by Delia Parr
He grabbed her arm so hard, she yelped. “Don’t threaten me, Annabelle. Don’t. Or you may find yourself in a situation you’ll like even less than the one you’re in,” he warned.
Terrified by the pure evil she saw in his eyes, she yanked away her arm, but refused to give him the satisfaction of rubbing it to restore any feeling.
Before she could think of another argument that might dissuade him from attempting to blackmail her, he slid off the bench and got to his feet. “Meet me here two weeks from today. Same time. By then, I’ll have been able to assess your husband’s holdings and know exactly how much I’ll need you to secure for me. I also need to make arrangements to settle somewhere other than Philadelphia or New York City. I always thought western Pennsylvania might be a good place to live, but I have too many bad memories associated with the area. I believe I’ll head south, where I’ve heard the women are much more deferential to their husbands.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re moving elsewhere? Y-you’re leaving your wife and your son?”
He scowled. “Do you really expect me to stay married to that miserly cow when I have a choice in the matter? You are indeed naïve.”
“I’m not naïve at all. I was just hoping you still had a shred of decency left,” she whispered.
“Instead of worrying about my character or my wife or my son, who will have all the advantages of his mother’s money that I’ll never have, you’d be well-advised to spend your time thinking of ways to get that money from your husband,” he snapped and abruptly left.
Annabelle collapsed against the hard wooden booth. There was absolutely no way she would agree to give Eric a single coin from her own extremely limited funds, let alone Harrison’s fortune, and she only had two weeks to think of a way to convince Eric of that reality before they met again. If she failed, she had an additional two weeks before Eric expected her to deliver the money.
The only blessing she could fathom from today’s disastrous meeting was that she no longer had to spend every moment at social events fearing he would discover she was living here in Philadelphia with a new identity, because he already had. She also had real hope that by the time his final deadline arrived, she and Harrison would already be divorced, which would effectively thwart Eric’s attempt to blackmail her.
All in all, she had one month left to do what she should have done weeks ago. She had to tell Harrison the truth about her past. By then, they might be divorced, but even if they were, she still owed him the truth before she left.
She did not even consider that he would be able to forgive her for not telling him the truth long ago. She would, however, spend the rest of her life wondering if, had she been truthful from the very beginning, he might have been right after all.
Maybe if they had met under different circumstances . . .
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After returning home from yet another evening social event in the city, Annabelle changed and rejoined Harrison in the library instead of her room now that the warming stove had been installed. Only a week had passed since her meeting with Eric, but she had yet to decide what to do to eliminate the threat he posed to her as well as to Harrison.
Seated next to him in front of the warming stove, she kept her hands busy by knitting—a pleasure she had not enjoyed for several days after Eric grabbed her because her arm had been too sore. Miraculously, he had not left a bruise, which was the only good thing that came out of their awful meeting.
“Did you hear any new gossip tonight?” Annabelle asked, curious to see if he wanted to compare the tales they had heard about themselves tonight—and poke fun at it, as they did several nights ago, instead of letting it bother them. She stifled a yawn by tightening her jaw and taking a deep breath so he would not suggest they end the night because she was too tired.
He took a sip of the hot chocolate Irene had made for him before retiring for the night, wrapped his hands around the pewter mug, and grinned. “I have a few new tidbits to share with you.”
She nodded, finished one row of stitching, and started the next.
“The easiest to dismiss is the claim that you’re so dissatisfied with the meager allowance I’ve allotted to you that you pawned your wedding ring,” he said and laughed.
She dropped a stitch, and her heart skipped a beat. She had no idea how anyone found out she had gone into the pawnshop, particularly since she had used a different name.
“Since you were wearing your opal ring tonight, that bit of gossip didn’t survive for very long,” he offered.
She managed to return his smile. Fortunately, she had already exchanged the fancier opal ring for the plainer gold and platinum band she wore at home so he could see for himself that the rumor was blatantly false. “Why . . . why would anyone think I needed funds and doubt your generosity to me?” she asked in a shaky voice, hoping to deflect the topic of their conversation back to him.
He shrugged and dropped his gaze. “Setting aside any and all gossip about you, the only honest answer I can give you is that I haven’t been overly generous in the past to anyone or anything, including the charitable institutions my own family established.”
She set her knitting onto her lap. “That may be true of the past, but not now. Look at what you’ve done for the Refuge and the country church and for Lotte. You’re also being very generous to allow Irene’s son’s family to come here to live for a spell. Now that I think about it, you haven’t told me much about it, but there’s some new charitable endeavor you’re planning with Philip, too.”
When he looked up at her again, his dark eyes held her captive. “I wouldn’t have done any of those things if you hadn’t been here.”
Her heart started to race. “I don’t believe that.”
“Why not? I told you before that it was true.”
His gaze was so intense and his words were spoken so earnestly, she trembled and picked up her knitting. “What I know is that you said you wanted a warm place to attend services and . . . and you made improvements at the Refuge to ease your conscience if I took sick because it was so cold there,” she argued, tossing his own words back at him without mentioning that he had only rehired Lotte to please her. “I had nothing to do with whatever it is that you’re planning with Philip, either. That’s entirely your doing,” she added.
He let out a long breath. “I was going to tell you about it once I was certain it would come to fruition, but I may as well tell you now. I came up with the idea to add a wing to the Refuge to provide workrooms where the women could make goods to sell. They can’t stay at the Refuge forever, and it will be easier for them to find a suitable place to live if they have a way to earn the funds they’ll need. I’m afraid I never gave any of those women or their children a second thought until you started volunteering there.”
She was so excited about his idea and so proud of him for thinking of it that she wasted no thought on the role she had played in drawing his attention to the women’s plight. “Do you really think you can make that happen? You have enough money to build the entire wing?”
He set his drink aside. “I could do it on my own, of course, but it’s much more important to create a second foundation with a board of directors to draw in citywide support that won’t be dependent on any one individual. That’s why I need Philip’s help. He’s much more experienced at that sort of thing than I am.”
“Have you gotten any support from anyone else yet?” she asked.
“Not so far,” he admitted and covered a yawn. “I have a meeting tomorrow morning in the city with Eric Bradley. Apparently Philip was able to convince him to make a donation last week, but he insists on meeting with me first. I have another meeting in the afternoon with two other people Bradley claims are equally interested, which means I’ll be gone most of the day. I suspect Philip will be joining us for supper, although I intend to do my best to dissuade him. He pays too much attention to you to suit me.”
Annabelle dismissed Harrison’s growing jealousy where Phil
ip was concerned and managed a smile of support. “Are you too tired to share the rest of the gossip you heard tonight?” she asked, changing the topic of their conversation to a safer one.
She was dead wrong about that—and she knew it the moment Harrison told her that rumors she was seeing another man had intensified because she had allegedly been spotted at an eatery in a seedier part of the city with another man. “There’s obviously no truth to that rumor, either. In all truth, I find it preposterous that anyone would take it seriously,” he said before yawning again. “I’m sorry. I’m dreadfully tired. Did you hear anything new tonight you wanted to share with me before I fall asleep right in this chair?”
The only thing new she had heard tonight was that he trusted her completely, and she had betrayed that trust on so many levels she was filled with shame. If he had not been so tired, she would have confessed to him right now. Instead, she decided to wait until he was fully alert. She shoved her knitting in the knitting bag and got to her feet. “No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “You should get some rest. You have a busy day tomorrow. I’ll close up the house,” she suggested.
He stood up next to her and arched his back. “I’ll do that before I climb into my very warm bed,” he offered. “Will you be riding into the city with me to volunteer tomorrow? If so—”
“I can’t. I promised Irene I’d help her sort through some of the trunks in the cottage garret before Alan moves them out. I know it may be some months before she even hears back from her daughter-in-law, but fixing up the garret seems to help her come to terms with losing Ellis.”
“Don’t spend too much time up in that garret. The warming stove I ordered for up there won’t be installed for a few weeks yet,” he cautioned, and they left the library together.
Once she returned to her room, she set her knitting bag down and sat down in front of what was left of the fire. The thick logs burning there had been reduced to ashes, and nothing but a few glowing orange embers remained. Her dreams for a happy and satisfying marriage had once been as strong as those logs, but those dreams were now as flimsy as the ashes that remained in the fireplace, and she sighed.
While Alan would clean out those ashes in the morning and set a new fire with yet more logs, she had no hope left anymore that she could ever rebuild her own dream. Especially not with Harrison. His hurts were too deep and his heartache still too real to make it possible for him to love anyone, even Annabelle, who believed in the man of character he had become.
She sat and prayed that God would give her courage to accept the new dream she trusted Him to place within her heart, and the grace to accept it when He did. But she prayed even harder that this new dream would appear before the end of January, when she would be out of Harrison’s life forever.
That afternoon when the rest of the staff had left the kitchen to attend to their chores, Irene walked over to Annabelle and tugged on her chair. “You need a nap today. Harrison sent word he’s bringing company home for supper, and you can’t risk falling asleep at the table like you almost did during dinner. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you hadn’t had a wink of sleep last night. Are you certain you don’t have anything you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing’s bothering me,” Annabelle insisted for the third time that day. “I’m just tuckered out from being out so late twice this week.”
Irene shook her head. “I should never have let you help me all morning with those new recipes you wrote out for me. Now up with you. You need a nap and you’re taking one so you don’t fall asleep in front of your company later.”
Annabelle was so out of sorts from lack of sleep, she giggled. “Philip isn’t company. He’s family, but I have absolutely no intention of arguing with you about taking a nap. I won’t even try. I know better,” she quipped as she got to her feet.
“You might try convincing that husband of yours the same thing.”
“Convince him to do what? Not argue with you or not to bother trying?” she teased, though she dreaded the thought of walking through that long tunnel to get back to the main house.
“Both,” Irene insisted. “Now scoot. I’ve got a menu already in mind for supper and I’ve got lots of work to do, including putting an iron to that pretty green gown you’re wearing tonight.”
Annabelle cocked a brow. “I’m wearing the green one?”
“It matches the color of your eyes. Besides, Harrison asked me this morning to make sure you wore it,” Irene explained. “I’ll send Lotte up with your gown later when it’s time for you to get ready,” she promised and gave her a nudge which nearly knocked Annabelle over before she headed for the basement.
Annabelle did not know how she managed to stay on her feet long enough to get back to the house and up to her room. She did not even remember falling asleep in her bed, but she felt utterly refreshed when she walked into the dining room just before she expected Harrison and Philip to arrive. She found Irene standing by the table.
“You look beautiful,” the housekeeper whispered.
Annabelle’s cheeks warmed. “Thank you for ironing my gown.”
“I owe you more than that for all your help today,” her friend countered and waved her hand to direct Annabelle’s attention to the table. “I just stopped in to make sure Peggy and Lotte set the table properly. What do you think of it?”
Annabelle looked at the table and blinked hard. They always dined at home rather informally, even with Philip as their guest. Tonight, however, Irene had the table set with sparkling china dishes and heavy silver flatware that rested on a damask tablecloth as white as the snow outside. The candles on the two candelabras in the center of the table had not been lit yet, and one more sat on the sideboard, which they had never used before.
Although she preferred a more casual table, this one was stunning, and she told Irene so. “I have only one minor complaint,” she ventured. “There are four places set on the table. We only need three.”
Irene looked at her down the length of her nose. “I told you company was coming tonight. We need all four.”
Surprised that Harrison would be entertaining company here, since they had moved out to the country estate to avoid it, she latched on to a happy thought. “Is Philip bringing someone special with him?” she asked, hopeful he had met someone he liked well enough to have Harrison invite her to supper, too.
Irene sighed. “He is, but it’s apparently not the ‘someone special’ you or I might like him to bring. He’s much too busy to think about courting, although he does act a bit moonstruck whenever he’s around you.”
Annabelle’s heart skipped a beat. She found Irene’s comment about Philip as odd as Harrison’s jealousy of his cousin, but she was more interested in knowing who their guest would be tonight. “I don’t suppose you know who might be coming, do you?”
“I most certainly do. Not that Harrison bothered to tell me. The young man who delivered Harrison’s note told me. I don’t actually know the man who’s coming, but he must be important or Harrison wouldn’t have invited him to come to supper all the way out here. Maybe you know him. His name is Bradley. Eric Bradley.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Annabelle grew up picturing Hades as a fire-filled pit in the netherworld filled with a cacophony of horrible screams, groans, and voices pleading for mercy. But tonight she got a glimpse of a Hades that was right here in her own house.
With Harrison sitting at one end of the dining room table and Philip at the other, she sat in the middle, directly across from Eric. She kept a smile on her lips as she listened to polite conversation between two decent and honorable men on either side of her and Eric, but she had to plant her feet on the floor so she would not jump up and scream.
Harrison and Philip had had no idea that the third man who was at the table was the devil incarnate. Or that she knew it and could not warn them without causing a terrible scene that would spell disaster all around. She had burned the note he had slipped to her and so had no proof of Eric’s ev
il intentions—intentions he would no doubt deny.
Irene finally arrived with the last of several desserts that she set on the sideboard while Peggy and Lotte cleared the last of the supper dishes from the table. Annabelle could barely stand the thought of trying to eat anything, even dessert. She had nervous cramps in her stomach, and her throat was raw from swallowing bile. She also had little feeling in her lips, since she wore a frozen smile throughout most of supper.
Irene glimpsed at Annabelle’s supper plate before Peggy took it away and instantly frowned. “You barely touched your supper. If you’re not feeling well, I can stay and serve the desserts for you, or these gentlemen can serve themselves,” she whispered.
Unfortunately, Harrison heard her and interrupted his conversation, which drew the other men’s attention to Annabelle, as well. He looked at her with genuine concern, which only added to her guilt. “You’ve been uncommonly quiet all through supper, and you look a bit peaked. Aren’t you feeling well?”
She forced her lips into a broader smile and got to her feet. “I feel perfectly fine. I’m just a bit overwhelmed. Tonight is really the first time we’ve entertained guests outside of family,” she explained. She joined Irene at the sideboard, but deliberately avoided making eye contact with her for fear the woman would take one look into her eyes and know that Annabelle was not being honest.
“Why don’t you tell everyone what I fixed for dessert, and I’ll dish out whatever they want,” Irene suggested in a tone that defied any argument.
Grateful for the opportunity to put her back to Eric, Annabelle gave her full attention to the top of the sideboard. “There’s Irene’s specialty, apple pie. She also made two kinds of cookies, molasses and almond crescent, that are quite delicious.” She took several steps toward the final dessert and smiled. “She’s also used one of my mother’s other recipes to make a sweet custard, which is a particular favorite of mine,” she announced, unable to resist the urge to say something to needle Eric, since he had favored the sweet custard she had once made for him, without Harrison or Philip realizing what she was doing.
