“Cecelia—”
“We can do this,” she whispered, low and passionate. “We can get out. You just have to be able to get on a horse, and we can go. I can ride without a saddle; Clara taught me how.”
He stared at her, feeling his heart breaking. She was more of a woman than any of them had noticed, even him. The quiet storm of her grief before they left
had surrounded her, wrapped her up in white, and when it broke there was no longer the helpless little girl they knew. She had bravery in her, and she was willing to tempt death for a chance at freedom.
She just did not understand how these men would tempt death also to keep her from her goal.
“I’m not getting away,” he told her. He meant to have pretty words for it, but they were flat, blunt, enough to make her look like he’d slapped her across the face.
“You can’t just give up,” she told him fiercely.
“You’re very like your sister.”
“Would you be telling her the same if she were here?”
“Yes! I would tell her to run, and leave me here, and she would do it.”
“She wouldn’t,” Cecelia said contemptuously. “You don’t know her at all. She’d fight to her last breath for you.”
“And I for her, and she would understand that there was no way to save me. She would go home.”
“If she did, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.”
“I hope she wouldn’t,” Jasper said softly. The thought that it might be true hurt enough that tears came to his eyes. “I hope she would find someone else to love. Anyone but Cyrus.”
The joke fell flat. Cecelia stared down at him, her face cold, as if she was considering pushing him from her lap.
“You’re talking like you’re already dead. You’ve given up any hope of going home, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have! There are a dozen or more still alive, and we’re in Confederate territory now. We aren’t getting free until I’m dead.”
“How can you have no hope?”
“How can you be so naïve as to think there’s a chance?”
“Solomon came for us!” Her voice rose. “He did, and he’ll keep coming for us. You just have to keep fighting.” Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper. “If we leave now, we can meet him in the woods.”
“Here, now, what’s this?” Robert Knox’s voice stopped her cold, and she looked up at him white-faced.
“He’s hurt,” she said defiantly.
“Aye, and so are most of my men. All of which we can lay at your doorstep, I think, missy.”
“Leave it at your own doorstep,” Cecelia said rudely. “You didn’t have to kidnap us.”
“Careful, girl.”
“Or what?” There was no room for fear around her fury.
“I said—”
“Enough!” Jasper pushed himself up off the ground with alacrity, his eyes narrowed. “Cee, quiet. Knox, you should know better than to expect her to like you.”
Their eyes met, betrayal and anger and violence right there, but after a moment, Knox sighed. “Aye.”
“You would have done better to leave her,” Jasper said roughly, and he saw Knox pale. It had only just occurred to him. With Cecelia left behind, would Solomon still be pursuing them?