Shiloh

by Lori Benton

  Worlds shifting underfoot. Seona understood that well enough.

  As if reading her thoughts, Hannah asked, “Surely you’ve experienced the same, you and your mother? Catriona told me you have Cherokee blood.”

  “I did,” came Catriona’s admission as she stepped out of Juturna’s box and latched the door. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Seona shook her head. “I guess with Mama it’s obvious. Or we think so.”

  “Think so?” Hannah echoed.

  A glance between the two told Seona that Catriona hadn’t shared all the details of their story. But Hannah was waiting, expectant, and the girl had been open with her. Face warming, not meeting anyone’s gaze, Seona spilled out the truth. “My grandmama died birthing my mama, so we never knew her. We aren’t certain if she had Indian blood, but we always supposed my granddaddy was Cherokee. My grandmama was found living with them. She spoke their tongue but didn’t look Indian. Naomi said she was brown as a walnut. Skin, eyes, and hair. Curly hair. Not like any Indian she’d ever seen.”

  “Naomi?” Hannah asked.

  “Naomi was enslaved at Mountain Laurel,” Catriona said. “The plantation where Seona was born. Naomi’s free now, living in Shiloh with my brother Ian—the one we’re waiting on.”

  Hannah glanced from Catriona to Seona, brows pulled tight. “How did you wind up on a plantation if your grandmother was a Cherokee or became one?”

  “My grandmama was taken from one of their villages,” Seona said, “during the French War, and carried back east, big with child—Mama. Soldiers thought she was a white captive when they grabbed her during a dawn raid. When they saw she wasn’t white, they took her for a runaway slave. Could be she was, but they wanted to be rid of her afore her baby came. Miranda Cameron—my other grandmama who I never knew either—bought her off those soldiers and took her in.”

  “One of your grandmothers bought the other?” Hannah’s dark eyes rounded. “Then you and Lily are . . .”

  A horse nearby gave a ringing whinny, greeting its owner, arrived to tend it. For a moment no one spoke.

  “Were,” Catriona said, breaking the silence. “Seona and Lily were slaves on my uncle’s plantation in North Carolina. He made my brother his heir, but after Uncle Hugh died, Ian left Carolina to settle on the New York frontier. And now . . .”

  “Now we’re all free,” Seona said when Catriona glanced at her. “We’re headed to live with Ian and the others he brought north. Like Naomi.”

  “But isn’t Gabriel . . . ?” Hannah glanced at Catriona. “Tell me it’s none of my concern—it’s only that Gabriel bears a likeness to you, and as I’ve heard you all called Cameron, I assumed this brother you’ve been waiting for was . . .” She looked to Seona. “Your husband.”

  Seona drew breath and, for the first time, spoke the hardest words of all. “Gabriel is Ian’s son. But I’m not his wife.”

  “Not yet, you aren’t,” Catriona said as they made their way along the street above the inn. “But surely Ian means to marry you now.”

  Their conversation had been cut short when the inn’s cook had called Hannah Kirby to the kitchen, but it had clarified something for Seona, a truth that had hovered at the edges of her thoughts, elusive as a firefly, winking out and drifting off whenever she grabbed for it. She had never had to explain herself or Gabriel at Mountain Laurel, nor with the Camerons in Boston. But they were journeying toward people who, like Hannah, did not know their history. People who would be their neighbors for years to come. All their lives, maybe. How would they look at her if they knew she had been a slave or Gabriel was born when his daddy was married to another? Would she and Lily be accepted by the likes of those MacGregors? Would they be equals among them or something less?

  “Seona?” Catriona took her arm and slowed their pace along the street where ironshod wheels rattled and strangers glanced and children shouted in play. “You’ve nothing to hang your head over. Not like me.”

  Seona halted and drew Ian’s sister aside, near a shopwindow. “Not you either,” she stated firm, inwardly fuming at that Morgan Shelby for bringing Catriona so low she had felt forced to uproot herself from her home, her parents, the life they had envisioned for her.

  They were all pursuing the same thing—she and Catriona, her mama, Ian, Naomi and her kin too. Seeking a place where they could plant themselves, then grow up toward the light and flourish. Was it best to come straight out with the truth about the past, risk other people plucking them up before they could take root, or hide what she had been, pretend her life began the day that wagon rolled out of North Carolina? Was Ian thinking on how he was going to explain her and Gabriel? She was still rattled from that conversation with Hannah Kirby, who wouldn’t be the last to ask.

  The bell over the shop’s door tinkled as someone entered it, pulling Seona from her thoughts just as Catriona gripped her arm again. “Seona, look.”

  She hadn’t registered the display in the shop’s window when they’d paused. Books. Stacks of them.

  Catriona’s glance mirrored pain. “I’ve been thinking about that poem, the one I read in Da’s shop that freezing day we wore our spring gowns like a couple of ninnies. Remember? The one by Freneau?”

  “I mind it,” Seona said, clasping Catriona’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “But let’s don’t go inside. Every joint of me is cramped from sitting so long in that room. I need to walk.”

  Nodding agreement, Catriona led the way along the street, but she didn’t hold her silence. “‘From Susquehanna’s utmost springs, where savage tribes pursue their game, his blanket tied with yellow strings, a shepherd of the forest came . . .’”

  “You set it to memory.”

  “And it’s stuck there.” Catriona murmured what sounded like and bless’d the copper-coloured boy . . . before they turned a corner and ran smack into a tall, broad-shouldered figure striding from the other direction.

  Seona took the brunt of it. The impact knocked her off-balance as a deep voice exclaimed in dismay. She felt hands on her shoulders, large and strong. They steadied her, but before the world had righted itself and she could look into the face of her assailant, now sputtering apologies, Catriona’s exclamation filled her ears.

  “Ian? Ian, it is you!”

  Seona raised her head and met the gaze it seemed her very bones remembered for the jolt that went through them. Eyes like smoke across an autumn sky, wide with startled recognition and gathering joy, before they shifted from her, flaring even wider.

  A second before his sister threw herself into his arms, with utter incredulity Ian Cameron said, “Catriona?”

  20

  With his arms inexplicably full of his sister, who hadn’t ceased babbling since she threw herself into them, Ian couldn’t tear his gaze from Seona. Those green eyes, thicketed in dark lashes, were the most captivating sight in the world. Even clad in her shabbiest short gown and with her hair mostly covered in a kerchief, she was beautiful, stunningly so, as if the memories he held from their days together in Boston had been but a ghostly echo of her reality. He couldn’t speak or breathe, undone by the joy crashing over him while his sister was still talking and he not taking in the half of it. All he could think was God be thanked . . . God be thanked . . . for Seona was safe. In New York.

  Then she dropped her gaze and uncertainty pierced his joy. People passed them along the row of shops where they had collided, but he barely noticed.

  He breathed in at last, and it hurt.

  “Ian? Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Pushing against his chest, Catriona stepped back, and Ian got a better look at her, the bones of her face grown too prominent, those of her collar sharply defined, her eyes underscored by bruises. A ghostly echo of his memories of her.

  On the street behind him, a wagon clattered past. Something inside a nearby shop shattered. A woman’s voice rose, shrill and aggrieved.

  “What are ye doing in New York?” Ian asked, more sharply than he meant to.

  Looking str
icken now as well as shockingly thin, Catriona said, “You didn’t get my letter?”

  “No. I had one from ye, Seona.” He turned to her, longing for an embrace, even a word. Needing explanation. “Ye wrote of that wretch Shelby, but I only received it on my way out of Shiloh.” With the sordid details of that affair flooding back, he turned to Catriona, the hot tangle of bewilderment and outrage in him cooling. “I don’t know all that happened but I’m sorry for it. Truly I am. And I’d happily thrash the man for ye, could I find him. But was it so bad ye had to leave Boston?”

  “Oh, Ian. Yes. I did write to say I was coming.” Catriona bit her lip as if to stop its trembling.

  “But never tell me ye ran off without Da’s blessing?” As he had done at her age.

  “No, Ian,” Seona said, speaking at last. “Your mama and daddy thought it best she come with us—and prayed you’d take her in.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a letter from Da waiting on you,” Catriona hurried to add before he could reply. “Though there’s nothing more to tell, really, than what Seona wrote.”

  “So,” he said, needing to be certain, “ye’ve come to live with me? Us?” he amended with a glance at Seona and a smile he couldn’t quell—and she didn’t return—while his sister stood there on that Albany street, blue eyes brimming with shame and hope.

  “If you’ll have me, Brother.”

  Ian felt his heart wrench. “Of course I will. But . . . how long have ye been in Albany? Where’s Lily? Ned? Gabriel?” He looked around as if they might appear there on the street. “Did ye meet with any trouble on the journey?”

  “So many questions,” Seona said, a corner of her mouth lifting. “We been in Albany two days—three, counting today.”

  He felt his brows soar. “Why so long?”

  “Gabriel,” she said. “He came over fevered during the river crossing.”

  His hand had curled around her arm before he could think to stop it. “He’s sick? How bad?”

  “Just an ague. He’s better this morning. We were thinking to start for Schenectady, soon as Ned showed up again.”

  “Showed up?” He let her go. “Where is he? Did he leave ye here on your own?”

  “Of course not,” Catriona said. “He’s spent nearly every hour we’ve been here combing Albany for you. No doubt he’s off looking now.”

  Banking the fresh outrage that had started to build, Ian caught his breath and sorted through the present mental clutter to the most vital thing. “Gabriel . . . ye said he’s well now?”

  Seona nodded. “Better. Mama’s with him. This is the first I’ve been out of that room since we got here. But you’ll want to see him.”

  As much as he wanted a moment alone with Seona, he wanted to see his son as badly. He would get neither there on the street. “Lead the way,” he said, meaning for his sister to do so but Seona walked ahead and turned the corner, leaving him and Catriona to follow.

  The inn where they were staying was a few blocks away. They were inside, passing the door to the public room and heading for the stairs to the upper floor, when a shout brought them to a halt.

  “Ian!” His brother left a cup on a table and knocked over a bench in his haste to intercept them in the inn’s foyer. “Where did ye find him?” Ned demanded of their sister but barreled on before Catriona could reply. “Where have ye been, Ian? Why weren’t ye there at the river to meet us?”

  While Seona and Catriona tensed, looking between them, Ian attempted a smile. “Good to see ye again, too, Ned. Since ye ask, I was down in Cooperstown, paying off my land and securing the deed. I thought there was time for it, but I see I was wrong. Nevertheless, I’m here now.”

  “Aye,” Ned said, features pulled into a glower. “And I’m ready to be—”

  Ned flinched when Ian put a hand to his shoulder, as if he had expected to be struck. Did his brother think he was owed a blow? His smile felt more like a grimace as he said, “I understand Penny’s waiting and ye’re eager to be back across the river. Ye will be before the day’s done, I promise. We’ll talk in a bit, aye? Right now I need to see my son.”

  Gabriel slept, so Ian didn’t take him into his arms either but let his son drink of needful rest, noting the changes the past year had wrought. He had written Seona of his ache at missing his son’s growing up. Now he saw in the lad, nearly three years old, what he had missed: lengthening limbs; breeches and shirt instead of a gown; the softly rounded face of the toddler he had last seen subsumed by that of the boy he was fast becoming. An ache lodged in his throat so tight it took more than one swallowing to clear it and address Seona’s mother.

  “Lily, I haven’t even greeted ye proper, I was so eager to see him,” he said in a hushed tone, nodding toward his sleeping son. “Are ye well?”

  Lily paused her folding of garments meant for the trunk open at her feet. “Oh, aye,” she said as softly. “And glad ye found us finally. I think Ned’s ready to bolt for that ferry boat.”

  He crooked her a sheepish smile. “So I noticed.” Glancing aside at Seona, who had stood looking on while he devoured their son with his gaze, he added, “I best go speak to him. Would ye come out with me?”

  Leaving Gabriel with a lingering glance, he strode into the passage, pausing at the head of the stairs. He turned to face Seona, who had followed him from the room but drew up short before they could collide as they had done on the street.

  She took a half step backward. “You told Ned you paid off your land. So soon?”

  “Our land,” he corrected, noticing she could not, or would not, meet his gaze. As on that day atop Copp’s Hill. As if they had never expressed the things they had in their letters. “And aye, I left Shiloh nigh a week ago—I went to Cooperstown. I have the land deed.”

  Patting the breast of his coat where the document was tucked safe, along with the ring he’d bought her, he scrutinized Seona’s face, wishing he saw excitement there, or pleasure, not merely surprise.

  There was a window at the top of the stairs. Her eyes caught the late-morning light and glowed like jewels in her sun-kissed face, and still it was all he could do not to bend his head and kiss her thoroughly. His every fiber ached for the tender reunion he had imagined each mile of the journey east. Instead he mirrored her restraint. “Seona . . . are ye all right?”

  She nodded. “Are you?”

  “Me? Aye, I’m relieved. Happy.” Uncertainty tempered his grin as she searched his face.

  “You’re not angry at your sister’s coming west with us?”

  “No.” He could understand Catriona’s desperation to escape her heartache, the shame Shelby—and the gossipmongers—had left her to bear. Hadn’t he similar cause for leaving Boston at her age? Eighteen. But his poor mam and da, left to weather the loss and scandal as they had when he fled to Canada. “I’m sorry for the need. This cannot be what she wanted.”

  Her gaze flashed to his face, then away. “I reckon what we want don’t always figure into things.”

  He could think of nothing to say to that, though he wished he could. The constraint between them swelled. The ring in his coat pocket felt heavy as bullet lead.

  “Are ye tired? Have ye managed to rest at all? Such a long journey, Gabriel falling ill . . .” He babbled on. “Ye’ll be glad to reach Shiloh, aye? I cannot wait for ye to meet Neil and Willa. And see the farm and everyone awaiting ye there.”

  He waited for her to speak, holding his breath. Afraid she was fixing to tell him she had changed her mind about Shiloh. About him.

  “Catriona talks of seeing Maggie MacGregor,” she said. “I know that’ll comfort her, but . . . do the MacGregors know about me and Mama? About Gabriel?”

  “Aye,” he said. “I’ve spoken of ye often. It’s only Catriona who’ll be a surprise . . . or maybe not,” he amended with a sound like laughter that wasn’t. “No doubt she’s written to Maggie about her coming west.”

  Seona shook her head. “I didn’t mean that about the MacGregors.”

  “Wh
at then?”

  She chewed at her lip, hesitant. But why should she hesitate with him there to guide her, to shelter and protect? He would let nothing harm her or their son. Never again. “The MacGregors are good people. Ye’ll like them.”

  She crossed her arms as if a chill had touched her, though the upper floor of the inn was already warming with what promised to be a sultry June day. “Like the Reynolds, you said.”

  “Aye.”

  She was starting to say more when Gabriel’s voice reached them from along the passage: “Mama! Hungwy, Mama . . .”

  The smile that bloomed on Seona’s face was one of pure relief and the loveliest sight Ian had seen in a very long time.

  “I best go.”

  “Aye. I’ll fetch Ruaidh and join ye here. Then we can start for Schenectady.”

  “After you talk to Ned.”

  “Right,” he said, recalling his brother. When Seona turned to go to their son, on impulse he stopped her, a hand to her arm, and did one of a thousand tender things he had imagined doing once he found her. He put both hands on her shoulders, bent, and kissed her brow. Briefly. Chaste as a brother.

  “It’s good to see ye again, Seona,” he said before he let her go.

  Doubtless the greatest understatement of his life.

  He looked for Ned in the public room, a large, low-ceilinged space crowded with tables and folk starting to assemble for the midday meal. His brother wasn’t among them. With his own stomach growling for its dinner and a tension building in his jaw, Ian went looking. He found Ned in the stable-yard with his horse saddled, what baggage he had brought on the journey tied behind.

  “Leaving already?” The surprise of it sharpened his words; his brother turned stiffly from his horse. Ian had a piercing sense of his da’s blue eyes blazing at him from Ned’s unhappy face. How like Robert Cameron his older brother had grown to look.

  “Aye,” Ned replied. “I want to be across the river again afore nightfall—now ye’re finally here.”