The Bartered Bride

“Don’t cry,” Mary Louise said, her eyes big. She reached out to give Caroline little sympathetic hit-and-miss pats on the arm. “Papa can bring you candy next he goes to townpeppermint candy, Aunt Caroline. Then you’ll feel better. Don’t cry.”

“I won’t,” she said. “But I think I need a hug and a kiss until the peppermint gets here.”

She was immediately swamped with affection. She was so glad to be with the girls. She was glad, too, that Frederich didn’t seem interested in her except as a children’s nurse. Perhaps she could stand it here—if she didn’t have to worry about whether or not Frederich would spend the night in her bed.

She abruptly looked up at the sky. The sun was lowering. “I think we’ve missed the Mittagessen,“ she said, getting up from her knees.

“No, we didn’t,” Lise said. “Beata didn’t call us.”

Exactly, Caroline thought but didn’t say.

They walked hand in hand back to the house. Apparently Frederich had eaten and gone, because Beata had already cleared the table. She glanced up when they came in, but she didn’t interrupt her dishwashing.

“I don’t wait a meal forever,” she said. “You heard me calling you.”

Caroline took a deep breath. “No,” she said evenly. “Apparently Lise and Mary Louise—”

“If you chose to ignore me then you go—”

“—and I have all gone deaf!”

“—hungry!”

Beata turned her back.

“The children need to eat, Beata,” Caroline said, trying hard not to lose her temper.

“Of course they do,” Beata said, but she made no move in that direction.

Caroline waited. Finally, Beata looked around at her.

“If I understand the rules,” she said, “that is your job.”

“Fine,” Caroline said. She didn’t mind putting together a meal for the children; she just didn’t want to have to fight Beata tooth and nail to do it. She managed to melt cheese on bread she toasted in the heavy iron skillet with legs—without dragging her skirts through the hot coals or burning the bread.

The meal was pleasant enough, the rest of the day was pleasant enough, at least until Frederich returned. The sun was nearly down when he came in. He was ill-tempered and clearly exhausted. Caroline took the children upstairs almost immediately after they’d eaten to keep them out of his way. He was the old Frederich she remembered, and she didn’t want Lise and Mary Louise any more distressed by the day’s events than they already were.

She waited until they were both asleep and the house quiet before she unbolted the door and came downstairs again. She felt assured now that, for the moment at least, Frederich had no intention of demanding his conjugal rights, but she was still far too restless to retire. She intended to flagrantly take some wood from the back porch so that she could have a fire in her room upstairs. She wanted to create a warm, quiet place to read for a time before she went to bed. She had always been able to take pleasure in little things, a talent she would sorely need in this house.

She made her way to the worktable in the kitchen without lighting a lamp, then felt along it toward the back door. The moon was shining when she stepped outside, the night quiet and frosty. She could make out the wood box in the dark, and she loaded her arms with one log and several smaller cut pieces, hoping she hadn’t included a spider. She stood for a moment looking out across the field toward the Holt farm. Avery was still awake. She could see a light from the house shining through the trees. She wondered idly why he hadn’t come today to fetch the horse he’d loaned to Frederich. That he’d loan it in the first place was amazing enough. That he hadn’t come after it today was incredible.