Disrupted: Day 2

Word Count: 12,042

Summary of Events:

After having dinner at the home of the fellow hand whose wife cared for his children, Ezra and his family headed home where his younger son discovered a shivering wolf pup Ezra only agreed to take in because they found its mother's carcass. Ambrose came to visit Gwendolen and despite her discomfort she talked with him, although their conversation wasn't the most agreeable and, eventually Ambrose bit her while kissing her neck, leading to her elbowing him and then him almost choking her . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Desperately Gwendolen loosed her dress and corset and took deep, gulping breaths until she'd recovered enough to go over to the door and lock it. As added assurance against someone getting in she then dragged a chair over and lodged it under the doorknob.

She then sat down on her bed. She'd have to summon one of the maids in to help her refasten her corset, but she wasn't going to do so until she'd been assured and guaranteed that Ambrose had left.

There was no way he could be anything but a murderer. He'd tried to choke her! And then there was what he'd said while doing so.

He'd said she was his, that she had to obey him, and that he had a right to do whatever he willed. But they weren't married, so none of those things were true, until June, that was.

Or maybe not.

If that was how he was going to treat her, did she really want to marry him? If he was going to threaten to — and goodness knew, eventually — murder her, was it really worth doing this?

Yes, she was bound to obey her parents, but did that mean she should obey them when they were putting her into danger? She most certainly didn't think so.

But then what could she do? She couldn't just end the engagement, they'd hold her to it whether she wanted them to or not; besides, he'd likely kill her or try to kill her if she went and told everyone the reason why was because he was a murderer.

There was only really one thing for it, best she could tell. She had to leave. Not just her home, not just Pontiac, but all of Michigan. And she couldn't just go to Wisconsin or Indiana or Illinois, or any other nearby place.

She couldn't even go to Albany — where Margaret lived with her husband Hector — her best option was to go west, as that would give her the most space and the most hidden places where there were lots of new people and strangers.

And it would be easy to get there, now that there was rail connection most of the way, and then from there she could take a carriage of some kind to some sort of a good and secluded place where no one would recognise her, and where she wouldn't likely easily be found.

Yet there was still a quandary: surely someone at the train station might know her or recognise her. All manner of people used the train station, and being as they were mostly rich and influential people who were friends of each other and they would recognise her and be able to tell everyone that she went on the train to . . . Chicago, probably, and then from there she wasn't sure where it would go."