The Bartered Bride. Cheryl Reavis
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pale. But she was not an older version of Ann. She looked nothing like his dead wife, and if anything in this situation pleased him, it was that.
“I know what you think of Germans—” he said.
“You know what Avery thinks of Germans,” Caroline replied. “You don’t know what I think about anything.”
“I also know what you think of marriage,” he went on as if she hadn’t interrupted. Ann had told him once that Caroline was determined never to be trapped in a loveless and hurtful union like their parents’.
Caroline didn’t respond to that remark, and Frederich waited. After a moment, she reached up and took off her bonnet, as if she wanted him to see her face better. She was not beautiful. He had always thought she had a kind of wasted prettiness, the kind that would have been fine enough for any man—if only she would have smiled more. She was not pretty today. Her face was bruised and swollen, and her dark hair was roached back so that it hid nothing of the damage Avery had done.
“Do you want to marry Eli?” he asked.
“No,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I don’t know why Eli is doing this. And I don’t want to marry you. I never wanted to marry you. I didn’t even know what you and Avery had planned—” She abruptly broke off and looked away. She was not going to explain this again.
“Why doesn’t the father of this baby marry you?”
Caroline glanced at him, but she said nothing. Then she intently smoothed down her skirt as if that were much more important than his questions.
“Do I…know the man?”
Again, Caroline refused to answer.
“Are you that ashamed of him then?” Frederich asked next, and Caroline’s head came up sharply. She looked him directly in the eyes.
“Take your marriage proposal and be damned,” she said.
“Caroline!” Leah chided her. “We are in the church!”
It surprised him that he was not in the least offended. He was far happier knowing that she was still the strong person Ann had described to him. He intended only to provide her child with legitimacy, nothing more. He wanted no whipped puppy or helpless clinging vine to have to look after.
“I have decided to keep the marriage pledge,” he said, holding up his hand when she would have interrupted. “Before you are so quick to say no, I remind you that you are the one who needs a marriage ceremony. I also remind you that my children—Anna’s children—need a woman who cares about them. Beata is no mother to them. It has been hard to see them so lonely since Anna died. Perhaps you will think of a marriage to me as a way to help your sister’s children as well as yourself. If you agree to it, I give you my word that I will take care of you as best I can. But I will expect you to be a good wife. I will expect you to be civil to me. I do not take Avery’s place as someone you must do battle with at every turn—”
“How can you speak of marriage? You think I’m not fit to have anything to do with your children,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. “I do. But you are innocent in my children’s eyes and you are important to them. I have never had cause to think you unfit until now.”
Caroline looked abruptly away.
“You…don’t say anything about the baby,” she said, realizing even as she said it that she sounded as if she were actually considering the possibility of marrying him. She looked up at him. “Can you be kind to another man’s child?”
She saw a flicker of emotion cross his face. He took a moment to answer.
“The child cannot help how it got here. If you marry me, then it will be mine. There is nothing left to say about this and we are wasting time. Do we marry or not, Caroline Holt? Antworten Sie entweder ja oder nein. Answer yes or no.”
Her eyes met his briefly, but she then quickly looked away. She said nothing, her hands clutching the folds of her skirt.
“Your right to pick and choose husbands you have forfeited, Caroline Holt. You can sit and cry and live on John Steigermann’s charity or you can marry me,” he said impatiently. “If the answer is yes, we will have the ceremony right now. Everyone who is still here will be invited to stay to witness it. There will be no hiding. People already know the reason for our marrying—or not marrying. There will be no more shame about what has happened.”
“I don’t even know you,” Caroline said abruptly. “You’re a stranger to me.”
“Every person who marries marries a stranger,” Frederich said. “No one knows that better than I. But I am less a stranger than most. We are part of the same family.” He stared at the bruises on her face. “I give you my word now that I will not beat you. I will not let Avery or anyone else beat you. What else do you want?”
What indeed? Caroline thought.
The door abruptly opened.
“I can’t wait out here any longer, Frederich,” Johann said in German. “I’ve been talking to Eli and he—”
“This matter is between Caroline Holt and me. Eli has no part in it.”
“I know that, Frederich. It’s Beata I’m worried about. She’s becoming a…problem.”
“Beata is always a problem.”
“She is threatening to swoon,” Johann said in English.
“Swoon?” Frederich asked, not familiar with the word.
He smiled at Johann’s explanation of this terrible thing Beata would inflict upon him to have her way. He had no doubt that their sire would have capitulated immediately at such a dire threat from his spoiled daughter. The old man was long gone—and Beata still believed that the mere possibility of her keeling over in public would turn the world according to her wishes.
“Caroline Holt,” he said, getting up from the chair. “We have wasted enough time. Tell me now. Do we go make Beata swoon or not?”
Nearly everyone stayed for the wedding.
Forgive me, Ann, she kept thinking. She was a coward and she had no other choice. She clung to Frederich’s arm like a person in danger of drowning, far more ashamed of having to accept his offer of marriage than of her out-ofwedlock pregnancy. She stood before God and she answered the questions Johann Rial asked her until suddenly the ordeal was over. The church emptied, and a feeble celebration began. Johann brought out three kegs of hard cider from his own cellar for the impromptu wedding guests. The men swarmed the kegs, dragging Frederich off with them as they queued up to pass around a common dipper. Their congratulations were loud and boisterous, and some of them began cracking their whips in a kind of belated Polterabend, the noisemaking necessary to scare away the German evil spirits the evening before a wedding. She remembered the raucous demonstration surrounding Ann’s marriage to Frederich—Ann standing on the Holt front porch and laughing up at her dour soon-to-be-husband.
It occurred to Caroline, too, that everyone here accepted the obvious reason for her agreeing to marry Frederich Graeber. She was pregnant; the real father of the baby was unwilling. And while Eli had come to her rescue like some Sturm und Drang hero who intended to make an honest woman of her no matter what, it was Frederich’s arm she held on to. She held on to his arm, and she knew the truth. She had married Frederich because on the worst day of her life, this seemingly humorless man had dared to make light of her predicament. Neither his prenuptial promises nor her great need had swayed her the way his almost mischievous remark about Beata had. She had nearly laughed in spite of her misery, and it was as if he had given her a brief and shining glimpse of the person she used to be.