“I’m most needed here.” He began removing the coat. “But it’s more than that. There’s a toll that killing decent, misguided men takes.”
So many men. Fathers. Sons. Brothers. Husbands. War was no respecter of persons. The lament in his voice wasn’t lost on her.
“You sound like a Jersey Quaker—or your father.”
“I’m no Quaker.” He hung the coat on a wall peg. “Not with the men I’ve taken down.”
The lament in his tone grieved her, yet she understood.
“Most of all I can’t bear to be away from you and our child.”
His low words narrowed the distance between them. This was what she most wanted. To hear his heart. To know he still cared for her, despite all her missteps and regrets—and his.
“You’re my world, Mae.” His arms slipped round her, as strong and warm as she remembered. His lengthy, searing kiss rivaled the linen closet of long ago. “I can’t fathom being without you or living like we’ve lived lately—separate rooms, separate beds, withheld words. I love you with all that is in me. Nothing will ever come between us again save death.”
Epilogue
April 1778
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
The spring day dawned bright, befitting a baby’s birth. Sunlight broke across the pine floors of their upstairs bedchamber, reaching all the way to the waiting, empty cradle.
“If you dinna put that bairn down ye’ll nae get a speck o’ rest,” the midwife fussed good-naturedly. “Four hours old and not yet oot of yer arms.”
Rhys smiled at the Scotswoman from where he sat beside the bed. “I suspect it will be a good while longer still. Why don’t you go down the hill to summon my father and sister. They’re probably awake by now, if they slept at all.”
“Aye, General Harlow.”
She went out, her tread catlike on the stair. Rhys looked at Mae rather than the baby, but she was so besotted she didn’t look away from their firstborn. Watching them both, he marveled at what the night had wrought.
Labor had been amazingly swift, starting at the stroke of midnight. Father Harlow had ridden for the midwife while Bronwyn stayed by Mae’s side till she arrived. Rhys had paced through the house and prayed, expecting childbirth to be something like battle.Dangerous. Uncertain. Requiring an endurance and focus and intensity like little else.
Now new concerns clouded his joy. He studied his warrior of a wife for any sign of discomfort or distress. Her color was high, her eyes bright. All that had unraveled was her braid, but Bronwyn would soon set that to rights. Mae looked anything but beleaguered. She looked ... radiant.
Overcome, he finally said, “You soldiered on so admirably I didn’t hear so much as a cry.”
“If it had dragged on any longer I might have.” Mae looked up at him, wonder in her expression. “Perhaps all that exercise from New York to Virginia last autumn stood me in good stead.”
He didn’t doubt it. Tentative, he pulled back the baby’s swaddling, revealing a rosy, dimple-cheeked face capped by a wispy halo of hair the color of his own. “She’s as beautiful as you are.”
“More so.” She kissed the tiny silken cheek. “And still nameless.”
“Mahala?”
“Nay.”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
“Shechanged my mind. I knew it as soon as I saw her.” Carefully she passed their daughter to him, though he felt all thumbs. “Mahala shall be saved for another day, Lord willing.”
He settled the baby against his chest, cradling her feather lightness for the first time. When she opened her eyes and gazed back at him, the knot in his throat rivaled the sting in his eyes. Blue eyes. Chicory blue like Mae’s.
“Meet America,” Mae said quietly but assuredly.
“America”—he struggled to speak—“Harlow.”
Leaning nearer, Mae kissed his damp, bewhiskered cheek. “I knew you’d treasure all that it means like I do.”
