“Speak to me,” he whispered.
The tender command urged the truth from her throat but she clamped her teeth, refusing it utterance.
Again he brushed his hand against her face, his words so tender they all but melted the flakes around them. “I ache to see you grieve so. Will you not confide in me?”
She grasped hold of her remaining strength and used it to flood her thin voice. “I do not wish to speak to anyone.” A lie. The tears streamed freely now. She struggled to keep her tone even as the trail of sobs erupted. “I wish…I wish to be alone.” Another lie, but the humiliation of creating such a scene before her friends was too much.
“Anna,” he pleaded, swerving to stand in front of her. “I accept your wish to stay silent, but I cannot leave you to bear it alone.”
Hot tears poured from her eyes and she collapsed against him, the realities of what she’d learned consuming the wishes of her past like flame. She melted against his strong chest, his solid arms enveloping her, holding her as the years of pain and longing flooded with the knowledge that s
he’d lost Samuel all over again. The memories of him, once so bright and sustaining, now charred to lifeless black.
She could hardly speak. “I…I want to go home.”
His head bobbed above hers. “Of course, my love. As you wish.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
William helped Anna into the seat facing their kitchen fire and made sure the logs roared before he kneeled in front of her, his concern at his throat.
“Can I get you something? Anything?”
She shook her head, her lips pressed tight, chin quivering.
He squeezed his fingers around her knee, looking away, hoping to find some semblance of thought in his frenzied mind. A whipping began on his spirit. There were not harsh enough ways to punish his foolishness. He should have ceased the conversation long before it had taken such a turn. He knew the revelation of their connection would need careful consideration—had thought about little else since he’d learned she and Samuel shared the same blood. But now, the worst had showered on them like a sudden summer rain, drenching the thoughts he hung out to dry.
Blinking, Anna inhaled a choppy breath. “I dislike keeping things from you.” She glanced to him then back to the fire. “I realize telling you what I have just learned, that which causes my grief, may force you to change your feelings about me, but I cannot keep it within.”
One hand still on her knee, he reached up to her cheek with the other, tucking a curl around her ear. Praying his sincerity would cut past the vines of despair that choked the light from her eyes, he whispered. “Nothing you can say will alter my feelings for you.”
She shifted her gaze to align with his. “Samuel was my brother.”
William searched her eyes, frowning in question. “Your brother?” Did she believe his act? Was his surprise both as sincere and convincing as he hoped?
Anna blinked, keeping her face toward the fire. “When word reached us that Samuel had died, that he had in fact taken his own life, I refused to believe it.” Her voice compressed, emotion replaced with a flat, soulless sound. “I knew, I knew with everything in me that the reports were false.”
A report I had given.
William bowed his head and stroked his thumb against the back of her hand. Agony impaled his conscience. He could give her more, quell the questions these revealed truths had unearthed, but they would only injure her further. Knowing her brother had abused and threatened to the point of death might slay her tender sensibilities too deep. Would God condone his silence when done to keep the woman he loved from such pain? Either way, he deceived. Either way, she would suffer.
He peered beside him to where she sat. Tears still streamed from her red-rimmed eyes.
“Samuel was never that kind of person—not cruel and unkind,” she said, the next words spoken to herself. “Not when I knew him.”
William’s response flowed even before he could weigh their veracity. “It matters not what he was, only how you remember him.”
A bitter laugh breathed from her nose. “It does matter. When I first came to New York, I was determined to discover what had happened.” She lowered her eyes and studied her fingers in her lap. “I was determined that no one should know who I was or why I sought after him, believing that indeed I may have been followed.” She dropped her gaze to her hands. “But I was. And ’tis as you said, God has granted the wishes of my heart even though I had believed them abandoned.” She sighed. “Perhaps if I had delivered that note, if I had found the man who knew Samuel so well I could have…but nay, I have all the knowledge I need now, I suppose.”
“Note?”
Anna glanced to him then away again. “I was to deliver a note to a man who would assist the soldier and I in locating the one who had known him.”
All sound faded. “You and this soldier were looking for the same man?”
Had he missed something? Had she said this before? But no, she’d said the man she sought was Henderson. “What happened to the note?”
She looked to the bedchamber then to him. “I…I think I still have it.”