His Stolen Bride Page 5

  Huber bowed and left the room–to change, he said. Nicholas retreated to the cellar, grinning with appreciation for the diminutive Sister. One or two schoolmasters had scolded him more thoroughly than she.

  But they had not been pretty.

  Moments later, he climbed up from the dank dark room with a case of best Sicily wine, too distracted by Sister Till’s rebuke to feel the weight of the wine or the sting of his new wounds. But his neglected customer had backed the tiny Sister up against the counter for an obviously unwelcome chat. She leaned away from him, arms flat across her breasts, trapped between her shopkeeper’s duty to cater to a customer and illconcealed repugnance at the man’s presumption.

  A roar of fierce protectiveness stuck in Nicholas’s throat. He dropped the case on the counter with a thunk. His bloodied face must look fierce, and he was glad of it.

  “Your wine, sir,” he said.

  “Load it,” the gentleman said dismissively, pointing to the door, his eyes fixed on Sister Till, his face too close to hers for common decency.

  Nicholas opened the case and took out a bottle. “You should inspect this first,” he said, and thrust it and himself into the narrow space between them.

  The man glowered. “Wha-at?”

  Sister Till slipped behind the counter for protection.

  “Your wine, sir,” Nicholas said implacably, shielding her from the man’s sight. “Is this the wine you sought?”

  With a disgusted grunt, the man took the bottle and inspected the label. “’Twill do.” He trailed off haughtily, then waved a hand at his purchase. “Load them. I have tarried long enough in this … establishment.”

  Nicholas followed the man from the store, loaded the wine, and plunged back inside. But his rescued Sister Till scowled at him. “You! Wait for me in the kitchen.”

  Surprised by her severity, Nicholas frowned. The movement pulled at the outside corner of his right eye where his fingers confirmed a puffy, tender, sticky mess. A champion’s trophy, he thought wryly, earned for her.

  He ducked his head under the doorway to the Tills’ private quarters. In the kitchen window’s light, he examined his wounds with an experienced eye. His struggle for the club had scraped his palms and fingers. He rolled up his sleeves. Angry red bruises decorated his forearms where he had warded off blows. He felt blood crusted on his cheek, and his eye throbbed like the very devil. Must look it, too. He wanted sympathy.

  Sister Till swept in like a killdeer over a lake. “’Tis well for you that Father missed your disturbance and retreated to his bed. ‘Twas not a fitting introduction, Brother Blum.”

  “My fault entirely,” he admitted, adhering to his policy of never dodging blame.

  “Fortunately, too,” she said, “Brother Huber is not seriously hurt. I left him to mind the store.”

  Her frank rebuffs amused him, but Nicholas turned out his hands contritely. “I could scarcely have bungled my beginning here more badly.”

  She pounced on his bloody palms. “Hurt there, too!” Her eyes glinted. “Wait here.” She turned on her little heel and briskly walked away.

  He indulged himself with the vision of her sensibly booted yet dainty feet. Of her tiny waist flaring to well-defined hips. Of a finger’s breadth of pale bare skin gleaming at the nape of her slender neck. He was wounded in the line of duty, he told himself. What could be the harm?

  She retrieved butter, a cloth, and an ominous brown jug from the larder, then joined him by the window in a pool of golden light. All he saw was the perfection of her creamy complexion-and a moment’s hesitation to address her task.

  Boldly she clasped his thick battered forearm in her small hand and steadied it. He steadied himself, overcome by the sweet sight of her fragility against his brute strength. He watched her face as she inspected his wounds and pursed her pretty lips. “Hmm. Not so serious as the palm.”

  She whisked to the table, upended the brown jug against the cloth, and returned. “Close your eyes. This will hurt,” she said briskly.

  Her concern amused him. “I can bear it.”

  Too firmly she pressed the cloth soaked with fiery brandy to his wound. Against his will he let out a hiss of pain.

  She glared at him. “Serves you right for fighting.”

  Defending oneself from a neck-breaking assault at the top of a stair was allowed, he almost retorted. But he didn’t. He had watched his father deal with first his mother, then his stepmother, and had learned better than to defend even a reasonable action to a woman in a righteous rage. No, a sensible man waited for the event to prove him right.

  He braced for Abbigail’s attentions to that arm. Was it imagination, or had her touch softened? Perhaps, but the alcohol stung like the very dickens.

  “Danke,”he said after she finished, giving a grateful smile through clenched teeth. He offered her his palms, reminding himself that these wounds were minor. She upended the jug again and came at him with the dripping cloth.

  Slowly and thoroughly, she proceeded to blot blood and clear dirt from his right palm. He would not flinch. Not in front of a mere woman bent on tormenting him. A tiny woman. He focused on her delicacy, her diminutive stature, and denied the pain.

  His gaze rested on her Haube-topped head. It did not reach his collarbones. On tiptoes, he thought with amusement, she could not see over his shoulder. His stepmother and sisters, the only women he knew well, were so tall. Catharina was so tall. Tiny was different Tiny was … alluring.

  Sister Abbigail dampened the cloth with liquor again and moved her ministrations to his other hand. “Hold still,” she ordered.

  He gritted his teeth and stared at the fine blue veins that pulsed at her temple. At strength combined with delicacy.

  The brandy burned raw flesh. He narrowed his focus. Under the edges of the crisp white linen cap, a fringe of mahogany hair peeked out in unruly swirls. The intimate sight of the fragile new growth surprised him, touched him.

  He had never noticed such about a woman in his life. This close, she seemed precious. Vulnerable, perhaps even to him.

  What a peculiar notion. He protected women, except when he was stealing kisses from them. This confident little spinster would no doubt declare herself invulnerable to men. Nevertheless, he realized with a rush of warm certainty, he wanted to protect her from men who did not value or respect her. He wanted to draw her into the safety of his arms where arrogant customers would not dare impose on her.

  He wanted to hold her.

  He wanted to feel the press of her small bones against his flesh.

  He stared down at her in stunned amazement.

  Finished with his arms and hands, she glanced up. Her luminous chocolate eyes met his, and she actually blushed. Pausing as if uncertain what came next, she held his hands a moment longer. Gently.

  “I … you … just stand there, in the light.” Her voice broke, oddly hoarse. She released him and stepped away.

  Nicholas fisted his hands to stop from pulling her back. And a realization struck him, as blinding as the sun slanting through the mullioned casement.

  Abbigail Till needed protection indeed. Protection from him.

  6

  Abbigail knew she was in trouble the moment Nicholas Blum tendered her his excessively contrite apology, concealing a grin but not the deep dimple that creased the left side of his too, too handsome face.

  In her protracted spinsterhood, she had touched many men. She had cut her father’s hair, bathed his swollen feet, put on his socks, and buckled his shoes. Occasionally when exchanging goods or coin, customers’ fingers grazed hers. Sometimes even Brother Huber needed a wound dressed or a splinter removed.

  But this afternoon when she had entered her small, familiar kitchen, her heart swooped at the sight of the man she intended, with all due deliberation, to touch. Standing by the window, Nicholas Blum awaited her, tall and strong, calmly and casually inspecting his wounded hands. A golden afternoon light glinted off his tousled tawny hair and burnished the features of h
is battered face.

  Oh dear. How could she properly attend to a man she wanted to touch so badly?

  With firmness, she ordered herself. She would hide her awakened senses behind a schoolmistress’s disgust of the fight. And give his wounds a merciless cleansing with hard liquor.

  She swiftly carried out her task, sheltered by his massive, courteous presence and breathing in his heated scent. Though resolved not to be affected by him, she had sighed. And weakened. His abject, boyish apology had charmed her, the more so as she knew Huber was to blame.

  So she brandished her cleansing cloth boldly, determined not to spare him. But Nicholas had only to flash his rakish dimple against the pain, and her heart dived. He accepted her rather brutal remedy with thanks, and it soared.

  She had cleaned his last scrape, looked up, and caught him drinking in the sight of her as if she were a wonder. She. A wonder.

  “I … um …” she had stammered, feeling discovered. As if he saw the soaring of her heart.

  Heaven help me finish this, she prayed. He was only a Single Brother needing nursing. But he was not merely another Brother. He was the man who had rushed to her defense. She cut off a chunk of butter for the bruises on his face.

  Stretching to reach his cheek, she smoothed the butter in. It softened the light stubble of his beard. She tried not to be awed by the square strength of his jaw, by the solid column of his neck beneath his bloodstained stock, by the breadth and depth of his shoulders. But he towered over her, and she had a clear impression of power banked, of energy reined in, of something waiting to explode. She stretched still higher to reach the bruising at his eye but could barely see what she was doing.

  “Could you just…” She didn’t know what to ask. “Lean over? You’re so-”

  “Monstrous, yes, I know,” he said, grinning, wincing as the grin wrinkled the cut at the corner of his eye. “You are a sparrow to my giant hawk. But don’t let my great bulk stop you.”

  Before she could blink, his abraded hands circled her waist, and he set her feet on the low stool she kept by to step up to the cupboard. Caught by surprise, she gasped. He was strong, gentle, and much too close. His large hands lingered at her waist.

  “Better?” he asked smoothly, letting her go. But he grimaced as his hands released her.

  “Humph,” she answered, trying for equanimity. He had lifted her as effortlessly as he had those three cases of wine. His touch had singed her through the thick, practical linen of her day dress, but she couldn’t let on. She put her hands on her hips in disapproval. “You need not prove your strength, Brother Blum.”

  The dimple flashed. “Twas naught.”

  She resisted the pull of his attraction. The man charmed anyone in skirts. “If you would just hold still and let me finish. Close your eyes.”

  He sucked in his breath, squared his broad shoulders, and obediently closed his eyes. “Do with me as you will.”

  What was her will? She could say nothing. Nothing smart, nothing withering. She could only struggle to suppress a new, embarrassing unsteadiness of hand.

  What was his will? Knowing she would hurt him, he put himself in her power wholly, gladly, trustingly.

  In the silence of the store’s private quarters, her hand trembled at the intimate freedom of touching a man. At touching this man. The skin by his eye where no beard grew was luxuriously soft. His flaxen lashes were thick and long, and sunlight burnished them to gold. She bit her lower lip, forcing her attention to the bruise, to swirling the butter into his purpling flesh.

  But she saw past flesh to him, to what he really was: kind, gentle, and amusing, qualities surprising in a man so large. Surprising in any man. To keep his charms at bay, she forced herself to be tyrannical. He laughed her sternness off; her injunctions simply diverted him. His sweet, light acceptance of her feigned bossiness made her insides soft with tenderness.

  Tenderness for him. A man she could have loved.

  Oh Lord, she thought. Too late. She was too old. Her time to marry, like her chance for love, had passed. Her temperament had turned shrewish. But now, because of Nicholas Blum’s compelling presence, her world would never be the same. She would carry this sweet moment with her forever, to her single cot, to her single grave.

  “May I open my eyes?” Nicholas asked at last. A hint of teasing laced his question.

  Her cheeks heated. “Of course!”

  He did, and his cobalt gaze bore into her. She couldn’t look away. She could hear only the sound of their breathing, his breaths deep and slow and even, hers fast, shallow, as if she had just run up from the river to escape a sudden shower.

  His brows lowered into a question. “Sister Till? Is aught the matter?” He raised his hand to her cheek, and his finger swept away a tear she did not know that she had shed.

  “No, naught is the matter,” she whispered, mortified by her thoughts, by her distraction. “I feared to hurt you worse.”

  “You haven’t hurt me,” he lied softly.

  Nothing was wrong, and everything. Brother Blum had just rippled the surface of the little pond that was her life. For years it had been far from smooth, but she had made herself content.

  He lowered his head and planted a tender kiss on her forehead. Then he spoke, his breath warm on her brow. “I will try to do better. Thank you for your care, Sister Abbigail.”

  Abbigail’s breath caught in her throat. Sister Abbigail. He had said her given name again. He had offered it as if he had known her all his life. That and his too-sweet kiss pleased her far too much for her to play the shrew and admonish him.

  The late-afternoon sun cast a golden glow about the kitchen, and the sweet music of vespers had ended a few minutes ago. Abbigail’s father, short and dark and precise like herself, sat in the parlor reading scripture. Complaining of his gout, he had begged off walking to Gemeinhaus for services. Naturally, he expected his daughter to attend him. Dutifully, she restrained her wishes and obeyed him. She was setting out an evening meal for him and the pugilists who had gone to pray.

  At the hearth she lifted a kettle off its stand and lugged it toward the table.

  “That is far too heavy for you, Sister. Let me do it,” Brother Huber called out from the back door. He stalked into the kitchen, Brother Blum close on his heels. Tension simmered between them. She heard it in Brother Huber’s pointed offer to help her-and saw it in the excessively courteous way Brother Blum held the door for his attacker. But Nicholas Blum had offered no excuses for the row, no defense of his involvement in it. Admirable of him, she thought, to take responsibility.

  She turned the ketde’s contents into a deep redware bowl. “It’s just potatoes. I can manage nicely, danke.“

  The shop assistant’s lips thinned as always when she declined his meddlesome aid. He took a place behind his usual chair and bowed his head, quickly masking his displeasure. And rehearsing grace, no doubt. Uncharitably, she wished his manner matched his show of piety.

  “’Tis quite a feast, Sister Till,” Brother Blum said heartily, as if to cut the tension.

  “Too much food,” her father grumbled. He took his cushioned chair at the table’s head and gestured to the younger men to join him.

  Never mind her. Her father took for granted her presence, her service, her compliance. She sat anyway, facing him and bracketed by two massive hostile males, and allowed herself a tight sigh of resignation.

  Her father was home at last, and he was not well pleased, not with Brother Huber nor with Brother Blum.

  And certainly not with her. She should have waited, her father had complained earlier, shutting her with himself in the store’s small office. It was no more her part to introduce his old friend Jacob Blum’s son to his duties in the store than to instruct him for the road. No wonder Brother Huber had become confused and taken the newcomer for an intruder.

  She justified her action: The store had benefited from the younger Blum’s strength and energy. Georg Till dismissed the idea. He was not to be coddled. He wa
s not that ill.

  “Potatoes, everyone?” she asked after Huber said grace. Then she passed the covered redware dish to the handsome man on her left Even seated, Nicholas Blum towered over her, making her feel not small but … protected.

  She dashed away the unwelcome thought. Never mind that he had defended her against the rude outsider. She would not let herself be swayed by that. Nor by the tender touch they had just shared.

  Her father gave his sparsely loaded plate a distasteful nudge away. “None for me.”

  Annoyance spurted through Abbigail. No doubt, he had gone off his strict diet while away from her care and was cross from pain.

  “Nor for me,” said Brother Huber quietly. His deference to her father’s habits rankled Abbigail. Could he hope that this would recommend him to a selfcentered man who no longer noticed any trouble others took in his behalf?

  Brother Blum ate heartily. But when she glanced his way, she saw confusion crease his brow. Anyone, she supposed, would struggle to make sense of the subtle undercurrents of policy here.

  Her father finally pushed back his half-cleared plate and addressed his visitor. “Your father is well?”

  Brother Blum quickly swallowed a bite of the smoked ham.

  Mercy, she thought to herself, she was aware of every bite he took.

  “Yes, sir. As is the entire family, stepmother, brothers, sisters all.”

  Her father’s mouth turned down with disapproval. “Ah, yes. That Indian wife of his.”

  Embarrassment crawled up Abbigail’s spine. She thought her father liked the senior Blum. But then, he well might. Nothing hindered her father’s endless fault-finding-not like, not love, not Christian charity.

  Beside her, easygoing Nicholas Blum bristled, but his mild response belied offense. “My stepmother, whom we all admire, happens to be English. But she does speak Cherokee, learned from the tribe that saved and raised her as a child.”

  Admiring Brother Blum’s quick defense of his stepmother, Abbigail seconded his effort. “We have a mission among the Cherokee, do we not?”