Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  “I think I am more than capable of dressing myself while I stay under Jonas’ roof,” Alina said through tight lips. She couldn’t resist adding, “For as long as that may be.”

  Willa disappeared as quickly as she had come. Alina felt in her absence a sort of overwhelming exhaustion descend. Her arms felt heavy as logs, and she could hardly hold her head up. She took a few steps toward her bed and sat down gingerly on the edge, leaning over sideways against the bedspread to catch a few moments of rest. She was asleep in moments.

  ***

  The next two weeks passed in a blur. Jonas was not the sort of person who did well caring for invalids. He grew easily frustrated with the lack of progress, and hated to sit vigil even at his own son’s side.

  Alina, on the other hand, resented only the moments when she was ordered back to her room to bathe and sleep. She would have preferred to pass all her nights sitting in the chair by Jinx’s bed so as to better watch the steady rise and fall of his wee chest. It was a comfort to her, for no matter how confident the doctor seemed of his recovery now that Jinx was awake and speaking, Alina couldn’t forget how dire things had seemed at first. It was halfway through the second week when the doctor finally allowed the boy to swing his legs over the side of the bed and attempt a few tentative steps.

  “It hurts, Mama,” Jinx whimpered before his feet even touched the ground.

  “I know.” Alina tried to stay firm. “But I don’t want your legs to atrophy.”

  “What is ‘at-tro-fee?’” he asked, clearly stalling.

  “Get stiff,” she explained, “and not work anymore.”

  Jinx still eyed the floor with distrust. Alina tried a different tack. “Don’t you miss running outside and playing? Your swing is still beneath your favourite tree, and your rocking horse is ready to be ridden.”

  “Can’t you carry me to the swing?” he asked with a sweet little pout.

  “No,” she answered, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, “but it does my heart well to hear you negotiating again. You can ride the rocking horse and be pushed upon the swing when you can walk there on your own two legs.”

  Jinx sighed, adopting a grave frown of acknowledgment. “I suppose we ought to get to it, then,” he said softly.

  Alina supported him under his arms by a band of wide fabric, carefully avoiding the gash on his back, and together the two traversed the room. Jinx took tiny steps, barely shifting one foot in front of the other, but he bore up well under the pressure and, when safely back in bed, he fell asleep quickly.

  Alina sighed. She’d wanted to do his lung exercises before he drifted off again—the doctor had warned her that the injury to Jinx’s ribs would discourage him from taking proper breaths—but she supposed she could wait until he woke next.

  She watched his face with a mixture of pleasure and dread. Every beautiful moment, every step he made closer to healing, her mother’s heart rejoiced. And yet, selfishly, she knew that she would soon be crushed—for Jinx’s full recovery could only mean one thing: the awful cycle of deserting him would begin again.

  ***

  And that day came.

  For a time, Alina had dared to hope it would not. Jonas paid no more mind to Jinx’s recovery, other than to ask the maids and servants for updates, and Alina rarely saw him. It was a full month after the accident when Jinx was again able to ride on his swing. He still limped and had some lingering pain, but the doctor said they were in the safe zone now, and the boy risked no further danger at the hands of infection or breathing.

  Walking back from the tree with Jinx’s hand in her own, Alina saw Jonas through the glass, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and her suitcase at his side. She felt a sick drop in her stomach, and stopped in her tracks. She knelt down by Jinx’s side and helped him to sit on one of the stairs.

  “Jinx, we have to talk,” she said, urgent, but not wanting to frighten the boy. “Remember the day of your accident, when you ran after me in the carriage?”

  He nodded, confused.

  “Your father and I had an argument, and he wants me to leave. He only let me stay to take care of you, and I can see him inside ready for me to go now.”

  “No!” Jinx cried, alarm springing to his eyes.

  “Jinx, listen.” Something in the calm of Alina’s voice seemed to bring a momentary veil of peace over the boy, and he fell silent. “You need to know that I don’t want to go. I love you very much, and if it were possible to stay, I would. I will do everything in my power to see you again, but you have to do something for me.”

  Large, heartbreaking tears were snaking their way down Jinx’s cheeks. “What, Mama?”

  “You have to get all the way better—so strong that you can win a race against every boy in London—so that when I see you next you’re healthy enough to go on all sorts of adventures.”

  The boy nodded, and Alina cupped his face in her hands. “You’re a very smart, very strong little boy. You’re also kind and gentle, and those are good things. No matter what your father says, you must remember that it is good to be kind and gentle.”

  Jinx nodded, but his eyes were screaming ‘no.’ “Please stay, Mama.”

  “You’re causing a scene, Alina.”

  Jonas had come out of the house sometime during their conversation and was holding Alina’s suitcase at arms-length as though it was a distasteful thing. “The carriage is waiting.”

  Willa was beside him, and she reached out to take Jinx’s hand. The little boy seemed to lose his nerve at the last minute and he threw himself into his mother’s arms. Alina hugged him gently, careful not to injure his weak ribs and back, then handed him into Willa’s arms without meeting the girl’s eyes.

  “Goodbye, my boy.”

  Willa walked away, but all the while Alina could hear Jinx’s distraught voice sobbing for her. When they had gone, she turned icy eyes on Jonas. “How can you do this?”

  “Easily,” he said briefly. He took her by the elbow and marched her through the house and out onto the steps beyond where the carriage waited. “I only regret having waited so long so that he could reattach himself to you.”

  “We were never unattached,” she pointed out bitterly. “I’m his mother.”

  Jonas said nothing more. Georges had followed them out of the house and, as he placed a bundle of her clothing atop the carriage, he stole a moment to lean inside and press Alina’s hand. “I’m sorry, my lady. I had hoped when Mr. Pendleton came to visit you would have an…escape.”

  It would have been a forward statement from anyone, but from proper and refined Georges it was fairly shocking. Alina smiled as kindly as she could to allay his fears. “Thank you, Georges. Please,” the tears started anew in her eyes, “watch over Jinx for me. See that he is cared for tenderly, and that he knows his mother loves him.”

  Georges stepped back, uncomfortable with the display of emotion, but he nodded, too, unwilling to deny his mistress this last request.

  The door closed and the carriage took off down the road. Alina watched carefully, but this time Jinx did not appear in pursuit. He would be upstairs somewhere, held captive by Willa as he sobbed. Her heart broke at the thought. What had Georges said? I had hoped when Mr. Pendleton came to visit you would have had an escape. She hadn’t thought of Theo much lately, not because he was far from her heart but because every time his image arose to her mind, she would summarily dismiss it and replace it with a picture of Jinx.

  She couldn’t afford to think about the “what ifs” of that broken road. He had made no more attempts to connect with her since the awful day of Jinx’s accident, and she could only assume he had moved on to happier, more willing pastures. She stared ahead at the long road to Brighton, her heart an empty and unapproachable vessel. She must not think of Theo. It was hard enough to lose her son today, there was no point in focusing on other losses, as well.

  Chapter 28

  Imogene was waiting for her, although Alina didn’t know how. She hadn’t
given advance notice when she would arrive, but when she looked up at her friend with a question in her stricken eyes Imogene just pulled her close and said kindly, “You softened up even that old butler’s heart, my dear.”

  Georges. Of course. Imogene took Alina inside, put her in the same room with the broad windows and the pale, filmy curtains, and demanded she be down to eat in ten minutes. “You look like skin and bones, Alina.”

  The room looked different to Alina. Brighton was just entering the fall, and the shine of the summer breeze was gone. The windows were shut up against the nighttime chill, and the light had gone from the sky. Alina thought of all these things, but she knew in her heart the real reason it felt different—Jinx’s laughter was not echoing in the attic room where he’d slept.

  She walked downstairs in a daze, taking the soup and bread Imogene gave her as dutifully as a child swallowing her medicine, but without any real pleasure. When they had finished eating, Imogene, who had held her tongue for much of the meal, took her friend by the arm and led her back upstairs.

  “Poor little dear,” she said, helping to settle Alina in bed. “You look as though you haven’t slept since the accident. You’re a husk of a woman, that’s for certain.”

  “You’re being so kind to me.” Alina said softly, feeling the comfort of the bed drag her eyelids closed. “I can explain everything.”

  “In the morning, child. There will be ample time.”

  It was, in fact, late afternoon of the next day before Alina and Imogene had a chance to speak heart to heart. Alina slept all through the morning and into the midday hours. She awoke, groggy and heartsick, and dressed herself with numb fingers. Imogene was nowhere to be found, so Alina walked the wharf for an hour, letting the sea wind tug at her hair and clothes without impediment.

  At one point, she thought she caught sight of a familiar tall man standing beneath the pier with a slender woman at his side, but she didn’t look more closely. If the colonel was happy, then she had no jealousy to spare. All her energies had been taken up with Theo, and now, they belonged to her yearning for Jinx. The colonel was but a small speck on her memory.

  When she returned to the house, Imogene was laying tea in the parlour under the supervision of her cook.

  “I thought you would be back soon. Did you visit your old friend, the sea?”

  “She is just as I left her,” Alina replied. “Unchanging, swallowing up the shore.”

  “Aren’t you the poet,” Imogene joked, but then, seeing her friend’s face fall, she sobered. “Now is not the time for light banter, I know. Take a seat, Alina. You look as though you’ve been through hell itself, and I would like to hear about it.”

  Hell. It wasn’t a proper word for ladies like Imogene and Alina to use in conversation, but Alina couldn’t help feeling it was painfully apt.

  “I don’t know if I have the strength to explain everything.”

  “You must find the strength,” Imogene said firmly. “I’ve held my tongue on this matter for some time, but it is time all your closets are bared to the light and the truth is evaluated on its own merit.”

  “You?” Alina couldn’t help smiling weakly at that. “You held your tongue?”

  But Imogene wasn’t smiling. “Yes. There are things even I have not told you. I wasn’t sure what good it would do…” she trailed off, then moved to pour them each a spot of tea. “But never mind that for now. Tell me everything.”

  Alina looked out the window, her mind a numb whirlwind of hopeless feelings, each drawing one after another into themselves. “He asked me to leave.”

  “Even after the accident?”

  “Even after that. He let me stay, I think, because he’s not confident in his own ability to nurse Jinx back to help. Someone had to stay by his side and care for him in the darkest hours, and that isn’t Jonas’ specialty.”

  “That explains your exhaustion and weariness. You’ve been a nurse for a month now, under the nose of that villain.”

  “No,” Alina said stiffly. “That’s not why I’m weary. I’m weary because I’ve been sent away from my child, and I have little hope of ever seeing him again.”

  “You could go and get him,” Imogene said, her eyes alight. “You could take him forcibly.”

  “Really?” Alina laughed drily. “You’ve always been a dreamer, Imogene, but even you must know that if I took him it would be viewed as kidnapping. Then I would surely never see him again. The courts will not uphold the right of the mother, not when they see the evidence Jonas has against me.”

  “Evidence?” Imogene asked with a queer look on her face. “What evidence?”

  “I wrote a letter, when I was last here with you, to Mr. Pendleton.”

  “Ah. I was wondering when his name would come up again.”

  “It wasn’t like that—it was a noncommittal letter, actually, but I did ask him to join me in Brighton, and I did praise his merits.” Alina sunk her head into her hands. “I should never have written it. I was driven by loneliness and—”

  “Love?”

  Alina shot her friend a sharp look. “Love has no place here anymore.”

  “So, Jonas believes this letter is evidence of infidelity.” Imogene’s face drew into a ponderous line. “That’s very interesting.”

  “Interesting? It’s tragic.”

  “But you’ve no right to feel guilty. Jonas was as good as dead, Alina. In your mind, he was dead. You had mourned the appropriate amount of time, far more than any widow ought to mourn a man like Jonas Hartley, and you had not even received the frank admiration of a man. You and Mr. Pendleton were always accompanied by me, and you behaved with infuriating propriety.”

  “Perhaps I committed no public sins,” Alina conceded. “But the letter will be enough to convince the men of the jury.”

  “There is something else that is bothering you,” Imogene noted.

  “My guilt. My shame.” Alina dropped her head into her hands.

  “You may be right about the gentlemen of the jury,” Imogene admitted, choosing her words carefully, “but that doesn’t mean they are right about you. You should feel no guilt, as your actions were above reproach.”

  “My actions may have been,” Alina said with a strangled cry. “But my heart was not.” She raised her eyes to her friend, watching the effect her words had on Imogene. “Jonas was wrong about an illicit affair, but he was right about my affections. I did care for Theodore, Imogene. God help me, I still do.”

  She burst into tears, violent and inescapable, and Imogene came to sit beside her. They stayed like that for some time, Alina weeping in renewed gusts as the memories of the past few months came crowding back into her mind, Imogene sitting with one arm around her, rocking her gently back and forth.

  When her tears were at last spent, Alina looked up with red-rimmed eyes and her breath coming shallowly. “So, you see, my love for Theo is what separated me from my son.”

  Imogene bit her lip. “No, you’re wrong.”

  Alina looked at her friend in amazement.

  “I’m sorry to infiltrate your shame-fest with a bit of truth, but you’re just plain wrong, Alina. You were separated from your child because your husband is a raving lunatic who thinks only of his own interests and genuinely enjoys afflicting you with guilt and pain. Your actions, even the movement of your own heart, were all pure and careful.” Imogene sighed and studied her hands. “You know that Jonas had a reputation—a bad one.”

  Alina nodded.

  Imogene took a deep, shaking breath. “And you know about his mistress and the child—we’ve discussed this.”