Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
From my earliest moments, I have understood my home is both a blessing and a curse. My father, Elliot, died before I was brought into the world, and my mother never fully healed from his loss.
My mother was a kind but broken woman. One I never actually got to know.
Oh, she was here, all right. She called Foxglove home until the day she died, but she didn’t leave the bed most days.
It was my mother’s cousin who raised me—Rachel.
Who fed me and my mother along with her own daughters, who made sure I knew how to mend my dresses and prepare a meal.
Long before the sadness took my mother from me, I knew the price of Foxglove’s secrets and just how heavy her weight can be.
Because of all I’ve lost, because the rules have been hammered into my bones from the time I took my first step, the moment I bring Jonah to live at Foxglove, my hackles are raised, and my world flips on its head.
I do not feel safe here, though I should. I feel in danger of my own tongue, of whatever cruel fate it might condemn him to, this man I love.
I’m thinking of this as I stare at him sitting next to me, our legs brushing on the sofa as the fire crackles in front of us, warming us on this chilly night. Snow covers the ground outside of Foxglove—has for many a night now—and the chill has set into my bones.
He has this way of looking at me—through me—as if he can see everything inside of me, my brain and my thoughts. My heart and my fears. That’s how he’s looking at me now, innocent and kind as ever as he watches me in the firelight.
And it’s because of this, because he makes me let my guard down so, my own heart betrays me. Love and Foxglove do not mix, and I know this. I just wish I didn’t.
He touches a hand to my growing stomach, to the babe inside my womb. “Just think of what our little lad will get up to in this place. In the meadow catching frogs and sword fighting with his shadow.”
“She’ll be a little girl,” I tell him, the words slipping out without thought. That’s all it takes, and I know this. I have known this.
He leans away from me, a peculiar look on his face. “How could you know?” He smiles up at me so brightly it hurts, trusts me so much it hurts.
I swallow hard. “I didn’t mean anything by it. My family always have girls first, that’s all.”
“We may break the spell, then,” he says with a wink, and the word seeps into me like water into soil.
My lips are tight as I force a smile. “Perhaps.”
My mother’s warnings, the images of her wasting away in her bed flash into my mind like lightning. Like thunder.
No man must ever know Foxglove’s secrets.
I swore to myself I would never make her mistakes, that I would never fall in love, never let my guard down.
And yet here I am, so painfully in love it drips off of me like sweat.
And for the first time, I understand why she broke the rules and told my father.
I understand the feeling of wanting to be so close to someone you think about cracking your ribs open and sliding them inside of you.
“A little girl will be all right,” he promises, kissing my cheek. “A daughter to tend to the house and keep us fed. A girl with her mother’s eyes.”
“And your smile,” I agree.
“And then more. The bigger the better, I say. Eight or nine, likely. As many girls as you desire, but we’ll need a boy or two to pass along my charm, as well as our name and this house.
” He crosses his hands together behind his head, leaning back in his seat.
“I’m willing to try as many times as is necessary, so long as you don’t mind. ”
My breath goes steely. “Oh. Foxglove will stay with our daughters.” We haven’t spoken about this, though we should have. I’ve been so petrified about telling him the wrong things that I haven’t told him any of the right ones.
He leans his head to the side, curiosity glimmering in his dark eyes. “What on earth do you mean?”
I hesitate to answer. Not for fear of him—Jonah would never lay a harsh hand on me—but for fear of how to answer. I feel as if I’m walking on the tightest rope and a fall in either direction will destroy everything.
“Foxglove belongs to the Wilde women. It will pass from my name to our daughters’, should the Lord bless us with them.”
His jaw hangs open as he stares at me, bewildered. “Darling, you are my wife. Foxglove is as much mine as it is yours. And it will be our sons’.”
“Foxglove is not the same as other houses. Other homes. It belongs to daughters only. That’s the way it has always been and how it must stay.”
The warmth of his expression dries up like a puddle in the afternoon sun. “You must know no gentleman would ever agree to such an arrangement. What will they think of me?”
“I should think it doesn’t concern any ‘they’ of which you speak.
Your concern should be with your wife.” I take his hand and place it on my stomach again.
“With your daughter. We should’ve spoken about this already, and for that I apologize.
But I’m afraid I can’t budge on this, and I’d ask you not to press the issue. For both our sakes.”
He pulls his hand back from me, but not roughly so. “You’re a madwoman, and I love you. We’ll discuss this more tomorrow. Once you’re not so tired.”
“I am not tired.” Panic seizes my lungs as I realize what I’ve done.
How could I have been so foolish? How have I let this happen?
“I beg you to let this go, Jonah. Foxglove is your home as long as I am breathing, but it will be mine until it is your daughter’s.
And her daughter’s after that. Our sons may stay, and their families, too.
We’ve always been able to make room. But Foxglove belongs to the Wilde women. Please just say you understand.”
His eyes dance between mine. “You speak of this house as if it is a breathing entity, not a pile of stones.”
The moment the words leave his mouth, the breath deflates from my lungs.
Something sparks in the darkest depths of his eyes, an understanding that brings me pure terror.
For it is not only understanding I see—it is something far more dangerous.
Something hungry rests there, a monster that I have awoken.
It stretches its back and yawns at me, ready.
“You know, my father warned me of the whispers he’s heard about your family, but I chose not to believe it because I loved you. Love you. But you must tell me, Hester, and you must tell me now. Is this magic you speak of? With the house? With our daughter? Is what they say about the Wildes true?”
My breath is like frozen fog, so cold in my chest I can’t quite catch it. Magic. The word feels strange. Wrong. There is no magic in this house, not in the way he means. What we have is different, but no less powerful. It is a love for the land and the way it loves us back.
It is a bond for which we have no name.
My heart races something wild against my ribs as I hold his gaze, trying to make sense of what he’s asking. I cannot tell if he understands the weight of this moment, of what he’s doing. I do not know where Foxglove draws the line, but I know I must lie and lie well.
“Don’t be patronizing,” I say, stroking his shoulder. “The only magic that exists in this house is this babe growing strong in my belly.”
His smile is soft, but the hunger hasn’t faded. The beast in his gaze is still wide awake. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If there was something to know?”
I nod, pulling my lip into my mouth. “’Course I would.”
He looks away from me then, toward the hearth, but the panic is already spreading through my bones and flesh. My body knows what my heart doesn’t want to accept.
It is already too late. Even without my saying a word, Foxglove’s secrets—my secrets—have entered his mind. I let him into my heart and this house, and I fear doing so has sentenced him to an early grave, just like my pa.
The conversation dies in uneasy silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Later in bed, we say good night with a quiet kiss, and as he lies sleeping peacefully beside me, I tell myself everything will be okay. That he doesn’t know anything, not really. That I did what I was supposed to do.
But the next day, he’s different. And the next. A week goes by, and I know something has changed at the very core of our marriage. Jonah is distant. He stays out late into the night, and when he returns, it’s often he’s been drinking.
His eyes are hazy when they meet mine, and I still see the beast there, lurking and waiting, no longer asleep, no longer tired. His voice becomes cautious, ready for something I do not understand.
I keep waiting—for what I do not know. For him to ask again, to push for answers that will take his life. But he doesn’t. He just smiles that Jonah smile and tells me good night.
Weeks pass and nothing happens. We settle into a normal that is not quite our own, but not quite new.
This morning, when he needs to go into the village, he kisses my cheek, and I stroke Jewell’s mane while he saddles her up. I wave goodbye to them without much care. My worries have started to wane.
When two days pass with him still gone, fear returns with a vengeance, gnawing away in my stomach. I remember the stories passed down from mother to daughter, of men arriving, of accusations and torches.
I worry they will come for me. That he will tell them what he suspects, and they will believe him because he is a man, and I am but a stupid woman.
Then there is a knock.
When I open the door, it is a man from the village who awaits me, with a face I barely recognize. He does not carry a torch, nor is he traveling with a horde of men. He is alone, and he wears a grim expression on his wrinkled face.
“Mrs. Wilde.” He pulls his hat off his head and places it over his heart, his voice trembling slightly.
He doesn’t need to utter another sound, for I know in an instant what words will come.
“I hate to bring this news to ya, on a Sunday no less. Your husband, Jonah, well they found him late last night, ma’am. Dead.”
My fingers turn to ice as I squeeze them against my skirt. I can’t summon a single word.
“They don’t know what happened. He was in the woods, just outside of the village.”
The earth beneath my feet seems to swing this way and that, and I take a small step away from him, grabbing onto the door to keep from falling over.
In front of me the man is still talking, but for the life of me, I can’t understand what he’s saying.
His words blur together, silenced by the blood rushing in my ears, as loud as a raging rapid.
I find my senses again as his words come back into focus.
“The reverend said it looked like the animals had gotten to him before he was found. He was…” He ducks his head. “Forgive me, Mistress, but he was torn apart. I can let his family know, if you need. His father is a good friend.”
I think I nod, but I can’t be sure. My legs below me are as liquid as broth, and the walls are holding their breath, closing in.
Eventually, the man leaves, though I don’t recall sending him away. When night falls, I sit in Foxglove’s kitchen, drinking my tea with trembling hands.
The world feels terribly lonely, terribly silent. In my belly, my daughter moves, as if to tell me I’m not alone. Someday I will tell her why she is wrong. Why life as a Wilde woman will always be lonely.
I don’t sleep for two more days, except for fits of exhaustion here and there. I sit and I drink my tea, thinking of my mother, wondering if her pain felt this sharp.
I watch the fire as it dances, casting shadows that look strangely like women, and I imagine they are the women long gone from this place—women who knew better than to trust. Women who lived, loved, and lost in the belly of this house—a mother’s womb meant to protect and hold us.
Though for some, the grip could be too tight.
Someday I will smile again. For my daughter, if no one else. I won’t waste away like my mother, I promise myself that.
But for now, silent tears fall down my cheeks, and I don’t dare dry them. These tears feel sacred, necessary. I cry for my mother, and for myself, and for a home I will never be allowed to share.