"What are you going to do? Are you going to live in the dark, locked in here? Afraid to look out, answer the door, leave? Yes, he's out there, and he's clearly not going to leave you alone until one of three things happens: he hurts you and gets arrested, or he makes a mistake and gets arrested, or you stop him." Rachel Caine, Fall of Night

---- 

XXXVII.

Cressie's eyes fluttered open, but her vision did not focus as quickly as it usually did in the morning.

It was morning. She could see the light leaks through the gap in her drapes. It was blurry, but she could see the light. Cressie strained her eyes, squinting, as she tried to prop herself up in her bed. The moment she lifted her head, however, she felt the true weight of it. It felt as though someone had tied three sacks of flour into her hair.

A pain, a wicked and vicious searing headache, reverberated between her temples, and Cressie audibly gasped as her hand snapped up to support her forehead.

"Oh!" she cried.

What had happened? It suddenly occurred to Cressie, in and amongst the shock and discomfort of the pain that she felt, that her memory was rather hazy. She could not remember going to bed. She could not remember dressing for bed.

After blinking a few times, her vision slowly beginning to steady, she saw that she was wearing her silk chemise, and not her nightgown. Even then, she did not remember undressing.

But she could feel the tender bruise on her temple, and a hazy memory flashed through her mind. Everett had struck her, and Cressie had fallen into her dressing table. After that, her memories were blank.

An ominous feeling momentarily consumed her at the thought of being powerless and alone with Everett, but Cressie quickly could confirm that despite his assault, he had not touched her again. After five years of marriage, she was used to the horrid feeling the morning afterward.

And then Cressie began to cry. A sob ripped through her chest uncontrollably as she suddenly realised that the hope she had had for escape had completely vanished in the blink of an eye, or the slap of a hand.

No.

Cressie fought with the bed linen and pushed it off of her, no matter how her head protested at the sudden rough movements. She couldn't seem to get her legs to work immediately, and so Cressie fell out of the bed into a crumpled heap on the floor, bringing down some of the linen with her.

She clawed at the rug, pulling herself towards the door sluggishly, the effort feeling gargantuan and yet entirely necessary. Cressie felt as though with every pull, with every movement in which she wrenched her body forward, she was fighting for her life.

When Cressie finally reached the door, she pushed up off of the floor and reached up with whatever strength she could find to secure the door handle in her hand. But as she went to turn it, it would not move. It was locked.

Cressie trembled hysterically as she collapsed onto the floor. She could not help crying, in rage and in sorrow, with her face and hands pressed into the pile of the rug. But this left her able to feel the movement in the floor as someone approached from the other side.

Her sobs quickly silenced as she recognised the proud march of Everett Delaney instantly. Cressie scrambled backwards, reaching the edge of her trunk by the time she heard a key being inserted into the lock. She heard the lock give way and the door swiftly opened as Everett pocketed the key.

His grey eyes found her instantly, and he looked upon her pitifully. "You are pathetic," he declared with a shake of his head.

Cressie sucked in a sharp breath as she glared at him, feeling all manner of hatred coursing through her veins. It felt wicked to hate a person so, but she did. She hated everything about this man. She hated what he had done to her. She hated what he had taken from her. And she hated him for what he would do in future.

But, by God, she would fight him every step of the way. He might have power over her body for the difference in their sizes and strength, but he would never have her mind or her soul. They belonged to her.

Cressie's heart was still safely stored away outside of her body and in the hands of the only man who could ever deserve it.

"You are despicable," Cressie seethed through her clenched teeth.

Everett smirked as he stepped forwards, coming towards her and stopping once he was standing over her. He meant to be intimidating and he succeeded, and Cressie loathed that she felt intimidated. She willed herself not to hide. She did not want to appear weak.

"Where has this come from, I wonder?" Everett mused. "Where has my Cressida gone?" He spoke as though he was wonderful where his favourite handkerchief had disappeared to, and not the woman he had wed and kept as a trophy. He wanted Cressie as his toy, his object, his plaything.

"I was never your anything," Cressie spat back. "The very sight of you makes me sick." Cressie knew that her words were taunting him into a retaliation, and though she dreaded any kind of pain, she refused to cower.

But Everett did not retaliate. He did nothing but throw back his head and laugh mockingly. When he composed himself, he said again, "I don't know where this has come from. London was perhaps a little too exciting for you. But no matter. I broke you once. I will do it again." Everett then knelt down before Cressie, and he smiled. "How I will enjoy doing it."

***

"Sir, a woman is being abused!"

Jem has exclaimed this statement thrice before a private meeting with a magistrate that he had only secured on short notice through the connections of Jack Beresford. How he was intimately acquainted with a magistrate, Jem was unsure of, but at that moment, he had not cared.

The magistrate, John Peer, appeared sympathetic but powerless as he sat behind his large desk in his office that seemed overrun by papers, books, and files.

"Mr Denham, I appreciate your struggle. But in the eyes of the law, a wife is being managed by her husband, as is his right."

"What right does any man have to lay a violent hand upon a woman?" Jem challenged. He had no proof of this, but he could only imagine what Cressie was going through in his wildest nightmares and he was powerless to stop it. In his desperation, he had turned to the law.

"None," replied the magistrate, "in the everyday sense. But in the sanctity of marriage, it is different."

"That is hogwash, and you know it," Jem snapped. "A husband is bound by God to protect his wife, and I know of one who is in peril. She is an innocent woman! She needs protection!"

"There is nothing that I can legally do, Mr Denham, and I would thank you to watch your tone. A wife is the property of her husband in the eyes of the law."

Jem had entered into this office wanting to accept nothing less than a hangman's noose for Everett Delaney. But he would be leaving with nothing more than a tepid apology. How was that a law? How could women be so powerless?

Jem could remember having this conversation over dinner with Jack and Claire and Peter and Belle, but it had not truly settled in his mind until now. He saw no threat of it when discussing this horrid law with his family because he knew that it didn't matter. Claire and Belle were both entirely safe within their marriages and they were never going to be taken advantage of.

Such was not the case for perhaps thousands of women in this country. Cressie was one of them.

Jem wanted to tear his hair out. He was so afraid and distraught as he left the magistrate's office that he was quite close to screaming his lungs out on the street. How had this happened? Why had he waited so long?

Jem had known that something wasn't right with Cressie the second he had seen her at that first ball. Why hadn't he grabbed her then, regardless of what she had initially claimed?

But then, why hadn't he eloped with her five years earlier.

It was easy to blame himself for these events, but he did not, deep down, that there was only one villain. And this villain had won. Jem had no idea how to beat him, none whatsoever.

The carriage promptly returned him to Ashwood Place, and as he walked through the door, he was greeted by a frenzy of two women shouting at him hysterically. The Ashwood butler was there also attempting to calm the situation, but Jem quickly saw that Zara and Mrs Martin had found their way to him, and by the expressions on their faces, the situation was very dire.

Jem had already known that. It had been several days since the last ball and he had not had any news. His imagination was a world of nightmares but in seeing Zara and Mrs Martin before him as they were, his nightmares were all but confirmed.

"Sir, I beg your pardon, but they wouldn't wait in the drawing room!" the butler stressed.

"No matter!" Jem said dismissively, waving him off in a rude manner that he otherwise would have never entertained. "How have you come?" Jem demanded to know. "Where is Cressie?" It was very obvious that they had come without her.

"Miss Zara, here, got me out," Mrs Martin explained, her voice shaky.

"I managed to convince a servant that we were going for a walk and that I had my uncle's permission. He gave me permission to go out with a companion but did not specify whom. My uncle was determined to keep Mrs Martin captive just as he is doing with Cressie!" Zara's blue eyes were brimmed with tears, and Jem could see the guilt in her features as clear as day.

Captive. The word sent a sickening shudder down Jem's spine. Could that word have convinced the magistrate to intervene? Was a husband allowed to imprison his wife? Jem's mind immediately went to the fears that Cressie expressed over her husband locking her away in an insane asylum. It seemed husbands were allowed to whatever they wished to their wives without fear of any repercussions.

"I tried to free her. I promise I did," Zara insisted fearfully, as though she expected Jem to berate her. She most likely was frightened of his horrified and infuriated expression that he had absolutely no control over. "Uncle Everett had the door locked and only he possesses a key! He won't let anybody in. Not even the maids are allowed in."

Jem managed to find a way to place his hands onto Zara's shoulders in an effort to calm her, when he, himself, felt anything but calm. Jem had spent the best part of three days, weeks, the last several months, really, feeling powerless. His hopes had been dashed time and time again, and he really had no plan, nothing that he could do to save Cressie.

Save storming into the house and assassinating Everett himself, Cressie was going to have to save herself. That realisation suddenly dawned on him. Cressie was going to have to save herself. She was strong. She was going to have to be strong. She was going to have to win back her husband's trust so that he would allow her a similar sort of excursion, like this one in London, again. And the moment she was alone, Jem would be there. He would never abandon her.

"Will you go back there?" Jem asked Zara, cutting her off as she continued to cry her worries. "Is it safe for you to return to your uncle's house?"

Zara froze. "But we left," she retorted. "Aren't you going to go and get Cressie and bring her here? You are far bigger than I. You could break down the door!"

"Please, Jem," begged Mrs Martin. "I was wrong about you. You know I was. Please, save my daughter."

Jem tried to push aside his feelings of overt failure at such a statement and request from Mrs Martin. "I can't do anything yet, and it kills me to come to that realisation. Cressie is going to be strong, and I know she is in that room surviving. She won't break." His breath hitched in his throat. "Is it safe for you to return to that house?" Jem asked Zara again. "I need you there to keep an eye on things, to tell Cressie that we haven't abandoned her. But if it is not safe then you can remain here."

"No, I can return." Zara nodded. "My uncle still believes me to be very oblivious."

Jem exhaled. "If you can get word to Cressie, please tell her that I love her, and tell her to fight like the devil."

----

Hope you enjoyed it!

I'm sorry for the delay in not getting this up last night. I wrote until 3am and couldn't stay up any longer! 

I hope you have all had great weeks! I was very thrilled to learn that "A Simple Deception" had won a Watty Award which is very exciting! I haven't seen the ceremony yet as I was in a different time zone and I haven't found a recording, so if anyone knows and can point me in the right direction, please tell me!

Alright, I'd better get up out of bed. Lots to do before the Sunday blues settle in. 3 weeks of school to go!

Vote and comment xxx