Brielle and Titus rode silently behind him as one mile stretched to two. With every plodding step he felt relief, if not for himself, for them. He didn’t know much of their past or the hardships they’d suffered. All he knew was that their paths had inexplicably crossed, and he’d felt driven to do something to help them.
The thin trail cut to the left and wound upwards past thickets of wild berries and mountain laurel. Expelling a tense breath, he removed his hat and tucked it under a saddle strap as a cool wind bestirred the woods. Looking back over his shoulder at them, he pressed on toward the entrance to a cavern, damp air rolling over them as they neared the cave’s mouth. He helped Brielle down from the roan and then Titus slipped to the ground on his own.
“A cave?” he exclaimed, wide-eyed again as rain began spattering down. “In the nick of time, too!”
“There’s another world beneath our feet but we won’t go further than the entrance,” Bleu cautioned, leading the horses beneath a wide ledge. “I wouldn’t even hazard it with a lantern but it makes a fine shelter.”
And so they rested in the cave’s cool embrace, not speaking but waiting till the weather quieted. Once it did, they continuedon, not passing another living soul, just forest creatures who were slowly reappearing after the drenching, songbirds foremost.
“Soon we’ll come to another wonder,” Bleu told them with a slight smile. “There’s a reason I travel this way and bypass your former crossroads.”
If she’d not lost her heart to him yet, the fiery sunset and the hot springs sheltered by tall, leafy sycamores would have done it. Still stunned by the day’s events, Brielle removed one of her shoes and worn stockings and dipped a foot into a pool of steaming water. To allow her privacy, Titus and Bleu had gone further down the wooded hill where another larger pool waited. She was alone, her body sore after untold miles of riding though her spirits soared like the hawk above them.
She finished undressing, wanting to burn her work garments, wishing she had a comely dress and smallclothes. Sighing in delight, she sank below the water as steam hazed the woods around her. She could hear Titus talking to Bleu in the distance, a reassuring sound as twilight crept in and fireflies flashed.
All the questions she’d tucked away when he’d surprised her in the garden had been building but she was too tired to give them voice. Their supper had consisted of ham and the wheaten bread and cheese she’d taken from the tavern kitchen. Now, at the springs, she knew sleep would soon follow. For now it was enough that they were far from the tavern, walking in freedom.
Her questions would wait.
At daybreak, Brielle rolled up the striped woolen blanket that had made a far better bed than her attic mattress. Titus was at thehot springs again while Bleu readied the horses for another day’s journey. She watched him unawares, his back to her. Just how far had they come from the tavern? Already its familiarity was fading, further clouded by the wonders unfolding around them. She hadn’t looked back when they left. She didn’t want to remember any of it, only what stretched before her.
“How did you sleep?” he asked when she approached. “Rather, did you?”
She smiled as wonder tied her tongue. How she wished she could speak her mind. Her heart.
I dreamt a handsome stranger saved me.
“That’s the softest bed I’ve had since Philadelphia, thank you.”
“You’ll trade it for a feather mattress once we reach Orchard Rest.”
“Your sister’s home.”
He knelt and filled a canteen from a cold spring gushing from a limestone ledge. “Sylvie has lived along the Rivanna since the Seven Years’ War began.”
“She came from Canada, like you?”
“Oui, a long, tumultuous story.Tragique. I will let her tell you in time.” His eyes met hers again. “And I would hear yours.”
She felt a sudden shyness. Rarely did anyone ask about her past. She didn’t want to delay them with conversation, but Titus was exploring the woods and Bleu showed no sign of being in a hurry.
“I’ll tell you the short of it,” she began, smoothing her wrinkled petticoat. “My father was from a family of English saddlers in the West Midlands. England. He met my mother when he traveled to France to deliver a saddle and accoutrements to her father, a count, who was against their courtship. When they eloped to England he threatened to come after her, so she and my father sailed to the colonies. They settled in Philadelphia where Father resumed his trade…”
“As a saddler?”
She nodded. “I was born in the city, and we lived happily there till I was sixteen and they died of a fever.”
His eyes clouded. Were his and his sister’s losses much the same?
“Since I had no kin in the colonies, I went to the city’s Alms House for a time.” A long time. But even that had been preferable to indentured servitude. She was still able to attend church and walk past her parents’ former house in the city. And she’d been assigned the task of teaching other orphans to read and write.
He stood. “Did your family have no friends who would take you in?”
She hesitated. Here was the question she dreaded—and where her story became especially hard to tell. “I spoke little English, mostly French. The two families who considered taking me in decided not to.”
“Did they say why?”
Till now she’d never told another soul. But she wanted nothing but truth between them. She owed him that after all he’d done for her. “It was thought I’d attract undue attention in their households and cause… unrest.”
