The vile words he’d arrested since their utterance finally had their freedom. “He said she was using me. That I shouldn’t trust her.”
“Not trust her? Of what could he possibly be spea—”
“I know not.” Nathaniel knew what his friend was about to ask. “His aim is to frustrate and antagonize, nothing more.”
Thomas tipped his chin down, and looked at Nathaniel from underneath his dark brow. “You do not think he is the one behind Kitty’s troubles?”
Nathaniel wiped a hand over his face. “I do not know, though I admit I had thought as much. And though I would confront him, doing so without knowing all might put Kitty at greater risk.”
“Well advised.”
Nathaniel groaned. The truth was just within his grasp, but without it in full he was helpless to rescue the woman he loved.
He bit away the curses that crouched on his tongue and redirected his thinking. “Kitty’s illness has postponed our plan to move the powder. I would have liked it to be over and done by now, for it weighs upon me.” His bones ached and he rubbed his hands over his face once more, trying to remove the fog of worry that clouded his thinking. “Yet as vital the task, I cannot think clearly with Kitty so ill.”
Thomas nodded and glanced over his shoulder at the stairway. “’Tis difficult to watch anyone suffer, surely. But it pains most when ‘tis the woman you love.”
The woman you love.
Nathaniel’s heart twitched and he looked away. Having only just discovered such for himself, voicing it to another would make the reality of it rest upon him in a way he was not yet ready to bear.
Thomas smiled knowingly, but his features remained solemn. “I know you try to hide it Nathaniel, but ‘tis plain to see. You are more your true self in her presence than I have ever witnessed.”
Nathaniel grinned casually, trying to keep the growing heat from his face. Had he been so easy to read? “She is unlike any other woman I have known. I simply hate to see her in such pain.” He turned away, clinging to the one truth that would protect his heart. “You know I could never align myself with a Tory.”
“Would you risk anything for her?”
Nathaniel frowned. He needn’t answer something already so clear.
Thomas stepped closer and gripped Nathaniel’s shoulder. The weight of his voice mirrored the humorless question in his eyes. “Would you risk anything for her?”
He flung Thomas’s arm away. “Of course I would risk anything for her, you know that!”
Thomas stepped back, undeterred by Nathaniel’s outburst. His tone remained even but dropped deeper. “Would you have her choose Higley over you?”
Nathaniel froze, remembering Higley’s tender note. He couldn’t help the words from jumping from his mouth. “I would not.”
“But what if she loves him?”
He winced. “She does not.” Did she?
“I don’t believe she does either.” Thomas shrugged with a slight grin that grated against Nathaniel like a dull kitchen utensil. “Higley is open in his affections and continues to write, asking Kitty to be his wife and join him in Boston. He accepts her for who she is...” His words trailed away, but his gaze nailed Nathaniel to the floor.
What did Thomas imply? That Nathaniel didn’t accept her? “What are you inferring?” He crumpled the heightening jealousy in his chest and flicked it into the fire.
“You’re in love with her Nathaniel, and you must accept your affections or risk losing her.”
“I never had her to begin with.”
“You would have Kitty marry Higley then?”
“I will not speak of this with you.” He turned to leave, then spun and faced Thomas with the army of indignation that consumed him. “I will tell you what you so often told me. Leave this alone. I will worry about my own affections in my own time.”
Thomas nodded. “As you wish. I simply hate to think you might give up on so much happiness.”
“Happiness?” Nathaniel pointed a finger at his friend’s chest. “What kind of happiness comes from a marriage that is based only on love?”
Thomas tipped one brow, his answer dry. “A fair sum.”