“I should never—”
“I disagree. You were concerned for my well-being. You didn’t order me to give up my son. You didn’t make the decision for me. I shouldn’t have said you were like Sebastiaan. You aren’t. Not in the slightest.”
Hugh sighed and gave a sharp nod. “Thank you. But I shouldn’t have suggested you give up—”
“Yet that is exactly what I’ve done.” Peace lifted a sad smile.“On Thursday I told Mr. Randolph I would no longer search for Theo. I gave the Randolphs my blessing to raise him.”
Hugh’s eyes rounded and rounded, and his mouth drifted open. “Pardon?”
“I surrendered my son. For his own good.” Her smile lifted higher, light and free. “Theo is happy with the Randolphs. They are the only family he knows. If I were to rip him away from them, force him to go with a woman he hasn’t seen for almost a year, a woman he surely doesn’t remember—how would that be kind or loving? How would that be good for him?”
“Aleida...” Hugh’s face swam with emotion.
“I gave Mr. Randolph Theo’s toy elephant to give to him, and I packed away his clothes.”
“That’s why you”—he fingered his own neck—“why you cut your hair.”
A wet little laugh erupted. “I won’t pretend surrendering him doesn’t hurt. It hurts dreadfully to know I’ll never see him again in person. But I did the right thing. I haven’t felt this much peace for ages.”
His eyebrows drew together. “You aren’t tapping your fingers.”
“Oh, I still do, but not as much.”
Hugh searched her face in the most intimate and caring way. “I see it. I see the peace.”
“Now I have his photographs.” Then she sucked in a breath. “May I?”
“Yes. Tony wants you to have them. He can make new prints.”
Aleida closed the portfolio and hugged it to her chest. “This means so much to me. I’ll frame them, all of them—except the last one. I can see him. I can see my son every day for the rest of my life. This is such a gift.”
Hugh’s mouth curved in a smile, mournful but full of admiration.
How she loved him. But how she’d mistreated him. As muchas she missed the romance, more than anything, she simply missedhim.
Aleida swallowed and wet her dry mouth. “Hugh, do you suppose, if you could ever forgive me for being so cruel to you—”
“Cruel?” He jerked his chin back.
“I compared you to Sebastiaan, when you’ve never been anything but kind to me. If you could forgive me, could we—could we be friends?”
Hugh dipped his chin and lowered his gaze. “I would be honored.” His voice sounded gravelly.
“I would too.”
Silence settled thick and awkward.
Then Hugh lifted a bright smile. “Tomorrow at the Hart and Swan?”
“Yes,” she said, and her peace deepened. “Tomorrow.”
38
SATURDAY, APRIL26, 1941
A light wind outside buffeted the tarpaulin protecting the remains of Hugh’s study. He picked through the broken bits of his desk—the right half blown to pieces and the left half collapsed in on itself. “What a beastly mess.”
Simmons gathered Hugh’s discarded papers into a bin for salvage. “I fail to detect any difference from its previous state.”
