For a moment Cyprian’s mind was blank. All he could see was Camilla’s face, and her eyes closing in death.
Yanking Andrew by the collar, Cyprian pulled him inside the kitchen, speaking only inches from the man’s face. “How did they know?”
Red seeped up Andrew’s neck and his mouth contorted. “If I had alerted them, would I have come to inform you?”
Cyprian looked out the window into the trees. The Campbell girl.
Growling, he shoved Andrew toward the door and down the back step. “See if you can get any of your patriot friends to talk, and I will—”
“Cyprian?”
He jerked at the faint sound of Camilla’s hoarse voice.
“I am here,” he called. Turning back to Andrew he growled. “We need that powder tonight!” He slammed the door as another quiet cry tumbled down to him.
He ran up the stairs to her room and took her hand. “What is it, my love?”
She winced and turned her head on the pillow, but said nothing.
Lowering into the chair beside the bed, Cyprian brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “What do you need, Camilla?”
Slowly the wrinkles in her forehead relaxed and she blinked as if whatever pain she suffered ebbed away. Her gaze rested on him and the fear in her pale blue eyes nailed him to his seat. “Find Jacob.”
Cyprian frowned. “Jacob?” The last thing that boy needed was to see his mother like this.
“Find him now.” Her head moved ever so slight as she nodded. Tears welled in her eyes and pooled in his heart. “I must see him before I go.”
He shook his head and strained to speak against the thickness of his throat. “Do not speak of such things.” Panic stabbed him and his words streamed like blood from a wound. “The medicine is working, it—”
“It is not working, Cyprian.”
“It is.”
With a weak smile, she enclosed his hand with her small ones. “I need to see my boy one last time.” Her voice cracked and sent a rift through Cyprian’s spirit that nearly stopped his heart. She blinked
and a tear trickled down her thin face. “Please, Cyprian.”
The reality, the depth of such a statement, shoved him against the blades of truth he had denied for so long. Struggling to breathe he leaned over and kissed Camilla on the forehead. “I will fetch him.”
“Thank you.”
When she had closed her eyes he quietly walked to the door and shut it behind him. That Campbell girl would answer for her betrayal. Camilla’s life depended on that powder, and if it could not be discovered in time, and Camilla’s eyes closed in death, he would be sure that traitorous woman suffered in place of his wife—for a very long time.
Chapter Twenty-five
Kitty rested the basket on the first step and stared. The humid air hung around her shoulders like a damp blanket. Mid-day light shafted through the trees that shielded the tiny cabin. As always, the door of the lonely dwelling rested part-way open. She stopped breathing and strained for any sound that might indicate someone waited for her within. Nothing.
Swallowing away the last morsel of fear that rested in her throat she pressed her hand to the rough wood and pushed it open. A mouse scurried into the corner as the breeze rushed in behind her, sweeping a scattering of dried leaves and dust across the floor.
Inhaling deep, Kitty took her first full look at the place she’d loathed for so many weeks. A wooden chair in the corner. No rug. A fireplace in the center of the back wall, long since forgotten, overflowed with masses of white cobwebs. On the other side rested the remains of a small bed-frame, while a broom leaned against the far window.
With a long exhale she grabbed the chair and scooted it closer to the fire, as if this mournful hearth held welcoming flames. Her weak muscles groaned, but the ache of her heart surpassed every pain. She rested her elbows on her knees and pressed her face to her hands. If the omniscient Lord of Heaven had kept her from dying, then surely he had heard her prayers and would liberate her from bondage.
Where art thou, Lord? Please deliver me!
Just then the breeze blew stronger, slamming the door open behind her.
Kitty jumped up and covered her mouth to keep from squealing.