Saving The Marquise's Granddaughter (27 page)

“I work here, too, you know. I perform the chores the colonel’s wife would, if she were here.”

With the colonel’s wife apparently missing, would Suzie’s presence put her at risk of being misused in this household? He’d have to trust what the others said, that Christy possessed an unsullied reputation.

“I’ll be busy, but…”

Suzanne backed away from him, catching herself as she almost stumbled on her skirts. “I understand perfectly.”

26

Brilliant autumn leaves drifted down outside onto the lawn and the brick herringbone walkway beneath Suzanne’s window. “Sarah! Let’s go for a walk.”

“By ourselves?” Sarah brushed her hair in front of the silvered mirror, smiling at her reflection.

“Perhaps Mister Scott will accompany us.”

Sarah snorted. “If he’s up. He sleeps until noon. I don’t know how he thinks he’ll run a plantation.”

“Well, yes…” Suzanne bit her lip. It wasn’t her place to comment on Wyatt Scott’s habits, especially since he’d purchased her contract, albeit because he claimed Colonel Christy would wish it. He’d said Christy had paid for several other redemptioners who’d been near death, even some who died, so they’d be buried properly.

Wyatt had dryly told her, “At least we didn’t have to bury you.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to stomach the food today?” Sarah grimaced and set her brush down.

The regular cook and her husband were preparing to depart to Virginia with Wyatt and had taken a long holiday. Their temporary replacements, two redemptioners from Scotland, kept producing an oatmeal gruel with only a dab of butter and a pinch of sugar to sweeten it.

Suzanne had decided that beginning tonight she’d assist with the meals. “Let’s not break our fast just yet,” she suggested.

Sarah smiled. “Could we walk to the baker’s shop?”

“Splendid idea!” Wyatt stood in the doorway, fully dressed—attired in his previous evening’s clothing, now rumpled. Red streaked the whites of his eyes. “Shall I accompany you?”

Sarah made a sour face at him. “Have you been drinking ale all night?”

“Sarah!” Suzanne closed her mouth before she said something harsh.

Scott guffawed. “Quite right, Miss Sarah, but I’m fully capable of accompanying two beautiful ladies down the street. If you’ll each take an arm, that is.”

A fine gentleman all right. That was what Johan called him. If he only knew. But the plantation owner wasn’t unkind.

Glancing quickly in the mirror before they left, Suzanne glimpsed a knowing look on Wyatt Scott’s face, also present on her own features, hardened by sadness. She caught him staring at her. Had he seen it too? She suspected this man understood her far more easily than Johan would at this point.

~*~

Johan knocked at the entrance to the Christy mansion, clutching the bundle of flowers that Vann allowed him to cut from the gardens surrounding the men’s quarters.

The elderly servant opened the door, sniffed, and then sneezed.

“The ladies gone a-walking with Master Scott. Come back later.” The old man closed the door.

Johan stood there, dismissed. So Suzanne and Sarah were warming up to Wyatt Scott. Burning anger suffused his chest. He’d go for his own walk.

Instead of making his way back to the carriage maker’s shop, he strolled in the opposite direction, hoping he’d find them. Fuming, he marched on but soon found himself disoriented. Looking up from the narrow path along the street, he spotted several Quaker ministers heading in his direction. Johan stepped aside to allow them to pass.

The shortest of the three beamed up at him. “Can we help you?”

Should he admit he was lost? And that his sweetheart was off cavorting with another man?

“Looking for the Alms House?” another asked. They thought he needed charity.

Johan examined his shabby work clothes. In the Palatinate countryside, no one would have thought him poor. Scott likely wore elegant garments for his walk with Suzanne and Sarah. Shame sent a flush of heat to his neck. “No, but I should turn around.”

A dark-haired man stepped forward from the back. Tough fingers seemed to grab Johan’s heart, jolting him in recognition.

“Are you not Johan Rousch?” The Frenchman’s deep voice was forever sealed in Johan’s memory. “I remember you.”

The priest who had married them on the ship—a Quaker clergyman? What of the surveyor?

“I…ja…danke.” Disappointment drenched him, dousing his hopes. Aboard ship, Suzanne told him she’d agree only to a marriage performed by a priest in the cathedral. Granted, she was ill at the time. Would Suzanne recognize a marriage blessed by a Quaker as valid? Better than a surveyor, but in her mind no less valid a wedding

He felt both ill and yet suddenly filled with a rush of energy. He had to get away. “Excuse me. I…” His legs took on a mind of their own, twisting him away from the group and propelling him onward toward Front Street. To what might be his home for the next three years without Suzanne ever in his arms again. A Quaker. He’d had no idea they called themselves priests.

All the way back to his quarters, Johan argued with himself. He couldn’t accept that the man who married them was a Quaker and not a priest. It didn’t make sense to him. He sought out his master, seated behind his scarred desk, adding figures.

“Vann, your children, they were taught at the Quaker school, ja?”

“That’s right.” Vann placed a thick finger at the bottom of a column of numbers.

“What did they think of the Frenchman who is a minister?”

“None is French.” Vann’s jaw jutted, suggesting a challenge.

Johan frowned. “But I met one.”

Vann sighed, his heavy lids sinking over his large eyes as if he planned to give Johan a set down. “I’d have expected a French priest at St. Joseph’s, but they’ve got an Englishman at the Catholic church—he keeps very busy. Imagine he could use more assistance, but I haven’t heard anything. But there’s
no
French Quaker minister.”

“Where is this Catholic church?” Johan’s pulse quickened. But the priest was an Englisher. “Why does no one speak of it?”

Vann clucked his tongue “They want to keep it quiet. Some people here are scared of the Catholics.”

He’d take Suzanne to the priest. And he’d try to talk with him before then. And get his opinion. Were they married or not? First, he’d better find that minister. He should have talked to the Quakers instead of running away—wouldn’t do that again. When next they met, he would shake the information out of the man. With the way Johan was feeling lately, it might do him some good. He was itching for a good fight, and Nicholas was thousands of miles away.

27

“Working all the time”—that was Johan’s excuse, but Suzanne decided to take matters into her own hands.

The coachman assisted her and Sarah from the carriage.

“Merci.”

Several young women crowded near the forge.

Suzanne frowned at their elaborate attire.

“Look.” Sarah tugged at her arm. “They’re all watching Uncle Johan work.”

Suzanne’s fists balled, matching the tightening in her chest. No wonder he couldn’t visit. She took Sarah’s hand and pulled her toward the bevy, all unaccompanied. Where were their fathers or their brothers? Her cheeks heated as she realized she had no male companion, either. But this was her…husband? She certainly felt like a jealous wife.

Johan’s golden queue bobbed against his broad back as he called out to another man, hammering the hot metal. “I’ll grab the fuller and mandrel for when we shape that iron, next.” He turned, revealing dark circles under his eyes.

And he didn’t even notice her. Her eyes began to water.
Must be from the smoke.

~*~

Johan wiped the sweat from his brow, sensing movement in the small gathering of women. He’d never imagined them to be so interested in blacksmith work. Perhaps it was because of the fancy pot rack he and Friederich were making.

How he wished he could sleep better. If he wasn’t completely exhausted at night, he lay uncomfortably in his hammock and imagined what married life might be like. Papa warned him about intimacy without the sanction of marriage. But he
was
married. Was it wrong to desire to be with her, to touch her soft skin and hold her close against him?

As he turned with the hot metal, he could have sworn he’d heard Sarah’s voice but he daren’t look away from his work. When he paused, he spied only a trio of young women, each waving brightly colored fans.

Perhaps Suzanne hid behind her claim of memory loss. She acted as though their vows had never been said. But if she didn’t accept a Quaker’s pronouncements as valid, then perhaps they could be married by the English priest at St. Joseph’s. He needed to talk with her about it.

As he removed the horn-like mandrel from its peg, his gut twisted. Suzanne had been so ill that theirs was not a real wedding. He’d been wrong to think she was in her right mind. But she’d answered every question so plainly. Even the priest believed she understood. The physician said she might not have. Perhaps he should act as though their marriage never occurred. Free her to marry whom she wanted.

The onlookers pursed their lips and gasped in surprise, looking over their shoulders.

What now?
Irritation prickled his scalp. He was too tired to get involved with the customer’s problems. He’d prayed for some sign from Suzanne. Had made himself prone before the throne of God, but there had been no answer. Unless “wait” was an answer.

He sighed. God no longer cared to hear from him. He lifted the fuller, this one especially good at pounding fine grooves into metal, from its spot on the wall near the forge. This Etienne, her old beau, he imagined the fuller driving him away from them.

Johan lifted the molten iron from the fire. Not hot enough yet for the next piece. Glancing toward the onlookers, he almost dropped the rod as he placed it back in the fire.

Suzanne’s eyes burned with anger, and her full lips were pulled into a tight, censuring line.

He nodded at her but she continued to glare.

Johan removed the iron rod. Blazing orange—just right. From the corner of his eye, it seemed as though the other women were dispersing quickly.

Sarah waved her hands at the ladies for them to go, like she had with the chickens back home.

He laughed. Johan hit the piece with one precise blow before setting the flattened segment aside to cool. His frau, what did she need to cool off from?

~*~

Suzanne hoped her tone was a cold as she felt despite the heat from the forge. “I see you’re very busy, but I need to talk with you.”

Friederich nodded at him. “Go on.”

Stepping out of the forge area, Johan lifted Sarah up to give her a kiss and then set her back down. He turned to Suzanne.

She crossed her arms. With narrowed eyes, she dared him to touch her.

Johan dared.

He took her elbow, sending a shiver through her, and firmly guided her away from the wood smoke and acrid metal fumes.

She made her voice formal. “Wyatt wants to know if his carriage is ready.”

“He could have come himself to ask. Why are you here?” He didn’t have to sound so irritated. Should be glad they’d come.

“I…”

Sarah grabbed his arm. “We wanted to see you. We missed you!”

Johan snorted. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

“She’s jealous of all those ladies watching you.” Sarah raised her eyebrows in smug superiority of this knowledge.

“Sarah!” If Suzanne had a fan in her hands like all those twittering girls who’d run off, she’d have been tempted to use it to swat the impertinent child.

Johan’s cheeks reddened as he stooped to whisper to Suzanne. “I miss you, too, and I’m also jealous.” He squeezed her hand and released it. Johan pulled Sarah over and kissed her tawny head. “We need to test Wyatt Scott’s new carriage. But Vann wants a rider or two.”

Sarah bounced on her toes in expectation.

“Vann doesn’t want Mister Scott being the one to say if the coach handles well. He rides like the demons of hell chase after him.” Johan’s brows knit together as he shifted one hip to the side and appraised the two of them.

Suzanne laughed. “Vann is
très intelligent
. And Johan, I feel sure the colonel’s coachman would be happy to take it for a ride.” It warmed Suzanne inside to see the smile of affection that passed between the two cousins. “Sarah and I could go along.”

The little girl jumped. “Yes, I love riding. Please say yes, Uncle Johan.”

Johan pinched her nose. “Ja. Go play with the hoops over there.” He pointed to a clearing near the well.

Two dimples creased the child’s cheeks as she ran off.

Johan wrapped his hand around Suzanne’s and led her to the privacy of the small garden behind the buildings.

No wonder those young women flocked around him when he worked. Johan had become a very appealing man. Even more than she’d imagined in her artist’s mind when she labored over painting the enthralling youth he’d been, often setting aside other work her art instructor had assigned. “You begin to look more like Nicholas.” Suzanne’s words caught in her throat. They sounded like an accusation.

Johan rubbed his jaw. “Ja, but I’m more handsome, don’t you think?” His crooked grin told her that he was jesting. But it was true.

Suzanne jabbed a finger at his chest. “You have circles under your eyes. Aren’t you sleeping well? Do you walk in your sleep here?”

He laughed. “They tie me in the hammock.” Johan drew her toward him, his warm arms enfolding her.

Memories came over her in waves. This big man had sat her on his lap like a little girl and let her cry into his shirt night after night when she awoke from her nightmares, his beard brushing the top of her head. She’d fallen in love with him. With his kindness. She trembled as intense gratitude flowed through her. God had provided for her. Surely, Johan
was
her helpmeet.

This search to replace what she’d lost was absurd. God had already given her what she needed. And somehow, on that ship, even in her darkest hour, somehow her soul had known. She reveled in the feel of his steady arms around her.

“Suzie?” Johan’s shaky voice jarred her senses. “Would you accept a marriage blessed by a Quaker?”