Why had he wanted a wife?
Past bedding her that first night, his interest waned. Part of her was glad he did not touch her in the way he had that night as she did not think she could have borne it, and part of her wished he would be the tender and loving husband he was when others were around.
It was as if she was married to two different people. The one others saw and the one only she saw. She did not understand what he wanted from her. Any time she tried to leave the house, he wanted to know where she was going. It was as if he had to know where she was every moment of every day.
The attention he lavished on her when they were out in public was nearly embarrassing. Trying to touch her and kiss her made people stare. But he would toss it off with a “This is my new bride. Isn’t she lovely?” So anyone watching them would have thought he was the most doting of husbands.
But in her heart she could not help but feel he did not care for her. Not to mention any thought of love. But then what could one expect when marrying a man you had only met in a letter? Perhaps it had been doomed from the start. Now she was stuck here, married to him and becoming more and more unhappy every day. She’d thought all she needed was a nice little house in a small town where she could be out beneath the trees and the stars. The perfect little house was right here and she was living in it. But it had not made her happy.
The moment he walked into a room she felt the difference in the air. It was as if he carried the heaviness in with him.
If only something could change her life. Like a miracle. She sat on a rock and bent her head to pray.
****
The front door slammed, shaking the house.
Isabella gasped.
What in the world?
The cook had gone home. She was alone in the house.
“Isabella,” Donald bellowed.
He’s angry.
She hurried downstairs as fast as she could to meet him, barefoot and wearing her white nightgown, not taking the time to throw on her robe or slippers.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and hurried to the front door where he stood just inside, glowering.
He took three heavy strides toward her and she stepped backward until a wall was at her back. Donald now towered over her, anger filling his face. “My faithful wife,” he growled.
Isabella’s eyes widened and she froze, frightened all the way to her toes.
He grabbed her by the arm, his fingers digging deep into her skin. “You neglected to mention your meeting with Thomas,” his deep whisper made her fear him even more.
“W…what?” she stammered, her heart racing. “I don’t understand.”
He tightened his grip. “Questioning me.” He grabbed her other arm. “Questioning me as if I was not honest with you.” Holding both her arms tight, shook her as he shouted. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
She cringed as he shouted but could not pull away as he held her so tightly. “No,” she protested not understanding what he was angry about.
He sneered. “You must know there is nothing you do that I won’t find out about.” He shook her again and her head banged against the wall behind her.
“Please stop,” she said. “You’re hurting me.”
“You should have thought of that before you met your lover.”
“My what? No, you’re wrong. I don’t have a lover. I haven’t met anyone.”
“Mrs. Gearly saw you.”
Oh. The bookstore. Tom.
He saw her expression change. She’d never been able to hide what she was feeling or thinking. His eyes shone with the knowledge he’d hit upon a truth.
“That town busy body knows everything that goes on in this town. And now everyone in town will know about you and your lover.”
He’d gripped her arms so hard she couldn’t feel her fingers. “Please let me go.”
“You’re my wife. I will let you go when I choose to let you go.”
“You’re hurting me,” she whispered.
“You spread your legs for that Allenby?” He slammed her back against the wall as if she had not spoken and then pressed his body against her and said, “You are mine.” He leaned in and spoke into her ear. “You hear me? Mine.”
She nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yours.”
“Remember that, wife.”
“Please,” she whispered, closing her eyes, as a tear rolled down and then another. “Let me go.”
“Look at me.”
She opened her watery eyes and looked into his cold gaze.
“I will warn you but once. Stay away from Allenby and Mrs. Gearly. There will be no more trips to town by yourself as I cannot trust you to so much as visit a bookstore.”
“Yes, whatever you want. I promise.”
Anything to make him let her go. Anything he wanted.
He gave her one last shake before releasing her and stepped back. Then raking her body with his gaze he gave her a look of contempt and a sneer. “Get to bed.”
She turned and ran up the stairs, holding her nightgown up with one hand and barely holding back sobs of fear and release as she clutched for the bannister all the way up with her other hand. Hurrying into their bedroom she closed the door with shaking hands and leaned back against it listening for his step.
He wasn’t following. Oh thank God.
She hurried over and climbed into bed and then pulled the covers up, praying he would not come to bed and take more of his anger out on her in some other worse way.
What had Mrs. Gearly said to him? Tom and I are not lovers. We have never so much as kissed.
She curled onto her side in a small ball and held the covers tight, her fingers now having feeling again. Her head ached from where it had hit the wall and her arms were sore from his rough handling of her. Her hands clutching the covers shook slightly and she tried to calm her breathing and thoughts.
Tom and I have never so much as kissed. There was that moment at the train station. That moment when I wished he had. Wished he had kissed me. Would I now be married to Donald if he had? I wish Tom had kissed me then , before I got married. Just once. One kiss.
She closed her eyes remembering how it had felt those brief moments to be in Tom’s arms. How safe and warm and cared for she had felt. Something she now knew she would never feel within her husband’s arms. Whether it was a change in behavior from his drinking or from his temper or anything else, his mood changes were something she would fear from now on.
I will never feel entirely safe with Donald. Not after his terrible temper this evening. I must make sure I do nothing to raise his jealousy again. This means I cannot see Tom again, not even by accident.
The tears she had held back came now and she sobbed into her pillow. Her arms were sore from rough handling, her head hurt and she had never felt so alone in her life.
This time there was no Tom to save her. He would be long gone, now that he had delivered the money, and even if he wasn’t, she dared not speak to him without her husband there. No, no one could save her.
She was married to a man so very different from the man she thought she’d married, but no one would ever believe her if she tried to explain the side of him that only she could see.
He is so charming around everyone else. He has everyone fooled. And now people in town will think I am a bad wife, taking a lover when that is the farthest thing from the truth. I will be ostracized by the society people he knows and I have no friends in this town. There is no one I can talk to about this. No one.
****
Donald gave another swirl of brandy, then took a big gulp, followed by a deep breath. He glanced around the room again, looking for the men with whom he had corresponded, but had never met. A friend of a friend had put him in touch with these people, and now Donald regretted having so many degrees of separation. He was trusting too many people with too many details.
The brandy wasn’t helping. His hand shook as his pocket watch tick tick tick tick ticked the seconds away. Donald had arrived ten minutes befor
e the scheduled time, and now he had been waiting for twenty. With a final swig, he swallowed the last of the brandy, then dug into his coat for his wallet.
“Looking for this?” Came a voice over his shoulder. Startled, Donald turned to the booth behind him. Two men were sitting there, watching him. The older of them was holding Donald’s wallet.
“Always watch your back, Mr. Jenks,” said the man as he laid the wallet on the table. Donald came shakily to his feet and sat down in their booth quickly. “How did you get that?”
The older man pointed a thumb to the younger man sitting next to him. “One of my boys here took it when he bumped into you before you came inside.”
Donald glanced at the two men, then slowly picked up his wallet and put it back inside his coat. His sense of fiscal responsibility was screaming to count the money inside, but his sense of prudent self-preservation won out. “I’m impressed. Your reputations are well founded.”
The man shrugged. “How can we help you, Mr. Jenks?”
With a deep breath, Donald put his head down, his hands on his unsteady knees under the table. “My wife.”
At that, the man almost chuckled. “Why am I not surprised.”
Donald nodded. “Yes, she’s–”
“I don’t care, Mr. Jenks,” the man said, holding up a hand to stop him. “The less I know, the better, and the less you know about our work, the better. Understand?”
There was a tense pause, during which Donald swallowed, then nodded. Slowly, the man put his hand down and loosely clasped them again on the table in front of him. Donald noted how relaxed the man looked. There was not a taut muscle in his body. He may as well have been reading a good book.
“Now when would you like this done?”
“As quickly as possible. Please.”
The man arched an eyebrow. “That may make things difficult. What can you tell us about your wife?” Beside him, the younger man took out a folded piece of paper and a pencil.
Donald eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then said, “She likes to take walks. In the woods near the house.”
“And where exactly is your house, Mr. Jenks?”
Donald looked him in the eye and finally said, “Close to Clifton Gorge.”
“Ah,” the man replied, leaning back. “I see you’ve already put some thought into this.”
Donald nodded, but said nothing, so the man continued. “Now I’m assuming you want this to look like an accident.”
“If she’s even found at all. It’s a rather remote place.”
“It is,” the man acknowledged. “Which will undoubtedly save us some trouble and probably save you some money. Speaking of which…”
“Yes, yes,” Donald replied nervously. “Name your terms.”
The man studied him for a moment before replying. “Given your requests for expedience and the staging of accidental circumstances, the price is going to be slightly more than what you perhaps had imagined, Mr. Jenks.”
Donald gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Nonsense. I have provided you with the perfect place and opportunity. All you have is to do the thing.”
The man gave a small, slow nod. “Taking these into account, your price is up, but not so high as it might have been. All told, I believe your total is somewhere around the figure of… Five thousand. All of it in advance.”
Donald bit his tongue and inhaled sharply, his eyes snapping at the figure. “I had thought the deed could have been done at closer to something like a thousand. I can give you that much right now, plus another fifteen hundred afterwards.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t insult us, Mr. Jenks. We’re not the sort of people whom you’d like to have angered. Four thousand. Three now, one after.”
“She’s a seventeen year old girl, not a damned lumberjack,” Donald spat. “She’s nothing more than a mere slip of a thing. She could be blown off the edge by a strong wind.”
“Then you do it, Mr. Jenks,” the man said calmly. “You go right ahead and save yourself the money by getting those hands of yours red.”
Donald stopped. For a moment, nothing in the world moved. In that instant, Donald saw himself doing it.
He felt Isabella’s slight shoulders under his hands, the pressure building against his palms as he took a step forward and shoved. He felt her resist him, then fall forward. He saw her turn toward him, her big, blue eyes surprised and terrified, her arms stretching out to him, fingers grasping. Wisps of her hair had come loose, swirling in the air around her head and face. In his mind, there was a yelp of surprise, then a long, ear-splitting shriek that did not stop until it was cut off at the bottom.
Across from him, the man stared hard into his eyes and Donald gulped. The man, knowing what Donald was thinking, gave a few small, slow nods. “That, Mr. Jenks. That right there is why the price is what it is.”
Shuddering, Donald sighed. “Two thousand now and the rest after.”
“Done,” the man said.
Chapter Eleven
Donald had that brooding look on his face again. The one which made her hesitate to ask what was wrong. She climbed the stairs to their bedroom, avoiding him and hoped the evening would be peaceful for a change. Outside thunder boomed off in the distance announcing a storm moving in. For a brief moment, Isabella wondered how bad it would be, then relaxed, almost with a smile. This wasn’t the East Coast anymore. No more northeasters.
Sitting at the dressing table she began to take her hair down, laying the pins on the table and starting to undo her braids. The quiet downstairs was almost too quiet. She had set out his dinner as he had requested. Hopefully he would require nothing further from her this evening.
Her hair now down, she began to brush out her long blonde hair, enjoying the free feeling of having it out of her braids and starting to relax as she began to work through the waves now in her normally straight silky hair.
“Isabella!” Donald roared.
She jumped, dropping the hairbrush, which hit the dressing table and then the floor with a clatter. She stood and hurried to the door.
He roared her name again.
She had never heard him this angry before. Running down the stairs her heart pounding she nearly tripped but grasped the banister on the way down, catching herself. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped, out of breath, and then gathered herself and walked into the dining room, hoping to appear calmer than she felt.
His cold, dark gaze met hers across the dinner table. She froze.
“What is this?” He pointed to the soup tureen.
“A- artsoppa.” she stammered. Then, realizing she had lapsed into Swedish, she corrected herself. “Yellow pea soup.”
He continued staring at her, his brow darkening further.
“It is made from peas, water, salt onions, and herbs.” She continued in as cheerful a manner as she could, as if by being cheerful she could change his mood.
Still, he said nothing and continued to stare.
Wavering in her cheerfulness, still she continued on. Perhaps if she explained. “I thought since you enjoyed peas with your dinner, you would enjoy the soup.”
His face turning red, he rose up, knocking his bowl from the table, the soup flying everywhere. “How dare you serve me this pig slop!”
Grabbing the soup tureen, he hurled the vessel at the wall and she flinched as he flung plates, soup splattering everywhere, green spots of it hitting her cheek, her hair, her dress. China shattered on the wall behind her.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean–”
“Sorry you are! Sorry excuse for a wife.” He came around the table toward her, his voice rising with each word.
She stepped backwards, shards of plate crunching beneath her feet, making her balance unsteady.
Backing up as fast as she could, her feet scrambling across the broken china, she felt behind her for the wall, instinctively searching for the doorway, the exit, the way away from him and his anger. Fingers feeling that wall touched wet soup on t
he wallpaper as one hand met the splatter. She kept moving, while each step he took toward her seemed more menacing. Her breath came shorter and shorter until she felt she nearly could not breathe.
I have to get out of this house.
The moment she found the doorway with her hands she turned to run through it into the kitchen. Grabbing her coat off the hook by the back door, she ran outside without pulling it on. Wind whipped around the side of the house and she shivered at the sudden chill. A few miles off thunder boomed again as the storm moved closer. She ran, jamming one arm into the coat and racing away from the house, stopping only long enough to slip into the other arm. Then she was off, running away from the house, running until she reached the corner of their street and realized he was not following after her.
She slowed her run to a walk and tried to catch her breath while darting looks over her shoulder. The air was heavy with the approaching rain but she would not return to that house. Not now while he was so angry. She wiped her hand across her face where the soup had landed but it had dried. It was in her hair. She held back a sob. As she moved across the street toward the trees she realized no one was about to follow her and she began to calm as her breath steadied. Out of habit, she moved into the steady rhythm of walking which had always been her way to calm herself.
Ever since she had been a child, when she was upset she would go outside for a walk, so she fell naturally into the pattern of her youth and did what she always did when distressed.
As she walked, her thoughts moved away from her new husband’s behaviors to the sights and sounds of her walk. Usually her distress and aggravation gave way to the rhythm of her walk and her mind would clear. Tonight it did not. A drop of rain fell on her forehead.
Running was what she had done, what she was still doing, even though anyone watching her would only have seen her walking. In her heart and her mind she was running.
Moving briskly she soon reached the favorite part of her walk, the part which led to Clifton Park and the Gorge just as raindrops began to fall on her a few at a time.
Dark clouds moved in and visibility changed as rain started to fall. Still she would not turn back and go back to that house. Not to that callous, distant, and demanding man who was now her husband.
Isabella_Bride of Ohio Page 10