It was too hot too think in the surgery. Cora needed something else to think about. It was the only way to keep her mind off the heat and the stink in the surgery. Inevitably, her mind wandered to Alice. She was worried about Alice. What this place was doing to her.
Walking into a war was the last thing either of them had expected when they left Albany. Cora should have, she knew that. But the way war was waged in America was so far removed from what she had seen in Austria. In Europe, there were rules, even for war. There were rules. But not here, not in America. Cora had so little control over any of it. Of course her thoughts strayed to Alice.
Sweet Alice. Young Alice. She had lost some of her innocence here, and Cora felt at fault for it. Though she knew how brutal war could be, Cora had the nagging feeling that she should've impressed it further with Alice. She should have, she was the older sister. But she had been afraid of Alice's fragile nature. She just...she just didn't know anything about it. After the ambush, Cora felt she had done Alice a great disservice, but in all the long days of the journey to the fort and their time there, Alice hadn't complained. Not once. Perhaps Cora had underestimated Alice. Or she no long felt she needed her older sister. That unnerved Cora. She didn't feel ready to giver up her sister, least of all to a man.
Cora was torn between approval and disapproval over it. Uncas was a good man, likely better than what could be expected back home in England. I'm supposed the be the rebellious one, she mused ruefully. But she didn't see how it could possibly work. Alice and Uncas. They were of two different worlds. But...given her own involvement with Nathaniel, she supposed she didn't blame Alice. But God help him if he didn't any thing wrong. It was never their father that the boys in London had to fear, it was Cora's.
Cora shook her head. Her thoughts went around and around, but they kept coming back to being worried over Alice. She was afraid that little Alice wasn't quite so little as she wished to keep her. Cora looked out the door of the surgery and thought she saw a flash of golden brown hair. Go Alice, go find him, she silent urged. For now, Cora could do nothing. She would talk to Alice later. For now, she followed the sounds of a fiddle and a line of small cook fires to find Nathaniel.