The Devil's Cold Dish by Eleanor Kuhns Page B

adherents were treated so with reason,” Father Stephen said in a sharp voice. Rees jumped. He’d forgotten the pastor was there. “Doesn’t that faith—your faith—believe in the end of the world? And that God is equally feminine and masculine?” He looked directly at Lydia. “All blasphemous teachings, but the most profane is that your Ann Lee is divine.”
    â€œShe was touched by God,” Lydia retorted passionately. “God granted her visions.” Rees could feel his brows rising in astonishment. Lydia was the most practical of women, not one to believe in things she could not see or touch.
    â€œSo I’ve heard,” Father Stephen said. “Her vision of an angel on the ship crossing from Great Britain to New York was the talk of sailors everywhere.”
    â€œShe was right, wasn’t she?” Lydia said. “The ship did not founder in the storm. They survived.”
    â€œThat vision,” Father Stephen said through his teeth, “could have as easily come from Satan as from God. Your sex is easily swayed by the Devil.”
    Rees gaped at the other man. “What are you saying? This is my wife. You married us here, in this very church.”
    Father Stephen, his lips so tightly pinched together a white line circled his mouth, turned his gaze to Rees. “You would not be the first man to be suborned by a fair face and form, unsuspecting of the rottenness within. Her red hair should have warned you.”
    Rees jerked Lydia to her feet. “We are leaving,” he said. He had seen many strange events in his travels but none had had a supernatural cause. Although he tried never to argue these matters of faith, he did not believe either. People, in his opinion, caused their own Heaven or Hell. And these passions all too frequently justified cruelty to another.
    â€œBeware,” Father Stephen said to Rees’s back. “Cast her off before you are tainted as well. Your birth and upbringing in this town will not save you.”
    Rees almost turned around. He was trembling with fury and, if he had not had Lydia clinging to his arm, the blood from the wound on her head still fresh and glistening, he would have punched the minister for his accusations, man of God or no.
    Rees drew Lydia into the sunshine. Potter had drawn the wagon up to the gate. He waved from the wagon seat and hurriedly scrambled down. “Here you go. I saw Caldwell and he said he’ll ride out after market is done and speak with you.” Potter stopped talking and peered into Rees’s face. “Are you all right?”
    Rees reached out for the reins. “Fine.” His voice was hoarse, unrecognizable. He turned to Lydia and extended his hand. She was trying to hold the ripped collar of her dress closed with one trembling hand and her hair had come unpinned and tumbled down her back. Her skirt was clotted with mud. Queasy with the intensity of his emotion, Rees closed his eyes and swallowed. When Lydia was settled he would return to town and find the young men who’d attacked her, a pregnant woman.
    â€œYou look—enraged,” Potter said, taking an involuntary step backward. “Calm down.”
    â€œI’m fine,” Rees said. It was so much easier to feel anger than admit to the fear that something terrible could have happened to Lydia and the baby she carried. He looked at her.
    â€œI’m well,” she said. “The baby too. Don’t worry.” Laying her hand upon Rees’s sleeve, she smiled up at him. “We’re both fine, I promise you.”
    Nonetheless, Rees lifted her into the seat, taking as much care as though she were exquisite china. He knew she was in pain when she gladly accepted his assistance; she usually climbed up by herself. He scrambled up beside her. Now that the danger was past he was shivering and sweating. He couldn’t speak—when he tried his voice came out thready and weak—so