Perhaps she ought to have left it in the closet with the ill-fated green one she never intended to don again.
“They deserve no excuses to be made for them.” She tossed a narrow-eyed glance over her shoulder at her brothers, both of whom still scowled her way, despite their wives’ obvious attempts to distract them with conversation. “Those two have always been this way. Virtually ignoring me day in and day out, as if I am nothing but a pretty doll upon a shelf, until I dare to assert some individuality in public, and then they suddenly remember they are older brothers charged with protecting me.”
Stephen was the only one of the three who had ever bothered to talk to her. To try to understand why she behaved as she did.
Isaac and Hez just patted her head day to day and then blustered and fumed when she didn’t act as they thought she should. Granted, she wouldn’t be in this mess if she had met their standards all her life. But tonight she had done nothing wrong. She was, in fact, distancing herself publicly from Dev, which ought to please them.
Slade hummed. “I can understand their protectiveness.”
“It isn’t protectiveness; it’s control. And I am sick to death of all these men in my life thinking they know so much better than I what I need or want.” Again, she spoke quietly, fastening a belying smile to her lips for all the passing families she hadn’t seen much in the past year.
“Then it’s an honor to aid you in convincing them. Although,” he added, a smile coloring his voice, “Booth thinks it will be my last living act. When Hughes finds out…”
“Oh.” Oh, mercy. She hadn’t even paused to consider…The headache pounded, streaked behind her eyes, and lodged in her heart. When would the selfishness recede? What she was doing to Slade with this show hadn’t even entered her mind.
She tried to pull her hand away from his arm, but he chuckled and covered her fingers with his again to hold it there. “It’s a little late for that, Yetta.”
He was right. Too many people had seen them. She had sealed his fate already. Dev would find out that she had made her reentrance into society on the arm of Slade Osborne, and he would be furious.
The pain settled behind her eyes, and another twisted her abdomen. “I’m sorry.” Paltry words, but so very true. For so very much.
“Don’t be. Didn’t you hear your grandfather? We’re…friends.”
Friends. She motioned toward the row Granddad Thad had rented for the night and tried, in vain, to keep her gaze from Slade’s face. He was looking down at her, no evidence of the wolf in his eyes. Still, the kindness that seemed at once out of place and natural in his gaze didn’t make that word make any more sense in relation to this man. She wasn’t sure she could be a friend to Slade Osborne. He was too…and she wasn’t enough…and what with those kisses the other day…
Lord, help me, please. Even now, with watchful eyes on her from every direction as she indicated the seats that were theirs, she had to fight off the urge to lean in to his side. Fight off the longing to feel his arms around her. Fight off the thought that maybe he could make everything right.
He couldn’t. She knew that.
Marietta moved into the row first, unwilling to deal with a brother manipulating his way to the other side of her. Barbara or Granddad would help insulate Slade from them, but they wouldn’t think she needed the favor.
Usually she wouldn’t. Frustrating as they were, she knew how to handle Isaac and Hez. But just now the twisting pain in her abdomen knifed its way to her back, and she sank with gratitude into her chair, willing the ache to ebb and yet knowing she deserved every pulse of it. She had, in fact, been praying so diligently for this discomfort that she could hardly complain about its intensity. She ought to embrace it. Praise the Lord for it.
He had spared her. She was not with child.
Relief ought to dominate every other feeling today. And it did…for a while. Then shame had billowed over her like the sea. Perhaps the rest of the world wouldn’t know, now, what she had done. But privacy made it no lesser a sin. Forgiveness did not make it disappear. God’s eyes saw no more stain, but there would still be consequences. There were always consequences.
And if He had spared her this in His mercy, what did that mean about what else would be coming her way? Was her future so bleak that the Lord wouldn’t want to subject an innocent child to it?
Warm fingers touched her arm and then retreated. She glanced over to see that Slade’s frown had scored its way deeper. “Are you certain you are well enough for this? I could see you home.”
Home sounded like heaven. She could curl up with a hot water bottle, close her eyes, and read.
But this was her grand reentrance, independent and victorious. At Our American Cousin, a play Granddad and Grandmama had been wanting to see so badly. With most of the people dearest to her—even if two of them were shooting visual arrows at her even now.