Cheryl Reavis (20 page)

So, he thought. He wasn’t nervous by himself after all.

He set his rifle and blanket roll on the floor near the hearth and knelt down to light the fire. The wood had been well laid and it caught immediately. When he stood up again, Caroline was still standing where he’d left her.

Come here,
he almost said, but he immediately changed his mind. He was taking no chance of offending her—or scaring her, from the look on her face now.

He walked to her, but he said nothing. He allowed himself the luxury of simply looking at her, at her pretty face and her hair, at the swell of her breasts his coat didn’t hide.

His eyes returned to her face in time to see her lips purse with the question she didn’t ask.

What are you doing?

“I am looking,” he said as if she’d asked it.
Looking as long and as much as I like.

There was a sudden cessation in the rattle of sleet against the windows and the roof, but he didn’t let it interrupt his intent. She stood very still, suffering his inspection, glancing at him from time to time and clearly trying to decide what he might be about next.

He took her by the hand and led her to the bed.

“Sit down,” he said.

It surprised him that she did so. He knelt in front of her and began to untie her shoes. Startled, she tried to move away.

“I can do it,” she said. He could see her breath in the freezing cold.

“I need you to let me do this for you,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I need these things to remember. Do you understand?”

She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t pull away again.

He removed her shoes and left the stockings, then stretched up to unbutton her—his—coat. He didn’t take it off her, though she obviously expected him to. The room was so cold still; she was having to hold herself rigid to keep from shivering.

He abruptly stood up and pulled back the quilts, lifting her into the bed still fully clothed and covering her carefully. Then he walked back to the fire to add another cedar log. The room smelled of burning cedar now, and the noise of the sleet beating against the windows and roof had given way to the soft, powdery whisper of snow.

He looked out the small high window near the chimney. There was nothing but blackness, no lights from the Graeber house visible through the bare trees.

When he turned and walked back to the bed, he saw that her eyes were closed, and they stayed closed even when he sat on the edge beside her.

“Caroline?”

She looked at him. “I’m doing what you were doing,” she said. “Finding things to remember.”

“What things?”

“The smell of the cedar burning,” she said. “And the candles. I can hear the snow against the roof and the wood pop and hiss as it burns—and you walking across the floor. When I was a girl, I used to think about—about—”

She abruptly stopped and looked away.

“About what?”

She gave a quiet sigh.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I don’t want you to think any worse of me than ydu already do.”

“Tell me,” he said again. “I want to know what you thought about when you were a girl.”

“All right,” she said, looking at him again. “I thought about a night like this. With my husband—here.”

The log he’d just added fell out onto the hearth, causing a shower of sparks to shoot into the room. He got up and walked to the fireplace, pushing the log back onto the andirons again.

Not Kader,
he thought as he worked.
She wouldn’t have known him then.

He forced the thought aside. He wanted to believe that she no longer thought about the schoolmaster—just as he no longer thought about his own past. But that was by choice on his part. The past was too painful to be remembered.

He stood up, realizing that he was wasting time worrying about Kader Gerhardt, and he took off her brother’s coat. He was acutely aware that she watched him. He took off his tattered CSA uniform jacket and pulled out his shirttail before he sat down on the bed again to remove his shoes. He was so weary suddenly. Not just physically, but weary of spirit as well. He had told Caroline the truth. He just wanted to be with her. He wanted to forget everything—all the ghosts that wandered through his life to haunt him. He wanted only the pleasure she could give him.

She made room for him when he climbed into bed.

“This reminds me of when I first came to this country,” he said.

“This?”

He smiled. “Being in bed with all the clothes on. I stayed with the Pennsylvania relatives that first winter—the oldest daughter was being courted by a young man from the next farm. He would come to visit—it was so cold there—and
they would go to bed with all their clothes on to stay warm while he convinced her to marry him.”

“Bundling,” she said. “I think it’s called bundling, but I didn’t think anyone did that anymore.”

“Well, it was a shock to me—just off the boat. Nothing should have shocked me then but that surely—” He broke off and didn’t continue.

“Did she marry him?” Caroline asked after a time.

“I don’t remember,” he said, looking in her direction. He had been careful not to touch her yet, and he marveled that he was actually talking to her—as if they were an old married couple. Talking—when that was the last thing he wanted to do.

She had turned a bit toward him, and he reached up to touch her braided hair, letting his fingers work into the end of the long braid to undo the plaiting. He wanted very much to see her with her hair unbound. She suffered this without comment.

“You have beautiful hair,” he said, because it was true and because he felt he should say something.

“Thank you,” she said with a primness she must have learned in her town school. “Frederich—”

He stopped trying to undo the braid and waited for her to speak her mind. He had no doubt that there was something she wanted to tell him. He knew the look. In the months they’d lived in the same house, he’d learned that about her, too.

“Say whatever it is you want to say, Caroline,” he said when she didn’t go on.

But she shook her head and sat up and took her arms out of the coat, pulling it out from under her and spreading it on top of the quilts..

“I don’t want to say anything,” she said, looking anywhere but at him.

She lifted her mostly unbraided hair out of the way and began to undo the buttons on the bodice of her dress. He
took over the task after the second one, and if that alarmed her, it didn’t show. He helped her get the dress over her head and the petticoats down. He brought a corner of the quilts up around her shoulders, noting that her chemise was very plain except for the ribbon ties. No lace. No embroidery. He could see the thrust of her breasts against the muslin.

He caught her hand and placed it on the top button of his shirt. She hesitated, then began to undo each one as he had for her. He watched her face as she worked, wondering if he should tell her how long he’d thought about this—about her willing participation in the first time they would make love.

She felt his scrutiny, and she suddenly stopped.

“Frederich, don’t,” she said. “Regardless of what you think, I’m not—I don’t know what’s expected of me. I don’t know how to behave. Don’t give me something improper to do just so you can be offended—”

“I’m not offended, Caroline,” he said, reaching up to touch her face with his fingertips. “I’m living something I’ve thought about for a long time—come here. Come here,” he said again, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her. She was stiff and unyielding for a moment, then she relaxed against him. “Why do you think I took your shoes away from you the first thing?” he asked, teasing her now and giving her an abrupt squeeze. “So you can’t run off. So I can get you to bed and keep you there." He kissed her on the cheek and then on the ear, making her give a nervous laugh.

But then he was serious suddenly. He cupped her face with his hand so that he could look into her eyes.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said. “I
hate
it that you’re always so afraid. I’m not Kader Gerhardt. I won’t hurt you. I want you, Caroline. I want to look at you and touch you. I want to be inside you—” He kissed her eyes and her mouth and her eyes again. “We have so little time. Don’t hide from me,” he said, because her eyes had remained closed after the last kiss. “Caroline.”

She opened her eyes. He thought that she might cry.

“Is there nothing about me that pleases you?” he asked.

She looked at him a long time before she answered. “Your body,” she said finally. She took him completely by surprise, and he showed it.

“You’re very strong,” she went on quickly. “You work so hard and your strength never fails you. The girls and Beata—and I—we all know we’re safer in this world because of you—I’m sorry,” she suddenly whispered. “I’ve said the wrong thing. I told you I don’t know how to behave.”

He lay there with his arms around her, staring into her eyes, regardless of how much she didn’t want that now, and trying to decide if she was telling him the truth. The fire popped loudly, and one of the candles began to flicker and smoke. He dared to kiss the corner of her mouth.

“What else?” he asked shamelessly.

She gave a small sigh. “Your…eyes,” she went on, surprising him further. “Because they’re so blue.”

“Yes, blue,” he agreed.

“And…so sad,” she said, bringing up a hand to touch his face. “So…sad, Frederich.”

She kissed him then, gently on the mouth, lingering until he felt it deep in his belly.

His arms tightened around her. His hand slid to cup her breast. “Caroline…”

“We have so little time,” she reminded him, and she kissed him again—
she
kissed him, releasing all the hunger and the need he’d had all these months.

He tried to show some restraint, but the ribbons on her chemise had come undone, giving him access. The scent and the feel and the taste of her smooth white skin left him trembling. And she was clearly surprised that he would touch her breasts in such an intimate way. He was certain suddenly that Gerhardt had never done that, and the
thought pleased him immensely. He suckled her gently, then harder, making her body arch in pleasure.

He had on too many clothes. They both had on too many clothes. He abruptly sat up and pulled his shirt off over his head, then removed his trousers underneath the covers with no thought as to where they went when he kicked free of them. Then he sought the drawstring on her drawers—he no longer had drawers of his own to worry about regardless of her diligence in sending him several pairs. She didn’t protest his attempt to untie the string, but neither did she help him. When they were both naked, he gathered her to him again, stopping long enough to look into her eyes. She looked back at him, and if she was afraid now, he couldn’t tell.

“My beautiful Caroline,”
he whispered to her in German as his mouth covered hers—because he was afraid to say it in English.

He kissed her long and hard. His hands stroked the length of her, until her body rose to his touch, until she sighed, until he found the hunger in her that matched his own and her knees parted. He moved her under him and kissed her again.

“Caroline,” he whispered, because he wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to
know
that it was he, Frederich, who would take her now, and he would do it with a love and a respect he could never voice. He had no words for the intensity of his feelings for her, none in English or in German.

“Caroline,” he said again, and she reached up to place her hands on his shoulders, her eyes locked with his when he entered her. The pleasure was so intense that he nearly cried out with it.

“Love me,”
he said in German, and then again,
“Love me.”

And whether she understood him or not, she wrapped herself around him and gave him the oblivion he so desperately needed.

C
aroline reached down to draw the covers over them both. She thought that he was awake, but she wasn’t certain, and she lay there, listening to his quiet breathing. His arm was still thrown over her, but he had turned his face away. If she moved her head slightly, she could press a kiss against his shoulder. She wanted to very badly, but she didn’t do it. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands over him and feel the lean muscled hardness of his body.

After a time, he turned his head to look at her and to kiss her mouth gently, so gently that once again she had the sudden inclination to cry.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

“You are overcome with regret now that it’s done?”

“No,” she said truthfully. She regretted nothing and she felt no embarrassment at what had passed between them. She turned slightly so that she could see his face. “I didn’t know it would be like this with us.”

“It wouldn’t have—if we had married the way I intended—without all the…trouble.”

He was much closer to the truth than he realized, she thought. If there hadn’t been the “trouble,” she would never have married him at all. She gave a quiet sigh. She hardly recognized herself anymore. He had said once that
she felt only contempt for him—and it had been true—then. But somehow, living in the same house with him, watching him with his children, having him take care of her when the baby died, had changed everything.
She
had changed. She had become an entirely different person almost without her notice. She’d come from the “prissy Holt,” who feared marriage and who held the Germans in more disdain than she would have cared to admit, to the woman who shamelessly lay abed with Frederich Graeber and who was more than a little happy to be there.

“Will you tell me something?” she suddenly asked, realizing that perhaps she was not so changed after all. “Will you tell me about your German wife?”

He stiffened against her, as if that was the last thing in the world he expected. He moved away from her and turned over onto his back to lie staring up at the great wooden beams that supported the roof of the house.

Caroline waited.

“There is nothing to tell,” he said after what seemed to her a long time.

“Her name at least?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Her name was Sybilla.”

“Did Ann know about her?”

“Ann? No. Not unless it came from the same person who told you.”

She ignored the remark. “You loved her—Sybilla?”

“Caroline, this is not something I want to talk about. I don’t ask you about Kader Gerhardt.”

“But I can tell you about him—now.”

“Can you? You…you don’t care that he will marry Leah?”

“I—it hurts my pride that he cared so little for me and my child. But I won’t let him and his indifference rule my life. I didn’t know what he was about. God knows, with a brother like Avery, I should have, but I didn’t. I thought
only beautiful women like Leah Steigermann had to worry about being seduced. I didn’t realize that there were men like Kader—men who knowingly lie to achieve the conquest and then excuse themselves by reasoning that the woman must have known all the attention and the flattery meant nothing. I was so starved for kindness then—perhaps I wouldn’t let myself think a man so thoughtful and so refined could have only seduction in mind. But I have suffered the consequences for my stupidity—”

“Your marriage to me, you mean?”

“No, that is not what I mean—”

“‘A living hell’ is what you said.”

She abruptly sat up. “And
you
said for me to stay away from you—why do you always do this? Why do you make me think that there’s a chance for us to have some kind of truce and then spoil it?”

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Something in us both, I think—”

She attempted to move away from him, and he caught her arm to keep her from getting out of bed, pulling her to him and making her lie down again.

“Sybilla has nothing to do with you,” he said. “Nothing.”

“I’m only trying to understand—”

“Why?”

“Because I need to.”

“All right. If you want to know about Sybilla, then I’ll tell you. It’s not a very pretty story—but then you know that already, don’t you? You want to hear my side of it? I will tell you. I thought nothing could keep us apart—not our families, not the army and not her marriage to a rich man. I thought I could just steal her out of her father’s house and go to America and live happily ever after—and why not? If I was banished to this place, there was no reason why I couldn’t take her with me. The boy I was then loved her beyond reason—and she is dead because of my foolishness.
She died of a fever on the boat. They sewed her body into a canvas sack and threw it over the side—there had been a lot of bodies thrown overboard by then—old people, children, babies. The fish had already learned to follow the ship for the next feed—”

She made a small sound of protest, and he abruptly stopped.
“You asked,
Caroline.”

“Frederich, I told you. It’s only because I’m trying to understand,”

“What can knowing about Sybilla help you understand?”

“It helps me understand
you.
I see now why you were so worried about what I might do to the family name. You had redeemed yourself. You stayed in this foreign place for your father’s sake. You made a success of the land. There was no Graeber family scandal here. I see how hard it must have been for you to marry me—if I didn’t behave well—or perhaps even if I did, then everything—Sybilla’s dying—would have been for nothing—”

“I don’t want to talk about any of this,” he interrupted. He rose on his elbow so he could see her face. “I don’t want to
talk,
do you understand that?” His hand reached upward to deliberately caress her breast. She realized immediately that he expected her to be offended—perhaps wanted her to be. It was something he’d done time and time againmade some attempt to insult her—whenever she came too close to him.

She held his gaze, and she made no move to shrink from his bold touch. His thumb began to stroke her nipple, a direct challenge to her willingness to accept him and his uncouth intent—except that she didn’t find him or his intent uncouth at all. She wanted to be with him again, in that intimate way, however shameless such a desire might be.

She could feel her eyes welling, but she didn’t look away. “If we are enemies,” she whispered, “it’s because you keep us so.”

He abruptly laid his head against her breasts, and she put her arms around him.

“Can’t we start from here and now?” she whispered. “Frederich, can’t we?”

“Caroline—”

“You are right that Sybilla has nothing to do with me. Neither does Ann. And Kader Gerhardt has nothing to do with you. All that is past. If you don’t want the marriage ended, then can’t we just make the best of what we have? Can’t we help each other and…” She stopped because she was crying openly now. It occurred to her that he might not want anything from her but
this,
her willingness to lie with him and let him take his pleasure.

But there had been pleasure for her as well, intense pleasure, the kind she had never imagined could exist between a man and a woman.

She gave a wavering sigh and tried to stop crying, but he gathered her to him and began stroking her hair, comforting her with soft German words she didn’t understand. It only made her cry more.

“I don’t know—what’s
wrong—
with me,” she said finally, struggling hard for control.

“It’s what happens sometimes,” he told her, still stroking her hair.

“What happens?” she repeated, not understanding.

He leaned back so that he could see her face. “There is a sadness afterward.” He reached up to move a strand of hair out of her eyes. “When the pleasure is strong, so is the sadness after.”

She looked at him doubtfully, and he smiled.

“No, don’t laugh at me,” she said, hiding her face in his neck. “Please—”

“I don’t laugh at you,” he said. “Never. Kiss me now. Kiss me, Caroline—” His mouth sought hers, hungry and urgent and she responded in kind.

At one point she broke away so that she could see his face. He was in such peril now, whether he stayed here or returned to his company.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” she whispered, pressing herself against him, but she knew as well as he did that this might be the only time they would ever have.

They came together quickly, lovers now and no longer strangers, their intense need of each other quickly brought to a fever pitch and quickly met.

Afterward, they lay tangled in each other’s arms, and Caroline realized that she must have slept, because faint daylight showed in the high windows when she opened her eyes. She stirred in Frederich’s heavy embrace, afraid for him again. He couldn’t hide here indefinitely. What would she do if anything happened to him?

They both heard the noise downstairs at the same instant. Someone had come into the house, someone trying to be quiet. Frederich thrust her aside and began grabbing for his clothes.

“Stay here,” he whispered.

“No, Frederich. I’ll go—”

“Stay here, Caroline!”

She began to hurriedly search for her own clothes. Only half-dressed, she followed him when he crossed the room to the door, helping him on with his coat, the one she’d been wearing. It still had apples in the pockets. He reached for his rifle and his blanket roll and then for her, hugging her fiercely before he stepped out onto the narrow stairway. He looked back once, and then he left her there. She could only stand and watch him go, because she had no choice. She waited for a moment longer, shivering on the landing and listening hard. After a time, she heard Frederich’s voice, but not what he said or whether anyone answered.

She abruptly closed the door and hurried to find the rest of her clothes, dressing as quickly and as quietly as she could. There was no way that she would stay up here while
who knows what was about to happen downstairs. Her eyes went to the rumpled bed.

Am I your wife now, Frederich?
she thought.

She had wanted this night as much as he had, and she had let him know it. There had been no declaration of love between them; she hadn’t expected it. It was just that she wanted that, too. She wanted him to say the words—in either language.

Caroline, I love you.

She pushed the thought aside and put on her shoes.

What a piece of irony that was, she thought. The contemptuous Caroline Holt hopelessly smitten with her unwanted German husband.

She gave a quiet sigh and tiptoed to the door, listening again before she came out.

What if I have another baby?
she thought. Would Frederich be glad? Yes, she decided immediately. He would. She felt a sudden pang of loss and sorrow. Had her daughter lived, Frederich would have been a good father to her. She had no doubt about that.

She began to move quietly down the steps to the second story landing. She couldn’t hear anyone talking now. She couldn’t hear anything at all. There was nothing but a dead, cold silence in the house.

She came down the rest of the way, expecting to find the kitchen empty. Beata stood in the middle of the room, her arms folded over her breasts. And Frederich—Frederich stood by the window, trying to find enough light to read whatever he had in his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.

Neither of them answered her.

“Beata?” she said, coming closer. “Are the soldiers gone?”

Beata turned away and said something to Frederich in German. He abruptly crumpled the sheet of paper he had in his hand.

“What’s happened?” Caroline said. She kept looking from one of them to the other.

Frederich held up the fist that still held the paper. “This is yours.”

“Mine? What is it?”

“John Steigermann carried it from town yesterday. And Beata brought it to me. She was afraid I would leave without knowing what you were about to do. She was right to bring it. This…” He stepped forward and held it out to her.
“This
I needed to see. I wouldn’t believe it otherwise.”

“Frederich, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you fooled me, Caroline Holt. I’m talking about how I believed you. And last night I—" He stopped.

Beata said something in German again, something about soldiers that Frederich ignored, because he never once took his eyes off Caroline’s face.

Caroline took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said carefully. “What is that?”

“It’s a letter from Eli,” he said, his voice cold. “To you.”

“Why would he send me a letter—I can’t read it. I can’t read German.”

“You are never guilty, are you, Caroline? No one can ever make you behave as if you have done wrong.”

“Frederich, what are you talking about?”

“This is the money he sent for you to come to him,” Frederich said, snatching up some paper bills from the table and all but throwing them at her. They fluttered to the floor between them. “And the letter he had translated into English. English, Caroline! Eli has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure you understand him…” He began to smooth out the crumpled page, and read aloud

I gave my word to take care of you, but I have failed. I thought I could leave things as they are, but it is too painful to think of you there with Frederich when I
know how you feel about him. I want you to come here. I am sending you the money. You can have a new life and I can keep my promise. I know you have no reason to put your trust in me. That afternoon in the church I would have stayed with you, helped you, but I understood how much you didn’t want Mary Louise and Lise to see you—

“You and Eli were together—in the church—with my children there!”

“No, that’s not true,” she said, horrified that he could think such a thing of her. “It wasn’t like that—I was
in
the church at the same time he was that day, but I wasn’t
with
him.”

“Then what does he mean about staying longer with you—about keeping the girls from seeing you?”