She tilted her head, watching him, then Thomasina stepped forward. Her tone was falsely bright as she knelt before the suitcase. “Why don’t I open it and hold up each item for you to access? That seems a better use of my hands than of yours.”
He grunted his acquiescence because he could find no other words. He held his breath as her delicate fingers loosened the stiff leather straps, sliding them through the buckles one by one and finally lifting the trunk lid.
It creaked like the door had, signifying the lifetime this case had been here. Or was it only a year? It felt like a lifetime. Everything always felt like a lifetime when it came to memories of his brother.
She reached into the trunk and withdrew the first thing she found. He flinched, turning his head.
“My brother’s pocket watch,” he said, and when he shut his eyes, he could see the intricately etched gold case and the carefully built face of the watch. Even though it wasn’t wound, he could hear the echo of its tick as the seconds passed by.
“It’s lovely,” she said, turning it in her hands. “Was it something Solomon bought for himself or a family heirloom?”
“Family heirloom.” He choked on the words as he allowed himself a peek at the watch as it rested in her delicate hands. “My great-grandfather purchased it near the end of his life. It was some kind of statement, I suppose, to wear one then, versus the kind on chains that were looped around the neck.” He shook his head. “My father treasured it and my brother used to crow to me about receiving it as part of his legacy. I’m shocked he didn’t gamble it away during one of his low points.”
She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and gently wrapped the golden watch in it. “It seems he still saw the value in it, beyond what he could get for it.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, feeling every muscle in his body tighten.
She glanced up at him. “It is a family heirloom, Jasper. If you do not wish to carry it, that’s your choice and I respect it, but I think it deserves more protection than to be kept in a hot, dusty attic. I will put it in my jewelry box. Perhaps one day we will pass it to a son or grandson.”
He caught his breath at that idea. Of course he would have children with this woman. The expectation that he carry on his father’s line was very great. But he hadn’t pictured those children until now. With her smile. With his hair. With her eyes.
He could imagine handing over the watch to one of them, and to his surprise, there was no pain in that idea. His son or grandson would have none of the bad memories of Solomon or Jasper’s father to go with the piece. The demons that went along with the watch would be gone by then.
And that was comforting.
She took the next item from the trunk with a gasp. A thick book. “Your family Bible,” she breathed.
“Neither my father nor my brother followed it, it was all for show,” he said. “And I fear my faith has been shaken too much to not be a hypocrite by placing it in a spot of honor.”
She nodded slowly. “Well, perhaps there will be a time for faith again, in the future. If not in the church’s doors, then in your own.”
He took those softly spoken words in. And realized they were already true. He had found faith. In her. And that was more powerful than any sermon he’d ever heard in a chapel.
“Take it down with us,” he suggested. “We’ll place it in the library. For those same children you believe will want that old watch.”
She smiled slightly at his tone and placed the Bible on the floor and the wrapped watch on top of it. She moved into the trunk again. She pulled a heavy fabric from the trunk. It was thick and black, and he stared.
“What is it?” she asked, staring at it in confusion.
He moved forward at last and touched the corner of the fabric that she held up for his inspection. He had a flash as he did so, of his brother’s coffin, draped in black. He shook his head. “This looks like the fabric on his coffin. It must be the extra bombazine from the roll and for some reason Reynolds—”
He cut himself off as he stared down into the trunk and his gaze found the next item within.
“Reynolds what?” Thomasina asked as she bundled the fabric up and placed it aside.
He couldn’t answer. He had no words. Not when he was looking down at a reminder of childhood that froze his heart. Broke his heart.
“Jasper?” she whispered, and her gaze flicked to the trunk.
She saw the toy bear he was staring at and gasped. “Oh. What is it?”
“Solomon’s bear,” Jasper whispered. She reached for it, but he shook his head. “No. No, please don’t touch it.”
She drew her hand back and looked up at him in concern. “Jasper?”
He gasped for air, trying to draw it in when it felt impossible. The button eyes of the toy held his, accusing, reminding him of something he had forgotten. Someone he had convinced himself didn’t exist.
“He was too old for the bear, my father said,” he whispered. “Twelve, I think, and he kept it hidden under his bed. I think he slept with it sometimes. My father took it. He said he was going to burn it.”
Thomasina recoiled at the cruelty Jasper described. He could see Solomon’s face so plainly, young and frightened and so angry. So filled with righteous hatred for the man who had half-heartedly raised them.
“It seems he saved the toy after all,” Thomasina whispered.
“No,” Jasper said, his voice cracking as emotion overwhelmed him, crashing over him in a wave more painful than anything he’d ever felt before. “I saved it,” he whispered. “I saved it for him.”
And then he buckled at the knees and collapsed to the floor as a thousand tears he’d not let himself shed overcame him.
Chapter 23
The sound Jasper made as his knees hit the floor was unlike anything Thomasina had ever heard before. It was the howl of an animal in intense pain. The grief of a man who had never let himself feel it.
She crawled across the scant distance between them and wrapped her arms around him, drawing him to her chest, stroking his hair as he wept out all he had concealed for such a long time.
She felt it all as it flowed through her. His mask was gone, all his accusations quiet. That hate that had protected him had been taken by a child’s toy and he was no longer able to use it as a shield.
They sat like that for what felt like an eternity. He clung to her without apology or attitude, and she prayed her strength would be enough to buoy him through this storm that threatened them both.
At last she smoothed her hand along his cheek once more and whispered, “Talk to me.”
He jolted at the words, as if they made him realize where he was and with whom. He straightened, turning his face as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m weaker than I thought.”
She wrinkled her brow. “No, you’re not. You have suffered and survived. That makes you so very strong. But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be human.” She cupped his face again and he let her. “Please, won’t you tell me?”
There was a long, charged moment where she could see he was fighting the idea of sharing with her. How could she blame him? Cutting himself off from his emotions had been his way to save himself from a rocky, difficult childhood. She understood barriers, boundaries to keep others from seeing inside.
But she had shared parts of herself with him that no one, even her sisters, understood. She wanted so desperately to be the same shelter for him now. If she wanted any kind of life with him, she had to win that battle.
But not by forcing it.
He cleared his throat, lifted his gaze to hers and whispered, “My father had thrown the bear into the parlor as he dragged my brother off to scream at him. I snuck in and took it. I hid it so the earl couldn’t destroy it.”
“What did you father do when he couldn’t find it?” she asked.
“He assumed one of the servants had thrown it out with the rubbish, I think, since he had
shouted so long and hard about destroying it. Went off to drink with his cronies and forgot the whole thing.”
He shivered, and in that moment she knew he wasn’t with her anymore. He was back in time, a little boy trying to save his brother. Trying to save them both from the kind of man who would punish a child for seeking comfort.
She didn’t push him, but let him live out that memory, watching as his eyes swelled with tears again, but this time they didn’t fall. This time he choked out, “I went to Solomon’s room that night. He was crying, I think I remember him crying. I showed him the bear.”
“He must have been pleased,” she whispered, looking into the box before her with its evidence that the late earl had kept his childhood toy close to him for a great many years.
“He was not,” Jasper corrected, his voice rough. “He shouted me out of the room, telling me he didn’t need baby things like I did. He said he’d burn it himself.”
She shut her eyes, feeling the laced, tight pain of her husband’s words. Feeling the rejection of his brother at the core of that kind act. And seeing the truth of it in the box in front of them.
“It must have been hard for him to go against your father,” she suggested gently.
He nodded. “I’m sure it was. As a child, his words hurt, but as a man I can understand it more.”
“Understand him, despite all he did.”
He was quiet a long moment, and then he sighed, “You know, I have spent so long hating my brother. Loathing what he became and what he did with his power. What he forced me to undertake when he so selfishly died.” He leaned in and she watched as he reached for the bear, then pulled away like he feared touching it would conjure some demon. “But looking at this ugly, battered child’s toy, I remember a thousand laughs and smiles. A thousand happier memories that I forced myself to forget when we were separated.”
“The good ones,” she said.
He jerked out an unsteady nod. “Yes. I wish I had recalled them earlier. Before—”
He cut himself off and got to his feet. He walked away, pacing the small room absently. She watched him as she stood, not approaching even though she so wanted to do that. To comfort again.
But he didn’t want that. She could see it. He might need it, but in a different form.
“Before he died,” she offered, filling in the gap in the sentence that hung between them.
“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I hadn’t spoken to him in a year before. He hadn’t paid some men and that kept me from being able to arrange a financial situation for myself. I confronted Solomon and we fought over his lack of self-control. I meant to reconcile. I thought we would. And then he was…gone.”
“Oh, Jasper.” The words were barely spoken loud enough for him to hear them, but he still flinched at them.
“Now I’ll never see him again,” he continued. “And as much as I have hated him for all the ways he failed, that is nothing compared to how much I hate myself for failing him.”
She stared at him, pain raw on his face as he looked at her and let her see down to his very soul. She knew that was a gift, painful as it may be. After all, this man held himself so stiff and proper and unyielding so much of the time. He wouldn’t show his broken heart to just anyone.
He’d chosen her. Not at first, perhaps, but in the end. And she wouldn’t let him down.
She moved toward him, watching his every reaction, carefully as if she was approaching a wounded beast. When he didn’t turn away, she caught his hands and tried her best to allow any strength she had to flow through herself to him.
“Life is so complicated, Jasper,” she said softly, choosing each word with the greatest of care. “We all have pains and regrets. But I think you’ve carried this one long enough, my love. Set it down.”
He shook his head. “How can you say that?”
“Because if your brother ever had any love for you, if he contained a fraction of the goodness you now recall about him and grieve, he wouldn’t have wanted for you to torture yourself. He would want you to release these weights on your shoulders.”
He turned his face, staring at the trunk across the room. “How can I when I’ve taken over what was meant to be his life?”
She touched his chin and drew his gaze back to hers. “But it’s not his life, Jasper.” When he jolted and tried to look away again, she held firm. “No, please don’t. Look at me. It is not his life anymore. It’s your life. If you don’t make it what you desire for yourself, you will be as lost as you think he was.”
He let out his breath in a long, shaky sigh. She released him then and turned, walking toward the trunk. She paused there. “Let him go, Jasper.”
She bent to pick up the bear, to return it to him in the hopes that the act of holding this thing that represented his loss would help. But as she lifted it, she gasped.
He had been staring at her as she moved, watching her every move, but now his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Thomasina?”
“It’s…it’s heavy,” she explained, switching to hold the old toy with both hands.
She moved toward him as she turned the bear, examining it to try to determine why it was as weighty as it was. It had to be more than half a stone, far too much for a child’s bedtime toy.
She paused as she turned the item upside down. There, hidden amongst the matted fur of the toy, was a strange seam, something that had been hastily sewn by a not particularly skilled hand.
“Look,” she said, holding it out toward him. “Was this always there?”
“I-I don’t know,” he murmured. “It could have been.”
She bit her lip and examined the scar along the base of the toy. “I’m going to tear it,” she said, looking to him for approval.
He hesitated a moment, then nodded.
She balanced the toy with one hand and tugged with the other. After a few tries, the seam began to give way. She wedged her hand inside the space, rending it further. Her fingers brushed something hard in the old fabric and she jerked her hand out as she brought her gaze back to Jasper.
“There’s something inside,” she whispered.
He nodded and held out his hands. “Let me steady it as you tear.”
She gave him the bear and his eyes widened at the weight she had described but he clearly hadn’t pictured. He held the toy in his palms, and now she used two hands to rip the seam the rest of the way open. Inside, where the toy’s stuffing should have been, was hard marble. She pulled it out and gasped.
“A statue,” she whispered.
* * *
Jasper stared at the beautiful bust perched in his wife’s hands. On the base was marble, with a terracotta sculpture of a woman perched on top. It wasn’t particularly large, but the detail was lovely.
“Is it a family heirloom?” she asked as she handed it over to Jasper.
He set the now-empty shell of the toy aside and took the sculpture, weighing it in his hands with a shake of his head. “No, most definitely not. I’ve never seen it before. There’s only one reason he would hide this in that toy, Thomasina.”
She nodded, for she had thought the same thing. Hoped she was wrong, but not believed it. “This is the treasure Maitland wants so badly.”
He flinched. How he wished he could deny that. How he wished he had found something to prove his brother wasn’t as connected to that villain as he obviously had been. Instead there was this. This proof of just the opposite.
He carefully handed the statue over to her and walked across the narrow room. He felt caged in now, both by the size of the space and the chains that his brother had created through bad decisions and equally bad friendships.
“What the hell was he thinking?” he muttered.
Thomasina brushed her fingers over the details of the clay lady’s face as she shook her head. “If he and Maitland stole this, if it is worth so much that it could cause this kind of chaos, it would have been difficult to find a buyer, wouldn’t it? The robbery might have been reported.”
<
br /> “They’d have to go underground,” Jasper breathed.
Thomasina worried her lip as she stared. “I know this belongs to someone else. It isn’t ours to use as a bargaining chip. It certainly isn’t Maitland’s. But Jasper…my sister.”
He pivoted to face her and saw her crumpled expression. She wasn’t certain he would put her family first. Put her first. He hadn’t yet proven himself to her. And that broke his heart as much as anything else he had uncovered in this dark and dingy room.
He moved toward her, shaking off his own concerns for the moment in trade for hers. “Of course we are going to help Anne if we can with this item. I don’t love that it is stolen and that I will be party to keeping it from its rightful owner, but the life of your sister is worth more.”
She wobbled slightly at that declaration and her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “So what is our next step then? How do we use this to find Anne and bring her home to us?”
Jasper stared at the statue and the unblinking lady’s gaze, with all its accusations. “I’m not sure. We already know Maitland is close by, watching.”
“Because he ransacked the storage building just after we searched it,” she said.
“You said that it wasn’t a coincidence and I happen to agree. Perhaps we can draw him out.” He shook his head. “But I’m not the expert here. Reynolds would be the better person to help formulate this plan.”
“Your man of affairs. You sent someone to fetch him.” She shifted. “Jasper, every moment we wait I feel my sister’s life is in danger.”
He set the hated statue down on the floor beside himself and caught her hands. “I understand, but Reynolds is but a handful of hours’ ride away on a fast mount with a skillful rider. And I’m certain he’ll return as swiftly as possible once he gets my message. I think we can safely expect him by morning. It’s only a short delay, Thomasina, and then we can be more ready. The last thing we want to do is be as reckless as Maitland is.”
“You think that if we’re calm, we’ll have the upper hand.”
A Reluctant Bride Page 21