Joseph let out another breath, snapping Nathaniel from his daydream.
After another sip of his drink, Joseph continued. “Do you know her well, Nathaniel? I assume you see her often at the Watsons.” His gaze remained on the door where Kitty had gone. “I suddenly find myself impressed upon to find a reason to visit Thomas and his wife.”
Nathaniel cleared his throat and grabbed his suit jacket at the waist to staunch his rising irritation. The only one welcome to make regular visits at the Watsons was Nathaniel. He inclined his head with a frown, and Joseph leaned in, his expression pinching as if he expected the news Nathaniel prepared to share would be grave. “Visits might have to wait. Eliza is with child and needs much rest. Guests might make her more tired than is safe, under the circumstances.”
Nodding, Joseph’s mouth quirked to the side as if he understood, but wasn’t pleased with the answer. “Well, I could always ask Miss Campbell to take a stroll with me around town. That way—”
“Have you seen Hannah of late?”
Joseph turned, his eyes wide as if the sudden question lurched something concealed from his heart. He blinked, shock etched into his features, but Nathaniel didn’t uproot the question he’d planted between them.
Seconds passed. Joseph looked down, a frown pulling his eyebrows together, and for a moment Nathaniel regretted his hasty change of subject. He’d wanted the conversation away from Kitty, but hadn’t known the mention of Joseph’s first love would prove so painful.
Joseph straightened and shook his head, emitting a sigh. “Nay. I have not seen her. I understand she is still in Plymouth.” Pulling his posture higher, Joseph tipped his head back and drained the rest of the wine in his goblet before he continued. “I doubt she and I will ever again cross paths.” He stopped and stared at the bottom of the empty glass. Rubbing his thumb against the goblet, he offered a smile that went only skin deep. “Which is why I find it a pleasant distraction to meet someone like Miss Campbell, someone so lovely and gentle and sincere.”
Nathaniel squirmed against his tightening waistcoat. “I heard tell she might have a beau.”
Joseph snapped a look at Nathaniel. “Someone is courting her?”
Not about
to tell what he knew of the infamous Mr. Pigley, Nathaniel shrugged his response.
Joseph’s sudden boisterous laugh filled the air where they stood. “You don’t have designs on her, do you?”
“Of course not, silly notion.” The answer spilled from his lips too fast, and Nathaniel brushed away his blunder with a quick chuckle.
“Then I don’t see the trouble in pursuing—”
“Oh, there is something I meant to tell you this morning as I made my rounds.” Nathaniel scrambled to fling together something—anything that would cease this infernal conversation. “The uh... the watch for the magazine has been reorganized. We are requiring two men in the evening hours, not just one.”
One brow slanted up on Joseph’s forehead. “I know. I was at the meeting when that was decided.”
“Right, of course.” Laughing again and this time with less natural ability, Nathaniel turned around and scanned the table behind him in hopes of finding his own drink to cover his anxious nerves, but there were none within snatching distance.
“I do have one question about Miss Campbell.”
Nathaniel spun back, and quirked his eyebrows in question while inwardly he wanted to shove a cake in the man’s mouth to keep him from talking of her. “Aye?”
Mouth twisted, Joseph swallowed before speaking and when he did his volume had dropped to a whisper. “I hear she is a Tory.”
A grimace worked its way to Nathaniel’s face, but he killed it en route. Did Joseph mean such a thing as a slight against her character? “And if she is?”
“Well, I should like to know her position so when I next speak with her, I may tread gently regarding the subject.”
So foreign was the concept, that Nathaniel slowed his mind to dissect what his friend had just spoken. “You would align yourself with a woman who believed so vastly different from you?”
Joseph grabbed his empty drink off the window ledge and clapped Nathaniel on the back. “If a woman is God-fearing, and devoted to her family, I care not what political side she takes. When I marry, I ask only that my wife loves me until the end of my days.”
Nathaniel’s jaw hung open as he watched Joseph walk to the other side of the room. How could Joseph possibly think that way? Marrying one who didn’t hold to the same vital beliefs had proven time and again how destructive such a union could be. How painful. The ever-present scars on his past began to throb and he looked again for a drink to coat his memories when from the corner of his eye a motion near the exit roused his attention. His heart lurched.
Kitty.
He lunged forward to find Thomas, Eliza and Kitty making their way out the door.
Nathaniel followed. “Is everything all right?”
Kitty slowed to answer him as Thomas and Eliza continued down the front steps to the road.