He shook his head ruefully, and the light played in his hair. Evangeline wondered, momentarily distracted from the bitter ache in her heart, if his children would be fair like him, provided he sired any. No doubt, he would. He was too handsome, too strong, and far too good to avoid it. Matrimony was his fate, just as it was hers. Too bad the other people involved, Big John and some lucky, unsuspecting woman, in some other place, were the wrong ones.

“I can’t leave you with nobody to look out for you,” he said. “You know that. Big John would never forgive me if something happened. Hell, I’d never forgive myself.”

“You can’t protect us all the time, Scully,” Evangeline reasoned. Why was she making a case for his leaving? She didn’t want him to go, not ever, even though every moment of his presence, from then on, was bound to be torture. “Look at what happened today, for instance. We just have to take our chances, like everybody else.”

He braced his elbows against the table and buried his head in his hands. “I gave my word,” he said, his voice muffled. After a while, he raised his face to look at her. “If you won’t go to Springwater, there’s nothing I can do but stay here.”

Evangeline struggled to hide the strange, violent mingling of relief and sorrow that possessed her in those moments, like a demon spirit. “We can do this, Scully,” she said, at great length. “We can get through this winter, just by putting one foot in front of the other.”

He was quiet for a long time. “Why did this have to happen?” he asked. Judging by his tone, he was asking himself as much as Evangeline. In his eyes, she saw a glint of the old mischief. “Why couldn’t you have been one of those pock-marked women with bad teeth and a backside the size of a haywagon?”

Evangeline put her hand over her mouth as a giggle bubbled up into the back of her throat. “Is that what you expected? Moreover, is that what Big John expects?”

“He doesn’t know what you look like,” Scully confided. “All he had to go by was a few old letters from his cousin, saying you were pretty. That can be a matter of perspective, you know, and after all, the man was your husband. Big John pondered it all for a while, then he decided to go ahead and throw the dice. If you turned up ugly, he meant to make the best of things. With Big John, a deal is a deal.”

This last statement made them both go quiet again. It was Evangeline who eventually broke the silence. “It’s late,” she said. “We’d better get some sleep.”

Scully nodded and rose from his chair. He went outside, and Evangeline got into bed beside Abigail, who was sprawled crosswise on the mattress, and listened for his return. Only when she heard him come in, close the door and lower the latch did she allow herself to drift off.