CHAINS TO FREEDOM.✔

Chapter Ninety

"I told you I did not want her in this house!" Millie threw her empty glass across the room at Adam. He ducked. The glass smashed and scattered across the floor.

Jessica didn't want to watch this display of drunken behaviour from the woman she had once considered her best friend. In a way she understood and didn't know how she would react if Louis had moved Rachel and all her belongings into the bedchamber beside his as Adam had done to her. She had insisted on returning to her old bedroom on the floor above but he'd said she needed to be close in case she went into labour.

Millie threw another glass. Adam dodged the tumbler and strode toward her. "Perhaps it is you I should move into the gatehouse!" he yelled as he forced her into a chair. "She will live in this house with my children!" He pointed behind him as he glared down at his wife. "And you shall behave yourself. You were once friends if you remember!"

Jessica watched tears roll down Millie's face. Her heart went out to her. To be so in love with him and yet so rejected. Jessica wondered what had gone wrong. She hadn't seen Millie since leaving school and she certainly hadn't known Millie and Adam had been in a tryst until the night they had framed her. Whose idea was that? Had Millie gone along with his plan or had she manipulated him? In past fights she had listened to them have, when coming to the big house to collect supplies from cook, she had heard Adam ask for a divorce but Millie had refused. Jessica wondered why. She had family, money and support. The means Jessica herself wished she had. She couldn't sit back and watch the two in their private war any longer so she stood and moved quietly to the door.

"Jessica! Sit down!"

She hesitated for a moment in thought with her hand on the knob. Jessica took a breath and stepped out through the door. She closed it behind her and ran down the hall. She felt sure he would come after her. Perhaps he would beat her for not obeying him. He might even do her the honour of killing her so she would no longer have to live with the ache of regret and loneliness that was buried in her heart. As she slowed to a walk, she realised that as yet Adam had not hit her. In fact, she hadn't seen him hit Millie but the memory of him striking her the night he took her to the old rookery was still fresh in her mind. Hannah had said he'd changed and she herself had certainly witnessed this but he still intimidated her with his threats.

He didn't follow her. She reached the garden, wiped her eyes and walked to the graves of the people she loved. Her father and mother. The mother she never knew. Jessica walked between the stones towards Edna's, her stepmother's grave. Adam's mother. Jessica wondered who his father had been. What sort of man was he? Edna had been a drunk. Jessica discovered this a long time ago, but her father tried to conceal it. She suspected that was why Adam had never lived with them. Perhaps he'd had enough of taking care of Edna and when Jessica's father married her, Adam was no longer needed and decided to stay away. Her father then sent her away to boarding school. Jessica was sure Edna's drinking had something to do with his decision. She thought about Millie. It seemed she was taking the same path as Edna. Perhaps this was why Adam despised her so much.

She sat in the shade of one of the trees and thought of Mary and Alice. Jessica smiled when she thought of Robert. He would have had his first birthday by now. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop her tears as memories of Louis flooded her mind. Was he happy? Would he and Rachel's child be born? Jessica rubbed her stomach. If she had known she was pregnant, she would never have left to come back to this life. She would have swallowed her pride and stayed. Had become his mistress and have loved him, as she still loved him. Jessica lay on the grass under the tree and looked up to the sky. She imagined Louis was with her and smiled. He would touch her face, kiss her gently and tell her he would never leave. She could see his hair as it hung into his clear blue eyes; thick and soft. His arms hard and strong; his lips warm and tender. Tears flooded her eyes and poured down her face. Jessica cried for her empty soul knowing she would never know that kind of love ever again.