A/N: content warning for brief descriptions of wartime violence and men making women feel uncomfortable.

Lover's Eye: Chapter VI

"Sarah!"

She could barely make out the sound of her own name over the ringing in her ears, owed to the barrage of gunfire minutes prior. She lifted her lips from the brow of her cousin and turned her tear-stained face weakly in the direction of the sound. James was barreling towards her, face red and nostrils flared with exertion. His steps only slowed as he reached the foot of the bridge, his eyes scanning the scene in dismay.

Unable to conjure the words to describe what had just occurred, she merely croaked, "My cousin. Tom." Her hands, sticky with blood, gestured weakly to her childhood playmate. Trying as she might to avoid it, her eyes couldn't help but fixate on the cruel gash where the ball had torn through his breast, its subsequent bloodstain rapidly expanding across his white undershirt, like a glass of wine shattered on a carpet. A bubbling glut of red appeared between his lips and began to course down his chin, a horrifying detail that she hadn't anticipated might result from a wound elsewhere on the body.

The sound of footsteps on the rickety boards of the bridge was accompanied by a low gasp. Now directly above her, James's voice spoke again: "Sarah… I'm so sorry." It seemed paltry, insufficient, to address the crushing weight of the scene. But what more could he say? She felt a gentle hand on her elbow. "Come," he said, "Let's get to a safer place."

Too tired to protest, to insist on a few more minutes to say goodbye to Tom, she allowed James to help her to her feet. As she rose, her nose was greeted with the scent of smoke and blood and death. On either side of the bridge, stiff, mangled bodies lay, partially submerged in a revolting admixture of mud and bodily fluids. She felt a tingling sensation, beginning in her stomach and quickly rising through her throat and into cheeks and forehead. Without any further warning, she retched.

"It's okay," James insisted softly, and she realized his hands held her hair back from her face, "it's okay." She vomited again, seizing the railing on the bridge to steady herself.

"I can't-" she whispered pathetically, wiping her mouth on her sleeve in a decidedly unladylike manner. She felt herself becoming hysterical, and a fresh torrent of tears coursed down her cheeks. Selfish, privileged, uncompassionate as it may be, she couldn't bear the gruesome sight of these dead men.

"Don't look," James enjoined, "Close your eyes. I'll lead you."

She obeyed, for the first time not resenting James's bossiness. Covering her eyes with her hands, she felt a steady arm reach behind her back to grab hold of her opposite elbow. In this position, the two adolescents made their way off of the bridge and onto the hard-packed dirt road. She heard James let out a low gasp at something as they advanced, and she very nearly opened her eyes on instinct, catching herself at the very last moment. They tread slowly, gingerly, and a few times he pulled her unceremoniously to avoid a rut in the road or tree root or something far, far worse. The metallic odor of blood and sulfuric stench of death still filled her nose, threatening to bring on an encore of vomiting.

As they crested the hill, Sarah's eyes still screwed shut beneath her hands and James's arm still around her, she finally choked out the question that had been on her mind since they began their ascent. "Why doesn't all of this horrify you, as it does me?"

"It does," James answered gruffly, and she knew his teeth were gritted by the tight sound of his voice, "But that doesn't matter. I promised Dr. Franklin that I would take care of you, and I intend to keep my word."

Sarah awoke with a start, disoriented and confused. The hazy smoke of the battlefield had given way to the grayish light of predawn, streaming in from the half-curtained window. She recognized the still, familiar shapes of her bedposts and was relieved to find that she was in her bedchamber, not on the battlefield of Lexington and Concord. It was not James's arm around her, but her damp bed sheets entangling her body. She brushed errant tendrils of hair out of her face, finding it wet with both perspiration and tears, and took a steadying breath.

As her visceral terror mellowed into a dull anxiety, a feeling of guilt arose to replace it. James. The flaxen-haired lad in her dream still wavered in her mind's eye, as well as his adult counterpart. Who, she recalled with a twinge of embarrassment, she had told to go to hell just the afternoon prior. She felt hot shame welling up inside of her as she recalled the way she had cursed him. Her quick temper had gotten the best of her yet again. James could be uncouth, rude, ignorant even-but it was evident how deeply he cared for her. The tableau from her nightmare-James, scarcely fifteen years old, leading her off the field of battle and sparing her from having to gaze upon the horrors of war-was just one of numerous of instances where he had demonstrated his devotion to her. Not the least of which was when he had smelted his dead mother's wedding ring to replace her precious locket after knowing her for a mere few weeks.

Sitting bolt upright, Sarah instantly remembered the way she had cast the necklace off in her anger, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. She hurried to her armoire and groped beneath it, her fingers eventually finding the cool, metal object where it had landed. She wiped the bits of dust and cobwebs that clung to its irregular surface against the hem of her chemise, whispering a silent apology to Rachel Hiller in heaven for mistreating her bit of gold. She sank back into bed, pressing the necklace against her heart, its surface warming with the heat of her body until it was nearly imperceptible against her flesh.

The sky beyond the panes of her window was the color of unbleached linen, and the first few trills of birdsong were just beginning. Sarah wondered if James was awake yet. He likely was: though she recalled that he hated mornings, the duties of a print shop necessitated early rising. She wondered if his thoughts dwelt on her, as hers dwelt on him.

She rolled over restlessly, pulling her blanket up over her body, suddenly keenly aware that her unconscious mind had mistaken their comforting weight for her friend's protective embrace in her dream. She pulled the blanket nearer to her chin, the fabric brushing lightly over her body, and her mind again substituted the fabric as a stand-in for James's touch. What if instead of fine silk sheets slipping over her body, they were gentle, sturdy hands, strengthened by years of working the printing press…

She abruptly turned over again, forcing the improper thought out of her mind. Though humiliating to admit, it was far from the first she had had about her friend. She buried her face in her pillow, her cheeks burning, trying to dissuade her imagination from pursuing images of those same hands tangled in her hair, tracing the curves of her waist, tugging at the laces of her stays…

Enough. She sat up, chastising herself for her own wickedness. For all she knew, James was still angry from the day before and having decidedly less flattering thoughts about her from the backroom of his printshop. And even if he weren't, even if he would readily endorse the impure thoughts that somehow slipped past her better judgement, she was an engaged woman. An engaged woman, she recalled with a groan, who had agreed to accompany her fiance on a fox hunt that very morning. Any reconciliation she had hoped to initiate with James would have to wait.

Sarah deftly disentangled one booted foot from the stirrup, glancing furtively around the forest to ensure William and his entourage had not noticed. She dismounted her horse with practiced ease, the rich forest green wool of her riding habit sliding easily against the smooth, polished leather of the sidesaddle. As her boots hit the hard earth below, flattening a patch of frozen grass, she felt a modicum of relief. It was not that she was afraid to be astride her horse-a beautiful roan gelding that William had gifted her just that morning-but she dreaded the idea of allowing her fiance to help her off of the animal. She dreaded the thought of his hands on her.

She had, effectively, brought this upon herself. Her reckless anger towards James and her petty desire to punish him by giving William a second chance had placed her squarely in these woods. She had been foolish to accept William's invitation to hunt, foolish to even entertain the idea that he might show an ounce of decency or gentility towards her. His behavior that morning had been entirely consistent with her first impression of him: sullen and surly in the presence of his parents, but bawdy and boisterous when surrounded by his contemporaries. She found his unsociable coolness to be far preferable to the riotous whooping and indecent jokes exchanged between William and his companions, coupled with the occasional devilish grins directed towards her and her young ladies' maid, Mercy. She couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, and Sarah instantly felt protective over the child. Her stomach had long turned sour at the realization that she and Mercy were entirely alone with the men, far from the gaze of their elders, and her nerves were as flighty as a wounded sparrow.

Spotting a creek threading through a nearby copse of downy hemlock, she saw the opportunity for a moment of reprieve. Grasping her horse's bridle, she turned towards William and his coterie, who were several paces behind her, gathered in a knot. Their horses swished their tails impatiently and their foxhounds whined as their masters leaned close together, exchanging surreptitious whispers and conspiratorial smiles. She was about to announce her intention to water her gelding, but she could not find a natural pause in the young men's conversation in which to interject. Finally, tired of being ignored and on the verge of losing her patience, she spoke.

"I need to water my horse," she interposed, using the same volume and tone that she utilized to tame spirited students in the classroom. The three young men fell silent and turned their gazes on her. She lifted her chin and smiled politely, in a concerted effort to appear at ease. This task was made several degrees more difficult by the bemused smirk that appeared on William's thin lips.

The lonely call of a bird echoed through the forest, jolting her to her senses. Why was she supplicating before these men, as though she required their permission? Turning to the anxious young lady beside her with as much dignity and confidence as she could muster, she said, "Mercy, why don't you come, too?"

The girl nodded, clinging tightly to the pommel of her sidesaddle, her knuckles white against the russet-colored leather. Mercy's horse dipped its head to nibble lackadaisically at a clump of frozen grass, but Sarah caught its bridle and began to lead both rider and steed towards the water. To her relief, William and his entourage did not immediately follow.

The only solace she could find in the miserable morning was the landscape. Although the autumn foliage was long past its prime, muted hues of gold and umber carpeted the forest floor, occasional knobby roots protruding from the frost-touched masses. Barren branches stood out against the watery blue sky above, like veins of lead came between panels of stained glass, and the infrequent bird, its feather coat puffed up against the cold, was startled by the approaching footsteps. As a child reared in urban London, Sarah had previously seen nature as the realm of insects and filth and inconvenience. But slowly, she had come to see it through her father's romantic eyes. Now, she treasured this bit of him that he had passed onto her.

The earth concealed beneath the brittle, frost-touched leaves slowly shifted from loam to rocky sand as they drew nearer to the stream, the soft sound of water trickling over chunks of ice causing Sarah's shoulders to relax. As her roan dipped its velvety nose into the clear water between two sheets of ice, she extended her free hand towards Mercy.

"Allow me to help you dismount," she said, smiling soothingly. The girl immediately seized her gloved hand, scrambling unceremoniously down from the horse's back. Sarah had long deduced that the child was frightened by the animal.

Mercy laughed, partly out of relief and partly at the comment she uttered: "You're far more gallant than any of the gentlemen accompanying us."

"That's no great feat, I'm afraid," Sarah replied, glancing back at the knot of men several yards away. Instinctively, she put her hand on the girl's back, leading her towards the water's edge and away from the gaze of her fiance and his friends, men she had learned that morning were named Elias and August. Apparently, they had been William's classmates at Eton.

Mercy, ironically, was meant to serve as a chaperone, though Sarah found herself keeping a protective eye on the child. Under another set of circumstances, she could easily have been one of her pupils. The girl was slight, with timid gray eyes and round cheeks. Strands of pale brown hair escaped the mob cap worn atop her head, and a long braid of the same shade cascaded down her back.

"You have lovely, long hair," she commented, hoping to distract both the girl and herself from their uncomfortable circumstances, "Have you ever cut it?"

The girl looked up, Sarah's question seeming to dispel some of her anxiety. "No, miss," she said, "Never! Even after my papa died and we needed money, my mother wouldn't allow me to cut and sell it."

Mercy's anecdote caused a familiar twinge of sadness to strike Sarah's heart. "My father is gone, too," she said quietly, offering the child an understanding smile.

"What's that?" Mercy asked abruptly, and Sarah's eyes followed her narrow finger across the icy stream to the opposite bank. A sleek, mahogany-colored creature, about the size of a housecat, was frozen in fear. It stared at the girls with glassy, beadlike black eyes. Its little paws were drawn up about its white-tipped chin, and it stood so still, one might have mistaken it for taxidermy.

"Oh, that's a mink," Sarah whispered so as not to scare the animal, "Quite harmless. They're darling, aren't they? We had them back when I lived on the frontier as well."

Before Mercy could respond, the sound of booted footsteps on leaves approached, causing the mink to flinch but ultimately remain transfixed by fear. "I say," William called out, "What have you girls found?"

"Only a mink," Sarah replied, wheeling around to see the men approaching on foot, their horses behind them.

"Kill it, and I'll have it made into a hat for you," William offered languidly.

"No, thank you," Sarah answered with feigned pleasantry, hoping to spare the dear little creature, "We are on a fox hunt; we might stick to foxes."

"I insist," William said evenly, a goading smile settling across his features.

Sarah tried another angle. "There's no sport in hunting a creature that's clearly frightened and cornered," she reasoned, "I prefer more of a challenge."

"I insist," he repeated, as though he reveled in the power the rules of etiquette held over her. He thrust his musket into Sarah's hands, its surface made warm and damp by the sweat of his grip. She could scarcely resist the urge to toss it back at hum and wipe her palms on her skirt.

"And I decline," she answered, her nose tilting upwards, feeling her practiced politeness beginning to melt away as her temper was stirred, "It would not please me."

William glanced back at his friends, who by this point were laughing spitefully at her predicament. "It would not please the lady."

"Perhaps she doesn't know how to handle a musket," offered Elias, the shorter of his two companions.

"I certainly do," Sarah insisted, "Likely better than the three of you." Indeed, though she hated guns, she had been forced to become somewhat adept at using them on the frontier. She undoubtedly could handle the weapon far better than three spoiled schoolboys.

"Prove it then," countered Elias.

Sarah pursed her lips. Had her pride not been inflamed, she would have been able to anticipate such a trap. "No, thank you," she repeated, feeling herself running out of excuses. She glanced at the mink again, mentally willing the pathetic thing to scamper off. It did not, of course.

"I'll show you," William announced, his voice loud with mock gallantry. Before Sarah could register what he was doing, he was behind her, pressing his chest against her back and stepping on the hem of her riding habit. His arms were around her and his hands were over her own, pinning one to the barrel and forcing the other to curl around the trigger. Despite William's leisurely lifestyle, he possessed a worrying amount of strength.

"I've just said I don't want to," Sarah exclaimed, shocked at his forwardness, recoiling from the invasive heat of her fiance's body and trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

"Steady on," he remarked, clearly amused by her distress. She felt his breath, hot and foul, against her ear as he aimed the musket at the mink. His chin was sharp as it dug into her shoulder, and she strained to turn her face as far from him as possible. Not wanting to watch the sweet little creature be blown to shreds for her fiance's cruel amusement, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She felt him reposition his aim over her hands, and her breath caught, awaiting the horrifying click of the trigger. After what felt like an eternity, she felt her finger forced back and the musket fired, its harsh pop reverberating through the forest.

The momentary silence that followed was torn asunder by the raucous laughter of the men. William released her abruptly, leaving the musket sagging in her grasp. She pried her eyes open, dreading what she might find, but was flooded with relief as she followed a rustling in the underbrush, racing away from the scene. A bullet was sunk into the craggy bark of a hemlock tree directly behind where the creature had stood. They had missed.

Sarah glanced at Mercy, feeling an ache as she noticed the tears welling in the girl's eyes. The boys were anything but distressed: they laughed and jeered, white teeth flashing and eyes half shut with amusement. William looked particularly pleased with himself as his friends clapped him on the back. When he turned back to face her, though, all traces of mirth were gone from his face.

"Never deny me again," he hissed and tore the musket from her trembling hands, before returning to his horse.

James stared at his fingers as they thrummed nervously against the coarse woodgrain of his kitchen table, his foot beneath following a similar, frantic rhythm. He strained his ear to eavesdrop on the goings on in the print shop, bit the insides of his cheeks, tried to scrape a bit of dried ink from beneath his thumbnail-anything to distract himself from the task at hand. He was like a child awaiting an inoculation, trying in vain to evade the growing dread that seemed to stalk him.

The week's issue of the Post was very nearly ready, save for the notices section. Even this was edited and set, merely awaiting a glaze of ink and the pressure of the platen. Normally, such a menial task would fall to Isaac, but today, James had forbidden it, and the boy must have known that his teacher was in no mood to be challenged. James would allow none but himself to complete the process-and he was currently in a tense stalemate with his own psyche.

Plainly put, he didn't want to publish the notices. He didn't want his paper to proclaim the grim words, "Sarah Celestine Phillips to join William Alexander Radcliffe in holy matrimony on December 25." He knew he was being foolish, childish even, but rendering the letters in black ink for all of New York City to see somehow solidified Sarah's impending nuptials in his mind. No longer were they like a red sky in the morning, warning of the hazy possibility of rain later in the day-they were upon him like a tempest, weighing heavily on his heart and whipping his mind into a frenzy.

Despite their quarrel a few days prior, he harbored no ill-will towards his friend. He had received a letter that morning, in which she apologized, though it was hardly necessary. Visions of Sarah-wearing his ring, sitting across from him at his evening meal, sleeping in his bed-had crept into his mind again, long before the letter arrived, setting his daily routine alight with enchantment.

They had, however, lost some of their intoxicating effect on him when he had realized darkly that William would soon be experiencing these things outside the realm of imagination. Spoiled, privileged, soft-handed William, whose dusky gaze revealed a distinct stupidity and certain arrogance as it hung around Sarah's neck like an evil eye. The thought of Sarah agreeing to spend the rest of her life beneath that imperious gaze elicited a very similar sensation to the time he had been knocked to the ground during a brawl with another apprentice back in Philadelphia: it left him sputtering and breathless, with a hollow, dull ache emanating from his chest. Worse still was the knowledge that she would soon be expected to go to William's bed and bear his heirs…

James stood abruptly, unable to tolerate his own thoughts any longer. He charged out the back door, allowing it to slam shut behind him. Paying little mind to his lack of a coat or the way the half-frozen mud sucked and pulled at his boots, he advanced on the woodpile. He deftly seized his axe and brought it crashing down on a vertical log with such force that it sent pieces of wood flying in either direction and buried the head of the axe in the hard earth below. He wrenched it out, a grunt of frustration escaping his gritted teeth, before driving it into another log.

He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't post the notice. He would simply toss her coins back at her and tell her to take her business elsewhere-she was welcome to throw her life away on such an arrangement, but he and his newspaper would not sanction it. He wanted no part in any of it-she could keep her damn blood money.

But that would only anger her. He knew Sarah's temperament was easily bruised and quickly provoked-he had been reminded of that fact just days prior-and there was no way that she would see his refusal to publish her notice as anything other than a slight. She would accuse him of going back on his word, reigniting the flames of conflict that her letter had served to douse, and then all would be lost again. She would be lost to him again.

He sighed, pausing to lean on his axe, feeling sweat gather beneath his coarse linen shirt despite the cold. He loosened the knot of his damp cravat to feel the frigid air against his throat. Perching himself on the woodpile for a moment, he withdrew Sarah's letter from his breast pocket and read it again for what must have been the tenth time that morning:

Dear James,

I am writing to apologize to you for my conduct yesterday. Though I do still feel that you instigated the argument with your insensitive and impertinent comment, I should not have responded as I did. I shouldn't have bid you to go to hell, though seeing as you don't even believe in such a place, I doubt it was a grave insult to you. But I had meant it as a grave insult, so I'm sorry, nonetheless. You were and are very dear to me, and I feel quite ashamed of how I've treated you. How might I make it up to you?

Your friend,

Sarah

She had hardly needed to apologize-she had been forgiven already. As in their youth, she easily provoked him to anger, but he could never maintain it for long. He merely thought upon her once enough time had passed and found his anger gone, like the last traces of snow in the spring sunshine. Returning his gaze to the letter, his eyes continued to trace the words "you were and are very dear to me," as though staring at them might somehow allow a deeper insight into her meaning to leap out at him.

He sighed, despair making his thoughts reckless. He wasn't sure when he had started to love Sarah. There was an argument to be made that it had begun the moment he met her, that night aboard the Dartmouth, when she had knocked him to the ground with a copy of The Castle of Otranto in a pillow. That was certainly when he had first become infatuated with her, though his adolescent self would have been loath to admit it. No, it was more likely that his affection for her had seeded and blossomed in the time they had spent side-by-side at the Gazette. His feelings had lay dormant during her five year absence, like the bulbs of a perennial flower awaiting spring in the cold, dark earth: suspended in a liminal space but eager to burst forth again. Just seeing her face again was all it took.

But kindling such affection was foolhardy. As a youth, he had an excuse: he hardly understood the conventions of polite society, and as a bright-eyed revolutionary, he likely would have naively assumed it would be easy to flout them anyway. Besides, the rather unconventional arrangement of their upbringing-residing in the same home, spending time together unchaperoned-often gave him the impression that they were hardly subject to social rules at all. But as an adult, toiling at a trade, enduring the haughty gaze of the upper classes, and bearing the humble surname of a dead Pennsylvania bricklayer, he was keenly aware that entertaining any romantic notions towards Sarah was foolish at best and inappropriate at worst. The fact that she, the daughter of English nobility, fraternized with a poor, unconnected, orphaned journalist at all was highly irregular.

But none of it mattered to him. He sighed again, tucking the letter back into his pocket, and rose to his feet. He could reason with himself, chide himself, remind himself of the lowliness of his birth and his humble circumstances and her engagement to another, wealthier, better-connected man, but he still couldn't dispel his feelings towards her. They were as obstinate as their object.

So, he would publish her damn notice. Not because he wanted to, but because she asked it of him. But, he thought to himself, unable to keep a wry grin from forming on his face, perhaps he would accidentally leave off the superfluous "e" on the end of "Radcliffe" for good measure. Her irritation would be worth the satisfaction he would gain from his little typographical error.

It was that, or admit defeat.