Ring of Secrets (38 page)

His frown deepened.
This
wasn't his father's hand either. “'Tis signed from Uncle Lane.”

“Oh?” Mother's voice combined disappointment with curiosity. “I had assumed…well, we are all here. You might as well read it to us.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Dated six weeks ago. ‘My Dear Niece and Great-Nephews. It is with a heavy heart that I pen this missive, when surely you would rather receive one from your husband and father. If only such were possible. I regret to inform you that my nephew contracted a raging fever not two days ago and lost the battle to it this morning…'”

His throat closed off. He heard Mother's gasp and Archie's curse as his boots hit the floor. But he couldn't pull his gaze from the page and the words that swam together nonsensically.

Impossible. Father could not be gone. Ben hadn't even seen him for nearly two years. Their only correspondence had been short, emotionless things barely more than business transactions. And even before that, he had never made the effort to come home but had been content to have his parents visit him once a year.

How had he been content with that?
Why
had he been content with that? Certainly, his opinions had little in common with his father's, and their interests were as far removed as the east from the west. But he had always been a good father. Understanding yet indulging. Firm yet kind.

Gone. Never to visit him in New Haven again, never to send another letter demanding he come to England.

“No.
No!
” Mother's anguished cry jolted Ben to action. He let the letter fall and sprang up, reaching the couch just as she slid from the cushions to the floor.

Too late to catch her, he knelt at her side and wrapped his arms around her. “I know. I know, Mother.”

“I was going to join him in the spring. Just a few more months.” She covered her face with her hands and spilled a sob into them. “We had never been apart more than a month until this, and I…I missed him so. Oh, my darling Thaddeus. He cannot be gone. He cannot.”

Archie took up a position on the floor at her other side, his expression a window into the splintering of his spirit. As he embraced her, he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together.

Ben murmured something, but he couldn't be certain what he said. Nothing with any meaning, to be sure. Why had he never thought to ask his mother how she fared, separated so long from Father? It hadn't occurred to him.
He
had gone so long without seeing them that it hardly struck him at all, and Mother had never complained. He had assumed her fine with the distance.

And why would he assume that? Why, when he had spent so many months courting Winter, had he never paused to wonder about his parents' marriage, his parents' hearts? Had he been asked about their relationship, he would have answered with a shrug and assumed them to be like any other couple, happy enough together but happy enough apart.

An assumption that looked stupid and ignorant in this moment, with Mother crumpled on the floor sobbing. And he too much an idiot to know how to help. Too numb to consider what this loss would mean to him when the fog lifted. All he could do was hold her and rub a hand over her back. Grip Archie's arm when it reached for him.

Useless.

But there was nothing he could do. Nothing to undo death. Nothing to lessen the blow for his mother. Nothing…
nothing
. So he just sat there, murmuring and holding and wishing he could do more.

Time lost all meaning. He couldn't have said how long he sat, hunched on the floor. But when a swath of silk swished into his vision, he became aware of the crick in his neck, and the fact that Mother had fallen silent, though she clung to him and Archie still. Winter crouched down, her face saturated with concern. “Bennet?” Her voice, not even loud enough to be called a whisper, soothed like honey.

He held out a hand and felt, when she gripped it, as though he breathed again for the first time since he read the letter. “'Tis my father. We just got word that he died of fever six weeks ago.” He spoke softly,
fearing the words would break his mother anew. But she made no response.

Movement behind Winter made him aware of the Hamptons hovering in the doorway. Mrs. Hampton urged her husband back a step. “We ought not intrude at such a time. Our condolences. We will go home and pray for you. Come, Winnie.”

“Nay. I will stay here to pray for them. Bennet.” She reached with her other hand to touch his cheek. Only then did he notice the dampness upon it. His own or Mother's? “My love, I am so sorry.”

“I know.” He turned his head enough to kiss her hand, the only thanks he could think to offer.

“I will return directly.”

Ben closed his eyes as she vanished, ushering her grandparents out with her. He knew not where she would send them and didn't care a whit so long as she returned.

Archie shifted and scrubbed a hand over his face. Then he sat, arms propped on raised knees, and stared into the fire. Mother moved not an inch.

Some moments later Winter returned with a tea tray. She poured a steaming cup and pressed it into Archie's hand and then sank to the floor. With a few gentle motions she had Mother sitting up and sipping at a glass of water. Then she withdrew a soft-looking handkerchief and dabbed at his matron's face with the same care Mother had once used with him as a child.

And with so simple an action, composure returned. Mother sniffed, drew in a long breath, and straightened her spine. “My apologies, Miss Reeves. I should have—”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Lane.” Winter offered that smile Ben so loved, the one free of pretense and filled with her heart. Her
true
heart. “'Tis I who am sorry. May I pour you some tea?”

Mother hesitated a moment and then nodded. “Thank you. I…'tis such a shock. I received a letter from him not a week ago, talking of when I would join him, the things we would do. The places he wanted to show me. Now to get this news, and to realize it happened so long ago and I knew nothing. How did I not know?”

Winter somehow managed to look graceful as she poured the tea
from a kneeling position, adding two lumps of sugar and a splash of lemon, exactly as Mother preferred. After stirring, she eased back down and transferred the cup to his mother. “Such sudden loss is always a terrible blow, no matter when we learn of it.”

“Yes. Even so…”

Winter looked from Mother to Bennet, her eyes full of love and shared sorrow. “Even so. We expect our heart to recognize when its other half ceases beating, but perhaps not knowing is one of the Lord's gifts to us. For how much worse would it be to feel such loss and yet have no answers as to why we do?”

Breath suddering, Mother leaned against the couch and cradled the cup in her hands. “Perhaps. Though I can see no gift in anything right now.”

“Of course not.” Winter reached up to smooth a few of Mother's curls back into place and straighten her necklace, quietly restoring her dignity. “There is no way to mitigate something like this. The only comfort to be found is in those who share our pain. As new facets of grief reveal themselves, you will cling to your sons and find solace in their devotion to you, and in offering the same to them as they mourn.”

At that Mother reached for Ben's hand and gave it a desperate squeeze. “That much I have already seen, yes. Had I been alone when I read that letter…”

“Praise the Lord you were not.” Winter moved from her place and motioned Archie into it, and then she settled by Ben's side.

He pulled her close with his free arm. Under normal circumstances he would never dare do such a thing in company, but at this moment it seemed necessary. “I love you,” he murmured into her ear while Archie said something to Mother.

She nestled in and looked up into his eyes, her smile somehow full of both sorrow and joy. “And I love you, Bennet.”

He tucked her in a little closer. “How did you know exactly what to say, what to do?”

“'Tis what Freeman did for me. And it only worked because you had already done what she needed first. Held her while she cried.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I'm glad you are here.”

Mother leaned forward enough to look at them. For the first time,
no hostility shone in her eyes when she gazed upon Winter. “As am I, Winnie dear. As am I.”

Perhaps the family jewels would have to wait, but it seemed that Winter had earned a place in the family.

Ben nearly smiled, until he recalled that her addition was only due to the gaping absence of his father.

Twenty-Three

W
inter stared at Freeman, praying she had heard him wrong. “What do you mean it wasn't there?”

Freeman leaned against the door to Canterbury's stall. “Just that. There was no letter in the tree. I checked the other locations Mr. Townsend had mentioned using, and those were all empty too. No letter, Winnie.”

The scent of hay teased her nose, combining with that of rain and damp earth from outside. Soothing smells that imparted no comfort. “Did Mr. Roe not leave it? Robbie had always said he was undependable.”

The arch of Freeman's brow highlighted the unlikelihood of that. “Undependable in coming to the city when he said he would, not in delivering the promised correspondence once here. Nay, Winnie. I fear something has happened. Either to Roe before he could leave it, or—”

“Or someone intercepted it.” Winter let her eyes slide shut. It hardly mattered that no one would be able to read Washington's message. The fact that a second missive had gone missing—and heaven forbid anything had befallen the courier himself. “Unthinkable.”

“Sorry I had to tell you such news.” Freeman chucked her under the chin, bringing face and eyelids up. “You hardly need to be worrying about this right now. I shall check again, and in a few other places.”

“Be careful, Free. They are obviously watching—”

“I only go when it's so dark no one could make me out even if they
are
watching. I know how to use the shadows, Winnie. Now, you go and take care of your Mr. Lane. I can take care of this.”

Much as she hated to leave this question unanswered, she indeed had little choice. With news of the elder Lane's death making its way into the city, family and friends were all gathering at Bennet's house today. She must be there, and she must leave now. Still. “It seems unfair to burden you with this, when it is my—”

“'Tis
ours
, Winnie girl. Always has been. You know that.” He tweaked her nose, offered the same grin he had given her since she was a tot swinging from his arms, and gave her a push toward the carriage waiting outside. “Go. And give your young man my sympathies if a time presents itself when you may.”

“I will.” But she paused when a groan sounded from one of the stalls. Her eyes went wide, her pulse thundered. Had someone heard them?

Freeman's jaw ticked. “Nothing for you to fret over. 'Tis just Percy.”

“Percy?” She scurried to the stall the sound had come from and gasped when she saw the young man lying facedown in a pile of clean straw, his back a lattice of fresh, bloody welts. So far as she could tell, he was unconscious—undoubtedly a blessing. “What happened?”

Freeman urged her away from the stall. “He tried to run away last night. They brought him back. I thought I had talked him out of such a foolish—well, obviously I failed. He must have been simmering all these months. But I shall take care of him, Winnie. You take care of Mr. Lane.”

Nostrils flaring, all she could do was nod and obey his gentle push toward the door, murmuring a prayer for Percy as she did so. When she moved to the stable's exit, the footman dashed into the rain and opened the carriage for her. She hastened up the pull-down steps and settled onto the seat.

If only she were making this trip alone, as she had the return drive last night, long after her grandparents left the Lanes'. But they would come too, and so the carriage rocked to a halt at the front of the house.

Grandfather alone climbed in, his face as stormy as the clouds above. “Your grandmother has a headache.”

“Oh.” Much as she disliked spending time with Grandmother, she
had always been present since July to provide a buffer between her and Grandfather. Being alone with him now…had he been the one to wield the whip applied to Percy's back, or had he delegated that to another slave, as he had the blow to her head? “I am sorry to hear that.”

He grunted and sent her a scathing look, and then he turned toward the window. Winter directed her gaze out the opposite one, trying not to think about the last time she had been alone in a carriage with her grandfather. Though she had no memory of it, the rough scar she felt every time she brushed her hair never allowed her to forget its results.

The drive passed in silence taut as fabric in a loom and seemed twice as long as usual. But then they were at the Lanes', and Winter could climb down and escape Grandfather's presence. She hastened inside to find Bennet.

His mother found her first and took her hands the moment they were free of gloves. “There you are, my dear. The guests will begin arriving any moment, and I had hoped you would read to me again first. It calmed me so last night.”