Coming awake in the darkness, Anna fought for breath. Blood. So much blood. In her mouth, her nose, all over her swollen breasts and belly. Between her legs.
She did not taste blood. Shaking, sweating, she threw back the sheets and the threadbare wool blankets. Pulled up the coarse muslin nightdress twisted around her thighs. She couldn’t see, but she could feel…
Not yet. Thank God, not yet. It was only terror invading the night, as it had done for months.
The dreams came in different forms, showing different sections of the thorny path she traveled. This particular bit sought to convince her she would not live to see around the next bend. Perhaps never lay eyes on the child she carried.
For a time, that was what she’d wanted. Sometimes the dreams showed her pictures of Afterward, and oh, it was an empty, lonely place. The long, long view from the rooftop, down the Avon to the Severn and the ocean she could not see except in her mind’s eye, restless and insensible. Or standing in a crowded room, separate, unseen.
But the strength with which she battled this particular dream, the death dream, the very fear it aroused, had persuaded her she wanted to live. In loneliness, there might still be some meaningful use for her mind and heart. In death there could be none.
The baby kicked. Anna shivered as the sweat froze on her skin.
Another kick to the bladder sent her heaving to the edge of the low bed. She slid off onto her knees, groping underneath for the chamber pot. When she was finished with that awkward task, she fought her way upright.
A few careful steps took her to the narrow window. She pulled the curtain aside, welcoming the gleam from the streetlight on Vicar’s Lane. It reached a feeble arm across the cold, bare planks beneath her feet, pointing toward the door.
Enough perilous forays into sleep for this night. Her woolen dressing gown no longer closed around her belly, but it helped keep her back and arms warm. She pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, trailing it behind her like a little girl dressed in her mother’s clothes. It caught in the doorjamb and something tore as she yanked it free. A bubble of viciousness broke inside her. Oh, she wanted to damage something that mattered! Wanted to be yelled at, and by God, yell back. Put an end to her submissiveness, her scrupulous courtesy. Scream at the whole world. Pour out all the shrill, jangling discord that filled every inch of her. Sometimes she imagined it was that, not a baby, stretching her skin ’til she thought she would split open.
Hands shaking, it took her four tries to light a candle, and then she nearly dropped it. She carried that one around the room and lit the others. There were not many—when darkness fell, they went to bed, she and Putnam.
She was so tired of these barren, rented rooms! They belonged to Putnam’s cousin, but he’d done them no favors. Someone’s discarded furniture, someone else’s cast-off little rug, someone else’s choices, none of them matching, none of them pretty. The only items from home were her brush and comb. Her ugliest bonnet. Two of her old gowns to wear after the babe was born. A handful of books Father thought suitably improving. And Lewis Aubrey’s self-portrait, only a few quick lines yet so like him, hidden away in her trunk. It hurt too much to see it, to remember his concern for her and the way she had repaid it.
Had he guessed what she’d done? Not then, no. But he must know now. She hardly dared step outside since seeing Sir John.
Putnam had grown up in Leeds, so that was the place they’d settled on for their hideaway. Oh, Anna had known the Wedburys and Aubreys hailed from Yorkshire, but Yorkshire was a big place. She had thought it would be safe enough.
She should have discovered exactly where they lived. Because the idea of seeing Lewis—or Gideon, God forbid!—filled her with dismay.
She lumbered across the room, careful not to trip on the blanket, and fell into a chair. Sir John must have been disgusted by what he saw. She disgusted herself. A slattern in homespun, heavy with child, haggard and graceless. So far removed from six short months ago when he had been so kind to her.
In those six months, she had heard every synonym for stupid many times over. If there were any her family forgot, she used them to castigate herself. They were all true, all deserved. Stupid to be so gullible, to believe she might find everlasting happiness, to succumb to Gideon’s wiles. Stupid not to fall in love with Lewis, instead.
No more! It was a pointless exercise. She was through with self-pity, at least for this night.
If only Putnam’s roots were in Cornwall, or Kent, or anywhere else but Yorkshire! If only they’d arrived at the inn three minutes sooner or later. If only she had seen Sir John in time to turn away.
If only he would keep his news to himself.
Lewis awoke at dawn, trapped in the melancholy of a dream he could not remember. Too late to try for more sleep, too early for anything else. The curate would hardly appreciate being roused from his bed.
He retrieved his poor boots from the hallway—they looked better than he had any right to expect—and rang for hot water.
By the time he’d washed and dressed it was daylight, after a fashion. The clawing in his gut felt like anxiety rather than hunger, but maybe feeding the beast would cushion its rending talons.
He descended into the morning chaos of the inn. He waited for a seat, then he waited for his breakfast. As it arrived, the bells at Holy Trinity chimed eight, and then a quarter past. Time to be on his way.
Lewis donned his greatcoat and checked that Anna’s portrait was safe in his pocket. Then he shouldered his way through a fresh group of coach passengers to reach the street. A voice called out, “Sir? Sir!” as he pushed the door open, but he had no reason to think it pertained to him.
Watching his footing, he headed south toward Boar Lane and Holy Trinity. He’d gone only a few yards when a red-cheeked maid from the inn caught him up.
“Sir, this is for you.” She handed him a folded piece of paper with only Mr. Aubrey written on the outside in a feminine hand.
Lewis frowned and opened it. Two short lines on the inn’s stationery:
I have what you seek.
Library 10 o’clock.
“What the hell?” He flipped the paper over. Nothing. Only his name and that cryptic message.
Only one thing he was seeking, and this was not Anna’s handwriting.
“Miss, do you know…?”
The maid was gone. No, there she was, holding the inn door open for a party of people encumbered by parcels and a crate containing a very indignant goose.
“Miss!” Lewis called, heading her way. She didn’t hear him.
The door had almost closed behind her by the time he reached it, slipping in the ruts of dirty, broken ice that crackled and shifted underfoot. He yanked it open again and caught her sleeve.
“Miss, where did this come from?”
She shrugged. “Dunno, sir, Mr. Hogg jus’ sent me out to find ye.” She turned and made her way toward the kitchens.
Lewis tried to catch the innkeeper’s eye, but the man was busy appeasing a dissatisfied customer. Lewis cleared his throat, shuffled his feet, anything he could think of to make sure they both knew he was waiting. Finally, with a sniff and a sneer, the lady accepted whatever deal was offered and marched herself upstairs, her maid trotting behind. Good riddance!
Hogg turned to Lewis.
Lewis held up the note. “Who left this, and when?”
“’Twas a woman, sir, come in last evening.”
“What time? Was she old or young? Fair or dark? Tall or short?”
The innkeeper shrugged as the maid had done. “I dunno, sir. My nephew took care of her, an’ he’s only here nights.”
Plague take it. “Where is the library, Hogg?”
“I’m bettin’ she means the subscription library over the bookshop in Commercial Street. Turn right out o’ here and right on Bond. Changes names the next block.”
Obviously, the man had read the note—that was one good reason for its author to keep it cryptic. Yet Lewis fumed. Was this another of Anna’s mysteries? He couldn’t imagine anything else the note could reference, but neither could he imagine she was behind it. She was perfectly capable of penning a note herself.
The church, or the library? It was already nine. If he went to the church, he would almost certainly miss a ten o’clock appointment at the library.
It really wasn’t a question. The curate would be available later, whereas Anna…if it was Anna…if it was the right library…
With a hasty apology, he stepped out of the path of a large gentleman entering the inn and headed south again.
Bond Street came in sight. Lewis endangered his own precarious footing assisting an old man who had fallen.
“You’re limping,” Lewis said.
“Bless ye, laddie, been limpin’ these forty years.”
That was a relief. Lewis did not have time to help the poor fellow get home, or to a doctor. But he could at least make sure the fellow reached the tavern he was aiming for. It was just around the corner in Bond Street, on the way to the library.