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He ground the thoughts into submission. Such things were best left untouched, no matter how they festered, like a weeping wound that begged for healing. Of course Hannah Young would not think of him, not after so much time had passed.
Growling low, he rubbed his hand against his forehead. Why? Why could his thoughts not remain buried under the layers of hurt and resolution that piled so thick? He lowered his hand and stared through the snowflakes as they folded on the road ahead. Unbidden, the deep green of her eyes, the merry song of her laugh, the honey-sweet scent of her hair circled and consumed him until he could hardly breathe.
Looking forward, he exhaled his memories into the cold January air. He must steady his mind upon the future—upon Jacob and the liberty for which he would fight.
The snow fell harder, and a brush of wind pulled at his coat. He might have hope for the fight of the future, but he would never be able escape the prison of his past.
Chapter Two
Looking to the clock for the hundredth time, Philo Young rubbed his palms against his black jacket and straightened. Noon. Any moment a knock on the door would signal his brother’s arrival. How many months had passed since he’d paid a call? A drop of hope rippled through Philo’s chest. This must be a sign of goodwill. He spun from the healthy fire, nodding with satisfaction that everything was in place, the floor swept, the mantel dusted. Hurrying to reposition the first seat, he scooted it an inch closer to the fire. There. He nodded with satisfaction. His elder sibling would have the chair closest the warmth. Philo would sit opposite.
The yet to-be-spoken conversation toyed with his imagination, and a few more splashes of eager anticipation began to rain. It shall be mine at last. Again he wiped the moisture from his hands, pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. There was only one reason Ensign would come twenty miles.
The awaited knock jolted Philo like a crack of splintering wood. He shook his head, huffing away his frayed nerves. Hurrying to the door, he swung it open and stepped back with a slight bow. “Welcome, brother.”
Ensign dipped his chin slightly. “Philo.” Entering, he removed his cocked hat and set it on the table by the door. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
Philo closed the door against the cold. “Shall we sit?”
Hardly so much as a nod of acknowledgment, Ensign moved to the offered chair and sat, but his shoulders and back refused to relax.
Such gray lines under his eyes. Was he ill? At the chair beside him, Philo rested with his hands in his lap. “Your journey was not too unpleasant, I trust?”
Expression drawn, eyes unmoving, Ensign answered with only a fleeting glance. A thread of silence knit back and forth between them. Looking to the fire, Philo rubbed his thumb into the palm of his other hand. He might not have seen much of his brother over the past years—their closeness might have even been strained betimes with anger—but he knew him and could sense some unvoiced woe from the slant of Ensign’s shoulders.
“I…” Ensign’s voice cracked. He quickly cleared his throat and tried again. “She is gone from me, Philo. I have lost my dearest friend.”
Bea.
Philo’s stomach lurched. So the illness had taken her, after all her years of fighting. “Ensign, I am so sorry—”
“Hannah feels her loss almost more keenly than I.”
At the sound of his daughter’s name, a flowering joy bloomed and instantly wilted. Any response he might have spoken fled like birds before a pursuing dog. How many years since he had seen her? Too many. But the rift between them gaped wider with every phase of the moon. What she had done could never be forgiven. Not by him.
“Bea shall be missed.” Philo wrestled the phantom that clutched him from behind, struggling to answer as if Hannah’s name had not been spoken. “She was a good companion to you.”
“She was my heart, my very life’s breath.” Ensign’s throat shifted. “If not for Hannah, I am not sure I could bear the loss.”
Must he speak of her? Philo squirmed as the chair became a cluster of upward-pointed nails. The pricking forced him to stand. “I am grieved at your news indeed. And honored, truly, that you would come all this way to tell me.” He placed a hand at his back. “But I am sure you did not traverse the ice-covered roads for that alone.”
Eyes unmoved from the fire, Ensign sat back, and his chair creaked. “Aye.” His voice tapped across the weak thread that bound them. “I have…I have come to a decision.”
The silence roared as Philo turned to stare at the orange waves in the hearth, waiting in agony for the words he’d longed to hear. When still the quiet clawed him several moments later, he spun back. The dipped brow and working jaw of his brother made Philo’s stomach pitch. Would he not speak?
Skin spiked with anxiety, Philo glanced to the kitchen, then the window, then again his brother. He couldn’t long remain here in such torturous quiet. Perhaps Ensign was parched from the journey. Philo should have offered him a drink. “Shall I get you a—”
“I’ve sold it, Philo.”
Philo went still, his mind grinding over the revelation like a millstone over grain. “You what?”
Ensign licked his lips before lifting his eyes to Philo’s. “I’ve sold Eaton Hill.”
His former hopes dried in an instant, leaving behind a sandy plain of hate. The grains blew wild in the winds of Philo’s rage, stinging his skin, as he pra
yed his words would do to Ensign. “How dare you. Eaton Hill should be mine!” His volume rose slow and thick, pulse thudding hard through his ears. “You came here thinking to soften me with your sorrows before revealing you have taken from me that which I have longed for all these years?”
Ensign flicked his head up at the outburst. “Believe what you like. But I tell you only the truth.”
