Chapter Sixteen #3
He steps over the threshold, eyes moving over her home with a scrutiny that makes her skin crawl. “A nice little place you have here,” he comments, but there’s nothing more than southern courtesy behind it.
Anna’s lived here long enough to learn the game. “Thank you kindly,” she says, handing him his glass. “I’m quite happy with it.”
He takes a long drink, draining the cup by half before patting the excess away from his mustache with a handkerchief. “It’s quite a ways out. I don’t reckon I realized how far removed you are.”
“It is,” she agrees. “I enjoy the quiet.”
He spots her half-prepared peaches on the table, plucking a slice from the decorative china bowl and plopping it in his mouth. “Mm, these from the Harlow’s place?”
Irritation flares, prickling and hot, but it’s nothing in the face of the fear she can feel beneath her feet. She knows each and every one of them are listening, hands over their mouths to stifle the sound of their breathing. “Yes, sir, they are.”
Mr. Abel nods, as if he knew it all along.
“You know, I’ve always found theirs to be the sweetest.” He picks up one of the whole peaches, turning it in his hands for her to see.
“Something tender about the flesh. Course, the missus swears up and down that the Carlton’s are better.
” His pale eyes pin her. “Have you had one of them Carlton peaches yet?”
Dread pools in her stomach, a foreboding weight. “I can’t say that I have.”
He hums. “Shame bout them Carltons. They’ve been having a problem with a lot of their slaves running as of late. Catchers keep losing them once they hit the swamp. They’re not too far from you, you know, the Carltons. Just a hop, skip, and a jump, really.”
“That so?” Anna’s hands fold in her apron, the picture of calm. “Can’t say I’ve ever really stopped to think about it. It’s so far to get anywhere, what with the road the way it is. I suppose everyone feels farther out than they are.”
“Of course, of course,” he says, nodding.
He places the peach back among its brethren, meaty hands gripping the edge of her table.
“You know, I must say, Miss Lydia, you should know now that it’s not proper for a pretty lady like yourself to be out here all alone.
Why don’t you move on into town? I hear Mr. Hastings is looking for a new nanny. ”
“Thank you, sir, but I am happy where I am.”
“That so?” His eyes drag across the room. “You know, there’s rumors going around.”
“Rumors,” she echoes. “Of what sort?”
“People are saying you’ve been buying an awful lot of food. A whole lot more than what one little lady needs.”
Anna arranges her face into her most disarming smile. “Yes, I try to do my part by sending food to the orphanage.”
A partial truth. She does donate to the orphanage, but not all of it—just enough to act as a cover for this very moment.
On the table, his knuckles go white. “Do you think I’m stupid?” The words are low, a growl in his throat, and Anna realizes her situation is worse than she believed.
“No! Of cour—”
His voice rises over hers. “I am a generous man, as is Mr. Hastings. We can forgive a lady her sentimental weaknesses, but only if you come clean and tell me where you’re hiding them.”
She holds her ground—holds her head high instead of cowering.
“There’s no one else here.” With an agitated flick of her hand, she gestures to the back of her cabin where the only two rooms—a washroom and a bedroom—hide behind doors.
“You’re welcome to check, indecent as it is for a gentleman to go searching about a woman’s private quarters. ”
His jaw works, a blue vein in his neck throbbing under his stiff collar. “Fine,” he spits. “Lead the way.”
Lips thinning, she doesn’t try to hide her irritation, but she turns towards the hall. The faster he finds it empty, the faster he’ll leave.
Except she doesn’t make it two steps before his hands are at her back, pushing her face first against the wall with bruising force, his large body pinning her in place.
“Get off me!” she screams. She tries to kick him, tries to catch his ribs with her elbows, but he’s too close and all she manages is grazing blows.
His hand is fisted in her hair, meaty fingers curling like hooks and pulling at her scalp.
She could call for help. Silas is under the floorboards.
Her firearm is in the same closet as the trap door.
He’d come to her rescue if she called out for help.
But she can’t.
Because even if Silas were to shoot him dead, the result would be the same as if he walked away. The authorities would come. The safe house would be compromised.
She’s on her own. She has to be.
Her heel slams down on his foot and he curses. Anna doesn’t care, she keeps thrashing. Keeps fighting. “Get off me or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he hisses, breath hot and panting in her ear. “Tell the town? Who will believe you didn’t deserve it?”
She feels his hands rake up her skirts and her efforts double.
Suddenly, the weight pinning her to the wall is gone.
She turns in time to see him stumble back into her table, knocking the bowl of peaches to the floor.
The china shatters, little pieces of blue and white scattering across the floor like sharp-edged confetti.
In all the chaos, Khiran stands between them.
Mr. Abel stares, a mixture of rage and shock. “Who—who the hell are you?!”
Khiran’s hands are at her face, inspecting the damage with a diligence that scares her.
His eyes find hers, his fury electric—the hum of static before a lightning strike.
“Her husband,” he says, with all the confidence that comes with the truth, despite it being a lie.
He pins Mr. Abel with a glare. “I trust you understand that means I would be within my every right to end you.”
A moment of silence, of doubt, before Abel’s stricken expression twists. “You lie,” he spits, face flushed red and the veins in his neck throbbing. “She’s nothing but a—”
Khiran’s hand finds Abel’s throat, knuckles white as he shoves him against the wall. His face leans close, unmoved by the grubby fingers clawing for life at his hand. Red welts are welling up where Abel’s nails bite into skin, blood fighting to break the surface, but Khiran doesn’t even flinch.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” he growls, ice dripping from each syllable.
The calm control that promises murder. “If I find you, or anyone else, within a mile of this house, you will find yourself with stumps for legs. If I find out you so much as speak to her, I will cut out your tongue. And if you dare try to touch her again, I will gut you like the miserable beast you are and leave you for the gators. Do we have an understanding?”
Gerald’s eyes are wide, whites showing and rimmed with fear. Sweat beads on his brow, running down his face. “Yes,” he wheezes. “Yes, yes. I understand.”
Khiran’s lip curls, but the hand gripping the southern man’s neck slowly loosens and falls away. “Leave. Now.”
Abel doesn’t test his words. He turns and flees, flinging her door open so violently the knob hits the wall, leaving a sizable dent in the logged surface. It swings on creaking hinges, as if bidding him goodbye and good riddance, as he mounts his horse and disappears into the night.
Anna wonders if it will occur to him later that there was no horse hitched beside his—no way for her so-called husband to have appeared the way he did. She suspects he’s probably too frightened for it to matter.
Anna swallows, leaning heavily against the wall.
Her hand is still clasped over her chest, her heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm.
There are a hundred things she should ask him, but her eyes are glued to the welts tracking down his hand and wrist. An illusion, she thinks.
It must be. She has never seen him bleed.
Her heart whispers back, you have never seen him injured.
Khiran hasn’t turned to her, not yet. He stands with his back to her, hands fisted at his sides and shoulders rigid.
His body is a spring, tension under pressure, as he stares out the open door and into the darkness her eyes have no hope of seeing into.
Then, after a tension filled moment, he closes the door with a gentleness that contrasts the controlled rage making his hands shake.
Anna steps forward, reaching for his injured hand. He lets her inspect it, his breathing deep and controlled. Her fingers trace the scrapes, eyes lifting to his. “An illusion?” she whispers, hoping.
His silence is long enough to answer for him. Anna’s lips part around her surprise, eyes widening.
How is it that he bleeds when she cannot?
“It will heal,” he says, voice carrying farther than it needs to. His eyes flick towards the bedroom pointedly, and Anna understands the message. Their conversation isn’t private and these words aren’t for others’ ears.
She swallows, nodding. Her hand slips away from his, but instead of breaking contact, his fingers reach up to touch her cheek—tracing the invisible lines of a bruise that will never show.
There’s a depth to his eyes, a regret, when he asks, “Is this the first time?”
Anna doesn’t ask him to elaborate—she knows what he’s asking. There have been some close calls over the centuries, but nothing that has ever left her feeling this rattled. No one that ever came so close. “Yes.”
She’s just as adept at skirting around the truth as he is.
His eyes slide away from her, and Anna realizes with a pang that Silas is standing in the hall. “Oh, this is—”
“I know who he is,” Khiran murmurs, cutting her off. His body is a coil of nerves; his stare is sharp, pinning. Silas only smiles and looks to her instead.
“You alright, Miss Lydia?”
Anna looks between them, suspicion rising the longer she notes Khiran’s tension and Silas’ ease. “I’m fine, but, do you know each other?”