Page 18 of The Autumn Wife
“On the contrary.” His voice dropped. “You think the worst of me.”
She wanted to sayOf course I do,but it wasn’t completely true. She had witnessed him being kind,generous, and charitable—to a point she couldn’t ignore. But she’d also witnessed his violence.
“Your crime…” she forced words past a barrier of her own making. “Was it a bloody one?”
He paused for only a moment.
“Yes.”
She stumbled over nothing as a burst of white light emptied her mind. Theo shifted the weight of the canoe to fling out a hand toward her, but she ducked it. She found her feet and struggled to get herself steady, realizing as she fell into pace that she didn’t want to hear any more about the nature of his crime.
She’d heard all that she needed to know.
Girding her courage, she flung an accusation instead. “That’s why you kept your incarceration a secret.”
“I didn’t keep it a secret.” He gripped the canoe with both hands again. “The man who owns my papers should have told Mother Superior in the letter he sent her, but apparently, he didn’t. Knowing the man, I’d say he didn’t want to risk the outrageous wages she’d agreed to pay for my labor.”
“Still,” she said, bile rising at her daring, “you didn’t tellme.”
“Because you flinch in my presence—and have done so long before you learned I’m a convict.”
Heat swept up her cheeks. Of course she’d flinched the first time she’d met him. She shouldn’t be ashamed, but she had struggled long and hard tocontain the uncontrollable terror—had even taken pride in small successes. She couldn’t let her husband win—she’d long vowed not to spend the rest of her life shrinking like a coward in the presence of the rougher sex.
And yet Theo had noticed not just the flinch, but he’d figured outwhyshe flinched.
What else had he noticed about her?
Don’t think about that now.“You didn’t tell me about your prison sentence,” she blurted, “but apparently you had no qualms telling Jules.”
“I didn’t tell Jules. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Then how did he know?”
“People talk.” The canoe he carried wobbled as he stepped over a divot in the grass. “The man who holds my contract spends a lot of time in taverns. As does Jules.”
She looked down at her boots, wondering if Jules had known her husband, who’d also spent lots of time in taverns.
“Cecile,” he said, in that intimate way, “has there been any trouble on the building site since I’ve taken over?”
“Yes. You nearly broke Jules’s jaw.”
“I did that to protect you.” He dipped his head so he could meet her eyes from below the canoe. “You must know that.”
Her heart had risen so high in her chest that it felt like it clogged her throat. She had no words, anyway. She wasn’t so foolish as to ignore that he’djumped down from the scaffold for the sole purpose of protecting her. But she didn’t know how to feel about it. Or maybe she just didn’twantto feel the gratitude, the surge of warmth…or the sense of being cocooned in safety by a man who wasn’t the least bit safe.
She stayed mum and fixed her attention on Etienne’s stiff back as he strode ahead of them. She noticed how the grass in this part of the field had grown wild. The fruited heads brushed against her skirts and left little seeds and burrs behind. Every step launched another grasshopper in a flying arc. Crickets sang in the weeds, and barn swallows swooped and looped in the sky above them.
Three-quarters of the way across the field, he broke the silence. “Do you have a problem with my work? Or with how the building is going up?”
“Of course not.” It would have been so much easier if Theo had been a lazy worker. But Theo guided the men without arguing about their mistakes. The laborers ran to consult him about everything. He always had a trowel in his hand, spent most of his time on the scaffold, didn’t toss orders for the sake of shouting, didn’t swagger and boast, but kept his head down. He was a man roped with muscles, a creature capable of building and destroying in equal measure, who channeled his strength into something else, something solid and lasting. “I’m quite sure Sister Martha will be thrilled at the progress when she returns.”
“Then it’s just me—the man—that you’re afraid of. Is that why you’re wearing the gray habit of the congregation today?”
She glanced down at her stiff skirts. There were loads of reasons why she’d decided to shed her yellow dress. A woman who intended to become a nun might as well get used to the dull, coarse clothing she’d wear for the rest of her life. A woman in a habit received fewer stares and propositions when walking about the market square, visiting the Lachine Rapids, or wandering through a building site. All good reasons, but not the main one. She wore this habit to remind herself how she’d vowed to avoid the company of strong, dangerous, unsettling men altogether—whether the Reverend Mother consecrated her into the congregation or not.
“It shouldn’t matter to you,” she said, kicking sheafs of upright grasses, “what I wear.”
“You think it’ll keep men at bay.” His voice tightened like the knuckles of his hands. “But a man with truly bad intentions won’t let a nun’s habit stop him from taking what he wants. Is that what you think I’ll do?”
