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But he was already shaking his head. “Thornton’s the traitor.” He replaced the dish.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged, not looking particularly interested in the subject. “He isn’t really Thornton. I think he’s probably another soldier, MacDonald, who was under arrest when we were attacked. MacDonald somehow took Thornton’s place.”
She frowned, plucking at her wrap anxiously. She wore only a shift and the silk wrap; her feet were bare. She felt vulnerable with him prowling about her private rooms. Vulnerable, but not afraid. There was something inevitable about this scene, as if she knew all along that Samuel would someday enter her rooms. She only wished she could hold him a little longer. She looked down at her trembling hands in her lap and asked another question, delaying what would come.
“Wouldn’t Thornton’s friends or family have turned MacDonald in?”
“Most of Thornton’s friends were killed at Spinner’s Falls. Maybe all of them. As to family”—Samuel fingered the heavy brocade curtains hanging on her bed—“they were dead, too, all except his wife, and she died soon after Thornton, or MacDonald, returned home. I imagine he killed her.”
Emeline caught her breath at the casual comment. “Why are you doing this, Samuel?”
He looked up at her tone. “What?”
“Why are you bent on following this trail?” She leaned forward, wanting to cut through his defenses as he had cut through hers. They had so little time left. “Why spend all this effort and money pursuing the man? Why, after all these years?”
“Because I can and the others can’t.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
He dropped the curtain and turned fully to her. There was no artifice, no shield in place to keep her from seeing the desolation in his face. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”
“Jasper—”
He laughed. “Even the ones who survived are dead, don’t you see? Vale may joke and drink and play a fool, but you’ll be wedding yourself to a corpse, never doubt that.”
She stood to meet his awful despair head-on. “I do doubt that. Jasper may have his demons, but he’s alive. You saved him, Samuel.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”
“You ran to bring help—”
“I ran away,” he rasped, and she shut her mouth, for she’d never heard him say it aloud. “At the height of the battle, when I knew we were going to lose, when I knew the Indians would overrun us and take scalps from still-living men, I figured there was no longer any point in fighting, so I hid. And when they took Vale, Munroe, your brother, and the other men captive, I ran.”
She ventured close to him and grasped his coat in both fists, feeling the wool on her fingertips. She stood on tiptoe and brought her face as near to his as she could. “You hid because you knew that it was pointless to die. You ran to save the lives of the men captured.”
“Did I?” he whispered. “Did I? That’s what I told myself at the time, that I was running for the others, but perhaps I lied. Perhaps I ran merely for myself.”
“No.” She shook her head desperately. “I know you, Samuel. I know you. You ran to save them, pure and simple, and I admire you for it.”
“Do you?” His eyes seemed to focus on her face finally. “Yet your brother died before I could return with the ransom. I failed him. I failed you.”
“No,” she choked. “Never think that.” And she pulled his head down to her own.
She kissed him, trying to instill all her conflicting thoughts and hopes into that simple gesture. Mouth to mouth, lips moving together. A kiss was such a basic thing, a thing easily given, but she wanted this kiss to be more. She wanted Samuel to know that she’d never thought him a coward.
She wanted him to know that she loved him.
Yes, love. No matter who she married, no matter if she never again saw him, she would always love this man. Loving him was beyond her control. Even though Samuel was the wrong man to marry, the wrong man to spend the rest of her life with, she couldn’t help loving him.
So she kissed him softly, her lips as gentle as she could make them. She moved over his mouth, murmuring incoherent endearments, finally licking so that she could taste him. She would need to remember this moment later, his taste, his lips, what kissing Samuel felt like. She would have to hold the memory in her heart forever. This memory would be the only thing she had of him.
He moved suddenly, grasping her upper arms, and she didn’t know whether he sought to push her away or draw her closer. She panicked then. He couldn’t leave her before she’d shown him that she loved him.
“Please,” she murmured against his lips.
His fingers tightened on her arms.
