“Then you are aware he married?”
Another long sigh, this one punctuated with something sounding like a grumbled curse. “Yes.”
My sister stopped pacing. “How do you know for sure? You weren’t there, were you?’
A third long, guttural groan sounded.
But I was taken aback by Ester’s tone.
The haughtiness. She didn’t believe any of this. She could jab me with knitting needles or knives, but nothing would hurt worse.
I stared at the blur of boots by my hip because I couldn’t look at Ester. “He knows because he saw the other half of the registry.”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“Oh,” Ester said.
That was it. Four years of living with everyone calling me a liar and that just summed up my life in five words.
I became speechless, barely able to release my own sigh.
“Ruth really did marry Adam Wilky or C. A. Wilkinso as it says on her half.”
“C. A. Wilkinson. Yes.”
“Then it is also true, the story about them being attacked. That Adam died?”
Ester’s tone, so full of disbelief, began to scrape my hollow insides. I felt nauseous and promised to never again be laid bare like this. There was no one to trust but Chris.
Noise shifted behind me, then something moved in front. A man’s hand, rough, smelling of leather, lifted my chin. “Follow my finger with your eyes. This will tell me if there is a concuss of your skull.”
It took a few moments before his index finger was within my field of view, as the doctors called it.
His sigh was warm on my cheek, and the way he touched my neck, so gentle yet strong—it brought a little relief to my headache.
“I take it no one can believe in a love like yours and Adam’s. Both so young.”
“Not so young. I was nineteen. I’m a wiser twenty-three now.”
“It was young to be swept away so completely.” He made a loud swallow like it hurt to talk. “Adam said he felt oneness with his love, like no other.”
A chill went through me. The voice was dark and twisted, but his words, those were Adam’s.
I moved his hand from my face but held his fingers for a moment. “It sounds as if you knew Adam well. He took the registry from the blacksmith’s shop. No one believes we wed. They think he is a liar or a blackguard who used me.”
“But you know you wed, Ruth.”
He said my name as if we were friends. We were not. He was some high-handed lord who believed he had a right to such intimacy. I dropped his palm. “Call me Mrs. Wilky.”
“Do you think Adam a blackguard, Mrs. Wilky?”
“I don’t know anymore. Time hasn’t been kind to his memory. And everyone talking ill of me for trusting him… I don’t know.”
Another long sigh uttered.
“Adam was no liar. He married Ruth Elizabeth Croome.”
He said my full name. Even in this raw voice I heard sweetness. I let him take my hand again.
