He stopped mid-step and glanced over his shoulder. “You cannot know that, Anna.”
“I do.”
William’s eyebrows plunged to his nose.
Anna summoned her courage and rounded the table. “Why will you not confide in me?”
“I know not of what you speak.”
“Please, William. I’ve heard Eliza and Kitty whisper things about their husbands helping to bring goods to Boston.” She knew her husband did the same, but waited, silently hoping, praying he would confide in her as Thomas and Nathaniel had done with their wives. “I should like to hear from you if you are doing the same.”
His gaze searched her face, as if he were looking for something that could tell him he could trust her. Could he not see it in her eyes?
The silence stretched long between them. Each remained motionless, waiting for the other to speak or touch or move.
William stared, his mouth hard. “There are things we must be willing to risk for a cause that is just.”
“And you are willing to take that risk?”
“I am.”
The truth socked her in the stomach, stealing the air from her lungs. Then he would both tell her, and not. Why she was shocked, she couldn’t tell. Yet she was. “You are a man of secrets. Yet I know enough about you to know that there is a past you wish to keep hidden. I hardly think engaging in treasonous actions is wise especially if you hope to keep the life we’ve started.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his head before dropping his arm to his side. His gaze was strained but his tone remained even. “I know the risks.”
“Then why take them?”
“There are things—”
“If any of you are imprisoned, what will become of the rest of us?” Her throat began to thicken. “Do you not see where your actions will lead?”
The glimmer of patience snuffed from his eyes. “I see more than you do, Anna.”
“You do not see what I see.”
“I see more.”
“You think that I am closed. That I do not think past tomorrow?”
“I think your fear of being discovered clouds every other thought.”
The truth cut. She spun her back to him. Was her fear so wrong? The knowledge that at any moment that man—or any other man her father hired—could take her back to England, threatened to extinguish the very breath in her lungs.
A warm hand on her arm made her flinch until his thumb began tracing small circles on her skin. “I promise that you will not be found.” The silken ribbon of his voice twined around her. “I know very well the risks. All of them. And the risks of acting outweigh the temporary safety of not.”
She turned, and his hand traveled the length of her waist, gripping her other arm as she stared up at him. “You are not afraid?” she asked.
A brief chuckle passed his lips. “I would be a fool not to have some healthy trepidation.”
Anna reached for her throat but her fingers found only skin, not the ring and chain. She closed her eyes, remembering the ring now rested on her finger. She stroked the gold with her thumb and spoke to the floor.
“How do you do it?”
His reply came after a few breaths. “Do what?”
Grasping for her remaining courage, she forced her head up and met his eyes. “How can you continue on…when you could lose so much?”
The soft lines around his eyes deepened, as did his voice. “I do not think of what can be lost.” He reached for the hair at her ear and brushed it back. “I think of what can be won.”