“‘Excellently observed,’ answered Candide, ‘but let us cultivate our garden.’”
“And that, my love, is the end.” Nicholas set the brush and the book aside, pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin of her nape, drank in the scent of her skin.
But Bethie seemed lost in thought. “I love your mother and father, Nicholas. I love Jamie and Bríghid. I love your brothers and sisters. I even love Takotah, though at first she frightened me.”
Nicholas kissed his way along the column of her throat. “They love you, too.”
“They are truly kind people, though I dinnae think I shall ever learn everyone’s name.”
He nipped her earlobe. “You will—with time.”
“Do you think this is the best of all possible worlds?”
Nicholas chuckled, slid her shift from her shoulders, kissed the scar on her left shoulder. “Without a doubt, love. Mmmm, you taste good.”
She giggled. “I’m no’ jestin’, Nicholas!”
He slid his hands beneath the cloth to cup her breasts, flicked his thumbs over her tightening nipples. “Neither am I.”
She shivered, pressed her breasts deeper into his hands. “And all you went through—was it worth this? Just like Candide, if you hadna been taken captive, if you hadna run from home, if you hadna been livin’ in the wild, if the Frenchmen hadna cut your—”
“Then I would have found you some other way.” His cock was raging hard, his blood hot. “Come to bed, wife.”
“Are you certain?”
“That you should come to bed?” He took her hand, pressed his erection into her palm. “Oh, aye.”
“Nay, you daftie! Are you certain we’d have met some other way?”
Perhaps it was the tone of her voice, but something stilled him. He turned her to face him, knelt before her. “Aye, Bethie. It must be so, for I could not face this life without you.”
She looked into his eyes, brushed a strand of hair from his face. “You have so many who love you. You’d have found your way home without me.”
He cupped her face gently between his hands. “No, Bethie. I was a dead man, blind to their love. I cared about nothing, not even my mother’s tears. I lived without joy, took life without remorse. You made me feel again, forced me to face my past. You saved my life, but more than that, you savedme. No matter what I may have done for you, there is no gift greater than the one you have given me.”
“Oh, Nicholas! I need no gifts! Just love me, and I shall count myself the happiest of women.”
He brushed his lips over hers. “I do, Bethie. With all my heart, I do.”
Epilogue
October 30, 1774
Nicholas stood against the wall of his father’s study, sipping his evening cognac and doing his best to stay out of the fray while his father, his uncle, his brother William, and his sister Emma Rose argued about the burning of the HMSPeggy Stewart. It was in all the papers. People had spoken of little else for a fortnight, emotions in the colonies running high, talk of rebellion against the Crown growing.
“Mob justice is no justice at all!” Even at age seventy-six, his hair almost entirely turned to silver, Alec Kenleigh was a daunting figure when he was angry. “Poor Stewart was forced to burn his own ship or risk being hanged, and yet the crime was not his. That crowd would have burned that ship heedless of its human cargo. The Crown has made some grievous errors in its governance of these colonies, but you cannot tell me it is enough to merit breaking bonds with Britain and turning this land over to such...rabble!”
“Father, I am not alone in believing it is time to sever bonds with Britain.” William had traveled from his nearby estate to bring news of unrest in Annapolis. “Benjamin Franklin is not a man of poor judgment, nor is he given to immoderate anger, and yet evenhebelieves reconciliation may be impossible.”
“George Washington as well,” Jamie added. “He’s a Virginian, Alec, and a man whose judgment I trust.”
Nicholas had his own thoughts on the subject. The split from Britain was inevitable. He’d seen the cracks begin to form and the rift widen during the war against the French and Indians. Parliament and the British commanders had seemingly done all they could to alienate the colonists, disregarding their superior knowledge of the land, treating them as lesser men. Only William Pitt had seemed to understand the colonists’ perspective. But it was too late. The colonists had already come to see themselves not as Englishmen, but as Americans.
The seeds for this strife had been sown long ago.
Nicholas didn’t want a war, but he feared it was unavoidable. He had never discussed this with his father. Alec Kenleigh would never turn against the Crown, not with estates in England and his beloved sister and her family living outside London. And Nicholas had sons—three so far. He did not want to see them lose their youth and vigor in bitter fighting or spend their blood in battle.
William pressed on. “We cannot remain silent when other good men speak out.”
