Daniel listened to Hadassah cry beside him, his mind racing for what it was he could do or say to ease her grief. He knew he had failed her when he didn't try to find her after her disappearance but his lack of action had been based on the conversation he heard between her and Leah and while he had been wrong to assume an interpretation of the conversation, the mistake had already been made, he couldn't go back to the past to change it. He could however beg her forgiveness and hope to make things right.
Shifting slightly so his body was pressed against hers, he wrapped his arms around her, her body tensing in his arms. He breathed in the scent of her skin, realizing just how much it was he missed her. Tomorrow, they would be journeying to Rye and soon, she would turn eighteen and they would be allowed to live as man and wife.
“I'm sorry.” He murmured softly against her hair. Feeling her stir in his arms, he slackened his hold on her, making room for her to turn fully to him. Fully expecting her to respond to his words, he was surprised when she kissed him. He was even more surprised when her kiss continued to linger.
Even as he leaned back that evening, ending the kiss, he knew they needed to talk. It seemed to him like Hadassah would much rather be intimate than have a conversation with him, even if only a few hours ago, they had been intimate and she seemed oddly distant. Was he missing something? He desired to regain his ability to see so he could look into his wife's eyes and find the problem. For while he was blind, he could sense there was a problem, he just didn't know what it was.
Shaking his head as she leaned in once more, he pushed himself to a sitting position. “You didn't answer the question when I asked if you were alright.”
He heard her heave a soft breath. “Why would you think I'm not alright?” It was obvious she tried to hide the grief in her voice, but he heard it quite clearly.
He frowned. “You seem eager...” Not knowing how to phrase his next words, he ran his hands through his curls.
“Eager for what?” There was movement on the bed. He assumed she was struggling to a sitting position. When her hand settled on his chest and she kissed him once more, he ended the kiss abruptly.
“Eager to be intimate, rather than tell me what is wrong.” He didn't mean to sound so frustrated but he couldn't help it, he was. He heard her gasp softly beside him and immediately regretted his brashness. He was being inconsiderate, wasn't he? Perhaps he needed to be more understanding of whatever it was she suffered in her uncle's custody. Yet, he couldn't imagine any harm coming her way, Lord Hadley was her uncle, wasn't he? She seemed thinner in his arms, but that seemed to have been the only difference.
He opened his mouth to apologize but Hadassah's hurried movement alerted him that she was climbing out of the bed.
“Forgive me for being eager, Daniel.” Her voice was laced with hurt. “I only assumed you would desire me after so many weeks of being apart” He heard rushed movements, as if she was getting dressed.
“Dasa...” He made to climb out of the bed but Hadassah's retreating footsteps reached him and before he could react, the sound of the door slamming shut, echoed in the room.
Daniel thought to go in search of Hadassah but he knew it would be a foolish decision. He was in an unfamiliar building and trying to find her would do nothing but alert the people in the boarding house of the presence of a blind man and his angry lover. Shaking his head, he leaned back against the head bed and tried to think of what it was he said wrong. It had only been a few hours of their reunion and he had managed to upset her again. Perhaps he was wrong to read anything into her desire to make love. It was natural, wasn't it? They had been apart for several weeks, surely she would desire him.
Yet, no matter how hard he tried to shake the feeling of something being wrong, he couldn't. He couldn't help but think the woman he had been intimate with earlier that evening, found no pleasure in him. He couldn't help but think she was hiding something from him and he especially hated to think about her tears and the reason for it. She had begun to cry the second she thought him to be asleep, she had wept for several minutes in his arms and had eventually pulled away from him. Was it naturally to have a woman weep after being with her husband? Why did he have a nagging feeling something was wrong? It angered him to think that something was wrong and she chose to keep it from him.
Daniel didn't know when he fell asleep but he was suddenly woken up by movement beside him. He felt Hadassah's hand slip under him armpit and settle on his back, her body pressed to his. Her soft breath tickled his neck as he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
“I'm sorry.” She murmured brokenly.
He tightened his hold around her, heat spreading around his body. “I desire you, Dasa, but more than my pleasure, I want you to be happy.”
She breathed softly. Fully expecting her to respond to his words, he waited in vain until he heard her soft snores. He laid still for several minutes, clinging to the woman that had come to mean everything to him, and fearing he was losing her.
When Daniel decided to fall asleep, it was already too late to do so. He instead ordered breakfast and a bath before waking Hadassah up. She blatantly refused the bath, insisted on a new dress and ate her breakfast in silence.
The journey to Rye lasted three days, most of which was spent in silence or listening to Leah and Hadassah engage in a conversation. Daniel tried twice to get in on the conversation but found conversation between him and Hadassah to be strained. The coach stopped in an inn the first night and while Daniel and Hadassah shared a room, Hadassah was sure to sleep on the far end of the bed. She again, declined a bath and by the time they were boarding in the following night, he didn't bother trying to get her to take a bath. He instead ordered their dinner and listened to her eat.
He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her, but he found he couldn't speak. Perhaps he would only succeed in upsetting her further, perhaps she simply needed to be in Rye, in the confines of their home, to have a firm grip on her emotions.
They settled into bed that evening, Hadassah laying claim to her position on the far end of the bed. Daniel murmured a silent "goodnight" and hoped he would wake up in Rye the next morning to find the woman he loved, sleeping right next to him.
✴✴✴
The fabric of the blue dress that graced her body was nothing compared to the fabric of the wedding dress she had nearly wedded Julius in. Yet, this blue dress earned her love. She had been more than eager to rid herself of that horrid wedding dress, thankful for the very first time for Daniel's inability to see. If he had known what she was wearing when he found her, many questions would have followed suit. But he hadn't known and while Leah had seen it, she seemed oblivious to its purpose. If she knew, she said nothing about it.
With her eyes planted on the new dress, she was quite aware of Daniel's presence beside her. He was silent, but she found his silence to be deafening and while they sat only inches apart, it felt like they were miles apart. She had been wrong to try to ease her grief through love making. She was foolish to think he wouldn't sense her hesitation and desperation to rid herself of the memory of his brother and immediately she suspected he knew of her true intentions, she had panicked, choosing instead to lash out at him. It wasn't his fault his brother had ruined her, she had chided herself the evening she stormed out of the room. He didn't know, he couldn't know until she tells him. Still, she found herself frightened he would find out and choosing instead to distance herself from him.
As the movement of the coach progressed, she clutched her hands before her to keep herself from reaching out to him. Leah slept on the seat facing her and Daniel was awake beside he, his head turned to the window. She glanced down at his hands to find his fingers twitching on his lap, an indication of the workings of his mind.
Knowing he probably sensed her looking at him, she turned to her own window and allowed herself freedom to consider what it was she assumed he was thinking about. She knew it had to do with her. Was he worried about her? Did he finally guess what his brother had done to her? Would he blame her if he found out?
Tears blurring her vision, she closed her eyes to keep them from falling.
“Hadassah?!” An urgent tug on her arm awakened her. Moaning softly, she straightened and pulled her eyelids apart to find Leah's wide eyes staring at her.
“Leah...” The word had barely formed on her lips when movement behind Leah caught her attention. Turning sharply, she found Daniel climbing into the coach. “Daniel?”
The coachman closed the door behind Daniel and soon enough, Leah had resumed her seat opposite Hadassah, tears staining her cheek. Hadassah's eyes traveled from Leah to Daniel and back to Leah again.
“What happened? Have we arrived yet? I thought we'll be home by now?”
“We are.” Daniel answered solemnly. She opened her mouth to ask why they weren't going into the building, why the coach was moving once more, when he pushed the curtains aside.
The sight before her knocked the air right out of her lungs. Her entire body trembling, she moved towards the window and took hold of the curtain, pushing it further aside, the reality of what it was she was staring at, settling on her inside; fire, their home was on fire.
A small group of people stood trying to put out the fire, perhaps in a bid to stop it from consuming the entire town. As Hadassah watched, a heavy wood from the ceiling fell to the ground with a loud thud, barely missing the small cluster of people that worked to put out the fire. A loud yelp escaped her lips as Daniel's hand took firm grip of her waist, pulling her into the coach. Why weren't they fighting, she thought, desperate; why weren't they fighting to save their home? Where were they going to?!
“Daniel, stop, we must stop this!” She yelled, desperate. Leah's cries seemed to intensify with every movement the coach took. “We have to stop our home from going down in flames. Our home...”
“Is gone.” He murmured, pulling her rigid form into his arms. “It's gone and there is nothing we can do but return to Birmingham. ”
Copyright © 2018 Lily Orevba All rights reserved.
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