Chapter 18
Deliverance
My husband’s powerful arm came down on the gate with the horsewhip, a terrifically loud clang that fairly rattled my teeth.
"Open this gate!" he roared, hopping off his frothing horse and jerking on the metal bars. “Immediately! That is my wife.”
My legs trembled.
What if Bartholomew obeyed him?
The massive charger stamped its hooves, flanks slick with sweat.
The monk only put an arm around my waist, dragging me further from Gideon's grasping fingers as they strained through the bars.
But his arm was too big, the bars too narrow.
"My lord, this woman has begged for shelter and protection from St. Mary's Abbey and we are bound to help her."
Gideon's jaw looked like hardened granite as he kicked at the lock of the gate with heavy boots, like he would keep going until he broke it open. There was a muscle throbbing under his dark beard.
"Fool! Imbecile! You cannot keep my wife from me! Legally she is my property and I can do as I please with her!"
"I’m not staying there for you to murder me!" I cried.
His eyes narrowed and he stalked as close as he could, his strong fingers gripping the bars so hard each individual vein stood out.
“I am not going to murder you. I’m the one who rescued you, Deliverance. I could have sent you to the whorehouse, but instead I protected you. And this is the godsdamn thanks I get.”
But the bars in between us emboldened me.
“You seduced and tricked me. I think you only wanted a well-bred womb for your babies. You don’t care about me.”
I felt Bartholomew’s hand gently laid on my arm.
“No,” he said. “I’m afraid he wanted more than your womb. Mr. Nightshade married you for your money.”
“But I have no money,” I protested.
“Oh, Deliverance,” the monk said, his kind, handsome face creased in concern. “I’m afraid you were lied to. You do have a lot of money. In fact, you are an heiress. A fact Mr. Nightshade was naturally very anxious to hide from you.”
Blood rushed in my ears and I could hear Gideon viciously cursing but it seemed to come from a great distance.
“There’s no connection between our families, is there?”
It explained so much.
It explained his “kindness” in rescuing me from the poorhouse.
It explained why he took me away from Gables so quickly, before I could discover the truth.
It also explained why he had manipulated me into raising my skirts for him.
And it explained why Ada kept taunting me with the hope he’d kill me. That had obviously been the original plan until I got pregnant.
“Well, you can’t kill me now, Gideon Nightshade,” I said triumphantly.
“Fuck you!” my husband spat at Bartholomew. “Deliverance, surely you can’t think I truly want to kill you.”
“Was or was that not the original plan?” I demanded.
“It was,” my corrupt and vicious husband agreed without blinking a wicked eye. “But that hasn’t been my plan for a long time.”
He hesitated, those eyes boring into mine. His white shirt was stuck to his powerful chest with sweat.
“I don’t believe you,” I taunted. If my husband was manipulative, I could be manipulative too, so I made sure to cradle my belly, pull my cloak tight against it so he could see the whole ripe swell of me. “And now we’ve gone where you can’t get us.”
"I think you need to leave," Bartholomew told him firmly.
"Never!" my husband snarled. "You think this has stopped me? I will bring the entire town of St. Mary’s down around your ears before I let her go."
He was so angry, his fury crackling around him like a burning fire. Even with the iron bars between us, I couldn’t repress a little shiver, a sudden throbbing between my thighs.
"He is an evil man," I said as Bartholomew began to guide me gently away from where Gideon was still rattling the bars.
He had struck them senselessly so many times blood was beginning to run down his palms.
"Deliverance! Deliverance! Come back to me! Get your hands off my wife, you bastard!"
The bars shook again, and Gideon's eyes were two burning coals in his face, like gaping openings to hell.
My skin tingled in the strangest way at the look in his face, and I suppressed the wicked feelings I knew were wrong—they would pass once I got some space between us.
But I could not seem to turn away from my husband, even as I stumbled backwards, his power extended like massive, ugly tentacles toward me.
If not for Bartholomew, I would have been lost forever, swamped, captured, drowned under Gideon's power.
The priest guided me to his home, a small cottage in the shadow of the massive St. Mary's Abbey above us, and he began to put the kettle on to boil, crooning softly as he put my feet into hot water and wrapped a quilt around me.
The dandelion and hibiscus tea warmed me by degrees and as my shivering gradually subsided I realized Bartholomew was pacing up and down the stones of his kitchen.
"I pray the Bishop will not make me give you back to your husband," he said, running a hand through his disordered locks. "He is quite right that the church has no legal authority to keep you from your husband."
His normally handsome face was drawn and lined with worry, but there was something in the humble earthy taste of the tea that gave me strength.
"Well, what if I can’t be found here?" I asked boldly.
"Why, what do you mean?"
"I mean if Gideon goes and demands this Bishop make you give me back, then I can’t be found here. St. Mary’s never opened her doors to a fleeing wife. But if there was a new young monastic novitiate, he could never be turned over to the Bishop, could he?”
Bartholomew’s jaw dropped.
"But–well–you’re pregnant! And your hair! Deliverance, you would never pass for a boy with that glorious head of hair.”
With one hand, I reached behind me and defiantly pulled out my updo, so the long, thick hair spilled down my back.
“Cut it.”
“I couldn’t–and besides, that would be a sin–”
“You can. The Bishop won’t look that closely. Why should he?”
“But–”
My poor sweet Bartholomew still looked very much shocked, and I strode to his drawers in the kitchen, soon finding a sharp enough blade. I gathered up a fistful of hair and then made one sharp, vicious slice with the knife.
Swish
It was choppy and uneven, but my hair landed all in a big golden pile on the ground.
Perhaps I am as vicious as he, I thought, but I resolutely pushed it away. If Gideon was ruthless, so would I be.
“Well–” Bartholomew began reluctantly. “If you weren't his wife, you know, you could very well be, well, anyone else. Someone who we could shelter."
"I would love that!" I said eagerly. "I could get a job here at St. Mary's."
"A job would not be suitable for such a fine lady--" he protested, but I shook my head firmly.
"I would earn my keep like anyone else. What should my new name be? Brother Brendan? Telemachus? Frederich?”
"Well, never mind," he smiled. "You must sleep for now."
Gently, the monk led me to the bed.
"I’ll sleep by the fire."
I started to protest, but after all my exertions, and in my delicate state, I felt so exhausted that I allowed my eyes to close.
There was something comforting in knowing Bartholomew was there, and that he had come for me.
Even though I was only in a little wooden bed, with rough sheets smelling a bit like smoke and wood, it was the soundest sleep I had since Papa died.
But we were awoken early by a pounding at the door so loud I jerked to my feet and fear instantly pulsed hot and cold under my skin.
"Open up!" roared Gideon's familiar voice.