Chapter 57
Henrietta had imagined this moment more than once: the debt exposed, Silas defeated, Calvin finally forced to admit that her figures had mattered. She had imagined satisfaction, perhaps even triumph. Instead she felt tired to the bone, and beneath the tiredness lay something more difficult.
The ranch was safe.
Which meant she could finally ask whether she was.
Calvin must have seen something in her face.
“What is it?”
Henrietta rose from the table. Her joints were still stiff from the cold, and she reached for her cane before crossing to the trunk at the foot of the bed.
Calvin watched.
“What are you doing?”
She opened the trunk.
The sound of the latch seemed very loud.
“Henrietta.”
She took out the small leather case in which she kept her personal papers. Inside were her marriage documents, the bank transfer proving the five thousand dollars had been hers, and the private agreement Calvin had insisted they sign before the wedding.
Her throat tightened.
She carried the agreement to him.
Calvin stared at it.
“No.”
Henrietta placed it on the blanket over his knees.
His face went rigid. “No.”
“You do not know what I am going to say.”
“I know what that paper is.”
“So do I.”
He pushed it away.
She caught it before it slid to the floor.
“Calvin.”
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
“I have listened to enough papers for one lifetime.”
Henrietta drew a breath. “When the roads open, I will go.”
He went utterly still.
Outside, wind brushed dry snow against the window.
Calvin looked at her as if he had misheard. “Go where?”
“Chicago, if necessary. Somewhere else if not.”
“No.”
Her fingers tightened around the agreement. “You do not get to answer before I finish.”
His jaw clenched.
“You married me because you needed five thousand dollars,” she said. “You told me so before the ink was dry. You would not kiss me. You would not call me your wife unless you were angry at someone else. You took every piece of work I offered and treated gratitude as though it were a debt more humiliating than the bank.”
Calvin looked away.
Henrietta’s voice trembled once, and she hated it, but she continued. “You defended me from Silas because I belonged to a Brooks. You said that to my face.”
“I remember.”
“I remember too.”
He flinched.
Henrietta sat in the chair beside the bed. “I know now why you were desperate. I know about your brother’s debts. I know you were trying to protect a dead man’s name because you could not bear to stain your parents’ memory. I know Silas manipulated the loan and made your desperation worse.”