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She owed him this, no matter how it might break her.
With a nod to the coachman, Strider turned around and entered the inn.
She watched the street for a few more seconds before dropping the lace curtain back to its place in front of the glass. Slowly, her fingers tapped on the tightly folded paper in her hand and she spun on her heel. Her stare landed on the door as she took several deep breaths.
Even as she’d locked into her mind everything about Strider this morning—the curve of the muscles on his upper arms, how his hair felt in between her fingers, his scars, how his left cheek would get the slightest dimple when he was planning something wicked upon her body—she’d been dreading this.
Dreading how Strider would hate her after this. But he had to know. Above everything, above how she wanted him—loved him now in ways she never knew she could—this was more important.
More important than her own fear. More important than his anger.
Strider had held up his side of the bargain. He’d brought her to her family. Now it was time to return on the promise she’d made.
One knock and the door opened, Strider stepping into the room with a smile on his face. “Are you ready? The driver has already been waiting an inordinate amount of time this morning for us to finish all that we needed to get in.” He looked to the bed, the grin on his face turning lascivious. “He doesn’t know if we’ll get back to Lo—”
He stopped in the middle of the room, his stare suddenly locked on her, the smile instantly vanishing from his face. “Pen, what is it?”
Her mouth opened, nonsensical words blurting out. “Mama June, I think that’s why she did this.” Her right hand clutching the letter waved in front of her belly.
His eyebrows drew inward. “My mother did what?”
“This letter. I think she was trying to protect you, so she set this letter into the pocket under my skirt.” Her words tumbled out fast. “Do you remember the pocket she had sewn under my dress—the one that held all the seashells that we always collected? She was tired of all the sand buried into my skirt when I used to just pull up the edges and make a pouch to collect them, so she sewed me that special pocket to put the shells into. At the bottom of my skirt, do you remember?”
“What are you talking about, Pen?”
“I had the pocket. I had the secret spot, so she used it.”
“Pen?” His head slowly shook, to the left, to the right.
She knew she wasn’t making sense, but there was so much she needed to explain. She forged forth, the words crashing together, landing on top of each other. “Do you remember when the fire started? It was dark, but we hadn’t changed out of our clothes for bedtime because we had been up so late with Mama June on the pianoforte and we just fell asleep in our rooms in our clothes. Then there was the smoke and we were scared and Mama June showed up in our rooms and pulled us out of there.”
“Yes. I remember.” His fingers twitched like he was about to lift them to calm a person that had drifted into madness.
Both of her hands went to the letter, clutching it across her belly. “I had my dress on and I saw your father in their room as your mother dragged us out of the house. He had blood all over his chest. He was half on their bed. Half off.”
Strider stilled, an instant statue. “You saw that too? You never said anything.”
“You never said anything about it either, Strider. And I never wanted to talk about it—how he looked with the blood. And it was on his face and his eyes were open but not seeing anything. You never said anything and I started to think I made it up in my mind. Made it up because of the horror of that night.”
He swallowed, the line of his jaw flexing. “I saw it.”
“It scared me more than the fire. More than anything. Why he was like that. Why he wasn’t the one carrying us out of the house.”
“I remember.”
“I didn’t know what to do other than to hide this. Hide this from you after I found it. I didn’t know what to do—not with what happened to your father. Where all that blood came from. I didn’t know.”
Strider took one step toward her, his right arm lifting waist high, his fingers splayed wide. “What’s in the letter, Pen?”
“Mama June put it in my pocket—my hidden pocket—as she kissed me before she ran back into the fire to go after your father. I didn’t realize it, not until later when I found it. She pulled it from her apron and slid it into the pocket. It was such a flurry I didn’t realize it until later when I could slow down time in my mind.”
He took another step toward her, his hand lifting higher, a hard edge creeping into his voice. “What is in the letter?”
Her hands shaking, she extended both of her arms, still clasping the letter tightly in her fingers. Her body knowing how much she didn’t want to give it to him. “I was scared, Strider. Please just remember that. I was scared. So scared and I didn’t know it meant what it did. I didn’t even know what a solicitor was much less—”
His fingers whipped out, snatching the letter from her hands.
She cringed as he unfolded the paper and it crinkled under his touch—harsh—too harsh and fast for how old the vellum was.
