My stomach quaked and turned. The panic I thought I’d beaten started to return, creeping at my feet, making my toes ice-cold. I moved my hands to keep them from freezing.
“Ruth? Ruth?”
“Yes.” I sat up and told myself I was strong. “Yes, Ester.”
“Where are we going? Where does the Wilkinson family live?”
“Mayfair. The address Jonesy says is in Mayfair.”
“You told Papa’s groom, but not me?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to be a bother.” I didn’t want to hurt my sister, but she’d never support me, not on this.
Ester took off her glove and rubbed the back of her hand as if it were Aladdin’s lamp. The motion, no doubt, was to highlight the brown pigment of her skin. “Mayfair means peers, the richest in London. There’s no reason a rich family will give us anything. Acknowledging that one of their sons married a Blackamoor will not be done, not with him dead.”
“I have to try. Adam was mulatto like Mama. Even if the Wilkinsons toss me out, I have to try. For Chris, I have to.”
“Marry and get your son a father. What if the Wilkinsons want some sort of custody of your boy? They could set up a guardianship who could make sure you lose your son. My friend, Theodosia Fitzwilliam-Cecil, she suffered greatly from a horrid guardian.”
I hadn’t thought of that. The lack of truth had harmed Chris, but would gaining the Wilkinson’s acquaintance also bring harm?
I put the document into my purple reticule and set it on my knees. “I won’t lose Chris seeking the truth. That can’t happen. What will he think when biddies like Mrs. Carter tell my son he’s a bastard? He’s not. I was married when I conceived. That I know.”
The sparkle in Ester’s eyes died, replaced with questions I didn’t want to answer about Chris.
I tossed my head back against the seat bolster. “We’ll see if the Wilkinson family will acknowledge the existence of Adam and if they kept his last correspondence. We won’t mention my son unless I have to.”
“If these people don’t acknowledge or know this Adam, will you be fine?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t think of that possibility and not fall to pieces. I hadn’t realized how much hurt I’d buried inside until that stupid trunk had arrived.
I gritted my teeth and cinched my velvet reticule. “I’ve survived the worst. What’s a slammed door?”
Ester picked up her bonnet and rotated it round and round in her palms. “Let’s hope that is the worst.”
I said nothing and allowed theclick-clopof the horses to eclipse the awkward silence. I grasped my watch, my palm absorbing the trembling of its ticking. Then my knees mimicked the rhythm, followed by both hands.
I shook all over.
The panic, the rage in me began to win.
Ester reached for me, linking her thin fingers with my shorter ones, almost as Adam had used to do.
Adam. Don’t let me hate you more than I remember loving you.
Then I thought of my luck, my bad luck, and I shook more. “I should’ve brought my knitting needles. It gives my hands something to do.”
“You actually like knitting, Ruth?”
“It’s something I’ve trained my fingers to do. As long as I concentrate, I don’t have to see the yarn to get it right. I don’t need these horrid headachy lenses. I think that’s an important trick. A skill to show off at parties.”
I chuckled long enough for my sister to join in, but it wasn’t a jest, just the acknowledgment of my final truth. Someday, blindness would stop teasing and would swallow me whole. I wasn’t afraid of losing my sight. I feared never being able to prove I wasn’t a liar.
No more thinking about things I couldn’t change. I was grateful to have a piece of the registry. Grateful to know I wasn’t crazy or that my injuries hadn’t made Adam up. “I’m grateful you came, Ester.”
“Me, too.”
My sister’s slight grin would be the last thing I focused upon until Mayfair.
