“Don’t, Adam. Don’t do anything rash.” I wanted to say stupid, don’t do anything stupid, but that would push him into trouble. His hot temper surpassed mine when he thought I suffered.
“I won’t, Ruthy. I won’t be long.”
Fingering the cross, I decided to try one more time to keep him. I feared that I’d never see him again if he left this room. My hands came together, palms flat and pointing up toward him. “Adam, please stay. Let me dress and come with you. I don’t want us apart.”
“I’ll be back for you when our carriage is ready. My wife is not waiting in the cold.” He came back and kissed my forehead like a reward for a good girl.
But I was his girl. And he was all mine.
Tossing me a wink, Adam slipped to the door again. “I’ll be back soon, to help you lace up your corset and anything else I had a hand in removing.”
My husband loved his jokes, but his jaw was stiff. His face remained beet red. Anger would eat him up.
The door closed with athud. The lockclicked.
I was alone.
I climbed out of bed and found my shoes. Low boots with hard soles were better than bare feet when running for your life.
I paced around the smallish mattress of the rented room. The bedclothes he’d tossed off when the innkeeper had pounded on the door lay here and there. A pillow flopped half against the bedpost.
It looked like a struggle, where a volatile argument had occurred, not an abandoned lovers’ nest.
The floorboards creaking under my shifting weight made my heart race.
I stopped, grabbed the pine footboard, and tried to breathe.
My ears perked to the footsteps outside my door.
I waited.
I suffered.
I kept watching the door that didn’t open.
The pounding in my head grew so loud I saw stars and could almost envision Adam coming across the threshold. But I knew that was my fear twisting up my insides.
The vengeful innkeeper had given us an hour to leave. That time couldn’t be up, not yet. Adam hadn’t returned.
My only possessions—a balled-up dress, a nightgown, a silver brush—I tossed into my trunk. I should lock it up, close the metal clasps, but I wasn’t done in this room and wanted to leave the way I came, on my husband’s arm
I picked up my pearls from the bed table. The smooth beads felt cold in my sweating palm. Five days ago, I’d worn them for Adam as we’d married with the anvil priest.
Adam had beamed at me with a wide lazy smile as he had tonight, before the knock upon our door.
The pearls.
The pearls were now slippery in my hand. I tossed them into the trunk before they fell and burst apart. Papa had given them to me for my birthday, something to wear for my coming-out. Or for a wedding to a groom he’d choose.
My concerns for my parents pressed. I pictured Mama rocking, blank faced, in a chair, fearing her wild child was lost to the streets. Gone a fortnight, traveling from London to Scotland and only now heading back—I must be dead to them. Surely, they think me killed, even slaughtered like my uncle.
Adam had persuaded me to send no note. He’d said it was too risky then had smothered my complaints in a kiss. That silver-tongued devil could convince me the world was flat, that I was the Queen of England. One look at me with his deep-gray, almost black, eyes would send me spinning. He wove sweet words about me—I was better than Papa’s silk—and I became boneless and agreeable and not myself.
I pounded the footboard with my palm. I was Mama’s wild child, at nineteen, her oldest. I had caused such trouble—breaking curfew, sneaking out, running from chaperones.
I sank onto the bed, trying to stop my sobs.
A full minute I sat before I couldn’t bear it and leaped up.
