Even as Abigail felt her legs giving out from under her, a firm arm clasped around her shoulders and held her fast to an ever familiar form – helping her find the ground painlessly as she let herself sink to her knees in grief raked raw in the wake of what had occurred at the tavern where she did her additional work in between novels and their royalties.
It had been too much, to see a familiar face – to recognize a man her father had worked with in this place, which had come to mean something like home to her. She knew that the black mark upon her own name was only one arrest away from being branded to her skin, if not to lead directly to the gallows swing. The terror that had filled her at the sight of a man who had never been anything but unfailingly kind to her was absolute proof that her life had changed irrevocably since Charlestown.
She shook, turning and burying her face against the leather of Flint’s coat, anchoring herself with the knowledge that she was safe here, in this house. Assuring herself that between Flint and the Hamiltons, no harm could possibly come to her. They’d never allow it, surely they wouldn’t!
Ocean Archive 