“No,” he cut in. “It isn’t fair to be told, again and again, that I am complicit in cruelty because I refuse to tilt at windmills.”
Her mouth opened, but he pressed on, the words gathering force as his muscles tightened, the anger visibly building in him.
“Mrs. Whitcombe and those like her hold all the power. Land. Money. Influence. The law. The vestry bows because it must, and we cannot alter the shape of the world by indignation alone.” Samuel shook his head once, a sharp, frustrated motion. “The only thing I can do is learn how to play the game well enough that the people I serve do not lose everything.”
“I didn’t know I was upsetting the rules,” she said.
“Precisely!” The word was sharp, forced through gritted teeth as Samuel scowled. “Yet you sit around, judging me for how I treat my tenants and how I behave in the parish.”
Chapter 31
Heat rose fast and sharp beneath her skin, and Phoebe drew in a breath through her nose to keep from saying the first cutting thing that came to mind, but with each venomous word spewed at her, she found it more difficult to hold her tongue.
“We had a solution in place,” Samuel continued. “It wasn’t perfect, but we found a way around the laws. Yet it wasn’t enough for you, so you blundered in and badgered members of the vestry council without even consulting me.”
“You asked me to be involved. Demanded it, in fact!” she said, her fists trembling. “You stood there, calling me a useless wife—”
“I did not call you that.”
“It was clear in your tone and expression!”
Samuel’s shoulders sagged, the earlier fire giving way to something closer to despair. “Must we return to this argument again and again?”
“It is not the same argument,” she spat, pointing a finger at him. “Before, you were angry that I did nothing, and now you are angry that I have acted. Apparently, I can do no good in your eyes.”
Phoebe stood there, heart pounding, the room suddenly too small to contain everything she felt—fear for Mr. Colby, horror at what she’d unintentionally set in motion, and now this sharp, bewildering sense that the foundation beneath her marriage was crumbling without warning, that some ugly part of Samuel was rearing up, showing the true colors that lay beneath the kindly rector façade.
He wasn’t listening! Every word she said simply bounced away, useless, as he wriggled and writhed his way through the conversation. Despite facing one another, it was as though her words flew past him, not even grazing his thoughts before he fired a volley back. No longer tethered to the moment that had birthed it, the argument took on a life of its own, the air crackling like a meadow before a lightning storm.
And Phoebe became acutely aware of how small the room truly was. Just like this house. This village. This life.
Her thoughts skittered ahead of her tongue, grasping for sharper points and firmer footing. Each thing Samuel said left her scrambling to be heard—tomakehim see—as her pulse thudded in her ears, her hands clenching and unclenching as though the force of her will alone might win the day.
Yet every defense Phoebe mounted was batted away as yet another man exerted his control, ignoring her wishes and opinions in favor of his great and mighty wisdom. For no one was as bright and brilliant as a man. They knew all and expected their wives and daughters to simply curtsy and accept that which was heaped upon them. To bear whatever trials and tests they saw fit to inflict. Forcing her to prove her worth whilst doing nothing to prove his own.
The realization struck her with a cold, clarifying force. The room felt suddenly intolerable. Too close. Too loud with endless expectations she could not meet.
Samuel’s words washed over her without settling, sliding past as her thoughts fixed upon something else entirely. Mr. Colby was already lost. That truth sat heavy and immovable in her chest, and no amount of anger or explanation would dislodge it. She had failed him. However unintentionally, the outcome was the same.
But she would not fail again.
Phoebe turned away, her breath coming quick and shallow as she crossed to the sideboard. Her hand went to the tea caddy without hesitation, fingers closing around its familiar weight as though it were an anchor in the storm.
Ignoring her husband, Phoebe swept from the room without another word. Samuel Godwin was a pig-headed fool like all the other men in the world, and she refused to seek permission to do the right and proper thing. That conviction settled into her bones as she abandoned the wreckage in the parlor and fetched her cloak.
She wouldn’t allow another person to suffer when she had the power to save them.
***
Morning light crept up the horizon, and the village itself remained hushed—doors closed and windows dark—as though holding its breath at the edge of day. Mrs. Broad stood close to Mr. Colby, her movements careful and deliberate as she fastened his coat, though her fingers were stiff with cold and age alike, and she murmured to him as she worked, her voice low and steady, as though calm alone might keep the morning at bay.
Phoebe stepped forward without thinking, her throat tight as she reached to help, and they used a scarf to fasten the hat upon his head, tucking the ends around his neck. For all that she had insisted on being here, Phoebe could not look him in the eye. Tears clawed at her self-control, and her hands shook as she smoothed his coat, drawing it tight against the chill, each careful movement an effort to prolong the moment.
Mrs. Broad’s cottage sat low and narrow against the lane, its thatch darkened by recent rain as smoke drifted from the chimney in a steady line. A milk cart waited in front, plain but serviceable, ready to transport its goods to the next parish, and the horses shifted their weight, their tack jingling as they grew restless, though (bless him!) Mr. Masters did not call for them to hurry.
Shrugging off his coat, Samuel draped it around Mrs. Broad’s shoulders, for she insisted on remaining with the farewell party, though her shawl was too thin for the chill. However, Phoebe refused to acknowledge the gesture.
“Come now, Mrs. Godwin,” said Mr. Colby, chucking her chin with a trembling hand. “No watery farewells.”
