Page 56 of If The Fates Allow
Closing her eyes, Bonnie nodded and turned her head when a tear rolled down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away and regained her composure within seconds of it falling. “Let Lucy be happy. Give her to Richards. The marriage will secure the planting land in Hollingsdale,” she told him, stroking Willa’s hair. “We have another in with the Anderson family, and if an alliance forms, the mills will grow, securingthat the Fairweathers will always remain at Haven House, as it should be.”
“You can’t mean Wilhelmina?” Her father’s dark eyes squinted at her wheezing on the bed. “The doctor might be entertaining himself with a little flirtation, but he’s too handsome. He’ll leave this place and forget all about her.”
Bonnie chuckled. “He’s already had her, Stephen. The deed is done, and she could be with child already.”
Moaning in denial, Willa braced for her father’s anger, knowing in this state she would not survive if he chose to physically attack.
“Well, well, Willa. Aren’t you a surprise?” Her father kneeled to look her dead in the face. “I would have never thought you’d have the courage to do something like that.”
“They used his medical cottage from what the whispers are saying, and I was quite tickled by the irony.” Bonnie turned to speak directly to Willa. “That’s where your father and I would go in our younger years. It was our little ‘house’ where we pretended the world was different and we could be together,” she said. “Our daughter was even born there. On a cold January morning, she took her first breath, and by the afternoon, she took her last.”
Willa didn’t know if she should be shocked or horrified or both, but it was the one time in her life when she was thankful for this awful disorder’s ability to rob her of speech.
“We won’t get anything out of the Andersons if she’s dead. Where is that damn tea?” Her father rose to stand and turned to the door as if he were expecting someone to magically appear. “Or perhaps we should call the doctor?”
Bonnie watched him pacing, her gaze shifting into a quiet resolve as she tracked his movements. “That bruise on her cheek will just upset him. It’s best to leave calling Dr. Anderson over as a last resort.”
Groaning between the hacking, Willa could only listen to Bonnie’s reasoning even though she wanted to cry out in denial. She needed Noah. This attack could be one of her worst, and she was terrified.
Her father grunted something under his breath and returned to examine her. “Do you really think Noah Anderson is going to make a wife out of Willa?” he asked, a bit perplexed. “Willa? Bon, be serious. How on earth issheever going to make him happy?”
“Have a little faith.” Bonnie patted Willa’s hip, the very one she had landed on. It hurt like the devil, and she had a feeling Bonnie knew it. “We can help her. Margaret and I can teach her how to please a man properly.”
Willa covered her face with her hands. This sickeningly bizarre conversation bordered on the insane and was causing her chest to hurt as much as her head.
“You be the one to talk to her, Bon. That wife of mine couldn’t please a dead man,” her father’s gruff voice said. “And you listen to me, girl. If you can secure yourself an Anderson that will force Ulrich to merge our mills, then I’ll throw you the biggest damn wedding in the history of Haven House.”
Chapter 17
I’ll throw you the biggest damn wedding in the history of Haven House.
Lying flat on her back, Willa watched the shadows dance on the ceiling. Everything hurt. Every bone in her body held an aching weariness like she hadn’t felt in years.
Throw her a wedding? Was he joking?
She had almost laughed. Lost in her attack, she had truly almost laughed directly in his horrible face. All she had ever wanted was for them to accept her. They never had to love her. Hoping for a Fairweather to love something other than themselves was a stretch, but accepting her? Had that been too much to ask?
And now, in the blink of an eye, when she was suddenly a useful pawn, he wanted to give her a beautiful wedding. The years of abuse ran deep in this house, and he wasn’t about to erase them with a pretty party to celebrate the daughter he could hardly tolerate.
Stifling a groan so as not to wake anyone, Willa rose from the bed. She only had one more night here. One more day to make it through. Looking around her room, she felt suddenly nostalgic, reliving all the memories the space held. The conservatory was her public sanctuary, but here in her room, she could pretend to be anything she wanted.
In her younger years, it had been her and Grace. Playing for hours while Willa was always inevitably ill, she and her sister created kingdoms from their imagination. Cal would join in every so often, forced to participate as the diabolical villain. When Lucy came along, it had been such fun to show their smallest sibling the tiny world they had created right under Haven’s roof.
But then time moved on. Bored with their games, her brother and sisters left her, each seeking to discover the real world—to have real adventures—without her.
Grimacing at the pain radiating from her shoulder, Willa tried to stretch the muscle. She should sleep. It was desperately needed, but she was too nervous over the possibilities of tomorrow, and as her brain rehashed every question a thousand times over, one singular thought was louder than the rest.
Would she be enough?
Would Noah truly love her forever? Would he willingly grow old with her? Would she be enough to keep a man like him captivated for all eternity?
Or was her father right? Would Noah grow tired of her eventually?
Self-doubt was almost as devious a demon as hope. The two emotions warred inside her brain, making her feel foolish and unsure of everything.
What if they left, and he abandoned her on the way to Ohio? But what if they settled down and lived happily ever after? What if his parents hated her? But what if his parents loved her? What if her condition grew worse, and he found himself tied to a person he was required to tend to night and day? But what if she got better up north and could live like a normal person?
Covering her mouth, Willa attempted to cease her crying, but it was impossible. Being shunned her entire life and treated as if she was less of a person because of her illness had taken its toll. The neglect had destroyed the woman she might have been. A woman who might have easily enthralled Noah Anderson and kept him happy.
