Anna spun away from the window, reprimanding herself for not having looked away sooner. Such an intimate scene and she’d willingly stood and watched. She stared at the floor, blinking away pricks behind her eyes. How Nathaniel had looked at Kitty. How he’d kissed her. Never had she seen such adoration in a man’s expression. The smile on his face…
She closed her eyes and ground the crumbs of her desires to dust. Such would never happen for her. She must accept what God had allotted her. Clenching her eyes tighter, she fought the imaginations that hovered. What would it be like to have William look at her that way for that reason—to tell him she carried his child and to see the burst of joy in his face?
“Anna?”
She gasped at the sound of William’s voice and straightened as he walked near, his eyes darkened in concern.
“Are you all right?”
She brushed her hands in the air. “I was lost in thought.”
He shifted his head. “I do not believe you.”
A sprite laugh left her mouth, though it was too thin to cover the shape of grief in her tone. “’Tis nothing.”
Closing the distance between them, he smoothed his hand down her arm. “You are sad.” His eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
Her throat ached and she swallowed to press away the lodging bulge of sorrow. Not here. She willed the tears away and took his hand, entwining her fingers with his. “I have no sorrows when you are near.”
His eyes grew pensive, the delicate lines around them deepening. Circling his thumb against the back of her hand, he caressed her with his gaze, the depth of it reaching down to patch the fresh crack in her heart. “Then I shall always be beside you.”
“We are here!” Nathaniel entered with Kitty close behind. “You have pined for our arrival, I have no doubt.”
Thomas and Eliza rushed in from the kitchen and the greetings began to chime like church bells, but even the gaiety could not lure Anna from the cocoon that circled her and William. Then I shall always be beside you. His words embroidered themselves in her soul. She looked up and stalled, his eyes still upon her. In that look, that moment, he said a hundred things—assuring and comforting, promising and pleading—before he squeezed her hand and pulled away, joining the choir of happiness that sang in the space beside the door.
“Our plan is working then?”
Anna jumped at Kitty’s surprising closeness. “Kitty! I did not see you there.” A half-smile half-frown wrestled at Anna’s mouth. “Working? What plan do you mean?”
Kitty raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. “With William I mean.”
“Oh!” A tickle of delight twirled in Anna’s middle, remembering the heated promises they shared before they’d left the house. “It is, and I have you to thank I believe. The gown and pearls are lovely.”
“Nay.” Kitty hooked her arm in Anna’s and started toward the kitchen. “I supplied the means, but you are doing the work.”
With a smirk, Anna whispered. “I would hardly call it work.”
Kitty’s face went wide and she laughed full out as they reached the kitchen.
“Do share what you find so entertaining.”
Nathaniel came forward and took his wife at the other elbow, nodding politely to Anna as he took Kitty to the table and pulled a chair for her.
“We were simply discussing the night’s festivities. Perhaps later you would read for us darling,” she teased.
He grinned, taking the seat beside her as both Thomas and Eliza took their seats as well. “I think that honor is Eliza’s, unless you wish me to entertain you all with my incredible talent.”
“Oh, please do.” Thomas leaned back in his chair, his eyes slanted with humor. “I believe we could all benefit from a bit of laughter.”
At that, a merry chortle jostled around the table. Those already seated continued their back and forth teasing and reminiscing. Anna stared, feeling for nearly the first moment, the rich, encompassing love of family. She’d eaten in fine halls, sipped wine from gold plated goblets, conversed with royals. But never, never had she felt her soul float as if it might rise to the heavens. Lord, my heart is filled to over flowing. She’d never dreamed of such happiness for herself. Never dreamed she would have a family as she did now. If only her brother could have felt this love.
“Shall we join them?”
’Twas only then Anna realized she and William were still standing.
He placed one hand at her back and pulled a chair for her with the other before sitting in the empty seat beside her.
Thomas gestured across the table then clasped his hands in front of him. “Let us pray.”
~~~
The candles that framed the lamb at the center of the table waved their amber-light against the white china. Utensils chimed and clanked, goblets were slowly drained. The warmth of the fire circled the room, as if happy to shield its companions from the snow that fell just past the walls.
“This lamb is divine, Anna, truly.”
Kitty’s compliment made Anna’s cheeks grow hot. “I do hope so. I feared such a gathering would be a poor choice for my first attempt at such a dish.” She prepared for another taste herself, grateful that the nausea she’d suffered had yet to visit her since morning.
“No one would ever believe this was your first.” Eliza dotted the meat with her fork. “’Tis more tender than I’ve ever tasted. Not a dry morsel to be found.”
Kitty hummed in agreement. “You are a natural, my dear.”
“Nay.” Anna shook her head with a laugh. “You are too kind.”
“She speaks the truth, Mrs. Fredericks,” William said, a tease in his voice as he spoke her formal name. “I am pleased to be the one attached to you, so you may prepare this for me on future occasions.”
The playful smirk on William’s face made flutters start in her chest. The shadows cast by the candles highlighted his sculpted features, accentuating his masculinity. She struggled to swallow the bite in her mouth. The lines around his eyes softened and the smile he offered made her weightless.
“I’m pleased you were willing to venture out when such cold is upon us.” Thomas spoke to William from across the table. “Only yesterday the rains fell, but it seems winter’s chill was not far behind.”
“A little snow will not deter us.” William dotted his mouth with his napkin. “We must celebrate your return to Sandwich, must we not?” He shot a look to Anna before his tone captured a more somber thread. “’Twas a deciding time for all of us.”
“A deciding time?” Anna prepared a bite. “I recall learning of your coming here when we prepared to celebrate the first time—before the birth of little Mary. But you speak of a return? It would seem I do not know the whole of the story.”
‘’Tis a long one I’m afraid.” Eliza set down her glass, a slow pensive sigh exhaling from her lips. “My father was…” She stopped and flung a pleading glance to Thomas. “I hardly know where to begin.”
Thomas reached for his wife’s hand as he spoke to Anna from across the table. “Eliza was courted by a captain in the British Army.” He sat back against his chair and turned the flat end of his knife against the table cloth, a drawn look owning his features. “He believed himself to be in love with her. But when I took her to safety after her father’s involvement with the Sons of Liberty had come to light, this man believed that I had taken her against her will.”
“How dreadful.” Anna rested her fork on her plate.
“He was prepared to force me to marry him,” Eliza said. “If Thomas hadn’t arrived, I’m not sure what I would have done.” Her voice trailed off as if the memory reached out to capture her.
“How did you escape him?” Anna placed her hands in her lap, the small semblance of appetite she’d had now completely forgotten at the horror of such a tale.
Eliza tossed a look to Thomas before returning her gaze to Anna. “Thomas and Nathaniel risked their lives freeing Kitty and me.”
“Do not forget Don—” Nathaniel c
leared his throat and dotted his mouth with the napkin. “Without William we would never have escaped. He is the true hero.”
She swung her eyes to William, whose expression had hardened, his mouth in a straight, angry line. The mirthful line about heroism died at his hard look.
“You were all there that night?” she asked. “Had you known each other long?”
William took a large bite of lamb, glancing across the table to Nathaniel who obliged to answer.
“I had known Thomas for some time,” he said, and reached for his glass. “I met Eliza and Kitty only when they came to Sandwich to seek refuge from the soldiers. Of course, I couldn’t allow Thomas to be the only one to enjoy all the heroics that grand night.” He gestured to Thomas with his half-full goblet. “Truth be told, this man needed my superior mind. He was too lovesick to put two clear thoughts together.”
Thomas’s face swooped in a half-smile as he prepared for another bite. “I won’t stoop to reminding you of the time you nearly let Kitty slip from your fingers.”
Nathaniel leaned across the table to Anna, not quite whispering. “Do not take your facts from him. I shall tell you the entire story some other time.”
A quiet laugh bubbled in Anna’s chest and she tapped her gaze on Eliza then Kitty who were reserving laughs of their own.
“Well…” Nathaniel sat back and poked a piece of meat with his fork, a contemplative expression shifting his face. “I must say, God be praised for preserving us from such an enemy. Captain Martin was—”
“Nathaniel, how did the meeting at Fessenden’s go last evening?”
William held both fork and knife above his lamb while all eyes questioned his sudden interruption.
Anna latched on to Nathaniel’s words, the very sound of them seeping through her skin. Nathaniel answered and the conversation ensued once more, but Anna’s mind refused to surrender. Had she heard him correctly? The man’s name was Martin? Anna stilled. A coincidence no doubt. The name was not so uncommon. Yet…
“Did you say his name was Martin?”
She didn’t realize she’d interrupted until it was too late.
Thomas peeked up as he cut another bite. “Aye,” he said, before mumbling the last. “A man I shall not soon forget.”
“Anna, would you please pass the pudding.” William pointed toward the dish just out of his reach.
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.”
“Speak to me,” he whispered.
The tender command urged the truth from her throat but she clamped her teeth, refusing it utterance.
Again he brushed his hand against her face, his words so tender they all but melted the flakes around them. “I ache to see you grieve so. Will you not confide in me?”
She grasped hold of her remaining strength and used it to flood her thin voice. “I do not wish to speak to anyone.” A lie. The tears streamed freely now. She struggled to keep her tone even as the trail of sobs erupted. “I wish…I wish to be alone.” Another lie, but the humiliation of creating such a scene before her friends was too much.
“Anna,” he pleaded, swerving to stand in front of her. “I accept your wish to stay silent, but I cannot leave you to bear it alone.”
Hot tears poured from her eyes and she collapsed against him, the realities of what she’d learned consuming the wishes of her past like flame. She melted against his strong chest, his solid arms enveloping her, holding her as the years of pain and longing flooded with the knowledge that s
he’d lost Samuel all over again. The memories of him, once so bright and sustaining, now charred to lifeless black.
She could hardly speak. “I…I want to go home.”
His head bobbed above hers. “Of course, my love. As you wish.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
William helped Anna into the seat facing their kitchen fire and made sure the logs roared before he kneeled in front of her, his concern at his throat.
“Can I get you something? Anything?”
She shook her head, her lips pressed tight, chin quivering.
He squeezed his fingers around her knee, looking away, hoping to find some semblance of thought in his frenzied mind. A whipping began on his spirit. There were not harsh enough ways to punish his foolishness. He should have ceased the conversation long before it had taken such a turn. He knew the revelation of their connection would need careful consideration—had thought about little else since he’d learned she and Samuel shared the same blood. But now, the worst had showered on them like a sudden summer rain, drenching the thoughts he hung out to dry.
Blinking, Anna inhaled a choppy breath. “I dislike keeping things from you.” She glanced to him then back to the fire. “I realize telling you what I have just learned, that which causes my grief, may force you to change your feelings about me, but I cannot keep it within.”
One hand still on her knee, he reached up to her cheek with the other, tucking a curl around her ear. Praying his sincerity would cut past the vines of despair that choked the light from her eyes, he whispered. “Nothing you can say will alter my feelings for you.”
She shifted her gaze to align with his. “Samuel was my brother.”
William searched her eyes, frowning in question. “Your brother?” Did she believe his act? Was his surprise both as sincere and convincing as he hoped?
Anna blinked, keeping her face toward the fire. “When word reached us that Samuel had died, that he had in fact taken his own life, I refused to believe it.” Her voice compressed, emotion replaced with a flat, soulless sound. “I knew, I knew with everything in me that the reports were false.”
So Rare a Gift (Daughters of His Kingdom Book 3) Page 30
