Free Love's Pursuit by Siri Mitchell Page A

turned a pot over the biscuits for baking, the fire flared, sending out sparks of copper and gold, in precisely the same shades that had laced the sunset the evening before.
    The captain thought I knew all the right answers but not the right questions? Who was he to judge? He was a stranger forced upon us who would soon be leaving. What did he care about who I was or what I thought?
    I was Susannah Phillips, aged twenty years, soon to be betrothed to John Prescotte, an able and honorable man. I could see no questions there.
    Least none worth asking.

    I heard Thomas’s axe ring out just as I finished shaping my biscuits. After scraping dough from my hands, I stepped outside. Swiping at flies from the chickens’ coop, I walked around the back of the house toward the smithery.
    Thomas had stripped to his shirt and was chopping at the woodpile.
    I knew a moment’s regret for causing him undue work. He might have ordered his logs from Simeon Wright and avoided some of the chopping of it . . . and all of the hauling. Indeed, he had spoken to the man about it, but the price that had been quoted was much too high. Thomas had called it extortion. Though I had agreed with him, I begged him not to bring it to the attention of the town’s deputy.
    The less notice Simeon Wright took of me . . . of us . . . the better.
    And so, Thomas had acquiesced.
    But if the need for chopping wood were my fault, then at least I could help him with it.
    As he took a pause to wipe his brow with the forearm of his shirt, I handed him a cup of ale. After he handed it back to me, I placed it on the stump before him and bent to collect an armful of wood.
    “Do not bother yourself with that.”
    “You bothered yourself with me. ’Tis the least that I can do.”
    He moved and bent to squat across from me, taking one of my hands in his. “ ’Tis that what you think of yourself? A bother?”
    I pulled it free and added another length of wood to my pile.
    “You will ruin your hands with splinters.”
    “And why should I save them?”
    “Because they are beautiful.”
    Beautiful? My hands? I nearly smiled. Wanted suddenly to laugh outright. My hands were work-scarred. My palms calloused from carrying heavy pots and pans. My forehands scarred from encounters with the pressing iron. My knuckles reddened and raw from the lye soap I used for washing.
    He placed a hand on top of my pile, to stay me from rising.
    “They are.” He reached out to touch the back of one of my hands. “Your fingers are so . . . slender. Hands so neat . . .” He was looking at them as if he wanted to kiss them. But he did not. He raised his eyes and caught me looking at him. “Thank you for using them, for putting them to work on my behalf. Both inside the house and out.”
    My eyes darted toward the ground. I knew not what to say.
    At length, he withdrew his hand and rose. Took another gulp of ale.
    I added one last piece of wood to my pile and went to stack it next to the smithery.
    When Thomas had completed his work and I had finished helping him, I returned to the house. Taking some unguent from a pot in the cupboard, I rubbed it into the calluses of my palms. Placed some on the cracks of my knuckles and around the dried edges of my nails.
    My hands. Beautiful. Imagine that.

11
    AS JUN E TURN ED INTO July, the men’s labors turned to the harvesting of hay. Town ordinance decreed that it be brought in no later than the tenth of the month. But thickening skies and the threat of rain ordered it be harvested as soon as was possible.
    A frenzied labor by all in town over the course of several days led to a speedy harvest. And as the last sheaf was placed atop the stack and the roof lowered upon it, thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning split the sky.
    It was with thankful hearts we came that night to supper. And with hungry stomachs we devoured the food. None spoke until the meal was finished. And even then, it was the captain who broke the silence.
    “What is it