by Delia Parr
“Not all of them. She’s only learned half of them so far,” she offered.
“Annabelle’s teaching Irene how to read and write,” Harrison said, and she caught just a hint of pride in his eyes before he looked away.
“Only to help her to be able to read some new recipes. Besides, everyone should be literate.”
Harrison snorted. “That may or may not be an advantage where Irene’s concerned.”
“How so?” Philip asked as he snatched up two of the cookies and returned to his seat.
“Once she’s able to read and write, I have no doubt she’ll start leaving me lists of complaints instead of simply being so outspoken.”
Philip swallowed a bite of cookie and smiled. “If teaching her how to read results in cookies as good as these are, then I would say it’s worth the risk. Besides, now that you and Annabelle are married, you have no right to complain about anything at all, not even a housekeeper who doesn’t seem to know her place.”
Embarrassed by Philip’s compliment, Annabelle was relieved when the two men bantered back and forth debating the merits and disadvantages of living here at Graymoor Gardens, where life was more casual than at the city mansion.
Instead of contributing her own thoughts, she filled each of their plates with a sampling of desserts and finished her plate. She was slicing another small wedge of pie when a woman’s scream, followed by a crash of metal and china, came from directly below them, startling Annabelle enough to make her drop the knife she was using and end the men’s conversation.
Harrison immediately got to his feet. “That sounds as if Peggy dropped those warm beverages Irene promised. I’d better check on her,” he said and rushed out of the room.
With her heart still racing, Annabelle frowned. “I hope she didn’t get burned.”
“She’s probably fine.” Philip leaned closer to the table. “You’re doing fine, too.”
When she raised her brow, he offered her a reassuring smile. “You’re exactly the woman Harrison needs as his wife. He chose you above all the other women he’s ever known and rightly so. Don’t let anyone ever convince you otherwise, especially someone as self-serving as Vienna Biddle.”
Horrified by the mere thought that he had become privy to the conversation she’d had with the woman at the ball, Annabelle could barely draw a decent breath of air. If he knew what Vienna said, then others did, too—which meant Vienna had been right to suggest that people were gossiping about her. No doubt she’d added her own tidbit of gossip.
“You know what she said to me . . . what awful claim she made?” Annabelle locked her hands together to keep them from trembling and laid them on her lap.
“I know how very difficult it must be for you to know that people think the very worst of you. I truly do, and I’m so very, very sorry. I only wish there was something more I could do, other than staunchly defend you and set people straight when the opportunity presents itself.”
“At least you’re willing to do that. Harrison found the whole matter laughable when I told him about it, and he prefers to completely ignore the gossip rather than say anything to stop it.”
Philip shook his head. “My cousin is basically a good man, despite what others think of him, but it seems he has a lot to learn about matters of the heart. Give him time, Annabelle. Loving someone and expressing that love is something he has to learn how to do.”
Annabelle let out a long, sad sigh. Although she was comforted by his words and concern, which were based on the illusion that Harrison actually loved her, she could not help but compare his sympathy and understanding of her feelings with Harrison’s reaction.
Although she also had been comforted by the service today and truly believed God had placed her in Harrison’s life for a reason, she was now very confused. In all truth, she was not even certain she had the gumption and the strength to continue to play the role of Harrison’s wife—a role that constantly kept her swinging from pretext and lies to reality and truth and back again. After having the ball ruined by Vienna’s hurtful accusations and seeing Eric there, she could not imagine what other disasters were waiting for her in the days ahead.
After she thanked Philip for his concern and he promised to return for her in the morning to take her to the city so she could volunteer at the Refuge, she excused herself from the table. Walking quickly, she went directly to the main staircase. As she mounted the steps to return to her room, she had to decide whether she could stay here as Harrison’s wife in name only or simply leave this house and never come back.
Faced with a dilemma that was deeply troubling, she slipped into her room and leaned back against the door. She needed time alone to think and pray so that tonight, one way or another, she would be able to tell Harrison what she was going to do.
Chapter Seventeen
Fortified by prayer, Annabelle came up with a compromise to solve her dilemma that would make it easier for her to remain here, although she still had to think of a way to avoid seeing Eric. Convincing Harrison to agree with her idea, however, was the key to making it work. Unless he did so, she needed to figure out a way to leave in the morning.
She had to wait until very late, however, to speak to Harrison alone. Right before Harrison secured the house for the night, she asked him to join her upstairs in her sleeping room as soon as he finished. While she waited for him to arrive, she arranged two chairs in front of the fireplace before she took her seat and started to knit to remain calm. When he knocked once a few minutes later and slipped into the room, she set her work onto her lap.
“You wanted to talk to me?” he offered as he sat down across from her.
She rested one hand on the diary she had ordered for him that was hidden in the folds of her skirt and laid the other on top of her knitting. “I think we have to talk about a number of things.”
When he glanced at the knitting needles protruding from the sock she had been knitting and cocked a brow, she slid her knitting into the bag on the floor at her feet, then drew a deep breath. “I can’t keep up this charade any longer. Not as we’ve been doing. I’ve truly tried my best, but it’s simply too hard and too complicated.” She locked her gaze with his. “Can you honestly tell me that you’ve enjoyed this past week and a half? That it’s been easy for you?”
He clenched and unclenched his jaw, and his gaze darkened. “Whether or not either one of us has been happy is irrelevant. Establishing and maintaining the illusion that we’re happy is a necessity for which you should thank Philip. If he hadn’t returned for a visit and chosen the night we returned to host a dinner party, no one would have ever known that—”
“You can’t blame Philip,” she argued, surprised by the tone of his voice. “Have you forgotten the announcement of our marriage that appeared in the newspaper that was dated the day before we returned?”
He dropped his gaze for a moment before meeting her own. “You’re right. I did forget.” His gaze softened, then hardened again, as if he were shifting blame from his cousin to whoever had sent the news to The Inquirer.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she prompted.
He let out a very long breath of air, as if he had been hoping she had not noticed. “Have I been happy misleading everyone other than my lawyer about our marriage?” He shrugged. “In all truth, I can’t say that I’ve found it particularly satisfying, but that doesn’t mean I can afford to do anything about it, and neither can you. We’re both stuck with the situation, and we need to make the best of it, no matter how hard it gets for either one of us.”
She slipped her fingers around the leather diary that was identical in color to her own instead of the darker one she had requested. “I completely agree.”
He cocked his head and narrowed his gaze. “If you agree, then I don’t understand why you were so insistent that we talk about it.”
She smiled. “Because if we make the effort to talk with one another about it, neither one of us will feel so . . . so alone.”
H
e snorted. “I’m quite accustomed to being alone.”
“I’m afraid that I’m not,” she countered, keeping her voice low and gentle. “When I was growing up, I was able to confide in my parents. Later, when I left home to attend the seminary and began teaching, I always found a friend to talk to about things that bothered me. After my father died and I went home to live with my mother again, she was the one who listened to me when I was upset about something or shared my joy when I was happy.” Her heart seized a bit at the memory.
“I buried my mother nine months ago, and I miss her companionship and her friendship every day. Now that she’s gone, I have no one left who will accept me without judging me when I have a problem.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she passed so recently.”
“You couldn’t have known. Not unless I told you,” she reassured him. “But here’s what I needed to say to you about our situation,” she continued. “I think we’re both finding it hard to keep up pretenses, whether we’re out in public or here at home. I also think we’re both resentful, to some degree, that we were forced into a marriage neither one of us wanted. We can’t trust anyone with the truth or speak openly of our situation. You just admitted you have no one to talk to about what’s happened to you. Not even your cousin Philip,” she said, certain that if Harrison had confided in Philip, his cousin would have told her.
“No, I haven’t.”
“You told me that you’ve been spending time with old friends back in the city. Have you told any of them the truth?”
He held up his hand. “Absolutely not!”
“I haven’t told anyone, either—not even Irene, who is becoming a good friend. And I feel terribly disloyal for misleading her.”
When he opened his mouth to offer a comment, which she suspected would be a reminder not to become friends with any of the staff, she blurted out the rest of what she had to say. “Since neither one of us has told anyone, then neither you nor I have had the opportunity to share how incredibly hard and . . . and nerve-racking it is to be constantly on guard, afraid to say or do the wrong thing for fear someone might find out that we’re married in name only and have no intention of remaining husband and wife. We need to change that. Otherwise, waiting another month or so until the annulment is completed will be unbearable. And I can’t do it. I just can’t,” she whispered. “Can you?”
He glanced away and kept his gaze on the fire, which bathed his troubled features with golden light. He remained quiet for so long, she was afraid that silence was going to be his only response.
Finally, when her heart was beginning to race with the fear that he was trying to find the right words to tell her to stop whining about changing the impossible, he replied, “Change how?”
Excited by the mere possibility that he might agree to her plan, she edged forward, knocking the diary to the floor. “By becoming friends. You and I need to become friends.”
His head snapped around, and he stared at her. “Friends?”
“Friends,” she insisted. “We obviously trust each other to keep the true nature of our marriage a secret. Why can’t we also trust each other enough to share anything and everything else we’re experiencing, just like we’re trying to do now?”
“Friends,” he repeated, and his features twisted with disbelief, as if the notion of being friends with her or any other woman was alien to his very nature.
He looked so perplexed, she almost chuckled. It would be hard to resist falling in love with this man, especially when she admitted that her attraction to him, unfortunately, had been growing. Knowing how adamant he was about never marrying, however, made her attraction to him even more ill-fated. “Forget the fact that we’re legally married. Just pretend we’re . . . we’re related, like you and Philip are. You’ve always been close to one another, haven’t you?”
“We have, but—”
“And you’ve talked and disagreed and even argued . . . and then talked some more, just like good friends do, even though you’re also cousins. Am I right?”
“I suppose so.”
She leaned back in her seat and smiled. “Then we can do that, too. And before you try to argue the matter, let me point out to you that we’ve been sitting together and talking for a good half an hour, and I don’t believe either one of us has worried about being completely honest with each other . . . about our feelings,” she added to avoid lying outright, since she had yet to decide if she could trust him enough to tell him about Eric.
Harrison raked his fingers through his hair and laughed. “If anyone ever found out that I tried to become friends with any woman, especially one as beautiful and intriguing as you are, they’d laugh and assume it was some sort of prank—or have me confined to an asylum.”
She dismissed his compliment as nothing more than his usual charm, which had lured other women, like Camille Jenkins and Vienna Biddle, into believing he was smitten with them. “You don’t need an asylum. You need a refuge. A place where you can be totally at ease with yourself and with me. Let it be right here in this room. You have to come in here every night you’re home to keep Irene or the other members of the staff from become suspicious anyway. Instead of our sitting here, staring at one another until you think it’s safe to go to bed in the library alcove, why can’t we put that time to better use?”
He cringed. “Anticipating night after night in that freezing bed makes me half inclined to ask if you’ve thought of a solution to that problem, as well,” he replied, indirectly agreeing to her idea.
“In point of fact, I believe you have two options. First, you can return to the city every night where you’ll have a warm bed, but you’ll also have to contend with Irene, who won’t hesitate to berate you for not staying here with me. Or second, you can simply have a warming stove installed in the library.”
He laughed. “Because I want to spend hours in the library reading? She’ll never believe it.”
Annabelle grinned. “Perhaps not, but she would believe that I would like to use the room to read, which I do every morning in the parlor,” she suggested before a brilliant idea popped into her head. “Better yet, I think Irene would be thrilled if you told her that we would like to spend our evenings together in the library. We’d have even more privacy for our talks in that room than we have here, and you’d have a warm room to sleep in.” She hoped he would agree, since it was slightly awkward to try to have a conversation in this room when there was a large bed only a few feet away from them.
He bent down, picked up the diary that had fallen to the floor, and handed it to her. “I’ll speak to Irene about it tomorrow. I have several appointments already set for early this week, but on Wednesday I should be able to take care of buying the stove and having it installed. Just be sure to keep that diary in a safe place so no one can find it and read it,” he cautioned.
“It’s identical to mine, but it’s yours,” she said, disappointed that the darker-shaded tome had not been available. “I bought it for you, although it isn’t much of a gift, since I had to put it on your account.” She handed it back to him. “You needn’t worry that anyone will read mine, though. If they do, they’ll only find a list of treasures that only have meaning for me. I think you might find it useful to list the treasures you discover every day that God has blessed you with.”
He smoothed the cover of the diary with the palm of his hand. “I have no doubt that God exists, but He seems to have forgotten that I do,” he whispered. “I sincerely doubt He’s blessed me with anything for many years, so while I appreciate your thoughtfulness, I don’t think I’ll have much, if anything, to write in this diary.”
Pain etched his features and despair laced his voice. She knew he had little reason to hope that he could change the direction of his life toward one that was more satisfying . . . which only reinforced her determination to fight her growing feelings for him. “Tonight you do have something to treasure. We’ve decided to become friends, and one of the greatest bless
ings in life is friendship.”
He held the diary tight in his hand but dropped his gaze. When he looked up at her again, his eyes shifted in color from deep brown to ebony, reflecting an inner struggle she could almost see. “I think I may have a gift for you, too.” He cleared his throat. “I need to tell you exactly what you can expect from my lawyer’s efforts to legally end our marriage.”
She swallowed hard, and her pulse slowed to a miserable thud. “Will there be a delay?” she asked.
“No, I don’t expect so, but it seems that getting an annulment isn’t a viable option. I had to file for a divorce.”
When her heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach and a wave of nausea nearly overwhelmed her, she gripped the arms of her chair. “No annulment? But you promised. You promised!” she cried, devastated by his failure to keep his word. Overwhelmed by the news that she would soon be a twice-divorced woman, she simply could not bear to even think of how quickly and harshly he would judge her if he knew the truth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Somehow she found the wherewithal to listen carefully as he explained why it had been necessary to petition for a divorce instead of an annulment. She could not fault the logic behind his lawyer’s advice any more than she could dismiss the stigma they would each carry as a result of a divorce. She sighed. If she ever dared to hope that she could overcome the stigma of being once divorced, that hope would be destroyed forever when she was divorced yet again.
No man would ever be able to overlook the fact she had failed at two marriages or believe the circumstances surrounding each of her divorces.
Which meant she would spend the rest of her life alone. No husband. No children. No family at all.
“Now you know why it’s been so important to me that you accept the settlement I offered to you,” he explained. “It won’t be easy for you once the divorce has been granted and eventually becomes public knowledge. The notoriety alone will no doubt force you to move elsewhere to live, and you’ll need funds to do that.”
