He stroked a strand of wayward hair away from her cheek. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Part of him wanted to demand an answer. She was clearly terrified. The fact she’d been pleading for breath—and that it had somehow been related to Leeland—made him want to swim to shore and strangle the man in his bed. But he was trying to give Rosalind as many choices as possible, which meant he was going to give her the choice to talk to him.
“He didn’t strangle me, not exactly. But he knew right where to put his thumb. One moment I was breathing just fine, the next I could only get half my air, and the next...” A shudder wracked her body, and she let out a small whimper. He had no way of telling if it was because of her ribs or the memory. “I wasn’t wearing his necklace, you see. I had his ring on, but not the necklace. He said I needed to wear it all the time, and then he cut off my air and told me it would be worse if he found me without it again.”
“The sapphire one? The one you didn’t take off until after we were married?”
“Yes.” Tears choked her voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“You didn’t. I would have remembered.”
“I didn’t tell you about my throat, but I told you I wanted to leave. I went to the library the very next day and worked until you showed up, waiting to tell you that I wanted you to take me away. Remember?”
That’s what had prodded her to finally accept his help? Why hadn’t she told him everything? He wouldn’t have let her return to her father’s house to look for evidence against him. He would have gotten her away from Sitka that night.
“I was in my nightgown too,” she continued, her voice still trembling. “It was late at night when he found me. I’d sneaked down to the kitchen to get some food, because he wasn’t letting me eat much...”
Vandermeer wasn’t letting her eat much? Yuri’s hand tightened into a fist against her stomach. Just how much of a monster had her fiancé been? And why was this the first time he was hearing about it?
“I was going to search my father’s study, but then Leeland was there in the hallway, and he made some kind of comment about me being in my nightgown and our wedding night, and... and... How come your entire family saw me in my nightgown—or less than my nightgown, really—but that never made me feel ashamed? How come lying here with you in my nightgown with your arm wrapped around me doesn’t make me feel dirty, but after one second in Leeland’s presence, I felt like a prostitute?”
“I don’t know, darling, but I’m so very sorry. No man should ever make you feel dirty. And no man should ever cut off your airto teach you a lesson. And no man should ever tell you how much food you can or can’t eat.”
These all seemed like statements that shouldn’t need to be said, like things that should be fundamentally understood. But he wasn’t sure that Rosalind knew them, which made him wonder just how much his wife had endured before God had brought her to him.
“He wanted me to be thinner for our wedding. That’s why he wasn’t letting me eat much food,” she added. Almost as though another person trying to starve her was some sort of afterthought. “He said my corset needed to be laced tighter for the wife of someone with his social standing.”
Yuri pressed his eyes shut and buried his face in her hair. “I hate him. I absolutely hate him. I didn’t want you to marry him even without knowing this, but now that I know it...” His throat became hoarse. “You listen to me. You have nothing to fear anymore. Do you understand that? You’re my wife now, and I’m going to take care of you, and you have nothing to be scared of.”
“‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.’”
“Yes, exactly,” he whispered through a thick throat.
“Do you remember when you told me that? It was the night of Bryony’s wedding reception, when you found me standing outside in the snow and offered to take me with you to San Francisco. I’ve used it a lot since that night. So many times, really.”
“I’m glad that verse gave you strength, but I’m also going to use every last bit of effort and leverage I have to make sure you’re never again in a position where you feel afraid. Do you understand?”
She nodded, the back of her head bumping against his chest as she moved. “Yes.”
“Good. Now get some rest.” He tightened his grip on her, then paused to see if her body tensed with pain. It didn’t, so he kept her pressed tightly against him, then nuzzled his mouth beside her ear and prayed, hoping it would be enough to soothe her mind from the horrors she’d endured in Sitka.
33
Portland, Oregon; the Next Morning
“We didn’t need to book a hotel room. We’re only going to be in Portland for part of a day.” Rosalind shifted closer to Yuri as the elevator began climbing to the fifth floor of the Merchant Hotel, where he had just paid for a room.
The elevator was one of the new hydraulic kinds, complete with an iron gate the attendant had drawn closed before starting their ascent. Ornate brass fixtures gleamed along the paneled walls, and a leather-covered bench curved against the back wall. A polished dial above the gate marked their progress by floor, and the attendant controlled the movement with a lever, occasionally adjusting pressure as the elevator gave a slight groan with each passing level.
She’d ridden in an elevator such as this a few times in Washington, DC, but she hadn’t been there in four years. She wasn’t sure which unnerved her more: how quiet the ascent was or the sensation of rising off the ground without any visible stairs.
Or maybe she was most unnerved by the fact they were in the elevator at all, heading to a room they were only going to use for eight hours in the middle of the day. The train east was scheduled to leave just after dinner that night, but it was just past ten o’clock in the morning. The first thing Yuri had done after making sure their private car would be ready for the evening train was to hire a coach and take her straight to the fancy new hotel that had recently opened in Portland.
She hated the thought of him paying so much money just so she could be comfortable for half a day. She could have wandered the streets of Portland instead. Yes, her ribs still pained her, but maybe a short time out of bed would do her good. It wasn’t like she needed to stand and walk the whole time. They could have shared a long lunch and then had an early supper before the train left. Then she would have needed to spend only a few hours on her feet.
