Chapter 28 #2
A man stepped over the threshold, water running from his coat, his hat clutched in one gloved hand. The light from the fire caught his face. Adeline froze.
“Come in, we have two more stranded travelers here,” the vicar said, startled. “You’ll find warmth enough in this house and welcome.”
Every drop of blood in Adeline’s body seemed to drain away. It was her father. The sound of the storm receded to a single, terrible silence. Lord Harston looked around the room and found her at once.
“Adeline,” he said.
The syllables landed like claps of thunder.
The teacup slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.
Winston turned at the sound. The color in his face changed, but he did not show surprise.
Something in the stillness of his body told her what that meant.
He had known who the man was from the moment he stepped through the door.
I told him something of my past. But how? How can Winston recognize my father so readily? Do they know each other?
“Your Grace,” Lord Harston said, setting his hat aside. “I’m pleased to see you again.”
The civility was thin as paper. Winston’s bow was nothing like polite. “Harston.”
Adeline barely saw them. Her vision had narrowed to the one man she’d sworn never to face again.
He looked older. The hair at his temples had gone almost white, but the eyes were the same.
The eyes that had once looked at her mother with contempt and then, in one flash of madness, with hate so pure it had burned itself into her soul.
She saw it all again. The candlelit drawing room, the overturned chair, her mother’s hand slipping from the table’s edge, the dark stain spreading across the rug. She heard her own voice, small and useless, calling for help no one came to give. Her father took a step forward.
“You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, Adeline. Mr. Pike tells me you’ve been living under false names. You’ve been impersonating members of the peerage. That’s a crime, you know.”
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The sound of her name in his mouth filled her with the same paralyzing dread she had known as a child, the dread of footsteps in the corridor when she’d hidden beneath her bed, praying not to be found.
Winston stepped between them. “You’ve travelled far, Harston. Perhaps you’d like…”
“I’ll have words with my daughter,” Lord Harston said, his tone cutting. “In private.”
“She’s under my protection, as my employee,” Winston said evenly. “You’ll speak with me first.”
Something flickered in Harston’s eyes then, recognition of a kind, and dislike. “A protection that includes falsehood, I see. Do you know what you’ve brought into your house, Your Grace? That girl is a liar, a thief…”
“Enough.” Winston’s voice struck through the room with a resounding force.
Adeline didn’t hear the rest. She turned and ran.
The parlor door crashed against the wall, and the cold seized her at once.
The storm outside was ferocious. Rain slanted in wild sheets across the yard.
She didn’t stop to fetch a cloak or hat.
She barely knew where she was going, only that she had to get away, away from that voice, that house, that name.
Mud clung to her skirts; the wind tore at her hair. The vicar’s hedge gave way to a path that led toward the open fields beyond. She stumbled once, caught herself, and pressed on, sobbing without sound. Behind her, the door slammed again. Winston’s voice cut through the rain.
“Adeline! Stop!”
She didn’t. It wasn’t Winston’s voice she heard but her father’s, alive with rage.
“Adeline!”
His shout came nearer.
She turned, half blinded by the rain, and saw Winston, coat streaming, hair plastered to his forehead, moving with the uneven gait she’d come to recognize when his ribs pained him.
“Leave me!” she cried. “Go back!”
“Not without you.”
She tried to run again, but he caught her arm. His grip wasn’t harsh, only desperate.
“Let me go!” she said. “I can’t…he’ll…”
“He won’t touch you,” Winston said, pulling her closer so she could hear him over the storm. “You’re safe. Do you understand me? You’re safe.”
Her strength broke. “You don’t know what he is!
” she gasped. “I ran away from him. I should have told you everything when we were in the carriage together. I should have shared the truth months ago…years ago, but I couldn’t, not when you’d been so kind.
” She broke off as a sob of grief made her shoulders shake. “He killed my mother.”
The words ripped free of her. “He killed her, Winston. She tried to leave him, and he…he…” Her voice failed. “I saw it. I saw it, and I couldn’t stop him. That’s why I ran. That’s why I lied.”
Rain stung her face. She didn’t know if she was crying or if it was the storm.
“I took a false name, a false history, everything. If I’d told you who I was, you’d have sent me away.
And I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t bear it after Louisa, after your mother…
” She pressed her hands to her face. “Tell them I’m sorry.
Tell them I never meant to hurt them. I’ll go now before I do any more harm. ”
Winston took her hands from her face, steady and firm. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“I have to!”
“No,” he said, his voice low and absolute. “You’re done running. Do you hear me? You don’t need to go anywhere.”
She shook her head, trembling. “He’ll come after me. He always does.” She dared to peek around Winston’s broad shoulders. “He must be only paces behind us now.”
“Then he’ll find I’m standing in his way,” Winston said. “He can send every clerk and constable in London, and I’ll still be there. You have my word.”
She looked at him through the rain. The certainty in his face undid her.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “He’ll destroy you.”
He gave a small, grim smile. “He’s welcome to try. But I won’t let him destroy you, Adeline. Louisa’s already lost one mother. I won’t let her lose another.”
The words stopped her breath. The rain fell harder, flattening the grass, filling the air with noise.
“Don’t say that,” she said, her voice breaking. “You can’t mean…”
“I do,” he said.
He reached for her then, not with the urgency of desire but with the steadiness of a promise.
His hand came up to her cheek, rough from rain and cold.
Her lips parted, a question half-formed, and he bent to answer it.
The kiss was brief, rain-swept, tasting of salt and lightning and everything they hadn’t said.
When they parted, the storm seemed quieter for a moment, as if the world itself had drawn breath.
She leaned into him, her forehead against his shoulder, the heat of his body cutting through the chill.
He held her close until her shivering eased.
When at last they turned back toward the vicarage, the wind had begun to drop.
The lane was slick with mud, their footprints washing away as soon as they made them.
Inside, the fire burned high again. The vicar’s wife looked up in alarm as they entered, both drenched and mud-streaked. “Saints preserve us, you’ll catch your deaths!”
Winston shook his head. “We’re fine. Has…” He stopped, lowering his voice. “Has Lord Harston gone?”
The vicar stepped forward, drying his hands on a towel.
“Aye. Left not five minutes ago. In a temper, if ever I saw one. He tried to race after the two of you, but lost your trail and came back here bubbling with anger. Ordered his driver to turn the carriage round despite the rain. Wouldn’t take a bed, nor a meal.
I’d not have let him drive on, but the man was beyond reason. ”
Adeline sagged against the doorframe, weak with relief.
“He’s gone back to London, I expect,” the vicar went on. “Said something about unfinished business.”
“Let him finish it there,” Winston said quietly.
The vicar nodded. “I’ll have my wife fetch you some dry things.”
When the couple had gone to the kitchen, Winston took Adeline’s hands again. They were ice cold.
“It’s over,” he said.
She shook her head. “It can’t be that easy.”
“No,” he said. “But it’s a start.”
The thunder rolled once more, far off now, like a door closing. He led her to the fire and drew a blanket from the settle, wrapping it around her shoulders. For a long time, they said nothing. The flames hissed as rain dripped from their hair and clothes.
“I should have told you,” she said at last. “From the beginning.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But I think I’d have wanted to hear it this way, from you, not from him, not from anyone else.”
She gave a small, unsteady laugh. “You make excuses for me when I deserve none.”
“I make room,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
He reached out, brushing a strand of wet hair from her face. “Forget him, Adeline. Forget all of it. You’re safe now.”
She looked up at him, her lips trembling. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can,” he said. “And I will.”
Outside, the rain eased to a patter against the panes. The vicar’s wife reappeared with dry clothes and a tray of tea, and Adeline excused herself to change. When she returned, Winston was sitting by the fire, one hand to his ribs, his expression unreadable in the flicker of the flames.
He rose when he saw her. “You should rest,” he said.
“And you?”
“I’ll sit up awhile. The roads will clear by morning. Then we’ll go home.”
Home. The word hung between them, fragile and astonishing.
She hesitated, then said softly, “You believe all I’ve finally told you?”
“I do.”
“Even without proof?”
He smiled faintly. “Proof is for men like your father. I prefer evidence of another kind.”
He touched her hand, just once, and let it go. “Sleep now, Adeline.”
She went to the small chamber under the eaves.
The blanket on the bed smelled faintly of lavender and clean smoke.
Through the half-open door, she could see Winston still by the fire, the light painting his face in gold and shadow.
For the first time in years, she let herself believe that the storm had passed.