Whispers from the Shadows (39 page)

“A bit. We hunkered down for a few hours when the drizzle started and stole an hour or two of rest.” His hands buried themselves in her hair, his lips pressed to the top of her head. “Sorry to worry you all. We thought we would have until morning to clear Washington of the last stragglers and of anything of import, but the British arrived before dusk and set about burning every public building.”

Winter shook her head. “We saw the glow. Tell me you were not still in the city when they arrived.”

“Not for long.” Arnaud smiled, but it was too weary and worn to look as confident as he must have intended. “Then we headed to the surrounding farms. The army seemed bent on destroying anything they could touch, and most of the farmers were happy to help by destroying first anything the British might try to take.”

Mr. Lane pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is there a count yet on how many dead and wounded? Tallmadge did not know when he stopped by last evening.”

She felt Thad shake his head, and his voice came as a rumble in the chest under her ear. “The retreat was too disorderly. Everyone was eager to protect their own homes. All I know for certain is that Barney was injured and taken prisoner. I expect they will parole him, but it was a hard blow.”

Gwyneth closed her eyes. Papa never spoke of the details of war, not when she was near. In this moment, she almost wished he had, so that she might be steeled against it. “You still think they will come here next?”

“I have no doubt. Already we heard a rumor of Annapolis being their next target, but I know misdirection when I hear it. Annapolis
has nothing to draw them. Baltimore, though—Baltimore is the center of commerce. If they can cripple us, it may mean the end of the war.”

She tilted her head back and looked up into the face she had come to know so well, treasure so fully. “What if you cannot rouse the people? If they are too disheartened by Washington—”

“Oh, sweet.” He grinned and stroked a thumb over her cheek. “Washington is not to us what London is to your countrymen. The location means nothing. Our government can operate as well from a tavern or a plantation. Its destruction is like throwing water on a cat. It will not disable us. It will make us spitting mad.”

He obviously knew his neighbors better than she, but it seemed strange. And if strange to her, who had been living among them for months, how strange indeed it would seem to the British generals and admirals planning out their strategy.

Her arms tightened around him. “And when they come, you will not be content to run about taking people to safety or scouting their position, will you? You will fight.” And he was no general like Papa, who could avoid the front lines so that he might command others to them. Thad would go wherever he was told and do whatever must be done, no matter the danger to himself.

The familiar teeth of fear nipped at her and made her heart squeeze tight. She could lose him. In a matter of days, she could lose him, and it was not fair. She had scarcely had him. Could only by audacity call him her own, not by rights. With tears flooding her eyes, she drew in a long breath.
I give him to You, my Lord and my God. I put him in the palm of Your hand. And I will climb up into Your lap and wait out the storm there, trusting You to…trusting that…just trusting.

“Gwyn.” The warm tone drew her gaze to his face again, where his eyes burned as fiercely as Washington must have in the night. He cupped her cheek. “Will you marry me?”

Her arms slid away, but only so she could settle her hands on his chest, where the reassuring, quick
thump-thump
of his heart could touch them. “Yes.”

He didn't smile. “Before they come?”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.” This time it came out on a laugh, part joy and part desperation.
Yes
, let it be soon, let it be now, this very minute. Let
God join them together so that no man could tear them asunder.

Now he smiled, in a quiet sort of way, and looked to the others in the room. “If anyone has any objections, speak now or else get to work.”

Rosie was the first to jump into action. “A wedding dinner with only twelve hours' notice? I had better get Emmy to help me. We have that ham, a mess of potatoes still, and those greens. Emmy can make the cake.” She paused beside them, the sparkle in her eyes belying the matter-of-fact words. Her hands settled, one on each of their arms, and gave a little squeeze. Then she bustled from the room.

“Alain?”

Arnaud was glancing around the chamber as if taking its measure. “How many do you think we can fit in here? Ah, no matter.” He grinned and sank into a chair. “I will invite all of Baltimore and let them fight out who can witness the nuptials. Although I will give them time to rise first.”

“And I will find Reverend Gruber.” Mr. Lane approached with a warm smile and reached for her hands. “Gwyneth, my dear. You know we welcome you most happily to our family. And I believe, with everything within me, that your father would approve of this.”

She nodded, those tears stinging again. “I know he would.”

Winter looked to be fighting off tears of her own. “We ought to find you a wedding gown. And send for Philly, who will never forgive us if we exclude her. Oh, how I wish there was time for Amelia to come, but she will understand.”

“She will indeed.” Thad took her hands from his father, winked, and pulled her toward the door. “Just as I am sure you all understand when I beg you to excuse us for a moment.”

A laugh stuck in her throat as he tugged her into the hall before they could object, down it and around the corner until they were out of sight, and then he lifted her enough to set her feet upon the bottom step of the stairwell, evening out their heights. “There,” he said. “Now the important part.”

“Thad, I—”

His lips silenced her, caressing hers with a warm urgency, a patient need. Once, twice, a third glorious time, and then he mumbled, “Were you saying something?”

She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him when he waited a second too long for her liking. “I cannot think what.”

He took the kiss deeper, and she held on as her knees went liquid, let herself get lost for a moment in the rush of sensation. Was it some facet of chemistry that did this to her, as Philly suggested? Some magic? Or was it, as it felt it must be, a knitting of their souls?

“Oh.” She pulled away, though not by much. A fraction of an inch, enough to fit in a smile. “I was going to say I love you.”

Thad grinned before feathering a kiss over her cheek and down to her jaw. “A good thing to say. I ought to say the same.” From jaw to lips. “In one moment.”

The moment stretched, crystallized, and only ended when Winter cleared her throat and stepped up beside Gwyneth on the stair. “We have much to do, and there will be time enough for that after the vows are exchanged,” she said, a smile in her voice.

Gwyneth smiled too and loosed her arms from their happy home around his neck. And hoped, prayed his mother was right. That there would be time enough.

Winter looped her arm through Gwyneth's. “Come, my dear. We will go through your dresses, and—Where are you going, Thaddeus?”

He was already halfway up the stairs. “I have something to give her, if you recall.”

“Ah. Yes, he does.”

They took a more leisurely approach up the staircase, arriving at the top as Thad emerged from his bedchamber. Which, Gwyneth realized with a dry throat, would be hers tonight as well. A thought which might have terrified her had Thad's smile not filled her so completely with joy.

“Here we are.” In his hands he held a delicate chain of gold with three pearls upon it. Even as she admired the simple beauty of the necklace, he reached to fasten it around her neck. “I realize pearls are not the traditional engagement gift, but these have a story I'm sure Mother will share in a few minutes. And since I do not know if I will be able to get a ring in time—”

“Of course you will have a ring,” Winter said.

Thad grinned and kept his gaze on Gwyneth, as if his mother were not even there. “I mean, I will have a ring.”

“My mother's.”

“'Twas my grandmother's.” The clasp secure, he dropped his hands and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “But I am afraid not much
else will be what you likely envisioned for your wedding, and the honeymoon trip will have to wait. When the war is over, though, my love, I will take you anywhere in the world you please.”

Gwyneth grasped his hands and cherished the feel of the cool pearls against her skin. “Perhaps I once daydreamed with my friends of orange blossoms and wedding trips to Paris and Rome, but all I ever really wanted was what I have right here. The kind of love I saw in my parents, with the promise of forever they taught me was paramount.”

He leaned down and brushed a single, soft, eternal kiss upon her lips. “I love you, Gwyneth. More than life itself.”

A moment later he was bounding down the stairs, leaving her in a haze of bliss to veil the frightening night just passed. She looked to Winter. “I fear I am dreaming.”

“No time for that today.” With a smile, Thad's mother took her hand and pulled her into Gwyneth's room. “Show me your best things. I daresay your gowns are more in
ton
than anything Philly or I could offer, though we would be happy to lend you anything you might need.”

As she pulled out dress after dress, each and every one she had packed, Gwyneth felt a bittersweet stirring in her heart. Mama ought to have been with her on her wedding day. Papa ought to be below with the gentlemen. The Wesleys, at least, should have been fluttering about, the mister trying to be useful and the missus with her constant “Now, love” this and “Here, love” that.

But they were not, none of them, and some by choice. All her ties to England seemed to have drifted away like smoke on the wind. How blessed she was that the Lord had put her in another family just as loving, just as true to Him, just as much her own.

Philly joined them within the hour, Emmy not long after, and, given the constant stream of visitors she heard downstairs, Arnaud had been busily spreading the word. All the exclamations that floated up the stairs sounded joyful and, perhaps, edged with desperation. The fierce clinging to life and hope in the face of destruction.

Around midday, Rosie poked her head into the room, where they were all mending gowns and adding bits of lace. “Gwyneth, Mrs. Lane, Reverend Gruber arrived and would like to talk to you.”

Though she had been sitting in a pew in Reverend Gruber's church every Sunday for months now, nerves still jumped and
twitched in Gwyneth's stomach at that. The good reverend, like everyone else outside the family, knew her as Miss Hampton. That would have to be rectified before he officiated the wedding. If he would even agree to do so.

“I showed him to the study. Mrs. Rhodes and her girls are at work decorating everything else.”

“Come, dear.” With a calming smile, Winter took her hand and led her down.

The minister waited within. Thad was there too, which helped the knots unravel. As did the warm smile Reverend Gruber gave her.

“My dear Miss Hampton. Many congratulations. I cannot say how glad I am to have learned that you and our Captain Lane have decided to wed.”

She let him take her hand and returned his smile, but she glanced to Thad. “Thank you, Reverend. But there is one thing…”

“Ah.” Thad chuckled and tucked an arm around her waist. “Quite right. Her last name is actually Fairchild, sir. Gwyneth is the daughter of the British general.”

When the minister's face went pale, Gwyneth feared the worst. That he would refuse to marry them, that he would storm out announcing to one and all that she was the enemy. Then the man shook his head. “The one who was murdered? I read about it in the papers. How very terrible for you.”

She relaxed against Thad's arm. “It has been, yes.”

“And given that, you can see why we thought it best to introduce her as a distant cousin. Though certainly we do not want to use the wrong name in the vows.”

Reverend Gruber waved that off. “First names will suffice in the ceremony, and I will enter it in the register correctly, but as no one will really look at it, you needn't worry. But, my dear, you haven't reached your majority, have you?”

“Nay, sir. I am nineteen.”

He pressed his lips together, turning kind blue eyes from her to Winter. “Who, then, is her legal guardian?”

Winter merely shrugged as Thad hummed. Gwyneth shook her head. “I do not actually know. Both of my parents have passed now, and I was not present for the reading of the will…someone in England, I suppose. I have a whole host of uncles. But the Lanes have taken on the role here. They are the ones to whom my father entrusted
me when he realized he was in some danger.”

His gray brows pulled down, Gruber thought about that for a few moments and then nodded. “That is good enough for me. No one in this country will much care, and I daresay by the time your uncles may object, it will be too much ancient history for them to make an inquiry.”

Not to mention that Papa's brother the earl, the one most likely to be her guardian, would by no means want to invite the scandal such an objection would bring. Gwyneth loosed her pent-up breath and looked up at her beloved.

Within a few more hours, they would be man and wife.

A rumble of thunder roared through, so loud it shook the glass in its panes. The reverend started and then looked toward the window and the angry black clouds clustering over the bay. “I do hope neither of you is superstitious about rain on wedding days.”

Thad, bless him, grinned. “A rain that will help extinguish the fires smoldering in Washington can be only a blessing on our union, my friend.”

Gwyneth held tight to his side and watched the roiling cloud bank move in.
Dear Lord, let it be so
.