A Marriage of the Heart (25 page)

The faces of the people he’d been introduced and reintroduced to that day spun in a pleasant blur in his mind. Even the beautiful face of Abigail Kauffman was a delight to recall, though he knew he’d frustrated her—and deliberately so. She was too pretty for her own good, he thought with a smile, remembering their brief conversation near an old oak tree in the orange and red glory of early autumn. He’d had to thread his way through a throng of young admirers to reach the girl as she perched in the refuge of the tree, but the other boys had soon melted away
under his penetrating look. But when he’d not shown the apparently expected verbal homage to her beauty, all of her pretense disappeared. He’d been thoroughly charmed by her indignation. But he knew that a girl like Abigail Kauffman was far beyond his reach, especially with a past like his . . .

He sighed and, dismissing the day from his mind, began to pray, thanking
Derr Herr
for all that he’d been given and asking for clarity of direction for the future.

He’d just fallen into the most restful sleep he’d had in days when a furious pounding on the barn door startled him awake. He grabbed for his glasses.

“Kumme!”
he cried, scrambling to button his shirt, thinking it must be some urgent matter for the doctor. Instead, once he managed to focus, he saw Bishop Ebersol and another giant of a man crowd into his small living space, followed by the doctor and his wife.

The giant strode toward him, clenching and unclenching hamlike fists. “Scoundrel!” The huge man growled the word.

Who is he?
Joseph frantically sifted through the identities of people he’d met that day.

“Now, now, Solomon. Let the boy have a breath.” The bishop inserted himself between Joseph and the larger man.

“A breath? A breath is not what he wanted to have today—”

“Everybody ease off!” Dr. Knepp snapped, and there was a brief break in the tension.

“What’s wrong?” Joseph asked.

The bishop cleared his throat. “Son, I just welcomed you back into the community this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well then, what were you doing dallying with Abigail Kauffman not half an hour later?”

“What? Dally—Abigail Kauffman?” Joseph suddenly recognized the strapping man as Abigail’s irate father and took an automatic step backward.

“That’s right . . . try and run!” Mr. Kauffman roared.

Dr. Knepp snorted. “Solomon, where exactly will the boy go in two feet of space and his back to the wall? Just let him explain.” Joseph knew by instinct that a simple denial of any behavior was not going to satisfy Mr. Kauffman. He’d had to defend himself enough in the past to recognize that there were consequences at stake here, and he didn’t like to think where they might lead.

“We talked a little—that’s all,” he exclaimed.

Mr. Kauffman exploded. “At least be man enough to admit that you dishonored her with your kisses and your hands!”

Joseph’s mind whirled. What had the girl been saying? And suddenly, a thought came to him—clear and resonant. Here was a provision from the Lord to have a girl like Abigail Kauffman in his life. It didn’t matter that she’d obviously lied; she was young. Perhaps her father had forced her into it . . .

In any case, his impulsive nature took over. To deny the claim would mean the scorn and possible dismissal of his place in the community, something he’d worked too long and too hard to reclaim. And even though the little miss probably had a reputation for being wild, a woman’s word, her honor, would always be more valuable than a newcomer’s. To admit to the accusations might mean recompense as well, but perhaps not as bad, not in the long run anyway. And he’d have the beautiful Miss Kauffman eating out of his hand for defending her honor.

He lifted his head and met Mr. Kauffman’s blazing eyes. “All right. I was wrong. I behaved . . . poorly with Miss Kauffman. I apologize.”

“There. He admits to it. I’ll get Abigail from the buggy. You can perform the ceremony here.”

“What?” Joseph and Mrs. Knepp spoke in unison.

Mr. Kauffman’s lips quivered, and for an instant Joseph thought he might burst into tears. “The wedding ceremony. The bishop will do it here, now. When I think of what Abigail must
have been feeling . . .” He swiped at his forehead with a rumpled handkerchief.

“Solomon, let Joseph explain,” Mrs. Knepp urged.

“
Nee
. . .
nee
. . . I will see her done right by—” He broke off and tightened his massive jaw. “To think it’s come to this for my girl.” The big man turned and left the barn.

Joseph resisted the urge to speak. He hadn’t expected a marriage . . . a courtship maybe, but a wedding? “Do I have a choice?” he finally asked the bishop.

“Not if you want to stay.
Nee
. Mr. Kauffman will go to the community to defend what he thinks is right.”

Joseph nodded and ran his hands through his hair. Things could be worse; he could have been denied a chance to come back. A marriage seemed a worthy price for what he’d received that morning. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”

Dr. Knepp spoke with low urgency. “Joseph, I know you didn’t touch her. You didn’t have time, and you were in plain view. Tell the truth—the deacons will vote—”

“
Nee
. . . I’ll not take the risk. It means everything to me to be back here, to find and keep a place, a home . . .”

Mr. Kauffman was sliding the barn door back open.

“Seth, do something,” Mrs. Knepp begged in a whisper.

Dr. Knepp shrugged his shoulders. “The boy agrees.”

“As well he might,” Mr. Kauffman growled. He pulled Abigail into the room behind him. She was dressed in blue, and she kept her eyes downward.

Joseph considered the girl as the faces of the deacons flashed behind his eyes. He wondered for a moment how they would vote before he snapped back to awareness as the bishop joined his hands with Abigail’s.

She wouldn’t look at him. Maybe she was being driven to this. The thought gave him pause; she should have the right to choose.

“Do you want this?” Joseph asked, speaking to the top of her
kapp
.

She gazed up at him then. Her blue eyes were dead-steady calm. He’d seen eyes like those behind the wrong end of a gun, and now he wondered if she’d had a forceful hand in the matter herself.

“Ya,”
she murmured, dropping her gaze once more.

Her hands were ice cold though, and he rubbed his thumbs around the outside of her fingers as he listened to the bishop speak in High German. It was like a dream, really. The light from the lamp Mrs. Knepp held high threw strange shadows across the corners of the room and made crouching things out of chairs and the table.

He was asked the simple, life-binding questions that would make Abigail Kauffman his wife, and his answers were steady—as were hers. And then it was over.

It seemed anticlimactic. There was no kiss or hug of goodwill between the couple. And once he saw his job done, Mr. Kauffman seemed to shrivel to a shell of a man whom the bishop had to pat on the back for reassurance.

Joseph let go of her hands and finished buttoning his shirt, ignoring the way Abigail’s eyes strayed to his chest. He tensed his jaw and walked over to his new father-in-law.

“Mr. Kauffman—it’s my plan to be a help and not a hindrance to you all of my days. I know you farm alone with some hired help. You won’t need as much help anymore. I need the work, and I’m good at it. Abigail and I will take up living with you in the morning, with your permission, of course.”

“Ya,”
the older man said, clearly surprised. “
Ya
, that would be
gut
; I would miss Abigail about.”

Joseph nodded; it was done.

A
BIGAIL TRIED TO REGULATE HER BREATHING AS SHE LISTENED
to her dreams of freedom being swept away like a house
on a flood plain. It didn’t matter at the moment that Joseph had defended her honor and married her out of hand. She opened and closed her mouth like a gasping fish as her father and the others filed out the door, leaving her alone with her new husband.

Joseph pulled an extra quilt and pillow from a shelf near the bed and knelt to lay them on the floor. She watched his strong, long-fingered hands ease each wrinkle until he looked up.

Then she said the first thing she could get out. “Are you
narrisch
?”

“What? For saving you from your lies? You can have a lifetime to thank me properly.”

She strode to face him, stepping on his clean quilt. He gazed up at her.

“I don’t care about the lies! Are you crazy to have told my father that we’ll live with him? You didn’t even consult me.”

He choked out a laugh. “And you consulted me about this wedding, wife?”

He gave a swift tug to the hem of her skirt, and she lost her balance, landing beside him. He leaned very near to her, and she felt her heart pulse in a curious sensation.

“Just tell me your father forced you into this,” he whispered, reaching to brush a stray tendril of white-gold hair behind her ear.

Abigail couldn’t bring herself to lie again, not when she was feeling so strange and fluttery inside. She shook her head. “I cannot tell you that.”

He ran a finger down her cheek. “I thought not; I just wanted to hear you say it. But why me? I’m genuinely curious.”

She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “I–I just thought that you were handsome, and I . . .”

“Please,” he sighed, running a hand beneath his glasses and then studying her again. “Just tell me the truth.”

“You came over,” she burst out, “and then you just talked and mocked me. You treated me like a little girl, and then I thought
that if you had to marry me, it might work out well for both of us. You’re used to the
Englisch
ways, and I want the
Englisch
ways. We could live here and you could work for Dr. Knepp, and I could—”

“You could do exactly as you pleased, is that it? Without Daddy to interfere? With a husband who was on his knees this afternoon, begging for community, and not likely to make a fuss?” His voice was level but mocking.

“Ya,”
she whispered in misery.

“Well then, you got more than you bargained for, my sweet.” He lifted her chin so that she was forced to meet his dark eyes. “I don’t want the
Englisch
ways, Abigail Lambert—that’s why I came back. And I will honor this marriage and the responsibilities it entails. And my expectation is for you to do the same.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond, but dropped his hand and lay down on the quilt, rolling over to his side and clutching the pillow to his middle.

She stared at his broad back.

She wanted to smack him a good one. Instead she sniffed and, with as much dignity as she could muster, rose to go and lie sleepless and chilled on the comfortable bed of her wedding night.

CHAPTER TWO

A
BIGAIL WATCHED THE SUNLIGHT BREAK THROUGH THE TWO
small windows of the little barn and shifted in silence to stare down at her husband lying on the floor. The quilt was tangled about his lean hips, and one suspender had slipped down in his sleep. His hand was curled under his dark head, and he still held the pillow close to his middle, almost protectively. His glasses lay on the hardwood floor near the edge of the quilt. She let her appraising gaze trace down the fine bones of his face and the firm set of his jaw. He looked younger without his glasses, and she wondered how old he was, exactly. She herself had just turned twenty. She’d have to ask him.

She’d lain awake all night thinking, praying, and discarding plans as to how she might make him agree not to move back to her father’s house. The best she could come up with was to try and get Dr. and Mrs. Knepp’s support, since they’d gone to all the trouble of making up this place for him. She slipped like a wraith from the bed and tiptoed over Joseph, sliding open the well-oiled door and heading for the main house. She saw a light in the kitchen and knocked on the back screen door.

Mrs. Knepp appeared and cracked the door. “Good morning. Come in.”

Abigail stood in the warm kitchen, her eyes tracing the neat shelves and the display of order that permeated the place.

“Are you hungry?”

“
Nee
. . . well, just a little.”

“Seth’s out on a call. I’ll have something ready for you in a minute.”

“Danki.”
Abigail slid onto the bench at the table and watched the older woman’s deft movements at the stove. She knew Mrs. Knepp did not especially like her but also knew that the doctor’s wife would not be unkind. Abigail ran a small finger around the grain of a knothole on the table and bit her lip, for once unsure of what to say.

“How was your sleep?”

“
Ach
, fine. Just fine.” Then she flushed as she realized that it was to have been her actual wedding night, and she sounded a bit too casual.

“Joseph’s a good man; you’re a very fortunate young lady.” Mrs. Knepp placed a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, and toast in front of her.