“You must stop talking like this.” He went to her and caught hold of her arms. “Look at me, Frankie. I love you. Can’t you see I love you? I promise you you’re safe. I promise you there’s nothing to worry about.” She was staring at him.
“You love me? You? I didn’t think… I had no idea.”
“I don’t suppose you had,” Conrad said quietly. “I didn’t intend to tell you, but I can’t have you thinking you’re not safe. You’re more precious to me than my own life. You don’t have to be scared of Madge or the other two. They’re all right. Honest, they won’t let anyone near you, nor will I.”
She pulled away from him.
“But how can you love me?” she said, half to herself. “You know about me. You can’t love me.”
“Now look, Frankie, you’ve got to stop this nonsense. You’re not to blame for what your father did, and you’ve got to stop believing you are.”
She looked at him, her eyes shadowy with bitterness.
“So easy to talk,” she said. “So very easy to talk. You don’t know what it is like to have people point at you, to whisper about you, to pull their children out of your way. You don’t know what it is like to be hunted by a screaming, infuriated mob as I was hunted the night they killed my father. And now it’s going to start all over again. What a fool I was to have told you anything! What a stupid fool I was!”
He knelt beside her.
“Frankie, if you’ll let me, I’ll take care of you. I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll take you away when the trial’s over. We can start a new life together. I want you to marry me. No one will know who you are where we’ll go. We’ll go to England. I have a friend who wants me to sink some money in his farm. He wants me to be his partner. There’s a house for us, and no one will know you. Will you let me take care of you? Will you let me build a new future for you?”