Freedom Forever (Southern Romance 3)

There was a silence. Cecelia remembered thinking how strange it was that the world kept moving, the carriages going up and down the street, people calling to one another, the wind blowing. The rest of the world didn’t even seem to understand what had just happened, what terrible news they had just heard.

And none of them seemed to grasp it, either. There was a leap in their eyes to hear the word missing. Missing was not dead, so missing must be better, mustn’t it? But it was not good, that much was also true. Missing might mean Solomon had been captured, that he was being hauled along in the wake of the Confederate troops, or that he was dead and they simply hadn’t found his body. Missing meant that Solomon fractured in Cecelia’s mind until he was a dozen places and none of them, every horrible thing she had ever imagined happening to him in her mind’s eye while she watched and could not stop it.

How she got into the shop, she did not know, but the air was cloyingly hot, and Cyrus was clearing a place for them in the back room with a few curt words to his father as people stared at them and murmured in pity. Everyone, Cecelia thought—she was still sure she would faint—knew the look of a family that had gotten bad news. It was strange, now, how she had feared every morning for weeks that she might hear he was lost or dead, and yet she now realized she had also expected that he would come home safe. He could not be missing, her mind insisted. Solomon was safe. It was a terrible joke.

“Cecelia?” Cyrus’s face swam into view. His hands were chafing hers, and then held under her elbows to keep her up.

It was strange. Only a few moments ago, such a touch would have made Cecelia blush, knowing the Cyrus was her sister’s betrothed—as good as, no matter what Clara said—but still giddy at receiving the attentions of a handsome man. Now, Cecelia could not bring herself to feel anything at all.

“Yes?” she asked, because he seemed to want her to say something.

“Would you like to sit in the storeroom?” His voice was soft and warm. “It would be quiet. You could be alone. If you wanted.”

A rush of relief. How had he known? There was not even any sound here, but there was also a wailing in her head, and the dreadful press of Clara’s grief and their mother’s fear, sharp and suffocating all at once, and Cecelia only wanted to be alone in the darkness, so she could press her hands over her mouth and not have anyone watching her. She managed to nod, and Cyrus led her gently from the room.

The storeroom itself was clean, sunlight creeping in from a high window. When she was a child, Cecelia had always wanted to be let in here, and it was just as she had imagined: the smell of spices, great piles of potato sacks and flour, coffee and tea and sugar in massive barrels, and hams hanging from the ceiling. She saw bolts of cloth and spools of thread, tinned meat and pots and pans, and yet all she could think was that she could be alone here, alone and quiet. When Cyrus sat her gently on a crate and left, closing the door gently, she burst at once into silent tears.

She was not grieving, she realized—she was scared. She rocked back and forth, her hand over her mouth, her terror obliterating everything else in her mind. She did not know what had happened to Solomon, and that made everything worse, somehow.

The sound from behind her made her jump. She scrambled off the crate in time to see a man emerge from the shadows, his hands out to show he meant no harm.

“I apologize,” he said at once. His voice was husky and warm, and Cecelia blinked, her head whirling with thoughts.

“Who are you?”

“Isaiah Rourke.” He made his way into one of the shafts of sunlight, and Cecelia saw auburn hair, black eyes surprisingly dark in a pale face, and a smattering of freckles. His brow was furrowed. “I did not mean to intrude,” he said awkwardly. “What has upset you? Please, sit, sit.” He stood, awkwardly, until Cecelia sat.

“It isn’t...important. Not to you, I’m sure.”

“We have all felt grief,” he said seriously. To her surprise, he sat nearby, and his eyes were still fixed on hers—not traveling over the neckline of her dress, or picking out her curves under the gown she wore. “And this seems like no little heartbreak or ripped hem.”

“You could tell that from my crying?”

“Only the truly sad,” he said carefully, “try to hide the sound of their grief.”

She took a more careful look at him at last, marking the common make of his shirt and the many patches on his pants, the callused hands and boots that had not been new for some time. A servant of some kind, hardly a great scholar. But he spoke with a philosopher’s quiet certainty, and she knew somehow that he had seen the depth of her grief, and not just guessed at it.

“My brother is...” Don’t say it, saying it will make it real. “...missing. From the battlefield.” And, as if it mattered at all: “He was lost at the battle of Monterey Pass.”

“I am so sorry,” Isaiah whispered. It could be him, Cecelia knew, and she had seen the looks of mixed terror and relief, revulsion at one’s own cowardice, as men absorbed the news of those lost at war. What was Cyrus thinking right now?

“I expected it to be better than hearing he had been killed,” Cecelia said quietly, not understanding why the words poured out of her so easily, “but it’s worse. It could be...he could be dead, couldn’t he? Or being interrogated.” A sob of fear bubbled up in her throat and she pressed her hand over her mouth.

A shift and scrape of boots on the floor let her know that he had moved, and he took her free hand in both of his own, his touch gentle. She waited for him to offer her platitudes and prayers, but he said nothing at all, only waited while the tears took her again and she doubled over, rocking back and forth with it. When she drew her hand away from his, he let it go easily, and took his seat nearby again while she wiped at her face.

“So.” She twisted the handkerchief in her lap. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

Polite, a nice greeting. She could see her mother’s approval in her mind’s eye, and she wanted to laugh until she started screaming; this was not nice, this was not normal, and she was behaving as though it was a social function because she did not know what else to do.

“No, we haven’t.” Isaiah smiled tentatively.

Cecelia nearly lost her breath at that smile. It was warm, like dawn breaking, hope and happiness mixed together. Isaiah was a man with great dreams, she thought, and then chided herself for it. She could hardly know the man so well after a few moments in his company. But as much as she thought herself foolish, she was sure of it.

“I’m Cecelia Dalton,” she said, nodding politely.

“Clara Dalton’s sister?” he asked.

She nodded tightly, a stab of jealousy making its way into her belly. All those years in Clara’s shadow, never the golden sister, never the belle of the town, but she had made her peace with it. Why should it bother her now to be known that way?