Rachel’s hand squeezed his, hard.
“She would be with him always, in life or in death,” she whispered, and stood a-tiptoe to kiss him back. “And you will take me someday to see your grandmother’s rose in Scotland.”
They stood in silence for a bit, and Ian felt his heart, clenched with a sudden grief at the thought of his mother, ease in Rachel’s sympathetic company. He hadn’t said it, but what he most regretted was not his inability to show his mother the beauties of America but the fact that he couldn’t show her Rachel.
“She’d have liked ye,” he blurted. “My mam.”
“I hope that she would,” Rachel said, though with a tinge of dubiousness. “Did thee tell her about me, in Scotland? That I am a Friend, I mean. Some Catholics find us scandalous.”
Ian tried to remember whether he had mentioned that to his mother, but couldn’t. It made no difference, in any case, and he shrugged, dismissing it.
“I told her I loved ye. That seemed to be enough. Come to think, though—my da asked all kinds of questions about ye; he wanted to know everything he could. He kent ye were a Quaker, so that means she kent it, too.” He took her elbow to help her down from the rock.
She nodded, thoughtful, but as she followed him out of the clearing, he heard her ask behind him, “Does thee think a married couple should be completely in each other’s confidence—share not only their histories, I mean, but every thought?”
That sent a qualm skittering down his backbone like a mouse with cold feet, and he took a deep breath. He loved Rachel with every fiber of his being, but he found her apparent ability to read him like a book—if not to actually hear his thoughts, and sometimes he thought for sure she did that, too—unsettling.
He had in fact suggested that they walk together to Matson’s Ford and meet Denzell with the wagon there, rather than ride with him from Valley Forge, so that Ian might have sufficient time and solitude in which to share a few necessary things with her. He’d rather be tortured by Abenakis than tell her some of those things, but it was right she should know them, no matter what the result might be.
“Aye. I mean . . . well, so far as one can, I think they maybe should. Not every thought, I dinna mean, but important things. Ahh . . . history, like ye said. Here, come sit for a wee while.” There was a big fallen log, half rotted and covered with moss and fuzzy gray lichens, and he led her to it, sitting down beside her in the fragrant shade of a big red cedar.
She didn’t say anything, but lifted a brow in question.
“Well.” He drew a deep breath, feeling that there wasn’t enough air in the whole forest for this. “Did ye ken . . . I’ve been marrit before?”
Her face flickered, surprise overcome by determination so fast that he’d have missed it if he hadn’t been watching so close.
“I did not,” she said, and began to pleat the folds of her skirt, one-handed, clear hazel eyes fixed intently on his face. “Thee did say been married. Thee isn’t now, I suppose?”
He shook his head, feeling a little easier—and very grateful to her. Not every young woman would have taken it so calmly.
“No. I wouldna have spoken to ye—asked ye to marry me, I mean—otherwise.”
She pursed her lips a little and her eyes narrowed.
“In point of fact,” she said thoughtfully, “thee never has asked me to marry thee.”
“I didn’t?” he said, staggered. “Are ye sure?”
“I would have noticed,” she assured him gravely. “No, thee didn’t. Though I recall a few very moving declarations, there was no suggestion of marriage among them.”
“But—well.” Heat had risen in his cheeks. “I—but you . . . ye said . . .” Maybe she was right. She had said . . . or had she? “Did ye not say ye loved me?”
Her mouth turned up just a little, but he could see her laughing at him at the back of her eyes.
“Not in so many words. But I did give thee to understand that, yes. Or at least I meant to.”
“Oh. Well, then,” he said, much happier. “Ye did.” And he pulled her into his one sound arm and kissed her with great fervor. She kissed him back, panting a little, her fists curled in the fabric of his shirt, then broke away, looking mildly dazed. Her lips were swollen, the skin around them pink, scraped by his beard.
“Perhaps,” she said, and swallowed, pushing him away with one hand flat on his chest, “perhaps thee should finish telling me about not being married, before we go further? Who was thy—thy wife—and what happened to her?”
He let go of her reluctantly but would not surrender her hand. It felt like a small live thing, warm in his.
“Her name is Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa,” he said, and felt the accustomed inner shift at the speaking of it, as though the line between his Mohawk self and his white self had momentarily disappeared, leaving him awkwardly suspended somewhere in between. “It means ‘Works With Her Hands.’” He cleared his throat. “I called her Emily. Most of the time.”
Rachel’s small, smooth hand jerked in his.
“Is?” she said, blinking. “Thee said is? Thy wife is alive?”
“She was a year ago,” he said, and, with an effort, didn’t cling to her hand but let her take it back. She folded her hands in her lap, fixed her eyes on him, and swallowed; he saw her throat move.
“All right,” she said, with no more than a faint tremor in her voice. “Tell me about her.”