DECEMBER 19, 1754
Ephraim ducked. The jug missed him by a foot and shattered against the doorframe, filling the room with an overpowering scent of fermented apples.
“It is his right, Mr. Moore,” Joseph North said, stepping between my father and my husband. That word. Husband. So new I couldn’t yet speak it aloud, the mere thought was startling enough. “They are married now,” he continued, lifting the certificate in one hand as though to offer proof. As town clerk, North had the legal right to marry us. A fact Ephraim had known and exploited.
“I care nothing of his rights. It’s my daughter’s reputation that concerns me.”
“There’s nothing left of it, Father. Billy Crane saw to that.”
They were startled to hear me speak, and every head in the room turned. I had remained silent that evening, speaking only when my turn came to say the vows.
I have forsaken all others and will cleave only unto thee.
The words were still warm on my lips, and I pressed them together, hoping to keep the sensation intact. For those few moments I was not afraid. Was not ashamed.
My mother had been crying for over an hour. Father alternately in a rage and puffing with relief that his disgraced daughter had been redeemed. North came as promised, arriving shortly after we did, documents in order. Ephraim held my hand as we walked through the door and refused to let me leave his side even for a moment.
“Billy Crane is dead,” North said.
Father nodded. Crossed his arms over his chest. “And I do thank you for that.”
“And Martha comes with me,” Ephraim said firmly, drawing the conversation back to the topic at hand. “We go to housekeeping tonight.”
Most couples—my parents included—did not begin living together for many months after the wedding, choosing instead to consummate but live separately until a house could be put in proper order. Tradition held that this was a way to gather all the necessary goods needed to keep a home. It also gave the groom time to complete living arrangements for the new couple. But in fact, the practice was often used by parents to ensure that their daughter had not made a grievous mistake in her choice of husband. Though not common, it was not unheard of for an annulment to be requested in the weeks after a wedding.
“She has nothing!” my mother wailed.
“She has me. And I have plenty to get us started,” Ephraim said. “Hasn’t enough been taken from her? Do you mean to withhold tradition as well?”
He referred to the communal gathering and gifting of household goods, dishes and linens and quilts, that usually took place after a wedding and before newly married couples made a home together. He wanted to make sure that the women of our community would still make me a wedding quilt. He wanted to make sure the town would not shame me.
“If this is her choice, she can do without,” my father said, and even though I could tell he regretted the words as soon as he spoke them, he lifted his chin in defiance.
“I am saddened to hear you say that, Mr. Moore. I had thought better of you.” Ephraim released my hand and moved his arm to my waist. He pulled
me tight against his side. “You can send her trunk in the morning. But she comes with me tonight.”
*
The cabin was bigger than I expected. Two rooms, the larger with a stacked- stone fireplace. In one corner there was a kitchen with a cookstove, a table, and a window above a long stretch of rough-hewn wooden counter. A bedroom. I glanced at the door. Looked away. Glanced back. My hands began to shake.
Ephraim released me and stepped away. “Do you like it?”
I loved the home, and I loved the man, and I didn’t have the proper words to tell him either of those things. I hadn’t answered his question, though, so I turned to him, nodding. “I do.”
He noted the pleasure in my eyes and ducked his head with a bashful smile. “Say that again. I like the sound of it.”
Our vows. He had grinned his way through them, beaming as if we were the only two people in my parents’ kitchen earlier that evening. As if the room weren’t crackling with tension.
I didn’t realize I was shivering until Ephraim bent to light a fire in the hearth. Once it was crackling merrily and the bitter chill had been chased from the room, he went into the bedroom to light another fire in the hearth there.
He returned. Clasped my hand in both of his. “Come. I have something for you.”
I dared a glance at the bedroom door. My hope chest still sat at home, filled with lace and linen and needlework. Filled with the things that I had been making since I was a child. The things that women use to create a home. But that was not the gift that men expected from their wives on the day they wed.
Ephraim stooped a little so he could look me in the eye. “Not that. You don’t have to be afraid of me, Martha. I won’t hurt you.” He tugged me to
his chest and slid his hands into the hair at the base of my head, into the wild curls I could never tame. “I would never hurt you. Not ever.”
I pulled back to look at his face. “What is it, then?”
“There.” He pointed to the long table in the kitchen, and I saw the wooden box in its center for the first time.
It was made of pine, and there were no nails or dowels. He had pieced it together in tongue-and-groove fashion. Only Ephraim. I placed my palm on the lid.
I gestured toward the rest of the house, finished perfectly and sealed against the weather. “You had extra time on your hands, I suppose?”
He liked the teasing note in my voice. Responded to it physically. Ephraim eased closer to me and set one gentle hand on my shoulder. I felt the weight of it, heavy and strong.
“The house was finished months ago. Then the furniture a few weeks past. A man needs something to occupy him at night.”
Indeed.
I cleared my throat.
“Open it,” he said. “It’s all for you.”
He nudged me with his forearm, and I lifted the lid on his gift. Inside was a book bound in leather, filled with blank pages. Ink cakes. A feather quill. And a King James Bible. I pulled them from the box and set them on the table one by one.
“What is this?”
“The beginning of your education, Mrs. Ballard.” I laughed. “You know I can’t read.”
“That, love, is exactly the point.” “I don’t understand.”
His face was unreadable, and I was about to ask for an explanation when his mouth covered mine. His hands were gentle as feathers on my cheeks, thumbs stroking my jaw. His tongue brushed my lips, begged them to part, to soften. After a moment they did. He tasted of salt and bread and apple cider. His hands never wandered from my face, but I felt the restraint it took him to keep them there. I felt the passion and the frustration in his
lips. I felt the longing in every inch of his body. Ephraim Ballard kissed me for long, endless moments. He was breathing hard when he finally pulled away.
“I will not take your body tonight, Martha. I will not do it until you ask me to. No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not until you beg me to. I will take nothing from you that is not freely given. Do you understand?”
My answer was but a ghost of speech. “Yes.”
“There is only one thing I will ask of you. As your husband.” He brought his face so close that I was certain he would kiss me again. But Ephraim only rubbed his nose against mine, brushed it back and forth until I closed my eyes. “Let me kiss you. Please. Whenever I want. Just like that. Will you trust me with that one thing?”
I was incapable of words. But I nodded and tilted my chin upwards. He took the offer. His hands did not drift beneath my collarbone. But they explored the base of my skull and the thick curls of my hair. He made himself acquainted with my earlobes. Cheekbone. Jaw. The cowlick at my temple. And his tongue went to work as well, tangling with mine and tracing the shape of my lips.
“You liked that,” he said when he pulled away.
It wasn’t a question. He knew I did. Ephraim could read my face the way he read his ledgers and his books. I was open before him. “Yes.”
“Good then.” He nodded toward the bench beside the table. “Sit.”
He straightened the Bible on the table. Always the carpenter, he squared it with his own body, then opened it. It was new. I could tell that much. The leather binding was clean and hard, with no cracks or scuffs. The first page was blank, and I, of course, could not read the second.
This was no concern to Ephraim. He read it to me. “Family register.” He pointed first to one line and then those below it. “Husband and wife. Births. Deaths. Our life will be recorded here, on this page.”
He pressed the book flat with his hand, and a smile spread broad across his face. The feather quill had been sharpened to a fierce point. He mixed the ink with water in a little dish and dipped the quill into the black puddle.
I relaxed next to him on the bench. The small movement brought me close enough to Ephraim that our thighs and shoulders touched.
Ephraim tapped the quill against the rim three times, knocking the excess ink off the tip. He raised it above the page. “On this, the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-four, I, Ephraim Ballard, do take as wife Martha Moore.”
“This is my name,” he said, scratching the quill against the paper. “This is how it’s written.” The letters were all angles, lines, and curves, and they made no sense to me. But it was wonderful to know that this collection of ink scratches was the name I had taken as my own. “And this,” he added, dipping the quill once again into the ink, “is yours.”
I watched him write my name with a delicate hand. He couldn’t have been more gentle or precise if he had been drawing my face with that quill. My name looked beautiful beneath his hand.
“Have you ever seen your name written before?” “No.”
“Your father never wrote it for you?” “I never asked.”
“I will write it for you anytime you ask. I will engrave it upon my own heart if that is what you want.” He lowered his lips to my temple, brushed them against my hairline. “And I will teach you to write mine.”
He rubbed his nose against my ear, my jaw, my temple. I couldn’t think straight. After a moment it was clear to him that I wasn’t thinking anything at all. Ephraim laughed, deep and warm.
“Well then, Mrs. Ballard, let us begin your education.” He pulled the stack of parchment closer. Arranged the ink and quill. Then he flipped the Bible open to a section near the middle. “Do you know what book this is?”
I shook my head. How could I?
“It’s one you’ll never hear preached in church. And I’d wager your father never read it at the table after dinner.”
“What is it?”
“The Song of Solomon.” He traced the title with his finger, and I tried to follow along, wondering which marks corresponded to each word. “Shall
I read you a little?” “Please.”
He set his fingertip beneath each word and moved it slowly as he read. I followed it with my eyes. “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s,” he said. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.”
I tried to hide my smile. He noticed before I had the chance to smooth it from my face. Ephraim repeated the verse, but this time he spoke the words against my lips.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth? Yes, I thought, I will let
him.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the book said anything about his tongue,
because Ephraim made full use of that as well.
“The Bible says that?” I asked when he came up for air. “Indeed, and a great deal more.”
I had not noticed before how tired he looked. Stubble along his jaw and dark circles under his eyes. Ephraim yawned. There was only one bed in this house, and it was just barely big enough to fit the two of us. But he had taken even this into account.
He pulled me to my feet. “Come with me.” He led me to the bedroom. Opened the door. He took me to stand beside the bed. Held my hands in his. “I’ve promised not to touch you until you’re ready. And I will keep that promise if it kills me. But you are my wife, Martha. And I would very much like to share your bed.”
“My bed?”
“I built it for you.”
I answered him with a quick kiss. “Was that a yes?”
I nodded. “I prefer to be warm when I sleep.” “Then allow me the honor.”
Ephraim turned down the bed and left me in privacy to undress. I climbed in, wearing my shift, and expected him to join me, but he wandered through the cabin, blowing out candles. The room filled with the smell of
candle smoke, and the only light came from the glowing embers in the hearth. When I heard his clothing falling to the floor, my heart exploded beneath my ribs. There was a weight in the bed beside me. A shifting of air as he lifted the blanket. And then the full length of his body was right there next to mine.
“May I hold you?” he whispered. “Yes.”
“Come here, then. And let us sleep.”
Ephraim pulled me to his chest and tucked his legs behind mine. If we were vertical, I would be sitting in his lap. But we were not vertical. We were lying in bed, not consummating our marriage. And yet it was the most intimate thing I had ever done.
*
It was later, as I lay in a stubborn wakefulness, curled against Ephraim’s back for warmth, listening to the slow and even pace of his breathing, that I let my mind wander to all the things we could have done in the dark that evening. I thought about what it would have been like to feel his hands along my body. What places he might have explored with lips and tongue. I thought of a coupling that didn’t involve pain or fear or violence. I thought of myself surrendering to the warm and gentle hands of the man I loved, and my skin grew warm. The desire to roll onto my back and pull him with me was so strong that I could think of nothing else. Instead, I lay there, eyes open, nose pressed against the smooth, warm skin of his back, and I let him take me in thought only.
I was deep in this fantasy when I heard the deep rumble of his voice. “Does it feel good, Martha? What I’m doing to you? In your thoughts?”
I startled and pulled away from him.
“No,” he whispered, reaching back to grab my arm and drape it over his chest again. He placed my hand on his heart and set his own on top. “Don’t stop. I’m certain that whatever it is you’re imagining is something I’m enjoying immensely.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I could feel your eyelashes brushing against my back,” he explained. “That’s how I knew you were awake. You were getting warmer by the moment.” Ephraim laughed. “And I cannot help but wonder what you were thinking about us doing in my bed.”
“You said it was my bed.”
“Ah, that it is, love. And when you are ready to have me do in deed what you just had me do in thought, we will find another use for your bed.”
