“I had saved money, coins snatched from the housekeeping. There was some of my mother’s jewelry left“ She began to pick at a loose thread on her shawl. “I just wanted to leave him before he came back from his hiding.”
Her breath hitched, her throat seizing up.
“But luck was against me. Gabriel came home exactly the day I planned to leave.” She flinched, her shoulders hunching at the memory. “He found my bag. He found the money and the note with directions to the coaching inn.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her shawl tighter.
“He told me he would teach me what happened to wives who tried to leave.” She looked down at her feet. “I don’t remember exactly what happened next. It’s all fragments.” She leaned in close. “Him grabbing me. Falling. A candle on the dresser. And then fire.”
“The curtains caught first, then the bedding.” She flared her nostrils as if she could still smell the acrid smoke. “Gabriel was shouting, trying to put it out. And I just… I ran.”
“I didn’t look back.” A sob finally broke through, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I just ran until I could no longer breathe. The house burned to the ground.” Her expression went vacant. “They found a body in the ruins, charred beyond recognition.”
“Gabriel?” Dominic pushed himself up on the pillows, his brow still furrowed with a barely leashed rage.
She nodded then pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small. “Yes. I saw it.” She forced the words out, her jaw trembling. “Saw what was left of him and the constable told me I was a widow.”
“I went to an old friend, Margaret, a vicar’s widow.” She stared into the dancing flames of the hearth. “But Gabriel’s debts followed me. Collectors arrived at her door within months, demanding payment for a dead man’s sins.”
“I couldn’t drag her down with me.” She pulled her shawl closer to her neck. “So I sold the last of my mother’s jewelry. I changed my name from Hyde to Ashford, and I vanished.”
“I gave birth in a charity hospital.” She placed her hand on her stomach. “I told them I was a widow, that my husband died in an accident.”
“Lily almost killed me coming into the world.” Her fingers curled against her belly like guarding a wound. “The doctor said it was a miracle I survived. That another pregnancy would likely...” She stopped and took a jagged breath. “That’s why Itold you I might not be able to give you children. It’s not age, Dominic. It’s damage.”
“Four years I spent running from town to town.” A hollow, mirthless laugh escaped her. “Then I found this village. I bought the shop and built something that was mine.”
“I have been Nell Ashford for nine years.” She brought her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes. “Some days I forget Eleanor Whitmore ever existed.”
“But she did exist.” She turned to face him, letting him see the fear, the shame, and the desperate hope in her eyes. “She was seventeen and foolish, and she eloped with a monster because she thought his charm was love.”
“That’s who I am, Dominic.” She forced herself to hold his gaze, her chin lifting despite the trembling of her lips. “A woman who was offered to men like livestock. A woman who left her husband to burn and felt nothing but relief. A woman who walked away from a corpse and never looked back.”
“That’s the truth. Every ugly piece of it.” She finished, her hands going still.
The clock on the mantel ticked once, then twice. She stopped breathing, waiting for the blow.
“Come here.” He held out his hand.
She didn’t move, her whole body rigid with terror. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Every word.” He held out his hand again, patient and steady, his fingers open in an invitation. “Come here.”
“I might have killed a man.” She pressed her back against the hard wood of the bedpost, her shoulders shaking with the force of the confession.
“You survived.” He kept his hand extended, his expression calm and certain. “Come here. Please.”
She crossed the distance slowly, like a creature approaching a cliff’s edge. He took her hand when she finally reached him, pulling her down to sit on the bed beside him.
“You think this changes how I feel?” His thumb traced slow, soothing circles on her palm.
“It should.” She stared at their joined hands, unable to meet his gaze.
“It doesn’t.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. “You were seventeen. You were trapped. You did what you had to do to survive.”
“But I might have...” She broke off, the words dissolving into a jagged sob.
“You saved yourself.” He gripped her hand tighter. “That’s not murder. That’s survival.”
