Free Silver Tears by Becky Lee Weyrich Page B

her amazement, the afternoon had died while she was lost in her memories. A crescent moon shone in the blue velvet sky against a canopy of twinkling stars. The gate to the fort, she knew, was already locked for the night.
    “Where is Gunn?” She stared up, sending her desperate plea to the heavens. “Why hasn’t he come for me?”

Chapter 4
    A week later Alice had all but given up staring out her window and hoping. For some reason—feathers or no feathers—Christopher Gunn had left the fort without her. She’d found out the morning after his visit that he and Ishani had ridden out together after dark. The depth of her disappointment had shocked her. For days she’d waited and watched, expecting Gunn to return for her.
    Now what was she supposed to do? She certainly couldn’t spend the rest of her life cooped up in this tiny room with only Pegeen for company. Winter was coming on fast. Whatever move she decided to make, she must make it very soon. Before long, heavy snows would cut them off from the outside world. Spring, she’d been told, came late in Maine. Unless she got out right away, she would have to stay until late April or May. This very morning she’d seen the first shining snowflakes dancing outside her window. Alice knew time was running out.
    Alice paced the room, plotting one scheme after another. Pegeen was out fetching more wood for their fire, or so she said. Alice had her own suspicions as to her servant’s whereabouts. The blacksmith, a strapping fellow by the name of Sheamus O’Dare, had caught the girl’s fancy. Before long, Alice mused, she would truly be all alone. O’Dare had much to offer a wife, and it appeared that Pegeen was quite taken with the barrelchested, ruddy-faced Irishman.
    As much as Alice had ranted and raved about forbidding the girl to wed, she knew that she could not bring herself to stand in the way of true love. She also knew Pegeen for the scheming little wench she was. She could hardly forbid the match if Peg turned up in a family way. Alice guessed that she was already working at it. Once the girl thought Alice asleep at night, she’d slip out, returning hours later. Where else could she be going, but to the bed of her lover?
    Alice shook her head and brushed one hand through the air, as if to chase away these nagging thoughts. She needed to concentrate on her own predicament, not worry over her servant’s lovelife.
    Sooner or later Gunn would surely return to the fort. Why he had left without her, she could not imagine. Perhaps his feather trick had only been meant in jest. He certainly couldn’t have expected her to honor such a pledge once she found out what it involved. She laughed aloud at herself—if only Gunn knew that by nightfall she had convinced herself that she could and would accept the odd arrangement.
    A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She hurried to open it, thinking at long last that Christopher Gunn would be waiting outside. The sight of Jonathan Hargrave came as a shock.
    “Captain!” she cried. “You’re up and about.”
    He nodded and offered her a weak smile. “Aye, but not too steady on my feet yet. May I come in and sit down, Lady Alice?”
    She immediately showed him in. He sank down heavily into one of the chairs. His brow was beaded with sweat, despite the chill outside. The lines around his mouth drew down, betraying his pain.
    “Should you be up so soon?” Alice asked.
    “Probably not, but I had to see you. It’s important.”
    “Oh?” Remembering how she’d stolen into the infirmary and kissed him, Alice had difficulty meeting his slate-gray eyes.
    “You didn’t go with Gunn. Why, Lady Alice?”
    She shrugged slightly, secretly relieved that the captain thought she had stayed of her own free will. “Would you expect me to go off with a man who planned to make me part of a harem? I’d certainly never allow my husband to keep a lover under my very roof. To think that he actually meant for that girl to live