“How so?”
“When I am with her…” He paused, trying to corral words when he had none. “When I am with her I feel I’ve come home. It’s as if I’ve wandered for many years without a compass or map and have finally found what I’ve sought. I never thought it would be a person but a place. But it is very much a person, and I cannot explain it any better than that.”
“You’re in love with her.”
“I am hardly a worthy prospect.”
“You settled her indenture contract,” she reminded him. “What other recommendation or gallant gesture is needed?”
“I don’t want her to wed me because she feels indebted. That may be her mind at present, clouding her judgment. For now she is liberated and sees me as her hero. I’ll just enjoy that for however long it lasts.”
Sylvie laughed softly and he felt encircled by the warm family feeling he’d missed. He had no confidante other than his sister… till Brielle. Theirs was a newfound intimacy he didn’t even know he needed, filling up the hollow places he’d long had inside him.
“You’ve prayed about her?” she asked.
Had he? His endless roaming, his longing for home, seemed a plea or prayer in itself. Since leaving Fort Pitt, caught up in events he’d not foreseen, he’d hardly been heavenly minded. But since some prayers went unanswered didn’t it stand to reason some were answered unasked?
Sylvie continued quietly. “I’ve not stopped praying for you and your future bride since leaving Acadie. You’ll make a fine husband and father. I’ve thought so for a long time now.”
“I am without work, a means to sustain her.”
“You’ve not lacked work since the war began.”
His thoughts whirled backwards instead of forwards. “Once I accused you of provisioning the enemy when your husband, the infamous Blackburn, first came to our door. Would you have me do the same?”
She wafted her fan so vigorously he felt its wind. “What means you?”
“I’ve had offers from the British—colonial governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania—to continue acting as official interpreter and guide.”
“Yet you can’t sustain a bride?” Her voice held disbelief. “Do they pay so little?”
“Two hundred pounds sterling a year.”
She gasped. “Are you jesting? ’Tis a small fortune!”
“The Lords of Trade are wanting to establish good relations with the tribes now that peace has been declared. A precarious path of coercion and exploitation.”
“Then I shan’t offer my congratulations.”
“Non. Payment aside, I have little peace about the position.”
“You still consider England the enemy.”
“Our forced removal from Acadie is not easily forgiven nor forgotten.”
“For a long time I felt like you. I still do though my ire doesn’t burn as bright. I’ve only moved past it by choosing a new life here and letting the past rest.”
“Marrying the enemy didn’t hurt,” he jested.
She smiled. “He’s Scots, he often reminds me, not English.”
“When will he return?”
“One never knows with surveying. He’s not far, just north of Charlottesville, a safer survey unlike forays into the back settlements.” Her voice tightened with concern. “I wonder, given the recent raid sparing Brielle and Titus, if that whole territory won’t soon be ablaze again.”
He nodded. “Western Virginia remains a ring of fire but at least I don’t have to watch my back here. The Rivanna is incredibly civilized.”
She sighed. “I suppose it’s too soon to start sewing Brielle’strousseau.”
