“My dear,” she said, standing, folding the letter as discretely as possible and tucking it against her palm. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Is that his letter? Hamilton Lightfoot’s?” He moved toward her, holding up the flyer.
Esther sank back down to her chair. “How did you know?”
“I tripped over a loose floorboard one afternoon.” He set the flyer on the lamp table and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I was set to nail it down until I discovered a secret beneath.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I considered it. Lost a few nights of sleep over it. But determined if you wanted to tell me, you would.”
“Yet deep down you wondered—”
“If you still loved him? Yes.” Wallace perched on the edge of the chair opposite Esther.
“Did you read it?”
He nodded. “Have I offended you?”
She shook her head. “You’re my husband. I have no secrets from you. But I would have preferred knowing you found the letter.”
“I’d have preferred knowing you kept it.”
“And what would you have said? As a young bridegroom?”
“I’m not certain. Perhaps I would have advised you to toss it away.”
“I’m not sure I would have done so even if I told you I would.” Esther set the letter on the table. Everything was in the open now. “I know I should discard it, but, Wallace, he was a dear friend and I could not bear to part with his final words to me. Though I should. Heaven knows Wiley is probably aware of my hiding place. I saw him once near that corner of the rug. When I entered the room, startling him, he nearly crashed into the candle stand.”
“He’s loyal to me,” Wallace said. “But tell me. Do Hamilton’s words, after all these years, stir something in you?”
Esther’s tears spilled over. “I do not know.”
“Do you love him?”
“I love you.”
“Yet this man of your distant past, a war hero, stands beside me, and I do not know to whom I am being compared.”
“Wallace.” Esther reached for his hand. “He’s a memory. A promise not kept. You are the man I married. I share your bed, your children, your home. You have my heart.”
“Then why the abrupt departure from the library? I know it was because you read his name. Why have you kept his letter?”
Esther returned to her chair. “When I debuted in London—”
“Where we first met.”
“During those two years I was desperately in love with Hamilton. I wanted him to write me love letters worthy of Lord Byron, yet he wrote about a half dozen letters consisting of farm details and the latest number of kittens produced by the barn cat.”
Wallace smiled. “He sounds like my kind of man.”
“I chided him. If he loved me, then he must express himself. In the meantime, his uncle and my father fell out, an argument over the acquisition of their farm. Turns out Father mishandled money and told Lord Whatham he’d purchased the land the Lightfoots owned when he had not. This feud, along with the Lightfoots being ardent Whigs, caused Father to ban them from Slathersby. Hamilton and I met in secret at a willow tree by the creek. Then a troop of dragoons killed his uncle and burned the church.”
“And you were shot.”
Esther pressed her hand over her scar, the one Wallace often caressed and kissed. “War changed him. After the Battle of King’s Mountain, where he almost killed surrendering Loyalists, he pushed me away. Said he didn’t love me. But I did not believe him. I determined to remain true.”
She detailed the Christmas of 1780 and Hamilton’s devastatingwound at Cowpens, her journey to see him, and Father’s demand she return home.
