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Page 294
"I understand you hate me. That you wish to kill me?"
The boy made a choking sound that neither confirmed nor denied. The mottled flush on his face, his inability to meet Thorn's eye, told Thorn nevertheless that he was correct. That Mariah was correctabout this, at least.
"Will you tell me why?"
Will slammed his glass down hard on the table. He stood so quickly that his chair fell to the floor with a clatter. "You killed my mother!" he shouted.
Thorn felt the blood drain from his face. His limbs went rubbery. He had helped to kill his own brother and sister-in-law, but this young man had nothing to do with that. No, there was only one other woman to whose death he had contributed.
He had paid little attention to this soldier previously, but now he noted the familiarity of his gray-green eyes, the downturning at their edges. The straightness of his upper lip beneath his mustache. The beard hid whether his chin was sharply pointed, but there was a pinchedness about his nose. His hair was darker now, no longer the youthful shining brown that Thorn recalled but a dark and silty brown, and there was no childish pudginess in his flesh. But Thorn recognized him. "You!" he breathed.
"Yes," Will said. He kept his fists clenched upon the table, and his knuckles were chalk white. "I was the one kidnapped on your watch. Stolen away, not by Indians but by . . . well, never mind about that. It ought not to have happened. Ainsleyhe is your friend, do you realize that?"
"Yes." Thorn clutched his glass as he stared at the boy who had grown to manhood in six years.
"He has taken your side in many a conversation with me over the past weeks. He maintains your innocence. He claims you did not intend to fail at your duty to ensure the settlers' safety. He says the woman distracting you flirted with you, not the other way around." His voice had grown as cold as a winter gale. "In my view, it makes no difference."
"You are correct," Thorn agreed. His heart was thudding within him, not from fear but from wretchedness. "Whatever the distraction, it should not have kept me from my duty. I

 
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