Wild Indigo (25 page)

“That. What you did—” Casting his gaze to the low, beamed ceiling, he floated up another desperate prayer.

When he looked back, she was rocking, her slow pace rhythmic, mesmerizing. As before. He grabbed her shoulders, digging in fingers with the force of his desperation.

“Don't. Rock.”

Her golden eyes widened. Her head tilted. “Don't what?”

“Don't rock. As you did on our wedding night.”

Her face crumpled with unmistakable dismay. “Our wedding night,” she whispered. “Oh, Jacob, something awful happened. I knew it. What did I do wrong?”

You went utterly mad, he wanted to say. He hadn't known what to do then, and he didn't know
now. But he would not let her start this again if there were anything—anything—he could do to stop her. He wanted to hold her, to help her. Moving to her side, he reached for her hand. “Can I—”

With a slight nod, she gave it to him, palm up. In the silence that stretched between them, he rubbed small, relentless circles into the damp, cold hollow of her palm. Her breathing was short and shallow—from fear, he believed.

She swallowed hard. “I have to know.”

“Yes.” But he did not stop the circles. They were a lifeline. He had a premonition that if he stopped, she would rock again.

After a time, he told her. How he had left her to undress, honoring her maiden reticence. How he had returned to find her rocking. How angry he had been when she pretended not to hear him.

“I heard naught.” Her fingers tightened on his. “I remember naught.”

“I realize that now. But the next day, you were as ever, even cheerful, and I was sorely confused. How could you be one way and then the other?”

“I don't know. I do not understand myself.” With her free fist, she struck the cornhusk mattress. “This bed. 'Tis but a bed. This room. I am no different here from when you kissed me by the tannery. But I
am
different here. And you…” Tears tracked down her face. “You are my husband. My strong, handsome husband. I believe myself fortunate. I want to be with you. I believe our union is the will of God. And I am ruining it.”

To assuage her, he disagreed. “We are not ruined yet.”

She drew a shuddering breath and lifted her chin. “I am not afraid, Jacob. It isn't that I am afraid. I want to be your wife.
Bitte
, Jacob. Please.”

Given her fragility, Jacob thought making love to her just now seemed neither wise nor right. But he could not deny the sincerity of her plea. Soberly, filled with doubt and hope, he kissed her lips and lowered his mouth to the beaded nipples of her full breasts. First one and then the other, when he kissed them, quivered with her eagerness.

He was too aware of the strangeness that lay between them to recapture his sharp arousal right away, but this was sweet. It mattered not that harsh lye soap perfumed her breasts. When his hands wandered over the infant-soft skin of her naked buttocks, she shuddered. He deepened his touch, and her firm muscles, resilient with animal health, trembled.

She trembled all over.

She was trembling whether he touched her or not.

He ceased even the tenderest of touches, and his hands dropped empty to his sides.

“Don't stop,” she begged.

But her cry was not that of a woman driven by desire. Her eyes were glassy. With apprehension? He hoped only that.

“If we can only do it this once, then perhaps…” Her voice cracked, and he heard her fear.

“
Meine schöne Leibling
, you are terrified. I will not take you in this terror. I cannot.”

“I want to love you, Jacob.”

“Not this way,” he said softly, laying her against the sheets and surrounding her stiff body with his.
Flesh of my flesh, he thought. A dew of anxious perspiration covered her soft skin. If he could not stay her fears, he would absorb them. Racked with unfulfilled desire, he tried to take comfort in how far she had come. She had not retreated into that eerie, rocking silence. She was accepting his arm around her shoulder, his belly to her back, his fiery arousal against her buttocks.

“Sleep,
Liebling
. We will find another way. When both of us are willing.”

But he could not imagine how that would come to pass.

 

Inside
Gemein Haus
, the meeting room already smoldered in the August morning. With scholarly precision, Philip Schopp squared his ever-present papers for the specially called meeting of Elders, and gave Jacob a pinched smile.

“Tell us, Brother Blum. Is your bride a spy or is she not?”

Jacob pressed his steepled fingers to the bridge of his nose. “She is not.” He would not explode over the distortions and innuendoes of the tirade that Brother Steiner had just leveled against him over the unpleasantness at his mill. Nor would he submit to Brother Schopp's terrier-like attempt to sniff out a scandal.

“Evidently Captain Scaife thought her one, or he would not have taken her into custody.”

“He never formally took her into custody. He escorted her home,” Jacob said. Scaife had set out to embarrass Retha and flaunt his power in front of
Jacob. How well he had succeeded. By now everyone in town knew what had happened. After months of grim reports about the encroaching war, such fresh, delicious local gossip would entertain those good Moravians who frowned on backbiting.

“
Escorted
her home…” Schopp repeated silkily.

With simmering impatience, Jacob retold the story. His version was not the one that Brother Steiner had just reported to the Elders. Jacob's wife had not run away to confer with the Cherokee informer. She had not arrived, circled by a soldier's arms, immodestly astride a horse, wanton without her neckerchief and
Haube
. She had spit in no one's eye, not even in the dirt. And he, Jacob, had not attempted to tear an admittedly rough but entirely reputable captain limb from limb. Not quite.

“Perhaps,” Elisabeth Marshall said, frowning, “you could explain the sling around poor Brother Steiner's arm.”

“And Brother Hine's black eye,” her husband Frederick Marshall added, not bothering to conceal a note of reproach.

“Captain Scaife was going to put his hands on the body of my wife.”

Schopp bared his teeth. “A gentleman is always in the right to assist a lady from her horse.”

“Captain Scaife meant no help. He intended further insult.”

“But you charged into him,” Schopp said. “
Attacked
him.”

“I rushed at him. I admit it.” Jacob looked to Frederick Marshall for understanding. “You, sir, would have protected Sister Marshall. 'Tis allowed
to protect your wife. You too keep a club at home. We can defend our wives, our children, and ourselves if need be from direct assault.”

Marshall lifted his drooping brow. “No one has confirmed that she needed actual protection. Was not Captain Scaife returning her to you?”

“Her honor, then,” Jacob growled.

Marshall gave Jacob a reproving look. “Brother Blum, you endangered everyone. You wrestled our own men. You fought Brethren.”

Jacob met the Elder's gaze. He was not sorry. But he would offer no defense and no excuses.

Marshall straightened on a deep breath. “We have no choice but to admonish you for your rash and hasty action.”

“Although we are thankful Sister Blum is safe,” Rosina Krause added. Sister Marshall nodded in agreement.

But a punctilious Schopp spoke up. “Should we not take a vote?”

“There is no need,” Jacob said, roiling. They could not understand, but he was outnumbered. “I accept the judgment of this body.”

He also accepted that he would take the exact same course again to ensure his wife's safety. Whether to protect her from mere rude insult or from more grievous harm, to him it mattered not one whit.

“Brother Blum,” Marshall continued gravely, “you realize that another incident will force us to consider your disassociation. The more so as you are an Elder. You of all men lost your temper. You to whom we entrust our dealings with both armies. Not only do you set the worst example for our hot—
blooded young men, you jeopardize your credibility as a negotiator and thus your most essential contribution to our community.”

“I recognize that.”

“Perhaps now you can make an effort to ensure that your older son understands this as well,” Schopp added, with ill-concealed triumph.

Jacob bridled.

“Not to the point, Brother Schopp,” Marshall said crisply, and turned to Jacob. “The upshot of it, I fear, will be further repercussions, Brother Blum. Nevertheless, this committee has other pressing matters.” Marshall smoothed out a small, hand-carried note, piecing together a tear at its official military seal. “I received this missive this morning. Colonel Armstrong is in town and requests an interview before he returns to camp.”

“Demands one is more likely,” Schopp said.

Rosina Krause shushed him as if he were a smart-mouthed schoolboy. He had the grace to blush—while Jacob had the grace not to gloat that someone had thwarted the man. Some time ago Jacob had decided that God had put Philip Schopp in his path in order to measure his progress in forbearance of his fellow man.

Marshall slid the note across the long, narrow table to Jacob. He trailed his finger down its center, silently translating the demand from English into German and then addressing his fellow Elders.

“The colonel asks if the mill is ready for the grain, and has a new order for us. This is more a matter for my Supervisory Committee than for the Elders. It needs little notice to meet.”

Marshall took the note back. “As we are gathered here, I see no reason to assemble your group. Any serious request the colonel makes will come to us next. He awaits word at the Tavern.”

It was a short walk. Jacob volunteered to go. The room weighted on him, and he could use a private moment with a man to whom he still owed thanks. He crossed the Square, passed Bagge's store, two neat houses, and Samuel Ernst's leather shop, and mounted the steps to the Tavern. Martin Armstrong's elegant form, bedecked in full dress regalia and bewigged and powdered for official travel, stood at attention on the porch. He had been less imposing in his field tent.

Jacob made a formal bow, and the colonel bowed and smiled.

“The Elders await you, Colonel.”

“And it is good to see you,” he jested as the two of them made their way down the dusty street and across the quiet Square, matching stride for stride.

“I owe you a great deal of thanks for releasing my cousin. He has run us a merry race before although this one was his most harrowing to date.”

“You made it home in good time, I trust.”

Jacob smiled wryly. “Indeed. If two men sharing a horse for thirty-odd miles can be said to make good time after one man goes lame—”

The colonel's mouth crooked up. “You walked.”

Jacob laughed aloud. His miserable trek amused him now. “I limped. Crawled. Succumbed to blisters long before we arrived in Salem. Then I dragged myself upstairs, kissed the children, and stumbled into bed.”

“You have…how many children?”

“Three.”

“And a new wife, I understand.”

“Yes. One,” Jacob said as soberly as he could muster.

A hearty laugh erupted from the dignified colonel's throat. “I thank you, Mr. Blum,” he said, becoming serious with an effort. “War affords us few amusements. I do not fully understand how your cousin came to be pressed into service. Captain Scaife is…” The colonel seemed to search for a word.

Jacob supplied it. “Zealous.”

“Um. Thorough.”

“Yet not always careful.”

The colonel ran a knuckle through his powdered mustache, considering. “Perhaps not. None of the militia officers, however, has a better record of tracking down reluctant recruits. Legitimate ones, I might add. He has a keen eye for Tory spies as well.”

Jacob went on alert. But they were at the steps to
Gemein Haus
, and they went in.

Inside, the colonel dwarfed the staid Elders, a fact Jacob found curious. He thought of them as his equals, but they were not, not in size. He and the colonel were of a height, although the colonel's war-lean physique made Jacob feel the lumbering bear. Shoving the brief mention of spies to the back of his mind, Jacob addressed Armstrong's stated business, the opening of the mill.

“Barring rain or invasion, Colonel, you can bring grain no later than the beginning of next week.”

Armstrong nodded, apparently satisfied. “Very
well. We have commandeered but half the wagons we need. Many can be, I regret to say, pressed in a week.”

Although Marshall and Schopp were less fluent than Jacob, they understood the colonel's spoken English. Jacob swiftly translated his reply for the women who, like all Moravian women save Retha, had yet to learn their new homeland's tongue.

“Your orders bring severe hardship to poor backcountry folk,” Marshall said, not a man to mince even unfamiliar words.

“Less so, it is to be hoped, than British rule,” the colonel observed, unperturbed.

Schopp colored, but said nothing. Dared nothing, the milksop, Jacob thought uncharitably. At heart, Schopp had all the inclinations of a Tory.

In the silence, the tall colonel raised a brow. “You would not turn rebellious on this matter?”

Half smirking, Philip Schopp regained his facility with words. “Rebellion, my dear Colonel, has been taken care of.”

The officer's brows snapped together. “Explain yourself, sir.”

“There was a scare of Tory spies amongst us.”

Anger flooded Jacob's chest, cloaked his back, raced the length of his legs. The man was not a Tory, merely a fool.

Evidently, Marshall thought so too. “'Twas naught, Colonel. 'Twas but a rumor, less than a scare.”

“Captain Scaife did not think so,” Schopp insisted.