by Marian Wells
She went to the window. “I had a mission. I suppose it is finished now. Cold? One must put restrictions on one’s mind and emotions if there is to be success in such an endeavor.”
“Mind telling me about it?”
“Lucas and I have been working together. Naturally, he bought me with the promise of telling me your whereabouts. But I do believe he thought I was a genuine Confederate. For some time, that is. Right at the last he caught me passing a message to my contact.”
He moved restlessly. “Would you believe, I’m not interested in hearing about Lucas? Why are you telling me this?”
She cried, “I’m trying to make you understand!”
“That you’ve been working with Lucas—or is it something more?” His face was still, remote. Once before he had looked that way. Despair moved through Crystal, and suddenly she was weighted with fatigue.
“I only want to get this interview over,” she murmured through heavy lips. In a moment she added, “I chose to work with him. I didn’t expect him to take advantage of the situation. Matthew—” Now the words were coming in a rush. “Lucas raped me, and for the past months, since February, I’ve lived with one desire. That is to kill him.”
She paced the room and returned to see the effect of her words on him. Not anger, not outrage. There were tears on his face. She backed against the dressing table. “Matthew, it really is finished. It is an impossible situation.”
He sat down and rubbed his palms over his eyes. “My darling, another failure. Now I understand the bitterness, the ugliness I was seeing. Will there ever be an end to the suffering I’ve put you through? Crystal, I dare not ask you to forgive me for this. I can’t bear to hear you say no, but I understand. As soon as I walked into the room tonight I could feel the oppression. Naturally my conceit had it marked out. All you needed was my love and the sure promise I have turned over a new leaf.”
“You don’t understand, Matthew. I’m trying to explain why we can’t just take up our life again. It isn’t lack of love. It’s—”
She straightened the objects on her dressing table. With flat, hard words she stated, “I don’t believe, any more than you or Daniel, that Lucas is dead. I still have the passion to track him down, to kill him for all of the ugliness he has heaped on me.”
Her controlled voice broke, and with a burst of passion she cried, “For hurting you and twisting your mind with his selfishness, for the outrage of rape. See, Matthew, I’ll never be a whole person. I’ll never be able to hold my head up again until I’ve rectified the disgrace by killing him.”
Matthew sat down on the edge of the bed. She knew he was watching her face as she moved around the room. Then she returned to the dressing table. Right to left she began again, laying the objects out and then pushing the array to the center of the table. He was very close, and the warmth of his body, the intensity of his eyes moving with the changing pattern of her fingers wrapped her into a cocoon with him in which the movement of her hands united their spirits.
Startled, she looked up. Again there was the impression of his gray eyes channeling between them. A bridge.
“There’s another solution.” He paused. “Do you know I felt this same kind of outrage in battle? The violation of my person, my mind, my body—given unwillingly. Strange, I thought it the most unendurable situation I had ever faced. It was Eli Randolph who made me realize the violation of my spirit was worse.”
Matthew moved away from her. With his thoughts far away, he paced the room. The distance between them stretched the sense of oneness until she felt she must follow after him. He turned to look down at her. “He said the violation of the human spirit creeps upon us without our knowing it. A seduction by thought and action.”
“Without agony? I can’t believe it so.”
“The agony comes not at the rape of the soul, but by the deliverance. A kind of birth agony.”
She felt the jarring note of his words and realized he had severed the thought pattern her mind had said was inevitable. Coldly she faced him. “And of course you have an answer. Dare I guess that it is to be a good girl and love my enemies?”
“That is an utter impossibility.”
“I could have told you that.”
“On your own. Just as the remedy for me was workable, my dear wife, it will be workable for you. I know. Since it came from Eli, and I have seen the pattern in him and Amelia, I can assure you it works. I’ve started on the course myself.”
“I heard you say something about being on your knees and being pounded on the back.” Her voice was still cold and he was grinning at her, thawing the ice.
“That’s right. Crystal, I was serious about me, you, and Love. That’s the only way we’ll be able to handle life. It starts with accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, but the momentum really picks up when you take Him as Lord of your life. Of course it isn’t easy to surrender hate, but I’ll be there to help you—by pounding you on the back.”
He reached out to touch the tears on her cheeks. “You are my precious wife. How I look forward to spending the rest of my life telling you that!”
MARIAN WELLS and her husband live in Boulder, Colorado, which gives her immediate access to the research and documentation of the historical surroundings of this book and the books to follow in this series. A well-known author, her research and background on Mormonism provided the thrust for her bestselling STARLIGHT TRILOGY, the Wedding Dress and With This Ring.
Books by Marian Wells
The Wedding Dress
With This Ring
Karen
THE STARLIGHT TRILOGY SERIES
The Wishing Star
Star Light, Star Bright
Morning Star
THE TREASURE QUEST SERIES
The Silver Highway
Colorado Gold
Out of the Crucible
Jewel of Promise