Could a woman who looked just like Miriam also possess a wrap that looked precisely like the one she owned?
No. That was impossible. This had to be Miriam, or perhaps a hallucination. Either way, he had to find out. Catch the women before they were lost to him somewhere in the city’s many buildings. Lost forever.
When the audience burst into applause, Jacob was only vaguely aware of it. Richard’s motions from the wing reminded him to go through his routine of bowing for the audience, but he shortened it and left the stage abruptly. He had to chase after the woman in the wheeled chair. Had to find her, speak to her, learn the truth about what had happened a year ago. His heart told him she had just left the room.
That his heart hadn’t needed to be broken.
That Miriam was alive.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Evie pushed the wheeled chair out of the theater, onto the cobbled street, and as quickly as she could onto the slightly more even sidewalk. She hurried past those out for an evening stroll, so much so that Miriam heard her breath huffing and noted the sound of her shoes slipping on the slushy ground. Bless the girl, she’d taken Miriam’s plea to escape seriously.
“As soon as we’re around the next corner, we can slow down,” she told Evie over her shoulder.
“I’ll go as fast as I can for as long as I can,” she replied. She turned the corner and, true to her word, attempted to keep going at the same pace, but the incline of the street made maintaining the same speed impossible.
“Careful,” Miriam said, as much for Evie’s sake as her own. She’d had more than one nightmare of herself in her chair tumbling down Belvedere Street, Evie rolling down too, her skirts getting caught in the wheels, and the both of them landing in a heap at the bottom by Pulteney Bridge, Miriam dead and Evie a cripple.
“Perhaps we can slip into a doorway and hide in the shadows for a moment,” Evie said, panting.
“Yes, let’s,” Miriam said.
Evie steered the chair around a corner townhouse that had a gate right at the corner and elaborate shrubbery and some statues on display. The size of it all provided good cover. With the chair turned to face the street and Evie still behind her, Miriam couldn’t help but keep her eyes trained on the rounded corner wall, waiting with dread for what—or who—might come.
Emotion threatened to bubble up, but she tamped it down, resolving to be strong as steel to protect Jacob. How could she have known that Davis Jacobson was actually Jacob Davies, her Jacob? She hadn’t any idea. She’d assumed he lived in Audbury at Stonecroft Cottage or in London—whether submitting to Norman or striking out on his own with some other venture, she hadn’t known. But singing . . . that had never occurred to her, though she’d long known he had the talent. She’d told him as much, but he’d never listened to her.
Or, apparently, he finally had.
Yet he believed her dead, and to keep his future from being dragged down like an anchor, he needed to continue to believe it. Moreover, if she were to have any kind of life, to not be on the streets begging for food or trying to find a hospital to take her in, she needed Norman’s money. Not to mention that Evie needed her position as well. Too many lives and livelihoods were at stake.
As hard as it was to hear Jacob singing about her—and at the end, singing to her, she thought—about his loss and love, allowing him into her life would be the height of selfishness. As Norman, devil that he was, had said, if she loved Jacob, she had to remain dead to him.
Oh, what she wouldn’t give for one more tender word, one more embrace, one last kiss. Her love for him flared within her, and with it came the most bitter ache, of knowing it was all for naught. She’d fought back the feelings for months, but now that she’d escaped the theater, she let them come to the surface, just a little. She’d been strong for so long. She could let herself cry a bit. Silently. And only for a moment. But she let herself shed a few tears for Jacob and the life they could have had.
Heavy footsteps pounded in the distance, followed by a voice calling into the night. “Miriam! Miriam Brown! Where are you?”
She clamped her eyes shut, which squeezed out more tears, but she kept silent. She had to. For Jacob’s sake.
Evie, however, leaned close and whispered, “Someone is calling for you?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. Miriam hadn’t explained the need to escape, just the urgency. The intensity of her request—and likely Miriam’s look of sheer terror—had spurred Evie into action.
“Is he—a bad man?”
“The very opposite,” Miriam said. Because Jacob was such a good man, because she loved him so dearly, she had to run away.
The footsteps and voice faded, though they didn’t stop. Perhaps Jacob was down by the river now on the other side of town. “Let’s go,” she whispered.
Without another question, Evie obeyed, for which Miriam was grateful. They said nothing more as they slowly moved up the hill, past colorful doors to one of the many blue ones that marked their townhouse. Theirs was a bright blue. Cheerful, not dark, and not too pale either. She’d loved the color when she first laid eyes on it because it matched the blue accents of the silk wrap Jacob had given. The very wrap she wore now. Had he seen it? He must have.
Wait, where was her wrap? In their hurry, it must have fallen off, and in her panic, she hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t go out to look for it, and Evie certainly couldn’t do so alone—a single woman out late at night? No, Miriam wouldn’t so much as consider any chance of harming her friend’s reputation. She’d simply pray that it would be found by someone trustworthy and that perhaps it had fallen off near the theater, where the finder would return it. A foolish hope, perhaps, but at the moment, it was her only hope of seeing Jacob’s wrap again.
Evie set the brake on a back wheel and moved to unlock the door. After most excursions, she helped Miriam stand and very slowly take the step up required to get inside, where she could then reach her cane in its spot by the door and, leaning against Evie for much-needed support, slowly walk to her bed. Not tonight.
“Could you carry me inside?” she asked. Her legs were shaking too much from the shock of seeing Jacob again that she didn’t trust them to support her any more than a mound of porridge could. Besides, being carried inside would be much faster, and if there had ever been a time that Miriam needed to move quickly, this was it.
Evie glanced at Miriam and seemed to understand her urgency. “Of course,” she said. The door gave way to the key; she pushed it open, then returned to fetch Miriam, who was near to panicking over the possibility of being spotted in the street.
Jacob could be on the other side of town, but she knew him well enough to suspect that he’d run through every street in Bath in search of her—and the city wasn’t terribly large. By now, he could easily be heading back northward, toward the abbey, and returning in their direction once more.
Drat the steepness of Belvedere Street; from the bottom, some half a mile away, one could look up and see their door. The cloak of night would help, but in the glow of street lamps, her chair would surely stand out in stark relief. If he reached the base of the street now . . .
“We must hurry,” Miriam said, looking down the street, worried nearly to the point of tears.
Evie hurried back, then slipped one arm under Miriam’s legs and the other below her arms, cradling her as she lifted her from the chair. With her charge in her arms, Evie’s movements slowed down—wise, considering the chance of slipping on the wintry ground. In less than a minute, Miriam was placed upon her bed, where she let out a breath of relief.
From Miriam’s vantage, she could see through her bedchamber door to the outside, where Evie was already leaning to the side to release the brake. She straightened and began to walk backward, careful to watch the wheels as she navigated them up and over the step inside, taking care to not scratch the door frame.
“Ho! You, there!” A man’s voice carried through the door from the street—and not from a great distance. He was close.
Too close.
Evie froze, as did Miriam. They stared at each other for a moment, during which Miriam silently pleaded with her caretaker to get inside and lock the door. Evie tried. Miriam could see that. But the man calling out had somehow arrived already—not from the bottom of the street, as she’d assumed someone might, but from the top, running so fast along the steep decline that he nearly flew past the door before he could stop. When he did, he bent over, breathing heavily, hands on his knees—and something in one of those hands. A flash of blue made Miriam catch her breath.
“Is that—is that my wrap?”
Evie had gotten the chair inside, and she had the door half closed. At Miriam’s words, she looked over, confused—pausing only a moment, but long enough for the man outside to reach through the gap with his arm. He held onto the door and shoved his boot between the gap as well.
“Get out!” Evie tried to push the door closed, pressing on the man’s arm. She was clearly terrified, and Miriam was anxious too, but she’d seen the wrap, and if this was a young man trying to return it . . .
“Ask if he has my wrap.”
“Your—” Evie’s eyes widened in understanding. “I didn’t notice that it had fallen. I am so sorry, Miss Brown—”
“Evie.” Miriam’s firm voice stopped the effusion. “Don’t call me that. And please, just ask him. See if it’s mine. Maybe he’ll withdraw.”
With a nervous nod, Evie released some of the weight she’d been pressing against the door, resulting in the man outside letting out a sound of relief. “Thank you. Goodness, that hurt something fierce.”
Jacob. It was Jacob. Miriam had no doubt at all. He knew she’d survived the accident. He’d seen her, followed her. What was she to do? Norman would withdraw his support—and his money was the only reason she had any kind of life at all. She would have to move to—somewhere. Ireland? Scotland?
“Give me that wrap,” Evie demanded.
Outside, Jacob let out a breath of frustration. “Look. You can see it well enough, but I’m not giving it to you. I know it belongs to Miss Brown, and I demand to see her so I can return it myself.”
Miriam felt as if her soul were being ripped down the middle, one side in agony over not seeing Jacob again, the other in agony over what seeing him again would mean for either of them. Oh, how she wanted to see him, hear his voice speaking to her, feel his embrace once more. And oh, how guilty she would feel for the rest of her life if she allowed it.
Evie held strong. “How do you know her name, and how can you possibly know whether it belongs to her?”
“You’ve essentially admitted that it’s hers,” Jacob said—firmly, but kindly, as only he could. “And I know it’s Miss Brown’s because . . .” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice wavered. “Because I gave it to her the day after I asked her to marry me.”
Images from that morning flooded Miriam’s mind, and she had to cover her mouth to be sure she couldn’t make a sound when—not if—she cried.
For Evie’s part, she stood stock-still, mouth agape, at Jacob’s declaration. She looked at Miriam, who nodded miserably. “It’s true.” She’d kept her past shrouded from Evie, who knew Miriam only as the cripple Mr. Norman Davies hired her to care for. Evie dropped her hands from the door entirely. “This is your fiancé?” she asked. “How—why—does Mr. Davies know?”
She’d let down her defenses, which allowed Jacob to push through the doorway and enter the townhouse. “If you mean my brother, Norman, then yes, he knows.”
Evie’s face drained of color, making her look ghostlike against the light from a lamp that one of the servants had lit in their absence. “But we saw you singing. You’re Mr. Jacobson. How can Mr. Davies be your brother? I don’t . . .” Her hand went to her forehead, and Jacob stepped forward to support her should she faint. She took his arm, and they briefly disappeared from Miriam’s view, but she could hear the creak of a step on the staircase and murmured voices. Evie was surely sitting there until she regained her composure.
Jacob’s footfalls sounded as he returned from the staircase. At the entrance, he closed the front door and locked it, then cast a gaze at the wheeled chair before turning his full attention to Miriam. He stood so near, framed by her door, looking the same and yet older, different—possibly due to the elegant, undoubtedly expensive clothing.
He took a hesitant step across the threshold but kept his distance, as if he didn’t want to upset her or hurt her. As if Jacob could do any of those things. “You’re—I—”
“I know.” Miriam’s voice cracked, and the tears began in earnest.
“Is your father . . . ?”
“He is gone, yes. Norman did not lie about that part.”
“And you? How are you—” He held his hat in his hands, rotating it by the brim as he spoke—but suddenly he stopped. “Norman did all of this, didn’t he?”
“He made sure I could live comfortably, but only if I did not ruin your life.”
Jacob crossed the distance in several quick strides. “Miriam, how could you ever—”
“A politician needs—”
“I am not, nor ever will I be, a politician.”
“But your life as a performer—Davis Jacobson’s image must be—”
“Whatever I want it to be,” Jacob said. He clearly was not about to let her explain away or rationalize anything. She was running out of reasons, and that fact both terrified her and made a dark corner of her heart spark with hope. He took her hand between both of his—so warm and strong and gentle. “I would give anything—anything—to be your husband. I would give up my life as a performer. It began as a way to not die on the streets alone from hunger and heartbreak.”
“But I’m frail and weak, and I hardly walk at all. I may never be able to have children, and—”
This time he cut off her words by pressing a thumb to her lips, then stroking his thumb across them. She hadn’t felt anything so welcome and comforting, so loving, since the accident.
“I love you, Miriam. I always have, and I always will. Fate broke us apart a year ago, but it has brought us back together again despite my brother’s meddling. Marry me? Please? I don’t need Norman’s money, and neither do you anymore. I’ve earned enough this last year to not need to work at all for several years if I don’t want to. We can finally be together. That is, if you still love me.”
Warmth and happiness came over her that outshone the pain and dreariness of the last year by several orders of magnitude. “I’ll never stop loving you, Jacob Davies. Ever.”
He leaned in and, gently holding her face between his hands, kissed her as he might a fragile vase—until she drew him closer, demanding a kiss akin to the ones they’d once shared. She drank him in, every part of him, forgetting the expensive clothing and stage name. He pulled back ever so slightly, parting their lips by a whisper. “Will you marry me?”
She nodded, and tears of joy mingled with the ones she’d shed moments before from sadness. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
Jacob sat back, his eyes sparkling. “I can purchase a license that will allow us to marry as soon as we wish.”
Miriam thought of the Christmas Eve wedding they were supposed to have. “As soon as tomorrow morning?”
If possible, his face brightened with even more happiness as he understood the suggestion. “I’ll be there, my love.”
“As will I. You have my promise.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Miriam awoke Christmas Eve morning to a chill in the air and the artwork of frost fairies’ brushes on the windowpanes. A fire had already been lit in the grate, though the room had yet to warm fully. No matter; she was as warm as she needed to be today of all days; her joy filled her so completely that the aches in her legs and foot that came upon awaking every morning seemed dull and meaningless. She could endure any pain if it meant being with Jacob again—being with him and knowing that they would not be destitute. That he loved her despite her infirmities and was not marrying her out of pi
ty. That becoming his wife would not, in fact, destroy his life as she’d been led to believe.
The change in Jacob’s countenance was something she could not ignore. During the concert he’d been talented and powerful on the stage, but with a melancholy that cloaked him. Others might have seen that air as a mysterious thing, or an act he put on, but she’d known better then, and she knew even better now. For when he’d entered the townhouse after the concert, all of the heaviness and sadness dropped away like scales from the blind man’s eyes. He was her Jacob, the man she’d come to love in the rolling hills of Audbury, tailored coat and silk cravat notwithstanding.
Today she would not wear anything nearly as grand as he possessed in his wardrobe, though she certainly had finer gowns than she’d ever possessed before, thanks to Norman’s allowance. Today she had no desire whatsoever to wear any of those gowns—not the taffeta, the damask, or the lampas. Instead, she would wear the same gown she’d worn the night before to the concert, this time for its original purpose: for her to wear it as a bride, to speak her vows and be wed to the man who owned her heart fully and completely.
Jacob sent a buggy for her and Evie, wanting to ensure her safety en route despite the short distance. As Evie helped her inside, Miriam felt grateful that he hadn’t sent anything larger that might have reminded her a bit too much of the stagecoach that had been part of their tragic past.
“The only bridge between here and the abbey is stone, with walls,” she said, settling into her seat.
Evie gave her a strange look, and Miriam laughed, realizing she had yet to explain the entire story to her friend.
“We’ll arrive safely,” she said as an interim explanation. “And that’s all that matters.”
Minutes later, they were at Bath Abbey, with its soaring facade, arched windows, and immense carved door. Evie fetched the wheeled chair, and soon the pair were entering the abbey proper, with the door held open by a man who nodded and bowed as they went in. The grand interior, with a ceiling filled with what looked like patterns of stone fans, took Miriam’s breath away. She clutched her cane more tightly on her lap, so as to not lose hold of it as Evie pushed her down the aisle. She was determined to stand while getting married, even if she couldn’t quite manage walking down the long aisle.
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