He pressed his eyes shut. “Rosalind . . .”
“Please, Yuri.” She took a step closer, near enough that she could smell the scent of sunshine and dust on his skin. She could feel Mrs. McWhirter’s glare boring into her back, but she didn’t care. “You said that we could still be together after my father is in prison, remember?”
He opened his eyes, and the gaze he sent her was so very familiar, filled with softness and tenderness that she wanted to wrap herself in. “If that’s what you want, then yes.”
“What if I don’t want to say good-bye just yet? Will you come back again before you leave? Please?”
“Oh, I nearly forgot.” Mrs. McWhirter patted her pocket, then pulled out an envelope. “This came for you yesterday, Mr. Amos. I assume whoever sent it knew you’d be stopping here.”
Yuri took the envelope but didn’t bother to look at it. He merely thanked Mrs. McWhirter and slid it into his pocket, then turned back to her. His eyes searched her face for one long moment, but he didn’t reach out to touch her. “Good-bye, Ros.”
He climbed into the buggy, flicked the reins, and turned the team toward the gate.
Rosalind stood there, an ache forming in her chest as she watched the dust rise behind him.
It wasn’t until he’d turned off the drive and was making his way down the road that she realized he’d never given her an answer about coming back to say good-bye a final time.
40
She was going to like it here. At least that’s what Rosalind told herself as she stood in the quiet of her room, finally unpacking her things. The view of the setting sun outside her window was perfect, with rolling hills and tall grass swaying in the fields and cows bedding down for the night.
If she looked out the window on the other wall, she’d see the laundry yard where Commonwealth women earned money by doing laundry for local townsfolk. The day’s wash had already been taken in for the night, but a young girl pumped water from the windmill, her braid swinging with each pull, and two women knelt in the fading light to weed the vegetable patch before darkness fell.
It wasn’t the quiet, lonely refuge she’d imagined when Yuri spoke of “somewhere to heal.” It was a working community, and everyone seemed to have a place in it. She’d met most of the women earlier while touring the grounds. Some had been milking the cows and goats, others had been turning the milk from that morning into cheese, and some had been seated at the mending table, which was yet another source of income for the Commonwealth. Everyone had welcomed her, though somewomen had certainly been more standoffish than others, and some of the children especially seemed scared of strangers.
Mrs. McWhirter had told her that the women here were in various stages of healing. Some had just left terrible situations, and others had been in residence for over five years and focused on helping the new residents as well as selling goods in town. Mrs. McWhirter had explained that the longer the women stayed, the more comfortable they became with life away from their violent husbands.
Rosalind had asked if anyone ever left, but the woman hadn’t wanted to speak much about that.
A knock sounded, followed by the creak of hinges, and Rosalind looked up from the shirtwaist she’d just placed in the dresser to find two women she recognized.
“Rosalind?” Lydia stepped inside, her sleeves rolled to the elbow and her hair pinned in a tight bun.
Margaret stepped into the room behind Lydia. She was taller and quieter and had lines around her eyes and mouth that made her seem older than she probably was. “We thought you might want help settling in.” Margaret headed straight for the open trunk.
“And Mrs. McWhirter—or Martha, really—asked us to bring you a towel.” Lydia set a towel and washcloth on the bed, then put a small sewing basket on the dresser. “We have a bathing room downstairs, if you want to wash off the traveling dust before bed. There’s already water warming on the stove. If you don’t use it, someone else will.”
Rosalind smiled. “A bath sounds lovely, thank you. In fact, I think I might stop unpacking and take you up on the offer right now. Do you mind helping me with my dress?” She touched the back of it. “It’s not the easiest thing to get out of on my own, though I’ve gotten pretty good at managing my own bindings over the past week.”
“Bindings?” Lydia’s hands paused where they had already started undoing the long string of buttons at her back. “What do you mean bindings?”
“I . . . er . . . I was injured before I came here.”
“Did your husband hit you?” Fury laced Lydia’s voice as she undid another button. “My husband hit me too, and?—”
“No. He didn’t hit me.”
“Lying about what happened won’t do you no good,” Margaret snapped from the wardrobe where she’d been hanging dresses, her entire body stiff. “Best thing a woman can do is face it, if you ask me.”
“I agree.” Lydia’s hands kept going, farther and farther down her back.
The woman could surely see her bindings at this point, and Rosalind found herself wishing she had worn one of the shirtwaists that buttoned down the front.
Did they really think Yuri was responsible for the injury to her ribs? And if that’s what Lydia and Margaret believed, how many others thought the same thing?
Oh, Yuri, how can they think such a thing about you?She’d been trying to put him from her mind all afternoon and focus on the new life she could have at the Commonwealth. But he had risked so very much to bring her here, and now these women—these strangers who knew nothing about her—were assuming he was just like her father and Leeland and the men Lydia and Margaret had fled.
“It’s safe here. There’s no reason to lie to protect your husband.” Lydia finished the last of the buttons. “Besides, your husband can’t exactly come here and take you away. Martha’s got plenty of shotguns, and she trains the women who stay here how to use them.”
