Read Online The Face of Heaven by Murray Pura - Free Book Online Page A

aside, shaking her head gently. He rolled his eyes.
    “Why did I have to fall for the bishop’s daughter?”
    “You can change your mind. Indiana waits.”
    “Indiana. I scarcely think about Indiana anymore. But I think a lot about Lyndel Keim. I don’t know if I’ll ever go west now.”
    “If you do, we could write letters. Wouldn’t that be fun? And you wouldn’t have to stay away for a long time, would you? Just a month or two?”
    The sunset colored her face and made her skin glow—red hair gleamed a coppery gold, eyes were a brilliant blue as if, Nathaniel thought to himself, they were a couple of stars from a spring constellation. The impulse to take her into his arms was so strong he looked away and flicked the traces. The buggy moved out into the road and he turned it around and headed back toward the Keim farm.
    Lyndel made her pixie face. “Did I say something wrong?”
    “You look too good.”
    “I look too good?”
    “Either I go to Indiana so you don’t drive me crazy every day or I go to your father and say I would like to court you.”
    “But we both agreed it was too soon to think about courting and marriage.”
    “We did. So I must go to Indiana instead.”
    He saw the sly grin she flashed as she said, “Come, Nathaniel, I can’t be that irresistible. Think back to March. You scarcely looked at me twice.”
    “March? March seems like ten years ago.” He glanced at her as they drove. “It won’t work for me to stay, Lyndel. Not unless you change your looks completely.”
    “And would that help you?”
    “It would.”
    “And it is something you want? For me to change my looks completely?”
    “No.”
    “Then where are we?”
    “On the road to your house. And a nighttime of dreaming about your face and your hair and your eyes.”
    Softly she said in response, “I dream about you too, green-eyedAmish boy.” Then she leaned her head against his shoulder and reached out to take his hand tightly in hers.
    “Hey,” he said.
    “You don’t mind, do you?” she responded.
    “Of course I don’t mind. But you said things like this were not permitted. Especially for the bishop’s daughter.”
    “Tonight the bishop’s daughter doesn’t care.”
    And she did dream. But most of it wasn’t the dreams of the night, but the dreams that came to her by day: of marrying him, holding him, kissing him, running her hands over his back and through his beautiful brown hair. Yet she found she couldn’t say the romantic things to him that he said to her and this troubled her. Yes, his words against slavery had excited her and she’d told him so. His attempt to bar the slave hunters from reaching Moses and Charlie had made her proud of him and she’d run across the yard to his carriage to tell him how she felt.
    But when it came to letting him know she thought he was handsome, that his green eyes in the sunlight made her long to take him in her arms, that she loved the way he walked, so tall and straight and strong, she couldn’t bring the words out of her mouth. What was wrong with her? A dozen girls from the community would gladly trade places with her. Yet she couldn’t even respond that he was wonderful, brave, and sweet, after he told her a hundred times how stunning her blue eyes were, or how her red hair flamed, or how beautiful the strength was he saw in her hands and shoulders. Her silence made no sense to her and she couldn’t understand what stopped her tongue.
     
    Still, as April became May and May turned into velvet June, with its bright flowers and trees thick with leaves and hay higher than a tall man’s head, it seemed to her that she and Nathaniel were getting closer and closer to the point where they both felt it might be time for him to sit down with her father and declare his intention to court her with the aim of asking for her hand in marriage. She was certain this would free her up inside so that she would finally be able to say all the things she wanted about his