I RUBBED MY temples where the start of a headache formed. “Where else is there to look, Brad?”

For two weekends we’d looked for more information on Alexander Smythe or Liberty or Hugh Gregory or anything Lexington, but to no avail—online, at the archives, and now at the genealogical society.

“Why don’t we look in the Lexington manuscripts they have on record from that time? Maybe we’ll find something here, even if there’s nothing on the people we’re looking for.”

I shrugged, thinking to appease him. “Sure. Whatever you think.”

We asked a reference librarian to point us in the right direction and tried not to be overwhelmed by the amount of material she gave us.

Back at the table, we waded through the stack of newspaper clippings; marriage license applications; engagement, marriage, and wedding anniversary announcements; legal, divorce, and funeral notices; and society news. Most interesting were the handful of journals and diaries—some business ledgers, a few personal entries, and quite a bit of personal correspondence.

Hours went by as we learned the comings and goings of late-eighteenth-century Lexington, Brad and I exchanging pieces of our discoveries. My headache eased as I felt myself drawn in by a people who longed for liberty, a people who were willing to sacrifice for the Cause of freedom.

Brad slid an opened book toward me. “Look, the journal of Reverend Jonas Clark. It mentions Hugh Gregory.”

I scanned the entry. “From October 1783.”

The entry recorded a sort of inner battle for Reverend Clark. It stated that an English spy by the name of William Richards had been discovered in Lexington by Hugh Gregory. Mr. Gregory had received a letter from a British deserter informing him of the actions of a Dr. William Richards during the Revolutionary War. Hugh Gregory had reported the findings to Reverend Clark, though he seemed reluctant to do so, fearing that it may cast his wife in a bad light.

My pulse sped up at the mention of Liberty. The entry ended with Jonas Clark determining he would send the information of the spy on to Samuel Adams but leave the personal details surrounding the find between himself and Hugh.

The letter Hugh Gregory received, which incriminated William Richards, was carefully copied in Jonas Clark’s journal following the entry. We read.

24 SEPTEMBER 1783

Dear Mr. Gregory,

I write this knowing you may not read a word and knowing it may be a sin to so much as think to send this letter. And yet my heart cannot rest until I know for certain that Miss Caldwell (Mrs. Gregory) is cared for.

I grabbed Brad’s arm as I continued reading.

Now that the war is at an end, I can say that Lexington was home of a British spy, gone by the name of a Dr. William Richards. I received much of my information from him.

From him I learned that you were the one to strike me that April morning. From him I learned that you were the one to wed Liberty. With sincerest gratitude I wish to thank you for taking care of her. Forgive me; I realize it is not my place and terribly presumptuous, and yet all I ask is one letter—one sentence—stating the welfare of Liberty and that of her son. I do not believe I will ever stop feeling responsible for them, and if that be a sin, may God forgive me.

I have settled in the mountains of New Hampshire, not feeling a need to return to the mother country when my time to serve the king had ended. Some call me a deserter. And while I cannot call myself an American, I believe I could live with the title “British American.”

May I allay your fears in stating I never plan to make contact with Liberty. I respect her desires and her deep love for you. ’Tis why I have let her think me dead these passing years.

One letter, one sentence, is all I ask. Then I will breathe easy and continue to depend on God to put your wife from my mind. His strength will hold me fast, as always.

Sincerely and not without shame,

Alexander Smith

Brad traced the name written at the end of the letter with his finger. “Whoa.”

“I can’t believe it.” I traced the signature. “Alexander Smythe, Liberty’s soldier. But the British archives said he died at Lexington.”

“Apparently he kept the fact that he didn’t from the Crown all those years. Probably by changing the spelling of his last name.”

“Unbelievable,” I whispered. “He did love her, and if we go by the poem, I think we can assume the feeling was mutual.”

Brad nodded. “Must have been hard for Hugh to receive such a letter . . . harder still to know what to do with the information.”

I pulled at my bottom lip. “He was a Patriot through and through, though he must have been torn over delivering this into Reverend Clark’s hands.”

“He felt it was his duty to continue to protect his country. But it seems he and Reverend Clark were close. He probably never felt that his friend would betray his wife by making the information public.”

I agreed. “Perhaps Hugh and Liberty’s connection to Jonas Clark and Sam Adams has something to do with the poem in the time capsule.”

“Remember, her brother was one of the first casualties of the revolution. That alone could have been reason enough for Governor Adams to include it.”

We sat in silence as we read the letter over again. I sat up slightly to cross my leg underneath me, my palms sweaty from the excitement of the find. “So Hugh wounded Alexander at Lexington. Crazy.”

“Talk about a love triangle. But there it is—our story of the ring, or part of it anyway.”

“Alexander settled in America. I wonder how much of that had to do with Liberty. . . .”

I stuck my finger through the ring around my neck, the despair of the story settling in. Perhaps the happy ending of the ring’s story would have to be mine. Maybe Liberty and Alexander never did get a happy ending. “I wonder if Liberty and Alexander ever saw one another again. . . .”

Brad shook his head. “Strange that Alexander chose not to return to his home country. He would have been a hero, wounded in the first battle of the war.” He shrugged. “Maybe they did meet again.”

I pointed to the last line of Alexander’s letter. His strength will hold me fast.

“I like that. It ties into the ring, too. You know, depending on God to control this uncontrollable life.”

I thought of the morning of the race, how the ring had helped me see the very thing Alexander spoke of. I leaned over, planted a kiss on Brad’s lips.

“What was that for?”

“For giving me the ring that day. For letting me share in this journey.”

He trailed a finger along the inside of my arm. “Believe me, Annie, it is entirely my pleasure.”

We continued reading the reverend’s journals. Most of the entries included excitement over a newly birthed America, concerns for his flock, prayers for his wife and children. Hugh and Liberty were mentioned several times.

James Gregory has taken a wife of his own from Concord. A finer man one could not know.

It is with great gladness that we learn that Hugh and Liberty Gregory will be expecting a babe this year. They have reminded me of Abraham and Sarah in their patient waiting.

With a heavy heart, I must report that I have conducted the funeral of my good friend and faithful member, Hugh Gregory, who died of yellow fever weeks before his wife was to give birth. I only pray mother and child remain well.

“Oh, poor things.” Liberty’s pain came across to me from the simple words on the page. What would it mean for her to be a single mother in this new land?

We continued reading, learned that Michael Gregory was born to Liberty healthy and well.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “After all those years of being wed, Hugh never even got to meet his son.”

The journal entries came to an abrupt stop soon after the announcement of the birth of Michael Gregory. It appeared we would get no more answers from Jonas Clark.

“We should look for another marriage announcement to see if Liberty married again. We never did a search this late in the eighteenth century.”

“Do you think she could have found Alexander?”

Brad wiggled a pointer finger in the crook of my elbow. “Chances are next to nothing that Liberty and Alexander got together again after all those years. There’s too much against them—he’s a deserter, she ran with the Patriots. Say they did know one another around the time of the Boston Massacre . . . by the time Hugh died, more than twenty-five years had gone by. Surely Alexander wed within that time too. And what about poor Hugh? The guy sounds like a good man. I’m not sure Liberty would be so quick to betray his memory by marrying a Regular. That would have been heavy stuff back then.”

I mulled over Brad’s words. “But none of this explains one thing.”

“What?”

“Why Alexander’s ring was the object handed down generation after generation. Why I’m the one holding it here, now, in 2015.”