“Tilly and I rode hard in the little cart, but the treachery of the road bested me.”
“I remember. I bounced across the carriage seat as if a rag doll. Though I was too racked with despair to care.”
“There was a storm—”
“Lightning slithering across the sky,” she said.
“Thunder rumbled louder than any cannon fire.”
“Our horses were spooked. Isaac exerted every ounce of strength to keep us on the road.”
“At one roaring thunderclap, Tilly reared and tipped the cart.” After nine years, he still recalled the events in detail.
“Isaac pushed on to the next town, where we lodged for the night before we drowned in the deluge.”
“The cart tossed me to the ground. I lay in the tall grass being baptized by heaven’s tears until Moses found me.” He cleared histhroat. Did he tell her the rest? Of the Man? No, she would hear his story tonight.
“When Father died, I knew I’d never return to Slathersby Hill or South Carolina.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to marry me as I was, Esther.”
“I dare say, you’d not have wanted to marry me. I was so—”
“Bitter.”
The word traveled from their tongues in unison.
Esther smiled, pressing her hand on his. “The Lord has been good to both of us.”
“A truth I cannot deny.” He brought her gloved hand to his lips. “We shall always be friends.”
Esther’s hand broke free of his, and she touched her fingers to his clean jaw and the tip of the ragged scar. “We shall always be friends. Our love, however long ago, was not wasted.”
“My dear Esther, when love is given and received, at any level or along any course, it is never wasted. Certainly not any of my affection for you.”
She opened her reticule and retrieved a small note. “Your letter,” she said. “From the battlefield.”
He reached for it, unfolding the thick stock, the pencil markings smudged from touch and time. “I’d thought it lost. Aunt Mary confessed she burned the letter you left for me at the surgeon’s. She feared you’d grow tired of me and leave, breaking my heart beyond what I could bear.”
“But that was for us to decide.”
“Those were empty, frightening days.”
“Even when I stood in your room and demanded your attention—”
“I thought it best for you to be free of me. Then Aunt Mary confessed her fears and actions, and that’s why I came after you.” Time, the beauty of grace, allowed this confession. A time to heal. He had Lydia to thank for teaching him to express his heart well. Hamilton folded the page, offering it back to Esther. “How could we have known the path the Lord had for us?”
She did not reach to take the letter, so he set it on the pew between them. “Why did you not write to me then? Right after I departed?”
“After I landed in the grass and lay there, the rain soaking me to the bone, I realized I could not saddle you with my condition. Not my leg, but my anger and bitterness. I needed to know the love of my Savior before I could love myself. Before I could love you.”
Her eyes were full and glistening when she looked at him. “I didn’t open your letter for some months after I returned to London. I couldn’t bear to read what you wrote. If of love, then I was thousands of miles from your arms. If of detachment, then I’d be bereft of hope. Then Father died, and I buried my attachments to South Carolina with him.”
“Aunt Mary and I attended his funeral. In doing so we bid good-bye to the grudge, to our friend, and in my heart, to you.” Hamilton ran his hand over his leg and the blunt end. Lydia was right. He’d overextended.
“Do you have regrets, Hamilton?” Esther said.
“To live in faith is to live without regret.” He leveled his gaze at her, the light from the stained glass window haloing her in gold and blue. “Do you?”
