“The sun will be setting soon.”
“Aye, ’tis true, which is why I must hurry.” The scent of the stew, which at most times would have made her stomach yearn to be filled, instead forced a hand to her mouth as she turned away from the fire. She inhaled a quivering breath, struggling to choke away the bile that inched up her throat.
“Anna?” William stepped near, helping her rise.
“I am well, ’tis only my belly that seems distressed of late.” She stood, both hands on the table, still taking slow breaths to calm the quell of discomfort. “It shall pass in a moment.”
He paused, motionless, but for the gradual descent of his brow before it crumpled between his eyes. “I am right to believe I heard you cast up your accounts this morning, am I not?”
She shot up, meeting his piercing gaze. He had heard? She’d hoped to have been discreet. Looking away, she bit her lip, unable to answer with words. The flutter of worry that bore in her muscles since the first she felt strangely ill days ago urged her to nestle her head against his chest, while the promise of a comforting embrace beckoned in the center of his warm blue eyes.
He closed the space between them, resting a hand at the small of her back. “You are unwell. I cannot allow you to go out in this storm, no matter how benevolent your purpose.”
“Please, William, I must do what I—”
“Nay, Anna. My word is final.” His scowl deepened. “’Tis too much of a risk. I’m sorry.”
Indignation wound its way up her back, edging out the spinning in her belly. “You leave me home alone nearly every day for hours on end while you make your deliveries and do who knows not what for the cause. I cannot see how this is much different.”
“It is different because you are ill.”
“I am not that ill—”
“It is different because you are a woman—”
“My sex makes me less capable?”
He sighed with a tilt of his head. “You misunderstand me. You are a woman with a price on her head. Or do you no longer fear the reach of your father’s hand?”
“It has been weeks, William, weeks!” She strained to keep her voice even and void of the dissonant chords that swirled within her. “I would be foolish indeed to believe my father would cease his search for me, but are we to remain prisoners forever?”
“Anna.” William stepped away and rolled his shoulders to their broadest. “I cannot have you venturing into town or going on errands unless I accompany you. We have discussed this before. I promised I would protect you and I will, but you must do as I say. You will not go tonight. That is final.”
Ghostly memories choked the air in her lungs and she turned back to the fire. Do as I say. Edwin had spoken those very words time and time again until she feared they would be inscribed on her very flesh. Her stomach roiled and she breathed through her mouth to keep back the hurt. “William,” she spoke toward the fire. “Eliza cannot bring Thomas his supper before the meeting tonight without risking the health of the child. This weather is far too cold. I offered to deliver the basket, and I will.”
Turning, she lifted her eyes and met his gaze, emboldened by the bite of freedom that gave nourishment to her spirit, which until coming to America, had been chronically weak.
His eyes rounded. “You will defy the word of your husband?”
Rounding the table, Anna snatched the basket. “I will return within the hour.”
She left just as the winter rains began to fall.
~~~
The rain and cold winds mirrored the mood Paul carried within. Marching into Sandwich, he stepped through the widening puddles instead of rounding them as waves of heat undulated through his chest. Four weeks of recovery in Plymouth and two on a mad hunt for Donaldson that had produced nothing, only to be back in this God-forsaken hamlet. Six weeks wasted!
Walking through the driving rain seemed to flood the shallow memories to the forefront of his brain. ’Twas almost as if Donaldson had known who it was he shot, for the ball had grazed to the bone and infection had left him at the mercy of an idiot doctor and unable to move for near a month.
He’d told the sordid tale to the sheriff that night—a peaceful traveler, attacked and nearly killed by a stranger in the wood as evidenced by the weeping hole in his flesh. He’d implored the man for a hunting party to begin and insisted an immediate pursuit of the assailant was imperative, but his pleas were ignored. Paul growled at the biting recollection. Apparently the knowledge of a dangerous stranger meant little to a town filled with simple-minded Whigs. The heavy drops splashed Paul’s cheeks and trailed down his neck, all but steaming from the anger that burned through his skin.
“I have little time for such things,” the sheriff had said. “You are not dead, therefore I cannot expend my energies on something that might have happened. But if you are determined to find this man, the best I can do is direct you to someone who also seeks a man that matches the description of your attacker.”
The rain descended in sheets now, but Paul made no attempt to find cover as he once again replayed the words in his mind. “There is a gentleman in search of his daughter taken by a tall, muscular blonde. The gentleman left town several weeks past, but he cannot be far. He gave me his name and how to discover him should I find her or any information that would aid in his search.”
Paul had polished this promising intelligence, following the trail of this Warren Fox from Providence to Plymouth and here again. Crumbs of knowledge but nothing to satiate his hunger for revenge. Donaldson slipped ever farther from his grasp, but Paul’s determination multiplied by thousands with every sunrise. He refused to believe his enemy would forever elude him. Not if this Warren could be found. For though the description the sheriff gave was vague indeed, Donaldson matched the look, and desperate as he was, Paul could not ignore the possibility. Somehow, in the depths of him, Paul believed that in this
Warren Fox, his answers would be found.