Freedom Forever Read Online Free Page A

either, have any patience for this being one of God’s mysteries.
    “Amen,” Abraham said at her side.
    It was over in an eternity and a moment, the reverend’s voice droning and Clara whispering prayers, Millicent’s strong voice belying the terror Cecelia knew that she felt. And Cecelia felt a wave of anger, that they should be trying to impress the Reverend now with their piety, when he should be comforting them instead. As they sat down to a quick meal—“oh, reverend, we must feed you before you head back”—she slipped out into the orchard, no cloak to protect her against the cold, and breathed in a shuddering sigh of relief at the cold air.
    She walked quickly, raising her fingers deliberately out of her pockets and brushing them against the bare tree branches, saving the ache and burn of the winter air on her skin. It took all she had not to scream at the sky, demanding answers. He could not be missing. People did not just disappear. They did not vanish into thin air. Someone must know. Someone must.
    “Miss Dalton.”
    She took a moment to steady herself before she turned, and curtsied.
    “Mr. Thompson.”
    “Might I walk with you?” Abraham asked her, and Cecelia nodded.
    “You look like a winter spirit,” he told her. “No cloak, and yet you are not shivering. Are you hands cold?”
    Cecelia nodded again. Words seemed to have deserted her.
    “Here.” He came to her side and took his scarf, wrapping her hands together in it and holding them as heat began to prickle against the skin. “A little better?”
    “Yes.” Cecelia found her voice once more. His gaze was warming her as well, blue eyes fixed on her own, plain brown ones. She tried a smile. “Thank you.”
    “Cecelia.” He cleared his throat, and looked away over the fields and the barn.
    “Yes?”
    Cecelia wondered what he must be seeing as he looked. The farm had been her home for all of her life, and when she looked at the fields she saw the memory of a hundred games of hide and seek, blind man’s bluff in the forests beyond the barn. She remembered climbing up to walk along the stone wall that bordered the peach and apple trees, and she knew that the snug farmhouse would have warm cider on cold days like this one. But Abraham was a man from the town, and had never worked a day in his life. Did he see poverty when he looked at all of this?
    When he looked back at her, she forgot everything but his regard.
    “You will think me a cad for asking this now,” he said, “but I cannot hold my words back. Forgive me, Miss Dalton.”
    “I...” She had not the faintest idea what he was speaking of.
    “Would you allow me to...” For a moment, she saw lust in his eyes—she did not have to be worldly, or understand anything, to know what that was. It was naked and powerful, and he did not seem so much a man as a beast. And then he swallowed and looked down, and it was gone when he met her gaze again. “Would you allow me to court you?” he finished.
    She hesitated. Why, she could not say.
    “Cecelia, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known,” he said urgently. “Say I can. Say you would not be unkind to me.”
    He was a good match, Cecelia told herself. In fact, there was no better match, save perhaps the mayor’s son. The Thompsons were well off, everyone knew it. She would be at the height of society in Knox. Her marriage would eclipse even her sister’s.
    So why could she not seem to reclaim the warmth she had felt even a moment ago, the heady pleasure at being desired?
    But her mouth, it seemed, was more practical than her heart.
    “I would be very pleased for you to court me,” Cecelia heard herself say, and she smiled even as Abraham squeezed her fingers to the point of pain.
    Chapter 4
    Cold water splashed into the bucket and Cecelia put her hands on her hips as she waited for it to fill, slumping and letting her eyes drift closed. Her back ached and her hands were about to bleed with cracks and blisters. She