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ON THE BED IN HER TINY chamber, Lydia lay barely conscious. Apparently the girl had contracted the fever some days ago and had only now begun to feel so bad she could not continue her duties. Catherine knew at once what the trouble was and raced to the loft for herbs to stir into a tisane that might bring down the fever.
She sat with Lydia throughout the next several nights, nodding off on occasion even as she kept a silent vigil at the girl’s bedside. Getting virtually no rest, it took all the energy she could muster to prepare sufficient food for herself and bowls of nourishing broth for Lydia. Each time she went outdoors for more logs, the sight of the diminishing stack behind the shed filled her with dread. If Noah didn’t come home soon, where would she get more wood? Lydia hadn’t said a word about it last week, and Catherine had been so preoccupied with her own . . . activities, she hadn’t once looked toward the woodpile.
She plastered the girl’s chest with a pasty mixture of crushed yarrow blossoms and bathed her fevered brow again and again with cool water. On the third day that week, Lydia’s fever finally broke. When she opened her pale blue eyes, they were clear.
Catherine smiled down on the girl lying limp as a rag doll on the bed. “You’ve given me quite a scare.”
“I be fine, mum.” That said, her eyes glazed over, and once again she fell into a fitful slumber.
Still fearful, Catherine watched her sleep. Lydia had grown so thin that even if she recovered, Catherine knew it would be a long while before she regained enough strength in her small body to be of use to anyone. At length, Catherine tiptoed from the room to go and lie down on her own bed.
The next morning, when Noah barged into the house, he found both women sound asleep. The fire that usually burned low in the hearth was a pile of white ashes.
“Catherine.” He shook her roughly. “Get up! Fire’s gone out and I’m famished.”
Catherine rolled over. “Is Lydia . . .?”
“Asleep, the same as you are. I leave the house, and the two of you become lazy slugabeds!”
“Lydia’s been ill, Noah.” Blinking herself awake, Catherine got to her feet. “I’ll prepare something to eat.”
When Catherine saw that the fire had indeed burned out during the night, she asked Noah to take the shovel to the outdoor oven and bring back some live embers so she could build it up again.
He grumbled but did as she asked. While he was gone, Catherine looked in on Lydia, who was still sleeping. She then went to bring in the last few logs in readiness to get the fire going and prepare their breakfast.
“We have no more wood, Noah,” she announced briskly when she came back inside carrying the last few logs. “You’ll need to cut down a tree and split the limbs . . . ”
He looked up, a scowl on his face. “Where have you been getting wood from?”
Her lips pursed with annoyance. “If you must know, John Fuller brought the last stack, before you and I married. We’ve completely used it up.”
Noah muttered an oath.
Over the simple meal of corn pudding Catherine prepared, she again brought up the matter of the firewood. “Unless the deputy-governor has been providing you traders with firewood as well as corn, you have no choice, Noah, but to roll up your sleeves and . . . ”
He slammed his trencher onto the table. “I’ll take care of it, Catherine. Lord, you’ve become a nag.”
She clamped her mouth shut and said nothing further, not even a half hour later when he swaggered out the door whistling a merry tune, his new red beret perched jauntily on his head.
Instantly, the thought struck Catherine to race into the woods in search of Phyrahawque. She had missed him fiercely all last week. But she quickly changed her mind. It would be far too dangerous now with Noah about. Instead, she took a basket into the corn patch to pick whatever ears had ripened overnight. Lanneika had warned her not to let the golden ears sit too long on the stalk lest the raccoons get at them.
She was plucking corn from the last row of stalks when a flicker of movement through the trees caught her eye. Phyrahawque! Her eyes widened. She flung a quick glance over one shoulder in search of Noah. Not seeing him, she lifted her skirts and darted into the woods.
But it wasn’t Phyrahawque.
“Lanneika.”
“Phyrahawque worry. He say I come see. You all right? Not sick?”
Wearing a sad smile, Catherine said, “I’m not sick, but Lydia has been ill with the fever, and Noah returned home this morning.”
“I tell Phyrahawque.” Her shiny black eyes alert, she cocked her head to one side. “You look . . . ” She paused, a smile playing at her lips. “I now go.”
“Tell Phyrahawque I miss him terribly.”
Lanneika grinned. “He miss you.”
Indoors sometime later, a disturbance caused Catherine to look up from her work in time to see Ed Henley’s flatbed wagon rumble to a halt outside. Noah sat on the platform beside Ed. Behind them the wagon was piled high with sticks of wood. In seconds, Noah brushed past Catherine into the house, hurried up the ladder to the loft and came back down carrying a shiny beaver pelt draped over one arm.
“Got you some firewood and me a dozen jugs of ale,” he said with high satisfaction.
Catherine’s lips thinned as she returned again to work.
* * * *
FOLLOWING SERVICES that next Sabbath morning, Deputy-Governor Argall stepped to the podium and announced that every able-bodied man was hereby pressed into service to help construct bark houses for those settlers who still remained homeless and, when that task was complete, to dig a new water well.
Catherine could not hold back her own secret smile of high satisfaction.
Twice that next week while Noah was laboring with all the other men in Jamestown, she managed to sneak off to meet Phyrahawque in the forest. The threat of discovery made their time together all the more precious. For both of them, it took no more than a look, a touch, or the simplest of kisses to ignite a passion within them they both found irresistible. They clung to one another more tightly than ever before, loath to part lest they not see one another again for many suns.
“I dream of you every second we are apart,” Catherine murmured, her arms clasped around his neck, her warm breath fanning his bare chest.
“You Phyrahawque’s woman now.” He kissed the top of her auburn head.
“I have been yours since the moment I saw you,” she replied dreamily. “I wonder that I can live without you.”
He pulled away, his black eyes pinning hers. “You mine now,” he said solemnly. “Your home with me now in forest.”
Catherine gazed up at him, her breath ragged as she chewed on her lower lip. Dear God, how she wished it could be so! When she was with Phyrahawque all her worries melted away, and she felt more free and happy than she’d ever felt in her life. “If only I could be with you . . . forever.”
“Come.” He grasped hold of one hand as if to take her with him right then.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, I . . . I cannot.”
But the idea stayed with her. Especially those evenings when Noah came in, hot, tired, and irritable from having spent his entire day toiling at a loathsome task.
“I refuse to go back tomorrow.”
“You have no choice, Noah.” They were seated at the board table finishing up their evening meal, it being the first Lydia had prepared since her illness.
“I’ve neglected my trading,” he mused.
Catherine’s heart lurched. Were Noah to resume his daily excursions into the woods, she would have no choice but to cease seeing Phyrahawque altogether. A prospect she did not wish to consider. Ever. Despite the fact that occasional pricks of guilt over her shameless behavior did assail her, the immense love she felt for him meant it took precious little effort for her to successfully push the guilt aside. She could think of nothing powerful enough to erase the enormous love she felt for Phyrahawque. Beneath his strong, stoic exterior she now knew him to be the kindest, most tenderhearted man she’d ever known. Nothing short of being struck dead by a lightning bolt from Heaven could keep Catherine from his arms now. She loved him that much.
Noah lingered longer than usual at the table that night, downing mug after mug of Ed Henley’s strong brew. When at last he staggered into the bedchamber, Catherine had already retired and lay dreaming about her few stolen hours that day with Phyrahawque. Her dream was shattered when Noah roughly dragged her toward him. He hadn’t touched her since she’d lost her baby.
She stiffened now. “Noah, please!”
“You’re my wife, and I have my needs!”
Knowing it was useless to resist him, she gritted her teeth against the inevitable. Her eyes squeezed shut as he jerked her night rail above her waist and heaved his drunken weight on top of her.
Two weeks later, she was alarmed when her menses did not come on schedule. Her alarm turned to panic when the second month came and her menses didn’t. Ordinarily, she’d have been thrilled to know she was with child. Now fear and worry seized her. Having believed she could never conceive again, she’d been careless with Phyrahawque, not asking him to take the necessary precaution to avoid conception, such as not spilling his seed within her, or herself chewing up a handful of carrot seeds, which she’d been told would prevent a woman from conceiving. Worse, still, she could not say for certain who the father of her child might be. Phyrahawque or Noah.