by Lilah Rivers
Jethro shook his head. He didn’t want to hear any more of this nonsense.
“Just let it go,” Timothy said, stepping in and putting up a hand to stop Bartholomew from complaining any further.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Bartholomew replied to him.
“He is my friend and my cousin, and his opinion means a whole lot to me,” Jethro said.
“Well, I’m asking you to listen to me. I have very important information about Annie,” he said.
“Bartholomew, I have had it! Why can’t you just leave her alone? You made a mistake, and that’s it. She is moving on. Annie and I are going to get married. I want to marry her. I was wrong before for even questioning it,” Jethro said.
“But I haven’t even told you what she did!” Bartholomew insisted.
“I don’t want to hear it. Unless you have evidence of this affair or can get Annie to confess it, I will absolutely not believe it,” Jethro said.
“That’s just what I’m trying to tell you, Jethro. I have evidence. I can prove to you that she was unfaithful,” he said.
Jethro’s heart beat a little bit faster. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to be proven wrong by Bartholomew. If he was, it would mean that he had been wrong about Annie, after all. It would mean that she really had made a fool of him.
“I don’t …” he began, trailing off.
He didn’t what? Didn’t want to hear it? Didn’t want Bartholomew to be right? There were so many things that he didn’t want or didn’t need at that moment. He didn’t need doubts or chaos or drama.
“Listen, Jethro, it’s up to you. I can tell you, or I can hold it back. But I have evidence. I have the proof that you need,” Bartholomew said.
Jethro paused, considering the choice before him.
He had doubted Annie so much. He had assumed for a long time that she had been in the wrong, that she was deeply flawed, and that she was the reason the engagement had ended with Bartholomew.
But now? He had made a choice, a commitment not to believe those things. He had decided that he would honor her and give her the trust that she deserved. If he went back on his word, if he abandoned that decision, what made him any better than any of the judgments that he had made against Annie early on?
Annie had proven herself so lovely, so kind, so devoted to what was just and right. It was lovely. In fact, it made him feel stronger for her than he had ever thought possible.
No, he didn’t have a choice. There was only one thing that Jethro could say to Bartholomew’s offer.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said.
Timothy patted him on the back in approval, but Bartholomew’s face turned from desperation to shock to anger in the fraction of a second.
“What?” he asked, his voice a breath of frustration, enunciating each letter of the word with disbelief.
“I don’t want to hear it, Bartholomew. I am going to marry Annie. That’s all there is to it,” Jethro said.
With that, they turned from Bartholomew. Jethro had nothing else to say, and he hoped, with all his heart, that this was the end of it.
But he did not expect the shout that came from behind him.
“She’s pregnant!” Bartholomew shouted, causing Jethro’s heart to skip a beat.
Timothy placed a hand on Jethro’s arm as if to steady him. They stood there, frozen, facing away from Bartholomew, for what seemed like an eternity. They had no idea what to do next.
“Did you hear that? You want your evidence? Just wait a few months. Of course she wants to marry you. Of course she wants to marry you quickly. She needs someone to pretend to be the father, and you are a good deal more respectable than that man she has been messing around with,” Bartholomew said.
Jethro heard Bartholomew’s feet shuffling toward them. Finally, he turned around to face the man who had just made such a bold and terrible claim.
“What did you say?” Jethro asked.
“You heard me. You want to wait for the proof? You want to wait until you see her belly growing? I am telling you, Jethro, that would be a mistake,” Bartholomew said.
“I don’t believe you. Annie isn’t that sort of girl,” Jethro said, hoping that he was right.
“What kind of fool are you?” Bartholomew asked.
Again, Timothy held Jethro’s arm as a reminder that he was there, and Jethro didn’t need to let go of his temper.
“I don’t know what makes you think you can go around making those kind of accusations. If it’s true, you will be the first person to get my apology. But until then, I just want this over with,” Jethro said.
“Ha! You think it’s that easy? I’m telling you that you are about to marry a woman who is pregnant with another man’s child. Annie Blake is growing a baby!” Bartholomew yelled.
Everything seemed to slow down for a moment. Bartholomew was still facing Jethro, his eyes filled with convincing disbelief that Jethro would refuse this information. He was completely exasperated by the whole situation.
But then, past Bartholomew, Jethro could see them.
Three women. Shocked. Horrified. Furious.
They were coming from around the corner of a shop, and there was no question that they had heard every word. Timothy’s grip tightened, and Jethro stared, dumbstruck.
But the women came charging forward in determined and angry strides, clearly having had enough of these lies.
“Bartholomew Jones!” shouted one that Jethro didn’t recognize. She had similar auburn hair to that of Annie, and he wondered if this was the cousin that Annie had spoken of.
Bartholomew turned and shrunk on himself like a turtle retreated to its shell.
“H—” he said, as though trying to greet them with a hello but all too aware of what he had just done.
“Well, I just don’t even know where to begin with you. Here, I thought your days of playing the lout were over. I thought that you were going to turn yourself around and make an honest man out of the name Bartholomew Jones,” she said, a hand firm on her hips and a look of disgust in her eyes.
“Abigail, it isn’t what you think,” he said.
Annie scoffed from behind her cousin, and Jethro couldn’t help smiling at her as she smoothed the front of her dress. It appeared to be an unconscious attempt to show the flatness of her belly, a sign that she was not at all with child as he had accused.
“Isn’t what I think? Look here, Bartholomew. I didn’t want everyone knowing about my indiscretions, and I certainly don’t want them knowing who I was indiscreet with, but I can’t let you say these things about Annie,” Abigail said.
“I—” Bartholomew began.
“I’m talking now. You can just wait. Now, Mr. Mills, first thing you should know is that my cousin would never, under any circumstances, be unfaithful to any man. She has no other gentleman callers, and she isn’t the sort who would look for any. She is as pure and chaste a woman as you could hope to find,” Abigail said.
“Of that, I have no doubt,” Jethro said, really meaning it.
“As for you, Bartholomew, you know that you were the one who betrayed Annie. Not the other way around. And I will confess to whomever I must—although, I would certainly appreciate us all just forgetting that in the past, I was the woman who made that grievous error,” Abigail said.
“What? But … but, that’s just not true,” Bartholomew said to Jethro, shaking his head nervously.
“Everyone else seems to think it is,” Timothy said, under his breath.
“What do you know about it?” Bartholomew snapped.
“More than you want him to,” Jethro said. “And it’s best if you just leave us alone now.”
“But I—”
“What does it take to get you to leave us alone?” Jethro asked, his voice rising in pitch.
Bartholomew shrunk all over again, and he looked between all of them.
“Annie,” he said. “Annie, once you marry him, it really is over for us. Can you really live with that?
Do you really want someone as awful as him?”
Annie didn’t reply right away, but a playful grin overtook her face, and it bloomed into laughter.
“Goodbye, Bartholomew,” she said.
With that, Bartholomew let out a roar of angst and ran off and away from them.
He was gone.
Jethro immediately rushed over to Annie.
“I am so sorry. I am sorry that he made those awful claims, and I’m sorry that way back, I even believed some of his lies about you breaking his heart. But I want you to know that I didn’t believe it this time. I told him I didn’t want to hear it,” Jethro said, trying to reassure her.
“I understand. It’s all right, Jethro. It’s all right. It’s over now,” Annie said.
“You mean, you aren’t angry with me?” Jethro asked.
“No. We heard a lot more of the conversation than you think. We were waiting and listening once we realized what was going on. But it got to be too much. I couldn’t let him make you believe that I was the kind of woman that he said I was. I never was unfaithful to him, and I am not pregnant with any man’s child,” Annie said, promising him.
“I know. I have no doubt of it at all,” Jethro replied.
“Well, then, I suppose there really has been a change, hasn’t there?” Annie asked.
Jethro stared into her beautiful, blue eyes. He wanted nothing but to stare into those eyes until the day they were to be married and he could stare into them for the rest of his life.
“Yes, Annie. Everything has changed. And Bartholomew Jones will never get in our way ever again,” he told her, his words holding a promise.
It was such a relief to see Annie’s joy, to know that she was finally at peace. They were at peace together. They had so much ahead for them, so many wonderful things. He couldn’t let anything get in the way of that.
And he wouldn’t. Never again.
“Jethro,” Timothy said, trying to get his attention, quietly.
Jethro pulled himself away from Annie to speak with his cousin who was looking at him with disquiet in his posture.
“Do you really think he’s going to stop? Are you sure that everything is going to be all right now? What if he keeps trying? What if he spreads that lie?” Timothy asked.
Jethro shrugged, not caring anymore.
“Do you think Annie is pregnant?” Jethro asked him.
Timothy shook his head quickly.
“No! Of course not,” Timothy said.
“Then no one is going to believe Bartholomew. And if the truth has to come out, it will come out. He isn’t going to get away with any more antics,” Jethro said.
It was strange, but somehow, he knew that it was over. Bartholomew had been too humiliated to try anything again.
Whatever had happened in the past was over. It was the future that they now longed for.
Chapter 27
Annie was thrilled as Jethro and Timothy escorted the three of them back to her home.
It seemed like everything truly was over. Bartholomew had lost, and no matter what, the truth has been revealed.
A small part of her twinged with anger that he had tried to make up such a ridiculous lie. Had he really thought that Jethro would believe it?
Then again, Jethro had believed plenty early on. Before he had known Annie, truly known her, he had fought all sorts of things.
But all of that had changed. Everything was finally coming together.
They reached Annie’s home, and Abigail and Rachel immediately went off towards the kitchen. They had promised to make tea for the others, and Timothy had seemed eager that he should join them and not waste a moment away from Rachel.
“You should come entertain us,” Rachel told him, grinning widely.
Timothy followed her and Abigail to the kitchen, and Annie stood near Jethro, glancing up at him with a shy smile.
“Well, in that case, I thought I might request a private audience with you,” Jethro said.
There was something in his blue eyes that captivated her. It was that same innocence, the boyish nature that she had always found so lovely. Annie wanted to know how that expression translated to whatever was in his heart.
“With me?” she asked, aware that her mother and father were working and their friends were in the other room. Being alone together was certainly strange enough, even without the fact that he was specifically asking her for that time.
“Yes. Is that all right?” he asked.
“I suppose so. I mean, it’s just the two of us here anyway,” she said.
Annie was nervous. She was frightened that something else had gone wrong. Was Jethro only asking to speak with her because it was just the two of them anyway? Or did he have another serious issue that needed to be discussed?
She sat down, anxiously, and waited for him to speak.
“I don’t really even know where to begin. I mean, it’s the same place that I ought to have begun a long time ago,” Jethro said.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Annie said.
“I know. I’m probably not making a whole lot of sense,” Jethro said, laughing at himself and rubbing the back of his neck.
Annie had never seen him look so happy and relaxed. At least, she had never seen him look that way when he was interacting with her. Normally, Jethro was rigid and confused. Or angry. But now?
Something had definitely changed.
“Annie, I am so relieved to know the truth,” he said, turning and sitting eagerly beside her. “You can’t understand how hard it was to wonder whether or not you really were the woman that I wanted you to be. I mean, I really didn’t think that it was possible after the things that I had heard and all of the stuff that Bartholomew told me.”
“I understand. He can be very convincing. Even as you were starting to be kind to me, he was telling me all sorts of things that you were supposedly saying behind my back,” Annie said. “It was difficult to discern the truth and to know whether or not I should trust you.”
“I’m not surprised. And, in many ways, it is a relief to hear that you weren’t sure that you should trust me. As you know, I let his lies color my own judgment and the way that I saw you. But, honestly, I really do care about you and respect you, Annie,” Jethro said.
“And I care about and respect you as well,” she replied, holding back anything else that she might want to say.
It was difficult not to share her whole heart, but Annie restrained herself. She still wasn’t entirely sure where this conversation was going, and she didn’t want Jethro to think that she was being too forward. He might take issue with that, and she couldn’t blame him, not after everything they had already been through.
“It’s more than that, though,” Jethro said. “Whatever I thought I wanted, whatever it was that I believed in the past, I had no idea what was truly important to me. Now, I know. What is important to me, Annie, is you. I have come to love you.”
