Page 35 of The Nightshade's Bride
"Ihave never committed adultery," I said indignantly. “He accuses me of a sin he engages in every day.”
"Ifyour baby even survives," she went on maliciously. "It's a dangerous world out there."
She set down a cup of tea in front of me with a hard little clatter, and I stared at it apprehensively.
Was it my overwrought imagination or was there a filmy coating on the surface?
"I'm not thirsty," I said.
"Drink it," Ada insisted, her eyes gleaming at me.
Wasn’t that an almostmaniacalgleam in them, like she was on the edge of sanity, and only the slightest push would send her over it?
But perhaps it was only my imagination.
"Gideon," Ada said sweetly, "Deliverance isn't drinking her morning tea."
"Drink your tea," my husband ordered without turning around from his correspondence.
The dark walls seemed to crowd in, every thick, oppressive inch of Grayspires Manor pressing down on me with sinister portent.
Should I be obedient?
No. Never!
My hand twitched and I knocked the cup over, the milky liquid soaking into the fine damask tablecloth, and I thought I detected a sulfuric odor as it did so.
"You little strumpet!" Ada cried, raising her hand to strike me.
But Gideon intervened, striding over on his long legs and gripping her wrist so hard she was forced to yelp in pain.
"If you raise a hand to her again, it will be the last thing you do in this house," he said in a chilled, bleak voice.
“There was something wrong with thattea,” I cried. “I won’t be drinking a thing from her hand.”
"Go to your room," Gideon ordered me. "We do not waste food here."
He treated me like achild. I loathed and despised him.
When I got to my new quarters, I fell to my knees and wept.
How could I escape this wicked house?
Ada would try and try and try again until shekilledme. And Gideon would not stop her.
He enjoyed the pleasures of her cunny too much for that.
My eyes were so filled with tears that the grounds of Grayspires Manor, the aching emptiness of the moors, were blurred in front of me.
Bartholomew had said to look to the Rock, but I felt any semblance of proper spiritual devotion seeping out of me.Bartholomew was a good man, but me? There was a devil inside me that did not want to turn the other cheek.
I wanted Ada tosuffer.
Over the dense trees, a mere speck in the distance, I could see the high, rocky outcropping that could help me navigate across the moors to St. Mary’s.
And suddenly, I had a wild, unbidden thought.
Had Bartholomew meant--look to this rock? WasthisThe Rock he had meant? People did flee to the safety of a church and claim sanctuary, didn't they? But why would he be trying to draw attention to it unless he thought it could help me escape in some way?
