To Wed A Rebel (11 page)

Those deep brown eyes met her lighter ones, though not for long. He pulled them away to stare at the ceiling of stars. The moroseness he carried she saw as an attack on herself, a displeasure at her company, a dissatisfaction that was wholly and entirely mirrored. He had not even apologised. They both knew that even if he tried, she’d never accept it.

How dare he,
how dare he.

It was not she who put them in this position, but him.

Were she with anyone else, she could have kept her temper, kept her cool.

Not with him, never him.

Isaac brought something out in her. An unnamed, unidentifiable trait she hadn’t known she possessed. It was as though molten metal had been poured into her veins and hot coals set in her stomach, fuelling a machine that produced only solid rage.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he said, as though through regret he could erase all he’d done. “It won’t always be like this, will it? Tell me there’s a chance that, one day, we might—”

“No.”

No, she didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want him to try, couldn’t listen. She wouldn’t be weak any more, wouldn’t be compliant, accommodating, vulnerable.

“You’re enough to drive a man to drink.”

“I doubt you need much encouragement there.”

“Hating me won’t change a thing, love.” A huffed, tired noise left Isaac and she got an infuriating sense that he was enjoying this, the spectacle, the fury. “Trust me, I’ve had that look from many a woman.”

Ruth struck him.

The logic she had always relied on to guide her was gone.

That was his fault too. This was all his fault.

How could he act like this was a joke?

Judging by that bruise upon Isaac’s face and the hard muscles that shaped his form, there was every possibility that he was a violent man. That he would not tolerate such an act, that he would retaliate in a manner she could not predict, nor defend herself from. She should have known better than to provoke him, because she didn’t know him at all, not really. And yet her hand had flown up to his cheek despite herself. The action surprised her, shocked her. Who had she become in these small hours, these past weeks?

Isaac took the punishment without comment. His head jerked to the side and a red mark joined those other scrapes and bruises beneath his stubble.

If she did not say it now, she never would. She’d bottle it up and hate him more. “Because of you, I have lost everything and you – you won’t even try to make this easier on us both?”

How can he, when I won’t let him?

All she could focus on was him, his closeness, and her own burning hate that was twinned with another treacherous feeling she dared not acknowledge.

Ruth’s palm stung and her heart thundered beneath her ribs. Still her defiant gaze could not leave his cruel mouth and all the harshness contained within it. When he neared, poised to speak, she tilted her own lips towards his, anxious, frightened and more conflicted than she let herself believe.

“Be grateful.” Isaac’s words were low and soft, a growl against her ear that didn’t unsettle her as it was meant to. “If you had married anyone else, you would’ve had to tolerate them.” A sigh against her throat had her lean towards him, expectant, willing, as her eyes fell closed and she waited for him to broach that slender gap between them. He never did. Instead, he pulled away from her and the confused, tangled emotions that lay between them. “Now you’re free to hate me as you please.”

I do hate him,
she told herself.
I do hate him, I have to hate him, I want to hate him.

But why did he make it so damn difficult to do so? With all he had done to her, Ruth could not shut out the part of herself that longed for him, for the man she had first met, no matter how hard she tried.

It wasn’t him. It was a fiction he created.

One she wished was real. Did that make her weak?

“The landlady is putting on a late supper for us.” Isaac’s stare was on the middle distance rather than her. His expression was stern and closed off. “It was all arranged.” Ruth did not need to ask who by. That peculiar, rigid fellow Sebastian, no doubt. There was a delay, a silence, and she sensed more that Isaac was not saying.

“There’s a room as well,” he continued. “For us.”

A room, meaning one, for them both.

“I understand,” said Ruth.

She did understand. She knew what would happen. She was prepared.

“Look, I would never expect—”

Ruth did not let him finish, for she knew what more there was to say and was not ready to hear it. “I wager our food is getting cold,” she said simply, as she propelled herself forwards and past Isaac. She trod quickly across the hard ground, which was buckled from cart wheels and hooves, to the warmth within the inn. She willed herself not to trip. For if she fell, she’d never get up again, because one simple stop would allow the whole world – and all its troubles, tricks and trials – to catch up with her.

***

One step, a shoe placed over the inn’s threshold, was all it took for the landlady to pounce. It was as though she had been lying in wait for them both or listening to all that had taken place outside. Ruth was certain she had, for the woman who introduced herself as Mrs Bell – exceptionally short, loud and blonde – would not pause for breath for long enough to let Ruth speak. Mrs Bell’s small, strong hands steered Ruth into a narrow room with clean tables and a roasted root vegetable smell.

“We’ve been expecting you! It’s all prepared, don’t fret, m’dear,” crowed the landlady, bustling back and forth with various items of crockery. “Don’t you look famished! These special days are ever so exhausting and the bride always fares the worst.” She placed her hands on her stomach and leant back on her heels. “It’s the excitement – it does so pull on the nerves. I was a wreck when I married our Henry, bless his soul.” A spoon was set before Ruth, and Mrs Bell smiled a broad smile. “There, girl, get that down you.”

A thick broth and a large hunk of bread faced Ruth, along with a rather rustic glass filled with strong gin. Mrs Bell was talking again, to Isaac this time, who was given the same treatment and endless chatter.

“There’s no need to stand on ceremony with us,” were her parting words, before the landlady was off to talk loudly to another customer.

There was a distant cheer from the other end of the room, for word – or rather gossip – had travelled quickly around the inn.

“To the happy pair,” slurred a bearded fellow who raised his tankard high. “And to many healthy children!” Others around him echoed the toast, until the entire inn was ringing with it and other encouragements. “Best you two get started, eh?”

A deep red tarnished Ruth’s cheeks. She risked a glance upwards. Isaac had done the same and was looking straight at her. Without another second passing, Isaac reached for his glass and poured the contents down his throat. It had nothing to do with the toast and everything to do with a dire need to drink.

“Are you going to—”

“Yes,” snapped Ruth, snatching up her own glass before he could take it.

The strong smell crept up her nostrils and her stomach turned at the thought. She had never tried gin, but any small victory had to be claimed, didn’t it? Only, the last time Ruth had consumed alcohol, the drink had been laced with another substance. She could still remember that morning, waking up to find Isaac watching her, marred with pity. The clear liquid swirled around the glass, catching the lamplight. The same panic and horror threatened to dawn on her once more, until another’s hand closed around hers. Isaac’s fingers were on her own and he gently guided the glass back down to the table, as if he knew exactly where her mind had wandered and longed to draw her away from it. The contact made Ruth’s heart skip to her throat, before he pulled away.

The pair ate in silence and Ruth’s appetite returned after the first mouthful. The food was nothing special, but after the past few hours and how little she had eaten in the days before, it tasted wonderful.

“I shall go and check on the room,” said Isaac, a thin excuse to leave that she was grateful for. His chair scraped the floorboards as he stood and she heard every movement he made, every step he took, unable to shut herself off from him.

As soon as he was gone from her immediate surroundings Mrs Bell was back. She took the seat he’d been sitting in, let her strong arm fall across the table, and gripped Ruth’s shoulder.

“Watch yourself, girl,” said Mrs Bell, the jovial tone gone, replaced by one far more serious. “That lad’s famous around these parts for brawling. He’s dangerous. I’ve known his type before. The ones that’ve lost too often to ever seek anything else, who’d rather destroy themselves than let the world do it first. It never bodes well for the young girls caught up with beasts like him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Best you toughen up, child,” she said, with a voice that spoke from experience and bitter wisdom. “Or you’ll never survive him.”

Ruth could not hide her shock at the sudden unwelcome warning. “You don’t know me.”

“I know how this ends,” said Mrs Bell. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll get as far away from him while you still can. I’ve a sister who helps lambs like you. She’ll take you in, give you food and board for a good day’s work—”

“No.” Ruth sat back heavily in her chair, having expected more indecision when faced with such a prospect. Freedom. A life away from the stranger who’d hurt her and all the responsibilities she’d ever had related to her station, her family, herself. This was it, a last chance, a final choice, and that was no choice at all. “I appreciate what it is you are trying to do, but I have never run from anything in my life and I will not start now.”

***

The problem Ruth found upon making any choice was that she pondered on it for hours, days, weeks afterwards. Had she done the right thing? Ruth left the table having asked the location of her sleeping quarters for the night and couldn’t stop her thoughts whirring away. The last door along a narrow hallway was where she would sleep and where Isaac was.

That offer plagued her. A chance to run, to start a new life, one that may be no worse nor better than the one facing her as Mrs Roscoe. Shouldn’t she give it a chance? Give
him
a chance? A nagging reminder told her that she had put her faith in him before and he’d let her down. Ruth’s hand was steady on the door’s handle and she pushed it down and let it fall open. There he was, facing away from her, bare from the waist up with his hair wet and water running down his back in slow, sluggish drops. A dull lamp stood on the windowsill and it bathed him in amber, shone on his skin. It was not common sense that held sway. It was another part within her, a forbidden corner that wanted to know him – truly know him – in a way she’d never known a man before.

A rustle from her skirts caused him to turn to face her. When he pushed his damp hair back from his face, she noticed his split knuckles and saw that the shadows under his ribs and along his back were not shadows at all. They were scars and bruises and secrets he had not shared with her.

“I am sorry,” said Ruth, casting her eyes away and finding the bed to her left, which hardly helped her harried thoughts. “I did not mean to disturb you.”

Isaac chose not to answer and instead reached for his shirt and shrugged it on. She closed the door, her fingers resting on the handle, hesitant.

Their overnight bags had been brought up to the room and Ruth found her battered case. There was a screen to change behind and too many steps needed to reach it. Once she was there, with a divide between them, she finally released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. It did not matter if Ruth could not see Isaac; she knew exactly where he was in the room at all times. It was a sixth sense, a weight against her chest, an anticipation. The bed creaked when he sat upon it and Ruth began to change quickly, methodically, focusing on that task and trying not to think on any others.

Isaac’s voice disturbed her actions, pausing her fingers as they worked the fastenings on her dress free.

“You had a chance to get away,” he said, giving her no opportunity to respond as she stepped from her petticoat. “I needed another drink. The gin didn’t do the trick. I went back downstairs and there was that old trout offering you a key, an escape from this prison.” The shift slipped over Ruth’s shoulders, though she still felt exposed by his words, by all she hadn’t meant for him to hear. “Why didn’t you take it?”

It was not cold in the room and yet she could not suppress a shiver.

“I have brought enough shame upon my family. I did not want to add to it,” she lied, for the truth was nothing she could admit to herself, let alone to him.

Ruth moved from the screen and saw he was still there on the bed. Sat with his elbows on his knees, facing away from her, giving her privacy, pretending he was a gentleman when they both knew the menace he was.

“Besides,” she added, as she dug her nails into her palm, as she tried to rein in her own tumultuous emotions. “I knew my sudden disappearance would make your life all the easier.”

A broken laugh and Isaac said, “And you wouldn’t want to do that now, would you?”

With slow, lazy movements, Isaac got to his feet and rolled his shoulders back, standing straighter, taller, as if to remind Ruth how utterly outmatched she was.

“You heard the woman,” he said, slowly walking around the bed. “I am dangerous.” Although his stroll seemed aimless, distracted, it was clear that he was approaching her. “I am a beast.”

When Mrs Bell had given her the warning, Ruth had been unable to fully believe it, to commit her mind to those dreadful thoughts. Here, now, as he repeated those same sinister words, they were impossible to refute. Every soul has a darker side and she could see his written all over his face. In those unfathomable eyes and lying in the curve of his mouth. She took a step back for those he took forwards. And another, and another, and another, until there was nowhere left to step.

“Here’s a little advice, love,” he growled, as her back hit a solid surface and he fenced her in, an arm either side, palms flat on the wall. “When you’re given the chance to run, you run.”