“I know of no connection between them,” Elizabeth said, more slowly. “Jennet is recently widowed, and she hasn't seen Luke in such a long time. I don't think it's likely . . .”

She let her voice trail away because Lily was looking at her with one eyebrow raised, as she herself looked at children when they worked too hard to make reason out of fancy.

“Neither of them has ever written or said a word to me about a connection,” Elizabeth said finally. “Nor has anyone else.”

“Well, there's one there now,” Lily said.

Elizabeth could not correct her but neither could she ask all the questions that came to mind, and so she was silent.

She found Nathaniel by himself rumbling through the baskets in the workroom. “Am I glad to see you, Boots.” He thrust a bloody hand toward her. “I'm no good at bandages. Can you tie this up for me?”

“You're no good at stitches either,” she said, catching his hand to look more closely at the gash that ran just below his knuckles from thumb to little finger. Blood trailed down and over the Kahnyen'kehàka tattoos that circled his wrist.

He put his head down next to hers to look at the wound more closely. “It's just a scratch. I already cleaned it out, so bind it up for me now and let me get back to work. We were in the middle of bringing down that dead oak on the other side of Squirrel Slough.”

Elizabeth touched her forehead to his and looked him in the eye. “Nathaniel Bonner,” she said. “I want you to listen to me very closely. You need stitches or this wound will not close properly, and you know it very well yourself. You must go to Hannah or Curiosity—that much you may choose.” Then she pressed a piece of linen to the wound and began to wind it firmly.

He pushed out a frustrated sigh that rippled through the muscles in his shoulders and down his arms, giving in without more argument.

“And there's company coming,” she added, tying off the linen and avoiding his gaze. “You'll want to be here.”

A little spark of interest replaced the resignation in his expression. “Good company, I hope.”

“The very best,” Elizabeth promised, and kissed him on the forehead. He pulled her closer with his free arm around her waist and kissed her properly before he let her go. He smelled of honest sweat and pennyroyal ointment and pine tar and blood, and his mouth tasted of mint. Then he swung her around to pin her where she stood, his arms stemmed to either side of her head. It was one of Elizabeth's greatest pleasures in life, to have her husband catch her up against a wall to kiss her. He knew this very well, and he used it now to his advantage.

“Are you going to tell me or will I have to tease it out of you?”

“Promise me first that you'll let Hannah see to your hand straightaway.”

He grinned at her, a flash of teeth that made him look half his age and up to no good, her wild backwoodsman of a husband, too clever by half.

“I promise you nothing but a good tickling, Boots, unless you speak up right this minute.”

She put her hands against his chest, but she did not bother pushing; he would let her go when he had enough of this, and not before. “All right, a hint then. Who would you like to have here with us more than anyone else in the world?”

“Strikes-the-Sky,” he said without hesitation, and the words jolted Elizabeth as surely as a slap.

“Oh,” she said. “Of course. I wish it were Strikes-the-Sky, but I think you will be pleased nonetheless. Luke is come.”

Nathaniel looked just as surprised as she was herself. “Luke? But he always sends word first.”

She shrugged. “And he brought Jennet with him.”

It was hard to shock Nathaniel, but she had managed it. He pushed her a little away from him to study her face, as if she would make up so outlandish a tale.

“Jennet Scott? Of Carryck?”

“Do you know another?”

“You're saying Luke brought that girl over the border in the middle of a war?”

“Yes, he did,” Elizabeth said. “I expect they'll be here shortly, and I have to find places for them all to sleep. So if you'll promise me—”

He kissed her hard, the kind of kiss that meant he had more on his mind and meant her to know it too, though they both had work to do.

“I'll get Hannah to sew up my hand,” he said. His disquiet and concern were giving way, slowly, to pleasure at the idea of seeing his son. “As soon as I've laid eyes on Luke and had an explanation.”

There was a celebration to get ready on short notice, food for fifty people, wood to be gathered for the cook fires, and a hundred other tasks from the setting up of trestle tables to the tuning of Levi's fiddle. It seemed that Cookie's sons were known as far away as Albany for their musical talent.

The villagers came to the Todd place in a dribble and then in a steady stream, carrying kegs of ale and cider and squealing piglets that would find their way onto spits before the afternoon was much older. There were chickens to be plucked, a brace of trout and another of bass, baskets of plums and apples just off the trees, casks of bacon fat and butter, jars of honey and pickles, and loaves of bread. Curiosity directed the cooking, marching back and forth so that her skirts snapped smartly around her legs.

Jennet drew people to her without trying, and she met all of them with such openness and simple delight that Hannah found herself laughing at nothing. Then Curiosity put an end to it all.