“Yes, yes, I’d thought of that,” Alina answered. “Our marriage will hold no weight in court when this gets out, but I do not mind that. I will be free to do what I wish, and to be with whomever I choose.”
“It is not all roses and lilies,” Verner added quietly. “Your son is now…illegitimate.”
The room was silent.
“A bastard,” he clarified, scanning the faces of the women hearing this dreaded word spoken.
Alina smiled to herself at the silence he received. Mrs. Fairfax and Mrs. Forrester were not the sort to go fainting away at the first word of illegitimacy. She intervened for the poor man.
“I know that now, though he used me ill and I had no idea of it during our marriage.”
“But perhaps you have not considered the full import for your son. Jinx will no longer be able to inherit anything. He will not be recognized as a legitimate heir.”
Alina sighed, nodding. “I know this. I am sad for him, that I could not give him a life of wealth and prestige, but I think it better he be well loved and cared for than that he grow up in a lie. I would hate to think of Isadore’s son, the rightful heir, being disinherited because her marriage was not public.”
Verner let out a long breath. “I can see what Theodore likes about you,” he said.
The words hit Alina like a sword, severing her composure to the bone. She blinked, and tried to keep her voice calm. “Mr. Pendleton…how is he?”
Verner looked askance. “Did you tell my business partner that you left your husband with your son in tow?”
“No,” Alina admitted softly. “I have not spoken to him since the day of Jinx’s awful accident.”
“Yes, I heard about that,” Verner said dismissively. “The boy is quite recovered, I presume? Otherwise, we would not be talking of his future so casually.”
“He is, thank you,” Alina demurred.
Imogene stood, seeming not to care that Verner sat between her and Alina, and knelt in front of her friend, putting her hands on Alina’s knees. “You see what you must do now, don’t you? You’re free. You don’t even have to break your wedding vows—they were never legitimate to begin with, and Jonas cannot hold you to them. The travesty of your marriage came about through no fault of your own, and you have nothing more to feel guilty for. You should find him, Alina. You should find him and tell him the good news.”
“Find who?” Mrs. Forrester chirped.
“Mr. Pendleton,” Imogene said, her eyes never leaving Alina’s face. “The man she loves. She has distanced herself from him long enough, but now there is no longer any reason why they might not be together. Go back to the office with Mr. Verner, Alina, and tell Mr. Pendleton once and for all your situation. He cannot but be willing to give all to be by your side. I have seen his face.”
Alina looked at Imogene with tears welling in her eyes. “You are right. Of course, you are right. There is now no reason why I can’t be with him.”
She felt her heart lift as though on a thousand tiny wings. She had labored so long under uncertainty that she had fallen into a pattern of self-doubt. But here, there was no need to feel guilty or unsure. She cared not about the wealth and prestige of the world any longer. She simply wanted to fade into Theodore’s arms and let him hold all the evil in the world far away from her door.
She leapt to her feet. “Yes, Mr. Verner, will you please take me to Mr. Pendleton?”
Only then did she notice the grey tinge to the barrister’s face. He was hunched over, listening to the women but not looking at them, and when she at last called his name, he turned an agonized face in her direction.
“Women,” he said softly. “Why do you always take so long to make up your minds?”
“I beg your pardon?” Alina replied.
“You say there is nothing else that stands between you and happiness with Theodore, but you are wrong. Very soon, the whole of the ocean will stand between you—for your Mr. Pendleton is leaving first thing tomorrow morning on a ship with his uncle, heading to Boston.”
Chapter 33
Alina blinked. “That’s preposterous. Theo—Mr. Pendleton wouldn’t leave London. His work is here.”
Verner’s voice took on a bitter edge. “Not anymore, my lady. Your husband did a remarkable job of putting Mr. Pendleton out of business.”
“He’s not my husband any longer, I’ll have you remember,” Alina responded sharply, holding her ground. “And are you implying that Jonas somehow undercut Mr. Pendleton’s business?”
“He went to each of our clients with threats and aspersions, until in the end not a single one was loyal to the name of Pendleton any longer. I doubt if Theo will ever be able to work in London again,” Verner told her, his tone distraught. “I will be sad to see him go, but Boston really is the best option for him at present.”
Alina’s heart began to understand what her brain was still fumbling to comprehend. “He will be gone from me,” she said softly. So close, and yet she was losing everything despite all her struggle for freedom from Jonas.
She tried to imagine London with Theodore. Though she had held him at arm’s length for so long, she found herself now staring into the face of a life without him as one might stare into a vast, black chasm. Verner was saying something about the trip—how long it would take, what wharf Theo was leaving from—and Alina dragged her mind back to the conversation at hand.
“Excuse me,” she interrupted in a shaking voice. “To clarify, he is going to Boston for good? He will not return.”
“That is correct. He will work there, for his uncle’s firm. It’s a good job—”
“Yes, yes,” she waved these explanations away. “But he leaves first thing in the morning from the Port of London.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I have to go with him.” It seemed so obvious, so clear, and yet it was an acknowledgement that had been many months in the making.
Alina turned to Imogene, but it was as though her friend had read her thoughts even before they were spoken. “We’ve no time to spare,” she said, leaping to her feet. “Alina, I will make certain Jinx’s things are in order, and you can pack your own. Mrs. Forrester, will you call for a carriage to take them to the docks in the morning, before sunrise?”
“Right,” Mrs. Forrester bustled to her feet. “And you’ll be nervous as can be, but no matter how early, the boy will want breakfast. I’ll pack jam sandwiches for the ride over.”
“Thank you,” Alina said to her two friends, then, turning to Verner, “and, of course, thank you. You have given me new hope, and in the nick of time.”
Verner, for his part, looked stunned. “You would go to him, my lady?” he said in wonderment. “He did not think you cared for him any longer in that way.”
“Men are foolish,” Mrs. Forrester said. “No matter what society dictates, a woman’s heart is constant. If the man still loves, the woman does, as well.”
Alina showed Verner to the door, accepting the documents regarding Jonas’ marriage and pressing his hand politely in her own. “You have been good to Theodore,” she said, risking using her beloved’s first name, “and you have been good to me, as well. Thank you for your advice in this matter.”
“And I assure you, madame,” he answered, returning her firm handshake, “that if the opportunity arises to prosecute Mr. Hartley for his crimes, I will be the first to rise to the occasion.”
“I would expect nothing less,” she replied with a gracious smile.
There was a lightness in her heart, a certainty that she had never before known. The prospect of throwing caution to the wind and travelling to America was a bold one. She knew nothing of that land across the sea, and she could only be certain of being surprised upon arriving there. Still, navigating the wilds of a new culture and social sphere was an easy price to pay for proximity to the one she loved. She didn’t allow herself to dwell on whether or not Theo would have her—instead, she thought of her love for him, and his steadfastness at their last meeting
so many weeks ago.
He’d wanted her to be brave, then, and show the determination necessary to escape Jonas. So be it. This was her determination, her stake in the ground to spit on the morays of London society, once and for all. Disgraced or no, connected with the Hartley name or not, she would be at that dock the next morning—with her heart as an offering.
***
“Molly and the girls will be thrilled to see you,” William said. “The oldest is engaged to marry a fine gentleman from the business district, and the youngest is just turning ten. Such a bright, engaging age—eager to learn and not yet crippled by the knowledge that men will one day find her pretty to look at.”
Theodore smiled, closing his eyes and letting the warmth of the fire play on his eyelids. He wanted to rest in this moment and feel the contentment of family and freedom on the horizon, but he couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that he was leaving all he cared about behind.
“Your family sounds beautiful, Uncle. You are truly a blessed man. Where did you meet Molly?”
“Oh, isn’t that story running the circuits still in London? It was quite the scandal when it first happened.”
“No,” Theo answered honestly, “I haven’t heard. My father never spoke about it when I was young and, as you well know, he was not around to tell me tales when I came of age.”
William smiled an impish smile. “It is not a tale for the faint of heart, that is for certain. It goes thusly: I was a student coming up on his final year of studies to pursue a course in the law, and she was a ladies’ maid for an upper-class woman from the Americas. We met when I attended my professor’s end of year banquet. She was downstairs with the servants, of course, but I snuck out back to grab a smoke. There’s nothing so dull as an evening with barristers, you know.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes, we offer much in the way of justice and little in the way of conversation.”
“We offer too much in the way of conversation, in my own opinion,” William corrected him. “But we stray from the point. While I was out back, I heard a movement in the shadows, and who should appear but my Molly. She was a pretty thing, with bright red hair and the most horrendous shock of freckles you ever did see. It looked like the stars had tumbled down and landed there on her cheeks. I watched her pick her way silently across the room”—William mimed the movement—“until she came alongside me. She didn’t see me, but pulled a cigar out of her own pocket and lit up right then and there! I let her take one or two puffs before I made my presence known, and she jumped as high as fox when he hears the sound of the hunt.”
William fell to laughing, his belly jiggling and his white beard quivering with merriment. Theo smiled weakly. It was an amusing story, but the way William spoke of Molly only made him ache for Alina. “What happened next?” he asked quietly.
“Well, Molly was a bonny lass, but she had the most horrid way of talking. You’ll hear it in Boston. It’s a certain flatness. They’ve only been distant from the sophistication of London for a few decades, and they’re already starting to sound like yokels. She was worried I’d turn her in for smoking, a habit she says she picked up from her father years ago, but I told her she was more in danger of getting a kiss.”
William shrugged. “What do you think she said to that? She smacked me so hard I can still feel the sting of it today. Wicked woman.” He smiled gently to himself, the memory touching the part of his heart that still belonged to a love-struck young man in the moonlight, looking at the stars on a girl’s cheeks.
Theo was glad of the dim firelight. It hid the emotion he knew was dancing across his own face at the story. He looked down at his hands.
William sighed. “Courting her was a trial—we weren’t a conventional couple, and I had to sneak her out after hours. As you well know, I wasn’t the cream of the crop in London, but I had a fair share of admirers and I had the respect of my colleagues. When I announced I was marrying Molly, however, everything changed. Doors closed all over the city. It didn’t matter much to me, since I was already bound towards the States, but I still knew marrying her would be a departure from everything that was familiar.”
“It’s worthwhile to leave the familiar for love,” Theo said, his heart tight in his throat.
“You’re a romantic, my boy,” William answered back. “Be careful to keep that in check—our business works better with realists, not dreamers.”
Theo scoffed. “Look who’s talking. Marrying a servant girl from another continent.”
Now, thinking back on the conversation as he lay awake in bed, Theodore couldn’t deny a feeling of wistfulness at his uncle’s words. Under any other circumstances, his story would have wakened in Theodore a hope for love and the desire to find what William and Molly had in the smoky back alley, all those years ago. He couldn’t indulge so far, though. When he thought of the wistfulness, he thought only of Alina—and thinking of Alina was thinking of the impossible.
Even now, he could feel the ship waiting in the harbour nearby as though it was a siren calling his name. He would go with it, of course, and he would forget all the pain and devotion that stayed behind. He closed his eyes, feigning sleep, and indulged once last time in the memory of Alina as she’d been that day in Brighton—wading through the sea water, the wind in her hair, her laughter bubbling forth like a living thing.
Chapter 34
Alina woke before the dawn and dressed quickly, a strange sense of calm settling over her as her fingers moved across the buttons and laces of her dress. She wore white, not a traditional travelling colour, but the colour she knew was Theo’s favourite, and she wrapped a white silk ribbon in her loosely-tied hair. She put an embroidered shawl over her shoulders and went to wake Jinx.
He was sleepy, but when he saw her clothes he sat up at once, worry creasing his young face. “Where are you going, Mama?”
“Nowhere without you, sweet one.” She hugged her son close and then stepped away to take a closer look at him. “Do you remember Mr. Pendleton?”
He nodded. “The man who makes us smile.”
“Yes,” she said with a light little laugh. “The man who makes us smile. He is leaving the city today, Jinx, and I would like to go with him and take you along. Does that sound good?”
“Where is he going?”
“Across the sea to America, on a big boat.”
Jinx slid the covers out of the way and limped as quickly as he could manage to his clothes laid out at the foot of the bed. He struggled into his trousers as he spoke, “Yes, let’s go straight away to the boat and Mr. Theo.”
Alina had expected such a response, but it warmed her heart nonetheless to see her suspicions confirmed. She helped Jinx into the rest of his clothes and, taking him by the hand, walked with him downstairs to their carriage. Imogene and Mrs. Forrester were already awake, standing together by the doorway.
“Your luggage is all loaded up, love,” Mrs. Forrester said, pressing the sandwiches into Alina’s hands. “Go in peace.”
Alina hugged her, thanking her for all she’d done, and then turned shining eyes to her friend. “You’ve been so good to me, Imogene. Thank you.”
“You are worth being good to, my dear one,” she answered with tears in her eyes. “Remember that.”
Alina nodded, embraced them both once more, and then walked with Jinx to the carriage.
The ride to the wharves was not terribly long, but by the time they arrived Jinx had already eaten all the jam sandwiches and was sitting on his knees with his head hanging out the window of the carriage, eagerly looking at the ships in search of the proper one. “It smells like fish, Mama,” he commented, wrinkling his nose.
The carriage pulled up at the edge of the dock and Alina directed the coachman to pull their meagre luggage down. There were only two cases, and she took one in each hand, directing Jinx to hold on to one of the handles. “Don’t let go,” she warned, eyeing the crowds of people milling about with suspicion. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 26
