Chapter Sixteen I Do Not Want to Be Set Free
In which a proposal is answered, a rival is dismissed, and a family learns the truth
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The room fell very still. Calie didn't even sob outright. After a moment Graham turned back from the window and crossed to the bowed golden head still resting in the deep leather chair.
"Look here," he said, kneeling beside her.
"I know you can't forgive me for this. I don't expect it — I don't deserve it.
But please don't take it so hard. I'll set it right, whatever it takes.
I'll explain everything to everyone who needs explaining to.
I'll take every ounce of blame myself, and find witnesses enough to prove it wasn't your doing. "
She looked up at him through wet lashes, sorrow and genuine surprise mingled in her face.
"But I don't blame you at all," she said. "How could I? None of it was anyone's fault — it was only the strangest run of circumstances I've ever heard of. There's nothing to forgive. And if there were, I'd forgive it gladly."
"Then what on earth has you so pale and so distressed?" he asked, with the particular helpless confusion of a man watching the woman he loves dissolve into tears he can't account for.
"Don't you know?"
"I don't. Surely you're not still grieving over that brute you nearly gave your whole life to."
She shook her head and buried her face in her hands again, and Graham watched the tears slip between her fingers as though each one landed somewhere directly on his own chest.
"Then what is it?" His voice came out sharper than he intended, and she only cried harder, her shoulders shaking now with real grief.
He laid his hand gently on her bowed head. "Won't you tell me, dear?"
The sobbing quieted. For a long moment she said nothing at all, his hand still resting light and pleading against her hair.
"It's because you married me — like this — without ever choosing to. Can't you see how terrible that is, for you?"
Graham rose from his knees as though she'd struck him.
"You needn't worry about that any longer," he said, hurt plain in his voice. "Didn't I already tell you I'd set you free? No reasonable person on earth would call you bound after everything that happened."
She went very still, as though the words had actually wounded her, then lifted her head, and her sweet eyes had gone suddenly, unexpectedly haughty.
"You mean that I should set you free," she said coolly. "I could never hold you to a mistake made under that kind of pressure, when none of it was your doing in the first place. I release you."
"However you like to put it," he said, bitter now, turning back to the window. "It comes to the same thing either way. There's nothing left for you to feel bad about."
"There is, though," she said, her composure cracking through with sudden feeling. "I'll always know I broke into your life uninvited. You've had the worst kind of ordeal because of me, and you'll never quite forget it. Nothing will be the same for you now—"
She stopped, quiet tears tracking down her face.
"No," Graham said, still bitter. "Nothing will be the same for me. I'll always see you sitting in that chair. I'll always miss you out of it. But I'm glad — glad, do you understand? I'd never have known what I was missing my whole life if this hadn't happened." The words came out almost savage.
He didn't turn around, but she was staring at him now, astonishment lighting her whole face.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked softly.
He turned fully to face her. "I mean I'll never forget you, and I don't want to. I'd rather have had these two days with you than an entire lifetime with anyone else on earth."
"Oh," she breathed. "Then why did you say what you said, about setting me free?"
"It was only because I knew that you were never mine to claim. I had put you through enough duress and sorrow. I figured that is what you wanted."
"Oh, I said I'd set you free, because I couldn't very well hold you to something you never wanted—"
"I never said I didn't want it. I said I wouldn't hold you, if you didn't want to stay."
"Do you mean," she said slowly, "that if you'd known me — just as much as you know me now — and had realized the mistake before it was too late to stop it, you would have wanted to go through with it anyway?"
She waited for his answer, breath held.
"If you'd known me the way you know me now," he answered, "and looked up during that ceremony to find it was me standing there instead of Gregory Hostetler — would you have wanted to go on and be married?"
Color rushed to her cheeks, her eyes suddenly shy.
"I asked first," she said, the smallest flicker of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
That flicker undid him entirely. He came to her, his whole face opening with dawning understanding.
"Darling," he said, "I'll answer more than you even asked.
From the very first moment I saw your face under that white veil, I wished with everything in me that I'd known you before any other man ever had the chance to.
When you turned and looked at me with all that sorrow in your eyes, something in me pledged itself to fight for you on the spot.
I was yours from that instant, whether either of us understood it yet.
And when your hand was placed in mine, my whole heart went out wanting it to stay there forever.
I understand now, in a way I didn't at the time, that the real reason I never spoke up wasn't fear of the scene it would cause — it was that some part of me was already fighting to keep what had been given to me out of nowhere.
Genesis 2:24 — "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
" I believe that happened to me the moment your hand closed around mine, whatever confusion surrounded it.
You are my wife, by every law that matters, if your heart will only say yes.
I love you in a way I didn't know a man could love anyone.
And if you truly want to be free of me, I'll let you go — but I'll tell you honestly, I'll never be the same man again, because some part of me is married to you now and always will be.
Look up, darling, and give me your answer. "
He stood before her, arms open, and she rose slowly, eyes downcast, and came to him.
"I don't want to be set free," she said.
He gathered her close, gentle as though she might break, and pressed his lips to hers.
After what felt like only seconds, Calie drew in a startled breath. “What about the wedding license? Doesn’t it have George’s name on it?”
“It probably does,” Graham said softly. “We’ll get it corrected at the courthouse. It won’t take long, I promise.”
He gathered her close, his arms settling around her with quiet certainty. “Everything’s alright,” he murmured, letting his calm steady her as he rested his cheek against her hair.
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It was the shrill clang of the telephone that finally broke the spell. Graham let it ring a long moment before its insistence won out, and, keeping Calie tucked close against his side, went to answer it.
The imperious voice of Judy Bristol reached him from the other end, and Calie felt his whole body go stiff and formal against her.
"Miss Bristol — good morning. Your message, yes — I only just got in—" A pause, during which Calie handed him the note she'd taken down that morning, her heart pounding.
"Yes, I have it. Very kind of you to think of me, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline.
No, truly — I have another engagement." His arm tightened around Calie's waist, and he caught her hand, pressing it with unmistakable meaning, a small grin flickering toward the receiver that made Calie's heart lift entirely.
"I beg your pardon, I didn't quite catch that....
Give up the engagement and come instead?
Not possibly." His voice rang with a bright, decisive certainty, and his grip on her fingers tightened further.
"I'm sorry you feel that way about it. I'm certainly not trying to be difficult.
No, tomorrow night won't work either. I can't make any firm plans just now — I may have to leave town again, possibly back to New York, business has been unusually demanding.
I'm sorry to disappoint you. No, of course not on purpose.
" He glanced down at Calie with open, undisguised love.
"I'll have some rather pleasant news to share, next time I see you — or perhaps I'll find a way to let you know before that. "
Color rose and fell in Calie's cheeks. She understood exactly what he meant, and pressed closer against him.
"No, it's not the kind of thing that goes well over a telephone line. It'll keep — good things generally do, if they're looked after properly. I really can't tonight. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Good-bye."
He hung up with a long, relieved breath.
"Who is Miss Bristol?" Calie asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice, secretly pleased he hadn't once called the woman by her first name.
"A friend, I suppose you'd call her. She's taken up rather more of my time this past year than I really cared for.
She's a perfectly nice person — you'll probably like her well enough — but I hope you two never grow too close.
I don't think I could stand having her constantly underfoot.
She—" he paused, laughing, "she wears on a man. "
"I was worried, from her tone, that she might be someone you truly cared for. There was a — a certain ownership in her voice."