His Stolen Bride Page 6

  Brother Huber dabbed at the corners of his mouth, a sign of a pronouncement. “The heathens do need word of the Savior.”

  Brother Blum passed over that piety and spoke to her. “And there will soon be mission schools. My brother Matthias learned Cherokee from our stepmother. He may become the first Brother to answer a call to teach them.”

  Her father scowled at her. A Brethren of the old order, he disapproved of chatter between Brothers and Sisters, believing men should talk to men. He addressed Nicholas clumsily. “You had a good trip.”

  Nicholas smoothly shifted his attention to her father. “Safe but rather too slow, I am sorry to say. I regret that I was not here to spare you a troublesome journey.”

  Her father’s lips thinned to an unconvincing smile. “Twas inconvenient. Nor was it my daughter’s place to start you working in the store. You must overlook her. She is bolder than a good Sister should be.”

  At the table’s edge, Brother Huber folded his hands. In pious accord with her father’s rebuke, she thought, setting her jaw. Or was she in truth too sensitive, her spirit too rebellious? Even Brother Blum had found her bold. She couldn’t help it. Years spent managing her father’s store had made her so. Mortification swept her.

  “Not that she doesn’t understand our business thoroughly,” her father continued. “I taught her myself—despite some opposition from the Single Sisters.”

  “Your efforts are to be commended, sir, as are the fruits of your teaching,” Brother Blum said courteously, asking for the potatoes and taking another serving.

  Risking her father’s disapproval, Abbigail spoke to Brother Blum again. “When I first started, I scarcely understood myself how much I had to learn.”

  He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Nor did I, evidently. And I am grateful for your instruction.”

  Her father crossed his pewter tableware on his plate with a disapproving clank. “Your important instruction begins tomorrow, Brother Blum. At daybreak.”

  The old man pulled off the napkin tucked into the stock that wound around his neck and made a feeble attempt to stand.

  “Help me, daughter,” he croaked.

  She rose in a flash, but so did Brother Blum. “May I assist you, sir?”

  Her father stopped in surprise.

  Brother Huber stiffened. “It is the dutiful woman’s office to assist her father.”

  “I do not question her duty or her willingness,” Brother Blum said evenly. “But I am three times her size and equally as willing to offer aid.”

  “No, Brother Huber has the right of it,” her father said. “It is my daughter’s place.”

  Nicholas Blum stepped forward until Abbigail stopped him with a quick shake of her head and an uncertain smile. “Oblige him in this, please,” she said quietly. “Oblige me.”

  Obedient to her request, he stood back as she supported her father up the stairs, filled with a deepening admiration for the surprising Nicholas Blum.

  Was he sleekly charming, as she first feared? Or was he truly kind? For in this and other attentions, she saw in him an earnest charity, a light, that warmed her lonely heart.

  7

  Daybreak, and the rain, came too soon for Nicholas. Wet weather dampened the spirits of a man who thrived on vigorous activity. He found himself strolling the streets of Bethlehem, the sulfuric smell of the first drops of morning rain rising from the road.

  “Hurry along, Brother Blum. The Lord waits not for those who tarry,” Christian Huber urged, striding briskly toward Till’s store.

  Lagging behind, Nicholas allowed himself to make a boyish face of disgust. “What is our rush? With the clouds, ‘tis barely light enough to see.”

  Puffing with aggravation, Huber stopped and faced him for the first time since their altercation. “There must be no ill will between us, Brother Blum. No ill will at all. ‘Tis not Christian to hold a grudge. ‘Twas a miserable mistake.”

  Nicholas shrugged. Why was the man beating this dead horse? “We apologized. I never say I am sorry if I am not.”

  “Very well.” Huber walked faster toward the store, puffing harder.

  Breathing easily, Nicholas caught up to him. “Still, ‘tis not yet six o’clock. The store doesn’t open until seven.”

  “Surely you want to make a good impression.”

  The only thing Nicholas surely wanted was to see how Abbigail had fared overnight. Yesterday her father’s mere appearance had leeched the sparkle from her eyes. “My honest work will speak for me,” he said.

  Huber gave a condescending smile. “So it will. For you must learn to sweep and straighten, Brother Blum. Sweep and straighten.”

  Nicholas suppressed annoyance. He’d learned that. And at the hands of a far more appealing teacher. But this officious, pasty-faced man could not rile him.

  “Yes, of course,” he said dismissively, wishing himself back in Salem’s Single Brothers House where he had once enjoyed the camaraderie of men. At fourteen he had readily adapted to dormitory life when he had joined the other apprentices. A natural leader, he had been well liked. Neither overly modest nor unduly shy, he had always accepted the communal living of the Brethren’s Single Brothers. His restless and outspoken nature had even learned to accommodate the often monkish silence that pervaded the sleeping lofts.

  But he minded Huber’s taking him under his wing last night. Huber had persuaded the Brother in charge to give Nicholas the cot nearest to him. Nicholas couldn’t relish the thought of the man’s presence day and night, for he couldn’t help noticing what he did not wish to see. The fastidious Huber had risen a full hour early for what should have been a few moments of private prayer followed by simple ablutions and dressing for the day.

  Nicholas had tried to doze. But the man polished the shiny buckles on his shoes to a squeaking gleam. Then flung away three stocks before his neckwear passed inspection in a tiny silvered glass which he secreted beneath his mattress. Then he tried on several waistcoats, though most Brothers kept only two. The man was a spectacle of complications, pious but vain, obliging but demanding.

  And he had appointed himself Nicholas’s advisor.

  Nicholas ground his teeth. He was his own man, beholden to none and answering only to himself. And to Brother Till, he reminded himself, until he mastered trade and could return to Salem a successful man to marry Catharina.

  On this gray morning, even that prospect appeared dim and bleak. A gloom hung over the Tills’ kitchen even as the hearth fire roared, breakfast meats sizzled, and the hearty aroma of rich sweet coffee drifted through the air. Nicholas’s stomach rumbled, but his eyes sought out Abbigail. To his concern, her pale face was expressionless. She ducked her head, but he refused to help her avoid him.

  “Smells wonderful, Sister,” he said cheerfully as he did every morning.

  He thought Huber masked a scowl.

  Abbigail simply shoved the broom at Nicholas. Undaunted, he twirled it in his fingers, shouldered it, and grinned. “You see, Brother Huber, my instruction in sweeping is already underway.”

  Huber huffed in disapproval. Of Nicholas’s cheer in the gloom? Of his bent for work? Nicholas left him huffing, wondering who had swept the floors before. Surely not the immaculate Single Brother. Dust would spoil his treasured clothes.

  In the front rooms, Nicholas applied himself to the chore, taking pride in putting the store in order for the morning’s custom. In the kitchen a few minutes later, he found the table set with plain pewterware and cracked crockery mugs. Till and Huber had claimed their chairs, waiting to be served.

  Uncertain of his role, Nicholas put away the broom and offered to help Abbigail with her burdens. She waved him away, and he sat, facing Abbigail’s empty seat. Shortly she came to the table. “Your egg, Father,” she said flatly and placed it on his plate.

  Nicholas watched her move silently to the hearth where she piled meat and steaming cornbread on platters. Her change puzzled him. He much preferred the bossy Abbigail to the subdued Single Sister who me
ekly ferried platters to the table.

  “Such a superfluity of food is wasteful, daughter,” Till grumbled.

  “Yes, Father,” she said blandly.

  Father, Nicholas noted. How formal she was. And how unkind her parent was. Nicholas’s notion of parents was so different-his virile, stalwart Papa had never been an unapproachable Father, not even after one of Nicholas’s escapades. It was hard to respect the ungrateful Georg Till. His dutiful daughter must have arisen in the dark to prepare their generous meal.

  With a clockmaker’s precision, Till tapped all around the egg, peeled it and sliced it in half. Bright yellow yolk oozed out. “Raw, daughter,” he said with distaste. “It plays havoc with my digestion.”

  “Yes, Father. Put that one on my plate. Another simmers in the pot.”

  Nicholas frowned. She deferred to her father’s complaint. Under his dominion, she was flat, bland, slow, dull, all the life stamped out of her. Where was the woman who had taken him to task for being late? His protective nature wanted to rush to her defense. His sense of right wanted to reproach the father for crushing his daughter’s spirit.

  Then, behind her father’s back, Nicholas caught her gaze. She crimped her mouth and rolled her eyes. Nicholas speared a rasher of bacon and breathed a litde easier. Her father demanded and she obeyed, but she did not bow.

  Till finished his hard-boiled egg and adjusted himself in his cushioned chair. “For today, Brother Huber will attend to customers. Brother Blum, you will unload the wagon. The work will acquaint you with the stock and where everything belongs. Daughter, check off every item and direct Brother Blum where to put it.”

  “Before or after I wash up, Father?”

  “After, after,” he said impatiently. “Brother Huber can assist Brother Blum until you are free.”

  Huber assisted very little. “My back,” he said, dipping into his silvered snuff box as he left pecks and bushels and all sizes of crates and bales for Nicholas to tote and Abbigail to organize.

  Hours later, shirt soaked through from slogging in the rain to the wagon and back, Nicholas had to admit he was somewhat winded and more than a little sore.

  Work, work, work. He might as well be a pack mule. At the counter, Huber, unruffled and moreover dry, riffled through a ledger in between three paltry sales. Worst of all, Abbigail had changed again. His taskmaster became relentless, her injunctions unrelieved by his attempts at teasing and her former apt retorts.

  Near noon, Nicholas struggled manfully to lug one last unbalanced load down the cellar stairs.

  “Put it there,” she prompted, pointing to the highest shelf around, almost beyond his reach. He was nearly panting, but pride would not let him reveal his exertion for her to see. He hoisted the crate to one shoulder, shifted his weight beneath it, and shoved it back in place.

  Then he turned to her, exasperated. “Who did this work before? Not your father, obviously. Nor Brother Huber, who sits there idly paging through the books and savoring his snuff.”

  Her mouth pursed prettily. “Papa hired the town slaves, Brother Blum.”

  Nicholas laughed out loud. “Ah. That explains my new status-your slave.”

  In the dim privacy of the dank cellar, Nicholas could have sworn she stifled a laugh. “Brother Huber’s back is, um, unreliable.”

  “So he told me while you washed up. Yet our altercation yesterday did him no harm.”

  A cloud of warning flitted across her face. “No good, either,” she cautioned. “He remembers these things. Take care not to make him your enemy.”

  Concern pumped through him. “Is he your enemy, Sister Abbigail?”

  She lowered her voice. “Oh no, not mine. He wants to be my friend. My particular friend.”

  The very thought hit Nicholas like a fist. That preening, pious, lazy man had no right to hope that Abbigail was anything to him. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “He dares as much as any man,” she said, an edge to her voice that made him squirm.

  A man’s shadow at the cellar door blocked the natural light. Peremptory words bounced down the stairs. “Sister Till! A customer for you!”

  She whirled and fled up the stairs toward Huber as if relieved.

  Or was she upset? As much as any man. Did she mean him?

  Nicholas followed her. Had she thought him daring, out of bounds? Perhaps he had been when he had teased her, touched her, when he had tenderly kissed her forehead as if she were his sister.

  Though kissing his own sisters had never felt like that.

  No, he would admit it. Reckless, restless, he had pressed Abbigail too far. Not so far as to compromise her perhaps, but far enough to make her uncomfortable.

  She had not, however, brushed him away. Had not stiffened her body, averted her eyes, or dulled her voice as she did when Huber came too near. Before, alone with her, Nicholas had begun to think she liked him. He would swear so now.

  With a surge of satisfaction, he slapped the door casing above his head as he cleared the stairs. He could unload another wagon full of heavy goods on the strength of that.

  Upstairs in the shop, Abbigail blinked in the dull noon light at Sister Benigna, no customer, but a friend bearing gifts. Her glance probed the corners of the room. “I brought you this, my dear.”

  Abbigail lifted the warm plaid linen that covered the hot pan and breathed deeply of yeast bread, cinnamon, and melted butter. “Bless you! Your sugarcake!”

  “Your sugarcake, now that you are cooking for three men.” Sister Benigna’s eyes twinkled.

  Abbigail put her hands to her cheeks, surrendering to the inevitable. “With two Single Brothers at my table, talk must be all over town.”

  Her friend winked at her. “Oh no. A little bird told me about the new one.”

  Abbigail gave the Sister a quick dark look for making mountains out of molehills. After all Abbigail herself had told her. She wrung her hands on the filthy apron she had worn all morning and took the pan of sugarcake. “Don’t leave. I must put this in the larder and change into something decent”

  Freshened, Abbigail returned to see Sister Benigna dawdling over fabric, needles, and fine gold chains, none of which she needed. But her gaze darted about no doubt seeking a sight of the newcomer.

  A moment later, Nicholas swept in like a March lion, charging the room with his bright turbulent energy. He had driven the draft team and wagon back to the livery. By the look of him, fresh and dry yet somehow attractively rumpled, he must have also stopped at the Single Brothers House to change his rain-soaked shirt.

  He turned his golden smile on Sister Benigna, and her lips parted in admiration.

  She was old enough to be his mother, Abbigail thought, checking herself as her heart squeezed with jealousy. After days of observing Nicholas’s appeal to women of all ages, she should be used to it Apparently, to her dismay, she was not Brother Huber called him to the counter, and Nicholas bent his tousled, tawny head over some newly acquired hatbands.

  Sister Benigna edged over to Abbigail. “Introduce me,” she whispered like a schoolgirl.

  “You came here to gawk!” Abbigail chided, amused to think that the Widow she revered had a nosy side.

  Two helpless, round red spots stained the good Sister’s cheeks. Abbigail understood too well. Every woman sighed for Nicholas. She led her friend to the counter where he was working and made the introduction, which he accepted with a gender grace than Abbigail had yet seen in him.

  The danger of her growing admiration for Brother Blum increased tenfold. How socially presentable he was. How sincere his gentlemanly bow. How merrily his eye accepted Sister Benigna’s appreciation.

  How relieved Abbigail was that her good but still attractive friend-practically her mother–was really rather old.

  For in an instant, the pair were chatting like confidants. Sister Benigna asked Nicholas about a friend of hers in Salem she had not seen since their missionary days. He knew the woman personally, it seemed, and told a reassuring anecdote that proved sh
e was well and happy. Their chat moved on to other missionary friends, newer Salemites Sister Benigna longed to see.

  “Stay for the noon meal, Sister,” Abbigail found herself saying out of habit rather than desire when Sister Benigna started to leave.

  Her friend could not hold back a smile of pleasure. “I believe I shall. Let me help,” she added in a dazed afterthought.

  Abbigail understood her friend’s dazed state. Hadn’t silly smiles, false starts, and absentmindedness plagued her since the moment Nicholas Blum arrived?

  Her father, however, was impervious to Nicholas’s charms. He seated himself at the table and turned a critical eye on the food. It featured Sister Benigna’s apple butter from yesterday and the hot, sweet sugarcake for dessert.

  “That”-he pointed at the offending apple butter–is a needless extravagance.”

  Abbigail distracted him by passing plain boiled cabbage. “’Tis too spicy, Father, for you to give it another thought.”

  He spooned a grudgingly small amount of cabbage onto his plate.

  Brother Huber mounded cabbage on his but otherwise upheld her father’s argument. “More abundance, and we shall all be whales, suitable for rendering into lamp oil.”

  No one laughed, but Abbigail noted Brother Blum’s longing look at the cinnamon-brown apple butter and perfectly good cornbread warmed over from breakfast. Before she could offer him anything, Sister Benigna handed him biscuits and the apple butter.

  “Excess is permitted those who worked all morning, Brother Blum.”

  He grinned, broke open a biscuit, and smeared its crumbly insides with the rich brown butter.

  Abbigail’s father grumbled inhospitably. “Don’t encourage him, Sister Rothrock. He eats like a horse but not at livery rates. The way my daughter indulges him, he will eat us out of house and home.”

  Embarrassed, Abbigail shut her eyes and sealed her lips. Any protest or defense would be rebuked. Her father had mastered the art of generally insulting everyone-herself, Brother Huber, even Sister Benigna. Her friend knew what a crotchety invalid her once robust father had become, and what Christian Huber thought could never matter.