The Wedding Bargain. Emily French
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a brief glance at Rafe Trehearne’s face showed her that he was highly amused. Something moved in her throat, and she heard herself mumble beneath her breath, as if she were in pain, “Are you defending them?”
“Heavens no! I’m simply turning a blind eye because this is their first offense, and it’s easy to say you’re sorry when you don’t mean it.”
“Justice is mine—” She broke off, meeting Rafe’s steady gaze, and flushed.
A slow smile gathered on his lips as the moments went by and she did not continue. The tiger-bright eyes that met hers held a challenge, a dare. She lifted her chin and was glad anger was replacing her guilty feelings.
“Benjamin! Isaac! Apologize to Master Trehearne. Don’t stop to argue who was to blame! Do you hear me, boys? Apologize!”
Benjie sniffed loudly. “I’m sorry I put salt in your tea…”
Isaac sighed heavily. “…But you should not have drank it.”
“I am, too. More sorry than you’ll ever know.” Rafe lifted his eyes to Charity again. “I need to have a look around. Check on the barn and the sheds.” He smiled conspiratorially at the boys. “Would you like to show me?”
The twins knew the signs of a scold coming on from their mother. They went.
Head bent low over a boy’s shirt, fingers nimbly plying a needle and thread, Charity replaced a torn seam, her thoughts far removed from her actions. The twins had gone off to bed without protest, their natural ebullience a little subdued for once.
The boys’ predilection for getting into all the more damaging and perilous forms of mischief worried her. Her tawny brows pleated in a frown as she nipped a piece of thread with her teeth and rethreaded the needle.
Picking up another garment, she absently began to repair a three-cornered rent, her mind calling up images of Ezra. Tall, his fair hair and blue eyes making him seem younger than his years, he had impressed her father with his serious mien and devotion to the Scriptures.
Ezra had turned his back on the false and dangerous English church and had followed the Bible’s clear words and truths. He had been so persecuted and plagued by the clergy and authorities in his hometown that he had been forced to emigrate.
After seven years in Boston, he had joined the small Puritan settlement at Mystic. A marriage had been quickly arranged between sixteen-year-old Charity and this enlightened man of God. Ten years they had been wed before Ezra’s untimely death.
Charity could still feel a terrible heartache when she thought of Ezra, good, kind Ezra, lying motionless and silent, his head at an awkward angle, his chest pierced by a bloody, feathered shaft. Yesterday a surge of that remembered pain had swept over her as she knelt beside the limp figure of her new bondman and realized the extent of his injuries.
The needle moved slowly as she analyzed that flood of feeling. Fear? Guilt? Concern? Physical awareness? A combination of them all? Her thoughts collided, merged.
She shouldn’t have been so impulsive as to purchase a bond servant. She’d never known a man who could call up such conflicting emotions in her. She had wanted to throttle him, only fate had already done that for her.
Initial fright and indignation had been quickly swamped by concern. Between them, she and the twins had managed, with no little effort, to transfer the unconscious man from the wagon into the parlor and onto a couch. He had been no mean weight!
And yes, there had been an element of physical awareness when she had attended him. Warm sensations had enveloped her as she removed the tattered shirt.
Charity’s hands stilled with the memory. The sight of that hair-roughened chest, crisscrossed with recently healed wounds, had made her fingers tingle with the urge to feel the warmth and texture of him. She shook her head and grimaced. Lord, what a ninny she was, having such wondrous and shocking fancies at her age! Why, she was no better than a foolish, lovesick girl!
“Where do you keep…”
Charity jerked, dropping the shirt she had been mending. Her heart started to thunder sickeningly in her breast. The bondman stood framed in the doorway, shoulders square, feet apart, still and taut. In his hands was the heavy old wheel-lock rifle that was always left hanging on a special brass hook above the mantel.
Why had she not thought to secure the weapon?
“Sorry.” A rueful expression crossed his face. He propped the rifle against the hutch and bent to retrieve the shirt. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Charity flushed. Her hands trembling, she tucked an errant strand of hair beneath her coif. “‘Startled’ is an understatement,” she managed to say.
Feeling gauche, she shoved the shirt into her sewing basket. It was galling to notice that her fingers still shook as she fastened the lid and placed the basket on a small table. Straightening, she turned. He had moved. He now stood in front of her, feet squarely planted.
“I’d like to be frank with you.” His voice was purposeful, as if he had something momentous to impart. “I think you should know—”
He stopped abruptly, looked at her, his golden eyes glittering with some suppressed emotion. Charity felt the heat of his eyes as if it were a palpable sensation, and a small, expectant shiver ran through her. All her earlier uneasiness returned. She clenched her hands together.
“Do you intend to murder us?” She tried for a light tone. It did not work. His mouth went tight, and his eyes narrowed into shadowed slits.
“Hell, no! I came to say that I’ll keep watch outside.”
Charity sat forward abruptly, queasy at the thought that Rafe suspected the Pequots might be prowling around the farmhouse. Her heart lurched over, then settled into a rapid drumroll.
She lifted her chin challengingly. “You have some reason?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded sharp.
He shook his head swiftly. “The ‘coon has been tied up all day. She needs some exercise.”
Charity, however, was not deceived. She knew that a man fleeing from justice did not think clearly. He had a chance to get away now. The odds were in his favour. She clenched her teeth, suddenly feeling angry. Not only would she be fifty pounds poorer, but Amos Saybrook’s will would prevail. Terrified, she forced herself to breathe slowly. “You do not intend to try and escape?”
A curious stillness gripped Rafe. He stood there as if made of stone, his forehead whitely limned. A dull red stained the high bones of his cheeks, emphasising his jaw’s strength and sweep.
“You will stay?” Unspoken words—Please don’t do this to me—or to God—but most of all, don’t damn yourself—hung like tiny dust motes in a sunbeam.
A silence, heavy with significance, stretched between them. Charity stood there waiting, as if unwilling to break into his thoughts.
Rafe studied her a long time before he spoke. Then, in a single breath, he whispered the words she wanted to hear and shut the gate to freedom.
“I’ll stay.”
From the top of Mystic Ridge on a clear day you could see forever. Today was such a one. There was not a hint of dampness in the air. Reaching the crest of the rocky outcrop, Charity sank down, breathing heavily, and unfastened her bonnet.
The rough, foot-worn track was a shortcut from Whitewater, but the hill was steep and the sun, two hours beyond zenith, simmered hotly overhead. Next time she went to visit Martha Schofield she would go the long way round and take the pony.
Charity swung her leather pouch off her shoulder and removed her bonnet.