“The contract is everywhere now.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow everyone will know.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound concerned.”
“I’m not.”
Eliza frowned.
“Nathan.”
He walked closer.
“What part should concern me?”
“That they know we married for practical reasons.”
“We did.”
“That they know about separate rooms.”
“We had them.”
“Had?”
Nathan’s face remained innocent.
Eliza’s cheeks warmed.
“Very confident.”
“I said nothing.”
“You emphasized had.”
“Grammar matters.”
She almost laughed.
Then became serious.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“What if I don’t want six months?”
He stopped.
Eliza’s heart hammered.
“I mean…”
“I know what you mean.”
“No, let me say it.”
He waited.
She moved closer.
“I asked for a temporary husband because I believed marriage was something I needed to borrow.”
“I thought I could return it when the danger passed.”
Nathan’s mouth moved slightly.
Eliza continued.
“Then you became the person I wanted to tell things to first.”
“The accounts.”
“The children.”
“Mrs. Talley.”
“When I am angry.”
“When I am frightened.”
She swallowed.
“When something makes me laugh at school, I save it so I can tell you at supper.”
Nathan’s expression softened completely.
Eliza looked down.
“That feels inconvenient.”
“Terribly.”
She smiled through sudden tears.
“I don’t want to leave at six months.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“Neither do I.”
She looked up.
“I know.”
“How?”
“You crossed out the ending before we began.”
He smiled.
Eliza touched his vest.
“So what happens to the contract?”
Nathan considered.
“We keep it.”
“Why?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“That you were frightening even before marriage.”
She hit his chest lightly.
He caught her hand.
Then his expression grew serious.
“Also because one day I want us to remember that staying was not required.”
Eliza’s throat tightened.
Nathan lifted her hand.
Kissed her knuckles.
“We chose it.”
She leaned forward.
Kissed him.
No audience.
No board.
No contract.
Just them.
The county investigation lasted four months.
Grayson’s accounts were worse than Eliza expected.
School funds.
Road contracts.
Charitable subscriptions.
Freight invoices.
Small thefts spread across years because small thefts attract less attention.
The sexual coercion allegations were harder to adjudicate.
Some lacked witnesses.
Some were too old for practical legal remedy.
But patterns mattered socially even when law moved poorly.
Grayson lost his board position.
His mercantile partnership dissolved.
Several civil claims followed.
No grand spectacle.
Consequences often arrive as paperwork.
Eliza preferred that.
Harlan sold his mill after Grayson’s creditors began fighting over notes.
Before leaving Willow Creek, he came to apologize.
Eliza listened.