Author's Note: Welcome to chapter 9!
From where she was sitting at the kitchen table, she heard the creak of the bedroom door as it opened and she sighed. She never went to bed. It occurred to her once or twice to do so since she would have to deal with him at some point and it would no doubt be better to do so after a night of sleep, but she never managed to bring herself to do it. She couldn't go upstairs and sleep next to him after what he did to her. She didn't even want to breathe the same air as him in all truthfulness, though she had no say in the matter. He took the last shred of trust she had in him and gladly shattered it, throwing all that love and compassion straight back in her face.
It was the last time she would be giving him the chance though.
He left her in no doubt that he would never – could never – change his horrid ways and see her as his equal. He would never treat her the way that he should and as far as ever being truly loved by him went, she had no chance. It would be screaming matches and insults and drunken slurs for her day in, day out for whatever length of time remained for her on this earth and there was nothing she could do about it. He would never let her leave him, not as long as there was breath in his body, and the chances of getting thrown out by him were slim since he was incapable of doing anything by himself and so she would merely have to learn to live with it.
So lost in thought was she that she failed to hear him enter the kitchen and walk up behind her, so when she felt his hands come to rest on her shoulders she froze in place and trembled when he buried a kiss in her hair. "Up already, beautiful?" She heard him mumble before he moved away from her and walked over to one of the cupboards, stretching up to take out a mug so he could carry it over to the sink and put some cold water in it. Turning in her chair to look over at him, she narrowed her eyes as he leaned his back against the counter and began to gulp down the cool liquid. "I have woken up with a headache like you wouldn't believe today, Mags."
"Oh, I believe it," She muttered. "The state you came home in last night."
"I was a little on the merry side," He tutted. "You need to lighten up a little, my love, you're always so tense."
"No, I would say you went right past merry and straight to plastered. Do you remember anything?"
"No, not much. Why, did I say something stupid?"
"If you would consider coming clean to me about all this 'stupid' then yes, you certainly did." She growled.
"I haven't any idea what you mean." He seemed genuinely confused.
She had to force herself not to laugh as she stood from her chair and wandered into the middle of the kitchen, crossing her arms as she turned to face him again. "Let me help refresh your memory then because, luckily for you, I remember the whole thing word for word," She told him, her voice dangerously calm. "At around seven last night, after leaving me to sort this entire cottage out on my own, you decided to come stumbling through that door. I was livid and asked you if you had even gone to see Ruadhán and you said that you did. You told me his grave is looking grand these days and that he succumbed to diphtheria ten years ago. Horrible disease."
His face drained of colour at her words.
"I honestly don't know what's worse to me, Ciarán, the fact you did this to me or the fact you used your dead friend in order to achieve it," She looked at him in disgust. "Do you not see how sick in the head that is? You should have known that I was so 'under your spell' as Riordan put it the other day that I would no doubt have been willing to follow you anywhere. You could have said you heard of more career opportunities further afield or that you'd been given a better position which meant we had to move, but no. You took advantage of a poor man's demise and…and my kindness in order to trap me here! In order to keep me under lock and key again!"
"If you were a more obedient, loyal wife, I never would have felt the need." Was his unbothered response.
"A more obed…" She breathed, unable to truly believe the words that she'd just heard come out of his mouth. "I might make mistakes sometimes – see, I can admit that – but you could not get a more obedient wife than me. I have put up with you and your temper and your foul words for years. I tried to love you despite all that when any other woman would have left you and never looked back. I made one choice for myself – a choice I was forced to make for the sake of myself and my baby – and losing that tiny shred of control over me scared you to no end. You had to bring me out here because, again, it was the only way for you to have any control."
He glared at her for a time before slowly reaching behind him to put his mug down on the counter and taking a number of small steps towards her. It made her nervous, the way he was looking at her as he did so, but she refused to let him see that. "I let you have the upper hand much longer than I should have, clearly, if you feel you have any right at all to speak to me like this," His voice was quiet as he spoke, his eyes dark. "You are my wife and that means you will respect me and the choices I make for this family whether or not you agree with them, do you understand me? You will do what I say when I say it and you will do it the way I want it done."
Instead of responding to him, she just went on staring at him in silence.
"I am going to ask you this one more time," He took a step closer to her. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes, I understand," She whispered. "I understand completely, but that doesn't mean I have to like any of it."
"As long as you do as you're told and remember your place in this marriage, I don't care if you like it or not."
"Oh, trust me, I remember my place. I'm never allowed to forget it."
Honestly, she fully expected to get an earful or worse from him for making such a comment, but he must have decided she wasn't worth his time because all he did was move around her and leave the kitchen to go back to their room. Once she was alone again, she sat back down in the chair at the table and felt her heart sink when she looked at her stomach and brought her hand up to trace its slight curve. It was them against the world. It always was, she guessed, but for a minute she actually thought Ciarán might slowly come around and the three of them would be a family. She had hope he would be the father their baby needed, but he wasn't going to be.
No, she could see now that he never loved her or their little one.
He never intended to step up and be the husband and father the two of them were in need of, there wasn't a doubt in her mind about that anymore. He wasn't planning on telling her the truth about their situation quite so early on, she realised, the drink made him slip up, so what exactly was he planning on doing? Allowing her to go through her entire pregnancy thinking she had his support and then coming clean when she gave birth, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her broken heart along with working to give their baby all that it required?
If he was planning on doing that, he was far more of a soulless monster than she ever could've anticipated.
After a while, she heard the bedroom door open and close again and looked over her shoulder at the sound of Ciarán coming down the staircase. He was changed into some actual clothes now and it was clear he was going out someplace, so she stood from her chair again and made her way into the hall while he pulled on his jacket. "Where are you going?" She asked while watching him button it up, her hands starting to play together slowly.
"Out, clearly." He replied.
"Uhm, do you know when you'll be back? Only, I want to go into town for some things." She told him.
He shook his head, reaching for his gloves and pulling them on before turning back to face her a second time. "You can go into town if you must, but you should know there are things in place, so don't do anything daft."
"You mean you have eyes all around this place already. My, that didn't take you long to arrange, now did it?" She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall. "And what lie did you have to tell?"
"I just said you were a little soft in the head," He shrugged. "You know, prone to forgetting where you are."
Just when she thought it was impossible to hate him more than she already did, he proved her entirely wrong. "Charming…" She lowered her gaze for a moment. "I love how you have no qualms about saying such things."
"Oh, like you, I stopped caring long ago," He admitted. "Now, I'll see you when I see you."
Not caring enough to try to keep him from walking out, she just stood there and watched him leave before she stared at the closed door for a time and brought her hand to her stomach once again. "Well, my wee one," She whispered, tracing gentle circles onto her dress with her thumb. "It looks like it's just going to be you and me, but that was really to be expected and we don't need the likes of him meddling in our business anyway, truly."
It was daunting and rather mad to think about, being a single mother despite still being married.
It would be a hard and challenging job, she wouldn't deny that, but she was going to see to it that she did her best every day and it would never be for any reason other than them.
It was so late by the time she made it home from town that it had gone dark and she was absolutely freezing. It should only have been about a twenty minute walk, if that, but as she feared she ended up getting lost once or twice and only with the help of some kind gentlemen did she eventually end up going in the right direction. In all, it took her almost an hour to make it into town and then there were the longest queues she'd ever seen in both the butchers and the greengrocers which only made the whole thing take ten times longer. It was truly the worst shopping experience she'd ever had and to say she was delighted to be home was an understatement.
Opening the door, she entered the cottage and the warmth she was welcomed with was more than appreciated. She carried the large bags in her hands through to the kitchen and placed them on the counter, ensuring she put the meat and dairy products in the ice box before she forgot, and once that was done she decided the rest could wait. It was only bread and tinned items, nothing that needed to be put away with any great urgency, so she made her way through to the lounge and set about closing the drapes and sorting out the hearth. She put some coals and scrunched up paper in and lit it with a match, using the poker to stir the flames up a bit more.
Once she could feel the lounge starting to warm up, she got to her feet before all but collapsing onto the sofa seconds later. It was far from lost on her that she would need to make a start on dinner at some point since it was already nearing six o'clock, but she wasn't going to rush and do that. Her husband never actually told her what time he was going to be home. He never even bothered to tell her where he was headed, though it didn't take a genius to work that one out, and the last thing she wanted to do was make a meal he might just waste. No, she would eat and he could make himself something if he was starving whenever he decided to stumble in.
It would get her in hot water with him, no doubt about it, but it would teach him to tell her information.
He never felt she had any right to know where he was going or what time he would be back – even though it was the exact information he demanded from her each time she went somewhere without him – and it was so frustrating because it made her worry. It was one of the last things she wanted to do, sit and worry about him, because he never seemed to worry about him and she deemed him unworthy. Try as she might though, it was one thing she couldn't help doing whenever he stayed out later than planned. It was more to do with the fact that she depended on him for pretty much everything though, especially now, rather than love or care for him.
If she had her own money and her own means to survive then she truly wouldn't care what happened to him, but that wasn't the case. He only let her so much as touch his money when she needed to head into town for something, but even then he would only give her enough to purchase the things she needed and nothing more. He controlled everything in their relationship, not just her, and she would have to rely on him more than ever now they were here. She had no idea where she was or who she could trust, so the thought of him lying dead in a pit somewhere and leaving her entirely on her own was enough to turn her stomach. It was just terrifying.
Shaking her head to rid her mind of such thoughts, she unbuttoned her coat and let it fall open enough so she could run a hand over her stomach. Her baby, the precious little life tucked away inside her, was one thing she loved to think about when her anxiety threatened to take over. It calmed her so much and it brought her such happiness, it truly did. Despite not being able to feel any proper kicks just yet, merely knowing it was in there and it was healthy delighted her. It was growing and it was developing and in a matter of months she'd get to hold it in her arms and promise it the world. She didn't have too much, she knew, but she had unlimited love.
Love was one thing her child would never have to go without as long as she was around, she would make sure of it. If Ciarán didn't want to know and pushed it away, pretending it didn't exist, that was his choice and she was more than willing to love their baby for him. She would sing it the old lullabies her mother would sing to her, she would remind it that it was loved countless times a day, she would have sleepless nights if she needed to and she would simply make sure she was around when it needed her. It wasn't just a baby to her, not at all. It was the thing keeping her from giving up. It was the thing making her smile and giving her a reason to live.
Should she not have fallen pregnant when she did, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have given up months ago and she dreaded to think where she would be at this moment in time. It would have been her and Ciarán, no one else, and back then she didn't care what he did to her because nothing could be as terrible as the life he was forcing her to live. In all honesty, she still didn't care what he did to her because she didn't truly matter, but her baby mattered and that was what changed things. Her baby was innocent and had such a long and beautiful life ahead of it, one that she would ensure was free from the same awful mistakes she made.
In order for there to be the slightest chance of that though, it needed to be brought up well.
Her child needed to be brought up knowing its worth and knowing not to allow anyone to walk all over them. Along with that though, her child also needed to be brought up knowing the worth of others and knowing it was plain wrong to treat them as anything less than their equal. Hand on heart, if she had a son and her son turned went down the same path as his father than she would think herself a failure and never forgive herself. It would be her duty to ensure her son – should she be blessed with one, of course – turned into a gentleman. He would love and respect the woman he married. He would treasure his children and give them the best care.
He would be nothing like his father or she would never lie still in her grave.
Absolutely never.
Pulling back the covers once she was in her nightclothes and her hair had been sorted, she reluctantly got into bed and laid down. It was one in the morning and her husband still hadn't returned since he left early the day before. She tried her hardest to sit up and wait for him once she'd eaten her dinner and washed the things up, but as the hours went by she only found it harder to keep awake and so she had admitted defeat and come to bed. It would be hard to sleep without him at her side. It wasn't as though they cuddled – well, they had been recently, but more often than not they didn't – but knowing he was around made her feel somewhat protected.
He was vile, but should an intruder ever dare invite themselves in then he would be the one to act.
It would be to protect himself more than her, she had no doubt about that, but it would be keeping her safe at the same time and she took comfort from that. His side of the bed was vacant though and it seemed as though she would be sleeping alone tonight, so should something along those lines happen then she would be the only one in a position to rise up and do something about it and she seriously didn't give that much for her chances. Of course, this was more than likely nothing but her anxiety talking and so she took a breath and reached out to turn down the oil lamp on her nightstand. She was worn out and needed to get some sleep, that's all it was.
No doubt, her husband would come storming into the house and wake her in a couple hours.
He would complain once again about the raging headache he had, eat the cooked breakfast she made for him, tell her she was nothing but a waste of space and take himself up to their room to sleep for the rest of the day.
It would be a normal day for the Bates household really.
Just another entirely normal day.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for taking the time to read! Another short one today which wasn't intentional, but it has been quite a slow day. I would love to know what you all thought nevertheless and I will see you all soon!