Freedom Forever (Southern Romance 3)

“Of course,” Cecelia said, trying to put as much feeling as she could into the words. She pasted a smile on her face. “Jasper and I are safe, Solomon and Violet are engaged, and it’s a lovely wedding, Clara, really it is. You look radiant.”

“You don’t,” Clara said bluntly.

“I’ve been ill,” Cecelia said. She ducked her head to hide her blush. Even with the engagement, even with all of it, she could not hide her shame from her family. By the time they returned home, to find that Abraham had spoken to her mother and secured the engagement, Solomon and Jasper knew she was pregnant—and there had been no hiding it from Clara and Millicent.

“I know you’ve been ill,” Clara said now, and her voice was not admonishing, but gentle. She reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind Cecelia’s ear. “But it’s more than that. You look...you look heartsick. And Abraham looks like he hates you and loves you all at once.”

“He does.” Cecelia gave a choking laugh.

“You’ve been miserable since you got engaged. Don’t try to deceive me. Remember, I know what it’s like to be engaged and be sick with it.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” How could Cecelia have forgotten Clara’s first engagement? She had walked the hallways as silently as Cecelia did now, disappearing into silence and a pale face, like a little ghost.

“Cee...please tell me the truth.” Clara’s face was twisted, anguished.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Please. Something is terribly wrong, I know it is. I want to help you.”

“I don’t think anyone can,” Cecelia said miserably.

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” Clara suggested. She squeezed Cecelia’s hands. “Sometimes the things that seem insurmountable to us can be solved with a little help. And even if not—” for she saw the denial on Cecelia’s lips “—it can help to have someone else bear the truth with you.”

“Yes.” The answer came in a rush, and Cecelia closed her eyes against a wave of relief. She should not tell, she knew that, but the secrets were eating her alive inside. If she could only tell someone the truth, if she could only speak it aloud and have someone hear her...

She should tell Abraham, sometime, that he had pushed her to this. He held the truth over her like a spell, binding her to silence. And now she had realized, at last, that it was all he had. If she told the truth...he had no power anymore. For the first time in weeks, Cecelia felt hope stir in her chest. She let Clara draw her to the back of the barn, settling them both down in the straw and leaning close to whisper.

“It all began the day we first heard Solomon was missing...”

Chapter 2

It was a beautiful day, for all that the winter winds cut down Main Street and made them all shiver. They had piled into the carriage with good humor, huddling together and pressing their feet against the heated bricks inside the blankets, and Cecelia felt fresh-cheeked and beautiful as they rode into town. She knew that her green cloak set off her skin and her hair to perfection; for once, she did not even care that a good number of the admiring stares were going to Clara. Cecelia, the younger one, the baby of the family, was finally coming into her looks and she knew it.

“Come inside, come inside!” Cyrus came out of the shop to tie Beauty to the hitching post and drape blankets over her flanks, stroking her nose and giving her side an affectionate pat. He was in fine form, handsome, his eyes sparkling to see Clara—and everyone knew this was a show for her.

Everyone knew, too, that Clara had her doubts. At least, Cecelia did. And Millicent would have had to be deaf not to hear Clara’s arguments with Solomon before he left, him saying that she needed someone to take care of her, her laughing and telling him she needed nothing but for him to carry the plates from the table to be washed.

Still, it was like a fairytale: Clara and Cyrus so beautiful together, him doting on her like a prince out of a storybook, and her just as radiant as Cecelia in a new winter cloak of red. Solomon had spoiled them both before he marched off to war, and it had been so many weeks since he went that Cecelia no longer shivered with fear when she remembered where he was.

“I have some spiced wine,” Cyrus told them all. “And cider for you, Cee.”

“Thank you,” Cecelia said, prickling at his assumption of her as a child, but knowing full well that a lady was always gracious. She flushed with pleasure when she saw her mother’s approving nod.

Cyrus was still holding the door open when a young man with a grave expression approached them. Cecelia had seen him once before; he was the mayor’s son, and though he was still young enough that he looked gangly and coltish, his eyes were still and pitying. Fear skittered up Cecelia’s spine, and she shrank back, almost as if she would run down the street, away from whatever words this boy might say.

“Mrs. Dalton?” the boy asked, and even Millicent knew, in that moment, that something was terribly wrong.

“Yes?”

“I have...I have some news.” He didn’t seem to know how to say it.

Clara, her hand in Cyrus’s, had gone as white as the clouds that floated above in the winter sky. She swayed in the doorway, and her lips formed a single word: Solomon.

The boy looked at them pleadingly, as if he hoped that someone would say something. As if one of them might guess at the news and he wouldn’t have to say it himself. But they were all frozen, the moment turning to liquid and heartbeats like a drum, echoing in Cecelia’s ears until she could hardly hear the words that came out of his mouth next

:

“I regret to inform you that your son was declared missing after the battle of Monterey Pass.”