Page 18 of In Just a Year
Ben’s father cast him a confused look, as if he were giving him the benefit of the doubt for what was plain to see. Mother stood wide-eyed, clasping little Joseph close, Gideon arched a brow, Caleb crossed his arms as usual, ready to defend his little brother if anyone came along to break his heart. They all knew what was happening.
Esther straightened as Lenny stood behind her. She hadn’t thrown propriety into the wind, nor was this impulsive. She knew what she was doing and took a visible step as her eyes locked with Ben’s. His heart lurched. He wasn’t ready to tell his family and admit it all, although he had no reason to hide it.
Ben hopped off the carriage but didn’t know what to say. Moments like these were best enjoyed in private, not with his family watching, especially not Gideon, who’d already caught him once before. But everything became a family affair with the Klonimuses, the Solomons, even the Pearlers. This certainly was. He felt his family’s stares. A cleft opened in the ground between them and him. As much as he was one of them, as much as the Klonimuses and the Solomons were intertwined, this was between him and Esther alone—just the two of them. Everyone else was merely watching. He should bow and take his leave. He’d already done too much to her last night and if something happened to him on the journey, he needed to know she wasn’t compromised or promised to him because it would limit her chances to forge a life of happiness. And he loved her too much to make her sad. And yet, he couldn’t stay away. The sparkle in her deep brown eyes and her flushed cheeks framed by the wild mane of black curls was irresistible. She reached for him and put her hand on his chest, right on top of his heart.
Oy, this was obvious, and there was no way back. Her missive was clear; she was laying claim to him before his departure.
It was her decision.
He glanced at his family and then looked down at her delicate hand on his chest. His heart skipped a beat, and he melted like the wax in the workshop when cast into a mold. In this moment, he became hers. No longer was he just Ben, the second-youngest brother. No longer was he one of many students at Edinburgh University, one of many crown jewelers, one of many Jews in London. His life joined with hers and everything clicked into place like a well-fitting locket in his workshop. Benny became Benjamin, Esther’s love, and he was a student with a mission, a crown jeweler with responsibility toward their Diamond Dynasty, and the one Klonimus she’d chosen.
As if she’d read his mind, Esther broke into a wide smile, and as if she knew that his arms were coming to wrap around her, she dropped into his embrace. Their lips touched and he took her mouth with searing vigor to drink in as much as he could before he had to be away for a year. They knew how to kiss now, but it was still new. Thrilling.
She felt so good that he drowned out the gasps and comments of his family. This was only about them. She wanted him, and he wanted to be hers. All was right, even if it only lasted a moment.
CHAPTER10
Two months later…
When Ben had first left, Esther couldn’t breathe. She’d cried in her bedroom for a day and almost every night. It had been one thing to love him from a distance, but when they’d kissed and promised each other to reunite when he came back, it was as if a part of her had been torn right out of her and gone with him. Although her body seemed intact and her virtue was whatever it had always been, Esther hurt a terrible loss. And suffering did not suit her nature. Thus, she decided to investigate and make plans for the future. Two months had passed, she had ten more to endure.
Her first stop on yet another day of missing Ben was a visit to her older sister who lived with her husband Arnold in the thirty-bedroom house of the Pearlers. Hannah and Arnold shared a wing on the second floor. When Hannah had stepped out for a moment, Arnold served Esther another cup of tea from an elegant silver tray with a matching teapot that had a design reminding her of seashells. Even the spoon in the sugar bowl had an intricately carved cockle shell pattern that looked as if it had been dipped in gold. The cups were painted with transparent blue waves and gold swirls resembling wind blowing the waves. Esther’s stomach churned when she imagined Ben on a ship with large sails, climbing a mast, and whatnot. It all seemed terribly dangerous and made her hands and arms grow cold. Despite the lovely jasmine tea Arnold poured, Esther couldn’t stop thinking about Ben. When Esther’s brother-in-law saw her and gave a warm smile, Esther took heart and broke the silence.
“Arnold,” she started, “since you married my sister, you have become my brother.”
“At your service, little sister.” Arnold smiled elegantly, a cavalier hand on his chest.
This was going to be difficult. “May I ask you something, sister to brother? Something I couldn’t ask my other brothers.”
“And why is that?” Arnold picked up a cup of tea, including the thin porcelain saucer from the mahogany table, and brought it to his mouth.
“Because they are children. They have never deflowered a girl—”
Arnold choked on his tea, dropping the cup back on the saucer with a loud clink. His face contorted in a mix of shock and disbelief, causing her heart to skip a beat. In that fleeting moment, it seemed as if time stood still. The shock and the weight of her statement were palpable in the air between them as if he struggled to come to terms with what she had said.
A twinge of unease settled in Esther’s stomach. She couldn’t make eye contact and picked up a scone from the silver tray on the table and fumbled with it over her saucer. Scratching the crumbs from the crunchy treat, she didn’t take a bite.
Arnold’s torso came forward, he cleared his throat, and spoke in a low voice. “Esther, what do you wish to ask me?”
A few more crumbs fell from the scone, and she swept them into the round center of the saucer as if the cup had been set in sand.
“Esther?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Arnold’s voice was calm and mature. He seemed ready to speak openly.
But Esther wasn’t even sure where to begin asking, for she didn’t know the details of the subject at hand. “It’s just that…” she looked at him now and saw a bit of what Hannah probably saw in him. Arnold was all man, but there was an element of rakish mischief to him that could, under certain circumstances, be endearing—if he weren’t one’s big brother-in-law, of course. “I understand the mechanics of what happens in the marriage bed—”
“You do?”Why did he seem so surprised?
“I think I do. The husband puts his … you know… inside to deliver the seeds for the wife’s womb to … ahem … until the baby hatches.” She blinked expectantly at Arnold.
He sat across from her, big and charming, rubbing his mouth with his index finger and thumb as if trying to massage away a smile.
“Don’t laugh at me!”
He burst into uncontrolled mirth. “Far be it for me to laugh at you, Esther. I’m laughing with you.”
