Forgotten Truths (The Forgotten Truths Series)

by Justine E. Domke

“Why is that?”

  “He works at night.” He gently placed his free hand over mine, which I hadn’t realized was still on his wrist, and loosened the grip. I’d been squeezing it and I noticed a slight red spot where my hand had been. I pulled it back to me and put my other hand over my wrist where he’d touched me. He watched me closely. “Are you really sure you’re all right?”

  I went back to looking out my window, not that the trees had changed at all. However, the road was starting to turn. I knew there was no reason to get nervous. I’d lived with men my entire life, how was this any different? It was different because these men were very proper and had rules, different ones than I was used to. I knew I could handle it, but what was I to expect?

  “Is there anyone else?”

  “No, just the three of us. Look, we’ll be there in a few minutes, and then I’ll take you right upstairs. We can skip meeting Captain Brown for right now.”

  “No. No. I don’t want to be in this dress any longer than I have to be.”

  “Is it your head? I mean, I can tell the driver to go faster, but-“

  “I’m fine, all right? It’s not my head or anything. I just wanted to know what I was going to have to live with. I just want to get there and get it over with.” I shifted again so that I was comfortable and not facing him anymore.

  It was a small success because no sooner had I turned when the carriage stopped. I heard James get up and open the door. I turned my head he stepped down the steps. He turned around and looked at me. When I didn’t move, he held his hand out to me with a patient expression on his face. I closed my eyes for a moment before I reluctantly stood. I put my hand on the top of the door, and as I started to step out, I looked up at the house.

  Enormous would have been an understatement to describe it. It was made entirely of white stone except for the porch that wrapped around the front. I couldn’t imagine what kind of work had gone into building this house. There was ivy climbing up the sides along with some around the porch railing. There were windows everywhere with the same type of ivy detail, but some of it was carved in stone. Off to the right was a garden of some sort with trees that were slightly different than the ones in the forest. There were so many different colors coming from that area that it didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the house, but it still somehow fit just like the porch did. A black-iron fence with a tall gate enclosed it. The building itself sat on a stretch of beach with the sun setting just off to the left. There were no other houses to the right, but I could see the town. To the left there was a building that was made in the same style as the house, but there was a patch of grass around it, and it was fenced in. Off in the distance there was another building, possibly a house, but other than that, there was nothing.

  I looked back up at the house and didn’t realize I was about to miss the first step that I had been slowly lowering myself to. I fell forward but James caught me before I hit the ground. My head was against his chest, and his arms were around me as he slowly set me on my feet. I felt the slight scare from falling start to evaporate. My breathing slowed and then picked back up when I realized that his arms were around me. That slight fact hadn’t registered when I was thinking about getting my breathing and heart back to normal.

  I straightened up quickly. I smacked my head on the underside of his chin and grimaced. I took a step back as he touched his lip. A small drop of blood came off on his fingertip. He looked at me and then at his finger again. The finger was on the same hand with the bandage. I shouldn’t have cared because it had never bothered me when I would beat up a man. However, this was unintentional, and when I looked at his black eye, and then at his hand in the wrap, I was overcome with an emotion I wasn’t used to. It wasn’t exactly regret or feeling guilty, because he did kidnap me, and I tried to fight back. But he still hadn’t acknowledged any angry feelings toward me, which made me wonder if that’s why I started to feel like this.

  He wiped his hand on his pants and motioned for me to come toward him. I did, very slowly since I didn’t know what to expect, and he put his hand on my back. I shifted, but then his hand was on my shoulder. He turned me so that I could look at his face.

  “You’re going to have to live here, and it’s proper for a man to put his hand on female’s back out of courtesy. I promise, whatever you think I’m going to do to you, I won’t.” His eyes scanned my face as he said this.

  “You’ll only put your hand on my back, nothing else?”

  “I can’t guarantee that. But whatever it is that you’re thinking I’m going to do to you whenever I touch you, I’m not going to do it.”

  “Look, it’s nothing personal. I just have a problem with anyone touching me.” I looked down at the ground.

  “But see, in this lifestyle, you’ll have to get used to it. I’ll try to give you plenty of warning before I touch you.”

  “Warning?” I looked at him skeptically.

  “Yes, like on the ship when I kept clearing my throat to get you to open your eyes before I felt your forehead. It’s pretty obvious that you don’t like it when people touch you, but sometimes it can’t be helped. All I can do is give you a warning.”

  So he was more observant than I had originally thought as well. I turned to the house. I still would not be comfortable, but maybe if he gave me warning, I could at least deal with it. If nothing else, we could discuss it later. I turned back to him. “It’ll only be when you absolutely have to?”

  “Absolutely.” He bowed low and swept his arm in front of him in a grand gesture. I thought maybe he was being sarcastic, but then he looked at me with a genuine smile. “Are you ready to meet Captain Brown?”

  I looked at the house again, and then the ocean beyond it. How long would it take for my father to find me? Not soon enough. I brought my attention back to James, who was still patiently waiting for me. “I guess.”

  He kept his eyes on mine as he moved his hand to my back. I closed my eyes and felt my body tense as I waited for the feel of his hand. When I didn’t feel it, I opened my eyes. He was still looking at me and his arm was around me. He must have barely been touching me. He applied a little pressure, enough where I had to take a step. Then we walked up the steps, and he opened the door for me, but I didn’t move any further.

  We were about to enter a very large but empty room. The walls seemed to go on forever until they finally hit the ceiling where it still went up at an angle and met in the middle. Hanging down from it was a massive chandelier that sparkled as if it was made with diamonds. To the right of where we stood was a doorway with glass doors that were open. There was a big desk and floor to ceiling shelves with books on them. There was a fireplace next to the desk and a few more pieces of furniture. Looking back into the foyer, to the left there was a long wall that went back past the staircase and ended with an open window. That wall had three more open doorways, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was beyond them. Straight ahead was the enormous staircase that wrapped around so that when you went upstairs, you started out by facing the back wall and ended up facing the right side of the house. At the top of the staircase were doors on both sides and a hallway in each direction. Beneath the right side of the staircase was another room, but the double doors were closed. It was beautiful but very overwhelming.

  “Just take one step at a time. It only looks really big,” James whispered in my ear.

  “No, it is really big.” I gaped back up at the chandelier. “That chandelier alone would have taken up half of my room.”

  “Well, you still shouldn’t be able to get lost. Upstairs are just bedrooms, and the staircase is right in the middle so you only have two directions to go. And down here there are just these five rooms and this big foyer. There’s no reason for you to worry. Like I said, it’s not as big as it seems.”

  I took a small step forward and finally entered the room. He applied a little more pressure on my back, and we took a couple more steps. It echoed.

  “Where’s Captain Brown?” I asked. My voice s
ounded loud to me, and I winced.

  “My guess would be in his study.” He pointed to our right where the room with the floor to ceiling shelving was. When I didn’t move, he again applied a little pressure to my back and led me into the room.

  The room was very bright since there seemed to be several windows along the walls. The shelves went around the entire room except where the windows were. The window in the front of the room was big and had a bench with a sky-blue cushion under it. In the middle of the room there was a couch with the same blue fabric, two navy-blue chairs, and a dark-wooden table between them. In another corner was a large, brown leather chair that looked so comfortable I could have lay down in it right then, dress and all, and fallen asleep. The floor was a dark wood with a deep-blue rug in the middle. The desk was in front of the back wall with a tall, wooden chair behind it. The desk itself was the same dark wood as the floor, and it had some gold accents on it. But there was no man in the room.

  “Hmm.” James stepped around me and went over to the desk. He picked up a piece of paper on it, read it, and then put it back down. “Well, I guess we could try the sitting room.”

  “The sitting room?” I asked as he came by me and went out into the foyer. They had a room only for sitting? I followed him, and he led me straight across the foyer. I noticed again how our footsteps echoed. It didn’t seem like there was anyone in this house. I thought most people had servants, but maybe I was wrong.

  He held up his hand for me to stop as he leaned into the room. I was far enough back to not be able to see much of anything except a white wall with a lot of design on it. It also had a white fireplace with a mantel in the middle of it that took up most of the wall. But other than that, I couldn’t see anything around him.

  “Captain?” James said. His voice bounced off the walls.

  I heard some papers rustling and a man cleared his throat. “Hello, James! I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

  “It didn’t take as long as we thought it would. Captain, I’d like you to meet someone.” He motioned for me to come toward him, and when I did he stepped aside. I felt his hand on my back this time as he followed me into the room. This room was just as big as the study, but the walls didn’t have any shelves on them. In fact, besides a couple paintings and the windows, the walls were bare. There was the same large window in the front as in the study, but this one had a deep-red cushion on the bench. The floor had the same dark-red coloring in the carpet as in the cushion, but the two couches in the middle of the room were white. It felt cold, empty and rarely used. So this was a sitting room. After taking another quick look around, I understood it must have been referred to as a sitting room since there wasn’t anything to do in it but sit.

  On one of the couches sat an older man who was holding a paper. He folded it and put it down next to him before standing up and straightening his suit. He hadn’t seen me yet, so I got a chance to study him first. He was my height, which surprised me for some unexplainable reason. His hair was grey, and he was clearly aging. He was a little on the heavier side, but not exactly plump either. He was dressed in a fancy suit, very prim and proper even though James had told me he was retired. When he turned toward me, I saw how tired he looked. His ocean-blue eyes didn’t seem as bright as they may have been at one time. Maybe it was the way his expression seemed fixed into a constant frown, as if he was the saddest man in the world, and when he smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Captain, this is Andrea.” James said as he looked at me again.

  The captain nodded and opened his mouth to speak but stopped. Then he took a closer look at me and his smile disappeared.

  I glanced at James, and he was just confused as I was. He took a step toward him so that he was in front of me. “Captain?”

  He kept staring at me, so I stepped behind James. James peered over his shoulder at me and reached his hand around behind him. I wasn’t sure what he meant to do with it, but he then turned back to the captain, who was still standing there, his mouth hanging open. I started to step back further when James suddenly leaned back and grabbed my hand. He didn’t pull me up next to him, but made sure that I didn’t run, which I very much felt like doing. I didn’t start tugging though, my attention still focused on the older man.

  “Captain, are you all right?”

  Captain Brown looked at him, and then turned back at me. James squeezed my hand as he looked back at me as well. I could tell by the expression on his face that he didn’t know what was wrong. He turned back to Captain Brown again, but this time took a step back. After another step, he was right next to me. He leaned over and whispered, “Let’s go.”

  I immediately stepped back again, but he didn’t move. I was really uncomfortable and looked toward the door. It was only a few feet away. I took another step toward it and tugged James’ hand. He hesitated, his attention still on the captain, but then he quickly turned around, and I found myself being pulled out into the other room. He dragged me up the steps and down the hall. I saw that there were three doors on each side of the hallway, which ended with a window on the far wall. He took me down to the last room on the left and opened the door. As soon as we were inside, he let go of my hand. He went over to a glass door on the opposite wall and stood with his hands behind his head.

  I took a quick look around the room. To my right was a big bed with a canopy above it. The bedding was a light, mossy green to match the chair in the corner. There was a bureau with a mirror attached along the wall that was behind me to my left. Along the left wall was a huge armoire with a long, narrow table next to it. Along the wall across from me where James stood was a bay window with a bench, just like the ones downstairs, and the cushion was again the same color as the rest of the fabric in the room. The carpet and the walls were a cream color to complement the greens, and all of the wood was painted white. It was very nice, but when I looked back at James, who hadn’t moved an inch, I stopped looking around. Something was really wrong if James was this concerned.

  He suddenly dropped his hands and turned around to face me. “I’m going to go talk to him.”

  I stepped away from the door. “What’s wrong with him?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him react like that. He went pale. Did you see that?”

  I looked away. “No. I couldn’t look at him when he was looking at me like that.”

  “I am so sorry. Let me go talk to him, and then I’ll come back up and tell you what the new plan is. Until then though, stay here.” He went toward the door but stopped just short. He looked over at me. Whatever was on my face made him take the few steps between us so that he was only a few inches away from me. He started to reach his hand out, but stopped. He sighed, softly, and put his hands in his pockets instead. “It’ll be fine. I’ll figure everything out.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, how Captain Brown reacted to me or the fact that he reacted that way because of me.

  James took a step back and then was out the door. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment when he left how I hadn’t struggled against him when he had grabbed my hand. I hadn’t reacted at all, not even when he dragged me from that room all the way to the one I was currently in. That had never happened before. I felt so uneasy at this realization that I fell back on the bed, but I wasn’t nauseous. That was new as well.

  I didn’t want to think about what any of it meant, so I got up and went over to the other door and opened it. There was a small balcony outside with an iron bench on it. I went to the railing and leaned against it. The sun was sitting right on top of the water. This was my favorite time of day to look out at the water. For me, on a bad day, this meant that the day was almost over and a new day would start again in a few hours. On regular days though, I just loved how calming it made the sea look, as if nothing in the world could be wrong. This was an odd thought as I yet again looked at the situation I was in. What if Captain Brown said I couldn’t stay? Where would I go th
en? I had to stay here if there was any chance that my father would find me. He could find out who James was easily. He could also find out who James was staying with. But if I was taken somewhere else, there was no way that James would tell him where I was.

  At some point while I’d been standing there, James had appeared at my side. It was if he had appeared out of thin air. I jumped and put my hand up to my chest. I took a step back to catch my breath.

  “Sorry.” James spoke quietly. He stayed looking out at the ocean.

  “So, what’s going on?” I sat down on the bench and half expected him to come sit by me, or at least turn around.

  He was quiet, and after several minutes passed, he still hadn’t said anything. I didn’t like it. It made me feel really uneasy.

  I stood up and went over to him. He was so focused on whatever it was that he was staring at that he didn’t notice me. I looked at his arms, which he was leaning against and had his hands clasped in front of him. I knew that if I said anything, it wouldn’t get his attention. If I touched him though… it would surprise both of us. I wasn’t sure how to do it, or even where, but I finally decided to just put my hand on his arm. When he didn’t respond to that, I slowly reached it up to his face. I carefully cupped his cheek and turned his head toward me. He blinked a couple of times and then he reached his hand up and put it over mine. He pulled it away from his face as he turned his entire body toward me and then held it between both of his hands.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He started to rub his hands over mine. I wanted it back, but I didn’t feel like I could pull it away from him.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t scare me. You just weren’t answering me, and I want to know if Captain Brown is all right or not.”

  He stared at me, almost like Captain Brown had and for about the same length of time. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and looked down. I pulled my hand out of his so that I could cross my arms over my chest. I saw his feet move as he came a little closer to me. It was clear that he thought through it, because he took a step back instead.