"Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There's no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving." Gail Tsukiyama, Dreaming Water

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XXXVIII.

The quiet little tap of a knock sounded on Cressie's door at exactly ten o'clock in the morning. Everett had already been and gone with her breakfast and his daily deluge of verbal whips to her back. He was still the only person permitted inside of Cressie's bedroom until she was suitably broken.

Cressie did not care if she would need to bathe with a pitcher and basin for the next month. She flatly refused to cower before that man for a second, and he seemed to enjoy every minute of her fight.

Because he was right. Everett had successfully broken her once before. He had not struck her again since the night of the ball. Physical violence was not usually Everett's control tactic of choice. He was a gentleman. He dressed people down with his airs and words. And once upon a time, it had worked on Cressie.

He could call her whatever he wanted to. It would not change the fact that she would one day escape from him while resisting the urge to kill him in his sleep.

But it had been three weeks of this, and neither one of them had relented. With every day that passed, Cressie only became more determined in her resolve. She had tasted life again. In being in London, in reuniting with Jem, Cressie had come to know what it was to feel alive again, and she was never going to return to the ghost of an existence that she had been living in for the past five years.

Cressie's only connection to the outside, besides her husband's visits, was from the daily little knock on the door that came after Everett had left to shut himself away to work for the day.

Cressie was ready and waiting at the door, crouching down at the lock. "Zara!" she whispered.

"Cressie," came Zara's voice through the lock. "Are you alright today?"

"Yes," she confirmed. Zara has not seen Cressie, as the door remained closed, but the bruise on her head was nearly entirely gone, and the swelling had reduced considerable. Were her hair styled in a particular way, one would never have known. "I haven't given up."

"Good," breathed Zara. "Here. I brought you something."

Zara pushed a sheet of paper underneath the door, which was followed by a pen. It was an expensive looking pen, and Cressie could have wagered safely as to where Zara had procured it from.

"An inkwell would not have fit underneath the door," Zara explained, seeming to pick Cressie's thoughts. I visited Uncle Everett in his study this morning and I pocketed this. It has some ink, though I am not certain how much. I would choose your words carefully just in case it runs out and needs filling."

Cressie snatched up the paper and held the weighty pen in her hands. It was a heavy black and gold pen, and Cressie wondered if the weightiness of the pen could be attributed to perhaps the real gold accents.

"This is for you as well," she added, pushing another object underneath the door.

It was a letter, folded, and it was addressed to, "Messy Cressie".

Cressie immediately smiled, before noting that it felt so nice to smile. She collected the letter immediately and held it tightly. "Zara, you don't know what it means to me that you have been putting yourself in such positions. I am the one who was meant to protect you this Season. How can I ever thank you?"

"Perhaps I am not meant to be a deb," Zara mused humorously. "Perhaps I am meant for the stage." They both knew that Zara would never be allowed to enter into such a career as acting, despite her obvious talent for deception. "I'm a romantic, Cressie. You know this. All I wanted was to find my sweetheart, and it just so happened that you were meant to secure your sweetheart first. I will collect your response tomorrow. I had better make myself scarce just in case one of the servants happens upon us."

"Make haste, dear Zara," prayed Cressie. She heard Zara scurry away from the door and Cressie climbed to her feet. She moved as far away from the door as she could, walking right over to the window, before she broke the seal of the letter and unfolded it.

My dearest Cressie,

I hope that our messenger can find some way to get this letter safely to you. I suggest you burn this after you have read it for your own security.

How are you? I write that question knowing I must wait in agony to find out the answer. Part of me already knows it. You will not be well until you are free, and that day will come.

You cannot fathom how much I believe in you. Just like you cannot fathom how much I love you.

I am waiting for you, as I always will be, until we can be reunited.

Keep fighting, my dear one. He could never know the strength and tenacity you possess. Not in his wildest dreams.

Your mother is well and is praying for you constantly.

I love you.

The letter was not signed, not that it needed to be.

Cressie hugged it tightly to her chest, before she promptly ripped it into tiny pieces and threw the remnants out the window. She watched as the little pieces of paper were immediately collected by the summer breeze and carried off down the street, as though they had wings like a bird.

Cressie looked down from her window into the garden below. It was not the first time she had judged the distance, nor would it be the last, she imagined. Jumping would not lead to her escape. She would most likely shatter her legs from this height. Oh, to have wings.

Cressie decided that she needed to hide the paper and Everett's pen until after his next visit. She did not want to risk him coming upon her while she was writing. She ran to her armoire as her mind began to plan what she would write in her letter to Jem. She needed to be very particular, as Zara had advised. As she pulled open the bottom drawer to hide the contraband, Cressie's eyes immediately settled on the neatly folded rags that were there awaiting her next lot of courses.

She froze immediately when she saw them, suddenly overcome with a horrified sense of shock. The rags were there, as they always were, ready for her courses that came, as they always did. Every month since she was a young girl, she had bled, and never once had she missed it.

And until Cressie had seen the rags, she had completely forgotten about it. She had not noticed at all that her courses had not come. In fact, now that she was forced to think about it, Cressie struggled to remember the last time that she had had need of the rags in her drawer.

The pen and paper fell from her hands. The pen clattered and bounced across the floor, rolling away, as the paper floated to the ground and settled at her feet.

Cressie knew what this meant. Every woman who was expected to produce an heir knew that this meant. And the very fact that her courses had never failed her had always brought Cressie a sense of relief-filled joy. She had never been able to bear Everett's child because she was barren.

Except perhaps she was not. She had never been able to bear Everett's child.

But ... but she was able to bear Jem's. If it was true, then it could only be Jem's. Cressie's hands, which were now shaking quite uncontrollable, travelled down to her stomach, where they settled on her flat surface. Was it truly possible?

There could be no mistaking the identity of the father if Cressie were really with child. The very idea seemed so absurd, and only because she had spent the last five years being cursed by her husband for possessing a useless womb. She had resigned herself, quite happily at the time, to never having to witness a man as cruel and calculated as Everett rearing an innocent bairn. Her useless womb was performing a good deed, a blessing, for their non-existent children.

Except now there was a very real child. Perhaps Cressie was overcome, simply mad, with a flurry of emotions, but she could feel it. She could not feel it kick, obviously, as expectant mothers reported feeling, but she felt like she knew that this was real.

Cressie was not barren. She did not know if it were possible for men to be barren, but perhaps Everett was. Or if he was not, it was simply God protecting a child who did not deserve to be born a Delaney.

Her child would be born a Denham.

The very notion of her child bearing Jem's name brought happy tears to her eyes, and Cressie clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sudden overwhelming sob that ripped itself from her throat.

And as quickly as the happiness had come, the reality of Cressie's situation suddenly returned to her. She had lived a fantasy for mere moments, and the fact that she was still locked inside this bedroom brought forth the considerable danger that was now apparent.

Her child could not be born a Denham while she was married to someone else. Cressie quickly realised that there were only a few possible outcomes given her current predicament.

The first was that Everett would acknowledge her child as his own, and give him or her the Delaney name, and it would be brought up as Everett's heir. Everett would know the child was not his, and Cressie could see him doing this to punish her for her infidelity. In doing this, Cressie would have no control, no ability to protect her son or daughter from their would-be father.

The second possible outcome was that Everett would force her to give the baby away as soon as it was born. The very idea of having to hand her child to someone else was heartbreaking. Cressie has known the child existed for all of ten minutes, and that was enough to know that she would love it for eternity. There would be no way to give the baby to Jem. Everyone knew about these quiet pregnancies, especially amongst the aristocracy. Ladies and girls went away all the time for their 'health' and returned nine months later as shells of their former selves. If this option was forced upon Cressie, then her child would be brought up by strangers, and she would never know its fate.

The third and final possibility that came to mind when Everett learned about Cressie's state was that he would actually kill her. He was that proud a gentleman that Cressie could imagine the knowledge that she was carrying the child of another would be enough for him to hit her a little harder.

All three were entirely unimaginable, and for Cressie, they were entirely unacceptable. Her escape no longer meant her own freedom. Her own freedom be damned. It was now twelve minutes that she had known this child existed. Or perhaps it was fifteen. Regardless, the wee one she carried was innocent and precious, and they were meant for far greater things in this world then what they would get from Cressie's current predicament.

***

Cressie's letter was ready. She had chosen her words carefully, writing only:

I am carrying your child. I am going to hide it for as long as I can, but I will be running the moment I am let out of this room. I love you.

Everett had already been and gone. Cressie had taken his snide remarks and somehow she had managed to not draw attention to the fact that her instinct was now to protectively cradle her stomach whenever he was near.

But at ten o'clock, Zara's knock sounded, and Cressie practically launched herself at the door.

"Zara!" she cried, not at all taking care to whisper.

"Cressie! Do you have the letter?"

"Yes." Cressie kissed the letter in hope, before she passed it through under the crack in the door. "Please get that to him safely. It contains something very important that he must know."

"I will," promised Zara. Cressie could hear the sound of Zara collecting the letter from the floor.

But no sooner had she done that, Cressie's heart stopped as a third voice joined their clandestine rendezvous.

"Miss Delaney, what are you doing there?" Imelda's voice demanded to know.

"Wrigley!" Zara exclaimed in shock, her voice filling with panic.

"What are you doing at Mrs Delaney's door? What is that you have there?"

Cressie's soul left her body as she slammed herself into the wood of the door in desperation. "Give it back!" she hissed. "Pass it back to me!"

She heard Zara scramble, all subtlety leaving her in that moment as she struggled to pass Cressie back the letter. Cressie couldn't see what was happening on the other side of the door, but she could hear the struggle and the grunts of the two women as Zara strived to protect Cressie and Imelda strived to be Everett's pet.

Cressie banged on the door with her fists, at a total loss of knowing what to do in that moment. There was a thud from the other side of the door that sounded like a body, before Imelda cried, "Thank you!"

Cressie's heart stopped.

"You know that conversing with Mrs Delaney is forbidden, and whatever notes you have been passing are certainly not allowed as well. I will be delivering this promptly to your uncle, and he will certainly see you disciplined accordingly."

Cressie heard Imelda's proud footsteps march away, and she could have only imagined how quietly she must had skulked in the shadows to come across Zara at the door for neither of them to have heard her approach.

"Cressie, I'm sorry!" Zara cried, her voice thick with her tears.

"Zara, you have to go now," Cressie ordered. "Leave the house immediately, before Everett locks you up as well. You need to go to Jem, and you must tell him that I am with child."

----

Oooooohhhhh what's gonna happen? What more could this evil author do to these poor people? You know she's got something big planned for the end of this book, and the end is nigh!

I've already written the prologue for the next book, A Fiery Dalliance, so I'll be able to post that as soon as this book is finished. I'm so looking forward to it. Enemies to Lovers is my favourite trope ever so I'm so excited to get my nails into that plot. 

But we're not done here yet ... get ready for the cruscendooooooo!! 

But, meanwhile, in my neck of the world, it's 1am, and I'm tired. So bed time!

Vote and comment xxx