The Courier of Caswell Hall Read Online Free PDF

hair had dried with the fire, the gray pallor drained from his face.
    It felt odd to be alone with a man sleeping in this room. A stranger.
    She lifted his head and spooned a teaspoonful of laudanum into his lips. She wished she could ask Mother how much medicine to give him, but it was better to err on more than less. She fed him another spoonful. The sooner he recovered, the sooner he could leave the plantation.
    The man sat up straight in the bed, coughing as he flung the covers off his chest. She jumped. His eyes scoured the room wildly until he found her. She started to step back, but it was too late. He clutched her arm. “Tell the men that Arnold is coming.”
    She struggled to pull her arm away, but he wouldn’t release it. “Who is this Arnold?”
    He shook her arm. “Tell them they must fight.”
    “But who must fight?” she pressed. “And whom must I tell?”
    He released her arm and fell back onto the thin pillow. His eyes closed again, and he muttered as his head tossed. “Three across, two down.”
    “Three across, two down,” she repeated. It was an odd statement, but she hoped the words would comfort him in some way, if only letting him know that she’d heard him.
    He nodded in his delirium.
    Then he sat up again. “Go!”
    She leaned toward him as he sank back onto his pillow. The laudanum must be working.
    “Where should I go?” she whispered.
    When he didn’t reply, she nudged his shoulder, but he was no longer conscious, his pleas to her a mystery. If only there was some way she could help.
    Standing, she covered him with the blankets and retraced her steps back to the house and down into the basement. Colorful glass bottles of cherries, wine, and ginger beer lined the kitchen walls along with wheels of hard cheese and brandied fruit.
    The cook was hovering over a steaming pot of chicken soup, and the entire room smelled like garlic and thyme.
    Viney looked up from the stove, her eyes filling with surprise. Lady Caswell was the only member of the family who ventured into the kitchen.
    “The mistress said—” Viney stuttered. “She said Prudence was to bring soup up to your chamber.”
    “Aye,” Lydia responded. “But I am feeling better and would like to dine in the hall instead.”
    “Of course, miss.” Viney stirred the soup again. “I will have Joshua bring it to you.”
    Lydia’s stomach rumbled. “Will it be ready soon?”
    Viney leaned forward to sniff the aroma rising from the pot. “’Tis ready now.”
    “Then I shall eat now.”
    The windows of the dining hall overlooked the garden and the river in the distance. The large room seemed eerily quiet without her family. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time she had been in the house without her mother or sister near her.
    After she sat at the side of the long table, Joshua, her father’s indentured manservant, ladled the hot soup into a bowl and placed a basket of warm bread beside her. She spooned the soup to her mouth, and the broth warmed the chill that had settled in her bones. Surely it would help the stranger in Elisha’s bed as well.
    But how would she sneak the soup to Elisha’s room?
    She turned toward Joshua, who stood by the sideboard. “You needn’t stay.”
    He nodded and stepped back through the servants’ door by the fireplace, leaving her alone.
    She finished her bowl and refilled it with more soup. Then she eyed the open doorway into the great hall.
    Years ago, when she was eight or nine, she’d hidden bread in the folds of her petticoat and fed them to a wounded duck she’d found near the pond on a neighboring plantation. Mother had caught her taking the piece of bread. She’d scolded her at first for stealing the bread, but once she found out what Lydia was doing, she explained that she didn’t have to steal. For a week, there was an extra piece of bread beside her dinner plate.
    Then the duck was gone.
    In her silent way, Mother might approve of what she was doing to help the wounded man,