Fitcher's Brides Read Online Free PDF Page B

you…”
    â€œLanded gentry? Why, how can we be when we’re on water here.”
    Sometimes they glanced back, if the voice was pleasant and sounded young enough that a handsome man might be at the end of it. Often they played a game of imagining who they would marry, how life would be, how many perfect children they would bear. “It has to be a tall man,” Amy would say. “He must be clean, too, well groomed,” Kate would throw in. Then they’d both look at Vern until she put in something of her own: “And we’ll have six children, all girls.” From there they would refine the description, change the number of children or detail the color of the phantom husband’s hair, or else pick a city to live in and describe the house they would manage. They had played the game back home in Boston and to pass the time on the slow canal boats that had brought them across the state to Geneva, and the lake, and their advancing destination. Their fancies flew in the face of the very reason for their journey, which made the need to pretend all the more poignant.
    Then abruptly as the Fidelio crossed the middle of the lake, the breeze blew colder, as if they had passed into some deep moist cavern of air. The two oldest girls stood in the partial shadow of the pilothouse and stack, and they drew their cloaks and shawls tighter around their shoulders. All three trembled for a moment, glanced at each other to see if the sensation was shared, and discovering that it was, traded their uneasiness. Then, as if each had heard her name called, they turned slowly about.
    A man stood a few feet away, considering them. The girls squinted and shielded their eyes to see him, but he’d chosen to stand so that the morning sun seemed to ride upon his shoulder. Its rays flared across him, blinding them to all but his general shape.
    He wore a long gray coat, and a white cravat. He was tall and rail-thin, and his hands at his sides curled and uncurled slowly. Beyond that the girls couldn’t make out more than the shadows of his features.
    While she shaded her eyes, Vern said, “Sir, is there something you wish of us?”
    Vern’s stance spoke more defiance than her tone, while Amy, true to her nature, blushed and glanced down at her feet. The two of them held hands in mutual support. The wind blew Kate’s fair hair into her eyes. She tucked it back under her silk bonnet and continued to squint at the interloper.
    â€œOh, no, young miss, not the slightest.” His voice was dark and smooth as syrup, delicious, as if Kate could taste it. “But you are all such beautiful creatures, aren’t you, that one has to stop and take you in. I simply cannot help myself, as what man could? You must pardon me.” He bowed, and this afforded Kate a momentary glimpse below the dazzle of the sun, of a long, severe face and blue eyes as cold as stars. He continued. “Pardon me as I have beheld the fruit of the garden and found it delectable. But is it wise for three such as yourselves to travel into this undiscovered country unchaperoned?”
    â€œOur…father,” Vern began, “is just across there.”
    The stranger did not turn his head to where she pointed, but asked, “You are none of you married, then? Are the men of this world so blind?”
    Now Vern blushed.
    â€œI will see you again, I hope. In this life surely before the next.” He bowed slightly again, then turned and walked off.
    They watched him weave through the crowd, and it wasn’t until he was out of sight around the far side of the pilothouse that they found the sense to react. Amy pleaded, “Kate, let us move down so that we’re in the sunlight with you. We’re freezing .” They shuffled along toward the nose of the boat, clinging to the rail as if they couldn’t stand without it. The sunlight was reinvigorating.
    â€œWho was he?” Kate asked.
    â€œHe was dreadfully