Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (30 page)
“There, there,” she murmured.
He tried to tell her he was all right, but the barely restrained sobs seemed to paralyze his voice. Though he felt ridiculous, he was powerless to control the wayward emotion. Not thinking, except about how desperately hungry he was for a kind touch, he crumpled into Elise’s arms. As he turned to her, her arms came around him as naturally as if she, too, longed for comfort.
He remained in her embrace, letting her hold him as no woman besides Rebekah had ever held him. He clenched his arms around her and let his tears dampen her dark, silky mane. The smell of simple kitchen soap touched his senses; it was hardly a beguiling aroma, yet passion began to well up within him. It took him unawares because it had been so long since he had felt anything besides pain and emptiness. He’d forgotten what the simple touch of a woman could do to a man. So many emotions were raging within he could barely tell one from the other. Thus he held her a moment longer than he knew he should have. He held her even when it was his kisses instead of his tears brushing her hair.
“Reverend Sinclair?” A male voice broke into the tender interlude. Benjamin had not heard the hoofbeats, but as his head jerked up, he saw that a man on horseback was reining his mount not twenty feet from them.
Panic replaced passion. Benjamin jumped away from Elise as if she had become a hot ember in his hands. He hated himself for the guilt he knew now marred his face. At the same time, accusatory thoughts collided in his mind. Caught in the arms of a prostitute. What would Rebekah say? How could he prove his innocence? Was he innocent?
He willed his mind to focus on the visitor. It was one of his parishioners, but he couldn’t recall the man’s name. He’d probably not be able to correctly give his own name if pressed.
“Ah . . . Mister . . . Mister . . .” he stammered, trying to find a way to fill in the gaping awkwardness.
“Reverend Sinclair, looks like I’m interrupting something.” The man’s tone was loaded with innuendo. He dismounted and came to stand nearly eye to eye with Benjamin.
Benjamin suddenly rankled, forgetting his guilt and awkwardness. He had been doing nothing wrong. And he could see nothing wrong in a bereaved man seeking comfort in the arms of a . . . a friend! But lingering guilt, a product of years of indoctrination and his own personal practice of judgment, kept his protests in check.
“You are interrupting nothing. What do you want?” Benjamin did not bother to be polite.
“I came here seeking a man of God to read over my father’s grave,” the man replied haughtily. “Maybe I came to the wrong place.”
“Listen here.” Benjamin decided he would protest. Then he became aware of Elise still by his side. Glancing at her, he saw she was both pale and flushed. Perhaps shame, anger, and surprise were waging their own battle within her. “Elise, perhaps you should go in and tend the children.”
She hesitated as if debating whether she would let another fight her part of the battle.
“Go on,” he prompted.
She then nodded and returned to the cabin as Benjamin returned his attention to the stranger.
“Well, Reverend, what do you expect me to think, huh?” The man said quickly, as if wishing to get his blow in first. “Last I heard you was widowed—poor wife died in childbirth. Now, I see, less than a month later you got yourself another woman.”
“You don’t know what you are seeing. And do you think if I was going to
have
a woman, I’d do it in the middle of my yard? How dare you come here and wag a finger at me. You’ve no right!”
“I figure I got every right seeing as how I help pay your wages!” The stranger clamped his lips together smugly. “And I ain’t gonna pay no man of God to go cavorting—”
“I was
not
cavorting!” Benjamin’s tone was defensive as he spewed out excuses. “I was grieving my wife. The woman was comforting me.” He should never have tried to defend himself. The defenses sounded lame indeed.
“Comforting?
Harrumph!”
“You have a lot of nerve judging that which you do not know!” But as he spat out the word
judging
, he nearly choked. How many times had he judged others without truly knowing their whole circumstances? He’d done that very thing to Elise. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head ironically. When he spoke again, his tone was moderated with humility. “I guess I can see where you might mistake what you saw. But it is entirely innocent. Elise is . . . was a friend of my wife’s. She came here last week with her sick child hoping to get help from Rebekah. She didn’t know my wife had died.”
“She been here a whole week?”
“I couldn’t turn her out with a sick child.” He forced down renewed ire.
“Well . . . I dunno.”
“I don’t care what you think, sir. I had no choice. Besides, Elise’s poor child and my own children were in desperate need of a woman’s care.”
“You’ve said yourself, Reverend—”
“I know what I have said!” he snapped. “And now I am saying that sometimes there are extenuating circumstances.”
“That’s fine when they’re
your
circumstances, ain’t it?”
Benjamin gasped in a breath, losing his patience once more. “If that’s all you have to say, sir, you may leave!”
“Oh, I’ll leave all right! But you ain’t heard the last of this,
Reverend
." The man let the word roll off his tongue as poison. “Folks expect their minister to be at least as holy as he expects them to be.” The man strode to his horse, mounted, and gripped the reins in his hand. But before he turned to ride away, he added, “I’ll say my own words over my father. Reckon that’ll do as well as any false preacher’s.”
Benjamin didn’t know whether to hurl protests at the man or to applaud his wisdom. He also wasn’t certain if he would have read a funeral service if invited. His doubts had begun with his recoiling every time Elise called him
Reverend
. A revulsion grew within himself, as if the word were an imprecation. To hear it actually leveled at him in that manner by the visitor brought it painfully back to Benjamin that he was indeed the vilest of all sinners, the lowest of all men, not fit to carry the banner of God. If further proof was needed of this, all he had to do was recall the scene in the yard before the man rode up. He had topped even his penchant for selfishness by using Elise, taking her gesture of kindness and turning it into something far from her pure intentions.
He returned to the cabin. Isabel and Leah were squabbling over a toy while Oliver was crying in his cradle, reminding Benjamin he still had no milk for the child. Elise was rubbing some kind of poultice on Hannah.
She looked up, smiling wanly. “Life does go on, doesn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He chewed his lip, wanting to do anything but confront his behavior, but confront it he would. “I’m sorry, Elise.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. That man was insufferable.”
“But you can’t argue with the fact that I deserved it.”
She gave a depreciatory shrug. “I shudder to think what would happen if we all got what we deserved.”
“Nevertheless, I should never have . . . touched you.”
“Seems I touched you first.”
“You know what I mean.” He paused, thinking perhaps she had noticed nothing. After all, what were a few kisses on the head to her?
“I know that you were in great grief, Benjamin. I know what happened meant nothing beyond that.” She gave a forced chuckle. “Though I am sure your visitor got an eyeful.”
“It’s not funny,” he insisted.
But her chuckle turned into a giggle. “I know, but . . .” she couldn’t seem to control her sudden mirth. “I can’t help but picture the look on his pinched little face if he knew the truth about me.”
“And you are laughing?”
She pursed her lips together in an unsuccessful attempt to stop another giggle. “Sometimes laughing is all one can do.”
He smiled. “I suppose it would have been an interesting sight.” The man’s dirty little mind would have absolutely exploded if he had known. A chuckle escaped Benjamin’s lips. “Had he a pillory he would have clamped me firmly within it.” Another snicker erupted. It wasn’t funny at all, but as his grief a half hour ago had consumed him, laughter now did the same. No, it wasn’t funny, but he clung to the release of humor as he had to the comfort of a woman.
“He’ll have you excommunicated, Benjamin Sinclair!”
“For a hug!”
“Even you would have forgiven a hug.” Her laughter continued to bubble.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t!” He howled. “I was the king of insufferable wretches.”
“King, eh? I always did think you had a rather high opinion of yourself.” Her eyes glittered as she waggled a finger dripping with poultice at him.
“You don’t know the half of it.” He wiped a sleeve at the corner of his eyes now brimming with tears of laughter.
“I think I do.” She giggled again. “Why, you looked rather like your visitor when I saw you on the ship that time pointing a finger at me.”
“Dear God! Was that really me?” He sobered suddenly. “I was so very wrong that day.”
“No, you weren’t.” She, too, sobered, though her eyes still sparkled as if she didn’t want to let go of the pleasant moment completely. “I
should
have been ashamed of myself. I am ashamed.”
“I had no right to accuse you, especially since I could not see your heart.”
She finished with the poultice, wiped off her hands, and wrapped Hannah up snugly. She lifted her eyes to him. The humor was gone now, but they held such tenderness it made his heart ache. “But God can see our hearts, Benjamin, and I don’t believe He’s accusing you.”
“My heart is black.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute. But even if it were, God is ready to forgive you.”
“It seems I have misjudged you in many ways,” he replied, skirting the real issue of her words. “You are a Christian woman?” As he spoke, Oliver’s cries became too insistent to be ignored, and Benjamin picked him up from the cradle. He had no food to offer him, but perhaps holding him would help.
“I think so, but I know so little about it all.” Elise picked up Hannah as well, rubbing her back soothingly. “I can count on one hand the times I’ve been to church, and each of those times my mind was elsewhere. But I do know this, a person who has sinned—even more than I have sinned—can find forgiveness from God. That I read in Rebekah’s New Testament.”
“Rebekah’s?”
“Yes. She gave it to me on the ship. I’ve been reading it. She told me to base my concept of God on His words, not on His fallible children.”
“She must have meant me.”
“I have been reading it, and I have discovered a God who is far different from the one I had imagined.”
“What kind of God?”
“A God who loves. A God who forgives.”
“I’ve read God’s Word, also—many times.” He paused, shaking his head. Had he even gotten that wrong? Well, he wasn’t surprised, since he’d botched all else in his life.
“Maybe you should read it again now that—” She stopped, obviously reluctant to complete the thought she’d begun.
“Now that my life has fallen into shambles?” he offered, sparing her.
“Now that you are not so full of yourself . . . King Insufferable.” She grinned impishly. “It is amazing how much better we can hear when our pride ceases to block our ears. At least such was the case with me. Perhaps it will be so with you.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“How long will you punish yourself, Benjamin?”
“I better see if that cow has any more milk to give us.” It was easy to ignore her incisive words with a baby crying in his ears.
“Let me have the baby,” she said. “I can hold two at once.”
He wanted to thank her for releasing him so easily, but he said nothing. He’d had enough confrontation for one day.
E
LISE GAVE THE CABIN A
satisfied look. In little over a week she had finally brought some order to the Sinclair home. She thought that Rebekah Sinclair would not be ashamed to give her approval to Elise’s efforts.
Certainly no housekeeper by experience, Elise discovered she had a natural knack for it. Barbara, her old nurse, had taught her a few things, and even Daphne Hearne had begun instructing her in the task of running a plantation household. Of course, what a southern planta.tion lady needed to know about living was far different from what a woman needed to know in a cabin on the frontier. For one thing, on a plantation there were slaves to actually
do
the work. The lady of the house merely had to keep abreast of when various tasks needed to be done. Then, it was “Hattie, churn the butter,” or “Missy, time to put up preserves.”
But Elise was instinctively tidy. She was an accomplished laundress, thanks to Maurry. Cooking was another matter. She had never really done much cooking. On the plantation the slaves had done it, as had Maurry’s slaves, leaving his girls free for other tasks. But she thought cooking merely took good sense if one could read recipes. Isabel proved to be a great help in finding the book in which Rebekah had kept her recipes. She also found another book called
The American Frugal House-wife
by Mrs. Child. These, in fact, were the only books Rebekah owned besides her Bible, so Elise guessed they must have been invaluable for her to have brought them all the way from Boston. There were actually only about a dozen other books in the house. All except a reading primer for the children were Benjamin’s theological books. But the Sinclair library probably had more books than all of Benjamin’s parish combined.
Since by unspoken agreement the household chores fell to Elise, she spent as much time as she could poring over Rebekah’s books. When Micah or Benjamin brought in a pail of milk rich with cream, she flipped frantically through the pages to see what to do with it. Benjamin was no help at all. He not only had never helped his wife with the household chores but also had never paid much attention.
“My mind was on a higher plane, you know,” he said with biting sarcasm, “not on temporal, worldly things. I can quote you all the Scripture you want, but plant a seed, tan a hide, shoe a horse? Sorry, I did naught but read and pray in Boston.”