“She’ll be needing me. Especially if Price is having a hard time swallowing the truth.”
Marcus gives Gilbert a sympathetic nod, but it’s tinged with something else. “No chance Price is right?” he asks. “And your niece really did run?”
“Not you, too?”
Marcus holds up his hands. “It ain’t like that,” he says.
“Seems to me, that’s precisely what it’s like.”
Marcus lets out a low laugh, then steps out of the way of the door. “I’ll cover for you. Not that anyone’s paying much attention right now.”
“Thank you,” says Gilbert as he puts his apron down on the workbench and slides past him.
He’s almost out the door when Marcus calls after him. “Last question.”
Gilbert pauses, afraid to turn around.
“Does Kemp know you and Cecily are kin?”
Gilbert doesn’t have to tell Marcus that if Kemp knew Cecily was Gilbert’s niece, he’d be watching Gilbert a hell of a lot closer than he already is. “It’s like what you say, about your smithing.”
Marcus tilts his head, curious. “What’s that?”
“He never asked.”
SALLY
Sally has barely had timeto get Maria back into bed, much less collect herself, when Mrs. Cowley knocks on the door.
“There’s a man downstairs for you, Maria.”
Maria looks confused. “What does he want?”
“He’s here to take you home, love.”
“Home?”
“He brought a buggy.”
“Is it Harrison?”
“I think that’s what he said, yes. Colored man about this high,” Mrs. Cowley says, holding her hand a good six inches above the top of her own head.
Maria is in no way strong enough to travel, and Sally says so.
“That’s what I told him, but he said he’s under strict orders to bring her home.”
“Orders from whom?” asks Maria, and then it dawns on Sally. This is Elliott’s doing. He was livid when he discovered that she’d been listening in on the family’s conversation, and he must have convinced his parents that Maria would be better off at home, out of Sally’s earshot.
Maria’s cheeks have gone pale, and her eyes dart between the two women. “Please, tell them I’m not ready. That I need more time.”
Sally doesn’t mince words. “Are you worried Elliott will hurt you?”
“No, I don’t think so, I don’t know,” she stammers. “He’s just so angry.”
It strikes Sally as tragic that a girl who fought tooth and nail for her own survival, just two nights ago, should fear something as simple as being in the same house as her older brother.
“I won’t be a bother,” Maria promises.
