Arnaud’s smile doubled into a real, full one. “Good. That is all I wanted to see, Thad. A bit of care and caution to temper the emotion.”
He sounded sincere. Because at the root of it, theirs was a friendship more like a brotherhood, one chosen and not given by chance. Thad drew in a long breath. “I told her I loved her.”
“Oh?” Arnaud quirked a brow and gripped the reins tighter when his horse sidestepped a rut in the road. “What did she say?”
Thad felt the beginnings of a smile in the corners of his mouth as he remembered the surety in her eyes, that surety that said she would not cling to whatever she could find, not anymore. She would demand instead what she deserved. “She asked why, then, I had not explained our situation to her sooner.”
Though he could have, Arnaud did not ask what his response had been or chime in with anything snide. He simply nodded and looked ahead, where the first buildings of Washington City were in view.
“Alain, I…forgive me. Please. You are right. It always felt like a betrayal to me, but I could not admit to any other options. I don’t know, now, if my reasons at the time were right or not, but I know that I would undo anything that hurt you if I could. You are my brother.”
“As you are mine.” Arnaud looked his way again, those brooding Bourbon looks deep with contemplation. “I am sorry as well for never realizing how hard it would have been with my ghost between you. But we cannot undo any part of our past, Thad. And we needn’t. We need only to forge ahead with wisdom and humility.”
Thad’s chest tightened as he considered anew all the Lord had given them…and then perceived anew the cloud of war on the horizon. “How right you are. And how ill we can afford any chasms between us now, with the future so uncertain.”
“’Tisn’t uncertain. The British are coming, and they will do anything they can to break us. We knew all along that would mean more than raids on the farms nearest the waterways.”
“If only those in Washington had listened to us before now.”
Arnaud shared his opinion of the politicians and then speared Thad with an uncompromising regard. “I know I needn’t ask, but I will anyway. If anything happens to me in these battles knocking upon our door, you must take Jacques in again and raise him as your own.”
Idiot man. “You were right. You needn’t ask.”
The glare turned to a grin. “And if anything happens to you, shall I marry Gwyneth in your stead?”
What could he do in answer but sweep off his hat and reach over to smack him with it? They laughed together, but it soon faded away, and Thad sighed. “You must see she is safe from her uncle. He will find her. Sooner or later, he will find her, and when he realizes she saw what she did… If I am killed in the war, you must promise to protect her.”
Arnaud nodded, solemn and somehow looking all the more noble with that fatalistic shadow in his eyes. “And if we both die, then your parents will have their hands quite full, n’est-ce pas?”
“May God forbid it.”
“I pray He shall.”
They said no more, given that they were near enough Washington now that they were no longer alone on the road. In silence they made their way to Tallmadge’s office. In silence they waited for his secretary to show them in.
Arnaud stood before a framed painting of Tallmadge’s home, staring at it for a solid two minutes before opening his mouth. “Do you ever miss Connecticut, Thad?”
He looked at the painting and called to mind the house he had grown up in. “Parts of it, and the idyllic childhood we passed there in New Haven. But I am content to call Baltimore my home.”
“And so I trust you will be ready to defend her.”
Thad stood at the familiar voice that came from Tallmadge’s office door. Senator Samuel Smith was one of the few politicians Tallmadge trusted enough to work with on matters of intelligence—and he was also the general who had been given charge of Baltimore’s defenses. “General, how good to see you.”
Tallmadge appeared behind Smith’s shoulder and waved Thad and Arnaud in. “I didn’t dare hope you would be home already. Sam and I were discussing how to implement some of our ideas.”
The general stepped aside to let them enter. “We will need to call upon your resources, to be sure. Arnaud, good to see you again.”
Thad sat down in his usual chair as his friend responded in kind. Tallmadge perched on the edge of his desk. “Your trip was a success?”
He filled them in on the numbers he had observed, the fact that with their addition, the British’s Chesapeake fleet would swell to fifty ships. And finally Cochrane and Ross’s inclination to allow Cockburn his way in regard to attacking Washington.
Smith nodded throughout. “Not as many as we feared, honestly. And no surprise as to their target.”