The Widow's Secret (19 page)

“How strange…he found us. He happened to be here…” She didn't know how to phrase the words, because it had been too long since she was willing to believe God would intervene.

“I think God sent him along,” Micah finished for her, and she had never heard that tone from him. Halting. Almost…tentative.

The darkness between them seemed to throb with uncertainty.

“I think you're right,” Jocelyn finally agreed.

Restoration did not burst over her in a Damascus Road experience, yet Jocelyn's heart expanded until in a shimmering wash of wonder she embraced the truth of it. “Micah, what would you say if I told you that I…that I believe I've…forgiven God, for not being Who I thought He ought to be?” She sniffed, finishing in a ragged whisper, “And I'm trying to believe that He'll forgive me, for not being faithful, like you and Katya.”

His fingers brushed against her face once more, then traced a tender path down her nose, to her chin. “I'd say you're in a better place than I am.”

“I thought so, earlier.” The blackness inside her for so long was fading to the gray wash of the early-morning sky in the moments before sunrise.

She stirred, searching with her fingers until they bumped into a forearm hard as the post to which he had been tied. “It's worse, to suffer alone, Micah. You never know when your mind is your friend, or your worst enemy.”

He took hold of her fingers, a crushing grip born, Jocelyn knew, of memories he would grapple with the rest of his life. She lay quietly, wishing she were stronger, wishing she could see, but grateful she couldn't. Ever sensitive to atmosphere, she knew some secrets that needed to be brought into the light could only be shared under the merciful cover of darkness.

Chadwick had never spoken to her of the tortures he suffered, except at night. He would drift into her bedroom, sprawl into the boudoir chair and tell her things she had promised never to reveal.

Perhaps if she had encouraged him, if she had reached out to hold his hand as she was now holding Micah's, perhaps Chadwick would still be alive.

The internal sunrise coalesced into gold-rimmed determination: it was time, time to rid her soul of secrets that had kept her in bondage for ten long years. And in revealing those secrets at last, perhaps she could help Micah find the courage to rid his own soul of nightmares.

“What happened to you in that awful warehouse?” she asked him as simply as she could. “Will you tell me?”

“I'
ll try,” Micah said, his voice hoarse. “I think it would be easier if I were doing something while I talked. Do you think you're ready to try a little broth? It's probably cold by now, but you need the nourishment.”

Jocelyn heard the undertone of fear. “I have the constitution of a pair of draft horses. I'll be fine, Micah. My leg scarcely hurts at all.”

“Little liar. Heinrich fetched a bar of carbolic soap from his mother. While you were unconscious, he stood watch so I could light a candle. I cleaned the gash, and bound it with the last of your petticoats. I know what I saw. Don't think you can fool a Secret Service operative.”

“Perhaps you should have been a physician. It aches some, Micah. But truly, I feel much better. Some broth would be wonderful.” She'd eat snake soup if it would help ease his worry. If only wounded souls could be washed out with carbolic soap to keep them from festering. If only…

Her internal struggle against inadequacy stirred. But despite her physical enervation, Jocelyn flung the self-flagellant's whip aside, astonished when it disappeared without a flick of protest.

Micah had taught her how it felt to be loved, to be cherished regardless of glaring personal flaws. He thought she was beautiful—inside and out. All he needed was for her to reciprocate in kind. So she waited, giving him the gift of restful silence while he sorted through his thoughts.

After he rummaged about, then held an uncorked bottle filled with lukewarm but surprisingly tasty beef broth to her lips, he began to talk. “…and I reached the bottom, far beyond the grief of losing my wife and son. I felt helpless when they died, but not stripped of everything that I believed made me a man. A…man of faith. The last couple of nights…down in the belly of that stinking basement, I finally…” In the darkness he emitted a huff of a laugh. “Let's just say I finally knew how you felt all these years, why you were so angry at God. At me.” He sighed heavily. “Will you forgive me, for being such a sanctimonious prig?”

“Even when I was angry I never thought you were—well, I won't even say the words, because they do not describe the Micah MacKenzie I know. You're too hard on yourself. You were never a hypocrite, Micah. I wouldn't have admitted it, but I could see you believed everything you said, believed with all your heart. You were doing the best you knew how to live by faith. At the time I didn't want to hear it. What I did want—” She stopped dead, stricken all of a sudden with shyness.

“What did you want, sweetheart?”

It was time. Her heart banged against her rib cage. Somehow in the dark Micah had maneuvered her to a sitting position so that her back rested against her cloak, which he had folded into a cushion to place between her and the cold stone wall. He had also removed all the pins from her hair. No matter that he was cold and tired and hurting and afraid. Still he protected her, nurtured her—understood her.

Loved her.

She found herself combing her fingers through the tangled mass of hair streaming down her back and shoulders, fashioning a braid as though the prosaic task emboldened her resolve.

She might be a wilting wallflower after all.

Impatient, she tossed the half-braided hair over her shoulder. “You want to know what I wanted? I wanted your faith in the goodness of God. I wanted to hug the way I felt when you were with me as though the feelings were my favorite doll. I wanted…you.” She stammered the confession but, as always, once the flow began it took on a life all its own. “From the very first time you looked at me, on my wedding day, you saw…me. Not just a gawky redhead with too many freckles, wearing a thirty-year-old gown that made her look like a moldy cupcake.”

“Would you be terribly disillusioned if I told you there's a vindictive part of me that would like nothing better than to stuff every member of that family into the back of a Black Maria and send them to Second District Prison for what they did to you?”

“I should have been strong enough to believe my own family, not my husband's. No, don't say anything else, don't hold my hand right now.” A watery laugh escaped. “I want to remember that I found the courage all on my own, when I say words I've never spoken to another man.”

“All right.” His voice was awash in tenderness.

“I thought I'd forgotten you. Then, in Richmond, that day in my parlor? The first time you touched me, I knew I would never be the same again. I was so afraid, of so many things, but most of all, I was afraid you would sense how very much I wanted you to hold me. To comfort me. To protect me in all the ways I used to believe a man shows that he cares for a
woman. Ways my husband never did, but you have from the moment you put your arm around my shoulders so carefully. I've soaked up your love, and never offered mine in return.”

“Don't, sweetheart. You don't have to say anything more. I can wait. Jocelyn? Do you understand? I can wait.”

“Well, I can't,” she snapped out, edgy in her awkwardness. “Micah, I never loved Chadwick as my husband, but—”
God? What if he doesn't believe me?
“—I love you. I do. Do you believe me?”

“And why wouldn't I, when I've seen it shining from your eyes every time you look at me, from the glow that lights up your face whenever I walk into the room.” His fingertips found her face in the dark and lovingly stroked her cheeks, her chin. “And the virago who rescued me from the pit, with only her courage and a whiffletree bolt? How could I not believe how much that incredible woman loves me?”

“Oh.”

He stirred, then she felt his breath and the softest of kisses fluttered against each eye. “Someday you'll have to tell me that story. But I think there's something else you need to tell me first. Something that's been eating you alive for years.”

“Yes.” She was never more grateful for darkness than now, when she was about to break a vow forced upon her by her husband on her wedding night, with the one man who more than anyone else on earth had earned the right to know. Yet she didn't quite know how to turn the key in a lock rusted over with shame. “Did you ever wonder why after being married over five years, Chadwick and I never had children?”

“Yes, I wondered.” He gave her cheek a final pat, then settled on the lumpy mattress beside her, far enough away that they weren't touching, close enough to reassure her of his presence. “I even made some discreet inquiries. You've had a rough time of it, haven't you?”

“Everyone blamed me. They said I was barren, that I wasn't even a woman—It doesn't matter now.”

“I think it matters very much, because you believed them. I don't. Why did you never have a child, Jocelyn? Go ahead, say it. Remember, nothing you reveal will surprise or shock me.”

A laugh bubbled up, then all of a sudden harsh sobs ripped through Jocelyn like the gash that had ripped open her leg—deep, wrenching cries that stole her breath. She couldn't see, she couldn't breathe, and the panic clawed her insides.
“I…can't…breathe….”

“Shh. I'm here, love. I'm here. Let it out, that's it, just let all the hurt and anger and pain come out. You've held on to it for too long….”

She heard his voice, the deep bass tones lapping over her in gentle waves, felt the calm stroke of his hand, rubbing her arm, up and down, up and down so that gradually the frantic beat of her heart slowed, the racking sobs dwindled. A clean trickle of breath seeped into her lungs, then another, until shame no longer whirled like sharp knives around her.

“I never had a child, because Chadwick and I never—” She had to clear her throat, and when Micah pressed the bottle of water into her shaking hands she gulped it down, almost choking because she needed to say the words, needed to get the confession done. “We never sh-shared a bed. He was…he was—Micah, Chadwick preferred to spend his time…with other men. Oh, God forgive me. I promised I'd never tell. I promised.”

“Sweetheart, you've done nothing wrong. Nothing. I'd guessed, some weeks ago, about Chadwick. And the truth can't hurt him now.”

“How can you love me? I wasn't enough of a woman to help him. He told me that, over and over again. I was his wife,
but I couldn't help him. Now I've betrayed him, I revealed his secret. It was a secret, Micah.”

“It was a secret he had no right to inflict upon you, Jocelyn. As for your not being enough of a woman…” She could hear the throttled anger in his voice, but the hand stroking her arm with such tenderness never faltered. “That was a desperate lie foisted upon an innocent young girl, because he was a desperate man with no other place to go. His family never knew, I take it?”

“No. I was so full of shame, and there was nobody else to go to, nobody I could trust.”

“That's why he killed himself, isn't it?”

“Yes. He left a note, apologizing for ruining my life. He asked me to keep his secret so that his family wouldn't be dishonored, and told me he'd put money in a bank in Scotland for me. He left instructions and promised I should be c-comfortable the rest of my life. But he told me to keep that a secret, as well, especially from his family. I think he was afraid of what they might do. I've been living off the interest.” Her throat was hot, and the wracking episode left her drained, emptied out, until all that was left was a hollow shell. “I never needed the largesse of the Binghams, or the Brocks. B-But I might have been wrong. Because I think Chadwick may have stolen that money—from Portia.”

She felt the shock ripple through Micah, though he only made an encouraging noise in his throat. “If I find out it's true, I'll have to think what to do. I don't know…he stole it for me, not for himself. Micah, he wasn't an evil man, no matter what he did. Just…a tortured one.”

“I'd never brand him as ‘evil,' sweetheart. But ultimately he was a selfish man, living his way of life at your expense, then taking his own, leaving you to face the consequences alone.”

“I was far more unhappy living a lie with him, than I was living it after he died. I was a woman of independent means, beholden to nobody, because of those funds. Now—” she gulped noisily “—Katya might have more money than I do, if we discover that those funds were stolen.”

“Let's not worry about those funds right now,” he said, very gently.

“You're right, of course. ‘Sufficient unto the day?' Isn't it interesting? I haven't read the Bible in years, yet lately all the verses I learned as a girl keep popping into my mind.” She was babbling, and with a watery sniffle gushed out the rest. “Even though he probably stole from his own aunt—and, you may as well know, I find a certain ironic justice in that, considering what Portia really is—but even knowing those funds are probably tainted, I can't be angry at Chadwick any longer. I don't want you to be, either….”

“Mmm. Well, while we're confessing, I'll share that I do feel sorry for him, for the struggles he must have faced. But you'll have to give me a while to forgive him for how the choices he made affected the young woman he had publicly vowed to love. To honor.”

Moving like an arthritic old woman, Jocelyn carefully shifted her aching leg. Without a word Micah eased closer, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Only then did she feel the last of the tension relinquish its choke hold, and a murmuring sigh slipped out as she rested her head against the comforting bulk of his chest. “Part of the reason I turned my back on God was because I couldn't forgive Chadwick. I was so angry, for so long. I felt cheated, and betrayed. It poisoned my mind. It took years for me to realize that he, too, must have felt betrayed. He needed understanding, but—I wasn't able to offer it. So I couldn't forgive myself, either.”

She paused, gathering strength from the springlike rebirth
God had breathed into her since she'd become reacquainted with Micah. “I suppose I knew forgiveness was the only way to heal. It doesn't matter whether you feel like it, or that you don't know how to go about it, or that the other person doesn't deserve it. You still have to be willing to try. Until now, I didn't care enough to make the effort. I wasn't a very nice person, Micah.” She felt the growl in his chest, and hastily explained, “But I'm better now. I'm…trying to listen to God. He forgives us, doesn't He? Even for what seems to be unforgivable?”

“We'll discuss your ‘niceness' later. But you're right, about the forgiveness part. Asking for it's the hard part. Or maybe…it's believing you've received it. I'll have to chew over that one myself.” He hugged her. “See? I don't claim to have all the answers any longer.”

He sounded so comfortable with his own flawed humanity that Jocelyn found the courage to say, “If I hadn't married Chadwick, we never would have met. And you wouldn't have an inside informer to help solve this case.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Drowsy and almost at peace, Jocelyn closed her eyes and drifted into sleep, the steady rhythm of Micah's heartbeat beneath her ear.

 

Heinrich returned sometime later, rousing Micah from the light doze he'd allowed himself. His arm was stiff because he hadn't moved it, not wanting to disturb Jocelyn's slumber. Compared to the suffering he'd endured while tied to that chair, holding the woman he loved was pure pleasure. Now, as the boy lit the candle and carefully placed it in a hollow space where one of the stones in the wall had fallen out, Micah eased away from her side. She murmured a little, but didn't awaken as he lowered her into a more comfortable reclining position.

“We go soon,” Heinrich whispered. “Before light.
Moeder
has readied a bed, for the lady. And…I brought a cart, so you don't have to carry her.”

“The police?”

“Still there. But the one on the corner is leaning against a telegraph pole. He is asleep.”