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Anna handed it to him and prepared to speak again, but William did before her.

“All this talk of the past will unearth too much grief, will it not? We should talk of more pleasing times.”

Nathaniel grunted. “Those were difficult times, indeed. And though I do not wish to be one to speak unkindly of the dead, I will be forever grateful we no longer suffer under his—”

“Nathaniel…” Kitty pinched her lips and widened her eyes before taking a quick sip of wine.

“He could not have gone without accusal for treating you all in such a way.” Anna lifted a dainty bite to her mouth.

“Not in this life, but perhaps in the next,” Thomas answered, before taking another bite.

Eliza shot him a look, but he answered with a quick jostle of the shoulder as if the words he spoke should be more accepted than they were.

“So…so he is dead?” Anna asked.

Eliza sighed, resting her wrist against the edge of the table. “He is.” ’Twas then she looked to William. “William offered us protection that night. We will forever be in his debt.”

Anna reached for her glass. “William never said he was in Boston. What were you doing there?”

He locked eyes with her, the sudden pleading, almost apologetic sheen in his stare formed a pit in her stomach that deepened with every breath. Was he angry with her? Had she said something wrong? His jaw hardened and he shot a quick glance to the others before returning his gaze to her. Why were his eyes so dark? Anna rested her fork on the table and clasped her hands in her lap, her limbs suddenly cold.

“I will say one thing about the trials of the past,” Thomas said, luring Anna from the darkening hall she had begun to traverse. “Without Samuel our lives would not be so tightly woven. So in that, we should give thanks.”

“Forgive me, did you say, Samuel? Samuel Martin?” The air died in her lungs. She shot a look to William before facing Thomas, but ’twas Nathaniel who answered.

“None other.” He raised his glass before draining the last of its contents.

She moved as if her limbs were slowed by tar. Blinking to keep her vision clear, she rested the utensils on the table and put her hands in her lap. Her voice came out as a sad thread of volume. “How did he…how did he die?”

Thomas cleared his throat. “He, uh…he took his own life.”

Dear Lord, no!

The blood drained from Anna’s head. The room faded in and out. She gripped the edge of the table, the sound of her name swirling in the darkening space around her. Her breathing hastened as the sculpture of dreams she’d treasured all these years crashed against the unforgiving ground of reality. Father had been right. Samuel was not the man she thought him to be. Why had she never seen his true nature?

“Anna?”

She looked up, unable to force her mouth to form words. Breathing through her mouth, she stared at her plate. What had God done? Sending her here amongst the people her brother had treated so ill? If they knew who she was they would hate her just the same.

“Anna. Anna!”

Jostled by a hand at her shoulder, Anna swung away from her thoughts to see William crouched beside her, but the momentum of grief threatened to pull her down again.

She opened her mouth and struggled for breath as a familiar wave of nausea returned. “Forgive me, I need a moment of air.”

A clank of metal and glass split the air as she pushed away and raced for the door, desperate for the solitude that might ease the choke around her spirit.

Once outside, she stumbled to a stop. The snow, tiny shimmering specks, shook from the clouds like salt, stinging the fresh cuts in her heart. She inhaled a gasp of frigid air. Hand at her chest, Anna tried to calm the sobs that stacked in her chest. Her eyes burned and she covered her mouth as a single cry burst from her mouth. Samuel. Why? Why?

“Anna.” The sound of William’s baritone voice tempted her to turn but her quivering frame refused it.

His boots crunched over the cold ground but she waved him back to the house, refusing to face him. “Leave me.”

William grasped her from behind and turned her toward the house. “You should not be out in this cold.” She offered a cursory glance as he slipped the jacket from his shoulders and draped it around her. The tender act nailed the humiliation in place.

Her legs refused to move and he stopped beside her. Wiping a stray tear from her cheek with the back of his fingers, he lowered his chin. “Are you ready to go back in?”

“I…” Her voice cracked her words apart. “I cannot go back in.”

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