Chapter 22 #2
“Winston,” she began, and the name came more easily than she expected, “I need to tell you something.”
He studied her, eyes open and without barrier. “You don’t have to. I have no right to pester. It is only that I want to know. But what I want and what I am entitled to are different things.”
“You do have a right to know. You are my employer, and I am the reason you are swathed in bandages.”
Winston grimaced. “I have had worse falling from my horse.”
Adeline raised an eyebrow, and he grinned.
“Almost,” he said.
That smile, so rare, was not a ray but a blaze of sunshine. It was impossible to ignore or resist. He radiated when he smiled like that. Winston was glowing and it was infectious.
“You’ve been honest with me. I owe you the same,” Adeline said, even as she prepared another lie.
I’m sorry, Winston. Perhaps one day I will be able to tell you everything, but this is not it.
She drew a breath. “The man I told you was my fiancé; he wasn’t only unkind. He was violent. Controlling. My father…refused to help. He called it my fault. Then, to add insult to injury, he jilted me.”
Winston said nothing, but his jaw tightened.
His eyes narrowed. Adeline thought that he would look the same whether he was angry at her fictitious fiancé or seeing through her story.
It sent a chill down her spine, thinking that she was about to lose her position and be banished.
She might never see Winston again. Or Louisa.
Or Cordelia. The names appeared in her regret in that order.
“I ran. I thought I’d escaped him. But he’s found me again. He’s sent letters, accusing me of theft, of fraud, of things I never did. He says he’ll bring charges if I don’t return to him.”
He pushed himself slightly up on the pillow, wincing. “Has he hurt you since?”
“No.” She clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. “But he could. He’s clever enough to make lies sound true. If the authorities believed him, there’s little I could do. He has money. I don’t.”
“Does he know you’re here? Was the letter from him?”
No, it was from Robert Grebe telling me that my time is running out.
“No, as I said, that was from an…”
“Acquaintance, yes, I remember. And this man knows you are a resident here. His letter was hand-delivered.”
“Yes.”
“So, your old friend is male,” Winston said softly.
Adeline had been wiping her eyes. Her head whipped up and she found his blue eyes shrouded by approaching storms.
“I did not say that. Does it matter?”
“No. I know I should not comment,” Winston said slowly. “Only…”
Adeline waited.
He set a trap for me! He does not believe me.
Her heart crumbled. Pieces broke away and melted. Louisa. Winston. The life of Miss Adeline Wilkinson, Lady-In-Waiting. The streets of London would be her only refuge once she was cast out. Robert Grebe would find her. Lord Harston, her father, would seize her, too.
“I thought perhaps it was from…”
The knock at the door was soft, the kind to alert someone sitting vigil without waking the patient. Soft or not, Winston’s mouth snapped shut. Cordelia’s head appeared around the door.
“Winston, you’re awake!” she exclaimed in a whisper.
She came in, blithely unaware of causing an interruption. Adeline found herself wishing for a few more seconds. Enough for Winston to finish his sentence.
From whom? Who does he fear is writing to me?
“Yes, I am well, Mother. How is Louisa?”
“Exhausted. I persuaded her to try to sleep, but she was certain it was not for her. But sleep had other ideas. Once she was assured that you were in no danger, she could not withstand it. I am on the cusp of surrendering myself. You do not know the fright it caused when that carriage raced up with the two of you inside. How you got so far away from the theater is beyond me!”
The babble was impossible to resist or interrupt.
She continued until breath gave out. Adeline knew her well enough to know the genuine panic that had gripped the old woman’s heart.
She rose and ushered Cordelia to the seat she had just vacated.
Cordelia sat, flapping her handkerchief as though it were a fan.
“The crowds carried us away,” Winston said.
“And I seem to have developed a terror of such confined environments,” Adeline added.
“And then there is your fiancé. I know, I know, little storm-bird. You were quite concerned about bumping into him,” Cordelia replied.
“Yes. I want to assure you, Miss Wilkinson,” Winston said, formally, “he will not be able to touch you. Not while you are under my roof.”
“Or mine,” Cordelia announced, reaching for Adeline’s hand and clasping it. “Well said, Winston.”
Her eyes filled before she could stop them. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of.”
“I understand men who think the world owes them obedience,” he said quietly. “I grew up among them. I won’t let one near you.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You should rest.”
“I will, once you promise you’ll stay where I can find you.”
The words were simple, almost teasing, but his gaze held her fast. She nodded.
“Good.”
He exhaled and sank back against the pillows.
“Then perhaps I’ll sleep again. The doctor said rest is the best cure, though I suspect he’s never tried it with cracked ribs.”
Adeline managed a small smile. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
He gave a faint nod, already drifting toward sleep. When his breathing deepened, she stood quietly watching the rise and fall of his chest. The house was still, the city beyond the window faintly alive with distant wheels and muffled voices.
She touched the edge of the sheet, smoothing a crease that wasn’t there. The guilt had eased, though not vanished. His pain was the cost of her fear, yet his forgiveness, his calm certainty, felt like a light breaking through the closed rooms of her past.
“You are part of this family, whether as Lady-In-Waiting or governess,” Cordelia whispered, “or in any other capacity. We will protect you.”
Adeline had almost forgotten the other woman’s presence.
She was flustered for a moment, not knowing what to say, trying to relocate herself in the moment of the story that Cordelia was in.
The Dowager Duchess had half-turned in her seat and was looking at Adeline with a peculiar expression. Inquisitive and…knowing.