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Philo dropped his hold and placed a hand on Maxim’s back, careful not to have his friend see through his pretense.
“We must first be sure we know what we are up against.” Remembering his mantle as a man of God, Philo reverted into the role he’d grown accustomed to, no matter how uncomfortable the cloth. “Providence does not work but with everlasting wisdom, does He not? Surely there will be good that comes of this. Prudence before haste. We must trust in His power to protect and provide.”
“But does not God expect us to act?” Maxim’s face curled with frustration. “You do not speak sense, Philo. Your daughter is—”
“She is fine.” He put a hand over his heart. “I feel all will be well, Maxim. Aye, we shall proceed, but with caution. We cannot have any more of our men running to their deaths. Already there will be too many widows amongst us.”
Only slightly subdued, Maxim nodded with a rough breath. “I suppose.”
Striding forward, Philo knit his hands behind his back, pressing his lips together to hold back the smile that tickled his face. Such good fortune. Perhaps God was as displeased with Ensign as he. Feigning more fraught than he felt, Philo pursed his mouth and slowed his step, staring down at his feet.
“Let us return to Newcomb and see if we cannot somehow glean a bit more information from that Redcoat, hmm?”
Maxim’s mouth bowed up, and he nodded with acceptance. “I can always be persuaded in that vein.”
“Come. Let us see what we can learn.”
Philo started again and glanced up to the clouds. Providence at work, surely. God was not well pleased with Ensign, that much was certain. Here was the chance Philo had been waiting for. The art of persuasion was delicate, but even soldiers were human, were they not? They had pride that needed stroking, egos that craved boosting.
Once they could be swayed to side with Philo, Ensign would have no choice but to give Eaton Hill to him after all.
Chapter Seven
A day had passed—one day and a full night—and they’d been on the road again since daybreak. The vast silence between them loomed like the snow, quiet and endless, surrounding and consuming. Hannah gripped the edge of the wagon seat beside Joseph, a giant flake plunking against her cheek. She brushed it away. The minutes passed more like hours. A bump in the road jostled her, and she gripped the seat harder to keep from bumping into his body, which rested not half an inch from hers. Not much longer. She shivered. Her cheeks and nose prickled, and her fingers ached with every movement. Having hardly recovered from the first journey when setting off on the return, she still had not fully shed the quivers of cold.
She flung a quick glance in Joseph’s direction before focusing on the puffs of breath that left her mouth as she breathed. Not a word between them. For that she was both grateful, and not. Could they really make such a ploy believable if they could not at least be civil? Nathaniel and Captain Donaldson had made clear their mission, and she was both alive and sick with dread at the thought of not fulfilling what she’d vowed she would do at any cost.
A slice of bravery tempted her to look at Joseph again, and her heart skipped a pulse. Tricorne dusted with snow, blond queue resting between his broad shoulders, greatcoat barely able to contain the large muscles that filled it. He stared forward, the blink of his eyes against the falling snow the only indication he wasn’t a mere statue as he held the reins.
He had insisted—nay, demanded he be the one to accompany her. Why? She didn’t want to question, for her heart loved and loathed his presence far more than she would ever admit in words. She must tread with care. Their mission, short as it was, was long enough to demolish the
fortress she’d erected, despite its thick towering walls.
“You wish to speak.” His voice rumbled toward her, nearly startling her off the seat.
She straightened, gathering the composure his sudden words had scattered. “I am sorry to disappoint, but I do not.”
He peered her way with the slightest move of his head. “You say I do not know you, Hannah, but I do. You wish to speak.”
“I have nothing to say.” She wriggled in her seat, her insides twisting.
He stared forward, offering an almost imperceptible shrug, waiting near a full minute before voicing his reply. “Very well.”
The nerve of him. He did not know her. Well…not perfectly, anyway. She tapped her toes in her shoes. To keep the blood moving, aye, but also to ease the stifling anxiety. Fighting the urge to peek at him again, she stared off into the wood, the large flakes floating to the ground like goose down. Keeping the barricade of their broken past between them meant the raw, tender parts of her would not have to be touched, and such security allowed for rumination. This man had offered to be her companion. Nay, had insisted. The protectiveness and sincerity she’d seen in his eyes played wistful chords on the strings of her heart. But the ever-present dissonance overshadowed, as well it should.
This is no game, Hannah. And you are no fool.
“I suppose we could make the entire journey in silence.” She breathed in, avoiding the battle of her own thoughts, which dizzied her. “But I hardly believe such would be good practice when we are supposed to make the British believe we are kin.”
His jaw shifted, and he flung her a fleeting look before training his attention on the snow-covered road. “True.”
After a beat of silence that testified indeed that one word was all he would say, she cleared her throat to speak, but no response readied itself. Nay, that was a lie. There were words that waited to be spoken. Oceans of them. How have you been these past years? Still, the deepest ones reached up from her heart to grip hard at her throat. Why did you never return to me? Even deeper still, Did you not love me as I did you?
Hannah released a shuddered breath, more audible than she’d hoped, and she could feel his sudden gaze upon her. The sensation pressed stronger, and she fought the urge to crane her neck toward him. If she turned now, he might note the pain—that chronic throbbing of the heart that sometimes burned behind her eyes.
“Are you well?”
She could only nod.
