For Her Honor: The Gentrys of Paradise

by Holly Bush

  All of his worst fears bubbled to the surface and he couldn’t keep himself from envisioning the worst. He thought about his mother facing bandits, frightened and alone. He thought about those few hours holding Josephine’s hand while she slipped further and further away from him and how Emmaline might need him right this moment, and he wouldn’t be there to hold her hand or save her. He took a deep breath and turned away from his brother and brother-in-law, unwilling to let them see his panic.

  They left the stables on three worn-out mounts, Jim’s especially struggling under his weight. He wished he had the Morgans with them instead of having to stable them in Frederick and ride these sorry horses, but there was nothing to be done about it. They moved through the busy streets until finally Adam recognized the Bigelow Bank and the hotel he’d stayed at. He spurred his horse faster until they arrived at Clair House. He knocked hard on the door.

  Mrs. Mingo answered. “Mr. Gentry?”

  “I need to speak to my wife,” he said.

  “Come in, sir. Let me get Mr. Clair.”

  Adam stepped into the foyer and waited until Mr. Clair arrived.

  “Mr. Gentry? Mrs. Gentry said you wouldn’t be coming until later this week.”

  “Is my wife here?”

  “No. She and her friend Violet Dunderson went out to run some errands earlier today. I am surprised they haven’t arrived back but sometimes they stop at the bookshop and I believe the time gets away from them when they begin to browse.”

  “Which way is this bookshop?”

  “Near the hotel where you stayed when you first brought Mrs. Gentry to Clair House.”

  “If she should arrive back, do not let her out of your sight. There is a man who I believe intends to hurt her here in Philadelphia somewhere.”

  “Oh, my dear,” a white-faced Mrs. Clair said from behind her husband. “Someone wants to hurt our Emmaline?”

  She slumped against her husband’s side as the front door opened behind Adam.

  “Miss Violet!” Mr. Clair said. “Where is Miss Emmaline?”

  “This is my wife’s friend, Miss Dunderson?” Adam asked.

  The woman was sniffling into her hanky and swaying on her feet. “I am your wife’s friend.” She looked up at him, with tears in her eyes.

  Adam took her gently by the shoulders, bracing himself for what he knew was a terrible new reality. “What has happened, miss?”

  “My father is unwell. I don’t believe he will have too many more days on this earth.” She turned to Mr. Clair. “I’m going to take some of my clothes home with me today as I’ll be staying there indefinitely. I’ll make arrangements for the rest of my things to be picked up.”

  Adam took a deep breath. “I’m terribly sorry to hear about your father, Miss Dunderson, but I believe my wife is in danger. Do you know where she is?”

  “Emmaline? In danger? Oh, dear!” she said, wide-eyed and worried. “My family’s retainer found us right after we left the Bigelow Bank. We were on our way home. I wanted to bring her here in our family carriage, but Hodges was most impatient, and she insisted I hurry, in case, in case . . . I didn’t want to be too late.”

  “What time was that, Miss Dunderson?” Adam demanded.

  “Hours ago!” she said and began to cry again. “It had to be before three when we arrived at the bank and we were only there a few minutes. Long enough for her to make a withdrawal. It must be five o’clock now, or after. It is nearly dark, and the streetlights are beginning to come on.”

  “Come on, Adam,” Matt said from his side. “We’ve got to search between here and the bank and see if we can find a clue as to where she’s at.”

  “Mr. Clair?” Adam said. “Please have someone find me if she would turn up here. Leave a message at the Addison if necessary.”

  “Of course, sir,” Clair said, looking only slightly better than his wife, who was crying piteously.

  CHAPTER 15

  Adam, Matt, and Jim walked down the street toward the bank, three abreast, eyes moving right and left, looking for any clue. Adam was letting himself think the worst and he knew that he shouldn’t, that he needed to be clearheaded to search for his wife. But two hours! She’d been gone two hours, and no one knew where she was.

  “When should we go to the police department, if Mr. Clair already hasn’t?” Jim asked.

  “They may be able to help,” Matt said. “They may be able to track Nash’s movements.”

  “We don’t have time for the police,” Adam said.

  They walked slowly and in silence then, sharp eyes looking for any trace of Emmaline, the cold wind whipping down the street, blowing leaves and bits of paper in whirlwinds while the gas lamps cast an eerie light.

  * * *

  “WHY DIDN’T you tell me about our baby?” Henry asked as she pulled her face from his.

  “You never called on me, never came around, and Nettie heard before I even realized I was expecting that you were courting another woman.”

  “I only saw her twice. She wasn’t worth my time.”

  She very nearly made a remark to him that would certainly anger him, but she sensed that he wasn’t completely rational. It was clear to her that she was alone in this and that she would only survive by her wits. If Violet returned to Clair House and realized she’d never come back, they would look for her, but even still, how would they know where to look, and what were the chances that Violet would return, especially if her father was as ill as the retainer had said.

  “What was the matter with the woman?” she asked.

  “She was a tramp,” he whispered close to her ear, making her skin itch and forcing a shiver down her back even as she was tight against a cold brick wall. “She wasn’t you. I’ve heard you’ve done very well for yourself. You’ll make a fine wife for an up-and-coming businessman.”

  “I’m already married.”

  “Not for long.” He laughed. “Once I get a brat on you again, he’ll send you packing. Don’t you know the Gentrys are uppity? They don’t want a girl who lifts her skirts any old time.”

  He kissed her then and forced his tongue in her mouth, nearly gagging her. She pushed from the wall with all of her strength and just as she thought she was making progress, he stepped away from her and swung his hand hard in a wide arc. Her head reeled as he smacked her face, bouncing her head off the wall behind her and making her dizzy. Before she could recover her wits, he hit her in the stomach with his fist. She doubled over, gasping for breath. She could taste blood on her tongue and wondered if the crack she’d heard was her rib. He pulled her cloak from her and yanked at her dress. She heard fabric rip and felt cold air on her arm and chest. This man, this horrid little boy, was going to force himself on her. She would fight him to the bitter end.

  “Don’t do this, Henry. My husband will hunt you down. Don’t do this.”

  He pulled her by the arm across the dim hallway and opened a door she could barely see. He pushed her in ahead of him, releasing her arm, and she heard a lock snick shut. She hurried away from him, barely making out what was ahead of her, and rammed her hip into a table or tall bench. She put her hand down on it to steady herself, heard the chatter of mice, and felt something fur-covered touch her finger. She nearly shouted but swallowed it. When she batted the furry thing away, her fingers brushed something metal, a piece of pipe she realized when she gripped it, like the kind used to move water from a well. A heavy one, maybe three feet long. She picked it up and held it at her side among the folds of her dress.

  “There’s a pallet over there, Emmaline. Get yourself on it and lift your skirts unless you want me to bust every tooth in your mouth.”

  If she admitted to herself that she was terrified, she would cry or beg or allow herself to be taken advantage of again, and she just could not do it. She would go with bravado and lure him close enough to swing the pipe and knock him out. “You will have to make me lie down, Henry. I won’t do it willingly.”

  He stalked toward her. She could see the wh
ites of his eyes clearly. He drew back his fist at the same time that she swung the pipe up with all her strength, connecting with his temple with a sickening sound. He reeled in place and she pulled the pipe over her head with both hands prepared to hit him again, but he slumped onto to the floor and wasn’t moving. She hurried to the door but couldn’t find the knob or the key as she felt around in the dark. She turned her head every few seconds to make sure he was still on the ground. She wondered if she’d killed him. She didn’t think she cared.

  * * *

  ADAM AND MATT walked side by side looking at the ground for clues. Jim was across the street asking a man on a bench if he’d seen Emmaline. He looked at them and shook his head. Sweat pooled on Adam’s chest and forehead. Cold sweat. The sweat of fear and frustration. He didn’t know what else to do and he could sense she needed him.

  They were only a block away from the commerce area and Adam believed if this Henry person had a lick of sense, he wouldn’t try to steal a woman off the street with merchants and shoppers still around. But he could have dragged her into a carriage easily on this short, deserted stretch. Emmaline wouldn’t go down without a fight, though. He closed his eyes, willing himself to stay steady, to find her, to give himself a chance to tell her all things that needed said. He straightened then and shouted at the top of his lungs.

  “Emmaline!”

  “Adam! Adam! Help me!” he heard faintly.

  “Emmaline? Emmaline?” he shouted again.

  He and Matt turned to the building behind them where her voice came from, and Jim ran across the street as they went through an open door with a round dirty window. It was dark and dank and cold.

  “Emmaline? Where are you?”

  Matt shushed him. “Here. I think she’s over here.”

  “Emmaline! We’re coming!” Jim shouted.

  “I can’t find the door lock! Help me before he wakes up!”

  “Get away from the door, Emmaline,” Adam said and threw himself against the heavy wood, desperate to get to her. He could hear the terror in her voice.

  The doorframe began to split and Matt pulled him away. “Let Jim do it. He’s got fifty pounds on you.”

  Adam watched as her brother cracked the thick wood in half the second time he hit it with his body. He went barreling through the opening and fell on the floor. Adam heard moaning but he didn’t know who it was, nor did he care, as Emmaline flew through the doorway and into his arms. He held her close, closed his eyes, and sent a prayer aloft.

  “I might have killed him,” she said then in a breathy, maybe hysterical voice, her eyes wide and wild. “Is he dead?” She lifted up her arm, her hand shaking he could see, with a death grip on a heavy piece of metal.

  “Shh,” he murmured and moved her toward the door without releasing her. He walked slowly backward, getting her away from whatever had happened. Men in dark uniforms were hurrying down the street with Mr. Clair as the warehouse door closed behind them.

  “You’ve found her!” Mr. Clair shouted.

  “Yes,” Adam said back and kissed her hair.

  She turned out of his embrace, faced the men coming to her in a hurry, one arm clutching her stomach and one arm out at her side still holding the pipe. “I killed him. I think I killed him.”

  The policemen and Mr. Clair slowed as Adam took his first look at her in the light of the streetlamp. Her dress was filthy and torn, exposing her shoulder and the top of her breast. Her hair was out of its pins and there was blood running down the back of her neck and from the corner of her mouth. He tore off his coat and laid it over her shoulders, bending to pick her up, but she stayed him with her hand and her words.

  “There’s a man inside on the floor. He fathered a baby on me a year ago. I lost that child before he was born.” She pointed to the warehouse door. “He told me . . .”

  “Emmaline,” her brother said softly. “You don’t have to say any of this.”

  “Yes, I do,” she all but shouted.

  Adam could hear her shallow breathing and reached for her but dropped his arm to his side. He thought she needed to say whatever it was she was going to say, and she needed to do it on her own, under her own power, just as she’d defeated that bastard Henry. She looked back at the policemen.

  “He shoved me against a wall and told me he was going to force himself on me and then he hit me. He dragged me into a room and locked the door. He told me to lie down . . . to lie down and pull up my skirts or he would bust every tooth in my mouth.”

  Adam’s eyes closed, hearing the terror in her voice. “Emmaline, love. We’ll sort it out.” But she didn’t hear him.

  “There was a pipe on a bench, this pipe,” she said and raised her hand holding it. “When he got close enough to draw back his fist, I hit him with it. I think I killed him and I’m not sorry.”

  She was shaking and swaying on her feet and Adam couldn’t stop himself from pulling her against him. “If you have any more questions for my wife, you may direct them to my attorney or to me. We’ll be staying at the Addison Hotel down the street. I’ll have a doctor look at her there.”

  “I just checked on him. He’s not dead,” Matthew said from behind them. “He’s still breathing. I’m hoping he lives so I can kill him.”

  “Not if I get to him first,” Jim said.

  She was shaking now in Adam’s arms and had closed her eyes. He kissed her forehead. “Our Emmaline has already vanquished the enemy. We have arrived at the end of the story where she is already the heroine.”

  Her eyelashes flicked, and she looked up at him, seeing him, he thought, perhaps for the first time that evening. “I want a bath and I want to have a long cry, and I don’t want to do either in front anyone.”

  Adam swept her off her feet, turned, and began the walk to the hotel.

  “IF MY MOTHER had hugged me one more time,” Emmaline said with a laugh as she leaned against Adam in the gig on their way home to Paradise.

  “She’s been terribly worried.” Adam smiled at her. “She wanted to come to Philadelphia with me several times, and I would have surely brought her, you know. But she didn’t right after you were attacked, and then it was only weeks until you were to come home.”

  She slipped her arm through Adam’s. “Mother has never gone far from Winchester. I don’t think traveling agrees with her. Your mother came. I think she loves her traveling.”

  “She does. But what a lovely party your mother had for your homecoming, though,” Adam said and smiled.

  Snow was coming down and painting the wild landscape white. Emmaline breathed in the cold, crisp forest air. She was longing to see Paradise. Longing to see her home. She’d stayed at Clair House the four weeks following Henry’s attack, absorbing every single detail and bit of advice and writing rules she could as she wouldn’t be completing the final month there, even knowing there would be nights during those four weeks she would wake alone, in a cold sweat, reliving that terrible evening.

  She and Adam had talked about it and decided that she would stay until the Christmas break and he would travel back and forth between Winchester and Philadelphia during that time. She felt better, seeing his face when he came by after classes or in the evening to take her to dinner, just knowing he was close by much of the time, he at his hotel and she at Clair House, although they never did talk about matters as they should have. When he was not in Philadelphia, Mr. Clair was careful to see that she was escorted anywhere she needed to go but she didn’t go often. She was happy to heal in the warmth and comfort of Clair House, worrying about her next paragraph rather than an ugly, violent episode that would live somewhere in her head forever.

  She and Adam had arrived on the train that morning and went directly to her mother’s and been kissed and hugged and cried over by all, even by Phillip, who had kissed her cheek and told her he was glad she’d conked that bruiser and asked if he could borrow some money now that she was a famous author. Beadle’s December addition, which included Andrew Bartholomew Pans for Gold, ha
d been released and there were stacks of them on her mother’s dining room buffet for her to sign. She’d gotten through the emotional homecoming with no tears but stood very still and quiet when she first saw the book and leafed through it, coming to her story, with her name, Emmaline Gentry, below the title.

  Betsy reached for her hands and held them. “I cannot tell you how very proud I am of you. How proud we all are. Daddy would be so pleased.”

  She hadn’t had time to shed any tears with Betsy, though, as John Winders had come up to her and hugged her hard, hard enough that she could barely breathe. He’d sniffed and then whispered in her ear, “I’m so sorry, Emmaline. I’m so sorry I ever said anything.”

  She’d pulled away from him enough to hold his face in her hands and see that his eyes were suspiciously bright. “It wasn’t your fault, John. I was too embarrassed to say it was him and I should have. I should have told you and Nettie right away.”

  Nettie had leaned in and kissed her cheek and her husband had reached an arm around both of them. “You should have told us but, dear Lord, what if Mother would have made you marry him? You are much better off with Adam, as you well know. Are you teary-eyed, John?”

  “No,” he’d whispered loudly and run a hand over his eyes. “I’ve just got something in my eye, is all.”

  “It’s rather charming, you know,” Nettie’d said to her husband and raised a brow.

  Emmaline had laughed as John shook his head.

  “You are ridiculous sometimes, Nettie,” he’d said, red-faced, although his eyes never left his wife’s.

  She’d gotten to hold the newest member of the family when Olivia and Jim had arrived with Emily Somerset, named after Eleanor’s sister, who had just woken from her nap. Jim had walked in smiling and carrying the child, holding her as if she were a rare, delicate piece of crystal. He’d reluctantly let Emmaline hold her and Olivia had laughed, looking much like her old self.