“State your business,” the young soldier commanded.
The muzzle quivered. William allowed only the slightest tick of his eyebrow. Was the weapon too heavy for the lad or was he frightened?
William took a step forward, his biceps pulsing. “State yours.” Playing the part of a patriot came easy. For truly, he was one. “What right have you to burst upon my property and raise your weapon?”
The boy’s eyes widened, and he moved back before another wave of courage took its place and he lunged forward. “I…” He shook his head. “State your business!”
“I’m laundering, what does it look like?”
The boy tilted his head to peer past William where the basket rested at the water’s edge. The fictitious courage in his face dropped, as did his weapon as he spied the few articles hanging on the bushes.
Eyes shifting, voice strained, the soldier took a step back. “Are you friendly to the crown?”
“Are you lost?” Answering with a question of his own might provide William with additional knowledge. He moved toward him like an animal stalking prey. “I’ve not seen any troops here for some time. So either you are lost or you are looking for trouble you’ll be sorry you sought.”
The soldier’s throat shifted and he glanced left, once more raising his weapon. “Have you seen any suspicious activity? We’re looking for smugglers.”
There it was. The truth he’d been waiting for. A laugh stacked in William’s chest. Was this one of the newly enlisted soldiers the crown had to depend upon? If that were the case, the British army was doomed indeed. “I cannot say I have.”
He continued to press forward and the boy continued to step back. Fear rose in his eyes as William neared, and so did his weapon. Finally the boy stopped, speaking louder, the weapon still quivering. “How do I know you speak the truth?” Again he glanced left. “Are you alone?”
William’s chest went solid, his eyes narrowing. The soldier kept looking in the direction of Anna. Had he seen her? Suspected? Impossible. She was too far from sight.
A sudden thought struck his head like the back of a pistol.
Perhaps the soldier wasn’t alone…
“Get out.” William’s patience vanished. The last thing he wished was to be forced to show this inferior soldier all the ways he could best him.
Gripping the weapon tighter, the boy shifted his feet. “Answer me.”
William’s fingers twitched.
The boy looked left again and William lunged, snatching the weapon from his grasp and slamming the end of the weapon into his belly. Arms flailing, the boy fell to his back with a groan. He gripped his middle and scooted against the ground, eyes squinted and mouth contorted.
William neared and stood over him, tossing the weapon to the ground. “Get out. Now.”
Scrambling to his feet, the boy lunged for the gun and darted back down the trail.
With the soldier now gone the angst he’d suppressed burst from its bounds and flooded William’s legs. He ran into the water and hurried to the place where Anna waited.
She was gone.
Whirling around, William looked across the creek then back again. The water was too shallow for her to have been taken in a current…
He raced down stream a few more steps, his stomach twisting as the sound of voices reached him from the bank. He leapt through the trees and jerked to a stop.
Blinking, he tried to calm the wild pace of his pulse so he could comprehend the placid scene before him.
Anna stood on the bank, her skirts wet all the way to her waist, speaking with another man as easy as one might a friendly stranger in town. Only this man was neither a friend, nor a stranger. He was a soldier.
The redcoat saw him first and immediately replaced his hat and with a nod of his head, turned and walked out of sight.
Anna spun, the corners of her mouth lifting the moment her gaze landed on him. She rushed forward and reached out. “Are you all right?”
The concern in her lyrical voice soothed the dying panic another measure. “Are you?”
“I was so worried when you didn’t come back right away…”
He gripped her shoulders, asking again, slower this time, and with a slight downturn of his head. “Are you all right?”
Her gaze darted back and forth between his eyes. “I am well. Why? Did something happen?”
“Something could have.” William neither shifted his look nor altered his grip. “What did he say to you?” Their encounter had looked blessedly benign, but the motives could have been more than a simple search for smugglers. They could have been looking for him.
“He found me in the water where you’d left me and asked if I was in need of help.” She stopped and looked to where the soldier had gone, then back. “I told him my husband and I were laundering and that I’d gone looking for a neckerchief that had floated away and that I’d slipped on a mossy rock.”
Clever. William lowered his hands. “Is that all?”
“He helped me from the water and…and he was so polite I asked what he was doing here.”
Brave. And foolish. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He asked if I lived near—”
“You didn’t tell him did you?”
The insistent question must have appalled her for she pulled her head back with a quick shake. “I said that I was from town, that is all.”
William looked behind. He should allow her more credit. The sky, having been relieved of most of its light, reflected its deep blue in the gurgling stream. He stared at the water, sorting through the report. Her accent must have prompted the soldier’s question. Distrust, the serpent of past experiences, slithered at William’s feet. Was she telling the truth? Or was she hiding something?
He gave himself a much needed mental slap. He could read one’s eyes well enough and hers held no guile.
“His smile reminded me of my brother’s.”
Anna’s soft-spoken words made William turn back to her. “You have a brother?”
She looked to her hands. “I had a brother.” Her face lifted and her mouth tightened as if she wrestled with the thought of sharing more. “He was a soldier, too.”
Such a revelation tore down his spine and suddenly the thousands of unknown facets of his new wife’s past loomed like a coming storm. He brother had fought among the king’s men? When? Was her father in uniform as well?
Quickly executing the thoughts before they could plunge too deep, William motioned forward, acknowledging her comment with only an understanding nod. “We should gather the laundry and return before the sun leaves us completely.”
They did so in minutes and were once again within the safety of their home. William lit a candle, then another, granting a quaint glow to the darkness before securing a place for the wet clothes to dry. Anna retired to the bedchamber to change from her sopping clothes and returned to the parlor soon after. She draped her damp skirts over a chair in front of the fire. He swallowed. Against the firelight her figure looked far too pleasing. Round in all the right places, and slender in all the rest. The memories of the nights she’d slept beside him, that sweet, soft sound of her breath, the inviting scent of her hair. The warmth of her body just inches from his…
He licked his lips and forced himself to focus on the three remaining articles of wet clothes under his care. Theirs was not a traditional union and therefore certain things might never be. Remember that, Henry.
Once the clothes rested on the pegs by the door, William turned back, stopping silent as he did.
Bible in hand, Anna stood in front of the fire and opened the pages of the book she’d peered at every evening since their wedding. Her Bible. But this time, unlike the times before, she turned to the back and pulled a small likeness from the weathered pages, unaware that he watched her from the opposite side of the room. Fingers tender, eyes equally so, she stared as if her spirit communicated to the image gazing back at her. William’s heart thudded to a stop. Her first husband.
&
nbsp; With a quick shake of his head, William turned away and tried to reassemble the mad scramble of his thoughts, but he was losing. Though he and Anna had spoken vows, though she had offered her life to him, she still grieved the loss of the one she loved.
The sudden, befuddling urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and promise all would be well, so conquered his thinking he gripped the chair to keep from surrendering. She wouldn’t want his comfort. She wanted what was lost to her, what she could never have.
He gripped his head and settled upon a thought that would take him back to the reality he craved. “Do not worry yourself over supper. I must speak with Nathaniel and Thomas about what has happened.”
Anna looked up, worry inscribed into the lines of her forehead. “Oh? But I don’t wish for you to be hungry—”
“I am well.” Truthfully, moments ago he would have been hungry enough to eat whatever she boiled, but now his appetite was dead. Thank heaven there were far more pressing matters that required his attention.
“I understand.” She angled away from him, but not before he caught the slight downturn of her mouth. The visible pain in her stance, the way she gripped the book in her hands made him ache to reach for her. Should he ask what pained her? Should he delay and speak with Nathaniel and Thomas in the morning? William shook his head. Nay, he should go and give her the quiet reverie she likely sought in which to relive the memories of happier times.
“I’ll not be long,” he said.
He started for the door, but the thread of her voice pulled him back. “Do you regret me?”
The question startled him and William swung back around. “Regret you?”
She waved a hand and spun away. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have spoken it.”
Wisdom preached to him from the pulpit of his mind. He should nod and say he’d return later. But he did the opposite. Before he could stop himself he was at her side, aching to touch her.
She took a step away, but he grabbed her arm. “Speak to me.”
“’Tis nothing.”
Did she mean it? He looked to the fire in front of them as painful memories, like tar, waited for him to fall into them and bind him in their sticky black. Was Anna using him as she had done?
The yearning of compassion bowed to suspicion. This was too dangerous. He knew nothing about her. She could be every bit the Anna he had known, not the Anna that stood before him.
The sudden urge to flee itched his feet but vanished when she spoke. “I am indebted to you, William.” She cast him a glance over her shoulder, and though fleeting, it was enough to show the hundred unspoken feelings of her soul. Though he couldn’t name one.
“I have been so…” She rested the Bible on the table and her lips thinned as if she tried to discover the word that evaded her. Finally, she dropped her hands to her side with a sigh of defeat. “I shall improve. I shall do better, I promise.”
Whatever safety the walls of suspicion had constructed moments before, he scaled them. Her voice spoke not only in words but in the drop of her tone. She knew her failings and they berated her. Did she think he would regret his decision simply because she was not natural in the kitchen?
Again she turned away, and he was powerless against the urge to reach for her. Brushing his fingers at her elbow, he turned her to face him. Though her body came nearer she kept her gaze to the fire.
Slowly, he curved his finger beneath her chin and nudged her face upward. Her crystalline eyes met his and instantly his folly assailed him. He should have left, should have resisted. For now he was captured.
Her breath halted and his mouth went dry. Flecks of firelight beamed in her pleading eyes as delicate shadows shaded her lips. Pulse charging, William succumbed to the luring memory of their wedding kiss. That one short touch of the lips at their exchange of vows flourished. His body ached to feel it again.
A quick inhale allowed for a clear thought. Perhaps speaking would quench the sudden burn. He tendered his words and lowered his volume until it blanketed the air between them. “There is much for both of us to learn. Everything is new now, but in time we will settle into our roles.” Her expression softened and the fire in his chest grew almost too hot to contain. Speaking had only flamed the fire. He leaned toward her. “I do not regret you.”
Anna’s lips parted and her chest moved quicker. The pulse in her neck flicked wildly. “You do not?”
“Nay, I do not.” He dipped forward until her breath dusted his mouth. Oh, how he wanted it. That gentle brush of skin to elicit the same tickle of pleasure as before. And why not? They were husband and wife.
He leaned nearer and Anna’s quick intake of breath tempted him to comb his fingers through her hair and angle her head to more perfectly accept his kiss.
Her lashes fluttered closed and she tilted her head when the door burst open.
They had a visitor…
~~~
Anna gasped and spun toward the door. Mind struggling against the un-carved marble of what had almost been so beautiful, she forced her lungs to take in long sweeps of air. He’d nearly kissed her. And she’d nearly allowed it. But ’twas not that she had simply allowed him to draw near—she had hoped, nay, yearned for the touch of his mouth upon hers. William’s gaze, as it had dropped to her mouth, implied the impending kiss would have been far more passionate than their first had been.
“Thomas,” William called out, rushing to the door.
“Forgive me for intruding.” Pale moonlight outlined Thomas’s tall, strong frame. “Nathaniel asked me to come in his place and see if everything was well.”
William offered Anna a glance before meeting Thomas in the center of the room. “You could have knocked.”
A smile peeked though Thomas’s expression. “I did. But it appears you were preoccupied.”
Anna’s face ignited. She crouched to the fire and feigned business with an empty soup pot. The humiliation! To be caught in such a way—her lips ready to accept him. If only the planks beneath her feet would open and she could hide beneath the cold wood.
’Tis not unseemly. You are married… Somehow, the thought didn’t alleviate the rake of embarrassment. Of course, if he wished to have her it was his right and her obligation. Not that he’d asked for anything more than a kiss, but she knew where it could lead. And if he had followed through, with nothing more than a husbandly desire to father a child, then the painful realities of her barren womb would be all too apparent. Then, most assuredly, he would regret her in full.
“I must go, Anna,” William said.
She darted to her feet and strangled the fear that rose within. “Aye.” She could squeak out nothing more. Would he really leave her again? With soldiers about?
He must have read the unspoken question for his eyes went soft, reaching across the small room to circle her shoulders with calm. “I have no fear they will return. I would not leave you if I believed you to be in danger.”
Ushering the quivers behind her back, like a mother to a fearful child, she gripped the confidence he offered and grinned her reply.
Thomas nodded and stepped out, but William stopped at the threshold, glancing over his broad shoulder as he placed his hat on his head. “Keep the door latched. I shall return before long.”
He waited only a breath before shutting the door. Anna rushed across the small room and pushed the latch, her hands trembling. She put her back against the door and looked to the ceiling. Lord, what have I done?
She’d known the man little more than a week and already she was opening her heart in a way that would surely cause her pain. Why she felt such a powerful need for his approval, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps ’twas the debt she owed him for saving her from a life of misery. Perhaps ’twas her consuming fear that if he found her wanting, he would forsake their vows and leave her to count the days before she was discovered once more and returned to England.
“I will not go back,” she whispered to the questioning shadows.
Releasing an audible breath,
she pushed away from the door and went to the table. With a sigh, she pulled out a chair and sat, drawing the Bible to her. She thumbed through the pages, speaking to herself inwardly to put in place the jumble of emotions that yearned for rest.
Of course William wished to take his leave, however pressing the need was or not. Wouldn’t any man? He felt as if she had lured him to her with her self-pitying words. Do you regret me? How could she have spoken it? The thought made her squirm. In a moment of weakness she’d let slip the very thoughts that had made their way to her tongue.
She dropped her head against the crook of her arm and squeezed her eyes to shut out the unyielding thoughts. But in the dark of her clamped-shut eyes, the beguiling memory of William’s hooded gaze and tender touch made her stomach do tantalizing flips. She’d never been looked at the way William had looked at her, with a kind of desire that was tender and pure, hungry and wanting. Never had anyone traced her face with their eyes or spoken in a way that twined around her limbs like ribbons of warmth from a crackling fire.
She sat up and looked to the door, frustrated at the way she wished he would stride back in, pull her to him, and bring to life the girlish fantasies that tickled her chest.
“Foolish, Anna,” she whispered again.
With another huff of air, she opened to the last page of her Bible and retrieved Samuel’s likeness. The flickering light from the fire made it seem as if his smile widened at the sight of her and she smiled in return. Images of the kind young soldier at the creek pricked her memory. How much he had looked like Samuel. That same crooked smile and those same gentle eyes.
“I shall try to be brave, as you were brave, Sam.” She caressed the edge with her thumb. “William is a good man, I believe. But my fears are so crossed with my desires for a happy future that at times I cannot tell the difference between up and down.”
She stared, listening, hoping somehow her brother would share a bit of wisdom she could cling to, anything to help her endure the hardships and heartaches that awaited. Instead of hope, ’twas loss that struck her. Samuel would never speak to her again, never wink and smile at her from across the table, never make her laugh when she was sad, never come to her defense when father wished upon her things she did not wish for herself.
So Rare a Gift (Daughters of His Kingdom Book 3) Page 15
