The Wedding Bargain

Still vexed with herself, Charity’s hand rose instinctively to her throat. She had ten five-pound notes and one precious gold coin. Would that be sufficient?

“If God wills it be so.”

Sometimes it was hard to accept the burden Providence dealt without feeling bitter. Charity knew her own assets and liabilities, and meek acceptance wasn’t on the list. She did try to take the restless center she’d discovered within herself and make stillness and serenity of it. She did try. The Lord knew she did.

But prayer and penitence were not enough to stifle the bothersome energy within her. There was something inside her, some force that drove her, made her want to defy convention, to be her own woman, independent of any man. To laugh aloud as she had before her marriage to Ezra Frey.

Charity sighed. Such things could never be. Life moved forward, never back. Ezra was dead. Her twin sons, Benjamin and Isaac, needed guidance.

Somehow, she should carry out God’s words with meekness. Yet God Himself had not given clear instructions about the right road. And Charity was not convinced that the elders knew best, simply because they were men. She knew she was neither ignorant nor simple, and there came a time in a woman’s life when she had to stop being sensible, when she had to stand up and be counted…

That time had come.

If she did not wish to marry Amos Saybrook, she would not.

Her decision made, Charity felt as if a dark weight had been lifted from her soul. She became aware of the world around her. Like a torrent of molten gold, sunlight poured into the open marketplace, intensifying the cleanly pungent odors of farm animals, fresh picked vegetables, hemp and ripe cheese.

Dismayed, Charity also espied a small, terrierlike figure with fair hair and a lean, jutting jaw hurrying toward her.

“This idea of yours is repulsive, Charity!” the newcomer snapped. “These are the misfits of society. Surely you’d not demean the memory of our poor, departed Ezra by replacing him with such trash?”

Resentment stirred within Charity. Never once had she spoken to another creature in the insolent tone Leah Saybrook used with her. Charity might be headstrong, defiant, and might often act without thinking, but she always told the truth as she saw it.

“The simple fact is that Ezra is dead. That is precisely why I need a man about the place.”

“You need a husband. Isaac and Benjamin need a strong hand so they learn right from wrong and keep their backs turned to all evildoers.”

Oh, the insolence of the woman! Charity was shaking inside, but she held her ground.

“That will do, Leah Saybrook. I do not need your advice on how to run my affairs. Now that Ezra is gone, my life is my own to do with as I choose. I have brought up my two boys to fear the Lord and never take His name in vain. If I choose to purchase a bond servant, I will, and that is that.”

“The elders become more incensed with each reckless action. Why are you so obsessed with independence?” Leah waved her arms angrily. Hot color flooded her face, and she gave a queer, gasping little laugh. “I fear Amos will think you have contracted a leave of your senses in pursuing such a foolish course.”

A fury of resentment possessed Charity, but sensing her self-control to be tottering, she dared not give vent to her feelings. She was pleased to hear her voice held naught but tender reproach as she answered, “’Tis better to have an indentured servant, even one who is the devil’s bait, than another husband.”

If possible, Leah Saybrook’s fair skin flamed more brightly. “There’s no need to be so uppity, Charity Frey. My brother asks to wed you only because he feels beholden.”

Charity stifled an angry retort, and allowed her face to beam as brightly as if she had swallowed a piece of the summer sun. “Then tell him from me that he need not feel beholden. Ezra’s death was caused by his own foolishness, not by a reprisal of the Pequots because Amos Saybrook saw fit to seduce one of their women.”

Though a mocking smile formed on Leah’s full lips, there was a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “You have the arrogance of Beelzebub himself, Mistress Frey. The only way you’ll keep your land is to wed. Good help is hard to find, and Amos is prepared to take on your two hellion sons and raise them as his own. You have their future to think on.”

Charity struggled to control her anger. She raised her shoulders slightly, and her delicate nostrils flared. Her eyes narrowed. “My sons are my concern, just as my land is mine. I intend to keep it that way.”

“You’d take a convict to lodge with you? What will people say?” Leah’s voice became a hiss.

“That I’m as much a fool as ever.”

“And Amos?”

Charity made a sharp movement—a gesture that was almost passionate, before it became a slight shrug. “Precisely the same.”

“Perfidious creature. To live only in the flesh!”

The injustice burned Charity. Never had there been any slackness in her morals. Had Ezra not sworn them both to celibacy after the birth of the twins had been decreed by the elders to be a result of excessive fornication? And not once in nine long years had they broken that solemn vow.

She locked her hands together in front of her. “That is not very generous of you, Mistress Saybrook. Didn’t Bible readings tell you not to judge others by yourself?”

“What’s the use of trying to reason with you, Charity Frey? You have made up your mind to take a felon rather than a respected citizen.” Leah’s voice was colder and harder than the thick ice that formed on the river throughout the winter months.

The indecency of it! The common, wretched vulgarity of it! Spoken to as if she were some loose servant girl!

“Even so, I’ll take my chances,” Charity resolved. “A graduate of New Haven Prison is a better proposition than Amos.” She lifted her hand and made an airy gesture, expressive of semihumorous regret. “I’d rather house a genuine convict, with hair looking like bog weeds and reeking of the swamp, than a sly, avaricious man who holds the Bible in one hand and gropes at a girl’s leg with the other.”

Charity turned toward the auction block to hide her face, knowing it must be cherry red. How had those vile words escaped her mouth? It was nothing to her if Amos Saybrook was a lecherous philanderer intent on bedding every girl in the Commonwealth of Connecticut.

Still, it was not like her to be so rude, and what a supremely contemptuous example she was setting for her sons! She glanced at the boys, raising her brows in mute interrogation, but they were busily scuffing at tufts of grass and did not seem to notice anything amiss.

“The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, Charity Frey.” There was more than a hint of sharpness in Leah’s rejoinder. “You will live to regret your wicked words. I’ll report your disgusting lies to the church elders, and let’s see how haughty you are when you are forced to ask pardon before the entire meetinghouse.”

Abruptly, Leah turned and walked away, light-footed, swift as a bird. A hard lump of anger formed in Charity’s throat. She had made an enemy there, she knew, when before she had looked on the Saybrooks as friends.

She shrugged mentally. There was no help for it. Now that she had been so foolishly outspoken, she was obliged to refuse Amos before she was good and ready.

To the devil with the whole stupid business of attending market today, anyway. But for the dire necessity of obtaining a laborer, she would not have had to confront Amos Saybrook until Sunday.

“Charity?” The voice of Thirza Arnold, her neighbour and friend, broke through her reverie. “You look a bit strange. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” With a shake of her head, Charity forced herself back to the present. Her voice remained carefully casual. “Boys, go with Mistress Arnold and help set up the refreshment stall. Take a care of Jemima, now. I’ll join you after the auction.”

Isaac and Benjamin dutifully clasped five-year-old Jemima Arnold’s hands and sedately followed Thirza. Charity rejoiced to see the little girl’s pretty face so animated and cheerful. Lately Charity had begun to feel twinges of anxiety about Jemima, but was able to banish them at least for today, for she chattered to the boys like a merry bird.

Charity turned back toward the auction block. Everything within her was resisting the task that lay ahead. She would coddle her conscience until Sunday’s lecture—and by then it would be too late for the elders to interfere.

* * *

Raphael Trehearne licked his lips, a gesture that spoke more of common impotence than his aristocratic background. The sun’s molten heat beat on his head, rousing a dull ache—something he noted only vaguely. Nothing for several days had had the power to upset or worry him. Not since he’d tried to escape and had received a blow on the head with a chain for his efforts.

He had been drifting in a gray, lifeless landscape that had no secure points of reference and from which there seemed no deliverance. If he thought of anything specific at all for any length of time, the thrumming in his head began again.

At the back of his mind, he knew he was to be sold, like a beast at market. Somehow that didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing mattered. He was too tired, too bone weary, to care.

It was the sound of a child’s soprano voice that penetrated the colorless miasma, rousing him from endless inertia, bringing him back to the present. He clung to the sound. Heard the woman’s soft response, warm as honey, from far away.

It was the longing to know the owner of that sweet, feminine voice that made him open his eyes. She stood there, a thing of infinite daintiness, so exquisite in her fairy grace. Pale skin tinged with pink, high cheekbones, a delicate chin and eyes of blue green rimmed with sooty lashes enhanced the fey image.

The very freshness of her was a danger that put him on his guard. There was a lack of humility in those strange, sea-colored eyes, which sat oddly under the hooded coif that most Puritan women wore to hide their hair from the eyes of men. Her simple black dress gave her a quaintly demure air that was belied by the rounded bodice and tiny waist. This was a woman to cherish, not scorn.

She glanced up at him without fear or modesty, and then changed into a veritable wanton, her full lips open, as if she would eat him for supper. His eyebrows arched in sudden suspicion.