Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Just a Distraction
January 6th
The ground under her boots was hard and uneven and her worn leather soles alternately slid and crunched on the muddy divots left by horse-drawn carriages. The shortcut she'd chosen to take would make the walk to the hilltop quicker if not easier. She never did anything the easy way, or so her father often reminded her.
This was her land. Her namesake to protect, and she would fight to the end of her days to ensure its integrity. No amount of nefariousness on the part of the Rawson Brothers would stop her from carrying out her goals and dreams. Her intent. Now, with evidence of trespass upon a remote part of her land, she could feel Christopher Rawson growing ever bolder, his typically inebriated smirk growing even more insufferable in her mind's eye. Finally, something would have to give. She would not be humiliated or cowed into submission by any man.
But at the moment, it was not all of those men, but rather, one woman, who dominated Anne's thoughts. And for once in the last 20 years, that woman was not Mariana. It was Ann.
It had been days...almost a fortnight since Ann had run to her arms upon her return from her visit with Mariana. Her wife had clung to her with tears of joy shining on her cheeks, and perhaps a considerable amount of relief as well.
"I shan't ever leave you again," Anne had said, and at that moment, she had surely meant it. Ann had asked her to lay with her that night, and she had, and it had been a wonderfully tender and emotional reunion. But already, the guilt seeped in. Every apology Anne was too cowardly to speak out loud had instead been silently redirected into Adney's lips, her hair, her skin, and Anne hoped, even to Adney’s very soul. "I am sorry, please forgive me," she thought over and over, the relentless thoughts keeping time with the rhythm of their bodies.
Deftly leaping over a patch of brambles, she narrowly avoided turning her left ankle, as she departed the road and headed up a steep slope. The lack of more than a dusting of snow made the journey easier, but when her knee slipped onto the cold wet grass on the stony hill, she cursed out loud. These boots had seen better days, and Adney had more than once recently scolded her about not going into Halifax to buy a new pair.
“You’re in town nearly every day to take care of business, Anne. And in so doing, you’ve neglected yourself,” Ann had insisted gently, less than one month ago. She had touched her sleeve lightly and moved closer brushing her chin against Anne’s shoulder. “I worry about you. Every day.”
Ann…. She recalled and replayed the scene from last night in her head over and over. Ann’s tone last night hadn’t been so gentle. Cold, distant, was more like it. Now, it seemed, everything had changed since Lawton Hall. Everything about her home life that mattered was now askew, and she didn’t know how to correct it. Anne had come to bed, and Ann had been waiting for her. For a few moments, she had been exhilarated by the prospect of making love to her wife, only to find that Adney was not even close to being in amoroso.
She had just finished washing up and was toweling off her face and neck when Ann had sat up cross-legged, with the bed covers twisted in her hands, an expression of anguish upon her delicate features. Anne felt her heart begin to thump heavily with adrenaline even before Adney spoke those words. “We need to talk.”
Anne had tried to pretend that everything was alright between them. “Oh? Of course, darling, what is it?” She’d pasted on a smile and lifted her eyebrows expectantly. Inside, her guts were twisting into knots.
Ann licked her lips nervously and looked down at the bed. “Since…since your return after Christmas things haven’t been the same. You’ve been distant from me.”
Anne frowned and sat down on the edge of the bed, but still quite a distance away from Adney. “Oh…well I haven’t intended to be. I thought…I thought this morning, you wanted me to touch you, but then you suddenly moved away and told me to stop—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ann snapped. “You put every effort into your work, but don't even try to give the same care to our marriage!”
Anne blinked and clenched her jaw but didn’t respond. She restrained her natural urge to argue back and instead waited, barely breathing.
“You told me when you came back from Lawton Hall that you had missed me. You finally told me that you love me. Do you know how much that meant to me?”
“I—I apologize—”
“For what?” Ann had raised her gaze to meet Anne’s and her eyes appeared a steely grey in the candlelight. Beneath the fine exterior was an iron will. A challenge. “What do you have to apologize for, Anne?”
Anne reached out and took Adney’s hands in her own. “For not being here for you. For not giving you the attention that you deserve.”
Adney pulled her hands away and averted her gaze. Her bottom lip quivered and a single tear escaped from her left eye. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she whispered.
Anne Lister's breath came in quick cloud bursts, as she tried to focus on the meeting she had demanded with Washington and Holt and not the guilt that seemed to pervade every thought waking and dreamt, since her return from Lawton Hall just after Christmas. "It was nothing but a quick grubble with Mary," she'd repeatedly told herself. "I gained not a bit of satisfaction from it, and shouldn't that make the blow lighter to Adney should she ever discover the truth of my crime?"
As she finally crested the hill, she saw Washington and Holt waiting for her in the distance. They were talking animatedly, and her anger toward the Rawsons began to boil again within her. She would take charge she would work out a plan, and then she would take action. She would distract herself, and only after she was thoroughly exhausted from the day, would she travel back home to her life and face the music.