“What are you thinking?”
He looked up and smiled at me. He’d undone his formal queue and his hair lay over his shoulders, sparking in the candlelight.
“Och … I was just wondering whether I shall ever hear Mass said again.”
“Oh.” I tried to think. “When was the last time? At Jocasta’s wedding?”
“Aye, I think so.”
Catholicism was prohibited in most of the colonies, bar Maryland, which had been founded specifically as a Catholic colony. Even there, the Anglican Church was the official Church, and Catholic priests were few and far between in the southern colonies.
“It won’t always be like this,” I said, and began to massage his shoulders, slowly. “Brianna’s told you about the Constitution, hasn’t she? It will guarantee freedom of religion—among other things.”
“She recited the beginning of it to me.” He sighed and bent his head, inviting me to rub the long, tight muscles of his neck. “‘We, the people …’ Brawly written. I hope to meet Mr. Jefferson someday, though I think he might have stolen the odd phrase here and there, and some of his ideas have a familiar ring to them.”
“Montesquieu might have had some minor influence,” I said, amused. “And I believe I’ve heard John Locke spoken of as well.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, one brow raised.
“Aye, that’s it. I shouldna have thought ye’d read either one, Sassenach.”
“Well, I haven’t,” I admitted. “But I didn’t go to school in America; only medical school, and they don’t teach you history there, bar the history of medicine, where they point out horrible examples of benighted thinking and horrific practices—virtually all of which I’ve actually used now and then, bar blowing tobacco smoke up someone’s bottom. Can’t think how I’ve missed that one …” I coughed. “But Bree learned all about American history in the fifth and sixth grades, and more in high school. She’s the one who told me about Mr. Jefferson’s light-fingered ways with words.
“But then, there’s Benjamin Franklin—I think at least some of his quotes were original. I remember, ‘You have a republic … if you can keep it.’ That’s what he said—will say—at the end of the war. But they—we—did keep it. At least for the next two hundred years. Maybe longer.”
“Something like that is worth fighting for, aye,” he said, and squeezed my hand.
I put out the candle and slid into bed beside him, every muscle in my body dissolving in the ecstasy of simply lying down.
Jamie turned onto his side and gathered me against him and we lay comfortably entwined, listening to the sounds of celebration outside. Quieter now, as people began to stagger home or to find a peaceful tree or bush to sleep under, but the music of a single fiddle still sang to the stars.
129
The Pursuit of Happiness
IT TOOK WILLIAM ROUGHLY three seconds to conclude that he meant to go after Amaranthus, and the rest of the day was a search for the means of her departure. He didn’t know how long she’d been planning her disappearance—probably since I came back from Morristown, he thought grimly—but she’d done a good job of it.
He came home in the evening, having concocted a plan—if you could call it that—and proceeded to convince a very dubious uncle and father of its virtue over supper.
“Whether she went by horse, carriage, or ship, I think she must be heading for Charles Town.” He hesitated, but there was no reason not to tell them. “When I mentioned Banastre Tarleton—when Charles Town fell—she remarked that she knew him. Which I suppose means that he also knew—or knows—Ben.”
“He did—does,” Hal said, surprised. “Quite well, in fact. For a short time, they were in the same company—Ban and Ben, people called them. You know, for a joke.”
“Well, then,” William said with satisfaction. “Amaranthus knows that Ban is in Charles Town with Clinton. If she thought she needed help or protection on her way … would she not go to him?”
“It’s a thought,” said his father, though he looked dubious. “Clearly, she didn’t take much time to prepare.”
“I don’t know that she didn’t,” William said dryly. “She may have been planning it even before I came back. Or thinking about it, at least. Regardless of how she went, though, she can’t have got that far yet. I may be able to overtake her on the road, and if by chance I don’t, Ban may well have seen her—or contrived the next part of her passage. I don’t imagine he knows yet. About Ben, I mean. If not, and if she told him she meant to go to Ben—without saying exactly where he is—Ban would certainly help her.”