Nicholas drew in a breath and let it out. His father already knew he cared for Abbigail, but Nicholas had married her last night, body, heart, and soul. He was proud of that. He faced the fire, again. “Yes.”
His father’s low-pitched “ah” of dawning understanding whispered around the shop. “You walked her home?” he asked, his tone even and unjudging.
Nicholas fought a rising tide of terror and self-blame. “Would to God I had. When I woke up she was gone. Home, I thought, to you”
His father clasped his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Nicky. Nothing ever happens in Salem. Women, even children, are safe as safe can be.”
“No one steals expensive watches either and plants them in his sisters’ dolls,” Nicholas said grimly.
“Huber?”
Nicholas headed for the door. “We should put out a general alarm.”
“No!” His father stopped him. “Not a general one. She is Brother Till’s daughter, and he, as you know, favors Huber’s suit. At least let us consult her father. He is distraught.”
Nicholas followed his father home, to the parlor. Till was waiting in the best chair, his feet swathed in heated flannels, rocking anxiously. Sister Rothrock attended him while Catharina sat at Retha’s side, holding her hands. Matthias came in shortly, fresh from his inquiries, and went straight to Georg Till.
“Brother Huber has not been seen today, and the livery found his horse gone.”
Till scowled. “Are you accusing him of abducting my daughter?”
Jacob Blum joined them. “Possibly, Georg,” he said gravely. “Probably.”
Till half rose in distress. The flannels sagged around his legs. “No, I cannot believe it. He wants to marry her.”
Sister Rothrock pressed him back, rewrapped the flannels, and scolded. “But she does not want to marry him. Abducting her was his last desperate measure.”
Nicholas walked over to Georg Till, half expecting a rebuke. “You must believe it, sir. Her safety is at stake.”
Till glowered at him. “You! It all started with you!”
Nicholas knelt until he was eye-level with the man. “Sir, I am in love with your daughter. And she with me. She and I are certain Brother Huber stole the watches and planted them in my sister’s dolls. His desire to marry her is nothing but a plan to take over the store. I pray you believe me in her time of need.”
Till set his face. Sister Rothrock bent over and said with soft vehemence, “Don’t be an old fool, Georg. I will stand by you in anything but this.”
The old man’s face crumpled. “Benigna, how was I to know?”
“Because we told you. We all told you.”
Nicholas pressed in. “Sir. With your permission, we need to put out a general alarm and launch a search. Now, sir.”
Till looked at him through damp, invalid’s eyes. “Go then, Brother Blum, and bring my daughter home.”
29
“You could have procured a horse for me and a ladies’ saddle as befits a proper Sister,” Abbigail complained, goading her abductor.
She needed him to stop. She was sick to death of his pieties, false pleasantries, and demented purpose. She was queasy from pain and fatigue. The afternoon had worn down, and she despaired of Nicholas catching up. Despite protests for her comfort and well-being, Christian Huber did not care a whit for how she felt. The ride had not hurt him. For all his malingering at the store, regular trade had kept the dapper Single Brother fit. Walking to worship was her only exercise. She had not ridden a dozen times in her life.
The shadows of the towering pines lengthened across the wagon road, then disappeared as the sun dropped behind the ridge of mountains to the west. It was nearly dark. Surely Huber did not think that either she or this jughead of a horse could carry on all night! Especially her. Her heart ached, yearned for Nicholas. To think that she had been forced to go from his warm and tender arms to the indignity of Huber’s perfumed clutches. And to endure, sore and tender as she was, a torturous day on a horse.
“Let us not quarrel, dearest Sister. You are safer, warmer, near me.” He let go of the reins to pat her hand.
She fisted it against him. “Not safe at ad, I warrant. Nor warm without my Haube.”
Hours ago, immune to her protest, he had insisted she remove her cap. As d nothing else would give them away-his drab clothes and flat hat, her equally plain dress, and their heavily accented English. It was small comfort to recognize that he feared pursuers, but worse to realize they were making good time.
Reluctantly, she had removed her Haube and, to her dismay, lost her dignity and identity. Her abundant thick, dark hair was exposed to men who were not her husband. She grew cold quickly, too, but dared not ted Huber lest he embrace her. Trying to numb herself to his touch and his insinuations, she drew Nicholas’s old quilt around her.
The day dragged on, and Huber assailed her with pompous pieties about loyal Ruth from the Old Testament and devoted Martha from the New. Hypocrite! But she held her tongue. Afternoon slid into dusk, and he slyly slid in verses from The Song of Songs with embarrassing detail about the lover and his “beloved”-detads she now understood. Chills crept down her neck. Exhausted as she was, she feared the man’s intentions. If he acted on them, she was too weak to repel him.
Where was Nicholas? He had to come. She beieved with all her heart in his strength and his devotion. But would he be in time? What if the entire Blum household had overlooked her absence? Ad week, she had come and gone, no questions asked. Now she was at the end of her tether. Huber had passed three taverns, stopping once sometime after noon. He had dashed inside and procured stale bread, moldy farmers’ cheese, flat ale. A meager meal.
Finally the brilliant sky muted into evening streaks of gray and rose, and they came upon a two-story log tavern with a lean-to for a livery. Instantly she saw it was Mary Clark’s poor tavern. And perhaps-dare she hope?-refuge, even rescue. But under duress, the brazen tavern wench might prove a chancy ally, might even side with her crude customers.
Huber reined in the horse and asked a rickety old groom about accommodations.
“They’s room for anyone with money. A stall for the horse, and”-the old man winked-“a private room for man and wife.”
Wife! She almost exploded. But she would hold her tongue-for now. As Huber’s supposed wife, she had a slim protection from other men. If taken for his companion, they would think her a strumpet. What if she escaped Huber only to be ravaged by some drunken, grizzled woodsman?
Huber took out a bulging purse and paid for the horse. Throwing a leg over die roan’s neck, Huber dismounted, then reached to lift her off.
She spurned his aid and shinnied down. Her booted feet touched solid ground, and her legs crumpled. In the middle of the filthy stableyard, she sat with a graceless “oof,” the roan, the rickety old groom, and Huber towering over her. Tears of pain and aggravation trickled down her cheeks. She fought to stand but could not rise.
“Dearest, I am so sorry,” Huber said loudly, for the old man to hear, leaning in and pulling her to her feet. “I feared ‘twould be too much for you.”
She could have spit with anger but was too tired and hurt for that.
With a display of great concern, Huber helped her up two rough-cut stone steps into the tavern. Downstairs three small round tables were laid with greasy cloths. A middling fire crackled in a badly laid stone hearth. Every inch the strumpet in her low-cut dress, Mary Clark whisked in and out of a booth, serving ale and liquor to rough backcountry men. Large and lean and dirty, they lifted tankards, gamed, and talked of harvest.
Until they noticed Abbigail. They stopped and leered like vultures lurking. Mary Clark appraised her briefly. Abbigail cringed, once more conscious of her hapless state. How protected she had always been. How defenseless now without her Haube, her father, and Nicholas. She almost took a lesson from Huber’s rebellious horse and balked. But she dared not protest his hand at her waist guiding her across the room. Not until she knew the lay of the land
.
Two trappers in stained buckskins swapping hides asked Mary Clark for more cider. She served them, skirts swishing and cleavage showing, and garnered a hearty swat on her backside for her trouble. Laughing, she strutted away.
For a coin, Mistress Clark belonged to any man. Even perhaps to Nicholas, as she had hinted when they passed this way before. What a coil Abbigail was in. Lost in the clutches of a petty thief, and her best hope for rescue was … Oh, surely not, she tried to persuade herself. Yes, Nicholas had probably kissed Mary Clark. He had kissed many women. But, Abbigail reasoned, with a ripple of relief, he had not done that.
Christian Huber supported her crippled steps to a table near the fire, and she stumbled forward.
“Come, dearest,” he said, a perfect gendeman. “Let me take your wrap.” He reached for the quilt from Nicholas’s room. Noticing her in it, one of the trappers ogled her. A hot blush seared her face. She must look as brazen as Mary Clark, come straight from an illicit bed! Abbigail blushed hotter. She had come from an idicit bed. Folding the quilt in quick, awkward movements, she clutched it to her breasts like armor.
“Perhaps, dearest,” Huber hovered, intimidating her even as he acted the love-smitten groom, “Mistress Clark has a woolen shawl, or a muff to warm your hands.”
Abbigail wanted neither. And nothing of Mistress Clark but an ally in escape. The woman promptly supplied a triangle of thick, if mothy, wool, catching her gaze as if to say… she remembered her? Suspected something wrong? Or expected money? Abbigail could not tell.
Lacking coin, she swallowed all her pride and tendered thanks instead.
Huber held a chair and seated her, and she draped the quilt over her knees for warmth.
The woman brought wine and ale.
“Dinner, Mistress Clark, and afterward a private room,” Huber ordered.
A private room! How to escape his expectations-his demands? He took a mug of ale and offered her one. She asked for cider. In her exhausted state, inebriates would go straight to her head. Every passing minute showed how much she needed all her wits about her.
“There is but one private accommodation,” said Mistress Clark.
“One will do,” Huber said, his attention on the food.
“That’ll be one pound, and three shillings extra for the second person.”
Huber the shopkeeper haggled. “Three shillings extra for my bride? Have pity, mistress. We are newly man and wife.”
Mary Clark grinned at him through a near-full set of bright white teeth. “Congratulations, sir. ‘Twill be one pound three, or naught. In advance. The public room costs eight shillings for each party.”
While Huber counted out coin from his plump purse, Abbigail studied Mary Clark, feeling ever more confused. Up close, she was pretty, though no longer young and not quite clean. Abbigail bit her tongue to check her runaway imaginings. She must not think about Nicholas with her. She could not change the past. She wasn’t sure she could affect the future.
She huddled under her quilt. She was at Huber’s mercy. Should she escape, a roomful of men with vultures’ eyes awaited her. Huber, Mary Clark, Nicholas-she could count on no one. She had to free herself.
Mistress Clark brought mounds of dinner, piling the table with potherbs, dainty quail, hearty wild turkey roasted on a spit and stuffed with forcemeat, and an autumn cabbage salad with oil and vinegar. Abbigail picked at her food, too fatigued to lift the fork from her plate to her mouth.
Huber shoveled in big bites of food and nudged her plate nearer to her. “You should eat, dear wife,” he said, eyeing her with appetite, now that they were face to face. Eyeing her with lust.
“I do not feel quite … well,” she said, horrified to see his loathsome urges undisguised-and horrified so many men were watching. “The jolting of the horse …”
“You were lively enough in Brother Blum’s shop,” he said, and pushed more dressing toward her. “The greens are good.”
She shrugged and dressed the cabbage and took a bite. Bitter vinegar spiked into her throat, and she strangled. Tears started, her throat burned, and she gasped for breath.
Huber blustered up from the table, frantic with concern. “Water, Mistress Clark! She’s choking. Bread and water, now!”
Mary Clark did not come instantly. Abbigail coughed on, miming strangling long after her throat cleared.
“Mistress Clark!” he cried out desperately, unmanned, utterly unable to cope with a woman in dire straits. Could she feign dlness to escape? Mistress Clark arrived and pounded Abbigad’s back. Slowly Abbigad pretended to regain control.
“I am all-right, I will-be fine,” she stammered, coughing weakly
“Precious!” Huber said breathlessly, patting her back clumsily.
The men in buckskins laughed. What a milksop Huber was, and how easily deceived. She lifted her chin with new hope and a plan. Such a vain, selfish man might not trouble with an ailing woman, let alone bed her. The Brethren did not forbid acting, but they never practiced it. Abbigail steeled herself for the first and last-and most compelling-performance of her life.
With apologies for causing such a fuss, she took dabs of turkey, spicy forcemeat stuffing, and seasoned potherbs on her plate, then picked at them with distaste.
He reached over and patted her hand, his own gone cold and clammy. “Eat, dearest Abbigail. You will need all your strength tonight.”
Queasy at the thought of his intentions, she toyed with her food, taking a lesson from her father. “What I need is porridge,” she said weakly, worrying. Mary Clark had not yet taken sides, while every bite Huber took brought them closer to bed.
Huber tackled a second plate with relish. Abbigail dully pushed her food around. In the stark light of smelly tallow candles, he looked beakish, predatory in a way she had not fully understood till now. She had seen that look in him before, at home, in softer candlelight. Over the years, she had ignored her premonitions. He had been too courteous, too pious. Too attached to personal indulgences-his snuff and pomade and perfume-to truly be a Brother.
Her stomach lurched from exhaustion, and her gorge rose. It would not be hard to feign real illness. She covered her mouth and mimed extreme distress. “Brother Huber, I feel… unwell.” Gagging, she stood and fled the room, racing for the privy. When she found it, she dashed inside and barred the door.
In the dark stench of the two-hole outhouse, she choked and cleared her throat and gasped and groaned. Brother Huber soon rapped on the door.
“Dearest, dearest, do you need help? I can send in Mistress Clark,” he said, profound distaste in his tone.
“Send her …” Abbigail wheezed weakly. She leaned against the wall, contriving to sound still more pathetic. “And towels …”
Shortly, the door was tried. “’Tis locked, dearest.” His voice wobbled with relief.
“Unbar the door, madam,” Mary Clark said genily. “I have ye a basin of warm water and hot cloths.”
Abbigail let her in and glimpsed Huber fleeing to the tavern. She barred the door against him anyway
She tilted her head, taking in their cramped, down, ottered a steaming towel, and held a lantern to her face.
Did she recognize her or did she not?
“So very sorry, madam,” she said as to a stranger. “Was it my food? No one else-”
Abbigail shushed her and clung to her charade. “’Twas not your food. ‘Twas my exhaustion. I fear I am overset.”
Mary Clark clucked her tongue sympathetically. “You are perhaps … with chdd?”
Abbigail shuddered at the awful thought. “Not by him!” she blurted.
“Ah,” said the woman, with a knowing smile. “A jealous swain has spirited you away. But I suspect another left behind.”
“No-I mean, yes, I mean-oh, Mistress Clark, this is so dreadful! I pray you will believe me!”
She tilted her head, taking in their cramped, indecorous surroundings. “’Tis an odd spot for a confession.”
Abbigail wrapped her arms arou
nd herself, shivering with dismay. She had left her quilt behind, the privy was cold, and she was at her wits’ end. It was time to ted the truth. “I am a Single Sister of the Brethren, just come up from Salem.”
The woman met honesty with honesty. “I thought you came from Bethlehem with your father and that kind Widow.”
Her tone was kind. Hope fluttered up. “You do remember,” Abbigad said, expelling a pent-up breath. “You did not seem to.”
“I was waiting to understand your situation. You and the good Brother are not my usual pair of runaways.”
“He is a lecherous, thieving villain,” Abbigail burst out.
Nodding in agreement, Mary Clark took her towel and handed her a fresh one “And you are so obviously modest, innocent, and in distress.”
Abbigail brushed off her assessment. Last night she had been anything but modest and innocent. “Not I …”
“I know purity when I see it. May I call you Sister?” she asked gently.
“My name is Abbigail Till. Brother Huber abducted me last night, thinking to force me into marriage. I despise him. I know I shouldn’t, and I try in Christian charity to care for him. But never, ever will I be his bride.”
Mary Clark crossed her arms over her generous bosom. “Because there is another.”
“No, I-well, yes, there is another.”
Mary Clark smiled broadly under the lantern’s low light. “On his way to rescue you, no doubt”
All the terrors and fatigue of Abbigail’s day caught up with her, and she fought hot, stinging tears of wretchedness and want. Dare she tell Mary Clark who she hoped was coming? How had she dived from last night’s pinnacle of bliss with Nicholas, to this? Jammed into a miserable privy with a woman who bedded men for coins, her abductor lurking outside, expecting to ravish her tonight. Whde the man to whom she had given herself, body, heart, and soul might-or might not-come in time to save her.
Last night in the silvery light of Nicholas’s shop, they had matched hands, and she had felt his pulse beat in time with hers. They had gone perfectly still. Marveling, mingling blood and life, harmony and trust. She bit her lip and looked into her liberator’s eyes. No. She couldn’t tell her who he was.
His Stolen Bride Page 32
