Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Adelaide forced her heart to remain still as she kept her eyes trained on the parlor door. Richard had offered to join her below stairs to confront her aunt, but she had quickly deemed the relocation downstairs too strenuous for him and marched out to face her demons herself.
Macy was safe. She was safe. Her aunt had no true means to harm them anymore.
Adelaide repeated the thoughts like a mantra. For months, ever since her marriage, Adelaide had known she was safe. And recently, with her newfound unity with her husband, Adelaide had felt she was safe.
But knowing and feeling that something was true did not necessarily mean that she stopped fearing things might change yet again. After all, they did before.
“Miss Dinah Ravenstone,” Mr. Mindel, the housekeeper’s husband who served as their butler when needed, announced the new arrival in his old, raspy voice.
Adelaide drew a deep breath and leveled her chin. “I will see her.”
Adelaide heard her aunt’s pinched footfalls even before she could see the person who made them. Things that haunted one’s dreams tended to imbed themselves remarkably well in one’s memories, no matter how strong the desire to be rid of them.
A half minute later, there stood Aunt Dinah in the flesh, her presence marring the peace Adelaide had come to associate with Granville. There were those same thin, piercing features. There draped the gray, familiar dress.
But there was a haunted and almost crazed look in her aunt’s eyes, and Adelaide almost jumped at the sight.
“Niece,” she said, her voice cracked.
“Aunt Dinah.” Adelaide inclined her head only the tiniest bit. She braced herself for an inevitably unpleasant encounter. If Richard could face his wartime demons, then she could likewise slay her own. “I see you have come.”
“Were you not expecting me?”
“No, I must admit this to be quite a surprise.”
“A happy surprise, I am sure.”
Adelaide, determined to take the higher road, quietly ignored the comment and suppressed the urge to scowl. She spoke calmly “Pray, tell, what brings you all the way to Norfolk?”
Her aunt’s face twisted into a sneer. She took one tight step forward. “Cutting right to it, aren’t you? Without even the offer of a modicum of kindness. Is this how you treat your own flesh and blood?”
It was a question Adelaide very much wished to hurl back at the woman’s face. She forced her voice to remain steady. “I was not expecting visitors.”
“Ha, I am no visitor. I am your aunt. I have every right to come.”
“You are my father’s cousin.”
“And your only living relative who cares enough to visit.”
Adelaide’s hands fisted. She cleared her throat. “Given the unexpected nature of your visit, I must ask again. Pray, tell, Aunt Dinah—what concern brings you all the way to Norfolk? Against my husband’s wishes, at that. Do not think me unaware of how he has sanctioned you.”
In a snap, any attempt at cordiality disappeared. Fierce yet tired eyes locked themselves onto Adelaide. “You ungrateful wench! You owe me.”
“Do I?”
“Did you think yourself capable of ensnaring such a husband without my assistance? Did you think he would even have looked twice at you if I hadn’t brought you to London and dressed you up in the manner of a lady?”
“There was no ensnaring involved in my marriage.”
“You think you—with your adulterous mother and country manners—could ever have been deserving enough to marry into one of the oldest families in England? If it were not for me, you and your precious Macy would have starved on the streets in Essex. If it were not for me, you would not ever have even crossed paths with an army colonel, much less have the chance to take on his name.”
Adelaide kept her temper in check. “I never asked you to do any of those things.”
“And yet I did! What else does it show but the abiding goodness of my heart?”
“What I believe it shows, Miss Ravenstone,” Richard said from the open door, his voice in full command, “is avarice, self-ambition, and a dogged desire to twist in your own favor the fates of the young ladies entrusted to your care.”
“Richard!” Adelaide rushed across the parlor.
The stubborn man should have stayed upstairs.
And yet he tucked her readily against his side as soon as she reached him, showing no signs whatsoever of his recent injury.
His arm closed protectively around her, even as his eyes remained trained on their unwanted visitor.
He was informally attired, with his clothes tucked loosely about him, but he was certainly more dressed for company than he had been since his fall.
“What lies has my niece been telling you, Colonel? Has she painted me to be quite the villain?” Aunt Dinah sneered again, this time almost baring her teeth. “If you think for a moment that you have managed to find a loyal, sweet wife, then perhaps you ought to think again.”
“How things stand between me and my wife is our business alone. What concerns me further at the moment is why you are standing inside my house when I have made it quite clear that I have no wish to ever see or speak to you again.”
Aunt Dinah’s back stiffened, although her stern look did not waver. “Is it so odd for a loving aunt to wish to visit her beloved niece?”
“It would not be odd, no.” Richard spoke with tested, calm authority. “But seeing that you are neither a loving aunt nor Adelaide a beloved niece, then I must inevitably question your motives.”
A moment passed. Adelaide tightened her arm around her husband’s waist.
“I needed to see Adelaide,” said Aunt Dinah.
“And for what reason?”
“For—for—” Her face hardened.
“For her to settle your debts lest you be cast into debtors’ prison?”
Aunt Dinah’s frown darkened like stone. “You cannot know that.”
“On the contrary, this letter from our family solicitor says otherwise.” Richard lifted a letter in his other hand, his every movement fluid.
Had he truly recovered so much already? “In everything in life, Miss Ravenstone, we reap what we sow. Defrauding one’s relatives of their proper dowries and taking on gambling debts upon empty promises of selling your nieces in marriage cannot possibly result in any positive consequences. ”
“I was acting only in the best interests of—”
“There are lies, Miss Ravenstone, that we tell other people. Then there are lies that we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, it is often the latter that are of far greater detriment.”
The air in the room felt mountain thin. Aunt Dinah stood stone still. Adelaide gently walked Richard to the nearest chair, although he seemed to lean on her more out of solidarity than need. She lowered him onto the seat with a carefulness he did not appear to require and stood by his side.
It took only the briefest of moments for Aunt Dinah to reach for a chair herself. Yet instead of sitting severely, as she always did, she crumbled onto the cushion in a heap of skin and bones. The ferocity she’d displayed for the past few minutes molted into a dark, haunted look.
“What else was I supposed to do?” Her voice cracked.
She came as close to weeping as Adelaide ever thought her aunt capable of.
“My cousin left debts at his death—a failing mortgage on the house, unpaid bills with every possible merchant in Essex, with only the untouchable dowries as funds.
And how else could anyone touch a dowry unless one was about to marry?
“No other family wished to engage with his household. His will’s named executor was in India. Alive or dead, who knows. And here I was—entirely dependent on a man who had abruptly died, leaving nothing but the money supposed to marry his daughters off.”
Adelaide considered, for the first time, how things must have unfolded for the adults upon her parents’ death.
Aunt Dinah lifted her hollow eyes towards Adelaide. “If I cannot presume to be a recipient of your gratitude, then at least honor me with your charity.”
Adelaide’s feelings churned. Aunt Dinah had been many things—petty, cruel, and manipulative, among others. She was no heroine, in any sense of the word. But was her greatest crime only her desperate self-preservation?
Adelaide remembered the woman’s conniving with Mr. Bamburst, of her disdain for Macy. She ran her mind over the unending insults and manipulations. Adelaide shuddered. Even the best intentions could not justify the convoluted truth of cold, hard actions.
“You could have considered extending that charity when we were the ones at your mercy.” Adelaide responded, the reality of her situation these past two years clearer in her mind than it had ever been.
She walked towards her aunt, seeing her now for the selfish, desperate woman she had always been beneath her controlling ways.
How had Adelaide ever allowed herself to exist under the woman’s false power?
“To play the victim now is far, far too late.”
“I must agree,” said Richard.
“Have you no mercy!” Aunt Dinah screeched. “The lenders, Bamburst himself at the helm, will be hurling me in prison in a matter of days if you do not pay him what is owed.”
“That debt is yours, Aunt Dinah,” said Adelaide. “Not mine. Not my husband’s.”
“Think of the dishonor!”
“All honor in the family has long died with my father, my mother, and you.” Adelaide felt her stomach quivering. “And I refuse to let the dishonor you have chosen continue tainting my life, or Macy’s.”
“You are already tainted!”
“On the contrary.” Richard rose to his feet, wholly unassisted, “my wife is a treasure despite all the circumstances life has dealt her.” He stepped forward and rested his arm around Adelaide’s shoulder. “I will tolerate no insults against her person.”
“And yet you will have her aunt rot in prison.”
“I am not so evil as that, even if such an end is your rightful consequence.” Richard spoke with familiar control.
“As a Christian man, I can extend my charity—but only in the form of passage on a packet ship to Canada at the very first opportunity. If you accept it, you depart from our lives forever. If you reject it, then there is little else I could or would do to avoid your debtors calling for their due. The dowry I never claimed ought to have been more than sufficient for your needs.”
Hope swirled in Adelaide’s stomach. Was this to be true deliverance at last? And how much was Richard sacrificing for her sake?
“You think yourself a good man,” mocked Aunt Dinah, “and yet you choose to banish me.”
“I am a soldier,” Richard said firmly, “there are many things I could still choose that I trust you would find far, far less desirable than a new life in a distant land.”
For a long time, Aunt Dinah seethed. Adelaide waited, uncertain of the direction of her aunt’s thoughts, yet wholly rooted in her husband’s protection.
She might have been born to a man who hurt the women in his life, but she had married one who was the entire opposite.
A good two minutes later, Aunt Dinah rose with the false poise of an aspiring gentlewoman and said, “I trust I can find accommodations here while I wait for the ticket to be arranged?”
“You trust poorly,” Richard replied. “The inn will do well enough.”
“The closest one is miles away.”
“Then it is best to begin the journey forthwith.”
“But the fare for the coach and the room—”
“Will be settled by my servants.”
“If you can but give me the amounts in coin—”
“I will do no such thing.”
Aunt Dinah’s face twisted, no doubt an insult on her tongue. But perhaps having finally understood the true hopelessness of her circumstances, she huffed and swept her way out, leaving not a single word of thanks behind.
Adelaide waited until the front door was well and truly shut before she breathed easy.
“O Richard.” She turned and burrowed into her husband’s arms. Richard embraced her readily, every bit as strong as he had been in the darkness outside that fateful assembly. “Please forgive me. I did not think that she would—”
“You acquitted yourself admirably. There is nothing to forgive.” He kissed her head.
“But to think of the audacity of her appearing here!”
“Her audacity is not your fault.”
“And the ways she tried to wheedle money out of you—”
“Adelaide.” Richard lifted her away from him just enough to meet her in the eye.
His gaze stilled her with the weight of its emotions.
“I do not care what your father did, what your mother did, what your aunt or what your endless relations do. Their faithlessness and wrongs are theirs and theirs alone.”
He swooped down and kissed her on the lips—firmly, dearly, unreservedly. Then he pulled back just enough to speak. “You will never be at fault for their choices. And their past has no part in our future.”
Adelaide sniffed. She lifted her hands to his face and tugged him close. “You love me more than I deserve.”
“No.” He kissed her again. “I can never, ever love you as much as you deserve. And we all simply have to be content with that.”
They lost themselves to their kisses, every brush of the lips a promise of a very dear future indeed. And when Richard stopped, flashed her a wicked grin, and tugged her upstairs through their clasped hands, Adelaide found that she carried in her heart not a single ounce of fear, and only joy.