Read Online Cheryl Reavis by The Bartered Bride - Free Book Online Page B

be a kind of hell—living in the same house with her and Beata. He ignored the fact that just such an arrangement had been his original plan and that he had once looked at Caroline Holt with a certain longing. He couldn’t deny that he found her attractive enough for his taste and that her aloofness both annoyed and intrigued him. He had never wanted a docile wife. He had wanted this marriage to make his children happy, and, in time, he had wanted to be vindicated as a man worthy of her regard and not some ignorant foreigner.
    It was only when he remembered the way Ann had died that he knew the true reason for his seeking to wed her sister. He still felt the sting of Ann’s betrayal as sharply as if it had been yesterday. He cursed the day his older brother had sent Eli here to America. Eli, who had taken half the land and Frederich’s young wife. Frederich tried not to remember the look in Ann’s eyes every time she spoke Eli’s name. The question had never been whether Ann had loved EliGraeber. The question had been how much. He knew the answer to that now, but Ann was no longer here to atone for the wrong she’d done, and it hadn’t been enough for him that she had died giving birth to Eli’s child. He still needed reparation, and Caroline was the person Ann loved best. After her children. After Eli. If he, Frederich, married her, he could make her suffer for Ann’s transgression without remorse. He could insist that she be a good German wife. He could keep her pregnant—there would be no time for books and poetry and fine airs. How Caroline would hate that, and how Ann would have hated it for her.
    But the actual marriage yesterday had somehow changed everything. Caroline was in his household as a wife and therefore legally and morally subject to his will, but she was also a helpless outcast in need of his charity, beloved by his children no matter how disdainful she was’of him. He didn’t like the turn his emotions had taken. Perhaps it would have been better to let Eli—
    Where is Eli, damn him?
    Off somewhere feeling sorry for himself—again, he thought.
    Frederich’s abrupt fit of agitation startled the cow, and she bellowed loudly, kicking over the nearly full milk pail before he could catch it. He swore and watched helplessly as the barn cats rushed forward to make the best of his misfortune before the milk seeped into the ground.
    He could hear Lise and Mary Louise calling him. He left the bucket sitting and he stepped outside. They descended upon him immediately, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him along, chattering as they went. He entered the house fully expecting to find the kitchen on fire.
    A meal had been laid out on the table instead—bread and cheese, jam and butter. Bacon and boiled eggs.
    “Look what we made, Papa!” Lise said, pulling out his chair. “We only had two things to burn.”
    “Three,” Caroline said, lifting Mary Louise into a chair. “The bacon caught fire twice. I couldn’t find the coffee,” she said, turning back to the hearth.
    He hesitated, looking at her warily, as if there was some devious purpose behind all this. She glanced at him over her shoulder, and after a moment, he sat down.
    “I cooked the bread, Papa,” Mary Louise said, grinning around the two fingers she had in her mouth. He reached to pull them out before she ruined her fine teeth.
    “She means she found the bread. Beata hid it in the pantry,” Lise said. “We thought the water for the eggs would never boil, didn’t we, Aunt Caroline?”
    “Never,” Caroline agreed without looking up from the hearth. She’d shed her shawl, and her face was flushed from working so close to the fire. She struggled with an iron pot, and Frederich tried not to look at the way her breasts moved under the bodice of her ugly yellow-flowered dress.
    There were only three places set. Apparently, Caroline had not intended to join them, nor did he invite her. He lost himself in conversation with his