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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

He brought the words out carefully, not like a story thought-out beforehand but like phrases in a foreign language, recently learned: an effort to break a long-held pattern of rough and hasty speech that touched Abigail strangely. Whether this new learning would hold the first time he lost his temper was another matter—she knew how desperately hard it was, to break a habit even as trivial as biting one’s cuticles—but he was clearly trying. She wondered who he’d asked for pointers. Scipio?

“I think not, sir,” she replied. “I made the journey out to Townsend myself—”

“Good God, woman! In this weather?” His old self slammed out of the shadows of self-imposed restraint. “It’s at the ends of the bloody earth!”

“So I learned.” She hid a smile. “Yet I had to be sure.”

“Of all the damfool harebrained—” He caught himself in hand, and added, “Thank you. I would not for the world have asked it of you. No, no,” he added, as she reached for the handbell—in its proper place, for a marvel, not that Pattie or anyone else was in the kitchen to answer it—“I can see I’ve taken you in the midst of your work, and will not keep you from it. I just—”

He was silent a moment, big hands clenched, staring into the fire. Then his hard gray eyes flicked up to Abigail’s again and he said, “If you—when you . . . Please let her know that I stand ready to protect her, with all that I have, from anything, no questions asked. I am her husband,” he added. “It is my duty—and my desire.”

“I’ll tell her. I pray I will have the opportunity.”

He took a deep breath. “Tell her that I was wrong, to treat her as I did.” He pulled out the words like arrowheads from flesh.

A few weeks ago Abigail would have sniffed, Well, there’s a first! Now she said, “You were deceived, sir. That’s all.”

“I was deceived,” he said, anger hardening his face at that recollection. Then he sighed. “But I was also wrong.” He stood, and Abigail rose, too. He grasped her hand again, a brief, businesslike grip. “I’ll not trouble Mr. Adams,” he added, as Abigail handed him his hat and gloves. “I reckon he’s got his work cut out for him. You may tell him from me that I hope it fails. Good day, m’am. Thank you—for standing a friend to Mrs. Malvern.”

She said, “We all need friends.”