“Trying to fight it is our only choice. If we do not, then the times will be beyond redemption.”
“Perhaps they already are.” He strode to the door when he heard childish laughter from the hall, but the slave and child walked by without pausing. Good. “Our only recourse is to look after ourselves.”
“How very sad that you think so.”
“I have never seen evidence to indicate otherwise.” He rushed to her side when he saw she had drawn out a sheet of paper. “What do you think you are doing?”
She blinked up at him in a way so very similar to the demure way that had won his heart, yet now it was colored with condescension. “I am going to draw to calm my nerves. Is that acceptable, sir?”
If that was all she did… “I am watching you. If you try to write a note—”
“Saying what? I have no idea what you are planning.”
And he intended to keep it that way. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the side of her desk to keep a close eye on her drawing.
Gwyneth didn’t so much as glance up at him. She just pulled out a pencil and started scratching lines onto the page. “If you want evidence of mankind’s potential, you should have seen this city the past few weeks. All normal business came to a halt and every citizen was working together in unity. I have never seen the like. Master and slave in the trenches beside one another, rich and poor rolling bandages side by side, every baker and cook making as much as they could to take to the soldiers, families opening up their homes to house those newly arrived—it was inspiring.”
“It was self-serving. They knew they must work together for even a chance of survival.”
“When is that not true? When would we not benefit more from harmony? Yet so rarely do people choose it. Too often they prefer to terrorize their neighbors, to kidnap and steal and kill.” She shot him a glare.
He squelched the urge to hide his pistol. Perhaps this plan of Gates’s had chafed, this need for duplicity and trickery, but Arthur had not been able to come up with a better way to free her of the Americans’ influence. “Things will look different to you once you are home and away from these people. You will see then that we are only trying to protect you and return you to where you belong.”
“I am where I belong. With my husband.”
That word again. He gripped the gun tighter. “He is not your husband. You married him illegally, without the signature of your guardian. No court of law would uphold the vows.”
With a few quick strokes of her pencil, her own face appeared on the paper with a wistful, resigned expression upon it. How did she do that so effortlessly? “First of all, it would never go to court and is perfectly legitimate in the eyes of God, which is what matters. Secondly, his parents were in fact my legal guardians. Papa sent a copy of his will with me. I could fetch it if you like.”
He breathed a laugh. “You are not leaving my sight, my darling, until we are on the Falcon and on our way home.”
She paused and looked up at him. “Sir Arthur, you are the most sought-after bachelor in London. You could have your pick of beautiful, wealthy young ladies. Why in the world are you set on claiming one who is already wed to another? You do not love me; we both know you do not. You were enamored, and you felt a need to protect me. I appreciate that. But—”
Quick footsteps interrupted her seconds before the door opened and Gates slipped in, his breath still short. “I could not find him.”
“Never mind him, then.” Arthur straightened, silently wishing Scrubs Godspeed to wherever he intended to go.
“Yorrick will not be pleased.”
“He can steal himself another Colonist to scrub his decks.” He paced to the window again when another blast came from the fort. “We had better hurry. The Lanes could be back soon, and fighting may spread to the city. ’Twill be a difficult enough trip to Annapolis as it is.”
Gates pulled his pistol out as well. “I will take her up to pack a bag. You—”
“I am not going with you.” She said it so calmly, as if that alone would make it so. All the while scratching furiously with her pencil. Unable to resist, Arthur came back over to watch the progression of the drawing. Another couple was in it now, looking like the ones he had watched leave the house hours earlier—the Lanes.
Her uncle looked none too amused as he strode to her side and jerked her chin up. “Get up. Go pack. Now.”
Rebellion burned so bright in her features that Arthur began to understand what had fueled this collection of farmers and merchants toward uprising forty years earlier. “Or what, Uncle? Will you kill me? Your niece, your own flesh and blood?”