From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  But he was coming closer and closer and she couldn’t run any faster and she couldn’t get away and she couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t see and he was coming, he was coming She tried to scream but her throat seemed frozen. She opened her mouth and tried and tried but no sound came out, am he was there, right behind her. She could hear his breath like a roaring in her ears, and she could feel it, hot and scalding on the back of her neck, and she opened her mouth again and his hand came out of the darkness and grabbed her and she screamed for dear life.

  She awoke with a jolt that shook the whole bed. Beside her Matthew jumped in surprise and began to whimper as Lori sobbed desperately for breath. She felt as if she really had been running for her life and realized her whole body was trembling and damp with perspiration.

  As she reached over instinctively to soothe Matthew back to sleep, she heard the thump of feet on the floor in the other room as someone jumped down from the ladder to the roof. “Lori?” Bessie cried through the darkness. “Dear Lori girl, are you all right?”

  The bedroom door flew open, and there stood Bessie clutching a flickering candle, her hair sticking up every which way, her threadbare gown rumpled from sleep and he eyes wide with terror.

  “What in God’s name was you screamin’ about?”

  Dear heaven, she must have actually screamed aloud. “I... it was a nightmare,” she said, still breathless from the terror of it.

  “Must’ve been some nightmare!” Bessie exclaimed hurrying over to the bed. She held the candle up so she could see Lori’s face better, and she gasped. “Was you cryin’ in your sleep?”

  Lori reached up and was surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears. With unsteady hands, she quickly wiped them away.

  “Good God, you’re shaking! And you’re white as a ghost! What on earth was you dreaming?”

  Lori shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. But Bessie wasn’t going to give up. “Was it Adam? Did he do something—?”

  “No,” Lori said before Bessie could imagine things were worse than they were. “I was dreaming ... He was after me. He was going to force himself on me again.” Before she could stop them, the tears flooded her eyes and filled her throat. “I’ll die before I let him touch me again!” she choked out, covering her face with both hands as the sobs began to shake her.

  “There, now, don’t cry,” Bessie soothed, setting the candle down on the crate that served as a bedside table and taking a seat beside Lori on the bed. “You don’t gotta stay with him if he mistreats you, even if he is your husband!”

  Lori sobbed harder in frustration. “Not Adam!” she managed to say. “His... the other one!”

  “Eric?” Bessie guessed uncertainly, and suddenly Lori’s anger overrode her despair.

  “Of course Eric!" she cried shrilly. “He's the one who attacked me! I told you and told you, but you never believed me! Nobody ever believed me, not even Adam!”

  The truth of that pierced her heart, and the pain of it tore a new sob from her. She tried to turn away from Bessie, but Bessie caught her anyway, taking her in her arms to offer the comfort she had denied months ago when Lori had thought the pain of it would kill her.

  Time hadn’t eased that pain, but Bessie’s arms helped. She held Lori and crooned meaningless phrases and rocked her as if she were the baby instead of Matthew who, oblivious to his mother’s crisis, had fallen asleep again.

  For a long time Lori simply wept against Bessie’s shoulder, sobbing out the pain of Eric’s attack and Adam’s betrayal. Only when she was too exhausted to weep anymore and her sobs had died away was she able to realize what had happened.

  She pulled away and looked at Bessie in amazement. “You believe me?” she marveled, her voice still hoarse from weeping. “You believe Eric attacked me!”

  “ ’Course I do,” Bessie replied indignantly.

  But Lori wasn’t going to let her off so easily. “You never did before,” she reminded her.

  Bessie had the grace to look chagrined. “I reckon I didn’t. Didn’t want to believe it,” she added at Lori’s frown. “I mean, why would a man like Eric Ross need to force a girl? He’s got his pick of slave girls in his own quarters, and heaven knows, there’s enough white girls who’d be willing, if they thought he’d look at them twice.”

  “And you thought I was one of them!”

  “You wouldn’t’ve been the first poor girl who believed a rich man’s lies,” Bessie said. “And then it didn’t matter how you got yourself in trouble. The important thing was getting you out.”

  Lori lay back down on the bed and covered her eyes with her arm as despair washed over her again. “You did a good job on that,” she reminded Bessie bitterly.

  Bessie crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “You was grateful at the time, if you remember. Now, you gonna tell me why you up and left Adam Ross? The real reason and not just ’cause you’re afraid of Eric attackin’ you again.”

  Lori sighed wearily. “He said he forgives me.”

  “For what?”

  With the remembered pain, she felt a fresh onslaught o tears, but she fought it, determined not to weep over the Ross brothers anymore. “For having an affair with his brother,” she said, instantly angry once more. “I thought he believed me! I thought he believed that I hadn’t loved Eric or let him court me, or believed his lies or let him seduce me! I though he understood and that was why...”

  She had to stop when her voice broke and once more she fought the tears. When she could speak again, she said, “But he didn’t understand at all, and he doesn’t even believe I’m afraid of Eric. He thinks I just hate him or something for jilting me, and that’s why I want him out of the house. And then he said he forgives me for everything! As if I was the one who did something wrong!”

  “Hush, now. Hush!” Bessie begged when Lori began to cry again. “You’re making me sorry I didn’t let Adam Ross come down here tonight so I could've put a load of buckshot in him!”

  That picture drew a choking laugh from Lori in spite of her tears and saved her from surrendering to them completely. “What am I going to do, Bessie?” she asked feeling herself sinking into despair again. “How can I live with him when I know what he thinks of me?”

  Bessie shook her head. “Ain’t something you gotta decide this minute. Like I said before, things always look better in the morning. You get some sleep now or try to,” she added at Lori’s skeptical frown. “You got a baby to take care of, and you need your rest. We’ll talk about this tomorrow, and maybe when Mr. Adam Ross shows up here... Well, you never know. Maybe he’ll come to his senses, after all.”

  When Bessie had gone, leaving her alone in the dark again, Lori snuggled up to Matthew, grateful for the warmth of his little body that seemed to be the only thing that could touch the chill in her soul.

  How could she ever have thought she loved Adam Ross? How could she ever have thought she knew who and what he was? But, she had to admit to herself as she lay there holding her son, even though he wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be, even though he had hurt her beyond bearing, and even though she was afraid she could never trust him again, in spite of all of that, she did still love him. More than life itself.

  ***

  As he drove his buggy into the yard of the McClintock cabin, Adam had to squeeze his hands into tight fists around the reins to keep them from trembling. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so apprehensive about any encounter in his entire life. Why he should be, he had no idea. Lori was his wife after all. She and her child belonged to him in every possible way. Surely, she understood that, just as she must understand how much she owed him.

  Hadn’t he taken care of her when she had been desperate and alone? Hadn’t he given her the protection of his name and accepted her child as his own? Hadn’t he forgiven the sins that any other man would have condemned her for? And in spite of all of that, by God, hadn’t he even fallen in love with her?

  And now, here he was, humbling himself even more to ge
t crawling to her to beg her to come back and humiliate him even more. Because he knew, after only one night alone and no matter what kind of woman she might be, that without her, his life would not be worth living.

  Except for a plume of smoke ascending lazily from the chimney, the cabin seemed deserted. For a moment, he wondered if he was too early, if perhaps they weren’t even awake yet. But the smoke told him that someone was up, and he figured that if Lori wasn’t quite prepared to see him, he would have the upper hand.

  After setting the brake and tying off the reins, Adar climbed out of the buggy, taking care not to stumble. For minute, he considered whether or not to take his cane, and finally decided against it. No sense in reminding her of his disability, not when his whole purpose in coming was to convince her that she was powerless against his will.

  He didn’t call out a greeting, figuring they had most certainly heard him drive up, and indeed, he had not eve reached the door when it opened. Bessie McClintock stood there, looking every bit as formidable as Adam wished to be.

  “Good morning,” he said, making himself smile.

  She didn’t smile back. “What do you want?”

  Adam bit back the sarcastic reply that came instantly to his mind, refusing to rise to her bait. “I would like to see my wife,” he said, reminding her—and Lori, who could no doubt hear every word—that she was his wife.

  “What if she don’t wanna see you?” Bessie challenged.

  Adam felt the heat of his instant anger flooding his face, but before he could reply, he heard Lori’s voice say, “It’s all right, Bessie. Let him in.”

  With obvious reluctance, Bessie stepped back and allowed him to enter the small cabin. The smell of bacon was strong and the heat of the fire oppressive, or perhaps it was just nerves that caused Adam to feel suddenly very warm.

  His eager gaze found her instantly in the interior dimness, she was standing stiffly by the table, and she was just as beautiful as he remembered or perhaps even more so because he wore her old, ragged dress and her hair was loose around her shoulders, just the way it had been the first day he’d come here. He felt a rush of tenderness that left him weak, then he saw that her hands were locked together at her waist, which told him that she was as apprehensive about this meeting as he was, and his strength returned.

  “How are you?” he asked, realizing the remark came from genuine concern rather than just ingrained politeness.

  For a moment, he was afraid she wasn’t going to answer him. She lifted her chin, as if defying him, but at last she said, “We’re fine now.”

  He winced inwardly at the implication that she could only be fine when she was away from him, but he refused to let her see his reaction.

  A noise drew his attention, and he saw that a basket sat on the table and that Matthew lay in that basket. He was smiling and gurgling, kicking his feet and waving his hands in excitement, and Adam realized he was happy to see the man he believed to be his father. He felt another rush of tenderness for the child he had come to love as much as he loved Lori, and he had to close his hands into fists to keep from reaching for the baby.

  But he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “Good morning, young man.” Matthew replied with a happy coo that made Adam’s heart clench painfully in his chest, and only then did Adam understand that Matthew was just as important to his happiness as Lori.

  When he looked back at her, he thought her eyes seemed suspiciously bright, as if she, too, understood the bond that had developed between Adam and her baby. But if she did she chose to ignore it. “Will you just say what you came to say?” she asked, sounding almost desperate.

  Adam had been planning his arguments all night, but now he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. Of one thing he was certain, however, and that was that he didn’t want to begin in front of Bessie.

  He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Would you mind leaving us alone, Mrs. McClintock?”

  She made a rude noise, but she said, “Lori, you holler if you need me.”

  Adam felt another flash of anger at the implication that Lori might need protection from him, but he swallowed down. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted now, now at this most important moment. When Bessie was gone, leaving the front door open behind her—all the better to hear Lori’s cries for help, he thought bitterly—he turned back to Lori.

  Instantly, he was struck again by how beautiful she looked. And by how awful. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed by dark circles that told him she had slept as little as he had last night. And he realized with annoyance why she was wearing the faded, threadbare gown. Damnit, did she hate him so much, she wouldn’t even wear the clothes he had provided for her?

  “Lori, this is insane!” he blurted in exasperation. “I want you to come home with me right now!” Not at all what had planned to say. And, he saw instantly, exactly the wrong thing.

  “Why?” she challenged. Her face was no longer pale. Two spots of vivid color had blossomed in her cheeks.

  “Because you’re my wife. Because you belong at Elmhurst with me, you and Matthew both. Eric won’t bother you. You won’t even have to see him, and as soon as he’s well enough o travel, I’ll send him away. I already told you that.”

  But it wasn’t enough. He could see that in her expression, in the way her dark blue eyes looked bleak and unyielding, then, as if she didn’t trust herself to speak, she shook her lead.

  “I don’t know what more you want from me, Lori!” he cried. “I don’t know what else I can do! Good God, I’ve told you I’ll send my own brother away, throw him out of his own home just to please you! I’ve given you everything you ever ranted!”

  “And you’ve forgiven me,” she reminded him with what sounded oddly like bitterness.

  “Yes, I have! How many other men would have done as much? How many other men would have married you and given your child a name?”

  “Not many,” she admitted. “I thought you were a saint for doing it.”

  Adam should have felt gratified, except she didn’t sound exactly grateful. “What do you want from me, Lori?”

  This time there was no mistake. Her eyes did fill with tears. “I want you to be the man I thought you were.”

  “I can’t be a saint!”

  But she shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant. “You still don’t understand, do you? You don’t have any idea why left.”

  “How could I? You didn’t pay me the courtesy of telling me,” he reminded her angrily.

  “I did tell you. You just didn’t listen.”

  He drew a deep breath to keep from grabbing her and shaking her. Sudie had been right, she was playing with him and it was a game at which he had no skill at all. With the greatest effort, he managed to control his fury. “Then perhaps you will do me the favor of telling me again. I promise to listen this time.”

  She was crying now. Not out loud. Silently. He cursed inwardly as the tears ran slowly down her cheeks unheeded. God, he hated it when she cried.

  “I never loved Eric,” she told him. “I never looked at him twice. You were the one I loved, the only one. But he tricked me, and he got me alone, and he forced me.” Her voice caught, and for a moment he thought she wouldn’t be able to go on, but somehow she did. “He held me down and hurt me until I thought I was going to die. Afterward, I was so ashamed. I felt stupid and like it was my fault somehow, tried to pretend it never happened, tried to act like everything was the same as always, but there was... Matthew, and I couldn’t do that anymore.

  “Then you found out and offered to marry me. I didn’t want to ruin your life, but Bessie reminded me of how much I loved you, and she made me think maybe I could make you happy. I wanted to, Adam, I wanted to so much!”

  “You did, Lori!” he assured her. He reached for her, certain he had won, but she stiffened in alarm and jumped back out of his reach.

  “Did I?” she challenged, and she sounded almost angry. “I’m so glad! I’m so glad I was finally able to be a wife to
you, Adam, even though the thought of any man touching me again made my skin crawl. And I’m glad you didn’t seem to mind when I woke up screaming from nightmares that your brother was attacking me again. In fact, you hardly seemed to notice. Just like you didn’t really notice how terrified I was when he came back yesterday. And just like you didn’t seem to notice when I begged you to send him away. He attacked me, Adam! How could you imagine that I could stay in the same house with him for one minute? And how could you say you forgive me when he’s the only one who did anything wrong?”

  “Lori,” he began, not knowing what to say, not even sure he understood, but certain that if he could take her in his arms, everything would be fine again, just the way it had been before.

  But when he reached for her again, she screamed, “Don’t touch me!”

  “Lori, please, listen to me,” he tried, desperate to calm her.

  But her cry had summoned Bessie who came bursting into the house.

  “Get out of here!” Bessie demanded, snatching an aging shotgun down from where it hung on the wall. “Get out of here right now, while you still can!”

  Surely, she wouldn’t really shoot him, and he didn’t have the time to argue with her at the moment. “Lori,” he tried again, but Lori shook her head.

  “I can’t talk about this anymore, Adam. Not now. You told me you forgive me, but I can’t forgive you, not until you at least understand what you’ve done to me.”

  “All I did was love you, Lori,” he insisted desperately. ’And make you my wife and give you a home.”

  “And turn a piece of poor white trash into a lady,” Bessie added angrily.

  Lori’s eyes widened, as if she had just realized something. “That’s it, isn’t it, Adam?” she said. “You made me a fine lady, so I’d look good when you took me out in public, or when you had guests over, but you still think of me as trash, don’t you? The little tramp your brother used and threw away, a girl who’ll do anything to get what she wants.”