The Sins of a Few

Sinning has never been so fun...

Salem, 1692

The moment he steps off the boat and into his hometown of Salem, Nathanial Abbot knows the rumors about Salem are indeed true. For in the two years since he’s left Salem—disowned by his family and seeking a fortune of his own—the town has changed. It is dark with discord and suspicion... and accusations of witchcraft. Now all that remains for him is the woman he’s never forgotten.

But Faith Downing isn’t happy to see Nathanial. In his absence, his younger sisters have ignited the chain of hysteria that resulted in twenty deaths—including Faith’s aunt, to whom Nathanial owed his life. Yet through her acrimony, Faith can’t prevent herself from responding to the man Nathanial has become, handsome and kind. A man who kindles something in her that speaks of sin.

The Sins of a Few

a Sins of Salem novel

Sarah Ballance

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Ballance. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Scandalous is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Erin Molta

Cover design by Liz Pelletier & Heidi Stryker

ISBN 978-1-63375-102-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition October 2014

For my amazing editor, Erin. This series wouldn’t have happened without your willingness to take me on as a first-timer to the genre and then, you know, not stab me with things.

Chapter One

Nathanial Abbot sensed discord in Salem the moment he stepped off the ship. After weeks at sea, he’d wanted for nothing but the feel of solid ground beneath his boots, but the earth in Salem seemed as unsteady as the deck of the vessel that had carried him from London. Though he had spent better than twenty years on American soil, after two years in busy London Town, the bland landscape of the colonies made him want for the thriving city he had left behind. Despite sunlight that shone as fiercely as the stealth November wind blew, Salem’s harbor town sat huddled under a dark cloud—one rumored to be of its own making.

Witches
. He shook his head, unwilling to scoff now that he felt the weight of the oppression. He more than sensed it…he
smelled
it in the shifting mix of brine and woodland scents that suffused the air in the harbor town. Nearly two years had passed since he’d left the colonies for an apprenticeship with a London barrister—a rare opportunity that had served him well, though it left him far removed from his family and his hometown. The great distance had been no barrier, for initial rumors of Salem’s witch hunt had found him—a witch hunt that seemed unfathomable at best. Despite his misgivings over the truth of such rumors, he’d left London shortly thereafter, his mind fraught with great concern for the fate of his family—a concern that only grew as he spent many weeks at sea without word. He hoped desperately the news might have been wrong, the rumors exaggerated, but he needed only to touch land to learn the soil spoke for itself. A darkness had indeed encompassed the town. There was no cheer to be found. No jovial exchanges between men. No good-natured insults—

“Well, if it isn’t Nathanial Abbot, ye popinjay pisser,” called a man from behind, whose slurred, unsteady words left little doubt as to how he had spent the morn. “Found yer way back home, didya? Grow tired of the English whores, ye ol’ fop?”

Upon turning, Nathanial quickly found—and recognized—the source of the noise. “Danforth, you sodden bastard. Debauchery is equally loathsome on both shores, as are your insults.”

John Danforth’s poorly feigned scowl tipped into a grin. “Spoken like a proper stuffed-shir’ Englishman.”

Nathanial laughed and clapped the other man on the shoulder. “And you a piss-faced drunk. How have you been, friend?”

“I ain’ drun’ yet,” John said, as if that were any kind of answer. Of course, if a man knew John, he would find it answer enough. John’s goals had always been somewhat singular, and this day appeared no different than the last that Nathanial had spent in his company.

There, too, was the little matter of Nathanial not being the slightest bit convinced. John swayed a bit more than the breeze demanded, a fact that did little to further his cause. “The sun has not yet reached noon,” Nathanial said. “Spare your cups, lest you find your
self face down in the alley before you can properly service one of those whores you so kindly referenced.”

John shook his head and pressed a palm over his tattered shirt. “You will have to indulge on your own, good sir, for I have taken a wife.”

“Rest assured I had no intention of indulging
with
you,” Nathanial said wryly. He kept private his surprise that Danforth had taken a wife, or rather that he had found a woman willing to have him. He was a decent fellow but for his addictions to women and alcohol, his preferences tending toward whichever was available at the moment. If the man had been married more than a fortnight, Nathanial would be shocked that he had not been put to death for adultery.

Puffing out his chest, John said, “Well, then. I do hope the voyage was ripe with the willing. Wouldn’ do for a man to go too long.” He tipped his head toward the ship, from which the lesser of the travelers still emerged. A young Englishwoman, one of the few Nathanial had seen on board, took a number of uncertain steps on New World soil. He had spoken to her on a number of occasions and found her to be sweet tempered, though infinitely nervous. Whether about the journey or the destination, he could not be sure. Perhaps she, too, had heard the talk of Salem and felt its unease.

“There’s one I wouldn’ mind splitting,” John observed of the Englishwoman.

“Your wife,” Nathanial mused. “She is a lucky one.”

John waved a hand. “Didn’ say I would do it. Only that I wouldn’ mind. How’s ’bout ye? Pas’ time to make a woman yer wife, is it not?”

“Indeed, though I have yet to find a woman suitable for the task.” His statement was true enough. Before leaving for London, he had been singularly focused on his studies. While there, there had been no shortage of women willing to decorate his arm, but once each learned he was living the life of a pauper—preferring saving to spending—their pursuit ended as quickly as it had begun. He had not been bothered, for he’d had no intention of making London his home. However, the long voyage back to the colonies had given him plenty of time to think. He had long thought he would return to settle in Salem, but in his short time back he found the prospect did not entice him. The ties he thought he’d left behind were long severed, and the world was a much bigger place than what was offered by the dreary harbor town. Instead, much of that time had been spent in preoccupation of taking a wife. He would not, however, have his father negotiate for him, as was custom. Nathanial was his own man with his own amassed wealth. He cared not for his father’s holdings, and as such, the only permission he needed was that of his future bride and her family.

He knew not what awaited him in Salem, for he had been gone too long to harbor fair expectations, but one woman had held his attention throughout many years and he hoped he would find her available…and he to her liking.

Faith Downing. Thoughts of her brought the first traces of warmth he’d felt since he boarded the ship in London.

“So tell me, old man,” John said, jarring Nathanial from his thoughts. “Are ye here to see to the afflictions of your sisters?”

Nathanial’s easy mood vanished. “What do you mean?”

“Yer sisters. They were the start of all this witchcraf’ nonsense. Claimed they were afflicted and the whole damned village has been the armpit of hell ever since.” John’s voice lowered to a dark, conspiring tone. “Don’ know if they spoke the truth, but the deaths number twenny.”

“Twenty?” Nathanial was not sure whether to believe John or not. On one hand, the man had never left Salem and must be as well versed to the talk as he was the air he breathed. On the other, he spent most of his time in the bottom of a cup. His might not be the clearest mind from which to glean knowledge.

“Twenny dead,” John confirmed. “Over now, though, or so they say. The courts were dissolved las’ month and the witches are to be freed. Yer timin’ is well, with it bein’ over.”

Nathanial grabbed John by the shoulders. “Who’s dead?”

Though his eyes had widened with alarm, the man spoke with nary a hiccup. “Yer family is fine, you brute. You needn’ damage me les’ me wife thin’ I was off rootin’ again.”

Nathanial released his grip and hoped he had not caught anything touching the cloth. So much for John’s vow of fidelity—clearly he had been caught at least once for him to fear his wife thinking him at it again. Through gritted teeth he asked, “Who are the dead?”

“I ain’ memorized the whole lot of them. No one ye would find of interes’, ’cept maybe that schoolin’ woman.”

“What
schoolin’ woman
?” But his heart carried its own suspicions, for John could only refer to one.
Ruth Travers
. Faith’s aunt. The woman who, when Nathanial’s parents had pulled him from his schooling to tend to the fields, had continued his education despite his parents’ insistence he stick to farming. The woman to whom he owed his Harvard degree and the wealth he had since amassed.

The woman to whom he owed his
life
.

He would not—could not—believe she was gone until he heard it with his own ears. “Damn you, John. What
schoolin’ woman
?”

“The friend of yers. Ruth somethin’. The one who taugh’ ye.”

Nathanial felt as if he had been punched. “What happened to her?”

John lifted a shoulder. “Hanged.”

Nathanial took an involuntary step backward. Death…death was a way of life. He had known he would one day lose the woman who had been like a mother to him—had mourned her absence from his life even as he left for Cambridge, knowing she was alive and well—but for her life to end so cruelly tore at his heart.
A rope
. Who could be so damned cruel? Or so stupid to think
Ruth,
of all people, a witch? Faith must be heartbroken.

Then he remembered something else John had said. “My sisters? What do you mean they started it?”

“Jus’ what I said. Started the whole thing. As well fough’ the end of it.”

The air with its mix of salt and pine suddenly felt too thin, the ground a bit too unsteady—a feat for a man still well versed with his sea legs. “Are you sure?”

“Don’ take my word for it. There’s a whole town tha’s spoke of nothin’ else for months. Ask anyone who didn’ get off that ship you jus’ came in on.” John’s gaze slid to the coin Nathanial had pulled from his pocket. “Wha’s that fer?”

Nathanial pressed the coin into John’s hand. “See to my travel trunk once it is unloaded from the ship. Have it sent to my family’s home. Keep half for your trouble and pay for passage with the other—I trust both parties will find the sum generous.”

“Where will ye be?”

“I’m going to the village.”

To Ruth Travers’s house.

To the damned truth of it all, even if it killed him.

…

Faith Downing shivered. The waning light of a cold sun was nearly as bitter as the dark of night. She had to fight the wind to get the clean, dry linens gathered, and the hard-won battle would not be her last of the night. Inside the modest home she shared with her mother—and until recently, with her Aunt Ruth—the fire needed tending and supper had to be prepared. And the table at which they gathered would be haunted by the same empty seat it had in the months since her beloved aunt had been arrested for witchcraft.

Only it was not the same, for her imprisonment had taken a horrible turn. A month ago she had been moved from the jail to the gallows, where her life had been cruelly ended by the loop of a hangman’s rope. Both Faith and her mother had been devastated. It seemed all the more terrible that her aunt was among the last to be hanged, her life ending so near when the rest were spared. They had just received word the court of Oyer and Terminer had been terminated and no further executions were to take place, but despite the good news, the deaths tainted Salem Village. There were far too many chairs left empty—lives that would be no less ended after the apologies were made.

And the apologies were not forthcoming.

The young Abbot girls who had been the first to make accusations still admitted no wrongdoing. They simply put their well-to-do, disjointed noses in the air and sniffed disdain at any insinuation they had acted hatefully. As far as Faith was concerned, their guilt was not of mere lies, but of murder. Though she wanted not to live embroiled in the anger she felt for the Abbot family—the whole of which encompassed the girls who had begun the accusations and the parents who had nurtured and encouraged their testimony—she could not help the flare of anger that accompanied thoughts of her aunt, a pious woman. She’d spent her life dedicated to the church and her neighbors. She had even helped one of the Abbot children, though it had surely not worked in her favor. By continuing Nathanial Abbot’s education after his parents had pulled him from school so he could work for them, as parents often did, she had, in essence, defied them.

Had her generosity cost Ruth her life?

Nathanial was long gone now, his education having taken him to London. Certainly now the Abbots could see her aunt’s gift to Nathanial, for without her Aunt Ruth’s schooling, he would not have made it to Harvard, which had been the precursor to his London apprenticeship. Was that why the Abbots hated her aunt enough to have her killed? He had left town without looking back—a terrible lack of gratitude for the woman who had taken him as her own and cared for him as had no other. Faith had thought him endlessly handsome and kind—if not a bit pretentious, a somewhat expected consequence of being reared in such substantial wealth—but for him to have turned his back while his sisters had her beloved aunt murdered had been too much. Faith’s heart had broken into countless pieces that day, and if not for the care her mother needed, she knew not how far she might have fallen. So much loss, and for what? The question haunted her as often as did her aunt’s empty chair.

But this evening, that seat was not empty.

Faith had been outside only a short time, the house well within view, yet somehow a stranger had managed to make himself at home at the small table. Even from a sitting position, his height over the wood slab indicated he was tall. His dark blond hair neared a roughish length that would soon leave him with fines to pay. His clothing with its rich dyes was a costume of wealth, though the beard she detected with the slight turn of his head seemed to speak otherwise. Whoever he was, he was not of Salem.

Curious, Faith edged closer. She could not make out his words, but the low rumble of his voice held a soothing quality that would have intrigued her had wariness not pushed to the forefront of her mind. This stranger, whatever his purpose, had her mother well engaged, the first smile she had worn in ages lighting her weary face. With that realization, Faith could not worry for why he was there—she could only be grateful that he was.

Then the wind blew the door against the casement. The man turned, and in an instant Faith’s lightened heart burned with fury.

Nathanial Abbot
.

Though more than four winters had passed since she had last seen him, with the turn of his head she immediately recognized the now grown man who had spent many hours at that very table. He looked nothing as she might have expected. His dark blond hair was tousled, his eyes the same piercing blue she had always known, but there should be nothing familiar about him. She had heard he was a barrister… If that were true, he should well be bald-faced and topped by one of those ghastly powdered wigs and steeped in the stink of authority.