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He nods, but doesn’t look convinced. “Well,” he says, his voice brisk and clipped in the cold. “I’m sorry that I didn’t receive your letters. I daresay you were busy making wedding plans in any case.”
My body flushes hot with indignation. “You certainly didn’t waste any time after I left. What was it, two weeks?”
He parts his lips as if to say something, but for once his beautiful features and crystal gaze don’t hold me in their sway.
“I never fooled myself about what I might mean to you, but I thought you would at least have the common courtesy not to treat me like some sort of diversion, getting my hopes up only to dash them again. You’re a cad, just like your good friend Mr. Pierce.”
Mr. Barrett weathers my accusations with that cool mask of emotion that I used to find so mesmerizing but is now only infuriating.
“You made me feel special. That kiss in the road... How many other girls in town have you seduced? Maybe it’s not work that always keeps you so busy.” How worldly and defiant I had felt that day, but now I see what a fool I was. This is exactly the reason young women don’t go about unchaperoned with men like John Barrett.
I stop for a breath and he tries to speak. “I don’t know what—”
“I was warned about you.” Before I can stop myself the words slip out. “Moses came to me and tried to tell me that you weren’t what you seemed and—”
His face goes white, and he takes a halting step toward me. “What did you say?”
I shrink back, wondering what could have possessed me to bring that up. I swallow. “N-nothing. I only meant that—”
But he doesn’t let me finish. He’s standing very close, the faint touch of his breath warm on my cheek. “Did you see something?”
His voice is soft but so icy that I shiver anew in the cold. Maybe there was something in Moses’s warning about Mr. Barrett, something more than the fact he’s a lying scoundrel. Maybe he’s dangerous and even though it feels as if I’m being torn asunder, I’ve actually been spared some greater tragedy. My anger washes through me again and I remember that it’s he that has something to answer for, not I. I take a step back, refusing to be intimidated.
“It...it doesn’t matter. I begin to think I misjudged you.”
He couldn’t look more surprised if I had hit him. His expression shifts, from one of restrained anger to something like bewilderment.
“It’s fine, Mr. Barrett. I’m sorry that we had a misunderstanding, but I need to be with my mother now. Goodbye.”
Before he can say anything else, I turn on my heel and walk back to the house. I keep my pace measured and slow so that he won’t know just how hard my knees are shaking, how fast and painful my heart is beating.
* * *
Urgent knocking at the door startles me from my dozing. I blink at my surroundings for a moment, trying to gain my bearings in the dark room. The haze lifts and I remember I’m in the library at home, that I’m engaged to Cyrus, that Mother is upstairs ill. I wish I hadn’t woken up. The fire is dying, and when my eyes focus, the clock says it’s two in the morning. Ada and Joe are probably asleep, and Catherine won’t be able to hear anything from her makeshift bed beside Mother.
The knocking comes again and this time I have enough presence of mind to wrap the blanket around my shoulders and pad out to the front hall. Outside the wind howls and I shiver, loath to let the darkness into the house.
I press my ear to the door. News delivered in the middle of the night is never good, but what if it’s something worse, like a thief, or a murderer? Neither of whom would knock first, I remind myself. “Who is it?”
The answer that comes back is muffled and impatient. “John Barrett.”
I freeze, my sharp words from our last conversation still fresh in my mind. What could we have to say to each other after that?
“For God’s sake, Lydia, open the door.”
My shivering fingers fumble to unbolt the lock. The door swings open to reveal Mr. Barrett standing hunched against the swirling snow, his eyes rising to meet mine like two lanterns in the storm.
“I... I hope I didn’t wake your mother.”
My head is still foggy and my eyes bleary. I might be imagining him in our drive, the sharp cut of his overcoat silhouetted against the snow, his marble complexion pink and polished from the cold.
The wind slices through the thin blanket around my shoulders, and it takes only a moment to notice the purple tint to his lips, his usually precise curl of hair, dark and bedraggled from the wet snow.
“It’s the middle of the night. You didn’t walk all the way from your house, did you?”
He blinks, as if this had not occurred to him. “I... What time is it?”
“It’s nearly two in the morning.”