She shook her head at once, the movement small and stubborn. “No. It will make everything worse. He doesn’t argue for the sake of learning or illuminating the situation for others’ benefit. He argues to win. He’ll bring papers and men and noise. If I go on, he’ll follow slower. If I stop, he’ll be on us.”
“If you go on, he’ll say you’re running proves him right,” Winston said, the words quiet but firm. “If you stop and face him with me, he’ll have to speak to someone who answers back.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “I don’t want Cordelia called into it. Or Louisa.”
“Nor do I. That’s why I’ll choose the ground.” He saw the doubt still in her and softened his tone. “You won’t be alone in this. And you won’t have to speak a word you don’t wish to.”
She swallowed. “I could go away before he seeks me out again. We have no way of knowing if he’ll come back here tomorrow morning. He just might. I could leave a note. I could write to Cordelia and Louisa…”
“No.” He did not let the word bite, but he did not let it bend. “You will not go away in the dark and call it kindness. That trick never saved anyone. It only spares us the pain of watching someone leave.”
She closed her eyes and steadied herself, breath in, breath out. “It’s my instinct.”
“I know.” He allowed himself the smallest smile. “So is mine. My instinct is to build a wall and pretend there’s no gate in it. But we have a child in the middle of us. If we run, we teach her to run. If we stand, we teach her that some storms end.”
“Your storms always end,” she said, not unkindly. “Mine don’t.”
“They do,” he said. “Or they can be ended.”
“By whom?”
“By us.” He let the next thing come because withholding it would make every other word worthless. “I want to be free of Sarah. I can’t be while Louisa walks the world without a mother to love her. I’ve told myself a dozen sensible lies about grief. None of them works. The only thing that looks like an answer is the sight of you with her. How she breathes when you’re in the room, how the night is shorter for her because you stand at the foot of the bed and tell it to be.”
He had not meant to set his heart out on the table. He had meant to talk about law and letters and Oswald and Bow Street and a dozen clean strategies. The words had made their own road. He tried to lighten them before they became more than either of them could hold.
“I can’t yet call any of that by its proper name. I’m very likely a coward. But I know what I can’t do. I can’t go back to the house and tell Louisa that the woman who made the fear smaller has vanished because a loud man did a terrible series of things.”
Adeline’s mouth trembled and steadied. “Don’t call yourself a coward. You ran out into a thunderstorm with cracked ribs.”
“I’m an idiot, then.”
“You’re that as well.”
He let out a breath that he had wanted to be a laugh. “Stay,” he said, because plain words had worked well enough so far. “Stay and face him with me. We’ll gather what we need. I’ve writtento Oswald. I’ve sent for a man at Bow Street who knows how to listen. We’ll put light on the places he’d rather keep dark.”
“He’ll bring witnesses,” she said. “Men who owe him favors. Men who want them.”
“He will,” Winston said. “And we’ll bring people who know you as you are. My mother. The household at Greystone. The tenants who’ve watched what you do rather than what you say. It won’t be a trial in the newspapers. I won’t have that. But it will be a reckoning on our ground, with our terms.”
She looked at the coals for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, almost surprised. “I don’t want to leave and start anew.”
“Good,” he said softly.
“I’ve wanted to run since the day I stepped into your house,” she went on. “It’s the only thing that ever worked. I run so the hurt stays where it was. Then I met Louisa.” She lifted her eyes. “I love your daughter, Winston. I want to be a mother to her. If I run, I teach her to be ashamed of her name. If I stay, I have to be braver than I’ve ever been.”
“You already are,” he said. “Every morning when you come down the stairs and pour chocolate for someone else before you pour it for yourself, that’s brave. It doesn’t always look like banners.”
“I’m not good with banners.”
“Nor I.” He took her hands again, turned them palm-up in his, and spoke as if to a skittish colt. “We’ll go home to Greystone. Oswald will meet us there. The runner will come quietly in a day or two. We’ll ask questions properly. We’ll take statements. We’ll set down times and names. We’ll charge no one until we’ve gathered everything. When Harston comes, he’ll find a house that doesn’t shake when he blows on it.”
“And if he brings the law?” she asked.
“Then he’ll find I know how to read it,” Winston said. “There’s more than one version of that game. He’s not the only man in England who can hire a clever solicitor. And if it comes to a court, we’ll go into it with our backs straight and our papers in order.”
She nodded once, a small soldierly thing. Then she surprised him. “I’m sorry I said I’d go. I was trying to protect you.”
“You are protecting me,” he said. “What hurts me is the thought of a house without you in it.”
