Arms of Love (5 page)

“Nay, I surely am not.”

He smiled, a flash of well-kept teeth in a tanned face and strange light from his unusual golden eyes. “Your tone says you have spirit yet. What is your situation?”

She snorted. “My situation? My work, if you mean? I have none.

The Lord has seen fit to take hearth, home, and husband all in the space of two weeks. I have nothing but my babe here. I simply seek to walk until I can go no farther.”

He nodded. “My sympathies for your burden, but there are others in need this day as well.”

“That is none of my concern.”

“But it could be. A girl is left this morning without a mother to tend for three younger children . . . one a babe newly born. The child shall surely die without someone to nurse it.”

She gave him a wry look. “Are you wondering if I still have milk, young man?”

He had the grace to blush, and something about his dark hair reminded her of her own husband when he was younger.

“Well, aye, that I do. My Mary here is but three weeks old.” She indicated the bundle in her arms.

“Did you say
Mary
?” He had an odd expression on his face.

“Aye . . . Mary. Named after her grandmother.”

“That’s . . . good.”

She studied his simple clothing more closely. “You’re one of them, ain’t you?”

“Them?”

“The peace-seekers. Quaker? Or Amish?”

“Amish, ya.” He smiled. “The Quakers wear fancier shoes.”

“Hmm . . . and this girl is Amish, the one with the babe?”

“Yes.”

Ruth closed her eyes for a moment. “My Henry enlisted right off to fight for freedom from the king. He died two weeks ago in a skirmish; they buried him where he fell.”

“I am truly sorry.”

“Sorry? Yet you do not fight.” She watched something harsh and tight cross his handsome face.

“No, I cannot.”

She drew herself up with a sudden decision. “Haul us up there then, Amish man. No sense in another dying in this infernal world.”

“I thank you.”

There was a flash of relief in his eyes before his easy calm settled back into place, and she decided that here was a deep pool of a man, one who didn’t show himself too readily. Her suspicions were confirmed as they rode along and he began to speak.

“It would be best if you were to arrive at the young woman’s farm on your own, as if you’d walked there by chance. I can drop you off, say, a quarter of a mile back or so.”

Ruth clutched one careworn hand tighter about his lean waist and readjusted her bundle of scant belongings and then the babe. “And be there a reason why you’d like to practice such deception? I thought your kind was against sin.”

He laughed. “Aren’t we all called to be ‘against sin’?”

“Maybe some take it more seriously than others.”

“Perhaps.”

“So will you be telling me the truth of the matter or not?” she pressed, feeling she had little to lose if she raised his ire.

“She will hate me.”

“The little Amish girlie? Because you found her a wet nurse?”

He chuckled again. “
Ya . . . Nee
.”

“You hurt her? Because I don’t stand for seeing a woman hurt.”

He sobered at once. “Nor do I.”

“What is it, then?” She watched the tanned line of his throat as he half turned in profile, considering.

“She will soon believe that I love something more than her.”

Ruth drew a breath, feeling interested against her will. “And will she be right?”

He shook his dark head. “I used to think I knew.”

“Well, what is it then that rivals your love?”

He nudged the horse with one knee and murmured so low that she had to strain to catch the word on the breeze.

“Freedom.”

Chapter 3

L
ena lifted her head from prayer and felt caked mud move with the stretch of her neck. Then she scrubbed her face and hands with a wet rag, trying to remove the grime. She glanced to the bentwood rocker where she’d settled John with his newborn sister. Abigail pushed the chair from behind with gentle hands, and Lena’s head rang with the momentary silence of the babe. She’d hoped that Adam’s mother would have arrived by now, but perhaps Adam had gone in search of a wet nurse first, before going home. It could be no easy chore for a man to find such a person, and Adam could be long delayed. She appreciated his willingness to take on such a task and thought what a wonderful husband he would be to her. Then she dragged her thoughts back to the moment and pivoted toward the bedroom door. Somehow she must prepare her mother for burial. She steeled herself with the thought of the women who had tended to the body of the Lord. Surely she could draw on their same strength of purpose.

A hearty knock broke into her thoughts and sent Faith squalling once more. Lena ran to open the door, expecting to see Ellen Wyse. Instead she blinked at the apparition of a tall, disheveled woman in ill-fitting clothing. Someone needing food, no doubt, but Lena had nothing to offer this morn. She shook her head and was about to close the door without a word when the other woman held up a big, workreddened hand.

“Your babe’s hungry. I can help you. I have milk from my own baby girl here.” She bent forward and uncovered a cherubic sleeping face under a thatch of red hair.

Lena glanced at the woman’s ample bosom, then wondered wildly if this was Adam Wyse’s idea of a wet nurse. Yet hadn’t she just been in prayer for the needs of her family? She opened the door wider.

“I’m Lena Yoder, but I have no coin to pay you.”

“Ruth Stone, and my babe here’s Mary.”

“Ma-Mary?” Lena stuttered.

The woman gave her a curious look. “Aye. Not a strange name, by my reckoning.”

Lena nodded. “Nee . . . it was my mother’s name. She died early this morn.”

“Then payment is not what is needed here. Mebbe I was meant to help.”

The woman brushed past her and went to where the children were huddled. She laid down her baby in the nearby wooden cradle and dropped her other bundle to the floor. John stared up at her, and Lena saw him draw the babe closer against his thin chest. It was only at her slight nod that he relinquished his hold to the outstretched arms of the strange woman. Faith quieted again, but then began a frantic mewling as she turned her head toward the woman in a rooting reflex. Ruth Stone then scooped up her own child and balanced both babes with competent ease.

“Let me have the chair, young man.”

John rose in haste as the woman fumbled with her bodice, and Abigail scampered to Lena’s side. In a moment the air hung with blissful, layered silence.

“’Tis hungry she is, the poor wee one. My own babe doesn’t nurse as well. I guess she can tell when things are worryin’ me.”

Lena felt a rush of sympathy amid her confusion. “I am sorry for your worries. May the Lord bless you for your kindness.”

“Ha! The Lord owes me a blessing or two for sure, but what I have I gladly give to this mite. What do you call her?”

Abigail piped up. “Faith.
Mamm
named her that this morn—before she died. It’s strange, I think, that your babe has the same name as my mamm. It is strange, isn’t it, Lena?”

The last words came out in a brave squeak, and Lena reached to slip an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“A sign from the Lord, Abby. Again, we thank you, Ruth Stone.”

Ruth nodded. “Faith is a right good name too—if faith there be.”

“Of course there be faith,” John cried. “What else is there?”

The woman rocked meditatively as the satisfied smacking sounds of the babe increased. “Love, maybe . . .”

This time Lena wanted to cry aloud. Love!
Ach, yes
! She dreamed of it as being more than a quickening of the heart, a memory of laughing golden eyes, the brush of dark hair soft against her cheek. She wanted a love that surpassed the realities of the war, and after seeing the fragility of life this morn, she knew more than ever that she could not have that love at the risk of knowing she might lose it . . . lose him . . . perhaps to the call of the war. And death seemed so possible to her now—anything might happen to Adam, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to go on without him. Still, a small Voice inside her reminded her of her faith, of that power of Gott that could conquer all pain and loss . . .

She marshaled her thoughts but knew that time would never abate her desire for him. She was like the tinder to his flame, and she never wanted to be free of that burn . . .

She patted her sister, preparing to go to the bedroom once more, when another knock sounded on the front door. John opened it to reveal Ellen and Isaac Wyse.

Lena felt a moment’s dismay at her muddied appearance, then dismissed the thought with a labored tiredness until she felt Isaac’s eyes sweep her dirty dress.

“
Sei se gut
, come in,” she murmured and received Ellen’s warm embrace with gratitude. Isaac merely shook her hand. That was proper, she supposed, on the heels of the wistful thought that the strength of a man’s touch about her shoulders might be welcome. She recalled the fast light of sympathy that had shown in Adam’s face earlier that morning and wondered that he had not touched her . . .

A satisfied burp reminded her of the two babes and the strange
Englisch
woman who sat in the room’s best chair near the fireplace.

“Uh . . . this is Ruth . . .” She sought for the surname, but it eluded her.

“Stone,” the older woman said comfortably. She had put Mary back in the cradle and turned Faith to be patted against her shoulder. “I find I can help out here a bit with the feeding and all, as I’ve got my own babe to nurse.”

Lena flushed and told herself that she imagined that Isaac’s nostrils flared in disgust. After all, feeding a babe was a natural and Gott-given part of life.

“Lena,” Ellen said softly. “Shall I help you with your mother? Perhaps Ruth will talk with the
kinner
, or Isaac can take them outside.”

“I must prepare my thoughts,
Mamm
. For the burial. I cannot think with the
kinner
—” Isaac broke off at Lena’s surprised stare and cleared his throat. “I mean . . . I would like some time to reflect . . .”

Lena felt a surge of gratitude. Surely it was a blessing to have a man to oversee the burial, and one with Isaac’s mind was all the more fitting.

Ruth Stone spoke up. “The young ones can gather about and hear a story, if they’d like.”

Lena murmured her thanks and hustled Abigail and John forward, despite the boy’s stiffened shoulders. She knew he’d come to think of himself less and less as a child since Father had been imprisoned, but she had no time to worry about that now. She must see to her mother.

Once they were settled, she watched Isaac slip outdoors and then allowed Ellen to go and open the door she had so been dreading to enter all morn.

Chapter 4