The Wedding Bargain

The preacher began to rock back and forth slightly on his booted feet. He spoke with heavy delicacy. “Though the present circumstances make me wish otherwise, I’m bound to agree with you, Charity.”

Rafe could see the relief flow through Charity, washing away her tension and uncertainty. Of course, this scion of respectability had not surrendered completely. The Puritan turned away from Charity and took a step closer to Rafe. He smiled, a thin, humorless little smile, his eyes gleaming with scorn and anger. “In truth, sire, you are a rascal and a villain, but with a scrub and decent garb, some of the prison stench may leave your body, if not your soul. Prayer and penitence will do that. No doubt you’ll be seated with us at the meetinghouse on Sunday?”

Rafe bowed deeply from the waist, then looked Amos full in the face. He made a valiant effort to give one of his sweetest smiles. The strain was making him light-headed. His tongue felt thick.

“You are too kind, Master Saybrook. While you honor me beyond my wildest hopes, it would never do for someone in your high position to be seen consorting with a servant, especially a miserable creature whose indenture has seven long years to run.”

Rafe’s head ached dully. He remembered other pain. The heat. Flames that lapped intermittently at his bare feet, his ankles, for they would not allow the redcoat warrior to die quickly. He recalled the fierce glare of the sun, searing his eyeballs and drying his throat painfully. The pull on his wrist increased to agony…

He blinked, looked around. The compound was empty, the distant mountain mute and green. A boy was doing a balancing act on the edge of a wagon. He saw the freckled face, the shining eyes, the wide, white grin. There were other faces that should be here, but weren’t.

They’re inside your head.

He could not endure the thought, but there was no escaping it. He heard a sound, metal on metal. Danger. Was it the snick of a rifle trigger? He blinked again.

For an instant, light flooded his brain—light so cruel, so bright, that it was like staring into the sun—and the woman was in its path! He exploded into action.

The hatchet’s bright blade came at him. His momentum took him toward it. Past it, a dark blur. Plant the feet, breathe in, swing with the mass of his frame, pushing from his ankles. A heaving, rounded breast. A flurry of skirts.

He regained his feet and pivoted again to meet the threat.

There was none.

Charity Frey lay on her face, her breath making small puffs in the dust, so he knew she was alive. The tithing man was standing in the same posture as moments before, but now his mouth was agape, as if he was trying to figure out what had happened. The Frey twins were leaning over the wagon edge gazing at him in open admiration, identical freckled faces alight with excitement. One spoke.

“Can you show me how to do that, bondman? Did you see him, Mama? He moved quicker than lightning!”

Rafe panted, gulping for air as the woman scrambled to her feet. Irritably she shook away his extended hand. “I’m all right!”

She stood before him, staring at him, nervously brushing at her skirt, attempting to straighten her bonnet. A lock of copper hair had escaped the confines of her coif.

Rafe knew he didn’t belong to himself. His skin still burned from the brief contact of his palm on her breast. His insides trembled. Damn it. He had survived every torture devised by man while a prisoner of the Iroquois. Why was his body doing cartwheels now?

The high-pitched, nervous giggle of a small boy splintered his brain and body. Panic clutched him. A gray mist was swirling around the edges of his vision.

“Isaac! What tomfoolery have you been up to?”

Rafe heard the boy’s answer, trembling, remote. His voice was hollow, coming from a formless, shifting wasteland, slightly off-key. “Oh, Mama! I was only reflecting light off the ax head—making secret signals to Benjie like the Indians do. And it was his turn, only I dropped it onto the wagon wheel!”

Reflections! Rafe Trehearne, you’ve been to hell and back. Heard men scream until their voices were gone and after that go on screaming with their eyes until they died. And you perform like a monkey on a string at the antics of a couple of boys!

The tithing man spoke. “That boy needs a good beating!”

Charity whirled, hands on hips, a tigress protecting her cub. She drew in several deep breaths.

She was scared, Rafe realized numbly. Trying not to show it, but scared.

“He’s only nine!”

It was a cry of desperation. Rafe could see the heaving of her sweetly curved breast.

Amos shrugged. “Isaac is behind every mischief. He can’t be allowed to smile and laugh and entice others to the same evil.”

“I know that,” Charity said. “But I also know there are other ways to discipline a small boy than by beating him!”

Time was suspended. Charity gazed at the tithing man, wide-eyed. He was staring at her too, his expression aghast.

Rafe yielded to a sudden, fierce and irrational desire to protect her. He was swaying on his feet now but didn’t know it. He stood in front of Amos Saybrook, all dark, masculine arrogance, wearing his tattered convict garb as proudly as if he wore silken robes of majesty. It was odd how pride remained when all else had vanished.

“The boy is not to blame, Master Saybrook. It was all my fault—and there’s no damage been done.” He gave another deep, formal bow. “If you’ll excuse us, we must be leaving now.”

He bowed again and was in the wagon before the dark color appearing on the tithing man’s cheeks had risen to his brow.

The exertion was too much. There were hammers at Rafe’s temples. Drums. His tall body went suddenly limp, and he slumped, then crumpled to the wagon floor as darkness swallowed him up.

The diamond-paned window was wide open, and the night air blew in fresh and pure, fragrant with the rich scent of dew-drenched pines and the cool of the mountain behind.

There was a large moth in the room. Attracted there by the light of the candles, it seemed to be dashing to and fro now, in a wild search for freedom. Shadows bloomed against the ceiling, shifting, reforming, as the moth flitted dizzily round and round the candle.

Charity followed its movements, fascinated, as it circled closer and closer to the flame. Suddenly, it made a headlong dash for the fire. There came a sharp crackle and then a dull thud as it fell upon the floor. A great shudder caught her, almost convulsed her.

At that same instant the door opened. Charity looked up. A head appeared, eyes widening as they met hers. Isaac hesitated, drew back, slid around the door, looking guilty but determined. His twin followed.

“Is he dead, Mama?” Benjamin asked in a breathless rush.

Charity shook herself, put a lock on her thoughts. The child was making reference to the bondman, lying on the parlor sofa, not to the small, dark object on the polished wood floor.

Limbs loose, hands limp, Rafe lay unmoving, only the rise and fall of his chest suggesting life. He was waxy pale, but the soft sigh of his breathing sounded normal.

“No, Benjie.”

Isaac bit his lip. “Will he die, Mama?”

“No, Isaac. At least I don’t think so.”

A heavy, still-raw wound slashed his temple. Ever so gently, Charity ran an index finger across Rafe’s swollen brow and traced the jagged, purple line that disappeared into the dark tangle of hair. A fresh injury atop an old one.

“Then why has he been unconscious for five whole hours?”

“When there’s a blow or an injury to the head, sometimes it takes days before the patient comes to his senses.”

And sometimes they never did, she thought with a touch of panic. Sometimes such a wound affected their mind. They were witless or could not talk…or proved dangerous.

She slid her strong, competent fingers across Rafe’s moist, hair-roughened chest. She was not sure whether the pounding that vibrated through her fingers was from his heartbeat or hers. But whatever its source, it was strong and rhythmical. There was nothing ominous about the steady thump-thump-thump.

“I did not mean for this to happen, Mama.”

A flicker that was scarcely humorous touched Charity’s soft mouth. Neither did I, she thought ruefully.