The door was locked when Anne arrived home and it felt like another blow, one she probably blew out of proportion by an astonishing degree, but her heart just couldn't take another setback, even if minuscule in magnitude. She felt like crumpling down and admitting defeat, even when she was so very close to her destination. The locked door seemed insurmountable.
After a while, a light moved through the inside of the house and Lisle finally unlocked the door, swinging its heavy weight open. "You look worse for wear."
"It's been a trying few days," Anne admitted, caring nothing for how she looked.
"What has occurred?"
Anne's shoulders sank. It was hard to admit it. "My son is trying to take ownership of the house."
Lisle didn't say anything as she considered the statement. "Little bludger," she finally said.
While her instinct was to defend Harry, she couldn't. His actions were deplorable, no matter how he tried to dress them up. Anne just sighed and shrugged off her coat. "I'm exhausted." She was glad Lisle didn't dismiss this development as something unimportant. This was important; it was a profound betrayal, and Anne thought more of Lisle for seeing it that way. Not everyone would.
"Are you hungry?"
"Probably, but I don't think I can eat."
"In the morning, then."
Anne nodded absently and headed for the stairs. In her tiredness, they seemed a true obstacle, but she forced her aching legs to propel herself up.
Her room was dark and cold when she got inside. Lisle followed, pouring some coal in the grate. "I didn't know you were coming."
"That's alright," Anne said automatically and started undressing. She was beyond caring for her modesty; she just wanted the constricting dress off her. The cold was welcoming, as long as she could be free. She even unpinned her hair and let it flow over her shoulders. Somehow this act was making her teary again and she crawled into her bed, facing away.
Lisle finished up and left, closing the door. The mattress was soft and welcoming, but Anne couldn't stop the tears from flowing. It was as if she could truly grieve now that she was somewhere safe—a safety they were trying to rob her of. Her body wracked with sobs. But she stilled when a hand pressed down on her upper arm. He was there. She'd wished for him for what seemed like the whole journey. His warm body pressed to her back.
"You left," he said.
"There was a letter informing me that my son is acting against me."
"I'm sorry," he said, his lips softly stroking along her shoulder.
"He is trying to take the house from me." It still hurt to admit it, to say it out loud. It made it feel more true. New tears flowed from sore and heated eyes. Would they ever stop flowing? He didn't say anything, just stroked her down her back. Shifting, she sat up and faced him, tucking her knees up. "I thought a malicious ghost was horror, unseen things chasing you in the night, meaning you harm, but this is horror, being betrayed and abandoned by one’s family, by someone you love. No violence, just a dispassionate absence of caring."
"It isn't much easier to bear when they actually mean you harm."
"No, I suppose not."
Tears spilled again. "What did I do for them to turn on me so? Was I so horrible they cut me out of their hearts? Well, with Stanford, I'm not entirely sure he ever let me in. But Harry…" She couldn't finish. He had been her little boy, her sunshine and her reason for rising in the mornings. He'd been her everything.
"You can never know what is in someone else's heart, and you are not responsible for what they choose to carry inside them. You are only responsible for yourself, and if you loved the people who needed you to, that is all you had to do."
It sounded so simple when he said it. "Did you love your wife?"
"I tried my best to do right by her, but I'm not sure I ever loved her. I tried to, but her bitterness and jealousy destroyed the relationship between us. She was a better mother than she was a wife."
"Yet her actions destroyed her children."
"That was not her intention, but the forces she unleashed on us were always going to be outside of her control. She never understood that."
Anne looked down. "How do I recover from this?"
"I'm not sure you can. Give it a few hundred years."
She laughed for the first time since leaving. "I am going to fight," she said quietly.
"Good. You need to. You won't forgive yourself if you don't."
"I have a poor chance of winning, though."
"Fight till the end. Fight till there's nothing left."
"And then what?"
"Well, I have just gotten to that part myself. I rather agree with finding someone quite lovely to spend your time with. Soothes so many pains and aches." His hand ran up her ankle and chin.
"Does it?" she said teasingly. She loved how he could distract her. It was such a beckoning idea to just forget and turn her attention to the urgent need and softness between them. But then she sobered. "I will lose the house." Which also meant she would lose him.
"Then we will haunt them with such fury, they will flee in terror. You might have exorcised the ire in me, but I can still wreak havoc if I chose to."
Anne smiled but knew it was not the solution. "They will sell the house. That is their aim. They want the money. I doubt they will ever set foot here." The idea of fighting them in court was appealing, along with the procedures being reported in the papers, but there was merely a slight chance she would win.
"We can't have you leaving," he said, his fingers tracing figures along her skin.
There was always a chance she could stay. Perhaps the new owners would be amenable, even if only in one of the outbuildings. Richard would assure they were amenable. She chuckled at the thought, almost pitying the new owners. The living did not necessarily make the rules in this house, and the new owners may run before long, most had, leaving the house deserted.
His words returned to her mind: fight with everything in her, fight on principle. Would she ever forgive herself if she let them walk all over her, even if she could salvage something of her life and existence afterward? No, she had to fight, but she wanted to win.
Rising out of bed, she walked to the desk. Richard's eyes followed her as she sat down. "Time to plan my offensive," she said.
"Uh, I love an offensive," he sighed and lay there, watching as she drew a sheet of paper out of the drawer. "I knew you would never give in."
Anne wrote and wrote, taking long breaks to pace around the bedroom to think, going over every single one of Mr. Charterham's words. Tiredness skirted around her mind, but she refused to let it claim her. It was time to fight and she felt exhilarated by it.
She had no idea what time it was when she laid down the pen, but she leaned back against the chair and surveyed her work. Richard was still lying on the bed watching her. "Sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword."
"I don't know. Swords can be very effective. There is a certain satisfaction cutting your enemy down."
"I am quite happy with the satisfaction I feel right now."
"Is that so?" he said. "Well, as long as you stay in the house, then we must celebrate." He held out his hand to her. She sighed as she watched him. How had she been so lucky to find him? It seemed so utterly improbable, but here they were.
"You want me to stay, then?" What exactly they meant to each other wasn't something they had talked about.
"Enough that I would be quite happy to run both your son and husband through with my sword."
"Except having Stanford in this house would be something I would absolutely avoid. And for all he does, I cannot harm Harry. But I might deny him."
"Really? And what do you have planned?"
"Exactly that," she said, rising. She walked over to the bed, feeling calm and relaxed. A plan was in place and she was going to enact it. Placing her hand in Richard's, she let him pull her into the bed, draw her beneath him.
"And would you deny me?"
"Would you ever give me cause to?"
He stroked along her temple. "No. I will never give you cause to."
Inhaling softly, she studied his face. Utterly beautiful, even the scar that marred his handsome face. "Then I will not deny you."
Leaning down, he kissed her and Anne finally felt as if she was home. It wasn't this house she craved; it was him. He had become her home, and she was going to fight for it. The kiss deepened and Anne surrendered to it.