Jacob's Return (31 page)

“Levi, your heart is sad. But it is sad for the wrong reasons. Simon is not ignoring his daughters.”

Levi’s bowed, broken stance changed. He straightened his shoulders, and raised his head until his piercing gray eyes bored into hers. He turned to Jacob to search for some nameless answer, then he shook his head. “Go on. No sense, do your words make, but I am listening.”

Jacob put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, asking for her silence, and Rachel nodded without turning.

“Do not be disappointed in Simon, Datt,” Jacob said. “He has reason for his anger.”

“There is no excuse—”

“There is, Datt. Just listen for a minute. Anna and Mary are not Simon’s daughters.”

Rachel watched Levi try to make sense of the puzzle, but he failed.

“Anna and Mary are mine,” Jacob said. “Your grandchildren still, but not the children of Rachel’s husband.”

“The blame is mine,” Rachel said.

“No. Never!” Jacob nearly shouted. “It is mine. When Simon hurt Rachel, I let my comfort of her go too far. She was like a fawn caught in the light of a pine torch, frightened and uncertain. She cannot be blamed for taking comfort from where and whom it came. I offered too much and knew it. She did not.”

Levi stood. “I am too old for this.” He led them toward Rachel’s room where each set of twins slept in a separate crib.

He lay down in Rachel’s bed, his arms crossed over his chest, his knees bent, his back to them. “I watch my grandbabies,” he said. “Go.”

“Datt—”

“Enough, Jacob. You have said and done enough, already. My love is no less for you or my grandchildren. Nor for you, Rachel. Despise the sin, not the sinner,” Levi said on a ragged whisper, his shoulders beginning to shake.

Rachel stepped forward, but Jacob’s hand on her arm stopped her.

The next morning, Levi was more his old self, though to Rachel’s mind, he had aged overnight.

Simon did not seem to notice that his father’s badgering had stopped. He continued to go about his life, performing his farm chores and Deacon’s duties, taking Aaron with him more often than not — but to everyone else, he spoke little, if at all.

When the twins were out of danger finally, and hearts lighter, Ruben tried to draw Simon out. He wheedled and cajoled, and even tried to get Aaron to approach him, but it did not work. Not even insults did.

After a while, Ruben gave up.

Rachel wished Simon would show some emotion.

He should be angry. He had a right to be.

If he would only give vent to the anger boiling within him, she could bear it. She deserved it. His anger frightened her, but his silence frightened her more.

The night Levi told Simon that the doctor had pronounced Anna and Mary healthy and out of danger, the hate in Simon’s eyes nearly stopped Rachel’s heart.

He rose and looked from her to Jacob. “I waited for you to get what you deserve. It seems that will not happen. But be warned … you will not go free.”

The clatter of Emma’s spoon hitting the floor, deepened the tension.

Anna began to cry … and Simon smiled, as if the sound infused him with purpose.

Levi stood, a plea on his lips, but he seemed unable to speak.

Simon strode to the door and turned, his look turning Rachel to ice. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

Chapter 19

Simon was so preoccupied as he drove the market wagon down the Pike, that he was startled when a turkey vulture swooped toward him from a rock formation at the side of the road.

With a nasty memory of that bird’s habit of throwing up on uninvited guests, Simon kept a wary eye on the ugly black-winged creature circling above him.

But when two young ones, covered with white down, scurried from the rocks stamping and hissing, Simon understood that the creature was only doing what God meant it to.

Protecting its world from those who would destroy it.

Like him … which was why he was on his way to Philadelphia.

Three days he would be gone, little anyone cared. They could fornicate to their hearts content, as they’d likely done all along. After all, it took more than one night to create a child. Weeks, it must have taken, from the day Jacob returned, most likely.

Just thinking about it, brought a near-blinding rage, but Simon tamped it down with determination. Later. There would be a time and place for rage later. A perfect time.

Let them have their wicked satisfaction. It would not last. Nothing ever did.

Besides, it mattered no longer. Retribution would be served.

Those babies should have died. He did not understand why they lived still. Rachel did not deserve them. She deserved pain and regret for the rest of her life. And by God, she would have it. She would. He would see to it.

A woman was called upon to bear the children of her husband’s seed, not his brother’s. Rachel had proved him right about her wantonness. With her sin, she had washed his away, along with the guilt that had plagued him for so long.

Simon didn’t question the contradiction. Everyone knew God worked in mysterious ways.

Disguised in modest clothing and sweet smiles, Rachel was a seductress. She had always been even as a girl. That he had lusted after her then should have warned him of the wickedness in her. But a young man, whose body quickened at the sight of a young girl, could not be expected to see danger. Especially if that girl appeared sweet and innocent.

Or so he thought.

Rachel had been sixteen when he happened upon her and Jacob in the woods by the stream. She was pressed against his brother so brazenly, she didn’t even pull away as they tumbled to the ground together. Then Jacob practically covered her, thrusting his hips against her, kissing her, skimming his hand along her body.

Simon was so close, he could hear Rachel’s little cries, Jacob’s groans. Watching, listening, made him throb painfully against his broadfalls until he needed to unbutton them to allow himself room. And when Jacob’s hand touched Rachel’s breast, Simon had stroked himself.

The feeling was nothing he had ever known or imagined, and he became lost picturing Rachel beneath him, without the clothes that formed a barrier for the two by the stream.

That night, unable to get the image from his mind, Simon had gone to the Welsh mountain village. He’d been told that a woman would lie with a man there, who could pay the price.

There were several to choose from. The one he picked had hair the color of wine and breasts full enough to fill his hands, and when he reacted to her touch the way he had at the stream, he knew she was the one.

She didn’t smell like spring, but if he closed his eyes, she could be Rachel. And he needed Rachel. Badly.

The hovel she took him to had a roof that pitched so far, it might up-end in a good windstorm. The inside smelled musty. Something crunched under his shoes. And with the candle lit, she looked different, so Simon snuffed it with his fingers.

Then, in the dark, when she touched him, — in ways that brought heat to his face even now — she was Rachel, and he was lost.

Simon remembered closing his eyes while Rachel did the things he saw her do with Jacob — and more, so much more. And the surge that flowed through him as he released his seed had been the most wondrous experience he had ever known.

Later, unimpaired by lust, Simon had looked at himself. At his surroundings. Soiled sheets. An unwashed woman, hair matted, breath liquored. And he was sick.

Self-loathing stung him. Remorse, strong and furious, throbbed against his brow. On pleasure’s heels, came shame, fast and deep.

Awful, indescribable, physically painful shame. Burning like the fires of hell.

He had committed a vile sin.

Fornication.

He had fallen … fallen for Rachel. But it was her sin. Her fault. Damn her to hell for eternity.

Driving home that night, he thought about Rachel and Jacob that afternoon. They’d pulled away from each other and talked of the sin that could result if they continued, promising that one day they would be husband and wife, where no sin could intrude.

Simon knew then that what he’d done would not be wrong, if Rachel were his wife. To save his soul, he must marry Rachel.

To make it happen, he had deceived Jacob at a time that his grief over their mother’s illness clouded his judgment. Guilt over that, too, gnawed at Simon for years. Yes, he had succumbed to temptation, but it was Rachel’s wantonness that seduced him into deceiving Jacob.

He, a humble, pious man, had fallen prey to Rachel Zook’s wiles. And received just punishment. For on their wedding night, when he’d tried to recapture the moments before he’d fallen, the incredible wonder, he could not forget the squalor and the stench. The sin.

He’d raged in fury and frustration, frightening Rachel with his anger, and she ran. He caught her so hard, he broke her arm, and was so shocked, he wept.

He wept before the woman who caused his fall. Rachel Zook had seduced him to sin and then unmanned him. She castrated him with her wickedness. From that night on, he punished her with every word, every unsatisfactory thrust, until gratification became vengeance deserved and served.

The exhilaration he experienced that night never came again, but the shame did … and it grew.

He hated Rachel for that. More as each day passed.

And now, finally, after all these years, his guilt was gone. Rachel had proved the wicked one.

Fornicator.

Adulteress.

Simon smiled. Soon the district would see her as an instrument of the devil. A temptress. He had been merely human, a victim of seduction with a week lust that proved false. Regard only how it fled once she became his wife.

All those years he could barely become a man to enter her, he was being sent a message he was too foolish to heed. His seed never quickened within her, because she was so unworthy a vessel.

Jacob’s seed took, him being a sinner too.

Jacob, the beloved son, the welcomed prodigal, had returned to their midst, poisoning the very air they breathed, and fornicated with his brother’s wife.

And Simon knew exactly how to punish them both. Rachel’s own father had given him the means to exact retribution and destroy his demons forever — both of them.

The new babies were not a problem. They were, by law, his children. He would find someone to take them. Even such as they deserved better than sinners for parents.

And Aaron was too good a son for Jacob.

Simon knew he would be a better father than Jacob. Levi would help him raise Aaron to be a pious Amishman. A grandfather and an uncle accepted by the church would be better than an immoral father.

He would keep Aaron’s twin, as well. Capable of forgiveness, he could overlook the children’s origins. Given time, he could drive from them the sinful tendencies of unworthy parentage.

First, however, would be his task to destroy Rachel and her lover. Jacob. The chosen one.

The perfect situation presented itself. Simon could just imagine the scene.

Time to use the gifts given him. Everyone listened to the Deacon. Especially at service.

Too bad stoning was frowned upon these days. Simon laughed as he approached the city.

For his plan to succeed, he needed to purchase a powder which could not be found in Lancaster, because of its dangerous properties.

Dynamite.

He could not purchase it around home anyway, for he could not allow a hint of his brilliant plan to be known. In Philadelphia, he would buy what he needed.

And he would blast that printing press to hell where it belonged … and send Jacob and Rachel there with it.

Elation filled him as he urged the horse faster. “Yup, Gadfly.”

Vengeance would be served.

* * * *

Excitement grew in Rachel’s breast. Tomorrow would not only be the first time she attended service since her girls’ birth, it would be the first time some of the district would see her two miracles, though many of the women had visited already to see and exclaim over them.

Church service would be held in their barn. Jacob, Simon, and Ruben, with Aaron’s and Emma’s interference, were unloading the benches even now from the bench-wagon delivered yesterday.

Esther helped her bake shoofly, apple schnitz, and half-moon pies, and a dozen loaves of bread — just enough to hold everyone until they arrived back at their own homes for supper.

Simon had returned from Philadelphia smiling and friendly again, just like at Christmas, with renewed interest in Emma and Aaron. Even toward Mary and Anna, he glanced now and again. And if she was not mistaken, Mary’s toothless smile this morning, just for him, had softened him. He’d smiled and declared Mary to be her mother’s daughter.

Life seemed to be settling into an almost-comfortable, if abnormal, pattern. Rachel accepted that a life of tolerance and compromise, while not every woman’s dream of happiness, was more than she deserved.

After their daughters’ births, Jacob and she had vowed never to stray into dangerous waters again. They too would live with compromise. It would be enough for them to share the raising of the children. Jacob’s role before the world would be father to Aaron and Emma, uncle to Mary and Anna.

If Simon could accept arrangements as they stood, then Rachel was satisfied. She grieved, though, that she had hurt her husband and her father-in-law. Even Jacob suffered for loving her. And if he ever decided to find a wife, she would be happy for him.

Buggies began arriving on Sunday morning before seven. Rachel dressed Emma and her baby girls in dresses the color of mulberries, the babies’ tiny white aprons and heart-shaped kapps almost too small to be believed.

Pride. That’s what she felt right now, recalling Simon’s preaching. Yet, when she looked at her two miracles, their big sister beside them, what else could she feel?

Emma climbed onto the counter and sat by them, taking a hand of each. “Annamary come to service?”