An Innocent Affair

XXXV

"How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure." Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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XXXV.

Jem continued to call upon Zara every morning, and Cressie every night. It was a dangerous sort of game, entering into what would be considered an affair, but neither of them could see any other way around it.

In some ways, many ways, in fact, it seemed that Jem and Cressie finding their way back to one another was inevitable. They did not, could not, consider their actions wrong.

Foolish, most definitely, but not wrong.

"I was never ... I'm not allowed any money of my own," Cressie confessed into the darkness some nine or ten days later. "If I want to purchase a mere ribbon, I must ask for permission. I was afforded no opportunity to put anything away for myself. I understand that it is his money, but –"

"But nothing," Jem interjected. "You were his wife." Jem used the word 'were' very purposefully. In his heart, and everything else besides his good sense, Cressie was no longer the wife of another. "Even servants receive a wage."

Cressie shared moments, rules, incidents, or stories sporadically, when they popped into her mind, or when she was ready to share them. She paused sometimes, often trailing off in thought, and were it not dark, Jem would have wagered that her brown eyes would have been illuminated by their ghosts.

But with each memory she shared, Jem heard a little more of his Cressie in her voice. It was as though she was conquering each and every moment once it was spoken and was no longer allowing that particular point in time to have power over her.

And Lord, he was proud of her. He was furious, and grief-stricken, and entirely torn apart with guilt that any of this had ever happened in the first place, but Lord he was proud of her. Cressie had survived. No matter what had happened, she had survived, and despite everything, she still had fight in her. It had been hidden, trodden down upon, and belittled, but the fight was still there.

And she was going to need it.

"What if he locks me up in a madhouse?" Cressie suddenly worried. "Men do that, you know. I've heard of it. Women who deprive their husbands, or desert their husbands, they're captured and locked away in asylums simply because their husband declares she is mad. What if Everett does that to me when I leave?"

The fear in her voice, despite her fight, was deafening. Jem had had enough of the darkness, and he leaned across Cressie and felt across the bedside table for the oil lamp. He turned up the flame and illuminated the room. Cressie's eyes were as fearful as he had predicted. Jem pulled her close, hugging her to his chest and feeling her tremble against him.

Truthfully, Jem had not considered that. Now that Cressie had spoken of it, he, too, had to admit that he had heard of men committing their estranged wives to insane asylums as means to unburden themselves from them.

And in hearing Cressie's accounts of Everett Delaney, locking her away in a madhouse did not seem like such a farfetched abuse.

Cressie was going to need to be well hidden on their way out of London. Jem's plan was to escape the hour of Mrs Martin's arrival. Jem could not travel with Cressie. He knew that would attract too much suspicion. Mrs Martin and Cressie would travel to Ashwood House under an assumed identity as distant cousins of Cecily. Both Mrs Martin and Cressie had not been Ashwood residents for very long when indeed they had resided there and most likely would not be recognised after so many years.

And maybe ... maybe Jem could marry her then. It would not be a legal union, but who was to know?

"Cressie, there is a plan," Jem reiterated to her. "I have a plan. Just as soon as your mother arrives, we will leave. You will never have to see that man again, and you will never see the inside of a madhouse. That I can promise you."