Arms of Love (22 page)

If Isaac looked amazed, then pleased, she barely noted it as he lifted her hand in his. She tried desperately to feel something, anything, beyond the simple warmth of another human’s touch, but there was no sensation, no thrilling in her body in response to his nearness. But, she told herself sternly, that might be just as well. Perhaps all she had with Adam had been of the physical, of the world.

She jerked her mind back to the moment when she realized that Isaac was speaking.

“You will have no regrets, Lena. I will help mold your soul into the likeness of Christ’s, and it will be my pleasure.”

She looked up into his earnest dark eyes and nodded.

“May I kiss you?” he asked in a half-giddy voice.

She nodded again blankly. How strange a question. Yet Adam had asked, his voice hoarse and low . . . and then they simply had— Isaac’s mouth was on hers with a bruising pressure, a wet, driving lack of finesse, and she almost withdrew. Then she tried to guide him, to soften her lips, but he had finished. He stood back and stared at her, a glazed look in his eyes, while she resisted the urge to swipe her hand across her lips.

“I would speak with your father just the same. And you will wait expectantly, as a woman of
gut
character should, praying for his blessing.”

She murmured her assent, turning to watch him go, as she felt the flowers fall from her limp fingertips to scatter on the ground.

Chapter 18

A
dam left the Wistars’ home with two panes of glass, a full belly, and an easier mind; he had ceased to question the actions of his father. And, most importantly, he knew how much he loved Lena.

He knew it, and thinking on her words about obeying and sacrificing probably meant that she had some idea in her head about helping him in some way—with his dreams, his life. He thought this evenly and without conceit. There was some part of her that he understood with as much awe and inspiration as he felt when seeing a newborn foal, as if all the world, and worlds upon worlds, were twined and leveled upon the wonder of the small being. Lena was that to him, and that could not be lost. He would not allow it to be lost, even as he strived to keep his promise to Mary Yoder.

He crossed the busy, dusty street and hugged the brown-paper-wrapped glass close to his side. It would not do to have so much as a single crack in the valuable stuff to take back to his father. Adam was surprised at the density of the populous on the narrow walking street; it seemed that the war brought more and more people to what he’d heard called “the most important inland city of the day.” He paused in this jostling crowd when he thought he heard his name being called.

“Adam! Adam Wyse!”

He turned in time to see Major Dale Ellis waving a long arm at him over the heads of the crowd. He turned, eager to meet his friend, when the protruding point of a lady’s parasol poked him in the eye. He blinked automatically, but failed to keep a good hold on the package when the woman stopped to make apology. Her skirts bustled against him, and he steadied himself away from her only to be elbowed by a youth with a stick and hoop racing past. Adam dropped the glass and watched the package be trampled beneath a dozen or more passing feet. He sighed aloud.

The woman with the green-striped parasol seemed oblivious to the diversion she was causing, midstream as it were, and smiled up at Adam from beneath coy dark lashes.

“Forgive me,” she mouthed over the din of the passersby.

He rubbed his tearing eye and nodded, sidling past her to where Dale Ellis met him a few steps away. The British major, still clad in his blue coat with clean linen, caught his arm eagerly.

The woman with the parasol stepped toward them both. “Gentlemen,” she said, “please accompany me for some refreshment in exchange for the loss of your package.”

Adam was already shaking his head when Dale spoke up in a cheerful bellow. “Our thanks, my lady, but we must attend to something pressing. Our regrets.”

Adam had turned away with Dale when the woman let out a sudden screech. “Thieves! Thieves! Stop them. They’ve stolen my purse!”

Adam spun back around, his eyes alert, searching the crowd for any erratic movement, when he was hit forcibly from behind in the shoulder. Then he saw Dale take a strong blow to his cheek.

“’Ere now, what’s this? Robbin’ a lady? Now that ain’t nice!”

Adam realized that a pack of four men, ragged and dirty looking, had formed a tough circle around Dale and himself.

“There has been a mistake,” Adam asserted calmly.

“Right. That’s why her purse is a-hangin’ from your waist.” The one who seemed to be the leader pointed a grubby finger at Adam.

Adam looked down in amazement to see a green velvet purse hanging by its looped strings on the top of his knife sheath. Immediately his eyes sought those of the woman, and she looked away. He had been tricked.

He unlooped the purse and handed it to the woman. She took it with a detached air of restlessness that made him uneasy. The ringleader looked to them with a half-toothed smile. “Now you gents need to pay yer fair share to keep this little thieving away from the eyes of the militia.”

“I will not pay to—” Adam broke off when he saw Dale’s flushed face. Of course he had to pay. If convicted of thievery or any other crime, Dale could be executed on the spot. Adam reached inside his vest for a bag of coins, noticing that the crowd had somehow thinned around them, almost as if people knew there was a crime being committed. They didn’t want to be involved and had skittered away like water bugs on a pond.

Adam fingered the small leather sack that held his wages from two weeks of work, and something wild and fierce and flamelike swept through him. It consumed him, from his hair to his toes, and he had no desire to still the feeling. He had never felt such compelling rage, such power—and he thought of the unseen menace of the mountain lion that had attempted to prey on Lena and himself.

He thrust the sack of coins back into his vest and put his head down. With a low, guttural growl, he rammed into the leader, knocking him hard against the brick of the wall behind him. He felt the give of breath and flesh and hit the man hard again before turning to find Dale struggling with the others. Adam knew they would soon draw the eyes of the law enforcement, and with a blind, ruthless precision, he curled his fingers into fists. With fluid, animal-like movements, he watched, as if outside himself, as the others fell beneath his blows. He had his hand on his
messer
when Dale caught his arm and shook him.

“Enough. Enough, Adam. They are finished. We can go.”

Adam clung to the very syllables of his friend’s words, watching them flash behind his eyes as if illumined by some divine light. He saw the words and began to sob, low, guttural sounds that did not seem to be his own. The last thing he remembered was Dale slinging an arm round his shoulders and telling him things would be all right. But Adam was not sure, not of anything. It was as if the very earth had slipped from beneath his sensible shoes and he’d been transformed into the instinctual beast that all men could be. But worse, he had wanted it. He, an Amish man. He drew a shuddering breath.
I wanted it
. . .

Lena tried to push the reality of her engagement to the back of her mind, as if it were some surreal thing that she could face later—much later. She reasoned that she had the time of courtship, until the bishop came through, traveling by mule, to perform the marriage ceremony. But the niggling truth that Bishop Mast could prompt his aged beast and even more aged self down through the Indian trails any day loomed as a very real probability. And then there was Adam to face . . . She thought he might have been told by now, though she had only given her consent that afternoon. What must he think of her? Then she told herself stoutly that it did not matter, so long as
Gott
knew the truth about her choice.

“What are you thinking of, dearie?”

Lena turned from the kitchen table to smile at Ruth. There was not a day that went by that Lena did not thank
Derr Herr
for the
Englisch
woman’s miraculous appearance at the farm. And certainly, Faith was gaining strength and beauty by the day. Lena had even gone so far as to speak to her
fater
about something she had in mind to do for Ruth, but she had needed his permission.

“I am thinking of you,” Lena said in a gay voice. “Won’t you come with me into my
mamm
and—I mean, my
fater’s
room for a moment while Faith sleeps?”

Ruth caught up the bustle of her ragged skirts. “Sure enough, love. Is there cleaning to be done then?”

Lena shook her head as she held wide the downstairs bedroom door. “
Nee
. Please come in.”

Ruth followed into the room that neither of them had really visited since the day of Faith’s birth. Lena had changed the bedding for her father in a brisk manner, lowering her gaze from taking in the sorrow of the room. But now she could smile a bit at the bright cream walls and the fading light of the day that fell in through the windows and across the wide-planked floor.

She went to the foot of the bed and knelt on the floor next to the simply carved large hope chest that rested there. “
Kumme.
” She motioned for Ruth to join her on the floor, which the older woman did with a grunt and a groan.

“Is this yer treasure chest then, dearie?” Ruth smiled.

“
Nee
, but it is a treasure of sorts.” She raised the wooden lid, and the smell of fresh cedar filled the room. Lena could not help but think of her
mamm
, but she pressed on. She reached into the dim interior of the trunk and withdrew the three shifts that rested on top, pulling the fabric into her lap.

“My
mamm’s
clothes and things,” she said in a soft voice. “I spoke with Fater. We would like you to have them.”

Ruth looked shocked and pulled back to rest on her haunches, her big eyes welling with tears.

“What? I cannot take any of yer mother’s things. They’re fer you girls and John’s future wife to have as keepsakes, like.”

Lena thrust the simple linen shifts at her friend and smiled. “A lot of good but for the moths would these clothes be as keepsakes. I know
Mamm
was smaller than you, but I thought we could use the fabric and make up at least one or two complete new outfits.”

Lena tried to ignore the scent of her mother that wafted up from the clothes, but she could not, and a myriad of poignant memories seemed to swim behind her eyes. She thanked God again for the oddly mothering figure of Ruth Stone.

“You must take them with joy, Ruth, for that is what the Lord would have for you. And you have given me much joy since the Lord sent you here.”

The older woman cleared her throat. “Well, as to that . . . mebbe He did send me. But the one who actually brought me was that tall Amish man I seen you ride away with on the day of your father’s trial.”