Before the Vows

EPISODE 11: HIS RING

"Say it again," Lucas said. "Slowly."

Sera sat on an overturned crate in the moonlit sewing room, her mother's handwriting open in her lap, and made herself breathe. "Vivian borrowed it last week. She said it would mean so much to her. I thought it was sweet." A hollow laugh escaped her. "I thought she was being a sister."

"Or Adrian told her to ask."

"If they knew it was the key, they'd have torn it off my wrist in the garden."

"Not necessarily." Lucas paced the narrow room, boots scuffing dust. "R said, let's hope she doesn't have her mother's habits. They know your mother hid something. They don't know where. Borrowing the bracelet could be a guess. Or a test."

"Then she's wearing it to see what it opens."

"Tomorrow night is the farewell dinner." Sera stood, and her voice steadied as the plan took shape. "Adrian wants me at a window by the end of it. Before then, Vivian will wear that bracelet in front of forty guests. So I ask for it back. In front of everyone. Mama's bracelet, for the last night of my honeymoon."

"And if she refuses?"

"She can't refuse without Celeste watching her do it."

Lucas looked at her for a long moment. "You would have made a terrifying general."

"I've spent my whole life being underestimated. I had a lot of practice."

He stopped pacing and went to the window, and the moonlight cut his profile into silver and shadow. "It's nearly four. You need to be back in that room before the maid comes at six."

"I know."

He crouched beside the crate and unscrewed a battered thermos from his bag. Steam rose, sharp with coffee. He poured some into the cap, drank, and held it out to her.

She stared at the cup. "You tasted it first."

"Not because you can't trust me." His voice was low. "Because you shouldn't have to wonder. Not tonight. Not with me."

She remembered Adrian at the brunch table, lifting her cup before she could, smiling for the guests. Same gesture. Opposite meaning. She took the cup in both hands and drank, and the coffee was bitter and hot and honest.

"Tell me about your father," she said.

Something in his face gentled. "He sang while he did the books. Terribly. Off-key, loud, old love songs from the radio. My mother would throw dish towels at him from the kitchen." The corner of his mouth lifted. "He used to say numbers didn't lie, only people did. He believed it until the day he died."

Sera laughed, and in the middle of the laugh her eyes filled. She pressed the heel of her hand against them. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm..."

"Don't apologize."

His thumb caught a tear at the corner of her eye, light as a breath. Neither of them moved. She could hear the old mill creak around them, the wind in the broken skylights. His hand stayed at her cheek, warm and a little rough, and she found herself looking at his mouth.

He saw. His breath caught.

"Sera." His voice was rough. "Not like this."

"Lucas..."

"Not while you're still wearing his ring."

She looked down. The gold band on her left hand caught the moonlight. A symbol of three years of love, and last night's perfect lie. Slowly, deliberately, she twisted it off her finger. It left a pale, tender line in her skin. She dropped it into her coat pocket.

"I'll put it back before dawn," she said. "I have to. For now."

"And after?"

She lifted her eyes to his. "After, I'll decide who I want to hold."

For one second his face was completely open, hungry and aching and young. Then headlights swept across the broken skylights.

Both of them froze.

An engine growled outside, then another. Doors slammed. Men's voices rolled up from the yard below, hard and fast.

"They followed me," Lucas breathed. "Two cars at least. I checked every mirror."

"Adrian said he'd pull the footage from the alley..."

"He didn't need to." He seized her hand. "Move."

He killed the lantern and pulled her down the iron stairs two at a time. The great looms loomed around them like sleeping animals. Below, a flashlight beam slashed through the dark.

"Check the stairs! They're inside!"

"Freight lift," Lucas whispered, pulling her flat against a rusted machine. "East wall. My car's on the other side of the fence."

A man appeared at the end of the row, broad, a pistol in his hand. Lucas shoved a heavy iron bin off its rack. It hit the concrete with a crash like thunder, and the man spun toward the sound. "Now!"

They ran. Sera's coat flapped behind her, her bare, bandaged foot burning with every step. The freight lift was a rusted cage on a chain. Lucas hauled the gate open and threw her inside. As the cage dropped, a bullet struck the frame beside her head with a shriek of metal.

"Down!" He pulled her against his chest, his arm locked around her, his heart slamming against her cheek.

They hit the ground and burst out through a loading door into cold air and starlight. The black car sat in the weeds beyond the fence. Lucas threw her into the passenger seat, swung behind the wheel, and the engine roared.

A second shot shattered the side mirror. Sera screamed. Lucas drove through a hedge, across a ditch, and onto the lane without slowing.

"Are you hurt?" he shouted. "Sera, are you hurt?"

"I'm fine! Are you?"

"I'm fine." He was breathing hard, his knuckles bone-white. "I'm fine."

He did not let go of her hand until they reached the Blackwood lane, twenty minutes later, with the first gray light staining the horizon.

"I can't just go back," she said. "They know where you are. If they find..."

"They'll find nothing. They have me, not you." He turned, took her face between both palms, and pressed his forehead to hers. "Go home, Sera. Play the wife. I'll find you before the dinner."

"Lucas."

"Go."

She slid the ring onto her finger in the dark of the servants' passage, and it felt like a shackle clicking shut. Forty steps. The panel. The dressing room.

The bed still held its shape, a sleeping woman made of pillows. The lock was undisturbed. Relief went through her like warm water. She crossed the room toward the bed, slipping the gray coat off her shoulders.

A lamp clicked on behind her.

Sera stopped breathing.

Adrian sat in the armchair in the corner, one ankle crossed over his knee, a pillow cradled in his lap like a child. He must have been sitting there in the dark for hours. His eyes were calm. His smile was gentle.

"Where have you been, wife?"