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Page 259
To Mariah's dismay, Thorn did not immediately decline. Eventually, he agreed.
In a flurry of activity, Ainsley's men finished setting up the remaining spiked logs around the compound. Thorn had already made the gate, and they helped him hang it.
Mariah's fear grew as quickly as the palisade. She prayed the gate's bolt was sturdy enough to keep anyone out.
Except Thorn.
She wasn't pleased to find that few troops would be left behind, the most senior a corporal junior to Maitland named Whisby.
WillBillywould remain, too. That didn't provide Mariah with any more confidence.
Standing beside Holly and René behind the gate, clasping her poor, sore hands behind her back, Mariah watched with trepidation as Thorn left on horseback with the British soldiers.
He glanced back over his shoulder as he rode out, meeting her eye with his usual impassive look that didn't ease her fragile frame of mind.
"Good-bye," she whispered.
Did his lips move in his own good-bye to her? Or was she imagining it?
She went through her afternoon chores in a daze, starting at every noise she heard, forcing herself to laugh at her folly. She was here at the inn, after all. Matilda was kidnapped when she left its shelter.
She didn't even leave the palisade's confines for water at supper time. She sent soldiers instead, including Will.
She wasn't at all surprised when he and the others came tearing back through the wooden fence, terror in their eyes, as animal-like whoops followed them. With René and Holly, she tried to get the gate closed after them. Unsuccessfully.
In moments, the compound was filled with Indians.
Among them was Nahtana.

 
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