Page 63 of An Honorable Deception
Alethia hadn’t understood that as a child. And now, as an adult, she knew how much those words must have cost her friend. Knew that Samira must have doubted and railed and sobbed to God when she was alone.ThatAlethia could understand. She hadn’t wanted to suffer—who did? She hadn’t seen how it could possibly be for any good purpose, because evil was so clearly at work. But Samira had always smiled that away too.
“Do you think the men who killed Jesus meant Him anything but harm? Do you think He did not feel the pierce of it when all His friends abandoned Him to death? Do you think, when He willingly took our sins upon His sinless back as He hung on that cross, that being separated from the Father for the first time wasn’t the worst agony of all? But from that suffering came salvation for the world.”
She could very nearly feel Samira’s fingers in her hair as the rain dripped down. Smoothing it back, promising one thing, at least, that was safe and secure.“My love is imperfect, little sister. My suffering can save only your body, not your soul. But I offer it freely because He showed me theway. I offer it because then He can redeem the pain. He can use it. It can shape me in His image.”
She sat there until Samira’s words of love were louder than the ones of hate in her mind. She sat there until the rain washed the heat of resentment away. She sat there until she remembered that Christ was not far off, that her true Father hadn’t turned His back on her. He hadn’t abandoned her. He hadn’t chosen himself above her good.
She’d been praying long enough for her hands to turn to ice in the summer rain when Penelope’s chatter warned her someone was coming. It could have been one of the Caesars, and she’d have let them lead her back to the house where Zelda could scold her and help her change into dry clothes and wrap her in a blanket.
It was Fairfax, though, and he sat on the log beside her instead, looking straight ahead rather than at her face. Penelope moved from his shoulder to hers, and Alethia stroked her wet fur for a moment before the monkey jumped onto a nearby tree branch.
“When Mr. A went into the Empire House,” he said after a moment, “he found Samira protecting a little girl who had managed to break out of her own room a few minutes before, but who didn’t have a way out from there. Samira was hiding her in the wardrobe.”
How long would he insist upon talking about “Mr. A” as if he were some other person? Part of Alethia wanted to invite him to drop the charade. She wanted to point out that his eyes, as he said those words, were not the eyes of someone who had only heard the story. They were the eyes of someone who had seen. Seen the horrors. Seen the sacrifice. Seen Samira for themself.
But they all had their secrets, and holding them tight was sometimes the only way to get through a day. She inclinedher head. And she smiled. “That sounds like Samira.” So exactly like Samira. Though the smile faded again. Samira had been able to protecther—but they hadn’t been in a brothel. “The girl...?”
Lord Fairfax smiled. “Her name is Lucy. She’d only been in that place for a day, and no one had—she was untouched, praise God. She’s safe now, back with her family.”
“Thank you, Lord.” She tilted her head up as she said it, knowing the same God who sent the rain to bathe her face was watching that little girl too. Watching Samira. “The fact that she could help another—she’ll say that makes the suffering a joy. She’ll say that she’d do it again, willingly, if it meant salvation for Lucy. Or if she could speak an encouraging word to someone. Or if she could remind hearts filled with despair that there’s a reason to hope.”
She closed her eyes, letting Samira’s words fill her anew. Letting her own faith brush its soothing hand over the pain. “A God who loves them, even when they can’t see it. A Savior who will welcome them to His table and will turn away unrepentant hearts, no matter how supposedly noble or nominally Christian.”
“She sounds like the best kind of teacher. The best kind of family.”
Alethia nodded.
He sighed. “She thought she was protecting you still too. That if she went along quietly, you wouldn’t be harmed. It’s why she wouldn’t leave right away.”
Of course she wouldn’t, not if he’d said what he always had before.“I’ll spare her. If you...”Alethia shook her head. “Samira is resourceful. Clever. And stronger than anyone else I’ve ever known. She’ll be all right. I don’t—I don’t blame Mr. A for how this played out.” She snuck a glance at his profile.
He didn’t glance back. “Will you blame him for telling your mother?”
The resentment wanted to pound its way to life again, but Alethia swallowed it back. “I am perhaps a bit surprised that he trusted her enough to tell her what is going on. That he sent her here with you.”
Now he looked over. “One of his people heard her lying to your father about where you are. They realized that she knew something already, and that she was doing all she knew how to do to protect you. It may not seem like enough to you, my lady—and perhaps it wasn’t, objectively. Perhaps she looked away too long. Perhaps she was too ready to blame someone other than herself. But she loves you. And she did what she knew to do, once she knew to do it. That’s more than many people can say about their parents.”
Lavinia, as a prime example. And him? Marigold? She knew so little about the family that had given them their blood, their name, their pedigree. She only knew the one that had parked their vardo in the courtyard and claimed them as their own.
She glanced toward the tree that had held his gaze. “I was too hard on her back there. I’ll apologize. I think ... I think it was more the company than her, really. So long we’ve protected these horrible secrets—then she blurts them out, there with Sir Merritt and Lord Xavier looking on.”
“Sir Merritt had already heard Mr. A’s summation of events. As for X ... I tried to tell him he wasn’t invited, but the moment he overheard us mention your name, he was as single-minded as a bloodhound on the hunt.”
That made her blink in surprise. “Why?”
Fairfax breathed a laugh as he looked at her. “The fact that you have to ask likely explains it all. We tried sneaking away and telling him we were going somewhere else onanother train, but he didn’t fall for it. He was waiting in his car at the station in Alnwick when our train pulled in, looking smug as a cat.”
He shrugged, facing forward again. “As to your greater point—the secrets you’ve been burdened with protecting. They’re not your guilt to carry. You have no cause to be ashamed.”
She understood what he was saying, why he said it, and she could appreciate the encouragement he tried to give. But he was wrong. “Before God, no. But before society?” She shook her head. “If the men of the Empire House are brought to the justice that is fitting, then it is their families, the innocents involved, who will bear the mark of it. Carry the shame for the rest of their lives. Their wives and children who will truly be punished.”
Fairfax’s eyes slid shut. “I know.Weknow. That’s why the plan the Imposters have devised doesn’t rely on the sort of justice that involves the courtrooms and the press.”
Relief warred with curiosity inside her. “Whatdoesit involve then?”
He opened his eyes again, and a grin played at one corner of his mouth. “A band of thieves with an axe to grind—Lucy’s family.”
“I ... have no idea how to respond to that.” She gave herself a moment to let the idea settle, but still she had to shake her head. “Can we trust them? I seem to recall an old adage about no honor among thieves.”
