The Bartered Bride

“Sitzt sich!” Frederich bellowed, trying to make him sit down.

Eli pulled free and began to speak over the clamor around him.

“Eli says he owns half the land, half the farm,” Leah translated rapidly. “He says he has the right to take whoever he pleases—and his uncle is—”

Her translation was interrupted by another outburst from Frederich.

Sit down! Sit down! Caroline prayed, as if her litany could stop whatever Eli was doing by sheer force of will. Oh, dear God, she thought. Everyone will think Eli is the one.

Eli Graeber suddenly looked in her direction, but he was speaking to Johann Rial. Then he was making his way to where she sat, waiting at the end of the pew for Johann to join him.

“Eli wants to know what you say,” Leah said.

“I don’t say anything!” She sat with her head bowed, as if she could hide somehow. Everyone was staring at her— she tried desperately not to cry. She hadn’t expected this. In her worst nightmare she hadn’t expected this.

“Come, Caroline,” Leah said, trying to get her to stand up.

“No-please. No!”

“Caroline, Eli and Johann want to talk to you!” Leah whispered urgently.

“Leah, I can’t—I have to get out of here!”

She would have tried to run, but both John Steigermann and his wife had gotten up so that Eli could come into the pew and Leah was blocking the other way out. She was hopelessly trapped. Eli was actually going to address her here and now, in front of all these people.

“Caroline Holt,” he said.

She forced herself to look up at him, and she was immediately struck by two things. How determined he looked. And how unhappy.

“Eli, what are you trying to do?” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t understand. Then she abruptly covered her face with her hands. I can’t bear this! I can’t!

“Caroline Holt,” he said again. “Sehen Sie mich an.”

“Eli says to look at him,” Leah translated.

“Bitte,” Eli said. “Don’t be…afraid,” he managed in English.

Caroline turned away from him. Afraid? She wasn’t afraid. She was humiliated.

He held his hand out to her, much the way he had that day he found her on the schoolroom stairs.

“Come. We talk now,” he said. “You come away from all these—” He gestured toward the people around them. “Their business is—not to know—”

He stopped struggling to find the English words and simply waited, his hand still outstretched.

A farmer’s hand, Caroline thought. A hand like Avery’s. Like Frederich’s and her father’s.

“Kommen Sie,” Eli said. “I…help you.”

Help? she thought incredulously. He had made a spectacle of her. How could he help?

He abruptly reached for her hand and she let him pull her upward, not because she intended to talk to him, but because he was the only way out of this place. When had she ever talked to Eli Graeber about anything? There was only that one time, that day in the church when he’d kept Mary Louise and Lise from seeing her. How much had he understood then? How much did he understand now?

She glanced at Johann Rial. He wanted to say something very badly. Then she took a deep breath and let Eli lead her out of the pew. They followed Johann, and she meant to keep her eyes straight ahead, to look at no one in their all too public trek to the vestry. But like a moth lured into the candle flame, at the last moment, she looked at the congregation. Her eyes immediately locked with Frederich Graeber’s, and she couldn’t keep from faltering. The raw emotion, the anger she saw there, led her to but one conclusion. Frederich Graeber wasn’t made of stone after all.

The vestry smelled of hymnals and dust and candle wax. Caroline waited for Johann to stop talking. Her breath came out in a white cloud in the frigid room, and her hands felt stiff and cold. She wanted to move to the far corner away from the door, because she truly felt that if Johann hadn’t been standing in the way, she would have bolted.

“Do you understand what’s happened?” Johann finally asked her.

“Do you?” she countered. She had no idea how she’d come to be in this predicament.

“Caroline, Frederich wants to talk to you.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

The door abruptly opened, and Frederich Graeber stepped into the room. Caroline caught a glimpse of the people on the nearest pews, all of them trying to get a better look. She stood with her head up, the way John Steigermann had counseled. She was not going to cry. She was not.

Frederich glanced in Caroline Holt’s direction, but he said nothing to her, closing the door firmly behind him. “I want to know what you—and Eli—are doing?” he said to Johann in German, lowering his voice so that Leah wouldn’t hear him.

“What I am doing?” Johann said incredulously. Johann’s German was corrupted by years of speaking English and sounded wrong to Frederich’s ears. “This uproar is no doing of mine, Frederich. If anyone is to blame it is you and Avery Holt. The girl didn’t even know there was a marriage pledge until the day John Steigermann took her to his house. My only concern is for this bastard child—”

“You know what people will think!” Frederich interrupted.

“Do you think the baby is Eli’s?”

“If I thought that, Johann, he’d be dead now,” Frederich answered, knowing full well that the only reason he didn’t believe it was the horrified look on Caroline Holt’s face when Eli made his bold offer. Clearly, Frederich wasn’t the only German she held in disdain.

“Yes, and the day isn’t over yet, is it, Frederich?” Johann said pointedly. “What is it you want done—or do you even know? She is your family member with or without the marriage pledge. Are you going to withdraw your pledge? Do you care if her baby is born a bastard or not? If you don’t, then leave. I will find whatever way I can to save this innocent child—even if it is a marriage to Eli.”

Frederich made an impatient gesture. “I will not be indebted to Eli!”

“How much has he to do with your making this marriage pledge in the first place?” Johann asked bluntly.

“Everything,” he said, meeting Johann’s gaze head on.

“You would put Caroline in the middle of the trouble between you and Eli and poor Ann—”

“Poor Ann? I am the one cuckolded!”

“Ann made a wrong choice, and she is the one who died for it. I think it would be better if you did withdraw the marriage pledge to Caroline. Let Eli take her. You carry too much pain and resentment still—”

“She won’t be any better off with Eli, Johann, and you know that. Eli has lived his whole life according to his whim. Ann was one of his whims. What if he changes his mind after he’s married Caroline? Who will be looking after her and her baby then?”

“I will ask if someone else will make the offer—”

“No! I don’t want any more scandal! And I told you. I can’t—won’t—be beholden to Eli. There will be less talk if I keep my pledge—at least they won’t dare say anything to my face. Caroline Holt is my children’s aunt. She has always been kind to them, and as much as I might dislike it, both of the girls need her.”

“And you, Frederich. What is it you need?”