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“Why would I think you’d harm me?” Harriet asked.
“Because that’s where I got all these bruises. From a fight.”
Harriet seemed to come to the present enough to look at her in curiosity. “Did you? And who did you fight?”
“Tabitha,” Edilean said. “She—”
“I don’t believe I know her,” Harriet said quickly, but she was distracted again. “Was that a knock on the door?”
“I didn’t hear it,” Edilean said. “If it’s a man, tell him he can go to hell.”
Even the use of that word didn’t make a dent in Harriet’s distraction. She ran out of the room and Edilean heard her open the front door, but no one was there.
For weeks now, Harriet had been nervous and high-strung, so unlike her usual calm demeanor.
This morning was particularly bad for Edilean. She’d not allowed herself to say it out loud, but she’d hoped that she was with child. It was, of course, wrong to bring a child into the world out of wedlock, but that didn’t keep her from hoping. When her time of the month came that morning, she knew that she and Angus were truly over. Done with. Forever. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong, but she was sure that he didn’t want her—and now she’d never have anything from him.
She looked at Harriet with cool eyes. “If you must know,” she said as she buttered a roll, “I was thinking about Tabitha.”
“Tabitha?” Harriet asked, then jumped half out of her seat when the maid dropped something in the parlor.
The fact that Harriet didn’t remember the many stories that Edilean had told her about Tabitha was another sign that her mind wasn’t on the present. “When are you going to tell me what’s made you like this?” Edilean asked.
“It’s nothing. Go on with your story. What about this Tabitha? Maybe we could have her for tea.”
“With or without her leg irons?” Edilean asked, but Harriet didn’t hear her because the maid dropped something else.
“I can’t stand this!” Harriet said as she ran out of the room.
“No noise allowed,” Edilean said under her breath, and pushed h
er plate away. Sometimes she thought of the difference between herself now and as she’d been before her uncle took her from school. While it was true that she’d had to be nice to a few people she didn’t care for in order to get the best invitations, she’d had a feeling that she was worth the finest that life had to offer. Edilean Talbot had been absolutely sure that she was better than and above women such as Tabitha. And Margaret. That woman had asked Edilean for a job once they got to America, but Edilean hadn’t even considered the idea.
In the last weeks she’d thought more and more about the fight with Tabitha. At the time, Edilean had felt justified about it. But now she wondered what happened to Tabitha afterward. Edilean vividly remembered the branding scar that Tabitha had shown her. Never in Edilean’s life had she had to deal with something like that. Yes, her uncle had tried to make her marry a despicable man, and yes...
Edilean knew that there were a lot of “yes” answers to questions in her life. But in the end, she’d won. True, men had hurt her, but she’d ended up with a nice home and a fat bank account. Now when she went to the bank, the president came out and addressed her with exaggerated courtesy.
But what would happen to Tabitha? she wondered. After she lost the jewels, what was left for her? What had happened to Margaret and the other women on the ship? In fact, what happened to most of the women sent to America as prisoners? Did many of the men who bought their contracts brand them?
“Oh, no!” Harriet said. She’d come back into the room, sat down, and picked up the newspaper, but Edilean hadn’t even noticed.
“What is it?” Edilean asked. “The cost of chicken go up again?”
“Worse,” Harriet said. “Mr. Sylvester died.”
“Before I could marry him?” Edilean asked. “What a shame.”
“Before you could humiliate him so he wished he were in his grave,” Harriet shot back. “Mr. Sylvester is the man who grows most of what you eat.”
“Oh,” Edilean said, uninterested. She had no idea what she was going to do with her day. If she painted one more picture of a flower bouquet she thought she might be sick.
“His poor wife. They have seven children, and the oldest is only ten.”
“Making that many children probably killed him,” Edilean said.
“You’re in a worse mood than usual this morning. But then, you usually are in a bad way, aren’t you? Are you sure you don’t want to tell me about it?”
“I will when you tell me why you jump at every noise that’s made in this house.”
