Susanna Fraser by A Dream Defiant Page A

smile that didn’t show any teeth. Rose decided she could look at him every day for the rest of her life and not get tired of the sight.
    “Time,” he said again. “I need you to be sure you truly understand. One of the reasons my mother wouldn’t stand for changing our name to King or George, other than how foolish she thought it sounded, was that it’s not as though England is some kind of paradise for our people. My parents didn’t get their freedom because the government thought slavery was wrong. It was only for the war effort, anything to hurt the Americans. They haven’t freed their own slaves on their sugar plantations, after all.”
    “A great many people are abolitionists, though,” Rose said. She herself had barely given slavery a thought before she met Elijah—in her quiet childhood in Aspwell Heath she’d hardly known it existed. But she knew enough to know a great many people did know and care, and she knew the slave trade had been outlawed when she was fifteen or so. Surely that was a start.
    “Yes, but not everyone. I don’t know what your village will make of me. Can you bear it, if they turn against me, and you for choosing me?”
    “They won’t,” she said stoutly. Aspwell Heath was home. Everyone there knew her, and her family, the Lamborns, had lived there longer than anyone could remember. Of course she would be welcomed back, and her husband with her.
    He raised his eyebrows. “You’re that sure of them?”
    “I am. That is—I’m sure they’ll be surprised, and not know what to make of you at first,” she allowed, remembering her own early wariness in his company. “But they’re good people, and they’re my people. They’ll give you a chance, and they’ll value you once they come to know you.”
    “I hope so.” He took her hand in his again and raised it to his lips. “Think carefully, Rose. Be sure I’m really what you want.”
    She was sure now, but she allowed him to bid her a good night and lay down on her solitary bedroll, her blistered foot carefully propped on a rolled-up blanket. He fell asleep before she did, and she lay in the darkness, listening to his steady breathing.

Chapter Seven
    The next evening Elijah decided he must provide Rose something better for dinner than the usual rations. He couldn’t explain the impulse, but having acquired a wife and child, he found himself compelled to prove he could keep them fed. After some bargaining among his friends and acquaintances in the other regiments of Light Division, he bought a freshly killed hare from a man in the Ninety-Fifth, a string of new spring onions—hardly the most romantic of vegetables, but he’d heard Rose say they were a useful foundation for cooking—and a little sack of dried apples.
    By the time he found Rose, he felt foolish. It wasn’t as though they’d been in danger of going hungry before, after all. But she smiled with genuine pleasure. “I’ll cook this myself,” she declared.
    He frowned down at her—her foot was still wrapped in bandages, and she could just make shift to hobble about with the aid of her stick. “I didn’t bring this for you to do yourself an injury.”
    She glanced over to where Luisa and Jemmy were setting up their tent with the doubtful assistance of Jake and Fernando. “Luisa will only burn it.”
    “Then I’ll cook it,” he said, “and you can tell me what to do.”
    She laughed. “Have you ever cooked a meal in your life?”
    “I don’t know about cooking a meal, but I’ve roasted birds and beasts over a fire before. Besides, I like to learn new things. And—if we’re to run an inn together someday, I reckon I should know a little more about your part of the work.”
    Her smile grew wide and triumphant. “Very well. And—” she darted another furtive look at Luisa, “—at least you haven’t any bad habits to unlearn.”
    Under his wife’s direction, Elijah built a fire, set up a spit and butchered the hare. She insisted upon doing what