“Is that so,” Branch said, taking a seat on the bench and draping his arm along the back of it. As Lucy settled beside him, it was hard to resist the temptation to yank off the cap she wore and let his fingers toy with the errant curls poking out around the edges. “What about the jewelry you work so hard to create?”
“I could make it here just as well as at the shop, but I fear Papa would be disappointed if I didn’t return. And I can’t stay here indefinitely. I have …” She suddenly snapped her mouth shut, as though she had been about to reveal something quite important.
Branch already knew her secret, but he wanted her to tell him. If he wished her to be honest, though, he should reciprocate and tell her the truth about himself, his work, and how he came to be her grandparents’ neighbor.
“I realize your aunt, who looks more like your sister, lives next door, but how are you here, Branch? Don’t you have … obligations in the city?”
“I needed a bit of respite, and the farm is part mine. I come here when I can no longer be away from the peacefulness of it.” He sighed and looked out across the fields. In the distance, he could see the barn he and Nate had worked hard to rebuild last year when Branch had been home for a few weeks.
“What is it you do, Branch, besides prance around Philadelphia, setting girlish hearts all aflutter?”
“I do not prance,” he protested, then realized by the impish expression on Lucy’s face that she was taunting him again. “Fluttering hearts are not my intention or fault.”
“Still, good sir, they are left in the wake of your charm.”
He leaned toward her. “Does that include you?”
Lucy plucked a flower growing at the end of the bench and stroked the petals. “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper.
They were quiet for a moment before she looked at him again. “I would like to know you, Burwell William Barton. Notthe dashing fellow of the city, but the humble farmer beside me. How did you come to be here?”
Branch expelled a weary breath. If he intended to tell Lucy any of the story, he may as well tell it all. “It isn’t a pretty tale, Lucy. Are you certain you wish to hear it?”
She clasped his hand in hers again, and Branch felt warmth flow through his veins all the way to his heart. “Please?”
“Very well. I’ll start at the beginning. I was born to a farmer in Delaware, near Dover. There had been three sons and a daughter born before me, but they had all passed from one ailment or the other before I came along. My mother died when I was five giving birth to a little girl who lived only an hour before she too was gone from this life. My father grieved so deeply, he was never the same after that. When I was six, he married a wicked, fork-tongued woman who detested me. I always thought he married her simply to have a woman in the house. When my father was absent, she beat and starved me, but when my father was there, she acted as though I was an angelic blessing to her.”
“Did your father not see the truth?” Lucy asked, her eyes filled with concern.
“No. He saw only that his beloved wife was gone, and with her another child. Then my grandparents, Sarah’s parents, perished in a house fire. Sarah barely survived. It’s why she and Nate have no children. She was gravely wounded in the fire. Anyway, she was my father’s only living sibling, even though she is closer to my age than she was to his. She moved in with us once she was well enough to walk, and my father’s wife did everything she could to make Sarah so miserable she would leave, but she had nowhere else to go. Sarah and I made a pact to take care of each other. Then my father took sick and succumbed to the illness a few days later. His wife barely waited a week before she sold Sarah and me as indentured servants. I was a little younger than Theo at the time, and Sarah was sixteen. Wewent to different houses, a fact for which I’ll be grateful until my dying day. Her master was strict but kind, and her indentured servitude was only for two years. I was not as fortunate.”
“What happened?” Lucy asked quietly, as though she could already envision the next part of his story.
“The master who purchased me was a cruel man. I was barely given enough to eat, and slept in the barn without a blanket, even on the coldest nights. His son was a year older than me, and must have taken after his mother, because he used to bring me food and clothes, even shared his toys. When the master was away, he helped me with my chores, and then we would play or go fishing, or just stare up at the sky and imagine what it would be like to be free. Thomas was a good lad and grew up to be a good man. He was the one who helped me with my schooling. When I was old enough and strong enough, he provided the assistance I needed to begin working toward a better future.”
Lucy’s brow wrinkled in question. “What does that mean? What did you do?”
“When I finished my day’s tasks for the master, I often worked around town at odd jobs, earning every coin I could and hiding it in a sack I had buried out behind the pig’s pen where the old man would never have thought to look. However, because I was working for others when I should have been at his farm, I soon mastered the ability to create disguises and step into personas far different than my own.”
He wasn’t surprised when Lucy’s mouth formed a perfect O, showing her surprise.
Branch grinned. “It’s true. I could pretend to be anyone, and no one was any the wiser. When I turned eighteen, my indentured servitude ended, but the master refused to let me go. He chained me in the barn and beat me to within an inch of my life. I may have died there, but Thomas reported his father to thelocal sheriff when he discovered what he had done. The sheriff was an upright fellow. He came out and took me to the doctor. When I was healed, he gave me a job, which led to another, and soon I was working every hour I could, saving all my money to one day purchase my own farm. Thomas could no longer abide his father and left the day the sheriff hauled me to the doctor.”
“You had such a hard, horrible childhood, Branch. How are you so … you? So kind and full of fun?”
“Why not be that way? Bitterness is a terrible pill to swallow, and once you do, it slowly poisons your soul. It certainly doesn’t hurt the person who hurt you. It’s better to let it go and move on.” He had learned that the hard way, but thanks to the sheriff and a reverend who had taken an interest in him, Branch had eventually found his way.
Lucy studied him as though she needed a moment to consider his words. “How did you find Sarah?”
“I wrote to the family who had purchased her indenture, and they had, miraculously, kept in touch with her. She had met Nate at a church service. He had been in the area visiting a friend. When he returned to Boston, it was with Sarah as his bride. I took the address the family shared with me and went to Boston. The day I knocked on Sarah’s door was one of joy and many tears. She had heard I had been killed years ago and hadn’t tried to find me.”
“Oh, Branch! How terrible for you both.” Lucy’s beautiful eyes filled with tears. “Sarah must have been beyond words when you arrived on her doorstep.”
“Indeed. She stood as still as a statue once I told her my name, like an apparition awaited entry on her doorstep. It had been ten years since she had seen me. She had changed, of course, as well, but she still looked like the girl I remembered from my childhood. Anyway, she and Nate put a roof over my head. I worked at any honest job I could find, and helped Nate inthe mornings and evenings on his small farm. We both listened to Samuel Adams and his cousin John, discussing the need for not just liberty, but a revolution. The British took over Nate and Sarah’s farm, giving them nothing for their trouble beyond a word of advice to stay away. I found a room in town, but Nate and Sarah ended up with his brothers in a small village. I started looking for a farm, one away from Boston and the fighting. I had heard about some beautiful places near Philadelphia and journeyed here to see what I could find. The moment I set foot on my farm, I knew it was the place for me. I purchased it, then sent word to Nate and Sarah to join me. It took some convincing to get Nate to agree, but I signed over part of the farm to him and Sarah in exchange for them working all the land while I’m in the Continental Army.”
Lucy’s mouth dropped open, and she gaped at him as if he had just grown horns atop his head.
“That surprise you?” he asked, unable to hide a grin at her shocked expression.
