Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Thirty-One: In Which Jessie Makes a Bargain

He was dressed for walking, looking sporting but no less piggy and cruel than the last time I'd laid eyes on the son of a bitch. A grin was stretched across his pink face that held no warmth, only a vindictive rictus of savage pleasure.

I took a step back, away, and he kept coming forward. I couldn't run, not now, not with so many eyes on us, curious about the disparity of our obvious social situations, the quality of his clothing over mine, the opulence of his gut, the way he reached out his hand to me as if we were friends. As if the last time I had seen him wasn't in a graveyard while he threatened to bash my head in.

"Go away," I hissed.

He reached out and grabbed my right hand to finished the ritual of greeting, kissing the back of my glove, against my will.

"Miss Franklin," he said, and his smile was thin and razor-sharp, his eyes calculating. He voice still sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"Mrs. Cooper, thank you very much," I corrected with a snap. I tugged my hand back and crossed them at the wrist in the small of my back to keep any and all appendages out of grabbing range. I wasn't sure what he would do, but I knew it couldn't be much, not with people all around us and Thomas already heading back towards me, a frown sitting between his ginger eyebrows.

"Not yet, according to the banns my valet tells me he heard read in church last week. But I am very pleased to see you," Mr. Lewis said, following my line of sight to Thomas. "A surprise, to be sure! Though I did hear tale that you fled Francis and Elizabeth's wedding. They say it was heartbreak, that you couldn't stand to watch him marry another. Oh, the scandal you left behind you, Miss Franklin!" He chortled in vindictive pleasure, knowing full well all the ears turned on us.

"Nothing of the sort," I said back, just as loudly. "My time as companion to the Goodenough ladies ended, and I was finally free to take Mr. Cooper up on his offer of marriage. That is all." My heart twisted and squirmed behind my ribs to say it so baldly, and to insinuate that I had been carrying a torch for Thomas the whole time, but this was the lie I had promised myself I would tell. That I would live.

Mr. Lewis sneered. "And that that young man standing like an orange shadow behind you would be your young Mr. Cooper, I presume?" His opinion of Thomas, his red hair, and his social status was made abundantly clear by Mr. Lewis's wrinkle moue of distaste.

"Screw you!" I hissed under my breath, jerking my hand out of his grip and taking a step back into Thomas' protective sphere. "Whatever you want, you can just fuck off."

Thomas's hands tightened on my shoulders, obviously surprised by my language and my seething hatred of the man I had just greeted so cordially.

"Oh, but what I want I do not think Mr. Cooper would presume to allow me to have." Mr. Lewis simpered viciously. His beady eyes raked up and down my body, lingering at my neckline, and resisted the urge to break his nose. "Unless, of course, he knows how much you enjoy adultery, in which case--"

"Shut up!" I snarled. It was loud enough that Thomas gasped. I felt something hot ball up under my sternum and against the back of my eyes. "Don't you talk about Francis to me you sonofabitch."

"Hm. Speaking of Frank," he said. "The Goodenoughs are in town, you know. Come to chase you down like the mangy little rabbit you are."

It was a like a punch to the gut, and he knew it. Swift. Hard. Staggering. It was a blow both deliberately and professionally executed.

"No," I said, the world spinning and slipping under me. Thank god Thomas was there to hold me up.

"And as they are such good friends to you, Ms. Franklin..." He reached out and touched the tendril of hair hanging in front of my ear.