They were talking to John Mayfair, who sounded weary but very sure of his facts.

For a moment Birdie wished she had just gone on her way. Much better to be at the Red Dog, waiting for a fight to break out between Becca LeBlanc and Jemima. Maybe Missy Parker would come by too, or even Baldy. There were many stories about Jemima and Baldy O’Brien, and at least a few of them had to be true.

But she had come here to sit on the cold floor—still damp too—with her ear pressed to the crack in the door. Ten minutes just like this and she was no the wiser. What she wanted to do was ask a question. Or many questions, because she wasn’t even sure what John Mayfair was talking about, or what it had to do with Jemima. There were words like ecclesiastical and tenancy and tort. The others did ask him questions, but most of those didn’t mean much to Birdie either.

Hannah was saying, “There really is no other option?”

“Not if it is important to thee that Martha and Callie keep their independence,” John Mayfair said. “If ye are agreed, I will write the document for your signature, Nathaniel. Two must sign as witnesses.”

There was a lot of talking and moving around but in the end Jennet, Hannah, and Luke went back home to see to the children, and they took Curiosity with them. Finally there was only the familiar sound of pens scratching. Now and then John Mayfair asked a question and got his answer, and then the scratching started again.

“This is very hard,” said Birdie’s mother. “To send them off like this. It’s not what I imagined at all.”

Birdie sat up straighter. If only someone would come out and say the word elope, so she could be sure of what she was hearing. It was an exciting idea but it frightened her too, hearing the tone in her ma’s voice.

“We don’t know that they will go off, Boots. It’s their decision. Or better said, it’s Martha’s decision. Daniel knows what he wants.”

“But it’s all so rushed. You and I, we had the whole winter before we—” her voice trailed away.

“When it’s right it’s never too late, when it’s wrong it’s always too soon,” Ethan said.

John Mayfair let out a small laugh. “True words.”

Ethan said, “Come, let’s get this done. I’ll go fetch the things they’ll need and saddle horses. Then I’ll take the letters up to them, unless you want to do it, Uncle.”

Birdie couldn’t help herself anymore. She opened the cloakroom door and peeked out.

“Finally,” said her da. “I thought you fell asleep in there.”

He was smiling, but there was sadness in the way he looked too.

“I’m sorry,” Birdie said. “I shouldn’t have done it. But Ma, I’m as worried about Daniel and Martha as you are.”

“And we’ve shut you out, haven’t we.” Her mother held out a hand, and Birdie went to stand beside her. The urge to put her head against her mother’s breast was very strong, but she was too old for such things.

“I want to be there when they get married.” Her voice came a little hoarse.

“If they do get married,” said her da.

“Of course they’ll get married,” said Birdie. She leaned into her mother and was glad of it. “Martha tries to hide it but she’s crazy about Daniel. And he doesn’t even try to hide it.”

“You think they are a match, then.” Her mother’s hand smoothed her hair, and Birdie could have fallen asleep right there, though it wasn’t even noon. “I said so from the beginning. Didn’t I say so right from the start?”

Chapter XXXII

Martha had no sense at all of the time; whether it was twenty minutes or two hours later that they closed Daniel’s cabin door behind themselves and set out for the village. She was so tired that she was lightheaded, and how could she be anything else after the events of the last twenty-four hours? She had come up the mountain an unmarried girl essentially alone in the world but for her stepsister, Callie, and now here she was, on the brink of getting married. Again. So soon. Maybe too soon.

It was what people would say, and there was no use pretending otherwise.

But she would be one of the Bonners. It was a thought so odd that she might have laughed aloud. She had never imagined herself as a Bonner, though they invited her into their home and treated her with such kindness.

“When I was little,” she told Daniel, “I used to hope that your ma would want me as a servant one day. So I could be near all of you.”

He only smiled down at her when she told him that, which was enough. To have the right to say the things she was thinking—no, it was more than that. He liked it when she talked to him, as odd as that seemed. She wondered if she would ever really understand what he felt, and what he wanted from her.

Martha cast a small look out of the corner of her eye, suddenly shy but needing to study him nonetheless. Unshaven, his clothes the worse for two days’ or more wear, weapons hung all about him and his left arm in a sling, he might have stepped out of one of Jennet’s pirate stories. There was white in his shorn hair and deep lines bracketed his mouth and eyes, but he still had that way about him, the look of all the Bonner men. When he smiled some of those years fell away. It made him almost beautiful; Martha could find no other suitable word. He was tall and lean, hickory hard. When he turned his head his neck reminded her of an elk’s, which was such an odd idea that she was too embarrassed to pursue it.

His mother would ask hard questions that would require answers.