Edwinn had not felt particularly young in many years. Not since his parents both passed away when he was twenty-one, leaving him the sole caretaker of little Kate. He pushed that aside. “Is that what your invitation for Christmas was, sir? A softening? Or merely a gift to your daughter, who wanted her dearest friend with her?”
Randel studied him for a long moment, but Edwinn refused to flinch or glance away. The elder gave a small shake of his head. “Kate is not the only Calvert Sena admires. You too are her friend, Edwinn.”
He knew as much, but hearing Randel state it made a strange sensation flit through him. “You have a daughter of unmatchable heart, sir.”
“She is unmatchable in more ways than that.”
Something about that slanted glare made Edwinn try to straighten his already upright spine. “Sir, if you fear I have designs on Sen—on Miss Randel—”
“I am not sure I do fear it as much as I would have a year ago.” Smiling, Randel stood again, paced. “Not that I am giving you leave to court her, mind you.”
Was it embarrassment or unrealized expectation scorching Edwinn’s face? He had never dared entertain any notions about Sena. Even if by some miracle Mr. Randel would approve, he would have no chance with her. He knew that. His nature would be more appealing to a quieter sort like Miss Benton, surely—though she was just as unattainable. They all were, all the lovely Patriot women.
But to hear it proposed, even if denied… If Mr. Randel were aiming at a new method of torture for the Loyalist, he had designed a good one.
Edwinn cleared his throat. “Of course you are not. I wouldn’t—that is, your daughter is certainly worthy of any attention, but I would never dare—”
“Where are your clever debating skills now, Mr. Calvert?” Randel laughed and paced to the window again.
Edwinn drew in a sharp breath and grinned. “They are realizing you have cleverly deflected my question to you, Mr. Randel. About Christmas.”
“Ah.” Randel’s smile faded. “Too much has changed in these seven years. The society that once fed my spirit has fractured and shifted, has gone from men interested only in wit and words to leaders of armies, and now of governments.”
Edwinn folded his arms over his chest. “You yourself led a goodly portion of that army.”
“And I cannot regret it. But I can regret the changes it has forced upon us.” He looked out the window for a long moment. “Our city is changing too. With every inch Baltimore grows, we shrink. And with construction of the new capital city underway along the Potomac… I fear we shall dim still more, until we are naught but a remembrance. A provincial backwater once again. Already there are murmurs of moving Maryland’s capital to Baltimore, though pray God it never happens. But the day may come when I have nothing but memories left of those gilded days before the war. Why cling to the bilious ones?”
Edwinn was not the only one who felt the pangs of all these changes? Of the loss that accompanied the inception of a nation? “A good question, sir, since bilious thoughts only embitter us.”
Randel nodded without looking his way. “When Miss Benton arrived, it made me think of her brother, and of the man to whom she had been betrothed. Benton I held in greatest esteem, Fielding I never cared a whit for, yet the two were inseparable. I offered her sanctuary with nary a qualm, but then that evening I considered what I was doing and wondered if I am guilty of what I always told my pupils never to do—judging without full knowledge. How am I to know if Mr. Fielding is still the passionless boy he had been? Had I not begun to see changes in him during the war, even if I denied them to myself?”
Mention of Miss Benton and her betrothed made something go tight within Edwinn’s chest. A reminder, perhaps, of what the Lord expected of him where she was concerned. “And yet he obviously acted amiss, to force her to Annapolis to escape him.”
“But that is the thing.” Randel pivoted, pointed. “The Emerson Fielding I know was too devoted to his overinflated sense of duty to act on any impulse, be it licit or illicit. Perhaps it meant he did what he must, but he never acted beyond the call of duty. At least until Yorktown. You remember Alexander Baldwin?”
The sudden question made Edwinn blink, search his memory. “He was two years behind me in school.”
“And two years ahead of them. One of the only other Tories I taught. Fielding felled him at Yorktown. He did not realize it, of course, until the bayonet had already pierced.”
The thought sliced Edwinn. He hadn’t known Mr. Baldwin well, but they had been friendly enough. Enough that it hurt to realize he was dead, and at the hands of someone he now had a connection to, however tenuous.
Randel’s eyes slid shut. “He said nothing to me, but I overhead him talking to Benton about it, heard the agony in Fielding’s voice. And rather than try to comfort him as a good commander would, I actually thought, ‘Perhaps this will teach him the price of war, teach him to be either hot or cold but not lukewarm,’ and left him to his pain.”
“Did it? Teach him, I mean?”
When Randel opened his eyes again, they were blank with dark memories. “I cannot say. Both he and Benton suffered minor injuries in the battle and went to their homes to recover when peace was declared. I have seen neither since, and Benton does not expound on such things in his letters. Not about Fielding, anyway.” He blinked, straightened, smiled. “All this to say, Lark’s arrival has made me remember and reconsider. To realize that if we as a nation and a people are to move past the war and its penalties, we must keep our eyes trained ahead, not dwell on the injuries of the past.”
Edwinn gripped the head of his cane where it leaned against his chair. “Is that your way of saying you forgive me?”
Randel lifted his brows. “Do you admit you did something that needs forgiving?”
Edwinn chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “Forgiveness, and the need of it, is something that belongs to the subject, not the object. It matters not if I was right or wrong, only that you perceived me as being so and were hurt by it. Similarly, forgiving me will not change me, but you. A certain tutor of mine taught me that distinction in a theology class at King William’s School.”
Randel smiled only slightly and held Edwinn’s gaze for a long moment. “I hurt you as definitely as you hurt me. More, probably, because I was your mentor and teacher yet turned against you when you held fast to your beliefs, which I first helped instill in you. Yet you have already forgiven me, have you not?”
Edwinn inclined his head. “It hurt. It still hurts when I consider it. But yes, Master Randel, I have forgiven you.”
“And I still disagree with the way your beliefs manifested themselves. I still believe our cause was just and the Almighty supported us. But I cannot dispute what He may have spoken to your heart, as it pertains to you. Yes, Edwinn. I forgive you.”
Edwinn’s logic must have been faulty, for a burden lifted from his shoulders with those simple words. For the first time in seven years, he felt nearly home. “Thank you.” Faced with such emotion, he had little choice but to clear his throat and change the subject. “Shall we pray for your wife?”
They prayed together as they hadn’t done since Edwinn’s school days, and then the elder stood. No doubt he was as eager to return to his laboring wife as he had been to escape. He paused, however, at the door. “As for the other matter…perhaps in fact I would approve, were you to pay court to my daughter. If ever your thoughts inclined that direction.”
At the moment, Edwinn’s thoughts could incline nowhere. They were far too muddled a mess.
* * * * *
Emerson strode away from the house with a furrowed brow and headed for the post office a few doors down. The matter he had sought out Mr. Thomas for was far from urgent, but it was unusual to find the lawyer’s house completely vacant. If anyone knew when the family might be back, it was Mr. Tillman, the postmaster.
The older gentleman looked up when Emerson entered, the gray wisps of his hair floating above his head as if blown by some breeze.
His wig, as usual, sat on the table at his elbow like a sleeping pet. “Emerson, good day. No post yet today, but I have a few letters for your father from yesterday.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tillman.” Emerson leaned into the table—careful to avoid the wig—and watched the man sift through mounds of papers. How he kept it all straight, Emerson couldn’t determine. “Did you enjoy a good Christmas?”
“Oh, most excellent. Rose and her little ones made it in from Jamestown, and it was a blessing indeed to see the children again. They have grown so these past months!” Mr. Tillman pulled a few letters from the stack. “And you? I imagine you were lonely with Miss Benton traveling this year, eh?”
Emerson’s heart thudded in a tired, sluggish way. “Miserably. Speaking of traveling, do you know if the Thomases have gone away for the holiday? I stopped by their house to ask Mr. Thomas a question about a lease and found it shut up tight.”
As he slid the Fielding mail onto the table, Mr. Tillman pursed his lips and scratched his largely bald head. “Well now, let me think. They stopped in a while back to let me know they’d be visiting Mr. Thomas’s brother, and they went early enough to see General Washington resign his commission, I believe. Yes, left early on the tenth. To Annapolis. They ought to be back by the end of January, weather permitting, if your business can wait that long.”
“That should be soon enough, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Tillman.” Emerson slid the mail into his pocket and nodded.
“Happy to help, though young Benton could have told you as much. He was planning on traveling with them before his trip was canceled, as I recall.” Ah, that was right. And recall he would—the postmaster knew the comings and goings of everyone within fifty miles of Williamsburg, Emerson was sure. “You have a good day now, and give your family my regards. And if I might give a word of wisdom, you may want to send your miss a sweet-filled letter of your own soon.”
Had he any idea where to send such a letter… “Wise words indeed, Mr. Tillman. I asked Wiley to convey my sentiments in his letter to her the other day, but I will certainly be writing her independently soon.” He hoped. Perhaps he would be able to claim to the postmaster he had lost the direction and have him put on it the same one Wiley used.
“Wiley’s letter?” Tillman toyed with one of the plaits of his discarded wig. “Neither he nor his parents have sent anything recently, but to that Randel fellow in Maryland.”
He hadn’t written her as promised, then? Emerson barely kept from sighing and forced a smile instead. “Perhaps he has yet to send it. I will ask him. Good day, Mr. Tillman.”
He stepped back out into the weak sunshine and strode toward his horse, hitched outside the Thomases’. A few steps from his mare, he halted.
The Thomases had departed the day following the Penelope incident. Gone to Annapolis, where Wiley had planned to go.
Annapolis, where lived one Mr. Randel, to whom Wiley had recently sent a letter.
“Of course. Of course.” Leaping into the saddle, Emerson dug his heels into his horse’s sides and took off for home.
For the first time in weeks, he had hope to match his purpose.
Chapter Ten
Lark ambled along Tabernacle Street and enjoyed each slow step. Though the air was brisk, the sun was warm, and her blue cloak soaked it up and warmed her shoulders as she walked.
This was the first time she had ventured out alone, but it had seemed appropriate. The Randels were all caught up in the arrival of the newest addition, the tiny and perfect Annabelle. Lark had praised the babe in abundance all yesterday, after the girl’s arrival during the night before. Had taken her turn cradling the infant and had ignored the questioning ache in her heart. Had laughed with Sena over the joy of having, finally, a sister.
But today she thought the family might enjoy an hour with no strangers underfoot, so she had tucked the newly arrived letters from her family into her pocket and donned her cloak. She walked across Tabernacle and stepped onto the browned grass of Bladen’s Folly’s lawn. Remaining within sight of Randel House and her guardians, she crossed in front of the abandoned mansion, smiling at the memory of her and Sena’s foray into it the week before, and headed for the barelimbed Liberty Tree. It stretched high above her, its spindly fingers seeming to touch the clouds. She pulled out the blanket she’d tucked under her arm and tossed it, still folded, to the base of the trunk.
Once settled against the tulip poplar, she extracted the letters Mr. Randel had handed her earlier that morning. The first was in her mother’s hand, and she opened it with a smile.
It faded as she read Mamma’s urging to resolve her anger with Emerson and come home as soon as the weather allowed, stressing that the wedding would be in March as planned. She said how much they missed her, how determined they were to see her make amends with her betrothed.
Guilt battled determination in Lark’s chest. She wanted to honor her parents, to obey them…but if they persisted in this, what choice did she have but to stay here, where they could not force her to the church and let expectation rule her?
She picked up the second letter. Her name was scrawled on one side of the folded paper in Wiley’s script, which brought the smile back to her lips. She unfolded it and read.
Dearest Larksong,
Already we miss you terribly, as you can well imagine. Christmas felt empty without you here. Knowing Mother is writing you as well, I imagine she will do her best to convince you home, back to your duties as a betrothed woman. I urge them continually to put a halt to preparations for the nuptials, though I have honored your silence in the specifics of the break. I did explain the situation to Isabella Fielding. She stomped on her brother’s toes. I assume you can see me grinning in delight as I recall it.
I avoided Emerson until said stomping, but we came across each other afterward. Lark, I must be honest. He is a frightful mess over this. I will not take his side, and I would never betray your confidence, but I feel compelled to tell you I believe him wholeheartedly repentant. Not just for the incident with Penelope, but for the prior two years he wasted. I have never seen him like this, not even in war.
There, message delivered. I told him I would let you know how heartsick he is, on the condition that he stop asking me where to find you. You ought to have seen him when he agreed, all but whimpering at the hopelessness of discovering your whereabouts without my cooperation. You would have cackled in delight.
Yet, if you feel yourself softening, I would not argue with you coming home earlier than planned. This seems to have jarred him from a long-standing stupor, and I believe when next you see him, it will be a different, better Emerson that greets you. Too late though, I fear, and your heart is too precious for me to put it in danger of another ache.
Find your heart’s desire, Larksong, and fly after it, wherever that leads you. If by chance it brings you home again soon, then I will welcome you.
Most affectionately,
Your brother, Wiley
Lark pressed her lips together and lowered the paper to her lap. Not the letter she had expected, to be sure. Wiley might be Emerson’s closest friend, but he had never been blinded to the man’s flaws or swept away by his charms. For her brother to take his part even this much, Emerson must be miserable indeed.
She fisted her hand in the fabric of her cloak to keep from balling up the missives. Two weeks of misery was nothing compared to what Emerson had put her through. She wouldn’t fly home, back to his arms, because he moped about for a few days.
Her eyes slid shut, and the sunlight painted swirling rainbows upon her lids. It wasn’t just about her continued anger. That was only over the Penelope incident, and it would fade. Eventually. But the bigger issue remained, the one that had made her question the betrothal before her doxy of a cousin ever arrived.
They might have known each other all their lives, but they were strangers, she and Emerson. He knew nothing of her heart or mind and had never wanted to. And what did she really know of him?
She rested he
r head against the tree. Was it so terrible that she wanted more than a facade of a marriage? Was she being unrealistic? Childish? Ought she hire a companion, a carriage, and go home? Ask Wiley to fetch her? Return to her repentant former-betrothed and agree to give him another chance, let her parents preserve their dignity?
For a moment, she let that possibility swim through her mind, let it travel the river of her thoughts and dreams, whirl through the pool of her duties and expectations. But then she opened her eyes and saw the broken shell of a governor’s mansion sitting atop the gentle knoll.
No. She would not go home and settle for what her family wanted her to do, she would not build a marriage on Emerson’s guilt and her own fear that no other man would ever want her. Not when the truth remained that he did not want her, either. Better to be alone in a new town than alone in her own home. Better to wait and see if something more awaited her than to resign herself to nothingness.
What was it Mr. Calvert had said in his prayer? Reveal to her the purpose You have so perfectly ordained for her life. That was what she wanted, that was her supplication. She longed to have purpose.
And she would stay right here in Annapolis until she found it. If Emerson needed to assuage his guilt, let him do so before the Almighty. She never wanted to see him again.
* * * * *
Wiley’s whistle died on his lips when he saw the commotion at the Fieldings’ stables. Maybe a carriage being loaded with trunks was not, in itself, cause for a lump of dread to form in his stomach. But the fact that Emerson was the one striding from house to outbuilding, a valise in hand…
He swung off his mount and hurried toward his friend. “Emerson. What the devil is going on? Are you away on business?”
Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland Page 11