Among the Darkness Stirs

“Quite?” she asked him.

He smiled broadly. “Quite.”

“Why are you smiling?” she asked, smiling back at him.

“Suddenly everything seems right with the world.”

“Does it?” she wondered.

His eyes were intense as they met hers. “It does for me.”

“Henry,” a womanly voice said, and they both turned to see Della Keene standing nearby with her mother beside her.

“Mrs. Keene. Ms. Keene,” he addressed them.

Nanette assessed Audrey with her eyes. “Ah. The schoolteacher.”

“Mrs. Keene,” Audrey said politely, but didn’t really want to speak to the two Keene women.

“You are surprisingly kind, Henry,” Nanette said slyly.

Henry frowned. “How is that?”

“Not only do you take such a deep concern in this young lady’s future, but you even take her out to a concert. That is generous. I’m not sure I would ever take my help to a concert, but then that’s me,” Nanette said coolly.

Henry refused to back down. “Yes, Mrs. Keene, you and I are different. And I daresay that Ms. Wakefield may be help, but she’s more educated than you or your daughter by far.”

Nanette Keene flushed red. “Indeed?”

“She speaks French, some Latin, and is well-versed in geography, math, and science,” he told her.

Della looked coldly at Audrey, who looked at her for a moment and then dropped her eyes. She had no wish to quarrel with the two women.

“I’m sure that’s not all she’s well-versed in,” Della said, and Audrey heard the vulgar meaning intended in the words and muttered an excuse to return to their box.

She felt flushed at the words Della had spoken. The two women were always trying to insinuate something was between her and Henry and demean her position. It must be that she was his mistress. She couldn’t have gotten the position on her own. Heaven forbid! Anger built inside her.

“Audrey!” She heard her name being called as she walked along the narrow hallway behind the box’s entrances. She ignored his voice until he grabbed her arm and pulled her around. “Audrey, I was calling you. Why didn’t you stop?”

She clenched her hands at her sides. “Because I’m angry. I’m tired of their snide comments and their insinuating sneers about how I got the teaching position.”

“What does it matter what they think?”

“Because I’m a respectable woman, Henry. They don’t have the right to say whatever they want about me. It’s insufferable.” How could he not see that?

He easily waved it away. “Don’t let it concern you. You know why they do it.”

“Why?”

“They don’t like seeing us together. They don’t want any other woman in my life except Della,” he said. She let her eyes fall to the floor. “But it doesn’t matter what they think. As I told you myself, Della’s mistake was too great. There is no going back.”

Audrey swallowed. “That’s what you say. But she still wants you. She wants to be your wife. She wants to be mistress of your grand house and that I heard from her myself. She thinks to win you back.”

Henry shrugged. “She can try. Certainly. But the woman I want by my side is the woman by my side right now.”

Audrey shook her head. “What are saying?”

He