Maddie looked at the child asleep beside her on the high seat of a buckboard wagon. She’d cleaned the girl up as best as she could, placed the single comb in her hair. Figuring Tom Abbott wouldn’t expect them to return to the riverfront, Maddie had headed back and found someone willing to take them up the river road. It had taken her no more than five minutes to appeal to a driver with a load of furniture bound for a plantation five miles north of Langetree. He agreed to let them ride along. “I could carry you on up to the house,” the driver offered at the end of the tree-lined drive. The plantation house was far enough away that it wasn’t even visible from the road. It was still early afternoon and a number of carriages and wagons had passed them on the river road. Maddie was counting on someone headed back in the opposite direction to come along and take her back. “Thank you kindly, but you’ve done more than enough. We appreciate it.” She gently shook Penelope’s shoulder.
