Free A Fatal Freedom by Janet Laurence

gently. ‘When did you decide to leave Joshua?’
    Alice sat pulling at the sodden linen of her handkerchief, took a deep breath and found her composure. ‘Joshua faced me with a private detective. He told me I had been followed. He had a whole list of times and places where Daniel and I had met.’ She gave a small gasp. ‘Rachel, you would have been proud of me. I don’t know how I held myself together; Joshua was outrageous and I found myself so angry.’ She looked round the room. ‘I think that’s why I’m here. Somehow, facing Joshua and that detective, I found I was stronger than I ever thought I could be. And I determined that from now on, I would not let Joshua rule my life.’
    Rachel patted the now still hands. ‘But didn’t you tell me you thought someone had been observing you?’
    ‘Oh, that! But I only thought maybe a young man was trying to find an opportunity to meet an unaccompanied female. I wasn’t used to going around on my own; I felt vulnerable. But I never imagined I was being followed by a detective.’
    ‘What did you tell Joshua?’
    ‘I said Daniel was a friend of yours, Rachel. Well,’ Alice glanced quickly at her aunt then looked again at her sister. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet at a poetry afternoon you took me to? Didn’t you introduce us?’
    ‘Quite right. Daniel and I have been friends for several years,’ Rachel said soothingly. She removed the sodden handkerchief and handed her the plate with a slice of cake that Ursula offered.
    ‘When we went to the menagerie, I hadn’t told you he would be there, had I?’
    Rachel shook her head. ‘But I was not surprised to find him waiting for us.’ She smiled at Alice.
    Her sister dropped her gaze. ‘He’d been pleading with me for weeks to leave Joshua. He said we could live on the continent, that it was cheap in the South of France. I have the income that Mama left me. It should be enough if we live simply. That is until Daniel becomes a famous author.’ She looked passionately into Rachel’s eyes. ‘He is so clever and yet he loves me; loves me as Joshua never has.’
    ‘We all love you, darling.’
    Alice ate a little of the cake in an absent-minded way. ‘It was at the menagerie that I realised how much I needed Daniel, that I couldn’t live without him.’
    ‘Pshaw!’ exclaimed Mrs Trenchard. Her hand resting on the desk clenched but she said nothing further.
    ‘I didn’t tell Joshua that, though, when he faced me with his detective,’ Alice said proudly. ‘I couldn’t tell him then that I was going to leave him; I had to make sure that, when I went, I wasn’t followed, because if Joshua found me, he’d force me to return.’ She gave a big sigh. ‘You will never know how hard it was to keep my true feelings secret, to make him think I was still an obedient wife.’ She smiled proudly and ate more of the cake.
    Ursula watched the way Alice leaned confidingly towards her sister. The girl seemed young for her years. How long had Jackman said Mr and Mrs Peters had been married? Five years? Alice could have easily passed for eighteen and yet she had been married to that brute of a husband for five years.
    ‘Yesterday I discovered that Joshua would be out that evening, a Masonic affair. I knew he would be late home and that he would sleep in his dressing room. So I wrote to Mrs Rokeby. Daniel had said his mother would be happy to take me in until we could leave for France. I told her I would come today. Then I wrote and told Daniel the same.’ She gave her sister another of those confiding looks. ‘Usually I would have given the letters to Millie, my maid, to post. But lately I have suspected that she has been too free with details of where I’m going. I told myself I was too suspicious; Millie and I have always been close.’ She gave a little gasp and put down the now empty plate, ‘I’ve always relied on her; in that dreadful house, she’s been my support, but how else could that