Unrelenting Love: Banished Saga, Book Five

by Ramona Flightner

  “I do too,” Teddy said, frowning. “And no talk of death on a day when we should be celebrating your triumphant march through Boston. As the struggle continues, I’ll give all the support I can.”

  Sophie patted his hand in agreement, and they shared a conspiratorial smile before settling in to watch as the gathering slowly broke apart.

  Parthena walked beside Morgan, shaking off his arm upon entering their house and striding up the stairs. She marched down the long hallway to their suite of private rooms and flung open the door. Her purple hat flew across the room as she approached the opposite side of the sitting room. “How could you?” Parthena screeched. She vibrated with pent-up fury as Morgan entered their sitting room and closed the door.

  “I’m certain I’ve done nothing to earn your wrath, Parthena.” He barely moved from the door before she launched herself at him, hitting him on his shoulders and chests with closed fists. He grasped her arms to prevent her from pummeling him further. She wrenched one arm free and ripped the red rose from his lapel. “How could you do this to me?”

  “Why would it matter to you what I do?” He shook his head with disbelief. “For months, you’ve chosen to act as though we barely share a living space, and now you are concerned because I dared to express my opinion as to the upcoming referendum?”

  She backed away from him, rubbing at her face. “It’s important to me,” she rasped through her tears. “It’s important to the women I know to be able to have their own voice. To not depend on their fathers or husbands to vote for causes they believe in. For candidates who would represent us. Can’t you understand that?”

  Morgan ran a hand through his hair and walked past her, into the sitting room. “All I see is that universal suffragism will lead to increased societal chaos. I have no wish to be proven correct.”

  Parthena crumpled to the floor, her breath stuttering from the afteraffects of her sobbing and rage. “Change always provokes some chaos, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong or leads to a permanent state of disarray. How can you want so much for yourself and allow so little for me?”

  Morgan stood with a rigid posture, his hands gripped at his sides, before he exhaled deeply. “Parthena, you are on the verge of becoming hysterical. I can’t abide that. You must cease your activities with such women.”

  Parthena lowered her head as tears coursed down her cheeks. “I’ll never stop my activities with them. I’ll never stop playing the piano. I’ll not allow you to change me into a person who is fearful of the future because of what happened in the past. I refuse to become you.” The derision in her voice caused a flush to rise on his cheeks.

  Morgan marched to her and lowered himself to kneel in front of her. He stooped so that he met her gaze, his broad shoulders hunched down as he matched her pose on the carpet. “Do you have any idea what it is like to lose everything? To have to live by deceit to survive?”

  Parthena shook her head. He grasped her hand, stilling her instinctive movement away from him. She shook her head again, unwilling to speak.

  “My father lost everything in the Panic of 1893. I was eleven. Do you know what that is like? To suddenly not have a home to return to? To have only the clothes on your back? To not be allowed to approach your friends because, if they knew the truth, they would not acknowledge you?” His jaw tensed at his recitation. “I was eleven, but I knew I had to help. I bartered. I begged. I stole. I did whatever I had to do to help my family survive.” He closed his eyes. “The only thing I refused to do was murder.”

  Parthena stroked a thumb over his hand held in hers. “Oh, Morgan.”

  “I learned that my father had lost control of his company and his fortune. Lost control of my mother,” he grated out. “And I swore I would always be in control.”

  “How?” At his perplexed stare, she asked, “How did he lose control?”

  “Bad investments. Overextending himself.” He clamped his jaw shut. “My mother wanted little to do with a poor man. She ran away with her rich lover to live in Europe.”

  “I thought your mother was dead,” Parthena said, her eyes wide. “I thought they loved each other.”

  “She is now dead. She died a few years ago. In impoverished splendor in Luxembourg.” He met his wife’s gaze. “Although she died for me the moment she abandoned us and boarded that boat in 1893. Yet my father loved her. Desperately. He loved her until he died.”

  “How did you return to prominence?” she whispered. “My parents seem to have always known you and your father.”

  “Your family was the only one who knew the truth, and you never turned your backs on us. Your father lent me money for my first venture. He advised me what to do with the money. Thankfully I knew enough by then that he was a lousy businessman and didn’t follow his advice, or we wouldn’t be sitting in a grand house in the Back Bay. We’d still be in a tenement somewhere.”

  “But you were always dressed properly when you called,” she whispered.

  He smiled derisively. “Oh, how important clothes are. The first thing we did when we had any money was buy one set of acceptable clothes. I’m certain you never noticed that, for years, I wore the same clothes every time I saw you. That the seams had begun to show as I grew and that the cuffs were turned out.”

  Parthena shook her head at that detail. “Why does no one whisper about this? It’s the sort of scandal everyone would love to bandy about, especially with me.”

  His gaze shrouded at her allusion to their discord. “When my father realized he’d lost everything, he had the sense to fabricate a story, promoted by your father, that we were selling up to further our fortune in New York City. Some didn’t believe him, but, when we essentially disappeared from Boston, they lost interest in us.”

  Parthena looked toward the window, her gaze flitting as though reimagining old scenes. “Which is why my father was irate the one time I invited someone else over when your family was to call.”

  Morgan nodded. “No one was to know we were still in Boston. And no one ever did discover that, not where we were living.” He sighed. “When I learned everything I could about trading and how to build a business, and subsequently rebuilt our fortune, we returned from New York in triumph.”

  “Which is why you never talk about your old boarding school days and friends,” she murmured. “You didn’t have those days the way other men, men like Owen Hubbard, had.” Her brows furrowed. “But you talk about Harvard. You all talk about your Harvard days.”

  “I went to high school, but it was a public school. By the time I was old enough for university, I’d saved enough to go to Harvard, just like my father and grandfather. I attended, working every weekend and most nights, but I attended.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then no one could doubt that the Wheelers were still successful. If I’d failed to go to Harvard, there would have been devastating rumors.” Morgan’s jaw tightened at the word.

  “Of course. Appearances,” Parthena muttered.

  He gripped her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Don’t make light of what I suffered when you’ve never had to sacrifice anything.”

  Parthena frowned but did not rise to his baiting. “I wished I’d known.”

  “I don’t want your pity,” he snapped, releasing his hold on her.

  Her head jerked at his harsh tone, the intimate moment destroyed by the return of his cold demeanor. “You’ll never understand me, Morgan. I wasn’t offering you pity or scorn or ridicule. I was offering you understanding and compassion and …” She broke off as she stood, her breath coming out in panting gusts. “You’ll never understand because you won’t even try.” She stormed from the room and slammed the door behind her.

  He lay backward onto the carpet, waiting for the harmonious music to sound from the piano. He smiled when he heard her begin to play. “Ah, but I do understand,” he murmured. He settled onto the carpet, relaxing the more she played, listening to her impassioned performance.

  Martin entered his store, smi
ling to the man behind the counter. “I hope all went well in my absence today, Joe.” At the man’s smile and nod, Martin breathed a sigh of relief and walked toward his office.

  “Mrs. Martin was looking for you earlier, sir,” Joe said before he turned to the customers entering the store, the bell on the door tinkling to announce their arrival.

  Martin nodded in resignation and entered his office. He came to an abrupt halt as he beheld his wife sitting behind his desk. “What are you doing here?”

  She raised her head from studying a ledger and frowned at him. “I should think it were obvious, Martin. I used to help more in the store, and I always had a better head for the figures.”

  After shutting the door, he took off his jacket and hung it on a peg behind the door. He eyed his wife warily. “You haven’t shown an interest in the store in years. Why now?”

  “You pay entirely too much money for help.” She tapped at one of the lines in the ledger. “I had no idea we were so prosperous to need an attendant most days.”

  Martin groaned and sat in the rocking chair, what used to be her chair. “Mattie, I can’t do the paperwork, the orders, and the inventory while also taking care of customers. You know it’s impossible.”

  Matilda’s mouth firmed in displeasure. “Yes, that’s why we had a son. So he would help at, and one day inherit, the store.”

  Martin shook his head before scratching at his forehead. “We didn’t have a son for that purpose. We had a son because … because we were so fortunate to be gifted with a son. He has a wondrous talent, Mattie. I wish you’d hear him perform some day.”

  “I have no need of it. He is a disgrace, and there is no more to be said on the issue.” Her mouth trembled with her agitation. She focused on Martin, and her eyes flashed as she noticed the yellow rose in his lapel. “I presumed you were running errands for the store. There is no other acceptable reason for you to be absent when the store is open.”

  Martin laughed and relaxed into the rocking chair. “You can try to reprimand me, but it won’t work. I’ve given everything I have to this store and my family.” He closed his eyes as he hummed a few lines from “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Then he spoke to his wife, without bothering to open his eyes to look at her. “I watched the march today. Zee’s march.”

  At the intense silence permeating the room, Martin opened one eye. Matilda sat frozen, her face reddening with each passing moment. He smiled, closed his eye, and continued to rock as though in perfect contentment.

  “How dare you attend such an event? It’s disgraceful!”

  He shivered at the high-pitched shriek, then sighed with resignation that she would never be agreeable. Her banishment to Savannah’s room had not evoked any softening of her toward him, nor silenced her complaints. He smiled with steely resolve at his ability, at last, to take a firm stand with her, although the only refuges left to him now were his office, until today, and his bedroom. If she continued as always, he feared he’d have to make good on his threat and begin divorce proceedings.

  “Everything that doesn’t conform to your way of viewing the world is disgraceful. However, I disagree. We need discourse in our lives. We need those who challenge us to envision the world in a different manner. Universal suffrage does that. I am very much in favor of it, and I couldn’t be more proud of the spectacle I witnessed today.”

  “When I think of what my parents would say…” she sputtered as she glared at him.

  “Oh, they’d think it a disgrace, but they enjoyed supporting the Antis.” He smiled, enjoying shocking her again. “I ran into them as I was moving through the crowd. They sat in a car on one of the streets that joins Beacon near the Hill as they are old and didn’t want to stand. The parade marched directly in front of them.”

  “I imagine they were appalled to discover you were there.”

  “They were most disturbed by the fact I sang the suffragist songs and wore a yellow rose. Of course their car was festooned in red.” He smiled. “This is a democracy, Mattie. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion.” When she merely continued to glower at him, he sobered. “I don’t understand why you don’t want the vote for yourself. You are intelligent”—he pointed to the books spread out in front of her—“and you have your own opinions.”

  “That clearly are not in line with yours!”

  “Exactly. So why wouldn’t you want your own vote and voice when it comes to politics? It makes no sense to me.” He waited as she remained resolutely silent. “It seems to me that you are terrified of any change, when the only constant is change. If you embraced it, you might enjoy life more.”

  “Don’t lecture me about enjoying life,” she hissed.

  He held up his hand as he hefted himself to his feet. “And don’t bother lecturing me about all you gave up to marry me. I’ve long since learned you have little regard for me, although I will always be thankful for the years you allowed me to live with the fallacy of my belief in your love. If you will excuse me, I will check on the store.”

  17

  The week after the march, Teddy agreed to attend a soiree with Zylphia. He paused as he faced the brownstone’s steps, taking a deep breath. Zylphia looped her hand through his arm in silent encouragement. He firmed his jaw and ascended the stairs.

  Upon entering the main parlor, the hum of conversation dimmed for a moment before swelling to a dull roar. His muscles tightened as he felt curious stares which he met with a straightforward intensity that caused the other partygoers to look away.

  “Your glowering at them doesn’t help,” Zylphia murmured as she smiled at someone across the room. “Act as though you’re having a good time.”

  “I hate these things. I always have,” he muttered as he accepted a flute of champagne.

  “Most of us do, but we play the part,” Zylphia said. She smiled broadly as Sophronia made her way to them.

  “Infernal gossips. So intent on getting their first sighting of you that they wouldn’t get out of my way,” Sophie muttered as she swung her cane around, nearly hitting a member of the hostess’s staff with a full tray of champagne glasses. “I’d think they’d show some gumption and come talk with you.”

  “I’d rather they kept their distance,” Teddy said, smiling for the first time that evening.

  “Well, what you want and what happens are rarely in line. You must circulate,” she said with a pointed stare at Teddy. “And you must not hover, Zylphia. Let the man go, lest they think he’s an invalid and can only be present due to your assistance.”

  Zylphia reluctantly lowered her arm from Teddy’s, running her hand down his arm and squeezing his hand once in support before she ceased all physical contact with him. “I see the theme of red roses continues,” Zylphia murmured.

  “There are those with such limited intelligence that it’s not worth commenting,” Sophia stated as she nodded and moved away.

  Soon Zylphia was separated from Teddy as she was asked to dance. He watched as she moved into the ballroom to dance with a Mr. Danforth. Teddy chastised himself for not asking her to dance first and thus preventing being separated from her.

  “How does it feel, Mr. Goff, to be home and reunited with Zee?” a man asked from behind him.

  He turned to face a stranger with longer-than-acceptable brown hair in an impeccable tux with a yellow rose in his boutonniere. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”

  “I beg your pardon. I’m Lucas Russell, a cousin of Miss McLeod’s. Of a sort,” he said with a smile. “I’m the pianist. My sister is Savannah McLeod, married to Jeremy.”

  “It’s wonderful to meet you,” Teddy said, extending his hand. He noted Lucas tracking a couple and his jaw twitching with agitation before Lucas smiled glibly. “What would you want with Mrs. Wheeler?”

  “You have been out of society,” Lucas said with a laugh. “No one is ever that blunt.” He took a sip of his drink, effectively evading Teddy’s question. “I received an invitation to your wedding yesterday. I’m delighted to attend.”r />
  Teddy studied him a moment. “Could you do more than attend? Could you write a piece of music for us that we could dance to at the reception? Mr. McLeod is insistent we have a large party after the wedding, and I would like to do something for Zylphia that is ours and not planned by someone else.”

  “I’d be honored,” Lucas said. “Aidan wants to show how proud he is of his only daughter and her choice in a husband. You’re fortunate to have such a man as a father-in-law.”

  Teddy nodded his agreement and nodded again as Lucas slapped him on the arm as a means of good-bye. Teddy looked into the parlor to see Parthena and Morgan approaching him, and he frowned as Lucas melted into the crowd.

  “Mrs. Wheeler, wonderful to see you,” he said. “Morgan.” He saw Morgan’s tight grip on Parthena’s arm and her icy disdain for him. “It is wonderful to see you both again.”

  “It’s about time you showed yourself in public rather than hiding away in that horrid lab of yours,” Morgan said, gripping Teddy’s hand with no indication he cared his hand was injured.

  “I was at the parade last week,” Teddy protested.

  “We know that doesn’t count for society,” Morgan said.

  “I imagine he’s done more than hide in a lab,” Parthena said as she reached a hand out to Teddy in greeting. “It’s like old times, having you among us again. I can’t tell you what it’s done for Zylphia to have you back.”

  Teddy flushed with pleasure. “It’s done wonders for me as well,” he murmured, provoking a small flush in Parthena’s cheeks and a throat-clearing by way of censure from Morgan. “Congratulations on your recent nuptials. I’m sorry to have missed the festivities.”

  “Seeing as you were wounded and missing, I think you can be excused,” Morgan joked. He flashed a rare smile at Teddy. “I hope you are adapting to Boston upon your return.”