Three
"To your left! The car!"
Her shoes skidding on the gravel lane, Shelagh turned as her now-husband directed and let out a relieved grunt when she saw his car parked just a few meters away. Thank heavens! Her lungs were on fire from their sprint down the farm lane. She would have run further to escape that wicked place if she had to but wasn't going to complain about their daring escape coming to a close.
By the time she'd pulled open the passenger door, he had already turned over the engine and wasted no time in gunning it the moment she was safely inside. "And now back to London we go!" he said cheerfully. After a few more seconds of catching his breath, he said to her, "I realize you must have some questions."
"Several hundred, yes," she said as she pulled the remaining flowers from her hair and chucked them on the floor at her feet. She then pulled at the pins until her hair was no longer knotted in the way Mother Mary had fixed it, and then relaxed back in her seat, finally able to breathe deeply—and not just because her lungs had recovered from the run.
"How could that ridiculous man have thought we were childhood friends? We've got to be nearly fifteen years apart in age!"
Patrick glanced over at her, amused. "A little more than, actually, but: that's your first question?"
"The list is quite long. I thought I might start with one of the most recent," she informed him.
He chuckled and rubbed his fingers against the underside of his chin. "Fair approach, but perhaps we should go chronologically from the beginning, yes? How did you get here?"
"The woman and her husband-"
"They're siblings."
"What?"
"Jacob and Mary – they're siblings," Patrick explained. "It is possible Jacob is Mary's late husband's younger brother, but it was rather hard to follow. They're definitely not married, though."
Shelagh thought back to the interactions she had witnessed. She had assumed from the start that they were a couple, though she hadn't seen anything particularly affectionate between them to confirm that. She supposed their relationship could have been platonically familial, but she supposed at that point it wasn't relevant to the story.
"Well, regardless: I was riding my bike to my next appointment when their van drove quite close, and I lost my balance. I wasn't hurt, but I sort of tumbled to the ground. She jumped out and I thought she was going to help me, but instead she said she was from the Mother House, and I was needed there urgently. This was confusing as it would have been atypical behavior for our Order, but she was quite convincing and wearing a nun's veil which made her seem legitimate. I didn't… I don't know I guess I didn't think it through. I got into the van, and I knew immediately it was a mistake but then he—Jacob—shocked me with a cattle prod."
Patrick gasped with horror. "What?"
"It was awful. My whole body seized up and I couldn't move, though they tied me up just to make sure. Then, they brought me here. Where are we, by the way?"
"Northeast of London. Near Norwich. And I'm so sorry to hear what they did; we were so afraid you were taken under duress. What happened next?"
"Mary hosed me down with cold water and gave me this white dress to wear. I was so cold and tired I went to sleep, but when I awoke, I found out there were others here: two young girls. She kept us all in a converted barn that was freezing with no heat or windows, only some lamps."
"You were imprisoned," he said with disgust evident in his voice.
"Yes, effectively. We only let out to attend Mary's classes and lectures. She was…she was trying to groom us to be wives. The other two girls were much more submissive—evidently the lashes she doled out to them when they arrived were enough to set them straight, but I couldn't abide. I just kept asking to leave and refusing to do as she asked. Or, I tried to refuse, but there came a point I couldn't take another jolt."
"She tortured you?"
"I suppose."
"What a horrid woman!"
Unable to argue with that, Shelagh instead changed the subject to one she was most curious about. "How did you find me?"
"They sent a letter written by you, basically saying goodbye to Sister Julienne and explaining that you'd chosen to move on to a different life. The letter had a forwarding address requesting that your documents be sent. We hoped it was the same location where you were being held and thankfully it was. I knocked on the door to the farmhouse, but no one answered. I came back the next day and as I was poking around, I bumped into a farmer delivering milk. He made some comments that were…alarming at best, and through him I was able to find out that Jacob ran a ministry in a nearby town on Monday nights, so I decided to attend. I thought maybe I'd pretend to be someone interested in counseling, but I'm afraid I drastically underestimated my acting skills. He seemed immediately suspicious of me and kept trying to leave. I panicked and blurted out my true intentions, hoping that honesty might win him over. I appealed to his humanity, as it were. We ended up going to a pub and, after several pints, I managed to win him over."
Shelagh's brow furrowed as she considered Patrick's side of the story. "Monday night…but then why didn't he just let me leave? That was the night I tried to escape!"
Patrick gazed over at her, shocked. "You tried to escape?"
"Yes. I would have made it, too, if I'd remembered the right part in the fence with the gate, but it was dark, and I got confused. Mary caught me."
"Well, that's just it. Jacob made it clear that Mary rules their roost. It's…very untoward, their whole setup. They claim to be setting up a community for those who want to follow their version of faith, though I never could quite figure out what that is. I think he may be a disgraced clergyman, but I haven't been able to do any research to know for sure. I didn't want to focus on anything other than getting them to set you free."
"Hang on," Shelagh said as the timeline began to connect in her mind. "Today is Thursday, right?"
"Yes."
"So that was three days ago!"
"Yes, and I've been here since Saturday night. Well, I did go back briefly on Monday to get things sorted with Tim."
"Five days!" she spluttered with disbelief. "But what about the clinic? What about Tim?"
"He's with the nuns and having quite a bit of fun with Sister Monica Joan, as I understand it. And the clinic is closed until I return." When she let out a squeak of disbelief, he continued softly, "You don't need to worry about any of that; it's all sorted."
"But I still don't understand why it took so long."
"Ah, well, I don't exactly understand either, other than Jacob was probably stringing me along. He was insistent that Mary would not agree to just letting you go and, now that I've heard all that you have experience, I completely understand why. He said we needed a ruse, so he came up with the childhood friends idea to explain the fact that we obviously knew each other and I wasn't just some random man from the village that he'd found. Jacob…" He huffed out a breath and gripped the steering wheel a bit harder. "He said that since he was sticking his neck out to orchestrate a way for me to take you away, he needed certain assurances."
"What kind?" she asked. When he was silent for more than ten seconds, she repeated her question in a sharper tone. "Patrick, what kind?"
He gave her a rather woeful expression. "I wish you hadn't said my name for the first time in such an angry tone."
Shelagh hesitated for a moment, almost surprised that it was actually the first time as it had felt so natural, but he was correct—it was the first time she had addressed him so casually. She had known his name ever since they started working together as she was required to fill it in on certain forms, but she had always referred to him as "Dr. Turner" due to their professional relationship. It wasn't until she had officially decided to embark on a relationship with him that she began to think about him as "Patrick." Technically, that had barely been two weeks prior, but she had thought of him a lot during her captivity as a way to help her from feeling too much despair.
"I am not angry with you; I am upset by this whole situation. I do ask that you please be truthful with me about everything that happened so that I can better understand."
He nodded and then said, "I had to pay him. Excuse me, I had to make a 'donation' to his church." He added, pulling his right hand off the wheel to make air quotations with his fingers.
Heat flushed her cheeks, and she felt a sickly sensation in her gut. "You paid him?" Her tone had contained more shock than accusation, but Patrick's response contained a notable amount of guilt.
"What choice did I have? He was the only person who could possibly help me and those were his conditions—and I wasn't going back to London without you."
She felt a fresh onslaught of anger towards Jacob now that she knew blackmail had been added to his list of crimes. "How much?"
He hesitated before mumbling out, "Three hundred twenty."
"Pounds?!"
"Yes."
"Oh." She moaned at the egregious sum and pressed her hands to her stomach as it rolled in her gut. "You shouldn't have…"
"I couldn't see any another way. He wouldn't let me see you. I had no idea if you were hurt or not. Now that I've come to find you were being tortured my only wish is that I had paid more to get you out even sooner."
She tried her best not to feel guilty from his words, but it was nearly impossible. For all of her adult life she had existed in self-induced poverty with no personal possessions and only spending the smallest dollar amount required to keep her alive and healthy. Hearing that the value he paid for her freedom was more than the annual wage for most of Poplar's residents was surely a factor she would need to process over several days to come to terms with. Given how in danger she felt with Mary and Jacob, she could not definitively say she was upset by Patrick's choices, but that didn't make it less shocking to find out just to what extend he valued her safety.
For several minutes she was quiet, processing all that she had learned, but then she thought of her next set of questions.
"So, you spoke to Jacob, you told him who you were and how we knew each other, and he agreed to lie to Mary about all of that so I could leave with you—after you paid him, of course. But that still doesn't explain why we had to get married."
"Well, it's just as you said—Mary chose these women with the intent to groom them into brides—wives. She was highly dedicated to this calling as they both thought it was a directive from God. I told Jacob of my intentions, but he said they wouldn't be good enough for Mary. The only way she'd let you out of her grasp was with a proper wedding—and with the claim we would stay there and live on their farm and help bring others to worship. They wanted to build a community, which I suppose is a noble goal, but they were going about it in such an unsettling way." He was quiet for a moment and then asked, "You said there were two other women there with you. Were they also nuns?"
"Postulants. How did you know?"
"Never you mind; I was just curious."
"About?" When he didn't respond, she added, "Please. I want the truth."
He huffed out a breath. "It is rather unsavory."
"I can handle it."
He glanced at her tentatively then said, "This community Mary is building she wants to fill it only with women who are, in her eyes, pure. She feels they make the best wives."
"Jacob told you that?"
"I'm afraid his terminology was a bit more vulgar, but that was the gist of it, yes."
Shelagh sighed and twisted her hands together in her lap. "I thought it might be something like that. She called us all Mary or Sister Mary. At first, I thought she was naming us after herself because she wanted us to be like her, or to think of ourselves as her children. As time went on, I came to realize it was probably a reference to us being virginal." With that unsettling notion, a shiver traveled up her spine and she let out a soft whimper.
"You're shivering. Are you cold?"
"No, just unsettled," she assured him, which wasn't necessarily better than cold, but also not something he could directly fix.
"I can't imagine how horrid this experience was you. I'm so very sorry." He moved his left hand from the wheel and slid it over the bench seat towards her. She grasped onto it and continued to hold it tightly for another fifteen minutes of driving.
"I thought of another question."
"Hmm?"
"You said Jacob might have been a disgraced clergyman. What made you say that?"
"Well, when he was speaking about what motivated he and Mary to start their community, he mentioned previous position in a way that made it seem like he had been forced out of it or had some sort of falling out with the community."
"But that registrar we signed was an official one for the Church of England."
"Yes, I know."
Though she felt he had probably already come to the same conclusion she had, she still spoke her next sentence cautiously. "That would mean our marriage is legal."
"Yes, I believe it is." He let a beat go by before asking, "What are your thoughts on that?"
She almost laughed as she had so many thoughts on the subject forming them into a cohesive sentence seemed impossible. When it came right down to it, she was struggling to believe it was real—not just because of the how tumultuous that day had been, but because of the ease of it. How could such a life-long commitment come as the result of a few words and the swipe of a pen across a page? It seemed too simple. Then again, she supposed that the majority of couples did have a more significant period of time leading up to their wedding, which she felt would contribute to the gravity of the act.
Thinking it over some more, she supposed she and Patrick did have a fair amount of time during which they were building towards a future together. From the moment he kissed her hand, she felt sure he had intentions to marry her. She was, after all, a nun. He knew what her lifestyle entailed and thus she felt confident he would not have asked her to abandon her vows just so they could go out for a night of dancing and never see each other again. They had also known each other for years. True, not in a deep, personal sense, but their day-to-day interactions bred a different kind of familiarity that formed the initial steps on their journey towards each other.
As for her feelings towards him: she had known exactly what she was agreeing to for weeks and while she would not have turned down extra time to plan or prepare herself for a wedding, she couldn't say she was upset about where they had ended up.
"The last time we saw each other, I asked if we could talk. It was barely more than a week ago, but it feels like an age."
He let out a breathy laugh. "It does."
"I was going to tell you that I'd decided to leave my life as a nun, because the thought of being with you made me happier than anything before ever had. I was certain in that decision, but it required such a dramatic change to my life that I lacked confidence—in myself, in who I would be as a wife, a mother, an individual. Then, I was suddenly trapped in that horrible place and something came over me. I have never in my life been such a rulebreaker, but I just kept fighting all of it because I finally had something to fight for." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Softening her tone, she continued, "I suppose that was a really long way to say: I am okay with our marriage being real, though I wish it had occurred under better circumstances."
He hummed. "Well, I agree with you there."
"What are your thoughts on the marriage?"
"The same as yours, I suppose. The circumstances were regrettable, but never the actions. To be honest: I had been so worried that my actions during the fete had been too bold; that I'd frightened you and ruined what chances we may have had. As such, this is quite a joyful development. Though, I once again feel I must apologize for my actions. As we've been talking through everything that happened over the past few days, I realize this whole charade probably had much more deception than you are comfortable with."
Shelagh couldn't help but laugh. He sounded so concerned, but she had never once worried or felt concerned about their actions that afternoon. She had been so relieved to see him, she would have gone along with anything he suggested as long as it meant she could go home. "They deceived me to bring me here and held me against my will. They would not abide by my requests to be returned home and when I tried to leave on my own, I was punished. It seems fitting, however unfortunate, that deception was the thing that allowed me to leave. This being said: we should stick to honest actions from here on out."
"I will always be honest with you, Shelagh," he promised.
"As will I with you."
He squeezed her hand and proclaimed, "You know I must say, despite these horrible circumstances, I am quite thrilled by our first real conversation with each other. We're going to get on well, you and I."
She laughed and reminded him, "We already did."
"True."
With their hands still joined, Shelagh thought about what he had said. Their first real conversation. They had certainly had a few brief conversations before which she would have considered to be "real" considering their personal, not work-related, subject matter. Though, given the level of intimacy their prior half hour of conversation entailed, she did understand his meaning. It was their first truly open conversation, but it had never once felt awkward or uncomfortable for her. It felt…natural. Like they had been partners for years. In that sense, it was, as he said, thrilling, yet another part of their relationship that was atypical.
"I suppose that not having a real conversation until after we married is rather unusual. We skip more than a few steps leading up to this."
"We can go back and do them all. I will take you to dinner wherever you want to go. We can go dancing. We can have a picnic at a park or sit on a bench and hold hands."
"That all sounds lovely."
He squeezed her hand. "I think—oh no, what is this?" He grumbled and slowed the car to a stop. Shelagh looked head and saw that a makeshift barrier blocked their path. Affixed on it was a hand painted sign that read Road Closed.
"Oh dear. Is there another way around?"
He sighed and put the car in reverse so he could turn it around. "I'm sure that there is, but I don't know it. There was a village not too far back. Perhaps we can ask for directions around. It's not too late. If there's a pub there's bound to be people in it. You're not to worry," he promised her. "I'm sure I can figure it out."
"We're nearly there now."
Patrick's voice started Shelagh awake; she hadn't realized she had fallen asleep, but their drive had taken much longer than expected thanks to the frustrating detour. Though it ended up being a blessing since they were able to have a small meal at the pub, which was the most significant amount of food she had in days. As she blinked away sleep, she could see some of the lights of London on the horizon and asked him, "What time is it?"
"Half eleven, I think."
"That's so late. Everyone at Nonnatus will be asleep."
"I don't think they'll mind being woken; they've all been so worried."
Shelagh considered this for a moment. "Perhaps I should just stay at your house tonight. Would that be all right?"
Amused, he responded, "Yes. Remember: we are married. You may stay with me always."
"Oh, yes. I suppose that's true." It was all such a whirlwind; it was going to take her several days to remember all the changes to which she needed to acclimate.
Within ten minutes their car arrived at Patrick's home. Though she had been there once to fetch him for an emergency, she had never actually been inside, and thus was pleased to see the homey (though slightly untidy) living space. She walked slowly through the main living area, rested her hand gently on the back of the sofa, and felt her heart clench. This is home, her mind told her, and she was immediately overcome by a crashing wave of emotions. She covered her face with her hands, but it was no use; the sobs overtook her.
Alarmed, Patrick rushed to her. "What is it? What's wrong?"
She shook her head, gasping out between sobs. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong. It's just…it's all over, isn't it? It's finally over?"
"Yes," he said, banding his arms around her shoulders. She fell against him and pressed her face against his collar. "Yes, it's all over. You're safe now."
Still hardly able to believe the ordeal was at an end, she asked tearfully, "You don't think Mary will come for me again?"
"Why would she? We are married. For all she knows we're having our honeymoon night in the home of my aged mother."
Recalling that particularly odd moment of their already surreal wedding, Shelagh could not help but laugh. "Do you have an aged mother?"
"Yes, she lives near Bath, though I think she might resent the term 'aged'. I'd be happy to take you to meet her whenever you like." Bringing his hands up to cup her face, he used his thumbs to rub at the tracks of her tears. "As for Mary, you don't have to worry, I'm sure of it."
She let out a slow breath, allowing herself to believe that she was now truly safe. The weight that felt lifted off her shoulders was immense and, once it was gone, she allowed herself to think of how lovely it was to have Patrick's body so close to hers.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then gathered up her hands with his and kissed her knuckles as well. "Now, let's dry those tears and-"
"Ah!" Shelagh shrieked out in pain when Patrick's grasp squeezed around her forearm—unbeknownst to him putting pressure on one of her wounds. Her natural instinct was to pull away, but this ended up hurting even more, leaving her doubled over and cradling her arm against her stomach.
"What—what happened?" he asked, frantic.
"My arm," was all she could whimper out.
"You're injured," he concluded, his tone sounding ill. He reached for her gently, putting one arm around the middle of her back, and reaching the other hand out to her injury. "Come, darling. Let me see it."
Her body trembling from the discomfort, she held her left arm out and tried to roll up the sleeve of her dress, but she could not do so successfully, so he assisted, until he saw the wound on the inside of her arm and gasped out, "Good god! Is—is that a burn?"
She bit down on her lower lip so the sleeve could be pushed up to her elbow and reveal the extent of the injury. "Yes. She poured boiling water on me after she caught me trying to escape. It—it really only hurt when there was pressure on my arm, but now I think the blister has burst."
Patrick looked mortified. "I'm so sorry, I-"
"No, no, it's not your fault; you couldn't have known."
He held her arm out gently to examine it. "We'll have to make sure its drained fully now. Then we can clean it and wrap it."
She nodded and let him lead her to the kitchen, where she stood by the sink while he quickly retrieved his bag and a clean towel. As he gingerly cleaned her arm, he apologized once more. "Don't feel bad," she promised, "I don't know how I didn't pop it myself with the blister being so large."
"No, I mean for everything. If I had only known how viciously you were being tortured, I would have pushed Jacob harder so we could have had the wedding sooner. If only I had-"
"Don't." She cut him off kindly but firmly. "You did so much more than I could have ever expected. I can barely fathom it. It would have been so much easier just to walk away." Hours of driving just to find her and finding dead ends at nearly every turn. Then, five additional days of his time—and the money! So much money! Given how many days it took, Jacob surely could not have been amiable to work with; she could only imagine how stressful it must have been to him. He had so many opportunities to simply walk away and it frankly baffled her that he hadn't. How could she have been worth all that effort?
As though he'd heard her internal question, Patrick placed his hand firmly on her shoulder, looked deep into her eyes and assured her, "That was never an option. From the moment I learned you'd been taken, anything other than bringing you back home safely wasn't even a consideration. It felt like a piece of me had gone and I had to get it back. I had to."
Shelagh felt her chest tighten at the sound of his conviction. He loved her. There could be no other conclusion. He loved her enough to sacrifice so much and it overwhelmed her. She had never experienced such adoration, but it filled her chest with warmth, and she knew there was but one response. Lifting her right hand, she pressed it gently to his jaw, and then she kissed him. Though she only ever kissed one man before this, she did not feel uncertain in her actions. If anything, it was the opposite. The feel of his lips on hers felt more right than anything ever had and a force beyond her understanding told her exactly what to do.
After a long kiss, she broke away, stroked her thumb across his cheek and said desperately, "Thank you. I know it'll never be enough but thank you so much for all that you did."
"You're already enough," he whispered before kissing her again. Their kiss lasted nearly a minute before they broke apart, shared soft smiles, and then returned to the task at hand. Once her arm was cleaned and thoroughly dried, Patrick guided her to the kitchen table, where they sat so he could wrap her arm in clean gauze. The blistered area had taken up nearly a third of her forearm, so the bandage ended up being quite large, but she had to admit it felt much better once it was secure.
"It's not too tight?"
"No, it feels good. Thank you."
"You're welcome." He tossed the gauze roll back into his bag and gazed at her tentatively. "Now…if I recall correctly, you mentioned something about being shocked with a cattle prod. What do those burns look like?"
"Not nearly as bad as this," she assured him. "Really, they're not awful."
"Are you sure?"
She studied him a moment. "Would you feel better if you saw one of them?"
"Yes, but not if you must make yourself uncomfortable to do so."
Most of the marks were on her back, but there was one on her upper leg she could show fairly easily. It required hiking up her dress skirt almost to her hip but, she reminded herself, they were married and him seeing her in a state of undress was not inappropriate. Plus, at that particular moment, his motives were nothing other than medical.
She stuck out her leg and rotated it so the side of her upper thigh could be seen. The twin circles from the cattle prod could clearly be seen, though, as they were several days old, they did not look in need of medical attention. "See; it's not bad."
"It is horrid," he countered, his tone indicating revulsion, "and it makes me sick to know all that was done to you."
She let her skirt fall back over her leg while saying, "Yes, but it's over now."
He pursed his lips together. "Any other injuries I should know about?" When she shook her head, he continued with, "Very well. Now, forgive me but: you're looking rather weary."
She almost laughed. "I feel very weary."
"Then please take the bed. I will sleep on the couch."
She frowned and looked over at furniture piece. "I'm smaller, I should take it."
"You have been through an ordeal," he insisted
"You haven't been home in days," she countered. "Were you sleeping in the car?"
He opened his mouth to protest, but before he could a peculiar look came over his face. "This seems rather silly to be our first argument."
She sat up straight and set her shoulders. "We are not arguing; we're discussing. We will share the bed." An expression of amusement crossed his face and asked, "What?"
"Nothing," he said in a tone that made it sound like he was suppressing a laugh. "I just already love discussing things with you. Come now—I'll find you something to wear."
He walked into the bedroom and pulled open the doors to his wardrobe while she hung back, hovering in the doorway and second guessing her actions that evening—that week. "Mary said I was a wild spirt that needed tamed. I suppose I have felt quite emboldened recently, but I'm just so relieved to know my own mind again and to be able to speak it and feel it, without having to suppress who I really was behind my vows. I'm afraid I may no longer be shy girl whose hand you kissed in the community center kitchen," she confessed, dipping her gaze to the ground.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
She glanced up to him tentatively. "Isn't it?"
After tossing the pajamas he held onto the end of the bed, he approached her and used his fingers to tilt her chin up towards his. "Not at all. Honestly, I find it rather thrilling. I want your spirit to soar not be broken down. I want a partner—an equal, and I know that person is you." Then, he kissed her.
She threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back. He used his arms around her back to hoist her up and carry her over to the bed, where he sat her down. She let out a giggle. "Oh my, that felt rather scandalous."
"Well, the beauty of being married is we can do all the scandalous things we want—and none of them are a scandal," he added with a wink. Then, he nodded to the clothes and said, "Go on—change, get in bed. I'll be in shortly."
"Patrick?" She stopped him before he could leave. She wasn't even sure what to say—that the words she needed to use had even been invented. Gratitude paled in comparison to what she fell for him. But, with her weariness, all she could do was thank him again. "Thank you—so very much."
"Of course," he nodded. Then, with a smile, he shut the door so she could change, climb into bed, and finally get some rest.