He had left no document carrying his name.
Nevertheless, the investigation could reach him through Silas, who had already suspected his interest in the mill.
Margaret took a chair beside the table.
She looked weaker in daylight than she had during the escape.
But her memory remained precise.
She dictated the names of three people who had guarded Briar House.
She described where Whitcomb kept his medicines and how Fenwick collected signatures from women too sick to understand the papers placed before them.
Daniel wrote the details as she spoke.
When she reached the false funeral, her voice faltered.
“Richard told me Catherine had abandoned me.”
“He forged letters from her.”
“I thought she knew.”
“She believed you were dead.”
Margaret covered her face.
For several moments no one spoke.
Then she lowered her hands.
“I need to see the letters.”
“We’ll get copies to you.”
“Not all of them.”
She looked Daniel directly in the eye.
“The one he says I wrote about surrendering my inheritance.”
Daniel remembered the receipt Catherine had discovered.
“He used your signature.”
“Then the property may still be recoverable.”
Sarah interrupted gently.
“First we keep you alive.”
Margaret nodded, chastened by the practical truth.
The physician arrived just before dawn and examined the boy.
He said rest, food, and clean water were more urgently needed than any dramatic treatment.
Sarah gave him a quiet room near the fire.
Lydia offered to sit with him.
Rose sat beside Margaret and asked whether her own family could be told she was alive.
Daniel promised nothing he could not deliver.
He wrote down her brother’s name and the town where she last saw him.
Then he explained that messages would travel through Sarah and Eliza, not through Blackwood House.
Rose looked disappointed by the slow plan.
She also looked relieved to have a plan at all.
As the morning light reached the orchard, Daniel prepared to leave.
Margaret stopped him at the door.
“If Catherine has my letters, she has a choice.”
“She has more than a choice,” Daniel answered.
“She has a responsibility.”
Margaret nodded.
“Tell her that I never stopped trying to reach her.”
Daniel looked back at the people gathered around Sarah’s table.
They were not safe yet, but they were together and able to speak without asking permission.
He would carry that image back to the plantation.
He needed to remember what freedom was supposed to make possible.
Chapter 18: The Search Begins
