The Courier of Caswell Hall Read Online Free PDF Page B

but Lydia doubted she would risk their family’s well-being to help him. This time Lydia would have to help on her own.
    Lydia lifted the warm ceramic bowl from the table and covered it with her cape. She waited for a moment by the doorway, listening for footsteps, and then hurried through the great hall and out into thestair hall. The split staircase in the entry hall swept up to the second-floor balcony, and one of the maidservants was descending the stairs while the family was gone.
    The girl stopped on the steps, but Lydia didn’t acknowledge her as she walked quickly toward the front door. The servants could speculate if they wanted about what she hid under her cape. As long as Prudence and Elisha kept her confidence, the others would never find out the truth.
    Stepping out onto the wide stoop, she eyed the drive below her. It circled in front of her house and then lumbered north under the shade of two neatly planted rows of trees. On each side of the trees were hundreds of acres of fields for planting tobacco, and toward the road to Williamsburg were the barns to cure the tobacco.
    She stepped outside, not bothering to wear her pattens this time. Her family’s coach shouldn’t return from church for another hour, but she mustn’t delay. The wet snow might ruin the silk fabric, but at the moment, she didn’t care. Shoes she could replace—after the war—but a man’s life could never be replaced.
    Soup splashed as she hurried across the walkway, splattering broth across her petticoat and sleeves. When she reached the coach house, she pushed open the door with her shoulder and found the man still asleep. If only he would wake and fight for his life.
    Sitting down on the stool, she spooned the broth into the man’s mouth as she had the medicine. His eyes opened and closed as he ate the soup, but they never focused on her.
    What if she hadn’t gone walking last night? What if she had ignored this man’s groan?
    He wouldn’t have survived the night and probably not the hour, in the condition he was in. It was a cruel war, this meaningless plunder of so much life. Thousands were dying, and for what? A proper cup of English tea?
    All of it seemed meaningless to her, as King Solomon said in his book. It was like chasing after the wind.
    His head tossed again on the pillow, and she set the soup bowl and spoon beside the basin. Where had this man come from? He didn’t look like a rebel, at least not like the cruel men who’d tortured her grandfather. In fact, he reminded her a bit of her brother, Grayson.
    Mother had yet to part with any of Grayson’s clothing or personal effects. Perhaps she could find some newer clothes for him to wear from her brother’s closet.
    Lydia picked up the bowl and spooned more soup into the man’s mouth.
    Often she wondered where Seth was. And how he was. While Sarah received letters from him, she herself hadn’t received one letter since Seth departed two years go. Or if she had, Father had confiscated them. The day Seth left to join the Continental Army, Father ceased to talk about the man he’d once thought would manage Caswell Hall.
    If Seth was wounded on the field, she hoped someone would care for him. It didn’t matter to her the political leanings of the person who helped him. She hoped his rescuer wouldn’t see a soldier but a man who needed compassion. A man with a future ahead of him, no matter who won this war.
    Her parents’ conversation from last night replayed in her mind, and she clenched her hands together. How could they presume to marry her to a man she didn’t know? She and Seth might have departed on bitter terms, but when the war ended, surely he and her father would put aside their political differences. And if they didn’t—
    She might not marry Seth, but she would never marry a stranger. If Seth and Father couldn’t reconcile, there would be no wedding for her. And no marriage.
    She leaned her head back against the bare wood, the sun warming her face