60

Every question was like the snapping of a little thread about my heart.

Dorothy Wordsworth

They could not stay here by this lovely waterfall in the woods forever, rustic and dangerous as it was. And yet somehow this place where Sylvie spent time with her beloved brother had become a needed interlude, an occasion that might never come again. Bleu said nothing about leaving, but she had regained her strength and there was no longer any reason for them to tarry. A decision must be made to push farther through the wilderness to French territory and Fort Duquesne or return her to the Rivanna.

As time ticked on, Sylvie prayed for Will, wherever he was. Her heart tugged her toward the Rivanna, but the return trip there was daunting even if she wanted to reunite with Will. She was at a crossroads, one of the most momentous of her life.

Sylvie and Bleu began packing up their belongings without communicating why. She rode her horse while Bleu led out on foot in a direction she was unsure of, taking a lightly traveled deer trail. Beneath the canopy of trees, not a single shaft of light shot through. She felt no fear yet realized their silence was wise as the wilderness unfolded on all sides of her. That night they left the trail and camped on a rise so high it seemed the world lay at their feet.

“I’ve not decided whether I favor sunrises or sunsets,” Bleu told her, sitting cross-legged on a rock ledge while she dangled her petticoat-clad legs beside him. “When you were small, you used to say the gold of the rising sun was God’s kiss good morning—”

“And the rainbow His smile.” The bittersweet memory opened the door to others. “For a time I forbade myself to think of home—to remember. The hurt I felt overshadowed the beauty. Now I can’t recall just how big Baie Française was. How blue. I can no longer remember how far the forts or the Pont-a-Buot tavern were.”

“Time and distance are thieves.”

“We mustn’t forget family. What matters most.”

“The future matters. This moment.”

The sunset seemed made for adoration, the gilded horizon layered with lavender hues that reminded Sylvie of the Rivanna’s fragrant walled garden.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked him.

“Home.”

“But not Acadie.”

“Eastern Virginia.”

A rush of gratitude faded before a fresh worry. “And if I marry this man? Will you think me a traitor to our people like Sebastien Broussard did?”

“The Broussards are scattered to the winds,” he said quietly, “but Blackburn is still a force to reckon with.”

At that, Bleu lay down atop his blanket and soon went to sleep, while Sylvie, despite her bone-deep weariness, felt she’d be wide-eyed all night. Slowly the lavender leached from the sky and stars glittered like silver thread.

Oh, Will, mon bien-aimé, where are you?

Bleu seemed tireless on their journey while Sylvie grew tired of her own weakness. How far had they come? It seemed a thousand leagues, the distance daunting.

On the fourth day he drew up suddenly, his finger to his lips in warning. She bent low in the saddle, her heart beginning to gallop even as the mare came to a sudden, shuddering halt. She let loose the reins as Bleu took her to the ground in one grand sweep.

They lay facedown, concealed by brush yet aware of a steady tread, at first distant and then chillingly distinct. Indians? Or soldiers? Gooseflesh covered her like insect bites as savagery stormed her thoughts. A tomahawk could slice through the stillness at any second, splitting her head like a melon. Captives were oft burned at the stake. She’d heard the stories since coming to Virginia, nor could she forget Will’s harrowing family massacre.

Beside her, Bleu stayed so still he seemed not to breathe. Lowering her head, she let the forest floor cradle her, breathing in its rich, earthy scent.

In time, the awareness of others in the forest faded and the skitter of squirrels and birdsong resumed. Bleu stood cautiously and led her another direction.

The next evening found them beside a stream, heat pressing down on them like a blanket. Sylvie knelt by the water, splashing her face to freshen herself, when the deadly cock of Bleu’s rifle brought her to her feet. Wide-eyed with alarm, she started toward her brother as a great crashing of the brush made her look back over her shoulder. In seconds a great furry creature bounded straight toward her. Tail wagging, Bonami seemed more her rescuer than the man who appeared next.

Numb, Sylvie stared at Will as he came to a halt a stone’s throw away. He, too, looked at her as if seeing an apparition, his own rifle dangling from one hand.

“Can it be?” she breathed, woozy all over again.

“You made it somewhat harder, wisely keeping clear of the main traces,” Will replied with an appreciative nod at Bleu. “But I’ve no complaints to find you in one piece.”

Bleu set his gun aside, a look of relief and amusement on his face. With manners that would have made Mère proud, he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to,” and disappeared with a rustle of brush.

Overcome by a bewildering shyness, Sylvie knelt on trembling legs and petted Bonami, whispering French endearments as he licked her flushed cheek.

“The orchard’s blooming,” Will finally said.

She looked at him then, tears in her eyes.

“Are you coming?” he asked quietly. “Or going?”

She stood as Bonami bounded after a squirrel. “I’m coming back to you, though I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see you again.” She gestured toward a mossy log. “Please sit down and I’ll bring you something to eat and drink.”

“I’d rather talk, Sylvie.”

They lowered themselves to the log, an awkward space between them when all she wanted was to throw her arms around him. She stole a glance at his tight features and saw relief there and, she hoped, the same longing she herself felt. Still, they both had questions.

“I hardly know where to begin . . .” Taking a breath, Sylvie looked down at her scuffed shoes. “Though I didn’t know it till too late, Sebastien and Liselotte were in league together. I went to the orchard after Liselotte told me Nolan had been stung by bees, only to have Sebastien tie my hands and put me on a horse. I tried to fight back, but he had a pistol and threatened me. I always feared his changing moods, which seemed to worsen the farther we traveled.”

He nodded, taking a paper from the fold of his shirt. “This was found in your cottage. I realized you couldn’t have written it, but since I’d never seen your handwriting it gave me a start at first.”

She read the letter, the audacious words carefully penned in crowded, hurried script. “It’s not from my hand—nor my heart, Will. That’s Liselotte’s doing. She wished me ill.”

“I’ve already sent her out of the settlement. I had reservations about her from the first.”

Reassured, she reached for his hand. “Glad as I am to be reunited with Bleu, I want to return with you as soon as we can.”

He looked in the direction Bleu had disappeared. “You’ve no desire to go with your brother to Fort Duquesne or New France?”

“No.”

He turned back toward her, his eyes tender and stern all at once. “You’re sure?”

“This ordeal has affirmed it, Will. The longer I was away from you, the more I missed you. And the children.” She squeezed his callused hand. “I belong nowhere but with you.”

In halting words, she recounted to him that terrible moment at the river when Sebastien had drowned and the long, desperate days after when she’d been alone, trying to find her way.

“I think I was just going in circles. I felt so lost.” Her voice wavered. “I sometimes think those warriors were angels in disguise. They showed me the utmost kindness and courtesy despite their weapons. And then came Bleu. And now you.”

With Sylvie beside him, Will began to ease. The long, questioning days on the trail, his mind battered with one too many gruesome images from childhood, began to recede. He’d half expected to come upon her lifeless body at some point, but here she was, tears of gratitude in her eyes as she held tight to his hand. For a moment he couldn’t speak.

He wished them back on the porch or in the garden along the Rivanna, already wed, far removed from these forbidding woods. “We need to leave out at first light, if you can manage it,” he told her, thinking how far he’d come and how far they had to go. “I have a horse hobbled half a mile back. Your mare looks spent.”

“Spent but still faithful.” She smiled, reassuring him. “I want Bleu with us, to witness our wedding.”

“He’s willing?”

“Though he’d never say it, he’s in need of rest in a place free of warfare where he doesn’t have to watch his back. I want him to meet the children and see the Rivanna too.”

He set his rifle down and took her in his arms, overcome with all the Lord had done to bring them together not once but twice, against nearly impossible odds. Surely that boded a hope-filled future.

She kissed him with all the breathless sweetness and longing he remembered, and he returned it, not wanting to let her go. But he needed a meal and a bath, and the noise of the near creek promised the latter while Sylvie saw to the former.

Bleu returned, calling them lovebirds, his smile removing any remaining doubt from Will’s mind how he felt about the matter.