Love's Reckoning (30 page)

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The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

Horace Walpole

Silas heard the chilling cry the moment he rounded the barn on Horatio. The sound sent the hair at the back of his neck bristling. Away an afternoon in York settling accounts, he'd expected to return to the sameness of forge and farmhouse, but the twilight eve held a strange tension. The keening cry came again—a woman's, not a bairn's—full of anguish and warning. Dismounting, he hobbled Horatio in front of the smithy, noting the doors were shut. The foreboding he felt doubled.

Merciful God . . . not Eden.

He strode into the kitchen, the burnt odor of a kettle left too long at the hearth overwhelming. In the winter parlor opposite, shadows danced on the firelit walls. Mrs. Lee paced before the hearth, Jon in her arms. One look told him more than he wanted to know. Across the room Liege stood silently with Giles, while Elspeth, pale as flax, sat woodenly in a chair, Thomas at her feet. His heart gave a lurch. The one who mattered most was missing.

“At last!” Liege said, his tone suggesting Silas was somehow to blame. “Have you seen Eden?”

“Not since breakfast,” Silas returned uneasily. “What has happened?”

“She's missing,” he said brashly. “And the babe's dead.”

The bruising fact hardly needed stating. Mrs. Lee let out another strangled cry, and Silas looked away, throat tight, while the bairn's own mother remained dry-eyed across the room. He felt a searing anger when Thomas began to wail along with Mrs. Lee, and Elspeth did not so much as lift a finger in comfort.

Liege moved toward the hearth, pacing on the worn floorboards. “Mrs. Lee and I returned home to a kitchen full of smoke, Thomas untended, the babe dead in his cradle, Eden gone.”

Silas looked toward Giles. “And you?”

Giles bristled. “I was at the forge—too busy to see to household matters. If Eden had come to me, I might have helped, but she did not.”

“What of you?” Silas's gaze pinned Elspeth.

“Elspeth was with me in the smithy,” Giles said. “We—”

“I did not ask you.” Silas's eyes remained on Elspeth. “Did you see Eden?”

She met his gaze, shoulders lifting in a shrug. “I am not my sister's keeper. She was supposed to be tending things in the house while I was at the ledgers.” The reply was so sullen, so sanctimonious, Silas was glad he was across the room lest he be tempted to strike her.

“So a child dies and everyone seems to be deaf and dumb?” His heated questions were met with silence. “None of you knows where she's gone—just that she's gone without a by-your-leave to anyone?”

He turned and left them, moving upstairs to the garret room, his tread heavy, his patience thin. Here the air was dusty
and sweet, the narrow stairwell full of tender memories. The weaving room and Eden's bedchamber were bare as well, as were all the rooms save the parlor where they'd gathered.

Returning to the cool twilight, he searched the barn and all the outbuildings, every nook and cranny, before using the last bit of day to comb the surrounding woods. The fading light seemed to leach all the hope from his heart.

Lord, please . . . Eden.

Reluctantly he returned and looked toward the distant lights of Hope Rising. The possibility that she'd sought safe haven there doubled his angst.

Silas had never been inside the great house before. His work confined him to the dependencies and sheep pens. Standing on its front stoop, he made use of the huge brass knocker to summon a servant, unable to stop ill-scrappit comparisons from flooding his mind in the warm twilight. Hope Rising was little more than an outbuilding in light of Blair Castle's grandeur, yet it had a simple charm the duke's ancestral home lacked. The servant who answered was clad in plain woolens, not livery, his manner deferential.

“Good evening, Mr. Ballantyne.”

“I've come looking for Eden Lee,” he said brusquely, feeling time was against him.

He nodded. “Miss Lee isn't here, but I'll summon Margaret Hunter if you like.”

Leading Silas to a room redolent of old books and beeswax, he excused himself, footsteps echoing down the candlelit foyer. The minutes unwound so torturously slow that Silas felt he'd been placed on a rack. His restless gaze landed on a portrait above the cold hearth. Though cast in shadows, the man's mien and hair color were nonetheless striking. Eben Greathouse? Privateer, slaver, benefactor?

“Silas.” The quiet address was surprisingly straightforward. Friends shunned honorifics, he remembered, even a simple “mister.” Margaret Hunter stood behind him. “I apologize for the delay. Jemma is ill.”

Desperation turned him blunt. “I need to find Eden.”

“Eden? I saw her from a window this afternoon. She was in the courtyard with David—he was on his way to Philadelphia. She got into the carriage.” A frown marred her mouth. “I thought he'd return her home. She seemed upset, perhaps on account of Jemma.”

“When was this?”

“A quarter past three. I well remember, as it was time for Jemma's medicine.”

Hours ago. The facts left him hollow, a bit breathless. None of them made sense. “Why is the master going to Philadelphia?”

“To fetch a doctor. I fear Jemma may have a malignant fever.” She raised a hand to graying hair that was usually faultless and tucked a stray strand beneath her cap. “May I ask if there's been trouble at the Lees'?”

“Aye.” Silas still felt pummeled by disbelief. “The babe—Jon—is dead.”

Shock lit her eyes. “From fever?”

“Nae.” The denial gave way to a host of sordid things. He could sense her unasked questions, though he had no ready answers.

Brow furrowed, she moved to shut the door as if on the verge of some confidence. “Do thee know about the babe? His parentage, I mean?”

Silas simply looked at her, well aware of where she was leading.

“There's been talk that the babe is Elspeth's and . . .” She hesitated, tears glittering in her eyes. “David's.”

He felt a sickening dismay. His Eden . . . with a rogue. The admission of Jon's origins cost Margaret dearly, Silas knew. A servant rarely betrayed a master, yet her Quaker convictions bound her to the truth no matter the consequences. He looked down, his worn boots decidedly out of place atop the lush carpet. He'd not considered this. Did Eden know? Likely not. She was so naïve, always thinking the best of others, especially those at Hope Rising.

“I fear David . . . and Eden . . .”

The coupling of their names made his blood run cold. “What about them?”

“David has long been besotted with Eden.”

He held his breath, bracing for another bitter secret.
Lord, nae . . .

Her gaze cleared. “But Eden is in love with thee.”

His own eyes grew damp, reducing the grand room to a rich watercolor, though his voice held firm. “Aye, Eden is betrothed to me.”

She nodded and looked toward a window. “There is another matter thee must know, Silas, though I'm loath to tell thee . . .”

The lantern-lit stable was missing a groom, but Silas had no need of one. Hoisting a saddle from a near rack onto one shoulder, he made his way past countless stalls till he came to Atticus, Hope Rising's prize racehorse. The thoroughbred, recently brought from Virginia, whinnied in welcome. He ran a hand down the sleek, buff-colored back and thought of Horatio. Aging as he was, Horatio hadn't the stamina or speed of this stallion. And he needed both—desperately.

He swung himself into the costly, unfamiliar saddle, a prayer for Eden on his lips, all that he'd just learned making
him breathless and afraid. Moving into the cool of early evening beneath a rising moon, he kept hoping Eden would simply step from the twilight into his arms.

God, grant me speed, safety, and wisdom.

Exhausted, Eden dozed, lulled by the motion of the coach, only to come awake to lantern light outside her window. Such rocking made Jemma nauseous. But Jemma wasn't here, she remembered—she was at home and gravely ill. Other painful realities crowded in and jarred her awake. Jon was gone. She'd left Thomas alone. Shutting her eyes tight, she battled a bruising anguish.

When they rolled to a stop before a two-story tavern, she watched David alight and make arrangements for them to lodge. The pain of her predicament washed over her like an icy wave, and she surveyed the inn's shingle through tear-filled eyes. The Black Swan. Aside from spending an occasional night at Hope Rising, she'd never been beyond the confines of her feather bolster.

The sudden lilt of a fiddle carrying on the crisp autumn air twisted her heart—yet renewed her courage. Perhaps when David was preoccupied, turned his back for a few moments, she could get away. The overwhelming desire to return to Silas made her bold, yet David had assumed a hawk-like vigilance that was more unnerving at every turn.

“Come, Eden, supper awaits.”

He helped her down, his hand on her elbow all the way up the pebble walk as the coachman sought the stables. Behind the front door, the tavern seemed to be bursting with a hundred strangers, all eyes inclined their way. They sought refuge at a corner table near the kitchen door, which opened and closed with a perpetual whine.