“Come here, Jinx,” he said in a low, authoritative voice. “I wish to speak with you.”
Obedient as always, the boy turned to stand in front of his father’s solicitor, still sobbing quietly.
“Answer me this, Jinx,” Theo began in a calm, logical voice. “Were you out in the ocean three days past?”
After a moment’s pause, the boy shook his head. “No, I was here with Mama.”
“Aha. And did you do anything to your father’s boat to make it sink?”
Another shake of the head.
“Then you are not at fault.” Theo patted the couch beside him and, after a moment’s pause, the boy scrambled up into his lap. Theo leaned close to catch his eye. “You may have had thoughts you regret, but those thoughts could not cause such a sad thing to happen. Sometimes, accidents occur, even when we are very, very careful, and very, very loving.”
Alina watched in amazement as Jinx seemed to eat up the comfort, word by word. He was nodding, still choking down small tears, but he was listening. Theo pressed on.
“I know you miss your papa.”
A quivering nod of the head. “A little.”
“And that’s alright. Your mama and I will be here if you have any questions about what happened, Jinx. You just come to us and ask. If you’re sad, you can come to us and tell us. That is how it will be for some time after such a sad thing has happened, and that’s okay.”
The boy nodded, and, much to Alina’s surprise, buried his head in Theo’s dark jacket. His tears were easing, and he closed his eyes, leaning his little weight against the crook of the man’s arm. They looked so natural there. Alina turned to Willa, who had watched the entire scene with a queer expression on her face.
“Willa,” she said softly. “Would you prepare Master Jinx’s room? He is tired, and I think we will carry him up and put him to bed soon.”
“Won’t he wake if you take him?” Willa ventured.
“I’ll carry him,” Theo offered at once, looking down tenderly at the boy. Something in Alina’s heart leapt, and she beat it down with a guilty feeling.
“If it’s no trouble,” she said at last.
“None at all.”
They waited in silence until Willa reemerged to declare the nursery ready for Master Jinx, and Alina stood to lead Theo upstairs. “We’ll be back down shortly,” she said. “Could you have tea brought up?”
Theo shook his head. “I really should be going soon. I’ll have no need of tea.”
“Just for one, then?” Willa asked.
“Let us postpone it, then,” Alina said, turning to climb the stairs with Theo and the child close behind. At the door to the nursery, Theo walked past her into the room and laid Jinx in the little bed at the center of the room. It was a sweet little mahogany thing, with carved rungs at either end and thick plush blankets. Jinx shifted a little when Theo first laid him down, but was sound asleep almost as soon as Alina had pulled the blankets up under his tiny chin. She stood and walked to the doorway, where Theo had already retreated. He was looking at the little boy with something soft and tender in his face, and she followed his gaze with her own.
It was a pity that such a small, sweet child would have to endure both the trials of an absent father, and then the eventual death of that man without redemption. She didn’t know what his life would look like going forward, but she was thankful for the man beside her being a force for good in Jinx’s life, at least, on this most awful of days.
“He’s a good boy,” Theo said softly.
“He is.”
“He feels guilty for emotions that are perfectly normal in a little boy, especially if he didn’t get to see as much of his father as he would have liked,” Theo added slowly.
Alina turned to look at him sharply. There was something in his tone that hinted at a knowledge of Jonas Hartley’s true nature, but when he turned to look down at her she saw only a careful distance in his eyes. She felt small beneath his gaze, very close to him in the forced enclosure of the doorway. She expected him to look away, or to move from the door, but he did neither—the distance in his eyes beginning to thaw into something dangerously compassionate. Alina pulled away, stepping into the hallway and closing Jinx’s door as soon as Theo followed her.
“I should take my leave now,” Theo said, his voice strangely hoarse. “I heard you deny yourself tea earlier when you heard that I would be taking none. I beseech you to see to your own health, even in such a time as this. You must know that to lose yourself now would be a danger not only to your own body, but to the wellbeing of your son, too.”
There was something in his eyes that she could not name, and Alina wanted both to look away from that intense gaze and to remain in its embrace, simultaneously. In the end, she lowered her eyes to the ground.
“I have always known what my duty is,” she said hollowly, “and in this matter, nothing has changed. I will tend to myself as is necessary, and when you have more information about my husband’s death, we can talk further about the estate.”
He bent low in a formal bow, and said the words she’d heard often before. She wondered to herself if the hint of tenderness in his voice had always been there, or was only now appearing in the light of her husband’s death: “I am always at your service, Mrs. Hartley.”
***
Riding away from the Marshall Gardens Manor, Theo couldn’t get the image of Mrs. Hartley’s pale face out of his mind. She had looked so beautiful standing there in the half-light of Jinx’s room, her head bending low over her son and her slender fingers caressing his head. She was a remarkable woman, even in grief, and he could find no fault with her behaviour.
Theo had been privy to a front-row seat to Jonas Hartley’s reprehensible conduct throughout the years, and he knew Alina must have seen some of it, as well. She had been at the ill end of Jonas’ temper more than once in public; Theo shivered to think what she must have endured in private. Either way, he was amazed to see her so thoughtful, grieved, and tender in the moment of crisis. There was no relief on her face, no spring in her step to be rid of the man who had plagued her for years. Perhaps she really did love him. Theo was surprised to find that this thought stung him, and he refused to dig deeper and learn why.
Even now, in the carriage, he could feel the memory of her grateful words echoing in his heart.
“Thank you,” she’d said softly at the door. “You’ve been a good help. Tell me when you learn more.”
“We’ll send out messengers to search for the truth about the accident,” he’d explained. “I’ll bring you the first news I receive.”
She was like a tragic queen, silhouetted against the manor that rose like a gilded cage behind her as he climbed into his carriage and rode away. He couldn’t help thinking that she deserved more than life had given her.
Chapter 4
The next six months passed in a blur for Alina. The day after she heard about the incident, she’d closed her wardrobe up and worn a circulation of black gowns, even though it took another six months for the search to be completed and the official magistrate report to return to the county.
“All dead.”
Two words. So simple, yet they brought such a storm of emotions to Alina’s heart. She knew it was the most likely outcome, but she’d been suspended between acceptance and uncertainty for so long. She hadn’t known, at first, how to act. Should she hope for her husband’s safe return and refuse to go into mourning until she knew with certainty that he had passed? In the end, Theodore Pendleton’s confidence about what had transpired pushed her over the edge and she went silently and respectfully into the mourning attire that was her due.
“You shouldn’t do that,” one of her society friends said early on. “You’ll owe another six months to a year of black crepe after the official announcement, and when you’re finally wearing coloured silk again, you’ll be all out of fashion.”
She hadn’t even honoured the remark with an acknowledgement. Who cared about fashion at a time li
ke this? But there was something else eating at her, and it came to the forefront the day she received the official notice that Jonas Hartley had perished in the accident and funeral arrangements ought to be initiated. It was the realization that, after six months without Jonas, she was beginning to recover from both the shocking news of his death and—though she couldn’t admit it even to herself—the shocking experience of their marriage. She wore the black out of duty, and she didn’t care enough to wish herself back in the scarlet silks of her late husband’s preference. Still, she was beginning to feel guiltily aware that she did not grieve him as much as a woman ought to grieve the loss of her husband.
“We were not made for sentimentality,” he’d told her once when she came down by the fireside and asked to read alongside him in the quiet. “That may work well enough for some sops, this disgusting desire to always be on each other’s arms and in each other’s thoughts, but it’s not for me. I am a free man, still.”
“You are a married man,” she’d ventured nervously.
“And what is marriage but an attempt to socially advance?” he’d shot back cruelly. “If you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, why am I to hold up mine?”
He’d always resented that her social standing wasn’t enough to raise him above the new money prejudice that had haunted him from one London society meeting to another.
“I just want to read with you,” she’d tried again. Always trying, like a fool. Never accepting that he simply didn’t love her. “Please, let me be beside you. It doesn’t have to mean anything special. You don’t have to care for me.”
He’d laughed, harsh and hollow in the dark room. “You don’t get to tell me whether or not I have to care for you. I care for you as any man might care for his prize mare. Churn me out a worthy heir and, please, stop peddling your heart’s woes at my door. I’m too busy, and far too clever. I see through your ruse.”
What ruse? She’d thought. Now, as she ran her hands along the fitted bodice and loose waist of her black gown on the day of Jonas Hartley’s funeral, the memory of all the times he’d slapped her affections away was drowning out any hope of sentiment. She felt drawn and cold, unwilling to look into all the sad, pretending faces at the graveside of an empty casket. Jinx was dressed in black as well, although the pretense of emotion was hard for him. He had spent months coming to grips with the understanding of what had happened to his father, and with childish elasticity, had bounced back quickly. He didn’t understand, having never loved his father, why everyone now, so many months later, expected him to be sad again and to attend a dark gathering at a cemetery where his father would not be.
“Your papa would have wanted it,” Alina explained, knowing that it was laughably true. Jonas would not be pleased if people moved on too quickly from his death. He would have seen it as a sign of his diminished importance in polite society—and that simple fact would have grated on him, even in the grave.
It seemed enough to Jinx to see his mama still in black, and to know that she thought it best that he accompany her. He slipped his little hand into hers and walked somberly to the carriage that would carry them on to the cemetery. They rode in quiet, Jinx’s hand still tight in his mama’s silk-gloved one. When they arrived, Theodore Pendleton was there almost as soon as the door opened. Alina searched his face in surprise. She’d seen him on occasion in recent months, all in matters related to business and the search for truth about Jonas’ demise, but she found herself wanting to see him more and more often. He helped her out of the carriage and walked at a respectful distance behind her and Jinx as they made their way to the graveside.
There was only a handful of people there, mostly business partners and acquaintances of Jonas Hartley’s. Alina had very few friends in Jonas’ circle, and she took her place amongst the gossiping wives of his business partners as she always had, an accessory to his life that bore no real purpose. She stood quietly while the priest began to drone through the service, trying not to hold Jinx’s hand too hard, trying to be composed and calm despite her nerves. Suddenly, she heard a murmur at her side, and saw Theodore Pendleton’s eyes across the gravesite shoot towards the lane where a new carriage had drawn up.
She followed his gaze, as did the others at the graveside, and saw a woman alight from the carriage. The woman was very beautiful—tall and dark, with jagged features—and she had at her side a child who looked to be about a year older than Jinx. She was dressed from head to toe in widow’s weeds, and walked to the graveside with all the pomp and circumstance that Alina had lacked in her own humble approach only moments before. As she neared, one of the women to Alina’s left leaned in close and whispered confidentially, “That’s her.”
“Who?” she asked, knowing and hating to know at the same time.
“Isadore Teasdale. Surely you’ve heard about her. Pretty little thing in her time, a beautiful opera singing voice. Captured a lot of hearts in London, even if she was of no high-born family.”
Theo shot a look at the woman whispering to Alina and silenced her, but he couldn’t save Alina from the whispers starting like wildfire behind her. She heard one woman say that the child at Isadore’s side was a love-child.
“Miss Teasdale hoped to be Mrs. Hartley,” one woman hissed, “but if you’re low society, you’re low society.”
“Impressive, her bringing the child here. It’s a statement, it is.”
“No more a statement than they were in London, her on Hartley’s arm at every gambling hall in the city. An abomination, I tell you.”
Alina felt dizzy. She blinked across the great scar in the graveyard earth and locked eyes with Theo. He had been a steady thing the last few months, and he was throwing her a lifeline yet again. There was a sorrow in those eyes, a desire to shield her. He must have known Isadore Teasdale on sight, and was likely waiting for the woman’s blatant mockery to send Alina cowering. It would not be. Alina drew herself up as tall as she could at such a small height and set her shoulders, squarely facing the grave and ignoring the newcomer. Both women watched as the empty casket was lowered into the ground, both saying nothing, both faces claiming the tragedy as their own.
When it was all over, the crowd dispersed. Isadore was one of the first to go, saving Alina the difficulty of deciding whether or not to address her behaviour. The proud, beautiful opera singer sailed away across the cemetery with her son skipping to keep up. The other people began melting away as quickly as they’d appeared, whispering on and on amongst themselves. The woman to Alina’s left put her hand on the widow’s arm before turning to go.
“You did well, my dear,” she assured her softly, apologetically. “I do not know that I had an understanding of the meaning of the word fortitude until this very minute.”
Alina blinked back at her; the woman’s kindness was more likely to bring her to tears than Isadore’s cruelty could have been. “Thank you for attending to my husband’s funeral,” she replied simply. “Your presence is a kindness to us all.”
She bowed her head and felt another wave of guilt wash over her. She was angry at what Isadore had done—unbelievably angry. It startled her, and it bled over as she watched the shovelfuls of dirt fall, one by one, onto the casket lid. The heavy thuds shook in her chest, and she wanted desperately to grab up a handful herself and hurl it angrily into the ground. He couldn’t be buried fast enough, the wretch. If Jinx wasn’t there, she would have been tempted to break her “fortitude,” as the woman had called it, and fling herself at Jonas’ mistress. How dare they? Even now, with him dead, they were parading before her like it was all a grand old joke. But Jinx. Jinx was all that mattered.
He tugged at her dress. “Who was that boy, Mama?”
Her heart sunk. “A friend of your papa’s.”
“The lady said he was Papa’s little boy, just like I am.”
How dare they? Didn’t they understand the power and the danger their gossip had over the life of this innocent little boy? She hugged him close and started walking back t
o the carriage. She could see Theodore in her peripheral vision, starting off after her, but she couldn’t bear to hear his explanations now.
Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 4