Angel of Ash (26 page)

She wouldn’t allow herself to cry, not anymore, without the piano in her life, she offered to help Mrs. Bates in whatever way she could, and took the initiative to clean floors, dust furniture and scrub window panes to keep herself busy and her dark thoughts buried beneath fake smiles and cheery eyes.

Asher came and went, and Angel stayed well out of his way, she would often hear his cold voice speaking with a servant and wouldn’t allow herself the memories of the Asher she had once known, the one who’d seduced her and made her believe that she was once special to him. This Asher hated her, it seemed even her face pained him somehow, caused words to tear strangled from his throat.

When he did speak to her, it was always demeaning, always in clipped words that held not an inch of softness. And Angel tried, tried so hard to please him, tried so hard to make him see that she would never deceive him, but it did not matter, he rejected her at every turn and at every turn she went up against a stone, coldly immobile brick wall.

She could not imagine why Hunter, nor her aunt had written her but continued writing weeks after her first letter. She still waited in vain, however, for a letter from her father and every morning asked Mrs. Bates if there was anything for her. There never was.

Increasingly isolated, increasingly hurt at the pain which Asher inflicted upon her whenever he could, Angel turned into herself, where the pain did not seem to hurt so badly. Her fingers, from habit, would play notes upon bookshelves and desks and tables and doors, her eyes would search and make sure Asher was nowhere to be found, her mouth would speak no words other than those she hoped he wished to hear. Her life, her pain, and the only thing holding her together was the happiness she felt upon the knowledge that she was with child. Even Asher could not strip that away from her.

Chapter 8

“Gabe, I have written letter after letter to her and yet, she has not written back once. I do not know what to believe. That the childhood friend that I have been so close to, no longer wants me as a friend, and now sister in law. What am I to think?” Hunter asked in distress to her husband as they lay in bed together, Gabe’s arms wrapped consolingly around his wife’s slight figure.

“We must give them time to be alone, Hunter,” Gabe began.

“But it is nearing two months since their marriage. And Anthony even says that he sees little of Asher, even though they live minutes from each other in London. And he hasn’t seen anything at all of Angel. I must know why she isn’t writing me. If it is some fault of mine than I must have the matter rectified, Gabe, please. May we travel to London, I fear for Angel. This is not like her to write. How alone and isolated she must feel. And her aunt tells me she has not written to her either, her aunt taking your stance that we must give the two time alone.”

“Then we shall go, if it is your wish. We will leave with the children by the end of the week and you shall see Angel and know that everything rests well with her. They are newlyweds, and even though their marriage may have gotten off on a rocky start, I am sure by now, they have finally figured out that they belong together.”

Asher could not sleep well, hadn’t slept well for weeks if truth be told. His conscience, guilt and anger seemed to battle at him every day, tell him such conflicting thoughts he often wanted to scream out loud, to cease those voices that gave him no rest.

It is not her fault.

She is innocent.

You must give her leeway.

Trust her.

Hold her responsible for your pain.

They are all alike, women, deceptive, cruel.

Do not allow her to hurt you as Deborah once did.

Give her no passage.

Hurt her before she hurts you.

Do not trust her.

The child, what of the child?

Innocent, both innocent.

Give her leeway.

Show her no mercy.

Kill her love as yours had been killed.

Give her back her music.

She made her grave.

It was your fault, your own doing.

It was her fault, her own doing.

Someone, help me.

Forgive, Asher, forgive.

I cannot!

I will not!

Forgive, Asher, before it is too late.

Never.

I will never be weak as I once was.

She is innocent.

She is nothing more than a viper.

Damn, her, damn her.

He chose to listen to that voice which held him in bondage. Forgiveness was not found in him.

Angel walked to Asher, quietly, for the past week she had been getting up the nerve to speak to him of her pregnancy. She was now over three months and Asher had never once spoken to her about the child. Her belly was slightly rounded, her breast larger, however, Angel’s appetite was shallow at best, as she forced herself to eat for the sake of the baby, so even though her belly was ever so round, her cheekbones and collarbone showed the narrow stance of her body. He never looked at her, or if he looked at her, he never made comment about the changes to her body. Asher had stuck by his word, that he wanted nothing from her, not companionship, not her love, not her sex.

She felt useless, next to nothing, but that did not stop her from wanting to understand him, to get him to speak to her about the child she would soon give birth to. She found him in his study, the door slightly ajar, and walked on silent feet to his desk, well away from him, but close enough. But not too close. He didn’t seem to hear her, or perhaps was ignoring her as he poured over business matters.

“
Excuse me,” Angel said quietly.

Watching his hand still, Angel tightened her hands together, into one small ball, to keep them from trembling. He had so much of her, such a horrible control over her life which she resented.

“
What is it, my lady?”

That hated phrase, ‘my lady’ she hated when he said that, because she knew, he would rather call her that than to ever speak her given name.

“
I-I wish to speak to you…about, the baby.”

He finally looked up, finally met her eyes, his cold, unemotional. As still as the dark, deep bottom of the ocean. In them, she saw her future of pain, loneliness, isolation and fear. In them, she saw darkness.

“And so, you are still with child?” He asked.

It shouldn’t bother her how cold he could be, because she couldn’t manage to keep back the flinch of pain. She was not like Asher, she could not hide her emotions, could not be hateful and mean tempered.

Nodding, she braved a smile, when inside her heart was breaking. “Yes, yes, I still am,” she managed to say, a shaky breath being pulled from her body.

“And is it my child?”
Oh, God, why was he doing this to her? “Yes…yes, it is,” she said quietly, the pain was so horrible. Why couldn’t he just love her, respect her, just a little bit? What was wrong with her for him to hate her so much?

“What is it, then, you wished to speak of?”

Why had she made herself go through this, why? “I wish to know, if my father could be here, upon the delivery…and Hunter and my aunt, sir.”

He paused, she waited with bated breath.
Please, let him not deny me this one thing, what will I do, all alone, what will I do?

“Matters of child birth…they have been occurring since the dawn of time. Since Adam and Eve. Being without a close one during your travails will not make your birthing easier…or harder, my lady. And so, therefore, I must deny your request. I will send word around after the birth of your child. If you need a doctor before then, inform Mrs. Bates.”

She walked away, now realizing how much his hatred of her ran. How much he detested the fact that she was his wife and he her husband. Yet, there was nothing that either could do about it, with a baby on the way, and already two months into a loveless and hateful marriage, Angel could think of no favorable exception to Asher’s hated words. She could think of nothing to allow to ease her mind. Instead, she walked upstairs to her room, closing the door softly behind her, there at her small desk, she wrote the notes of a small orchestra she was creating, knowing that Asher would never allow her to play the piano again, knowing that the creation of the orchestra was simply to keep her mind off the terrors which she now lived with.

It wouldn’t be so hard, she thought to herself, ever trying to find some cheer, to realize that somewhere beyond her, someone’s life was harder than hers. She could birth the child without family and friends around. Women’s lots in lives were hard to bear but she would do so and make her ancestors proud of her. She’d bear her burden with a strong hand. And thought to herself, at least he does not beat me. Even though in his ignoring of her seems just as great of a pain as if he’d laid violent hands upon her. Asher never laid a hand upon her, never wanted to look upon her. He told himself that he hated her, hated everything about her. Hated that they had created a child together which would burden the sham of a marriage in which they were already cast in.

He stared at the legal papers upon his desk, his thoughts upon Angel’s beautiful but pale face as she asked her boon. And when she’d asked it of him, he’d wanted to give it to her. Wanted to ease the burdens of pain that he knew she would have and when he understood this weakness he’d destroyed it within his soul and allowed her no mercy or retreat from his hatred.

Hatred at this situation, hatred at his treatment of her, hatred of this still need for her in which ate away at him, which caused him sleepless night after sleepless night. He could not forgive himself for Deborah and the past and he could not forgive or forget the terrors of his life as it was today. There had to be a realization from Angel that she would never play an important role in his life. That she’d never be anything but a wife in name only, that she’d be fettered to the darkness of his past for the rest of her life. He couldn’t give her leeway, could not pass her a boon, a trust. For if he did, it would end with the weakness as to who he had once been in the past and not the man he was today. He had no forgiveness to give.

Futilely he gave up trying to make sense of the legalities of the papers before him, placing his pen upon the documents and standing with the grace of a large cat, stalking its prey, waiting, ready, wanting for something.

He ached physically from his self-imposed celibacy since marriage. He’d stated he’d not wanted Angel physically and that had been a torturous lie, a lie which he could not escape from. It would seem to him as if no other woman existed for him except the one that held his name and the one woman he refused to give his heart to. Yet, mentions of her, of the child she was to bear burdened Asher’s heart in untold ways.

Another child, another child, another woman who did not love him. Another betrayal. He wanted more than anything to erase the past few months, to erase Angel from his memory, to heed Hunter’s cryptic words and not have made love to her, never had laid eyes upon the visage of such loveliness and beauty it tore his breath away every time he saw her. His weakness castrated him as he walked up the stairs to his room, it had been many weeks since he’d slept in his bed through the night, but long nights on the hard cot at his office had finally wearied him. Yet, even home, he wished himself anywhere but there, the bath ready at his disposal as he dismissed his valet and washed himself, his thoughts bleak as they had been these last four months.

It did not surprise him that the door which connected his room to Angel’s was closed and locked. Locked from his room. He studied it, washing unhurriedly, wondering what she was doing on the other side of the door, if she too was bathing, or in bed asleep, and wondering upon how she looked naked, now that her body had undertaken its womanly changes during the pregnancy.

The thought excited him, strangely, her breasts, he knew were larger, rounder, they strained the dresses which she wore. He could note no perceptible changes to her stomach, the gowns of fashion today, high waist, and had kept many a curious stranger from knowing the state of a pregnancy.

He could admit to himself that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, would perhaps always be so. Angel had a visage that had never before been seen in his travels to different countries.

Standing, finished with his bath, he thought again of Angel in the room next to his, wrapping a towel around his lean hips, the beads of water drying slowly upon his body as he stared at the door between them.

‘Why not?’ He thought to himself, his heart beating heavily in his throat. She was his chattel, his wife, alive to do his bidding. He wanted her physically, would perhaps always want her in such a way, it was his to lay claim to, her womanhood. He cared naught for her feelings, for the sufferings of her femaleness. He cared not for her.