A gaggle of women approached, all looking to be in their thirties, all with parasols to block the vicious sun. Thad called out a greeting, spouting out all seven names without a hesitation, though Gwyneth had never seen a one of them in her two and a half months in Baltimore. And she and Thad had been out together nearly every day the past two weeks, walking or driving or shopping or attending services at church.
The ladies obviously knew him too, and they took in Gwyneth with a knowing glance and satisfied grins. As if they had all been waiting for the day when Thaddeus Lane became someone’s beau.
Perhaps they had.
“I do hope you are only headed home to drop off your packages, ladies. Our boys in the Fifth Maryland Infantry are headed to Washington City in an hour’s time, and we are sending them off with enthusiasm.”
“Oh!” One of the ladies grabbed the hand of another. “That must be what the musicians were doing. Of course we will be there.”
Another of the women dabbed at her eyes. “Yes, of course. My brother is in the Fifth.”
“Then Washington is in good hands.” Thad bowed to them and pulled Gwyneth onward.
It took them half an hour to cover their assigned distance, not because they had to go far, but because Thad stopped to talk with each person they saw. Issuing an invitation here, a bit of encouragement there, speaking, as he always did, to each one’s need.
More often than not, she merely watched and listened. And she wondered how she had been so lucky as to capture the heart of this man. Gwyneth knew so many authoritative men—generals and admirals, politicians and lords—but true leaders she could count on one hand.
Thad was one of them, and of a sort she had never really seen before. He was not the ship that cut through the waves, he was not the captain at its helm, he was not the general plotting strategy at a desk in his cabin. He was the current in the water. Propelling, driving, pulling. He was a man capable of directing the leaders. Of influencing the masses. Of steering whole cities at a time.
And he was hers.
“Thad?”
“Hmm?” He lifted a hand to the band’s conductor, who indicated with a nod and a smile that all was set with the group of musicians clustered around him with their instruments.
“You know those hand gestures your family makes to communicate silently?” It had taken her too long to pick up on the fact that they were, in fact, a form of speech, but once her mind was cleared of exhaustion, it had been obvious.
Thad glanced down at her with a smile. “’Tis sign language, sweet. My grandfather and Rosie’s uncle, Freeman, developed it to communicate with my great-grandmother, who was deaf. It’s based upon a few systems from Europe.”
She hoped to meet this Freeman someday. And, for that matter, Thad’s grandpapa. “Would you teach it to me?”
“Of course.” His eyes glowed, obviously pleased she had asked. His hand covered her fingers on his arm. “I would be delighted. We all would.”
“Could we begin now?”
He glanced to the band and then the gathering crowd, seeming to indicate the situation as a whole with that one simple move of his eyes. “Now?”
“Just one phrase.” Careful to keep her face pleasant but otherwise neutral, she blinked up at him in the same way that had always made her parents sigh and give in.
Thad sighed and gave in. “Very well. One phrase.”
She could scarcely tamp down the beginnings of a smile. “How do you say ‘I love you’?”
His every muscle seemed to freeze for a moment, with not so much as a twitch or a tic to betray his thoughts other than the emotion swirling through his eyes. Then the slight flare of his nostrils as he drew in a breath. “Gwyn.”
Oh, how her lips ached to grin. “Do you not know that one?”
He pulled her an inch closer to his side. “I know it,” he said, his voice low. “I am merely wondering why you want to.”
Gwyneth lifted her chin and did her best to imitate Aunt Gates’s haughty way of tilting it. “Because there are some things a young lady does not say aloud in public, sir.”
“I see.” Amusement joined into the amalgam of other sweet feelings dancing through his gaze. He loosed her arm and turned toward her. “It is a rather simple one.” He pointed to his chest, crossed both arms over it as if embracing himself, and then pointed to her.
The smile finally won her lips, though softer than she had thought it might come out. “I will never tire of your saying that to me, Captain Lane. Now let me see if I have it right.” She mirrored his movements, slowly and deliberately.
His smile was as soft to behold as hers felt. He took her hands and held them tight. “And why, my sweet, do you choose to say such things to me now, when we are in a crowd of our neighbors and I can do nothing about it?”
“Because in a crowd of your neighbors is where you are at your best. But have no fear. It will be just as true later, when we are out of the crowd.”
Grinning, he tucked her hand back into its spot around his elbow. And the band struck up a song.
Twenty-Eight