Hannah's Promise

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Chin quivering, emotion-dampened hair stringing in her eyes, Olivia looked down at her hands knotted in her lap. “Colette’s father is a sailor. Jack’s his name. He told me he loved me and had such pretty words. And I wanted love very much. But he wouldn’t marry me … when I told him. He said he was already married. He went back to sea, and I never saw him no more.”

  Hannah’s heart went out to the girl. “So, you’re all alone to raise her—just you and your … mother, did you say?”

  “Yes, miss. Pa died years ago. And poor Mum’s a cripple in her legs.”

  Hannah knew a moment of real terror. “Crippled? How does she manage when you’re here, Olivia?”

  The girl shook her head slowly. “Not too well. I worry something fierce, I do. They both need looking after.”

  Hannah turned an imploring face to a very quiet Slade. His mouth a straight line, his jaw squared, he looked a blend of compassion and anger. The same emotions Hannah felt—compassion for Olivia, anger at the sailor who’d seduced an innocent girl. Hannah lowered her head and rubbed dispiritedly at her brow. “What can we do to stop them, Slade?”

  He broke his silence. “I told you, I’m taking care of it.”

  Hannah looked up at her husband, so near and yet so far. Could the chasm be bridged? Damn her rash behavior, her rushing in like a faithless fool! Her gaze glanced off the granite façade of Slade’s accusing stare. She turned back to Olivia and smoothed the lady’s maid’s hair from her face. “How old is your baby, Olivia?”

  “Nine months, miss.”

  “Nine months?” Openmouthed now, Hannah turned again to the men. “Do you know how old that makes her when—?”

  Slade frowned his brows down over his nose, but Dudley raised his hands, ticking off his points on his thick fingers. “Let me see. The baby’s nine months old, and it takes nine months to have one, correct? And Olivia’s just now sixteen. So.…” Using his pointing finger and the air in front of him, he did his ciphering. “Carry the one. Eighteen. All right, eighteen months. So assuming she got pregnant the first time she—”

  Slade slapped the senator’s son’s hands down. “You’re quite fond of that first-time scenario, aren’t you?”

  Highly offended at being slapped, Dudley poked his thick chest out and glared his affront at Slade, who with a quick nod of his head indicated the women’s presence in the room. Dudley looked over at Hannah. She raised an eyebrow at him.

  Dudley sketched a bow. “I apologize for my indelicacy, ladies.” He then turned back to his friend and spoke softly. But not softly enough. “If you use the first time, it makes the math simpler. I’m thinking she was probably—”

  “Shut up, Ames.”

  Now he bowed up like a bulldog. “Well, did not Hannah just now ask us how old—?”

  “She didn’t really want an answer, you dolt. Her point is that some men can be beneath scorn.”

  Apparently unconvinced, Dudley swung his big head back to Hannah. “Is that your point?”

  Hannah, who’d listened to the two men with half an ear as she whispered comfort to Olivia, now focused on Dudley. “Yes, it is. The things I’ve seen in my life make me believe that a length of rope and a tall tree are too good for some men. If you think about it, I believe you’ll find I’m right.”

  Thus challenged, Dudley again raised his hands—shooting Slade a look that dared him to slap him again—and prepared to tick off his points in favor of men. “Well, let’s see. There’s—No, no, I can see how we’d be the cause of that. Wait. Of course, we don’t—No, we do that, too.” He frowned, his brown eyes darting side to side as he thought long and hard. Then, his face brightened. “I have it. We—No, we don’t do that. Although we should.”

  Dudley lowered his hands to his sides and turned to Slade. “I say, Garrett, she is right. This is appalling. Apparently, we men are beneath scorn, and when I think about it … we’re at our worst with our women. Why didn’t you tell me that we’re such cads?”

  Slade grimaced his disgust. “Shut up, Ames. I’m developing more and more sympathy for your long-suffering mother.”

  “Mother?” Dudley stared blankly for a moment before turning to Hannah. “Tell me, could it be that we are beneath scorn with our mothers, too?”

  Hannah exchanged a glance with Olivia, whose mouth worked around a threatening grin. Heartened by the sight, glad now for Slade’s and Dudley’s banter with its calming effect on Olivia, she turned to stare so very seriously at Dudley. “One question, sir. How’d you come to be in this world?”

  “Why, my mother, of cour—Dear God.” He again turned to his childhood friend. “Slade, do you have any idea how much I weighed at birth?” He turned to Hannah. “If you will excuse me, I must go apologize to my mother for being such an unthoughtful infant. And for an entire score of things since then.”

  Before Hannah could say a word, Slade jumped in. “Do rethink this, man. Apologize to your mother? You’ll put the poor woman in her grave.”

  Ignoring him, Dudley began an animated pacing up and down the length of the narrow room, hitting his fist against his other palm as his face worked with his thoughts. Hannah sought Slade’s gaze. He shrugged his shoulders and then they both marked Dudley’s progress.

  Suddenly, he stopped cold and spoke to no one in particular. “I’ll turn over a new leaf. I’ll apologize to Mother. Then I’ll call on Miss Wannamaker, as Mother’s been begging me to do. I believe the young lady thinks favorably of me. Why else would she smile and bat her pretty eyes every time I see her? We can marry. I’ll settle down into a life of home and hearth. Why, I might even run for high public office, too.” He stepped up to the room’s door and stared quietly out into the hall. “Senator Dudley Ames,” he intoned.

  Hannah exchanged another look with Slade. At that moment, Dudley bolted from the room and charged heavy-footed down the hallway. His footsteps could be heard clattering down the steps at record pace. Hannah and Olivia and Slade stared at the empty space where Dudley’d stood not five seconds ago.

  “Well, Hannah, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  Her heart thumping at his words, she turned to her husband. “For what?”

  “For apparently straightening Dudley out in less than five minutes. His mother may light candles to you in church and erect a shrine in your honor. However, don’t expect me to thank you. I just lost a good friend to respectability. But worse, if my gullible friend should run for high public office and—God forbid—win, my fellow citizens may elect to hang you. Or shoot you at sunrise.”

  Hannah sat up straighter on the bed, clutching at Olivia’s hands as her lady’s maid asked, “Why would they do that?”

  Slade crossed his arms over his chest. “Why? Well, when Dudley and I were twelve years old, I kept him busy for weeks climbing trees and crawling through shrubs as he, armed with a liberal supply of salt, hopped around after birds. I had convinced him that if he could sprinkle the salt on a bird’s tail, it couldn’t fly away and he could pick it up. The bad news for Hannah is he’s still convinced that it’s true. And now this man wants to be our senator.”

  Olivia turned to Hannah. “Oh, miss. Don’t worry. I’ll hide you.”

  * * *

  Three evenings later, Hannah wished Olivia could hide her. With her cloak wrapped around her, her black-feathered bonnet tied in a bow under her chin, her handbag looped over her arm, she stood in the open doorway of her bedroom, facing Slade in his room, His back to her, coldly silent, he shrugged into his chesterfield and reached for his top hat.

  His words up in Olivia’s room came back to haunt her. You’ve made your bed, and now I’m going to let you lie in it. And he had. He hadn’t so much as approached her in the last three days. Hot tears pricked at the backs of her eyes as she silently waited for her husband.

  Behind her, she heard Rigby and two stablehands grunting as they hefted her trunks and carried them down to the waiting dray. Hannah swallowed the thick emotion that clogged her throat. She’d be damned b
efore she’d allow Slade to see her cry or hear her beg.

  A lancet of nerves shocked her heart’s rhythm when Slade turned abruptly to her, eyeing her as if she were no more to him than a chambermaid whose name he couldn’t remember. “You’re ready, then?”

  Please, Slade, I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, that I didn’t believe you. Don’t send me away. Hannah’s chin came up. “I have been for hours. Days, even.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” He held her gaze with his black eyes, the set of his jaw, the thin line of his firmed mouth—all beloved by her, all withdrawn from her now. “Said your good-byes yet?”

  “You don’t need to remind me of my manners, but yes, I have.” She saw again the solemn, tearful faces of the Garrett household staff when she’d told them she was leaving, going to stay at Slade’s brownstone. She saw Isabel, that tiny little bird of a woman, chin aquiver, bearing erect and queenly through their parting ordeal.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Then there’s nothing left to say.”

  I love you. I’m sorry I failed you, that I didn’t trust you. “I suppose not.” Hannah stared unblinking at him.

  He contemplated her for a moment. Something in his sober expression begged her to stop him. To say something. Yet Hannah remained stubbornly, pridefully silent. When he spoke, she felt she was hearing him through a wall.

  “You’ve wanted to be on your own and find your own answers since the day you got here. And I’ve done nothing but keep you hog-tied—your words—to me, so you couldn’t. It’s no wonder you don’t trust me or believe me. Why should you? All you know—again, your words—is what I tell you. So, I want you to think of this … move as getting your freedom back, your chance to prove to yourself what the truth is. Without my interference.”

  “What makes you think you know what’s best for me?” Hannah put her fisted hands to her hips. “Slade Garrett, you are eaten up with your own pomposity. I could almost applaud that lovely speech, if it weren’t so simpleminded and didn’t prove that you really don’t know me at all. No one—not even you—keeps me hog-tied anywhere.”

  She huffed out a hot, angry breath. “If I wanted to leave, if I wanted to search for answers on my own and make my own way, neither you nor anyone else could stop me. I stayed here because I wanted to. Not because you made me. You couldn’t, if you tried. But thanks for all your preaching about this being for my own good. Well, let me remind you—you’re not my father. I have a father.”

  There. That felt good. Until she remembered. She’d had a father, but no more. She closed her eyes tightly and brought her hands up to cover her mouth. Oh, Papa, Mama, I’ve failed you and Jacey and Glory. I’ve lost sight of my mission here. I’ve gotten so tangled up in my emotions that I can’t see what’s right or wrong anymore. I’m so sorry.

  When she opened her eyes, Hannah found that Slade hadn’t moved, most likely hadn’t even looked away from her. And then, it hit her. She’d lost Mama and Papa, she’d let her sisters down, and now, she was losing him. Beyond despair, beyond hope, she took her last look at her husband. Never before had he stirred her senses as he did now. Never before had he looked this virile, this ruggedly carved and handsome. Or so distant.

  The moment stretched out until he made an abrupt gesture for her to precede him to the hallway. Hannah’s heart dashed itself against the jagged rocks of his aloofness. But wordlessly she walked through his room, so familiar and yet so foreign-feeling now. She stalked proudly by him, not stopping until she stood in the hallway where she jerked off her glove and worked furiously to get her wedding rings off her finger. They wouldn’t budge.

  Drawing her glove back on, she made the first independent decision of her new freedom—she’d send for a jeweler and have him come cut the blamed things off. And have them delivered to Mr. Slade Garrett. Wouldn’t he be proud? Finished with that bit of drama, she looked up to see Slade slumped against the hallway wall. His head lowered, he twisted his top hat around and around in his hands. Frowning, Hannah bit at her lip, suddenly feeling not the least bit vengeful or triumphant. Had he seen her trying to wrench off his rings?

  He looked up, eyeing her from under the sweep of his thick, black lashes. A momentary flash of vulnerability, of raw hurt, exposed his heart. He’d seen her. But then it was gone. In its place was the familiar Slade. The dark and dangerous Slade. His eyes accused her, his stance rejected her, his silence condemned her. Damn him. Damn her.

  With Lawless pride being the only thing holding her spine rigid, Hannah spoke curtly. “I don’t see a need for you to escort me into Boston. I’m sure Rigby can find his way to your brownstone.”

  “Your brownstone,” he amended, pushing away from the wall. “I signed it over to you today.”

  Her heart flopped, making her blink, but she quickly recovered from the surprise. “That wasn’t necessary. I won’t be needing it long. Because following Isabel’s entertainment, no matter the outcome, I’ll be heading back home. I wouldn’t even stay until then, but she made me promise.”

  That got his attention. A self-satisfied smirk edged her mouth, turning up the corners. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re leaving—just like that? What about your revenge?”

  Hannah took the first steps that would see her past him and out of his house. And out of his life. When she drew even with him, she looked up into his chiseled face. “What about yours?”

  His black eyes bored into hers. “This is mine.” He turned on his heel, left her there, and walked down the hall to the expanse of the central stairway.

  Hannah’s heart thudded. She waited for him to reach the top of the stairs before she called out, “You’re just like your father.”

  He stopped as if he’d hit an invisible wall. For a long moment, he stood with his back to her, unmoving except for his broad shoulders, which he shrugged around in his coat, as if fighting for control. Then he turned around. Even across the distance, she could see, and feel, the feral gleam in his eyes. “And you are just like your mother.”

  A quiver fluttered at the bottom of Hannah’s stomach. Here was the fight she wanted. Released by Isabel from her promise not to tell Slade about that night in their parents’ lives, Hannah nearly crowed. Isabel’d told her to use all her guns to keep him. And now she would. “In my case, that’s a compliment. In yours? An insult.”

  He gripped his top hat a mite too tight, Hannah noticed. She prayed for strength in the face of the coming storm that was Slade Garrett. Pacing back to her, he stopped only inches away and seemed to hover over her, like an impatient vulture. “Say that again. I dare you.”

  Hannah’s throat dried up and closed. Her heart plummeted to her feet. But she never looked away. “I said … telling me I’m like my mother is a compliment. But telling you that you’re like your father is an insult.”

  She expected him to yell and rage. In fact, she wanted him to do just that, knowing that when he did, he revealed so much more than he realized. But not this time. He spoke in a voice of deadly calm that came from the depths of hell. “What do you know of my father?”

  “I know why my mother left Boston. That’s what I know of your father.”

  “Tell me what you think you know.”

  Hannah shook her head. “I don’t just think I know it, Slade. I was told by someone who was there.”

  “Tell me.” His black eyes took on a deadly sheen.

  Only short, shallow breaths could get in and out of Hannah’s constricted throat. If she spoke up, her words could mean her life. If she said nothing, her silence could cost her the love of her life. What good was life without love? “Your father, in a drunken rage, attacked my mother in her own room, after forcing his way into Cloister Point. Only my grandfather’s interference kept her from being raped.”

  A sudden dusky red claimed Slade’s face. A vein pulsed at his temple. His body went rigid and then shivered with some inner struggle. One hoarse word found its way out of the angry slash of his mouth. “Liar.”

  In pure, instinctive reacti
on, Hannah reared back and slapped Slade’s face. Hard enough to snap his head to the side. Hard enough to hurt her own hand. In gasping reaction to her own deed, she stumbled back two or three steps. Slowly shaking her head, she held her stinging hand to her heart and stared wide-eyed at her husband.

  The thunderous clap of her transgression echoed in the hallway. For the longest moment, Slade kept his head turned to the side. Hannah watched her palm print on his cheek turn from white to a rosy pink to a deep red against his smooth skin. Then, tears blurred her vision. Through their distortion, she saw Slade turn his head, saw him stare unblinking at her, saw him open his mouth.

  “Keep your gun on you at all times. You’re going to need it.” With that, he turned and strode to the stairs, taking them slowly, confidently, one at a time.

  He’d threatened her and was just going to walk away? Suddenly wanting him to feel a measure of the hurt that tore at her heart, Hannah called after him, “Ask Isabel. She’ll tell you I speak the truth.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Do you have everything—the letter to my sisters and the note to pass to Mrs. Wells? Good. Now, you be careful. Put your hood up.”

  “I’ll be fine, miss. I’ve been meeting Mrs. Wells at the market for five days now. And nothing has happened. Besides, Rigby’s never far away. He’s very good at being sneaky, you know.”

  Hannah smiled at the way Olivia’s face, now a little fuller and pinker, turned red whenever she said that particular young man’s name. “I’m sure he is. But I still worry. I know you have to be the one to pass along false information to my uncle, but I don’t like it. You’re just a child, and anything could happen.”

  “Child? I’m a mother, miss. And it pleases me to play false with Mrs. Wells. Let her think she’s giving right and true notes about your comings and goings to Mr. Wilton-Humes. Let him think he has me where he wants me.”

  Hannah sighed. “You’re right. Now, go on.” When Olivia balked, Hannah made a shooing gesture with her hands. “I’ll be fine. Aren’t there armed men all about this place?”