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“WAS THE FIREWOOD I left sufficient for your needs?” John Fuller asked when he stopped by the following Sabbath to escort Catherine to services.
John’s question startled her, it having never occurred to her that her benefactor might be him. “Yes, it was . . . or, rather, is. Thank you, John. I had no idea who had done me such a kindness.” She smiled up into his warm brown eyes as they set out to walk to the meetinghouse. It had also surprised her when he rapped so early that morning at her door. Typically, he only walked her home from services, not to.
After Reverend Buck had intoned his final amen that day, Catherine’s entire family, Adam and Abigail, the Morgans, Nancy and Jack, and John, all made the return walk home to her small house. Once there, the men took chairs outdoors to smoke and talk, while the women set about preparing a late afternoon meal. It was an especially warm March day, and everyone was enjoying the balmy breeze and sunny sky.
“I see you and John Fuller have become a couple,” said Abigail, smiling her approval.
Catherine ducked her head. Why did everyone, including John Fuller, seem bent on linking her with him?
“How ’bout it, missy?” Margaret teased as she floured her hands in preparation to pound a lump of dough into a sheet of flatbread.
Nancy directed a speaking look at Catherine, then said quietly to the others, “Our Catherine is not one to talk openly of her feelin’s.”
Catherine rewarded her friend with a look of gratitude, then to escape further questions headed bravely up the ladder Victor had built to the loft. Nancy would need apples for the pie she was making.
Nancy hurried up the steps behind her. “You remarrying is a topic of much concern these days,” she said in a low tone.
“Well, I’ve no intention of marrying John Fuller,” Catherine whispered. The two made sufficient noise as they dug in the barrels of foodstuffs to conceal the sound of their voices.
“I know you are waiting for Noah to appear at your door,” Nancy said, not in an accusing way.
“I am certain he will come, Nancy.”
“You know Adam has no use for Noah. In fact, he is dead set against you marrying him. He means to forward Tom York’s suit.” Nancy glanced at Catherine as if to gauge her reaction to this. “Tom is a good man; he and Jack get along very well.”
“Nancy, please. You know I have eyes for no one but Noah. Now that we are both free, surely Adam cannot think I would be receptive to anyone save Noah.”
“Have you seen him?”
They walked to a barrel of dried peas, into which Nancy dipped the empty gourd she carried.
“No. But, he will come. I am certain of it.”
Nancy straightened. “In the meantime, you appear to be encouraging John Fuller and Jonathan Reed. And we’ve also heard talk about Ed . . . ”
Catherine took umbrage. “I am not encouraging them! They just . . . appear at my door, and I . . . let them in. I am not encouraging them!” She turned and fled across the room, the loose floorboards creaking beneath her feet.
Once the meal was finally ready, the men pulled two of the long board tables together and they all gathered around to eat their fill of the tasty pork-and-vegetable stew and top it off with Nancy’s delicious apple pie. The talk was lively, and, though Catherine was growing increasingly agitated over the state of her affairs, she managed to join in with the others and enjoy the company and laughter, which she had sorely missed of late. Most especially, she enjoyed hearing Abigail talk about little Eli. How she longed for a babe of her own.
Before the meal concluded, a rap sounded at the door. When Adam rose to answer the summons, Ed Henley stepped inside.
Awkward silence filled the room until Adam invited the somewhat embarrassed young man to join them. “You’re welcome to join us, Ed! Ethan,” he addressed the Morgan boy, “scoot over and make room at your end.”
“Please, do join us.” Catherine remembered her manners. She rose to fetch another trencher, but Abby was closer to the shelf that held them, so she handled the task.
Finding himself seated on the bench directly opposite John Fuller seemed to distress Ed. To put him at ease, Adam drew him into conversation, asking if he’d yet started his tobacco seedlings this year.
“Coming up nicely,” the young man replied, his gray eyes darting from Catherine to John Fuller and back again.
“Be sure to cover your new plants with brush to protect ’em from a late frost,” Adam instructed. “Not unusual to get a snowfall as late as April ’round here.”
“Here you are, Ed.” Abigail set a trencher full of steaming hot stew before him. “Adam, send the flatbread to this end of the table.”
The newcomer wasted no time digging into the food, and, in mere seconds, his presence was no longer noticed. Except by Catherine. And, probably John. And Adam.
When the meal concluded, the men again gathered outdoors to smoke and sip the last of their ale while the women cleared away the table and scoured the soiled trenchers. When Catherine stepped outdoors, a nod of Adam’s head indicated he’d like a private word with her.
They walked past the men toward the shed in back. Adam made a favorable comment in regard to the lean-to, which he hadn’t seen since Jack and Victor enclosed it.
“We call it a shed now,” Catherine replied, grinning. The setting sun glancing off her auburn hair sparkled with glints of gold. The excitement of the day had brought a becoming blush to her cheeks.
“Your beauty has returned, Cat,” Adam said. “I confess Abby and I were reluctant to leave you here alone after Victor was gone.” He paused, directing a long gaze out over the stretch of land his sister had begun to till. “But, you appear to be faring well enough.”
Catherine looked up at her brother. She was especially thankful he was here with her in the New World, a frightening and unpredictable land where healthy young men could be felled by arrows, where houses were tossed about by strong winds and newborn babies struck dead. She wondered if she would ever grow accustomed to the wilderness life, or if some part of her would always remain anxious and afraid; or perhaps she simply needed Noah with her to calm her fears and keep her safe. “I’m settling in,” she murmured.
“You cannot remain alone forever, Cat. You must remarry. You’ve a good-sized house here, with only you in it. Rather surprises me Argall hasn’t insisted you take in another family now that Jack and Nancy are gone.”
“No one has said anything about that to me. Perhaps because I run the only school in Jamestown and require additional space.”
“Perhaps.”
“To my knowledge,” she added, “no ships full of homeless settlers has recently docked.”
“New settlers typically arrive in the spring,” Adam said authoritatively. “Living alone goes against God and nature. You must remarry.”
Becoming annoyed by her brother’s patronizing tone, Catherine thrust her chin up. “I have every intention of remarrying, Adam.”
“Ah? And is the lucky fellow amongst us today? You seem to be drawing suitors like moths to a flame. I daresay either John or Ed would suit, as well as Tom York. Which young man has stolen the fair Catherine’s heart?”
She looked down, nervously drawing a circle on the ground with the toe of her boot. “You know where my affections lie.”
“So,” his tone hardened, “you think to marry Noah now that he is free.” It was not a question.
So she didn’t answer.
His tone grew even harder. “To marry Noah would be a grave mistake, Catherine. There are two fine young men here today who’d make excellent husbands for you, and others to choose from, make no mistake.”
Her lips pursed. “Who I choose to marry is my concern, Adam.”
“That’s where you are wrong!” he shot back. “Noah Colton is even now, today, even as we speak, forwarding the deception that he is heartbroken over the death of his wife. And do you know why he is behaving in so shameless a manner? Do you?” he demanded.
Catherine frowned up at him. “How dare you speak in so disparaging a fashion of . . .”
“Noah Colton wants one thing and one thing only,” he cut her off. “Land. He thinks that by making Richard Benson believe he is grieving Charity’s death that Benson will sign over his vast estate to his heartsick young son-in-law. What Noah doesn’t know is that he is deceiving no one. Not even Richard Benson.”
“I don’t believe you!” She folded her arms across her chest. “Noah hasn’t a devious bone in his body.” Catherine glared up at him. “And what’s more, he loves me. And I have never stopped loving him. Noah’s suit is the only one I will entertain, or accept.”
Adam snorted his contempt. “Then you are more foolish than I thought, little sister. Mark my words, you will live to regret the day you marry that scoundrel. He should have been the one shot by an arrow that day in the woods, not Victor.”
“Noah wasn’t in the woods that day!”
His eyes narrowed. “Can you be certain of that? It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he . . .”
“Hush! I will not listen to one more word said against him!” She picked up her skirts and ran back toward the house, tears of hurt and anger swimming in her eyes, her heart pounding in her breast.
Alone in her bed that night, the house at last devoid of people, she could not halt the tears of longing that continued to spill down her cheeks and soak into the pillow. Turning to bury her head in her arms, she began to weep. Her sobs of anguish became so loud she almost didn’t hear the rap-rap-rapping at her door.
When the noise did penetrate her consciousness, she swiped her tears on the sleeve of her night rail and sat up to listen. Hearing the rapping sound again, she let out a joyous cry, and sprang from her bed to run barefoot to the door.
“Noah!” she cried when she flung open the door and saw that it was he. “At last, you’ve come!”