“Why are you so sure Mrs. Hartley is not a sufficient caretaker of the business?” Theo demanded coldly. “She seems capable enough to me.”
“We disagree on this point, and either way—women are the weaker sex, and cannot be expected to handle enormous sums of money such as these.” Matthew gave a curt little bow, and restored his hat to his head. He plastered a snide smile on his face, as though the entire interaction had gone exactly as intended, and took his leave before further comment could be made.
Verner took a deep breath and smoothed the edges of his coat when the younger Hartley brother had left the room at last. “I don’t care for that man,” he said with a sigh.
“That is the understatement of the century,” Theo shot back, seating himself once again behind his desk. “Do you agree with what he says about women being the weaker sex, unable to handle such important matters of business?”
“I think women are often untrained in such things. They are raised with embroidery and dolls and dancing lessons. How can they be expected to effectively run shipping empires?”
Theo traced the Hartley file thoughtfully with his forefinger. “They are raised with embroidery and dancing lessons because that is what they are handed since the time they were children. They are sent to balls and social events while we get to learn our father’s business,” he commented, speaking the words slowly. “Remarkably, sometimes they still manage to read extensively and broaden their horizons without the aid we find in universities or with our tutors. Mrs. Hartley is a perfect example. She would need some education about the way the books work and the inner deals of Hartley Shipping Inc., but at the core of it, so would a man coming into the business straight away.” Theo scoffed. “I don’t doubt our illustrious Mr. Matthew Hartley would need the same education were he to take over as he so desires.”
Verner laughed hoarsely. “I think our Mr. Matthew Hartley would need education regardless of the undertaking. He seems the sort of man who forgets how to ride his horse if he’s gone from it for a season.” He sobered, shaking his head at Theo. “These are forward thoughts that you are having, my boy. Women, running shipping businesses?”
“His argument is that they are the weaker sex,” Theo said softly. “You’re a partner here. You’ve read what Jonas did to that woman—and I don’t think it was all societal, either. She used to show up at dinners with him…” he trailed off, too much of a gentleman to say aloud the three-fingered bruise he’d glimpsed once beneath the gauze kerchief she’d wrapped ‘round her throat, the way she’d winced when he’d laid his hands lightly on her ribs during their first and only dance together. But Verner was a smart man, and he filled in the dots.
“Perhaps, in that, you have a point,” he said with kindness. “She may have been through much, without complaint.”
Theo leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk. “I feel, personally, that surviving a marriage to Jonas Hartley is reason enough to assume management of his business and properties, don’t you think?”
Chapter 8
Theo rode to Alina’s the next day. He’d thought about it regularly since his run-in with Matthew, and it seemed to him that the only right thing was to let her know what had transpired and to offer her his assistance and support, should the need arise. As he neared the property, his mind began to blur as it always did with thoughts of her. There was the relationship he’d always had with the beautiful widow, begun before her husband had died—that of a dutiful, subservient employee working with a client.
He knew that role now, and he was fairly able to convince himself even now that his actions in her defense were solely those of a man who felt it was his duty to do what was best for the estate. Still, there was the sensation of her hand in his, the love he’d hinted at the day of the funeral, the longing he felt whenever he thought of her. This blurred his mind and confused his motives.
When he arrived at Marshall Gardens, he walked up the steps with a slow tread. He hadn’t seen her since the day she’d pulled away from his touch with murmured apologies. He’d been horrified to have overstepped himself, desperate to give her the space she so clearly wanted. Georges showed him in with the usual formality, although Theo was beginning to suspect the old man liked him more than he let on. Georges clearly loved Alina and cared for her with vibrant loyalty, and he likely saw Theo as one of the few allies in the young widow’s life.
Theo waited patiently in the parlour, but in the end it wasn’t Alina at all, but her son who arrived first into the room.
“Theo!” The boy plowed into the room, his head down, and made for Theo’s knees. “I was just out in the garden and I found this.”
He opened his plump little fist and showed off the worm he held a little too tightly in his palm. It was still alive, but Theo smiled inwardly at how abused it had been by the little boy’s love. “Oh, that’s a swell creature,” he said admiringly. “He looks scared, though, Jinx. You should always treat living things gently, no matter how small they are. How about we take him back outside and see if he will wiggle back home to the dirt?”
“Okay!” Jinx seemed unperturbed by the worm’s near-death experience, and kept his palm dutifully flat, slipping his other dirt-caked hand into Theo’s as the two made their way outside. They laid the worm gently among some flowers and covered him with a soft layer of soil before walking back indoors.
“I’m sure he’s very grateful to you,” Theo told his young companion in a serious voice. “How are you doing, Jinx? I haven’t seen you since the funeral.” He found the boy responded better to direct conversation—as little childish talk as possible.
“I have a secret that I don’t tell anybody, not even Mama,” Jinx said simply. “Because when she knows it she tries to be better and it just gets worse.”
Theo’s heart seized. “Do you think you can tell me if I promise not to tell your mama?”
Jinx looked suspicious. “Promise?”
“Absolutely, on my heart.”
“Well…” The little boy slowed his walk and looked toward the house with endearing care. “Then I will tell you. She’s sad. Very sad. When she thinks I’m not looking, I can see it in her eyes. I want her to smile, but for real, not for me.”
“Your mama loves you very much. I think when she smiles for you, it is also for real.”
“Sometimes,” Jinx admitted with startling intuitiveness, “but not always.”
An idea struck Theo and he sat up straighter. “What if we did something special, so your mama could have a real smile?”
Jinx raised his eyes, a wrinkle of thought in his forehead. “Do I have to think of it, or have you thought of it already?”
“I have, already. We will go to town and buy your mama some flowers. You can pick them out, if you’d like.”
Jinx smiled widely. “But a surprise?”
“If you want.”
“Mr. Pendleton!” Alina’s voice rang across the outside terrace, confused and wary. Theo turned slowly and tried to smile as casually as possible. He wished he could pour all this thoughts into that smile: Don’t worry, Alina. I won’t make you uncomfortable again. I won’t do anything to add to your burden.
She stepped closer. “Jinx?”
“Theo and I want to go to town,” the boy explained. “It’s a secret.”
She cast a look at Theo, and he rushed to add, “If you’re alright with it. We’ll ride very slowly and go to a nice neighbourhood. Jinx has something he wants to purchase.”
The look of confusion was still there, but there was a tenderness, as well. Alina smiled, genuinely. “Alright, then. But take good care of him.”
“Of course.” He wanted to tell her about Matthew’s visit to the law office, but not while Jinx was sitting there listening with his excellent ears and his affinity for taking responsibility for his mother’s fear. Theo would tell her when he returned. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”
They walked out to the horse together and Theo climbed on first, pulling Ji
nx up behind him on the back of the saddle. It was safer that way. The boy was bright enough to hold on tight, and they wouldn’t be riding fast. Theo felt Alina’s eyes on him as he settled into the saddle, but he saved himself the confusion of wondering what she was thinking.
The ride into the heart of town was an easy one, and all along the way Jinx showered him with questions, leaning around his torso as though he thought it would help Theo hear better.
“Why is the dirt so muddy here? Why aren’t other people riding horses like you? Why are these houses so big? Why are those houses so small? Do you live in that house? That house? That house?”
The questions went on and on, and Theo tried to answer them as best as he could manage, laughing at last when Jinx would get the better of him.
“Why is it so gloomy today?”
“Because London has a lot of fog.”
“So, the sun’s gone?”
“Yes, today, the sun’s gone.”
“No, it isn’t.” A quiet little noise of triumph. “The sun’s always there, even if we can’t see it. Mama says so.”
Aha. So Alina was teaching the boy hope, and to use his brain. “I meant the sun looks like it’s gone.”
“You should say what you mean.”
Theo smiled to himself, thinking about how much he wanted to tell the boy’s mother exactly what he meant.
They reached St. James’s Square just as the afternoon crowds were flooding into the marketplace to purchase their lunches and haggle over groceries. Theo rode to the closest hitching post and climbed off the horse, helping the boy swing down to the ground, as well.
“Hold my hand,” he instructed gently, making certain the boy didn’t end up lost along the way. They threaded their way through the pushing crowds, and Jinx kept up his running commentary as they made their way to the hot house booth.
“Do you know that Mama says some people are different and we are still to love them?” This, very loudly, just as they passed two beggars shaking their cups for money on the corner. Theo winced at the attention it brought, but was blessed by the sentiment. He gave the boy a coin.
“Go love them with this for now.”
Jinx skipped over, his grin broad and innocent. Theo expected him to drop the coin in the bucket and run back shyly, as Theo would have as a child, but Jinx was interested. Jinx had questions.
“Why are you here?” he asked one of the two men.
“I’m hungry,” the man answered simply, clearly amused at the boy’s inquisitiveness.
“Then you don’t need money,” Jinx exclaimed, pulling a bonbon from his jacket pocket. “You need food.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he said unexpectedly, “Do you like music?”
The second beggar grinned. “I do. I used to sing in my day.”
“Isn’t today your day?”
Theo intervened, pulling Jinx away to keep on their quest, but as they walked, he couldn’t help seeing the light the boy had left behind him. The two men were smiling at each other, laughing, and nodding after the boy. That bonbon was likely sticky with little boy sweat and stale from having been forgotten in his pocket, but it was full of the love Alina had entreated her son to show.
At the flower shop, Jinx went nearly wild with delight. He ran from bouquet to bouquet with still more questions. Why were roses so many different colors? Were any of the leaves poisonous? Were any of them things you could eat? What about the yellow?
“I don’t think any are edible,” Theo answered, realizing he didn’t, in truth, know the answers. “But we don’t need to worry about that now. We’re just looking for something pretty.”
“Mama says girls can be both pretty and useful, like flowers.”
Theo wanted to laugh. Keeping up with Alina’s progressive parenting was a trial, but a delight. Yes, that was exactly what he’d been trying to tell Verner the day before. Girls can be both pretty and useful. Theo was so distracted by Jinx’s delight that it took him a moment to recognize the man across the street at the butcher’s table. It was the coat that first caught his eye—that looks familiar—but when he did a double-take, his attention was hooked.
Mr. Matthew Hartley, here in a plebian market. He would have expected Matthew to be the sort of man who showed up at dinner with no idea how the food had gotten to the kitchen in the first place, much less to his dining room table. As he looked closer, however, he realized that Matthew was not alone. He was meeting with somebody, a small, slight girl with dark hair…Willa. That’s what Alina had called her.
It was the ladies’ maid from Marshall Gardens, the one who had been in the Hartley family since before Alina’s marriage to Jonas, the one who Matthew had gone out of his way to flatter and endear to himself. Here they were again. At first, Theo suspected some sort of illicit affair—the kind of shocking connection that Matthew would not want public—but when he looked closer, it seemed to be an innocent meeting.
The girl was talking to him from a distance, her body language interested but removed. Theo saw Matthew gesturing as though trying to convince Willa of something, and then he handed her a package. She took it, turned it twice in her hands, then curtsied and hurried away into the crowd. Theo moved to confront Matthew, but as he did so he felt a tug on his coattails.
“Mr. Theo, the flower lady says these are forget-me-nots. Don’t they look like Mama?”
Theo looked down at the boy and the bundle of blossoms. “How do you mean, Jinx?”
“Her eyes!”
Theo felt his throat constrict. Yes, yes, they did. He looked back up at the place where Matthew and Willa had been only a few moments before, but the street was full of shoppers alone. Whatever business the two had had was completed now, and they’d disappeared into the crowd as quickly as they’d come. He would have to deal with this at another time, when the boy wasn’t so near at hand. He turned his full attention back to Jinx.
“Yes, Jinx. Those look just like her eyes.”
“They’re a good posy,” the girl behind the counter said with a blush. “But you know they’ll wilt faster if you don’t put them with a strong bit of greenery to support the bloom.”
“Do that,” Theo said, then, remembering Jinx, he added, “Is that alright, little man? Some green?”
“Green is good.” The boy nodded his head vigorously, and watched like an eagle as the girl couched the pale blue flowers in a green bouquet. He took it in his hands and held it as though it was the most precious gift. “You know what, Mr. Theo?”
“What, Jinx?”
“If I were Mama, I would smile at these.”
Theo smiled, trying to think about the beauty of the moment and the little boy’s love for his mother. Trying to push the thoughts of Matthew Hartley and all that stood between Theo and Alina far away.
Chapter 9
“Is everything packed to your satisfaction, my lady?” Willa curtsied and ran her hand in a sweeping motion over the luggage piled on Alina’s bed. There were fine-pressed dresses, a small bag of ribbons, and three hats in hat boxes above a pile of neatly oiled shoes.
“Quite. You did a lovely job, Willa. I have no qualms moving forward with the trip. Have you heard from Jinx’s nanny? Is all well in his packing, too?”
Willa pursed her lips, and Alina saw again that rueful attitude the girl had been exhibiting so often as of late. She had never been one to demand blind respect from the household staff, but it irked her to see the girl always tossing her head at requests and pretending offense at the slightest critique.
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