Elizabeth's attention wandered to the rest of the household, which had been thrown into a panic of activity. Three of the Schuylers' grandchildren were in attendance, she had found out, as well as the four youngest of their own eight, as yet unmarried children. The house, while neat and well planned, was ill suited to numbers of this kind and it bulged with people running this way and that, all with jobs to do. The parlor was being scrubbed, although Elizabeth saw not a speck of dirt anywhere. There were young women with their sleeves rolled up, boys with baskets of food and greenery, candles and silver plate and everywhere was Mrs. Schuyler's Sally, directing the preparations with a sharp eye.

Mrs. Schuyler herself appeared and gestured to Elizabeth.

"Nathaniel?" Elizabeth asked. "Do you need me here? Can I go ahead with Mrs. Schuyler?"

He touched her hand briefly and nodded. Elizabeth was reluctant to leave him, but she followed Catherine Schuyler upstairs.

* * *

"I want you to know," said Mrs. Schuyler as soon as she had closed the door behind them in the room which had been prepared for Elizabeth. "That we are very pleased and honored to be able to be of assistance to you today. That is simply true. But," she added, and she held up one hand. "This is a strange business, if you'll pardon my saying so, and I'm uneasy about it."

"Your husband sees no legal impediment to my marriage," Elizabeth said lamely.

"Come, my dear," Mrs. Schuyler said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "My husband is a man above all things, and he sees only that piece of this puzzle which concerns him. There is something else afoot here, and I wonder what it is. No." She stopped herself. "I am not going to ask, and I don't want you to tell me. I trust Nathaniel, and he loves you—that is enough." She turned to look out the window. In the distance, a mill could be seen on the banks of a waterway, but it stood quiet now, the fields and pastures abandoned for the moment.

"You are tired, and you would like to rest and prepare yourself. The minister will be here in an hour's time. Can you be ready by half past five? Good. Then afterward we will have our dinner and a little party."

"How kind of you," Elizabeth said.

Catherine Schuyler stood. "I am near to sixty years old, and I hope that I have learned some things from the mistakes I have made in my life. Perhaps the most important is the need to let young people make their own decisions. Now." She looked about herself in a businesslike way. "I will have a bath sent up, and our Jill will look after your needs. You will ask for whatever you require." This was not a question, but a statement of fact. Elizabeth nodded her thanks.

At the door, Mrs. Schuyler hesitated. "You will have a good husband in Nathaniel Bonner," she said. "I only wish this were being seen to in a more orderly fashion. That you had some lady of your family here to advise you."

"I doubt anyone could be more helpful than you have been," Elizabeth said quite truthfully. But she touched the letter still secured against her skin, remembering it for the first time in over an hour, and dreading the moment when she would have no choice left but to read it.

* * *

When she had bathed, and washed her hair with what she knew must have been Mrs. Schuyler's finest imported soap, and dried herself, Elizabeth lay down on the bed, completely relaxed and comfortable and totally unable to sleep for even five minutes. She had sent Jill away so that she could dress in privacy, but then she lay on the bed wrapped in the robe that Mrs. Schuyler had provided. Hung up to air were three dresses: the one she had worn last night on her way up Hidden Wolf, the extra dress she had packed, and the fine doeskin overdress lent to her by Many-Doves .

Many-Doves had made the dress for her own wedding to Runs-from-Bears. There were a hundred hours in the fine bead and quill work on the bodice and skirt, and it shimmered where Jill had hung it to air, the fringe on the hem fluttering in the breeze. Elizabeth had never imagined herself in any wedding gown at all, much less one as beautiful and rare as this. Her cousins had been married in satin and silk and brocade, in dresses that cost more than a laborer's yearly wage. But aunt Merriweather had been firm on the matters of trousseau and etiquette, and the money had been spent gladly.

Reluctantly, Elizabeth found her aunt's letter and spread it out on the bed before her.

* * *

The fourteenth day of March, 1793

Oakmere

My dearest niece Elizabeth,

Never before in my life have I more wanted those magical powers which no mortal can possess. It is only by borrowing such divine gifts that I could transport this letter to you as quickly as I would wish. Such is my concern for your welfare and future.

I am afraid that such strong words will alarm you, but my dear Elizabeth, my concern for you is real. What terrible thoughts have consumed me since your letter arrived this evening. I sit here, writing by candlelight—a privilege I oft denied you in the name of economy, even my maid has retired, because I know that I will not be able to sleep until I have put down on paper what is in my heart.

You write to me of your father's wishes for your marriage, to Dr. Richard Todd of the town of Paradise, once of Albany, and you ask my guidance and advice as any young woman of good breeding must. You write nothing shocking of this young man, no hint of poor character or of any trait that is less than admirable. Yet you do not want to marry this Dr. Todd, and you say so clearly. What you do not write, but which is very clear to me also, is that your father exerts his influence on you, because the connection would be an advantageous one for him. If you had come to me with this even a year ago, my answer would have been quite simple. I would have urged you to marry this young man without haste. But all has changed.