“I wouldn’t say miserable,” Jasper said, nettled. He sighed and rubbed his head. “I’m sorry, Cee.”
“You all think I’m still a child,” Cecelia said. She had folded her arms over her chest and she was rigid with anger. “Well, I’m not.”
“I don’t think you’re a child,” Jasper said. “You saved my life, Cecelia. I can’t forget that.” He had a vivid memory of Cecelia with the branch in her hand, panting, and Cyrus on the ground at her feet, and he smiled at the thought. Clara’s shock had been quite amusing. The mighty Cyrus felled by a tiny slip of a girl.
“I suppose I did,” Cecelia said. She looked away, and then back, her brow furrowed. “Is it you and Clara? Is that why you’re so upset? I see you looking at her sometimes and it’s like you don’t know how to feel about her. Do you not love her anymore?”
The question was far more direct than anything Jasper had expected. He gawped for a moment before recovering his wits. “Cecelia...”
“Don’t just keep saying my name like that. Did you expect me to say something polite and timid? She’s my sister, Jasper. She protected me while Solomon was gone. She loves you. She finally feels like her life is safe again. If you don’t love her...”
“I do love her,” Jasper said gently, not sure he wanted to know the end of Cecelia’s ultimatum. “I love her with all my heart.”
“Then what is it?” Cecelia demanded of him. “Jasper, you’re going away more and more often now. I see you at dinner. You don’t speak. What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” As much as Cecelia would be glad it wasn’t a fading love for her sister, Jasper wasn’t sure she would take homesickness on his part any better.
“Can I...help?” she asked cautiously.
“No,” Jasper answered after a moment. “I don’t think you can.” He took the opportunity to study her profile as she looked away. “What’s been troubling you, then?”
She looked back at him, wide-eyed.
“I’ve noticed,” he said simply. “It takes one to see one, Cee. You don’t talk either. You look miserable too. So what is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it either,” she said after a moment. She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, as if she thought of confiding in him and then thought better of it.
“Are you not going to tell anyone?” he asked her. “Does Clara know?”
“Don’t mention it to Clara!” Her voice was emphatic, slightly panicked. “Please don’t.”
“I won’t. But why—”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Cecelia.” Jasper studied her face, and her brown eyes met his defiantly. She was terrified. What on earth could have gotten into her? “You know I will help you with anything. I’m going to be your brother.”
She relaxed fractionally as the importance of his words sank in. If only, he thought, he could take as much pure joy in the thought of marriage as she did. The thought of living here in the face of muted spite all his life was enough to...
He shook his head slightly to clear it and looked away.
“What’s that?” Cecelia asked, and Jasper did not look back at once.
“Hmmm?”
“Jasper.” The panic was back, but sharper. “There are men in the forest.”
His attention snapped back to her at once.
“There are what?” As he saw what she had been looking at, his heart twisted.
There were men in the trees: some burly, some taller. None of them wore uniforms, but all of them had rifles strapped to their backs. Jasper had seen the Union soldiers come home, resplendent in their blue, marching proudly to the cheers of the townsfolk. If these weren’t Union soldiers, then...
Oh, no.
“Run,” he told Cecelia, and when she looked over at him sharply, he knew she saw his sickening fear.
If these were not Union, they were Confederate. And if they were Confederate, they were here for a raid, or...