Cheryl Reavis - The Bartered Bride

The vestry smelled of hymnals and dust and candle wax. Caroline waited for Johann to stop talking. Her breath came out in a white cloud in the frigid room, and her hands felt stiff and cold. She wanted to move to the far corner away from the door, because she truly felt that if Johann hadn’t been standing in the way, she would have bolted.

“Do you understand what’s happened?” Johann finally asked her.

“Do you?” she countered. She had no idea how she’d come to be in this predicament.

“Caroline, Frederich wants to talk to you.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

The door abruptly opened, and Frederich Graeber stepped into the room. Caroline caught a glimpse of the people on the nearest pews, all of them trying to get a better look. She stood with her head up, the way John Steigermann had counseled. She was not going to cry. She was not.

Frederich glanced in Caroline Holt’s direction, but he said nothing to her, closing the door firmly behind him. “I want to know what you—and Eli—are doing?” he said to Johann in German, lowering his voice so that Leah wouldn’t hear him.

“What I am doing?” Johann said incredulously. Johann’s German was corrupted by years of speaking English and sounded wrong to Frederich’s ears. “This uproar is no doing of mine, Frederich. If anyone is to blame it is you and Avery Holt. The girl didn’t even know there was a marriage pledge until the day John Steigermann took her to his house. My only concern is for this bastard child—”

“You know what people will think!” Frederich interrupted.

“Do you think the baby is Eli’s?”

“If I thought that, Johann, he’d be dead now,” Frederich answered, knowing full well that the only reason he didn’t believe it was the horrified look on Caroline Holt’s face when Eli made his bold offer. Clearly, Frederich wasn’t the only German she held in disdain.

“Yes, and the day isn’t over yet, is it, Frederich?” Johann said pointedly. “What is it you want done—or do you even know? She is your family member with or without the marriage pledge. Are you going to withdraw your pledge? Do you care if her baby is born a bastard or not? If you don’t, then leave. I will find whatever way I can to save this innocent child—even if it is a marriage to Eli.”

Frederich made an impatient gesture. “I will not be indebted to Eli!”

“How much has he to do with your making this marriage pledge in the first place?” Johann asked bluntly.

“Everything,” he said, meeting Johann’s gaze head on.

“You would put Caroline in the middle of the trouble between you and Eli and poor Ann—”

“Poor Ann? I am the one cuckolded!”

“Ann made a wrong choice, and she is the one who died for it. I think it would be better if you did withdraw the marriage pledge to Caroline. Let Eli take her. You carry too much pain and resentment still—”

“She won’t be any better off with Eli, Johann, and you know that. Eli has lived his whole life according to his whim. Ann was one of his whims. What if he changes his mind after he’s married Caroline? Who will be looking after her and her baby then?”

“I will ask if someone else will make the offer—”

“No! I don’t want any more scandal! And I told you. I can’t—won’t—be beholden to Eli. There will be less talk if I keep my pledge—at least they won’t dare say anything to my face. Caroline Holt is my children’s aunt. She has always been kind to them, and as much as I might dislike it, both of the girls need her.”

“And you, Frederich. What is it you need?”

“I need a mother for Lise and Mary Louise.”

“Can you be kind to Caroline? Can you keep from punishing her for Ann’s sin?”

“Look at her, Johann,” Frederich said. “We are alike, she and I. Neither of us cares what happens to us from here on. Perhaps we can do something good for an innocent child, and we can make everybody else happy in the process. I will keep the pledge. I am making the Christian and honorable offer you wanted someone to make.”

“Yes, but are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Johann.”

“I don’t think she’ll marry you, Frederich.”

“What choice does she have? Now go away so I can talk to her.”

“Go away? I can’t leave you in here alone with—”

“Leah is here. I don’t want you listening to what I say to Caroline—for her sake. There are some things that are none of your business. I want her to speak to me without you standing over her with the wrath of God.”

“I don’t do that,” Johann protested. “I never do that.”

“Go away, Johann!”

Caroline watched as the conversation between Frederich and Johann Rial abruptly ended. Johann was disturbed-she could tell that much—and one of his questions had made Frederich angry.

“What were they saying?” she asked Leah, trying hard to stand calmly and not wring her hands.

“I couldn’t hear,” Leah said.

Surprisingly and more than a little reluctantly, Johann left the room. Caroline needed to sit down. With Johann gone, there was no one to stand between her and Frederich Graeber’s anger. She was so tired suddenly, and in spite of everything she could do, she swayed on her feet. She moved blindly to one of the straight chairs in the room, and resisting Leah’s help, she sat down heavily.

Frederich immediately pulled up another chair and sat directly in front of her. He needed to be able to see her face when he talked to her, and he watched her closely. She was more afraid than she was willing to let on, and she was very 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.