Chapter 14
Deliverance
Had Gideon poisoned poor Mariam, even after her many years of faithful service? Or was I the target?
Every gift my husband gave me just made me more suspicious, the maddening touch of his hands on my body only made me more convinced of his manipulative depravity.
I lay awake each night, looking at the sleeping devil beside me, for he had taken to spending nights in my room, wondering when the dark eyes would open, and I’d feel his fingers around my throat choking the life out of me.
Then Bartholomew came back on a chill and gray December day to say a few words as the servants dug a hole for Mariam's body, far out past the family burial grounds.
Ada said it was much too cold for her to attend, but I wrapped up as much as I could and followed the monk and the rest of the servants out.
To my surprise, Gideon joined too, growling angrily at Bartholomew.
"Keep it quick. My wife doesn't need to be out here much longer."
He rudely stamped his feet and snorted during the homily, and I felt red with shame at the blasphemy of it.
Despite the threats, the holy man did not rush, but took a few minutes to remember Mariam and send her on to her eternal judgment with kind words and prayers.
"And remember," Bartholomew finished, meeting my eyes, "when in times of grave need, raise your eyes to the Rock, and He will help even the broken-hearted and despairing."
How would that help? I thought disconsolately, then felt guilty for my lack of faith.
But I didn’t have any time to explain that I was still afraid my husband might want me dead.
"Enough words over this old woman," Gideon snarled, putting his hard fingers on my elbow and dragging me along behind him.
Once back inside, he insisted on me sitting next to the fire, and I was startled to feel him grasp my much tinier hands in his as he rubbed them vigorously. Ada was still at the table, a fragrant plume of steam rising from her cup, but he ignored her.
"Didn’t I make it clear you were not to talk to that man?”
“He’s a monk, Gideon. He’s celibate.”
His eyes were burning into mine, making my skin prickle.
“I don’t give a fuck. You’re carrying my child. You will obey me in this."
Up close, his heavy-lidded eyes seemed to spark with emotion, instead of his usual lazy contempt.
"I’m carrying your child and yet there’s a damn wet spot on my floor. There’s something wrong in that room. Sometimes I feel like it’s going to crumble around me! It scares me to be in there.”
“Take Ada’s,” Gideon said.
"What's this?" Ada asked coldly, her red lips leaving a mark so bright it looked like blood on the teacup. "There’s nothing wrong with that room. Or with any room in Grayspires. No building has ever had better bones. Grayspires will not fall.”
Damn. I’d fallen into a really obvious trap.
I opened my mouth but Gideon’s face had already hardened.
“You will stay where you are.”
"I—" I began, but Ada brushed aside my objections. "I have checked the room myself recently. It is fine."
"I have not seen anything amiss with Grayspires," Gideon said. "I will look in the morning."
There was silence for a moment.
"Brother Bartholomew is a ridiculous man," Ada put in coolly. "Imagine coming all the way out here to sermonize over a servant."
Stung at her words, I said, "It is his Christian duty to help all, no matter their age or status."
"Unless, of course," Ada said, "there is another reason he visits here so often."
Gideon instantly stiffened at his desk.
"What are you implying?" he asked harshly.
"I'm implying you should check the baby's hair color," Ada purred, running a hand down her elegant bodice. "Unless you don't mind raising a bastard."
"It is a lie!" I cried, feeling hot anger flood me.
Gideon regarded me steadily and I felt blood pounding in my ear as I shrank back into the sofa.
What if he believed her lies and killed me?
"Why would Ada say that if it wasn’t true?"
He rose and stalked swiftly toward me, those dark eyes boring down like metallic weights.
"I don't know! But it’s not true!”
Gideon’s hand clamped down on my leg.
"I think my little mouse would not dare to defy me. But all the same, I think you should go to bed early as punishment. I will have a plate sent up to you. Perhaps in future you will remember not to shame me by paying another man attentions."
“Maybe he is the father of my child,” I seethed, forgetting to be cautious. “You would deserve it, for having a mistress. Why don’t you put your face in her dirty cunny and stop bothering me!”
Before I could get another word out, he had picked me up by the back of my dress and was hauling me up the stairs, giving me hard spanks all around my sensitive regions as I struggled to avoid them.
“Why did you marry me?” I screamed at him as he hauled me up, one step after the other. “Why couldn’t you have fucked your mistress and left me out of it?”
Surely his arm had to get sore from reddening my bottom?
“Have you no shame?”
But as he put me down with a smirk, I knew my wicked, lying husband did not.
“Oh, poor little Deliverance. Perhaps you should’ve thought of that before opening your legs like a slut.”
“You tricked me!” I hissed.
A slow, taunting smile spread over his face.
“Yes, I did. And guess what, wife? It doesn’t matter. You are trapped here with me. I will have whatever mistresses I please and you will be forced to stay here like a good girl and take whatever I give you.”
Then he set me down firmly in my room and gave my sore bottom a little push.
“I’ll be back for that dripping wet lying little cunny whenever I please. But now Ada has been a good girl and you have not, so she gets my prick.”
With a slam of the door and a grinding of the lock, he was gone and I threw myself at the unyielding wood in despair.
What kind of life would there be for my baby here? Ada would always hate and despise my child and what would happen after I gave birth? Surely Gideon would find I had lost my usefulness as a womb and kill me then.
As I walked toward my bed, I could tell instantly that the wet spot had spread, the floor sinking beneath my toes with a soft squishy feel.
What had caused this sudden change?
I tried to edge around it as best I could, but, as I neared my bed—the floor suddenly crumbled silently away under my feet.
And I fell.
The floor opened into a massive wet cavern below me, and I slid like a wet and soggy droplet through the sopping wood, landing hard somewhere below.
And for a time I knew no more, only the persistent scent of rot in my nostrils. . .