Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  “I know you wish to avoid sensitive subjects such as these, but I also know that her face and her actions will haunt you with questions after I leave. I cannot bear the thought.” His voice cracked, then righted itself. “Really, Mrs. Hartley—”

  “It is odd, is it not,” she interrupted him, uncharacteristically rude, “that I must continue to wear my husband’s name after his death? I know it is the custom, but when I hardly wore it during his life it seems silly to give it undue respect now, when he is no longer on hand to demand it of me.”

  Whatever her true intentions, Alina felt a pang of guilt at the confusion and discomfort on Theo’s face. She realized awkwardly that, in fact, it was just that discomfort she’d wanted—anything to get him to stop talking about that woman. That woman. The day’s desperation built up inside her chest and heart, and finally, she could hold it in no longer. She turned her flashing eyes on her companion.

  “You say that everyone at the funeral knew who she was. That everyone understood my predicament, perhaps even applauded my brave silence, and that no one condoned Isadore Teasdale’s behavior. Perhaps you speak the truth—but, tell me, why is it that everyone knew who this woman was? I could tell as much because of my own doubts about my husband’s fidelity, but surely it is uncommon for a crowd of people to assume a…” she paused, almost unable to say the word, “mistress is in attendance at a man’s funeral.”

  Theo blinked, understanding dawning painfully on his face.

  “I will tell you how they knew,” Alina carried on, her words coming hard and fast. “They knew because they’d seen her before on Jonas’ arm. All around London, one woman said. They’d seen her at the gambling tables and they’d watched him bring her to all the balls he refused to have me attend. They heard whispers about a flat, no doubt, that he kept in a quiet part of the city. No doubt those businessmen in their fine-pressed coats had all shared cigars with my husband over the flickering flames of a fireside and praised him for his beautiful mistress and how clever he was at concealing her and her child from his foolish little wife.”

  She was crying now, and she hated that. She wanted to say her piece. She almost interjected as much, but when she looked at Theo to do so she realized that he was not going to interrupt her. He was sitting like a man condemned, waiting to hear her out to the very last word. She swallowed, and continued in a softer voice.

  “They all knew. They may never have openly walked up to the pair and said, ‘I condone this,’ but they didn’t discourage him, either. It’s better to look the other way, isn’t it?” She knew she was sharing too much, being too open, but it was as though a dam had burst inside her at last and here was this poor barrister, trapped in front of the outpouring.

  “I was good to him, Mr. Pendleton,” she added. “For years, I knew, as any woman would know, and I said nothing. I didn’t know there was a child, perhaps, and I didn’t know the woman’s name or the number of women, but I knew he didn’t care for me and I knew there was always someone else. When I finally did say something, thinking that my silence could have been what was pushing him away, he openly admitted to his wrongdoing and pressed forward with…” she sought for the right word, then said it with an outward shiver, “pride. He was proud of it all, Mr. Pendleton. And you,” she didn’t want to alienate her only friend, but she had to be honest, “you handled our financials. You knew about it all. You probably knew her name, and about the other child.”

  Theo nodded, and when Alina paused with her head dropped into her hands, he finally spoke. “You would have had me tell you?”

  “I know why you did not,” she told him softly.

  “Why do you think?”

  “Because you are not employed by me. You are employed by Mr. Jonas George Hartley, and if he commissions you to silence, you must do so.”

  “That is indeed a reason, but I was always under the impression that I was employed by the Hartley family—which would, of course, include you. No, that was not why I held my tongue.”

  She turned to look at him then. His voice was so calm, but his frankness both offered freedom and shredded her heart. “Why, then?”

  “I had a sister, once.”

  Alina heard the emphasis on had in Theo’s voice, and saw the sadness on his face.

  “She married a man when she was quite young—he was a brute, like…” Theo trailed off, perhaps not wishing to malign Jonas’ name now that the man was dead. “He was bad for her, and a philanderer, too. I felt it was best to share what I’d discovered with her, but when I did, she said exactly what you’ve just admitted to me—that she’d always known, the way women have a second sense about such things. The realization that I understood his ways, and therefore that most of society understood her shame, pushed her over the edge. She was mortified, shamed, and felt hopeless. She…” he bit his lip. “She died. She couldn’t face it any longer and she leapt from a bridge. And I had met you. I saw all the signs, and I feared the worse if I was to be open about what I knew.”

  Alina listened to his entire story with understanding and immense compassion not just for him, but for his sister, as well. She understood what could drive a woman to such extremes. Even the day she’d received news of Jonas’ death, she’d still been recovering from the hidden bruises of their last encounter. The physical harm had healed, but her mind still ran over the embarrassment and shame in endless circles.

  Finally, after the silence had stretched out into minutes between them, she swallowed hard and spoke. “You are a good man, Mr. Pendleton. I believe your intentions were correct.” She felt tears pricking once again at her eyes, but this time she did nothing to wipe them away. “I know of Jonas’ weak character, but I still have my duties as a mother to think about. When we were married, I still had my duties as a wife.”

  Suddenly, he reached forward and took her hand. She looked up through her tears and saw her own surprise mirrored on his face—it had been an impulsive action driven by a desire to comfort her, ignoring the fact that it was forward, even shocking, under the circumstances. But she didn’t pull away, letting herself feel for a moment the strength of a good man’s touch holding up the weight of her slim hand. Theo was breathing shallowly, and when he finally spoke, it was very quiet in the already silent room.

  “You are no longer a wife, and you have not been for some time. You no longer have the duties or the…allegiances of a married woman.”

  Alina’s heart froze in her throat. She had not mistaken that look in his eye, then. Theodore Pendleton, the barrister, the best man she had ever known but still a man of low-born heritage and middle class aspirations, was admitting in his own way that he cared for her. She was suddenly aware of his closeness, the touch of his hand still firm on her own, the emptiness of the parlour all around them. She pulled away, her emotion too great to navigate safely, and stood up. He stood as well, looking embarrassed and shifting away from her.

  “I’m…I’m sorry.” Alina couldn’t think of anything else to say, and those words seemed to widen the gap between her and Theo even further.

  He looked at her with a veiled intensity and picked up his hat from the table. “You never need to apologize to me, Mrs. Hartley,” he said, emphasizing the burden of her last name. “I am, as ever, at your service.”

  She wanted to call out to him, to ask him to return to her side and take her hand again, to pour out all her troubles as she had so unwisely done at the beginning of the conversation, but she felt so entangled in mistakes that she knew adding another would hardly fix the situation. Instead, Alina watched him take his leave, and when she heard the sound of the hall door shutting behind him, she ran from the parlour into the servants’ staircase, up the shortcut to the second level, and then out again into the upstairs hall. It was empty, and she went to the window, hidden behind the curtains.

  There was Theo, walking to his horse with long, strong strides, his back facing the house. She thought for a moment that he would turn around and look back at the window, but he did not
. He simply fixed his hat on his head, swung up into the saddle, and rode away.

  Alina tried to pull the guilt back to her, to wrap herself with the knowledge that she’d never loved her first husband—to remind herself that her heart wasn’t fit for someone like Theodore Pendleton—but she couldn’t quite convince herself. Watching that good man riding away, she couldn’t resist admitting to herself that she could perhaps, one day, learn to love him.

  Chapter 7

  “He’s a peer of the realm,” Verner said, throwing a packet of papers onto Theo’s desk at their small law office in Piccadilly. “You’ve been building your case wrong, if you plan to bring a civil suit against a Duke of his standing.”

  Theo sighed, flipping through the papers. “I knew this, of course, but it’s not a paltry matter of a few unpaid bills sending him to an overnight in debtor’s prison. This could be a lifetime sentence. He’s taken the holdings of hundreds of peasants and tenant farmers and poured them all down the drain of his own mismanagement and speculation. Surely, he should be brought to bear.”

  “Have you forgotten Henry Dundas?” Verner countered with a raised eyebrow.

  “One does not easily forget the First Viscount of Melville being brought before the House of Lords for impeachment. At least there is an example that even peers of the law are not above the law.”

  “Is it? He was acquitted.”

  Theo sighed. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

  “I suggest we ignore the court system at large and hit our Duke where it hurts—his standing in society. We approach him with a signed document from all those he’s swindled, and we threaten to make his actions public.”

  “We’re barristers, Verner, not blackmailers.”

  “And he’s a thief. The ends justify the means?”

  Theo shook his head, uncertain. It was cases like these, where the rich managed to get away with egregious social crimes without the slightest retribution that had convinced him to pursue law in the first place. However, it was also such cases that made him want to throw up his hands in disgust and leave the whole mess to the monsters who’d created it in Parliament.

  A knock sounded on the door, and their front man opened it with a little bow. He had been a footman when he was younger, and still held the same formalities of the age. “A Mr. Matthew Hartley to see Mr. Theodore Pendleton, please.”

  Theo instantly felt his anger of a few days past made a second appearance. What did Matthew think he was doing now? Doubtless he thought going behind Alina’s back would help streamline the process, but if that’s what he truly believed, he couldn’t be more wrong. Theo turned to Verner with a sigh.

  “This is a messy business, but I wouldn’t mind you sitting in on it. Just busy yourself at your desk and if I call for legal backup, be ready to respond at once.”

  “Of course.”

  Verner situated himself at his desk with the packet of information on their elusive Duke, and was happily leafing through it when Matthew Hartley entered the room. The tall, slant-eyed man cast a sideways look at him and then loped over to Theo’s desk. Theo took his time rising from his chair, extended his hand in a formal, if somewhat cold, greeting, and then invited the man to sit in the chair opposite him.

  “Good day. I am surprised to see you here, and I’ll not deny it. In truth, I hadn’t expected to speak with you again without Mrs. Hartley present.”

  “Alina seemed agitated when we last spoke,” Matthew said glibly. “I thought it best for the purposes of our businesslike conversation to leave womanly emotion out of the discussion.”

  Theo didn’t even know where to begin correcting the snide man across from him, but he began with the obvious in an icy tone. “For the purposes of our legal understanding, I think it would be best if we both referred to my client by her formal and respectable name going forward. There’s no need to bring disrespectful language into these proceedings.”

  Matthew blinked. “Excuse me, but Jonas always allowed me to call Alina—”

  “Mrs. Hartley, or we’re done here.”

  “Mrs. Hartley, then.” Matthew’s tone was curt, momentarily disarmed. “I think, in times such as these, we must set aside our personal squabbles and admit that a fortune as sizeable as my brother’s must be divided up with considerable care.”

  “I agree,” Theo said as calmly as he could manage. “During my time managing your brother’s finances and legal affectations, I have become quite acquainted with his fortune and, I assure you, I intend to ‘divide it up’ just as it ought to be. However, I do not mean to be rude,” he went on, thinking with an inward smile that he did mean to be a little rude, “but the way Mrs. Hartley and I handle Jinx’s fortune is hardly your concern. I do not know why you have called on me today, or what you expect to learn about the finances without Mrs. Hartley present.”

  Matthew was beginning to look a little red around the gills. “This is preposterous. I’m his brother! I have every right to know how his part of our hard-earned family fortune is going to be handled. I think we can both agree that my sister-in-law is not ready to be in control of such a sizeable fortune. She will never be ready! She has far too much in the realm of childcare and social calls to concern herself with men’s business.”

  Theo flipped open the file on his desk labeled ‘Hartley.’ “Ah, yes,” he announced with exaggerated slowness. “It seems here that the estate is in the name of Jonas Jr., also known as Jinx, and therefore must be controlled by his immediate guardian which would be…” another exaggerated scan of the page, “yes, right here: Mrs. Alina Hartley.”

  “You are using legal terms to twist us away from practical values!” Matthew’s voice was beginning to rise, and Theo saw Verner perk up across the room. “If we followed your logic, we would see a young woman who hardly has the energy to order her own tea every morning somehow in charge of an entire merchant business. How preposterous can your argument be? I am offering, as a blood relative and the next in line—”

  “Jinx is the next in line.”

  “You know what I mean. I’m offering to take this burden off her hands, and she is instead sending you, her lackey, to try to convince me that she has what it takes to run this business.”

  “I am not a lackey, sir.” They were both standing now, and Theo felt his face flushing. He was losing his temper, he could tell.

  “I’ve never met a woman who could do what my brother and I have been forced to do in the name of Hartley, and even if such a woman existed, it would not be Alina. She’s frail, unintelligent, and weak. She has nothing in her mind but—”

  Theo saw black for a second, and in the next moment he was around the desk, nose to nose with his opponent, a fistful of Matthew’s cravat in hand. “One more word. One. More. Word.”

  Matthew paused for a moment, but there was defiance in his eyes. Theo spit out his next words like foul medicine.

  “Stay clear of Mrs. Hartley, sir. This is how it’s going to go: if I catch wind of you attempting to swindle a good, honest widow like Mrs. Hartley; if I hear of you bullying her or even visiting Marshall Gardens without a proper invitation, I will deal with you swiftly.”

  “Interesting.” Matthew’s eyes flashed. “Have we a little crush, Mr. Pendleton?”

  Theo tightened his grip, his vision filling with hate again, but Verner was there in a moment with a hand on each man’s shoulder, pushing them apart. “That’s enough, fellows. This is a place of business, not a dueling field. Let’s see if we can settle this with our words.”

  Matthew stepped back, straightening his coat and adopting an infuriatingly patronizing tone. “I’ve always been one to use conversation over violence. It’s Mr. Pendleton I’m worried about. He is, after all, a middle-class man, so I shouldn’t expect anything different from him.”

  Theo was cooling down, and Matthew’s personal attacks had none of the power over Theo that his sharp words about Alina had. He sighed, watching the other man with suspicious eyes.

  “I’m only looking
after my nephew’s interests.” Matthew shrugged. “You can’t fault me for filial love. It’s not about us. It’s not about that woman pretending to own Marshall Gardens; it’s not about your desires to climb into a judgeship one day. This is about the proper management of a vast shipping fortune, and while I understand my words have no weight with you now, please understand me. I will not give up caring about this.”