rock and clipped a hand into the stream. It was icy cold. That boy was not meant to grow into the man he had become, jack of all trades, bound to the dullest of the dull, and rejected by the woman who had loved him. A man alone, debtridden, and accused of theft.
He could start a new life. Even before Till’s allegation, he had thought of striking out on his own, his shoulders aching as he crafted some trifling tin cup. West of Salem, the backcountry was opening up. A man could have adventures in the mountains and beyond. He liked the road. He wanted to be his own man. A brooding hour passed, or two. He lost track of time. Barely noticing the chill, he stood up by the stream. The water flowed, dark and lonely.
He could never leave his family. His affections ran too deep. He would miss his little sisters’ teasing adoration, his stepmother’s gentle love, his father’s stalwart support. As for Matthias, he couldn’t imagine their present impasse enduring until old age.
He headed up the sloping meadow back to his narrow bed. He wished he could protect Abbigail, too-from her sad isolation as her father’s drudge, from the assaults on her dignity that she faced daily in the store. From Salem’s gossip. Frustrated by his uselessness to her, he ground his teeth, only to rediscover the gaping hole where he had lost a tooth, rashly, stupidly fighting with his brother.
The best he could do was to protect her from himself, from his bad luck and ever-sinking reputation.
Halfway up the hill, he found himself behind his parents’ home, its back windows mournful eyes in dark brick walls. Except for one window. A candle burned in the bedroom he had shared with Matthias as a boy. A flash of movement in the corner window caught his eye. Who would be there now? And up so late?
Abbigail. He remembered her guilty blush when he admitted to the key. What did she know? What could she say at tomorrow’s hearing? What if she blamed herself-her tears, their kiss-for his absence of mind that night On the morrow she would say so.
And she would ruin herself.
Unless he stopped her. He broke into a run uphill through tall damp meadow grasses to his parents’ house. Behind the single-story kitchen, he found the young oak tree he used to climb to reach his bedroom window. The tree was larger and the limb he’d swung from higher. But he was bigger too. Hope pumped through him. There was, after all, something he could do.
It was not circumspect or wise. It was probably rash.
But he would not let Abbigatl Till put herself at risk for him, buying his pardon at her own cost. And he would have no other chance to dissuade her.
Hastily he discarded his only decent waistcoat, a choking stock, and slick-soled shoes. Then he hoisted himself up the tree, caught his heel over the limb, and pulled himself across it to the kitchen’s low slate roof. Under his great weight, the high limb sagged, dropping him gently atop the kitchen’s slightly sloping roof. He crept on hands and knees, spreading his weight so as not punch through the ceiling. The narrow window was cracked open. It would admit him if he squeezed.
Abbigail was sitting in a creaking rocker, reading by the low light of her chamber candle, wearing a simple white flannel gown. For a moment Nicholas paused, drinking in the sight of her, her thick, heavy hair restrained by a ribbon at the nape of her slender, delectable neck.
And the enormity, the idiocy of his impulsive visit struck him. What if she screamed? He could cover her mouth if he reached her in time. What if that protective gesture terrified her? He would not forgive himself if he caused her pain.
Of course, she might fight back. But she was quick and smart and sure of who she was. She’d think first. He took a chance on that.
“Abbigail,” he whispered as he cracked the window. “’Tis Nicholas-”
She bolted from her rocker and twirled around, the book clattering to the floor. Her knees buckled in alarm, her hand flew to her chest, and her mouth made a small 0 of alarm.
Feet first, he squeezed through the narrow opening and over the sill and stood, holding his arms out to his side. Hands up, palms out, in a gesture of-he hopedreassurance. Then he backed to the far side of the small room.
She did not faint, she did not scream, but jammed her knuckles on her hips and glared. “Jesu, Nicholas! What are you doing in my bedroom this time?”
He had not anticipated indignation. It pleased him and relieved him to have her to himself. He gave her his most repentant grin. “’Tis my bedroom, actually.”
Abbigail was mad enough to throw plates … if any had been to hand. What was Nicholas thinking, coming to her bedroom in the middle of the night? Her startled heartbeat slowed to a woodpecker’s insistent drumming. She snatched her wrapper off her bedpost, jerked it on, and knotted its sash, thankful for the late hour, the low light, but wary of the silence in the household.
“Are you insane?” she asked, her whisper as menacing as she could make it.
“I missed you, Abbigail,” he said, dimple flashing with all his old charm.
She stalked over to him, the soles of her feet slapping the cold plank floor, and tilted her face up-and up-to his. He was immense, larger than in her memory, almost alarming when she stood before him, barefooted and vulnerable.
“’Tis beyond the rashest folly for you to be here,” she scolded in spite of that.
He lowered his hands slowly and lifted a shoulder contritely. “But here I am, in the flesh, come to save you from yourself.”
She could have punched that flesh. Or caressed it, she admitted, a disturbing sensual awareness sparking deep inside her at the mere sight of him, bruised and battered though he seemed to be. Her sturdy nightclothes felt flimsy, revealing. She folded her arms across her breasts and glared. “Someone could wake up any minute!”
He backed against the mantel of the room’s modest fireplace and shrugged in his maddening, irresistible way. She always felt safe with Nicholas. Rejected, in an odd unexplored corner of her heart, but safe.
“They never have,” he assured her. “They always sleep like logs. I did this countless times.”
That softened her-the image of him, a great spirited boy, sneaking out for escapades on moonlit nights. But then, she thought, the boy had grown up. “Stole into women’s bedrooms, Brother Blum?”
A winning smile spread across his face. “Only yours, Abbigail.”
He was so sure of his effect on her that she could stomp her feet. But the genuine sweetness of his mellow voice glazed over her resistance like honey on johnnycakes, drizzled shivers of sensation into the core of her being.
She tightened her hold on herself. “You are a scoundrel.”
“Only if you let me be,” he teased, smiling still, one massive, sleeved forearm draped casually along the narrow mantel. Too casually for her comfort. He wore only breeches, stockings, and a linen work shirt, exposing his shoulders’ breadth and an intimate view of his strong, corded neck and the hollow at the base of his throat.
He fiddled with the little lantern, watching her all the while.
“Brother Blum, you forget yourself entirely!” Summoning annoyance to cover her distraction, she plucked the lantern from his hands. It rattled when she set it on the mantel. “You’re in trouble enough, my father’s accusation coming on top of interfering with your brother’s wedding.”
The sleek self-assurance washed out of his body, and he frowned. “They told you.”
&nbs
p; “Very little.”
His throat worked. “The wedding went as scheduled. Whether Sister Catharina loves him or not, she felt honor-bound to her betrothal. And so”-this time his lazy shrug did not convince Abbigail in the least-“my brother is married and I am not.”
She fought the tug of pity, the pull of desire, the irrepressible springing of hope. “All the more reason you should not be here,” she said sternly.
He waved concern away. “No one saw. Samuel Ernst is at the other end of town, and the rest of the world is sound asleep. Yours was the only bedroom window lit. I came in secret.”
“But why now?” she demanded, irritated that he would be so careless. He was already in deep trouble. Her foot tapped out her impatience. “Well?”
“About tomorrow…” he began. But he was looking at the floor.
At her bare foot, bare toes, peeking out beneath her gown and wrapper. She shifted her hems to cover them and spoke with what aplomb she could summon. “Yes. Tomorrow. The Elders are convened despite the search that proved you innocent.”
His face clouded. “The search only proved, as your father said, that a man who’s clever enough to steal is clever enough to hide the evidence.”
“So he alleges.”
Nicholas looked up. In the candlelight, his golden lashes fringed doubting eyes of darkest blue. “What do you allege, Abbigail?” he asked softly.
She was hurt he asked. “Nothing.”
“Your father is convinced that I had the reason and the chance to do it. And you saw … what exactly did you see?”
She bristled at his probing, too conscious of the damning tale she had to tell. “I am sure the Elders will ask me tomorrow. It cannot be right for us to discuss this here.”
A hiss of frustration escaped through his teeth. “’Tis wrong for you, your father, the Elders, or anybody else to accuse me of something I would never do.” His vehemence softened. “What did you see, Abbigail? What do you think I did?”
His Stolen Bride Page 21
