Her Captain's Heart by Lyn Cote Read Free Book Online

steps.
    Verity tried to make sense of this exchange between first cousins, as well as the shocking news she’d gathered—the fact that Matthew hadn’t mentioned Dacian. Why hadn’t Matthew just told them he had relatives in town?
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    Later that day, Matthew trailed after Verity and her family, heading toward the singing coming from a maple-and-oak grove on the Ransford plantation. Why had the Quaker insisted they attend three church services today? She’d only smiled when he’d asked her. He was tempted to stay behind, but he hadn’t wanted her going without him. And of course, he’d come face-to-face with Dace this morning. His emotions from that meeting continued to bubble up inside him. He crammed them down. Forget it. Forget all of it.
    The singing drew them closer and he began to recognize many of the black faces as people from his childhood. He tightened his defenses against all this remembering. Yet he still searched for Samuel’s face. From him, he might get a genuine welcome.
    Before emancipation, slaves had been required to attend church with their masters. Now they were holding their own service and singing a popular freedom song he’d heard in the streets of Richmond and Washington D.C.
,!
    Mammy, don’t yo’ cook and sew no mo’.
    Yo’ are free, yo’ are free.
    Rooster, don’t you crow no mo’.
    Yo’ are free, yo’ are free.
    Old hen, don’t yo’ lay no mo’ eggs.
    Yo’ are free, yo’ are free.
    At sight of them, the whole congregation broke off in the middle of a note and fell silent. Abashed, the widow’s little girl hung back, hiding within the folds of her mother’s skirt. The boisterous wind that had come up this morning was now picking up more speed. The black ribbons of the Quaker’s bonnet flared in the wind. Verity smiled, looking untroubled and genuine. But was anyone that cool? What would stir this woman enough to pierce her outward calm? Or did it go straight through to her very core?
    Matt had eaten the cold midday meal with them, but hadn’t offered any explanation about his past in Fiddlers Grove. Why couldn’t he just tell her why his family had left and why he’d come back? Somehow, explanations remained impossible.
    He recognized Hannah in the shade of a twisted old oak and felt a pang. Samuel’s mother had survived. She hurried to him and hugged him. “Mr. Matt, welcome home.”
    â€œMr. Matt!” Hannah’s husband, Elijah, grasped both Matt’s hands. “I heard that you had come back to town. As I live and breathe, sir. As I live and breathe.”
    â€œIt’s good to see you, too, Elijah.” Matt swallowed down all the memories that were forcing their way up from deep inside him. He wanted so much to ask about Samuel, but he found he couldn’t say the name.
    Elijah visibly pulled himself together. “Yes, welcome home, Mr. Matt.” The man’s genuine warmth had been so unexpected that Matt glanced skyward, hiding his reaction.
    It struck him that Elijah wasn’t quite as tall as Matt remembered him. Perhaps because Matt had been a child the last time he’d seen Elijah. Elijah looked gaunt, and his closely cropped hair and bushy eyebrows were threaded with silver. He was dressed in a good-quality but worn suit and spoke with a cultured cadence. After all, he was the Ransfords’ butler.
    Again Matt felt the urge to ask where Samuel was. But what if Samuel had died? He couldn’t bring himself to stir those waters.
    â€œY’all come just like you said you would.” Hannah approached Verity and offered her a work-worn hand. “I told everybody about how you wrote that letter for me.”
    What letter? To whom? Matt’s heart started throbbing in his chest. What was the woman up to now?
    Verity shook Hannah’s hand. “It was a pleasure to help thee. Hannah, thee remembers my daughter, Beth. And