Chapter 25 #2
“I know.” She pulled him into her arms. He resisted for a heartbeat — a final holdout of pride — before his forehead thudded against her shoulder and his hands fisted in the fabric of her dress.
“I know you did. And I am so proud of you, Oliver, so proud of the man you are becoming. But you can be a boy now. You can let someone else carry the weight.”
“Lord Westmore.” The name was a muffled vibration against her shoulder, thick and heavy with the tears he was finally letting fall.
“Yes.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, breathing in the familiar scent of wood shavings and youth.
A long pause followed. She could feel him gathering himself, the rise and fall of his breath as courage built for the question he needed to ask.
“Will he —” Oliver pulled back just enough to look at her face, his eyes red-rimmed but fierce. His throat worked around the words. “He won’t hurt you? He won’t — change?”
The question broke something loose inside her chest. He did not know the details. He did not know Gabriel’s name or what that man had done. But he knew, the way children always know, that something had happened to his mother before he existed. Something that left marks he could feel but never see.
“He won’t.” She cupped his face in her hands, holding his gaze. “I promise you. I would never marry a man who would hurt us. Never.”
“I know.” Oliver drew a shaky breath, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin throat. “I just — I wanted to make sure.”
“I know, love. I know.” She brushed a stray tear from his cheek with her thumb, pretending not to notice it.
He straightened his shoulders, pulling himself together with visible effort — bracing himself, deciding to be brave.
“I still want to do it.” His chin lifted, stubborn and proud, and he wiped his face roughly with the back of his hand. “Walk you down the aisle. Give you away. Properly. The way it should be done.”
Nell’s eyes burned. She blinked, but the tears escaped anyway, sliding hot down her cheeks. “Then you will.” A knot of emotion tightened in her throat, making the words struggle to surface. “I would be honoured. Truly.”
“Good.” He nodded once, sharp and decisive, like they were discussing something as simple as what to have for supper. Then he yanked his knife free from the table, grabbed an apple from the bowl, and disappeared out the back door.
He left her alone with her tears and her half-kneaded bread and the fierce, aching love that threatened to split her chest wide open.
One week.
One week until she would walk down that aisle on her son’s arm and marry a man who looked at her like she was something precious.
She couldn’t quite believe it was real.
It was a Tuesday morning, one week before the wedding.
The air was bright and bitter, winter settled deep into the bones of Hampshire.
Frost had crept across the windows overnight, forming lacy patterns that caught the first light.
Nell’s breath fogged in the early hours before she got the ovens going, before warmth filled the shop and chased away the chill.
She opened the shop alone. Daphne was running errands, seeking fabric for her maid-of-honor dress and salt from the merchant three streets over.
A dozen small tasks had accumulated in the chaos of preparations.
The children were at their lessons with the vicar’s wife, conjugating Latin verbs and practicing their penmanship.
The shop was quiet and peaceful, while the smell of fresh bread filled the room.
Nell was humming again.
It was indeed strange to be happy.
The ring caught the morning light as she shaped the loaves, the small ruby winking like it held secrets. One week until she would be Lady Westmore. One week until she would stand before God and the village and promise herself to a man who had knelt in the mud and asked for her hand.
The thought still didn’t feel real.
She thought about Dominic as she worked, her hands moving through the familiar rhythm of shaping dough.
She remembered last night, when he’d come to the shop after closing, letting himself in with the key she’d given him weeks ago.
He’d pressed her against the wall in the back room and kissed her until her knees buckled, until her fingers tangled in his hair and her body arched into his.
“I want our wedding night to mean something.” He’d murmured the words against her throat, his breath hot on her skin while his hands gripped her hips. “I want to do this properly. Court you. Marry you. Make love to you as my wife.”
“You are killing me.” She’d gasped the reply, half-laughing and half-desperate, her head falling back against the wall.
“Good.” He’d pulled back with a wicked grin, straightening his coat as if he hadn’t just reduced her to a trembling mess. “Suffer a little. I have been suffering for months.”
He was a stubborn, impossible, and maddening man.
She loved him. She loved him so much it terrified her.
The bell above the door jangled.
Nell looked up with a smile, ready to greet whichever neighbor had braved the cold for fresh bread.
The smile died on her face.
A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and broad, dressed in travel-worn clothes that had seen better days. Dust coated his boots, mud splattered his coat, and his hat was pulled low over his eyes, casting his face in shadow.
She didn’t recognize him at first. He seemed like just another stranger passing through, perhaps looking for a warm meal and directions to the next town.
Then he stepped into the light.
The right side of his face was the same. It was the face she remembered from seventeen, from foolish promises and secret vows. His dark hair was threaded with grey now, and he possessed a sharp jaw and that mouth that had whispered love and screamed curses in equal measure.
The left side of his face was a ruin.
She saw it in pieces because her mind refused to take it whole.
The jaw first—that sharp jaw she remembered—warped now beneath a knot of scar tissue that twisted from chin to temple, the skin pulled taut and shining like melted tallow.
The colour was wrong. Mottled white and livid pink where the flesh had fused back together, and beneath it, ridges she could not look at and could not look away from.
His left eye had been dragged downward at the corner, the lid sealed nearly shut by the same rippled scarring, and what remained of his ear was a gnarled stub—the fire had taken it almost to the skull.
His hairline on that side was eaten away in ragged patches, the scalp beneath it smooth and tight and wrong.
He was half a man and half a monster. The fire had split him down the middle, leaving enough of the handsome face she remembered to mock her while the other half bore witness to what she had left him to.
It screamed of what she’d left him to.
Gabriel Hyde was very much alive.
The room tilted. The bread paddle slipped from her nerveless fingers, clattering against the counter loud as a gunshot. She grabbed the edge of the wood to stay upright, her knuckles going white and her vision narrowing to a single, impossible point.
That face. That ruined, impossible face.
“Hello, Eleanor.” Gabriel removed his hat, letting her see the full horror of the damage. His good eye glittered with sharp, calculated malice. “You look well.”
She couldn’t speak. Her lungs seemed to have forgotten their basic function as she stared at the specter standing in her shop.
He smiled—a gesture that pulled at his scars and stretched the ruined flesh until the right side of his mouth curved upward and the left remained frozen by the old damage.
“Nothing to say?” He stepped further inside, his boots thudding heavy on the floor.
The door swung shut behind him, the bell jangling with a cheerful, obscene ring.
“You used to have so much to say, Eleanor. Before you learned better.”
“You are dead.” The words scraped out of her, raw and broken. She gripped the counter so hard her knuckles turned the colour of bone. “You died in the fire. They found a body —”
“That wasn’t mine.” He shrugged one shoulder, the movement pulling at the scarred skin of his neck.
“Some vagrant who had frozen in the alley. Wrong place, wrong time. I just —” He spread his hands, palms up, casual as the morning weather.
“Made use of him. You know how the authorities were looking for me.”
Made use of him. He’d dragged a dead man’s body into a burning house and let everyone believe—let her believe for nine long years—that he was ash.
“You let me think you were dead.” Nell hated the way her frame shuddered, betrayal and fear bleeding through her defences despite every effort to hold them back.
“You seemed happier that way.” A sneer twisted the unscarred half of his face as he moved closer, his presence swelling until the small shop felt like a cage.
“Running off. Changing your name. Building your little bakery. Being a widow.” He curled his lip as though the very word were a foul taste.
“Did you mourn me, Eleanor? Did you wear black and weep?”
“I survived.” Anger surged hot and fierce through the shock, and she straightened her spine, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I survived you.”
“Survived.” A harsh laugh scraped out of him. He jabbed a twisted finger toward his melted cheek. “Look at what you left me with. Nine years I have worn this face because my own wife left me to die in flames.”
“You were beating me.” Her voice rose, vibrating with fury and terror. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “You were going to kill me. You found my bag, my money, and you —”
“I was teaching you.” He cut her off, his expression going bone-dry and empty—the same hollow stillness she remembered from the worst nights. “Teaching you your place. And you ran.”
He was close now, far too close. She could smell road dust and sweat and something sour underneath.