Wild Indigo (10 page)

Humid night blanketed the room, almost too thick for love. They had seen too many weeks of heat and no rain, and this night afforded no respite. But he would love her. He tore open his shirt, rubbed a hand over his chest.

As she would learn to do. She was so near.

A room away, fabric rustled and landed on the floor with a thump. Her skirt. He imagined her next removing her shift, then gliding to the chair that held her wedding present. He heard her shuffling around. Under candlelight, her skin would glow, her form would be perfection. His manhood hardened against his dark Sunday breeches, and he let out a groan of hot desire.

Damn his unruly body. For months he had been without release. He had ached for Retha since the day he saw her. He would have to ache a little longer. He downed a draught of brandy.

From a distance, the bed creaked as it always did when he crawled into it at night. She had taken the first step. Relief mixed with anticipation.

He wanted her. But he would have to be careful,
he would have to take it step by step. He gulped a last swallow of brandy and headed toward the light, treading a fine line between uncertainty and bounding hope. He even smiled. She would be under the scented sheet, coverlet pulled up to her nose, he'd wager.

And he would teach her why she wanted them pulled down.

But Jacob walked in on a startling sight.

Against the far post of the bed, eyes closed tight, his bride sat on her heels, naked as the day she was born, her body rocking from side to side.

“Retha?” Disbelief careened down his spine.

She rocked.

Trying to make sense of what made no sense at all, he scanned a room in disarray. Only her prim white gown lay untouched where he had left it. She had folded the bodice and skirt of her amber wedding dress and laid them in the cupboard, leaving its door ajar. Her crumpled shift lay abandoned on the floor, midway between cupboard and bed. One threaded stocking dangled across the nearest chair.

He tugged hard at the ribbon that tied his hair and looked around for other garments. After a moment he spied the second stocking flung across the spinning wheel that sat in the room for daytime use. And her
Haube
—she had tossed it into a basket of flax.

Gott im Himmel
, he prayed. She had gone mad. Never in his wildest dreams. Darkest nightmares. Desperate, he tried to recall what Sister Krause had said about Retha's aberrations. She went out at
night, sleepwalked. This was not sleepwalking. This was worse, weirder.

What had Rosina Krause failed to tell him?

For moments that seemed like hours, Jacob watched his bride. The steady rhythm of her rocking sank into his body like an ax hacking green wood, hacking into hope, hacking down desire.

At a loss for what to do, he collected all her clothes and mechanically stacked them in order on a spare chair. Then he sat with great care on the edge of the bed. She paid him no notice. He wanted to make her stop, but hesitated to touch or speak to her. Sleepwalkers, he had heard, could be startled into harming themselves. Yet what could she do?

She was in no danger here. They were alone, bride and groom, in a safe room in the quiet night. Besides, he was sworn to protect her. And he had to find out. Her slow, steady rocking would fast drive him to an asylum. To Bedlam, he remembered, dredging up the English word for it.

Gently, gingerly, he laid one hand on her nearest, slender shoulder.

She didn't miss a beat.

He brought up the other hand, touched it to her opposite shoulder.

“Retha.” He paused, then spoke purposefully. “You have to stop now.”

She rocked.

He firmed his grasp, but she didn't react.

“Retha, 'tis Jacob. Open your eyes.”

Under delicate veined eyelids, her eyes moved in a restless, troubled way. Her lush lashes fluttered,
eyes opening to reveal white edges. And nothing more.

If only he could remember everything Sister Krause had said. Had she known anything of this peculiar madness? Had Retha always had such spells, such fits? Or given such performances? He prayed not, for they were beyond his ken.

Even so, however she acted tonight, he tried to console himself that her conduct was an aberration. She had been sane enough, able enough to establish herself in the community. He knew of nothing that had actually interfered with her work. Under the Sisters' care yet ultimately on her own, she had been schooled, mastered the art of dyeing, taken on laundry, and even made friends, however ill-advised.

He was unconsoled. She could not go on like this. Nor could he let her. But he knew so little of her. Earlier, in the kitchen, she had responded to tenderness, he remembered. A kiss might rouse her where a touch had not.

Leaning forward, he brushed his lips across hers.

The rocking stopped.

Encouraged, he kissed her again, watching her even as he lengthened the kiss, aware of thick fringed eyelids, sweet breath, silken skin beneath his fingertips…and a resisting mouth.

Her eyes flew open, filled with that terror he had seen before, and she wrenched herself away.

“No, no. No, no,” she chanted in a singsong, childlike voice. “No, no. Don't hurt. No, no.”

And she resumed rocking.

He jerked the string that bound his hair and freed it with a savage shake. She was beautiful—
fawn fragile, snake sinister, wolf mad. She could be having a fit, staging a performance, or going insane: He could not tell the difference.

With such a woman, he feared for his children's safety.

He feared for himself.

Her nakedness displayed a healthy, luminous body that would tempt any man. It tempted him. Against all reason, ungovernable desire swept him like a hot wind. He did his best to tamp it down, but it assaulted him in unholy gusts, buffeting his chest, lashing his skin, burning his loins. He had waited so long, and her body was perfection.

And it was his. He clenched his fists against a primal urge to take her. He had the right but would not stoop to do it. He would never, ever force a woman in such a state, real or imagined, acted or felt.

In an agony of frustration, he stripped the coverlet from the bed and wrapped her in it despite the heat. Later, when his mind cleared enough for him to ponder what he had done, he would know that he acted from a sense of decency, all he had to offer.

Concealing her sweet body muted none of his desire. He sat down heavily on the chair where she had flung one threaded stocking. And waited for morning to come, and burned.

S
un warmed Retha's face, the mild heat of early morning. She let it, taking another moment to enjoy the clamor of summer birds—the surprising blast of tiny wrens, the haunting coo of mourning doves, the caw of crows. Perhaps they thought this day would not be hot, she mused lazily, lying on her side and stretching like the cat that guarded the grain from rats at Steiner's Mill. How well she'd slept. How lovely to wake up to the sun.

She never woke in sun.

Cautiously she opened her eyes and studied the unfamiliar room. Jacob Blum's bedroom. Uncurtained windows admitted morning light. It brightened whitewashed walls. Last night there had been but one candle, a valuable beeswax one Jacob had considerately provided for their wedding night. She remembered sipping cider, touring the rooms, being burned by candlewax, undressing hastily to get into the bed—but nothing clearly after that.

Surely, she hadn't fallen asleep on her own wedding night. Worried to think she might have done precisely that, she raised up on an elbow. Coarse sheets abraded her skin. She stiffened, realizing with
a small shock that she was naked.

Naked in Jacob Blum's bed. How had that come to be?

And where was he? Nearby. Propped up so she could see him, he sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, wearing his shirt and breeches from the day before, dozing. He could not be comfortable, she thought, though his shirt was open at the neck, its untied stock dangling. Curious beyond measure, she stared with unaccustomed freedom at her first sight of a sleeping, half-dressed man. Under his summer body linen, she could see the strength of his wide shoulders. And under the breeches he must have slept in, the awesome power of his heavy thighs.

She sank under the sheets, not sure that gawking was within her rights. His bed was wider and longer than her dormitory cot. It was big, of course, because he was so large. The mattress was thick with new cornhusks. They were for her, she realized.

He had prepared his bed for her.

And he must have taken off her clothes. So that's the way married couples did it. Whatever it was that they did. That duty must have been a lot simpler and quicker than she had dared to hope. Or perhaps in the end, he had agreed with her. It was much too soon for children. Even so, she had expected some shock, some pain, some embarrassing exposure. There was nothing but this bird-bright morning, and a man she barely knew sitting in a chair beyond the foot of her bed. She looked at him more boldly. His open shirt revealed a thatch of sandy hair at his throat. His deep chest rose and fell evenly, peacefully.

A shiver of appreciation coursed down her neck, followed quickly by a quiver of fear. Drawing the coverlet to her neck, she apprehensively studied this private, intimate side of Jacob Blum, her husband. Her husband.

Suddenly, urgently, she wanted to be dressed when he awoke, and she scooted out of the bed. On another, smaller chair beside the bed, her wedding clothes lay stacked and folded, but neater than the laundry she used to fold for the tavern. It was not her work at all. She thought she remembered what she had done last night, but what had Jacob done?

Surely nothing…harmful. Shaking off that doubt, she hastily pulled on her shift and secured her stockings with linen garters. She felt better already. Safer. When she had tied on her skirt and laced her bodice tight, she smoothed the wrinkles out with a sigh. Ready for the Marshalls' breakfast, she turned to straighten the tumbled bedding. And gasped.

No blood this time.

She reeled at the thought.

What blood? There was no blood.

She closed her eyes.

That blood. Blood on the sheets, and splattered on the wall. Stumbling to a stool beside the bed, she curled into a small ball of misery.

Make it go away, she used to say to Singing Stones.

Close your eyes, Singing Stones would answer, until you see only gray, and rock yourself to sleep. Don't let fear rule. It's only memory. No harm will come of it.

No harm had come. Silent this morning, Retha
hugged her knees. This time, it was not so bad that she needed to rock, but she must have done so last night. She had tried so hard to keep her secret. At least there was no blood. The wild beating of her heart slowed as she summoned birdsong to ease her fear. She concentrated, not on the doves' sad music but on the bold blast of little wrens.

After a time there was nothing but song, and she opened her eyes to her husband's stony gaze. Embarrassed to be caught hugging her knees like a little child, she quickly stood and smoothed her skirts.

“
Guten Morgen
,” she said sunnily. He need not know how shaken she was. “I dressed. Should I not wear this to the Marshalls' breakfast?”

In her wedding dress, she turned for him.

Jacob glared at his fully dressed wife. He couldn't help it. So that was how it was going to be with her. But did she not remember? And what was this new performance, or was she truly mad? He rubbed his hands over his aching face. During the night, each and every tiny muscle had contracted into a grimace of disbelief. He could not scrub it out. A grown man would not, should not give in to adversity, yet at the sight of his wife's determined cheer, he felt a moment of despair so profound he wanted to weep.

His wild, sunny wife was mad, or beyond redemption. And he had committed the gravest error of his life.

“You look like a sullen bear who spent all night in a chair, which I hope you did not,” she said brightly.

He jerked his head up at the cruel remark, but her cheerful expression showed no intent to wound. Determined not to let her see that she had any power over him, he forced a light laugh. “It won't happen again. You'll not turn me out of my bed again.”

“Oh! I never intended that.” She flushed deeply, her cheeks like peaches. “I—we must have fallen asleep.” Doubt flashed across her face, but that damnable cheer soon subsumed the doubt.

“Determined to make the best of it,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. Certain that fatigue lent a sarcastic edge to his words, he pivoted and stalked into the kitchen. Let her follow if she wished.

“Yes, of course,” she said after him, on a questioning note.

He had questions, too. Behind him, she trod lightly, as if she were an Indian. But she smiled like a conniving virgin. Or an innocent one. Which was she?

To slake his thirst, he filled a dipper with water, but checked himself when she looked at it longingly. She was his wife, his care. Wordlessly he offered her the dipper, watching closely as she drank deeply, wiped a drop of water from her mouth, and cleared her throat to speak. He couldn't guess what she might have to say.

“This is a fine home, Jacob, and I am proud to be its mistress. And the children…I promise I will work hard…”

Dry-mouthed, stiff-necked, and disbelieving, he dropped the gourd onto the table with a solid thump.

She jumped.

“Why don't you tell me what was going on last night?” he said evenly, but with a faint hope of startling the truth out of her.

A tremor in her chin betrayed her confusion. “I'm sorry about the glass.”

He had thought he couldn't bear her all-denying cheer, but he didn't want tears. He softened his voice. “The glass is not important.”

“Oh.” To his amazement, she fixed him with a sincere amber gaze and touched his hand. “I forgot to thank you for a beautiful wedding day.” She blushed. “And night. I hope I didn't drink too much.”

Speechless, he ground his teeth against that oath he hadn't used in years before last night. He was, he had always thought, a man of exact measurements. He knew things of the material world by weight and size and substance. He could bend them to his will, shape them to his imaginings. He could dam rivers, turn the course of streams, supply a town at the frontier's edge with precious running water.

Retha left him at an utter loss. What could a man do? Wait, and watch her actions, and try to gauge her intent, he told himself. Protect his children. Protect himself. And keep his hands off the only part of her he had not yet taken a measure of—that delectable body.

“I…um…have to dress,” he said, and retreated to their bedroom. Knotting his stock at his throat, he thought about what lay ahead, not in the distant future, but today and tomorrow. Shortly he would take her to the Marshalls' breakfast. There he would reveal nothing. Then tomorrow, at the
Ernsts', he would introduce her to his children as their mother as if all were well, regardless of the miserable truth.

 

“The Ernsts are ready for us. Past ready by now.” Retha heard the exasperation in her husband's voice the next day as he urged her to dress to go with him to fetch the children home.

But she didn't answer him. Her mouth was full of pins. As her fingers struggled to fasten the bodice of her best work dress, another pin dropped to the floor.

At least he had left her alone to dress. She would hate for him to see her shaking at the prospect of being formally presented to his children as their new mother.

Perhaps she should wear her wedding dress, as she had done yesterday for breakfast with the Marshalls. No, she had decided to put it away for fall Sundays when she would need something heavy and warm. Besides, wearing such a fine new dress on an ordinary Tuesday morning might be prideful.

She was proud, though, proud to be married, even if Jacob seemed not to share her feeling.

“Children don't wait!”

“Ouch!” she cried out as a straight pin lanced her thumb. She stuck it in her mouth and sucked the coppery blood.

Jacob thundered in. Off and on since their wedding night, he had been a dark cloud. He had tried for fair weather at the Marshalls', but she could tell he was feigning good humor. She had not the slightest
idea why. Something had happened on their wedding night.

Or had not. She pushed the thought away.

“You may as well learn this now as later. The children's needs can't wait on our—” He studied her, scowling. “What's the matter with you?”

“I was hurrying,” she said through pins, and held up her thumb, hoping it still bled.

A fat drop of bright red blood welled up.

“I think you will survive this.” He examined her thumb thoroughly, as if she were a child.

“'Tis only a pinprick,” she said, irritated by his unexpected condescension.

“Do you usually mistake your appendages for pincushions?”

She looked up doubtfully. Was he mocking her, or teasing? His tone was Sunday sober, but a corner of his mouth crooked up.

Squeezing the edges of her bodice together and inserting two final pins without mishap, she tried to sound casual. “Perhaps I'm not prepared to become a mother.”

His dark demeanor lightened. “Some days I'm still not used to being a father. 'Twill come to you soon enough.”

She sighed and shook out her skirts. “I'm ready.”

“Wait…” With a quick movement, he tucked a loop of hair under her
Haube
.

She shrank from him when the brush of his fingers tickled her neck. Since Sunday night, he had avoided touching her, sensibly acknowledging, she assumed, that now was not the time to engage in those married matters that led to children.

Part of her feared he did think it was time. Last night he had insisted on sharing the bed, stripping down to his crisp body linen in full candlelight. Sitting on the bed's edge, she had not been able to watch. But she had listened. He told her this was how it would be between them every night with the children home. They would go to bed together, strip to their body linen, and sleep side by side. She need neither fear his touch nor worry that he would hurt her.

But he had lain so close beside her, she could feel his heat. His massive body hemmed her in. She could not steady her breathing to match the slow, even exhalations that came from the depths of his thick chest. Once, in sleep, he rolled toward her, stretching out a heavy arm that pinned her in place. A fear had washed over her like floodwaters engulfing the ark.

This hand at her neck in daylight was only a touch, she reminded herself.

His gaze lingering on the very spot that he had touched, he spoke softly. “Although I liked it as it was.” He hadn't used that tone since their wedding night.

“Thank you,” she mumbled politely, uncertain what to say.

Self-consciously she checked the nape of her neck where his fingers had rested. No more hair astray. No explanation for the tingling.

“We had better go then,” she added, and hastened for the door.

The day was sunny, the heat rising. The dusty street slanted uphill to the Ernsts' small cabin at the edge of town. Retha stretched to match Jacob's long-
legged stride. In the morning's relative coolness, more people were out than usual, several acknowledging her who never had before. An elderly Single Brother tipped his hat. Abraham, the newly baptized slave who worked at the Tavern, nodded before lowering his head.

Brother Meyer too, scurrying back to his busy tavern, gave her a smile. “We miss your good work on our linens.”

“I will not miss the laundry!”

“You will have laundry aplenty, Sister Blum,” he laughed, rushing on. But Jacob stopped him, engaging him in business. She caught snippets—
that Hessian…a danger to us
—but dismissed them and savored her new last name.

Sister Blum
. Her throat caught, her eyes misted, but she wouldn't let on. Overnight, she marveled, her status had changed—had become his, of that she had no doubt. At last, she had a name. It felt so right, she even allowed herself, for once, to ponder who she had been. The Cherokee she remembered vividly. But from the time before them, she recalled only a faint tableau: There had been a tall, brusque, bearded man, a woman with hair the color of her own, a piercing scream, and blood…

Enough of that. She monitored herself as she had always done. She had survived by forgetting. Long ago, Singing Stones had encouraged her to believe that wondering where she came from did no good, that hoping to find out did even less. She persuaded herself that that was so. If those terrifying dreams had anything to do with where she had come from, she was better off not knowing.