"I was coming down to tell Miss Middleton that her schoolhouse is finished," said Nathaniel, turning to look at her directly for the first time.

"Oh," said Elizabeth, and then as an afterthought: "What good news."

"I'm going into the bush, hunting," he interrupted her. "But you can move in now without my help. I expect the doctor can lend a hand."

"Yes, I expect so," replied Elizabeth faintly. "Thank you kindly, Nathaniel."

"You're welcome," he said, touching his cap. Retrieving the beaver, he slung it over his shoulder with a flick of his wrist and left the room without another word. They heard the door slam behind him.

"Insolent savage," muttered Julian. "Come on now, Liam old man. Stop sniveling and tell us what really happened."

* * *

Nathaniel was angry. He was angry with himself for saying more than he'd meant to, back there in the judge's parlor. Walking up Hidden Wolf at a pace which would have left many younger men gasping, he made himself stop, to clear his head and to listen. His frustration and rage turned him inward, set him apart from the world around him, just when he needed to have his senses sharp. It wouldn't do to get shot now, not now, when things were starting to happen. He couldn't afford his anger right now; he couldn't afford to be thinking of the judge, or of Julian Middleton with his knowing half smile, or of Liam Kirby, bloody handed.

With his head cocked to one side, Nathaniel listened to the sounds of the spring thaw. He heard other things, too: three or four different birds, a squirrel, rodents in the soggy mass of winter debris on the forest floor. Far off, the thud of axe on wood. He touched his weapons: the knife at his side, the hatchet tucked into his belt along his spine. He checked the powder pan on his rifle and set out once again, cutting up the worst inclines, through thickets that seemed impenetrable, walking in the middle of swollen, ice—cold streams. Whoever it was following him, they were very good. But he was better. He knew this as a fact.

Once he had circled the strawberry fields, Nathaniel let himself think again. Now, this close to Lake in the Clouds, it was safer. He called forth Elizabeth, her face, the way her hair curled at the nape of her neck, the sound of her voice. He thought of Elizabeth with Richard, and he pushed himself faster toward home.

Chapter 19

Curiosity had been spending an increasing amount of time with Elizabeth. At first it had seemed a natural thing that she would find work to do in the sitting room while Daisy, Polly, and Almanzo had their lessons; they were her children, after all, regardless of their ages. And Manny's mind was seldom on the work at hand unless his mother was carding wool in the corner.

Over time, Elizabeth imagined that Curiosity's interest would wane, but instead it seemed to become more focused. While Polly read aloud in her low and pleasing voice, Curiosity's hands would fall to her lap and she would incline her head in concentration. Perhaps, Elizabeth thought, it was that Curiosity wanted to be part of the lessons herself. One day she asked her outright, and found to her surprise that she had amused Curiosity with this invitation: in response, the older woman picked up the first tract to hand—it happened to be a treatise on taxation written by Alexander Hamilton—and read a paragraph out loud without stopping to breathe. Her manner was most unusual: she leaned forward at the waist and read in a loud voice directly into the page, as if she were arguing with it. Elizabeth was enchanted. It turned out that Curiosity had read every book in the judge's library, and had something to say about each of them.

Gradually Elizabeth learned to carry on with the lessons while Curiosity flitted in and out, or sat close by, openly listening.

When Elizabeth set up a corner in the kitchen and began tutoring Benjamin and George, slaves of the Glove family, Curiosity never left at all and Galileo would just as often come to join them. James Glove let the boys come for lessons in arithmetic and writing once or twice a week when they weren't needed elsewhere. This had caused some concern in the village, but thus far the Gloves hadn't given in to pressure: they owned the only mill, and they wanted the boys to be more than one kind of help to them. Elizabeth had soon found out that Benjamin had a good head for figures, but less talent for the written language, while George was just the opposite. In a roundabout way, Curiosity let Elizabeth know it would not be to anyone's advantage if she shared this information with Mr. Glove.

Curiosity greeted the young men like royalty when they came into her kitchen and praised them to their faces when they got up to head for home, pressing gingerbread or pie into their hands and smiling a smile that Elizabeth seldom saw otherwise. Soon Elizabeth realized that Curiosity always kept Polly weaving or spinning by the hearth during these lessons. Benjamin and Polly were of a similar age, and Benjamin was a likely young man. Elizabeth wondered how Curiosity would manage to see the courtship through, given the fact that Benjamin was a slave, but she was sure that there was some well—thought—through plan. That much she had learned about Curiosity and Galileo: they did nothing by chance.

Clearly, Elizabeth had won Curiosity's approval and she felt the benefits of this state every day. It went beyond attention to her personal and material needs: Curiosity began to favor Elizabeth with information. She would bring tea to her room unexpectedly, and sit with her while she drank it, speaking of nothing in particular and still managing to pass on gossip which Elizabeth found often to be useful. Beyond that, Curiosity was plain amusing, and Elizabeth had come to depend on her in the weeks when worry about Nathaniel and their plans was sometimes more than she thought she could bear alone.