“She never really left. She just learned to hide.”
Johnathan moved toward her then, crouching before her. His hand brushed hers gently. “Do not hide from me.”
The intimacy of the gesture—and the quiet urgency in his voice—unraveled something in her chest. “I have been hiding for so long I am not sure I remember how to stop.”
“Then let me remind you.”
His hand remained over hers. Not possessive. Just there. A quiet tether to something real.
“I still do not forgive you,” she whispered. “For abandoning me.”
“I know.”
“But I want to believe you.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Then we are halfway there.”
They remained like that for several moments until her eyes drifted shut and exhaustion overtook her.
Later, as she slept in the bed and he kept vigil near the hearth with a pistol at his side, Johnathan stared into the flames, haunted by the shape of the future. He knew Cranford would not relent.
But he also knew this: Frances was not a damsel to be saved. She was a woman reclaiming her power.
And he would see her free, even if it cost him everything.
