Freedom Forever (3 page)

Like twins,
everyone said about Clara and Solomon when they were little. No matter that they were three years apart—she was toddling after him as soon as she could walk, and they could speak with a glance what would take other people long minutes to say in words.

And where, Cecelia wondered, did that leave her? For she felt grief as well, and wished to cry, or to carry on as Clara might. But she knew what her mother would say:
you know how close they were, Cecelia. Let her grieve.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she said hastily, before she could burst into tears or beat her fists against the sides of the carriage at the unfairness of everything, and Abraham smiled at her warmly. He did not seem at all shocked by the inadequacy of her words.

“That it is.” He looked around himself before remembering that he was the reverend’s son. “Truly a testament to God’s creation.”

“Mmm, yes. Of course.” Cecelia smiled back dutifully.

“May I say...well, it is no matter.”

“What?” She was desperate for distraction.

“You look lovely. That is all. Your cloak is especially fetching. It makes your skin look like cream.”

“Thank you.” Cecelia blushed, her cheeks burning against the cold air and her chest warming at the words. There. She was not so plain after all, even with Clara looking like a fairy princess. Perhaps someday, someone
would
court Cecelia, and then when some boy asked her if she had a beau, she might say yes—yes, she did.

She tucked the compliment into her mind and held it close, and they fell into silence as the carriage rattled along the frozen roads. Cecelia, for her part, was accustomed to the rough ride, but she saw Abraham wince as the cart struck rocks and ruts, and the back of the cart jostled. Often, she saw Abraham staring at her, and she blushed and looked away.
You look lovely.
Guilt twisted in her, that she could even consider thinking of this when matters were grave, but her mind seized on the distraction gratefully.

She flexed her fingers slowly against the winter air. It was cold, bitterly so now that the day was progressing, and they could see the grey of storm clouds on the horizon. But Cecelia hardly minded. Grey and clouds might mean a blizzard, and that was something to focus on—getting the goats inside and the barn closed up, the chickens rounded into one of the stalls instead of their coop. A storm meant howling wind and the shutters rattling, something she hated, something that would keep her mind from what was happening. Just like the bitter wind now cut at her fingers so that she was stiff and cold, hurting and wishing she was inside. It was a distraction, and she was grateful for it.

When Abraham helped her down from the carriage at last, the farmhouse looming behind them, he held her close for a moment, and she almost thought he might kiss her. Her mind whirled, but he only stepped back, and even in her half-moment of disappointment, she saw the admiration in his eyes and shivered with happiness. She was young, and pretty, and a man thought well of her—a good young man, too. The reverend’s son.

She did not want to go inside. The kitchen seemed smaller and closer than she remembered. Clara half-collapsed into one of the chairs by the fire and so Cecelia was the one to haul the kettle away for water, and set out refreshments on a plate. They did not need to do this for such an event, she knew that. But pretending it was a social call gave her the courage not to burst into tears.

She delayed as much as she could, but there was no stopping it entirely.

“Dear Lord,” the reverend said without preamble, when they were all seated. “We ask you today to keep Solomon Dalton in your grace and mercy, and see to it that wherever he may be, he is returned to his home safely. We ask, also, that you keep his family...”

The voice twisted around and around in her head, and Cecelia took deep breaths to steady herself, keeping her eyes on the flames and her hands twisting in her lap, nails digging into the flesh until the skin ached. The flames seemed to have burned themselves into her vision; when she closed her eyes and bowed her head, to pretend that she was praying, she saw them still dancing behind her closed lids.

“Cecelia?”

Her mother’s voice.

“What?” Cecelia looked up.

“Do you have any prayers to make?” Millicent’s eyes made it clear that Cecelia should say something profound, but from the way the reverend was clasping Clara’s hand, she was sure her older sister already had said the perfect thing.

And she did not want to speak, anyway.

“Dear Lord.” Her voice came out as a squeak, and faded to a whisper. She must not cry. “Let Solomon be still with us, and safe. Even if we do not know where he is, I am sure You do. Give us...give us courage to wait.” Her voice trembled and she bowed her head again hastily. She did not have courage. She did not, either, have any patience for this being one of God’s mysteries.

“Amen,” Abraham said at her side.

It was over in an eternity and a moment, the reverend’s voice droning and Clara whispering prayers, Millicent’s strong voice belying the terror Cecelia knew that she felt. And Cecelia felt a wave of anger, that they should be trying to impress the Reverend now with their piety, when he should be comforting them instead. As they sat down to a quick meal—“oh, reverend, we must feed you before you head back”—she slipped out into the orchard, no cloak to protect her against the cold, and breathed in a shuddering sigh of relief at the cold air.

She walked quickly, raising her fingers deliberately out of her pockets and brushing them against the bare tree branches, saving the ache and burn of the winter air on her skin. It took all she had not to scream at the sky, demanding answers. He could not be
missing.
People did not just disappear. They did not vanish into thin air. Someone must know. Someone must.

“Miss Dalton.”

She took a moment to steady herself before she turned, and curtsied.

“Mr. Thompson.”

“Might I walk with you?” Abraham asked her, and Cecelia nodded.

“You look like a winter spirit,” he told her. “No cloak, and yet you are not shivering. Are you hands cold?”

Cecelia nodded again. Words seemed to have deserted her.

“Here.” He came to her side and took his scarf, wrapping her hands together in it and holding them as heat began to prickle against the skin. “A little better?”

“Yes.” Cecelia found her voice once more. His gaze was warming her as well, blue eyes fixed on her own, plain brown ones. She tried a smile. “Thank you.”

“Cecelia.” He cleared his throat, and looked away over the fields and the barn.

“Yes?”

Cecelia wondered what he must be seeing as he looked. The farm had been her home for all of her life, and when she looked at the fields she saw the memory of a hundred games of hide and seek, blind man’s bluff in the forests beyond the barn. She remembered climbing up to walk along the stone wall that bordered the peach and apple trees, and she knew that the snug farmhouse would have warm cider on cold days like this one. But Abraham was a man from the town, and had never worked a day in his life. Did he see poverty when he looked at all of this?

When he looked back at her, she forgot everything but his regard.

“You will think me a cad for asking this now,” he said, “but I cannot hold my words back. Forgive me, Miss Dalton.”

“I...” She had not the faintest idea what he was speaking of.

“Would you allow me to...” For a moment, she saw lust in his eyes—she did not have to be worldly, or understand anything, to know what that was. It was naked and powerful, and he did not seem so much a man as a beast. And then he swallowed and looked down, and it was gone when he met her gaze again. “Would you allow me to court you?” he finished.

She hesitated. Why, she could not say.

“Cecelia, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known,” he said urgently. “Say I can. Say you would not be unkind to me.”

He was a good match, Cecelia told herself. In fact, there was no better match, save perhaps the mayor’s son. The Thompsons were well off, everyone knew it. She would be at the height of society in Knox. Her marriage would eclipse even her sister’s.

So why could she not seem to reclaim the warmth she had felt even a moment ago, the heady pleasure at being desired?

But her mouth, it seemed, was more practical than her heart.

“I would be very pleased for you to court me,” Cecelia heard herself say, and she smiled even as Abraham squeezed her fingers to the point of pain.

Chapter 4

Cold water splashed into the bucket and Cecelia put her hands on her hips as she waited for it to fill, slumping and letting her eyes drift closed. Her back ached and her hands were about to bleed with cracks and blisters. She had been working herself to the edge of exhaustion for weeks now, always the one to offer when there was more water needed for tea or washing, always the first up and feeding the goats, or brushing Beauty, or kneading dough for the day’s bread.

She pulled herself up and looked out over the orchard, trying to take some sense of joy in the beauty of the day. Winter was losing its grip now, the worst of the snows come and gone, and sometimes the ground was not so hard beneath her feet when she left the house in the mornings. The sunlight warmed ground that hid, Cecelia knew from her life’s experience, the first green shoots of spring—onions and garlic, crocuses, corn. It would not be long until the very first stirrings of summer were felt even in the iron coldness of the winter nights.

But nothing stirred in her chest. This place was alive with ghosts and no more for Cecelia, memories crowding her until she thought she might scream with them. When she looked at the trees, she heard Solomon telling her how to prune them. When she broke the ice over the water butt, she remembered how he taught her to use the axe before their father would have allowed it. And she remembered how, even from her earliest years, it had always been Solomon and Clara, and Cecelia had hung back, desperate to be noticed and taken into their circle. She should have fought harder for it. That way, she might have more memories of her own, and not snatches of overheard conversation as he confided in Clara.

She felt a stirring of fear now. She had worked so hard to exhaust herself, thinking it might plunge her into sleepless nights and monotonous days, that she had nothing left to protect herself from memory. And she could not afford to surrender to it now.

“There you are.”

Her heart leaping with relief at the distraction, Cecelia turned. Clara looked like a ghost, her blonde hair drawn back in a severe braid and her face pale as death save for the dark circles under her eyes. Her voice was rough with tears shed and unshed, and not for the first time, Cecelia wanted to launch herself into her sister’s arms and sob until the tears let them both go, and sent them to sleep in true peace.

She knew better than to try. Once, and only once, she had crept into her sister’s room when she heard the sound of muffled sobs, and when they had lain together in the darkness, fingers clasped tightly, Cecelia had listened to the sound of her sister’s grief and felt that she was allowed, at last, to cry. While Clara stroked her hair and whispered choked reassurances, Cecelia had admitted, to the darkness, that she was afraid Solomon was truly gone.

She did not even have to see Clara’s face to know the change in the room. It was as if the air itself carried the charge of a storm. Clara’s fingers clenched around Cecelia’s so tightly that Cecelia gave a little cry of pain.

“He is
not
dead,” she had whispered fiercely into the dark. And Cecelia had fallen all over herself to say of course he was not, until Clara had turned away, cold, to cross her arms over her chest and hunch her shoulders. She would not speak to Cecelia after that, or for days afterwards, until time and tiredness smoothed away the worst of it.

So instead of crying, or confessing what was in her soul, Cecelia only hefted the bucket. “What do you need?” she asked awkwardly.

“Mr. Thompson is here to see you,” Clara said simply. “Go up the back stairs, fix your hair. I’ll make him some tea.”

Mr. Thompson. Wash your face.
As if Clara had ever cared about nice words or perfect manners. But she had retreated into etiquette as if it was all that would shield her from the fear that Cecelia knew—
knew
—ate at her as well.

Up in her room, she stared at her face long and hard, and tried to make herself smile. She forgot how between every visit, Abraham’s presence a spark of humor in an otherwise humorless world. He would laugh, joke, sometimes bring her a bit of ribbon or some bright thread—as if he knew that when she was left alone at the farm, the world faded into greys and browns.

And he brought warmth. Always, he stood close so that she could feel the heat of him, and she blushed at his closeness, knowing what he wanted—in the meaning of it, if not exactly what he hoped she might do. The thrill of danger, what every woman was warned against, made her pulse beat a little faster.

When she appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a fresh ribbon in her hair, he rose at once and bowed. In the presence of Clara and her mother, he was the most perfect of gentlemen, and the eager press of his body against Cecelia’s when they embraced was all the more a shock. She curtsied.

“Mr. Thompson.”

“Miss Dalton, you are as radiant as always.” He looked outside at the still day. “Perhaps we might walk outside? I have been shut indoors too much, of late. That is, of course, if it pleases you, ma’am.” That last was directed to Millicent.

“Of course you may go.” The woman found a smile from somewhere. Whatever she thought, deep in her heart, she knew this was an advantageous match for Cecelia. She was nothing but polite to Abraham, though he took liberties with his courting.

As always, Abraham waited until they had walked for some time before he spoke. The day was still, and so the cold did not so easily sink into their bones. Cecelia wore the green cloak he liked so well, hoping that he would think her pink cheeks were a blush of pleasure at his presence, not from working outside like a servant.