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“From what you say, it seems all he has done is bend to your will. You would go back to Eaton Hill, so he let you. You would scribe for Stockton, and he let you. You say you wish to come here after the ball—and he supports your choice. If you show no interest in him, he will not force himself upon you, Hannah. He never has.”
Caroline’s words chafed, leaving a sore spot upon her conscience. ’Twas true. He had never forced her. She knew this as well as she knew everything else. Almost everything.
She looked to the door, her spirit willing, but her mouth almost too weak. “I do not know if I have the strength to do it.”
In a swift movement, Caroline tugged her cousin into the kind of embrace she hadn’t felt since the night Ensign passed. Pulling away, Caroline tilted her head, as she always did when she prepared to speak something wise. “You must sacrifice your fears, Hannah. You can only know the true freedom you seek when you are willing to give up what imprisons you.”
Her voice wobbled. “But my prison is safe.” So much revealed in so few words, her own mind at last understanding her silence.
Caroline cupped Hannah’s face. “I know. But once you do this you will no longer wonder. You will know. And no matter what happens in consequence, you will not ever wonder ‘what if.’” Her smile tipped slightly, and her voice softened. “Do you not think that God has given you this chance? That perhaps He has prepared more happiness in your future than you can ever imagine? Why not try it and see?”
Like a breeze gently ushering away the shadows of high summer clouds, Hannah’s spirit stilled as the thought brightened through her. Had God arranged this? Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. Perhaps Caroline was right. God knew her better than she knew herself, did He not? Deep within her, this had been the wish of her heart—to see Joseph again. To have another chance.
Lifting her eyes to Caroline’s, she blinked back the tears, her tone weak, testing the taste of the words before allowing them full voice. “Do you really think I should?”
Confident, sure, Caroline’s pretty face bloomed like a summer blossom. “I know you should.” She grinned and took Hannah at the elbow, head inclined. “The shops are just opening. Why don’t we enjoy a bit of dallying before you return? You must be in need of some soaps and a ribbon for your hair.”
Lip between her teeth, Hannah ruminated. “I should go back. ’Tis a wonder Joseph hasn’t come after me, and if I am out any longer…”
“Nonsense.” Caroline put a finger to her mouth. “If we escape out the back door, my family will be none the wiser.”
The way her cousin’s eyebrows pinched upward in the center, her lips splayed out in a silent plea, made a reluctant giggle bounce its way up Hannah’s throat. “Very well.” She whispered the last. “But I must leave no later than two in the afternoon. I wrote them I would be home before supper.”
“Not to worry.” Caroline gave Hannah’s arm a squeeze, then reached for the door, her voice merry as birdsong. “You shall leave long before then.”
* * *
The short ride into town was made shorter still by the thrashing anxiety in Joseph’s limbs. Higley had said naught, his angular jaw firm as an iron bar.
Higley slowed and angled his horse toward a two-story house at the edge of town and dismounted just as Joseph rode up alongside. Once on the ground, Anvil securely tied, Joseph stepped beside the man whose taciturn and evasive communications made the hairs on Joseph’s neck stand rigid.
Voice taut
, Higley leaned slightly toward him as he neared the door. “Speak not unless you are spoken to.”
Joseph nodded, praying they wouldn’t speak to him at all—and that God would hedge up the way of their enemies, allowing him and poor Willis a chance to go free.
Higley entered first, striding in with bold steps. Joseph matched the man’s confidence, though his legs battled between strength and weakness. This could be a trap.
The conversation was fully underway. Pitman’s slender face was scarlet as his coat. Stockton stood in the far right corner, arms crossed and eyes digging bayonets into Willis’s chest. Bound and bruised, Willis sat motionless in a chair in the center of the room. Reece stood at attention in the opposite corner, and several other soldiers dotted the small room, but ’twas more intimate and informal an affair than Joseph had expected. Most likely they wished to keep this from gaining public knowledge.
The two majors looked up as they entered, expressions sharp as a blade’s edge.
Pitman motioned with only the movement of his eyes for Higley to take Joseph to the back corner of the room. Higley strode to the rear, and Joseph followed, heightening all his senses. If he were to be attacked, apprehended, there would be no way to fight his way free.
“I am slow to believe a common colonial in place of one of my men.” Pitman growled, indignation rumbling through the room. “Such a claim is not to be taken lightly, Plains.”
Willis swallowed, his voice raspy, a sign he had likely been held at the throat, or worse, when captured. “I did not exchange letters with anyone, sir.”
“You would like me to believe that Private Graves would fabricate such a story?”
“No, sir. But if you would let me explain—”
He coughed and swallowed again, the grimace on his face making Joseph’s anger boil. They’d beaten him, ’twas more obvious all the time. Joseph knew that type of pain, and it burned him to the center to think these men had done it to such a man.
“You know we have been searching for an informant.” Pitman didn’t move, but his voice loomed through the room like a lion ready to pounce. “And now, I believe we may have found him.”
Willis shook his head. “’Tis not I, sir. I give you my word. I was only—”
