~*~
There was so much to say to Mathew, so much I had to confess. But we just sat on a lump of a log, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried on his shoulder, while he held me through the continual cannon fire. I heard, even through my own heart’s beating and the cannonade, his heart thumping after mine and felt oddly sleepy as I listened to it.
I finally sniffed and looked up at him, surprised to see that he had a couple tear streaks of his own. He grinned though.
“As much as I wish you to be home and safe, I’m glad to see you, love,” he whispered.
“Mathew.” I squeezed him again. I could only whisper my next words. “I really can’t go home without you. I need you.”
He tugged me away enough to look down at me. I wiped at his tears, but my hands were so dirty I only managed to smudge my gorgeous husband’s face. He smiled as I gave up in my endeavors with a growl and apology for marking his visage. I looked deeply into his light blue eyes, such a similar shade as my sister’s.
“We don’t have much time,” he said. “Our intelligence believes that the Regulars will leave Lexington soon.”
“Intelligence?”
“Jacque.” Mathew smiled, but in his face I saw a wisp of pain.
I would never tell Mathew that I knew of his conduct regarding Jacque. It would be a secret in our marriage, but some are best left alone.
“So we march on to Boston?”
“Yes.” Mathew nodded.
“Could I talk you into running away with me, Mr. Adams?” I stole Sam’s line, but I didn’t think he’d mind.
Mathew grinned. “Where shall we go, Mrs. Adams?”
“A sugar island.”
He cocked his head. “The West Indies? Don’t you think we’ll get too hot?”
“Oh, aye. We’d have to take our clothes off every day.”
“Terrible, terrible.” He snickered.
The crack of a cannon whirling into the sky made us clutch onto each other. After the echoing boom silenced, Mathew sighed.
“When we get to Boston, I’d prefer to have you go back home.”
“I cannot leave you, husband.”
“Truly, dear, are you going to be a sniper during this whole affair? What if this battle turns into a war? What if we are to fight for years? You won’t go back home then?”
“Not without you. Perhaps by then I could talk you into going home with me though. I have so much to tell you.”
He kissed my cheek. “Tell me what?”
But I couldn’t. Mayhap I should have, but I just couldn’t force my lips to open and tell him that I couldn’t die, that I might not be able to have our children, that I was now wholly different. I wanted in that little space of time to believe that our future was what I had envisioned: children and grandchildren, us growing old together.
“How much I love you, of course,” I told him instead.
Mathew smiled and raked his fingers through his loose blond hair, making the black ribbon at the nape of his neck finally give up on its good fight and release his shoulder-length locks. I ran my fingers though his silky golden waves, not being able to help myself as I smiled thinking of all the times I’d seen him with his hair untied. Feeling intimate, I snuggled closer to him.
“Good Lord, Lieutenant Whitely will have to seek a commission for you.”
“Good, it’s decided then.”
Mathew gripped around my wrists. “No, it’s certainly not decided. It’s just decided until Boston.”
I frowned at him.
“We’ll discuss what to do after I get my orders in Boston.”
“I won’t leave you, no matter how cross you are at me.”
His shoulders slumped and he gave me a weary grin. “When we get to Boston, we’ll decide what to do. For now, you stay close to Lieutenant Whitely.”
“No. I’m staying close to you.”
“Damn it, Violet, please.” Mathew looked warmly at me, but then on a sigh said, “Our children will probably give me white hair by the time I’m thirty with your genes in them.”
And that was what broke me. Tears streamed down my face, feeling cold and shocking me, but down they came. God, how I wanted children with him.
He wiped at my tears then kissed my cheeks. “All right, all right, dear wife, come with me. Just . . . don’t get shot.”
I already had, but he didn’t need to worry about that just yet. So I nodded and smiled. It wouldn’t matter if I was shot or not. It just mattered that he not get hurt.