Instead, she spoke as though several injustices could exist together without canceling one another.
Amos asked whether anyone knew where the boy was now.
Augusta shook her head.
“Avery sent a messenger toward Richmond with a closed carriage.”
“Did he take the baby?” Caleb asked.
“I couldn’t see.”
Sarah reached into the box again.
“We did find something at the rented house.”
She unfolded a torn label from a medicine bottle.
On its back someone had written a surname in pencil.
“Voss.”
Caleb remembered the name from the Hawthorne accounts.
Elias Voss was a creditor who visited the colonel every winter to discuss debts and land sales.
“Why would Voss have anything to do with a baby?” he asked.
Augusta exchanged a glance with Sarah.
“Because the child might be used to settle a debt that has nothing to do with his well-being.”
Caleb stared at the label.
For months Eleanor had treated him as property, and now her child might be treated as a financial instrument before he could open his eyes.
The thought did not erase his fear of Eleanor.
It made him more determined that somebody should stop her.
Chapter Fifteen: The Name in the Account Book
The next clue came not from a carriage or a witness but from a small column of figures.
Hester Wynn had copied it from Hawthorne’s household ledger while Eleanor slept.
A courier delivered the paper to Willow Ford inside a packet of sewing needles.
Sarah unfolded it at the meetinghouse table while the others gathered around.
The columns listed purchases made in preparation for the birth, including linen, soap, a cradle, and a set of embroidered blankets.
But one entry stood apart.
A payment of one hundred and eighty dollars had been made to Elias Voss under the heading “prior settlement.”
The payment was dated the day before Caleb’s transfer to Red Cedar.
Below it was a handwritten notation in a different ink.
“Witness Mercer to be returned when required.”
Caleb felt a familiar chill.
“She was planning this before the baby came.”
Amos nodded.
“And somebody used your name in the account.”
Sarah studied the ink.
“There are two hands here.”
“One is Eleanor’s, and the other could be the colonel’s.”
Augusta looked troubled.
“Voss knows the Whitmore family’s older affairs.”
“What affairs?” Miriam asked.
“Clara’s child.”
The room went quiet.
Augusta drew a breath.
Eighteen years earlier, Clara Whitmore had given birth to a boy after being told her child would disgrace the family.
