The Betrayal by Diane Noble

Author:Diane Noble
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062079282
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

What do you mean, a new beginning for our marriage?”

Gabe chuckled. “All in good time. First I want to say how pleased I am with the education and comportment you’re teaching our children. Your work with them hasn’t gone unnoticed. You and Mary Rose are good mothers.”

She gave him a sharp look. “In spite of what Brother Foley and others said about my influence back in Winter Quarters?” When he didn’t comment, she studied his expression. “They still hold a grudge, am I right?”

“You judge them too harshly.”

She laughed. “I judge them?”

“They have a right to judge. Word gets out. Only recently, Brother Brigham heard about the comments you made to other women, criticizing him and others. He says you’re firing up some of his own wives—especially when it comes to the topic of celestial marriage. One told him just the other day that she wants a divorce.”

She bit back a smile. “Fanny Sten—”

He laced his fingers, steepling them at his lips, his disapproval evident even before he spoke. “This is no laughing matter. I’ve said this before, Bronwyn. You’ve changed. You once were sunny-spirited and easygoing, now you’ve got a mind of your own.”

“A mind of my own?” She gave him a half-smile. “Aye, that once would have been seen by you—dear husband—as a good thing. I’ve told you before, I’m no longer the nanny I was when you first set eyes upon me. This place, this wild country, makes a woman tough. If it doesn’t, we won’t survive.”

“Being strong is one thing. Being foolish is quite another. Being outspoken is downright dangerous.” He paused. “He said you spoke to the ladies at the last quilting bee, telling them you advocate raising children with minds of their own. You said they need to inform their daughters—as you do ours— from their earliest years that they do not need to obey Church authority, or even their parents, if told they must marry young.” His eyes bored in. “Did you realize who you were speaking to? Didn’t you know the word might get back to Brigham?”

She stared at him, unblinking. “What I cannot understand is why you—or anyone else—would not stand up for those who have no one to speak for them.”

He ignored her words. “They told their husbands—just as you knew they would. Your actions and words reflect badly on me, on Mary Rose, Enid—on our entire family. Didn’t you consider the repercussions?”

“I didn’t say anything they hadn’t already thought of themselves.” She stood and took a few steps away from him, leaning against the fence that divided the garden from the corral.

“You must take greater care,” he said.

“What are you afraid of? That if I speak the truth, you’ll lose your good standing in the Church? That you’ll not be chosen as one of the Quorum of Twelve? Or that I’ll be tried and convicted of apostasy and, because of me, you will lose your priesthood? Are honor and dignity and moral purpose less important?”

“You sound like you don’t care what happens to us.

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