Chapter Six

The Widow’s Cold Feet

The carriage moved down Fournier Street fast.

“We’ll be on Gracechurch soon,” Ester said, in a way meant to both inform and let me know we could turn back.

I put on my spectacles and looked out the window.

Shops. Houses. People.

I didn’t know the streets anymore.

That saddened me.

I thought of when I had. I thought of the docks and Adam walking me to Papa’s warehouse near the Thames. We’d done that every week for six months.

For just a moment, I let bitterness sweep over me. It blasted through the knitted weave of the shawl, rattling the spaces betwixt my ribs. Adam’s loss became fresh in my mind again, and I hated how I’d let the size of my world shrink.

My fault. My fears. My fleeting fire—my hands couldn’t hold on to it. With proof, I’d shut up the naysayers. I’d be able to be bold me for more than a few moments.

I sat back on the seat and adjusted my spectacles, but the heavy things gave me a clear view of my sister’s frown. “Say your peace, Ester.”

My sister took off her straw bonnet. Her chin lowered as if she couldn’t hold my gaze. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Ask your questions or repeat the lies I’ve heard for four years. Lord knows they are numerous.”

Ester raised her head at my chuckles. Her topaz eyes were fiery. “Going to find an old beau, the man who deserted you, is not worth your time. It’s a scandal that should never be mentioned.”

She grabbed my hand. “You are worth so much more than a dandy who lied and lacked faith.”

“Adam was fashionable but no dandy.”

My sister pounded the seat as if she had become frustrated. “He didn’t know the jewel that you are. How can you debase yourself and crawl back to him? Great, you found where the scoundrel lives. Slap his face and leave him be. I’ll help you. If I’d known, I’d have brought a poker.”

Part of me was quite proud of my sister’s outlandish streak. Part was touched by her love for me. But a big part of me needed her to believe my truth.

I folded my arms about the plain shawl, no fringes, no special collar, plain, plain peach in hue. “You finished? My Adam was no bounder. Before you think of striking an innocent, know that Adam did not trick me. He did not bed and dump me. He was none of the lies you’ve been told.”

Ester’s angelic face scrunched with her lips poking out. She flattened her palm against the ebony cloth of the tufted seat. “Then tell me what happened.”

“Adam Wilky was an actual man. We did marry at Gretna Green. He was killed by a bunch of evil, horrible men who robbed us on our way back to London.”

“That’s not what Papa and Mama said. Papa found you in a brothel.”

I had been so sick when Papa had come for me. I may have been confused in what I said, but I’ll never forget the disgust in his eyes carrying me out of Madame Talease’s bawdy house.

A headache started.

I rubbed my temples. “I married Adam. I had no proof when Papa located me. I’d been beaten, brutalized to the point of death. I doubt if anything I said made sense to Papa. But Adam and I went through a ceremony. I know Adam loved me, and I watched him die, protecting me.”

Ester gasped, she paled, looking like an ashy angel. “But it was fake. Adam Wilky was invented. Mama said it was a lie. Papa’s lawyers found no proof that a man by that name existed.”

“A lie is what they call the truth when no one believes it.”

I dug into the reticule and pulled out the halved page of the blacksmith’s registry. “See, this section says C. A. Wilkinso… and Ruth Eliz… The rest is cut off. My half had been in the trunk I received two weeks ago. Adam’s half, he sent by post to his family’s residence, Blaren House. That’s where we are going.”

“That makes no sense. The registry has to be available for everyone to view to maintain its validity. Why would you do something like cutting up the record that could validate your union?”

“Adam did it. He knew his life was in danger and that our marriage made me vulnerable to those hunting him. He took the registry, cut it in half, and sent his piece to his father. If his father has Adam’s last letter, then maybe he will give it to me.”

Ester held the torn parchment paper to the window. “This says Wilkinso. You’ve gone by the name Wilky?”

Was it wrong to be mad at a dead man?

I hated Adam for his secrets, as much as I hated that he was gone. I was conflicted and hurting, but these should be old wounds. For the past two weeks I’d told myself so many times it didn’t matter, that he’d had reason for this deception. Just more of his cloak-and-dagger ways. Truthfully, it made everything hurt all over again.

I took back the old document and smoothed it against my knee. “Wilky, Wilkinson. None of it matters. You don’t believe me.”

“Ruth, is it possible he took the document to get rid of the proof? That he’d changed his mind and thought it more convenient to have no evidence?”

It was possible, but I’d never let Ester know that.

The wrong last name was why Papa had found no evidence of Adam.

Time and hurt had a way of shifting things. Adam, hero or villain? Who was he? Why had he had so many secrets?

Ester put a hand on my shoulder. “Is it worth confirming that this man you risked everything for was a scoundrel?”

Scoundrel. Liar. Those were words I’d have never thought about Adam, until two weeks ago.

He could be all those things and still tragically dead.

For a moment, I wanted to make the carriage turn back. I should keep the lies I’d lived rather than find the truth and know how stupid I’d been.

I’d loved Adam with everything. I’d given him everything, and he couldn’t even give me his true name.

I felt weak, for I was weak.

Sinking against the seat, I wished to fall into the tuft of the fabric and never come out. I wanted to be a hairpin that slid into a crack and was lost.

Then I remembered my son.

He’d look for me like he did butterflies and birds and frogs. I wasn’t doing this for me. Chris needed to have a name, even if it was the wrong one.

Turning the plain gold band Papa had bought to replace the one taken, ripped from me like the cross Adam had given me, I stopped hiding. This was my truth. “I married Adam. It was a legal ceremony. The name is cut off, but it’s Wilkinson. Adam’s father, Algernon Nathaniel Wilkinson, that is who we are to meet. He lives at the address Adam scribbled on the back. I need both parts. That’s my proof.”

A sad sigh left Ester. She folded her arms and tucked a palm under her chin. “If he wrote the wrong name, the marriage is invalid. His family can claim it wasn’t legal. Christopher is as pale as Josiah. The white Wilkinson family will not claim you.”

I knew this.

I didn’t think Adam would be so cruel, but I never thought he’d lie to me, either. I closed my eyes. “I have to believe the good in him. He did not take me to Gretna Green just to have at me. We married. I was a bride. I was loved.”

My voice sounded strong. I saw my sister nod and back down. But she didn’t see my confusion, my growing doubts.

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 the click-clop of 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.

Head pounding, I took off my spectacles and sank into the cushions of the seat, sans wanting to slip into a crack.

I watched the blurs passing the window. The shapes—blobs of gray, swaths of burgundy—had to be the limestone and fired-brick buildings.

A long, throaty hoot. That was probably a barge floating down the Thames. That would make these next blobs warehouses.

The world wasn’t so scary in a closed, moving carriage with everything blurry.

In another twenty minutes, the carriage stopped at Blaren House.

I was thankful, so much closer to the truth.

I hadn’t fallen apart being away from the house.

Ester moved to the door first. “Put your spectacles on, Ruth. I’m not letting you out of the carriage if you don’t.”

“You are taking your duties as chaperone a little too much like Mama Croome.”

“I’m serious, Ruth.”

I flipped on my spectacles and followed Ester out of the carriage.

Blaren House.

Big. Wide green lawn. Huge chiseled stones. Stately. Elegant.

As we moved forward, something ran toward us.

Chest thumping faster, I stopped and pulled Ester behind me. I wouldn’t let my sister get hurt.

A woman ran past, clothes barely on her back. “He’s crazy!”

Other people ran past us as if Blaren House was on fire.

My sister tugged on my arm. “Ruth. It’s an upset. Let’s go. Let’s get back into the carriage.”

A snap, a crackle, a pop. These new noises rose over the screams.

More men, even a woman in black and white, fled down the limestone steps.

I planted my heels against the pavement. “It’s only an eviction, Ester. You’ve heard of them. Some of Papa’s workers have gambled away their wages. They lose everything.”

“Yes, my husband has stopped a few of those procedures for widows of Papa’s workers.”

This manicured lawn erupted like a brawl in a bawdy house. Incredible.

Another snap.

That sounded like a whip. It sounded as if it sliced the air into shreds.

My chest beat as if it had gone crazy.

If the Wilkinsons were evicted, I’d never find them.

A woman bumped into me. Scantily clad, perhaps draped in a sheet. “That man is crazed. Run for your lives.”

Cold sweat slipped down my neck, chilling my spine.

The openness hit me where I stood.

I needed to run back to the carriage or to the wide-open entry of Blaren House.

Something kept pulling me, but I wasn’t moving.

That open door was all I could see. I hoped that one of the Wilkinsons remained. Someone who knew Adam.

“This isn’t a good time to visit, Ruth. Can’t you see that?”

I heard my sister. I heard her fear, but all I could focus on was a door and the truth.

Volcano me, dragon me, wild child me, ran. I moved faster and faster to Blaren House’s entry.

I heard my name but kept heading to that doorway.

On the first step, someone bumped me and sent me spinning.

But I had to get inside. I pushed up the next step. Getting inside was all I wanted.

Another man knocked me. My glasses flew as I went down.

My neck hit first then my head bounced on the limestone.

The impact knifed through me.

Sharp sensations shredded every muscle.

In my eyes, colors and darkness struggled for control.

The panic had me. It was winning. I prayed not to faint, for the pain to stop, for darkness to leave me alone.

“Ruth!”

Ester? I should fight for her, but I couldn’t move.

A big blur stood over me.

Did he whisper something?

Did he say my name?

A roughened palm scooped beneath my neck. He cradled it then caressed my jaw.

The blur hoisted me onto his shoulder. “Ah! The bed wench I ordered is here!”

The boast gutted.

My temples exploded as I flailed down his back. My face slammed into a hardened backside.

I couldn’t yell. Couldn’t beat on his big legs. Darkness had me.

“Put my sister down!”

Headstrong volcano me had brought trouble onto my sister.

Aching, I succumbed to the inky blackness. It swallowed me whole.