He sucked in a breath and held it, an exaggerated gesture of irritation. “What. Letter?I would be a rich man if I had a shilling for each time I’ve been forced to repeat something about this day that makes no sense.”
I thought you were already a rich man,she thought, but she did not say it. The last thing she wished to appear was greedy. He would not cooperate with her plan for a house and modest income if she came off as greedy. And besides—she was not greedy. She did not want his money, she wanted only to survive.
Her second instinct was to laugh. He’d made a joke and it was marginally clever. But she had worked very hard to purge herself from laughing at the jokes of men. She was a serious woman of business now, not to mention someone’s mother. There was no place in this conversation for laughter.
Ultimately, a passing gentleman saved her from any reaction at all.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” said a tall, fashionably dressed man drawing up beside her. “May I offer my assistance with your parcels?”
Tessa smiled immediately (smiling at polite gentlemen was one habit she could not break), and she said, “How very kind you are, sir, but that won’t be necessary. I—”
Suddenly the distance between herself and Joseph was not so great. He was beside her, his hand on her lower back. Tessa blinked at the warm pressure of his palm.
Joseph told the man, “I’ve got them, thank you very much.”
“I’veaskedthe young lady,” said the gentleman.
“Bugger off,” Joseph growled, jerking his chin in the direction of the street. He took Tessa by the elbow and began to hustle her along. “What letter?” he repeated.
“I can walk unassisted, thank you very much,” she said, jerking her arm free.
He grumbled an apology, but he was glaring at the other man over his shoulder.
Tessa stopped walking. Joseph tried to unburden her of the boxes, but she clutched them to her. She took a deep breath. Even before the lists, she could not tolerate being rushed or bullied. When she explained what she’d done, she’d wanted the tone to be exactly, perfectly right. She’d wanted to be proficient and useful. She’d not planned to be defending herself.
She shuffled her parcels and said, “You’ve been misinformed, Joseph. And I’m sorry. There has been no effective way to communicate with you in Barbadoes, as you well know. I’ve written you several times and left word at both the West India dock office and Waterman’s Steam Packet Company, which, as you know, operates the steam tug. The cancellations at the West India Docks could not be avoided. I’ve made new arrangements to salvage what I could of an efficient return to London.”
He blinked down at her, almost as if he was seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time.
Good,she thought,heisseeing me for the first time. And I am changed.
She cleared her throat and imbued her voice with a rehearsed businesslike clip. “But I refuse to hash it out in the street. You will have to accompany me home to discuss it.”
The old Tessa would have turned her nose in the air, spun on her heel, and marched away. The old Tessa would have expected him to rush after her. Now she simply waited.
Joseph hesitated, and for a moment she thought he might refuse.
“Right,” he finally said. His voice came out in a huff. “Home. To discuss it.”
The exchange sounded like a concession, a concession between very formal, very irritated strangers, and Tessa supposed that was exactly what it was. Unfortunately, there were so many more formalities and irritations and concessions to come. But she had new priorities now, her infant son chief among them. If it had been only her, she would have joined a convent and retreated from society forever, carved out some safe place of solitude. But it had not been only herself. Christian was the center of her world now, and his future was all that mattered.
They reached No. 22, the house in which she, her friends, and now her son lived with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Boyd. The Boyds were the aunt and uncle of her friend Willow, and they had generously taken them in when all three girls came to London, newly married with husbands sailing across the Atlantic.
The townhome was small but fashionable, one of the very first built in Belgravia. Tessa was nearly as grateful to Mary and Arthur for taking her in as she was to Joseph for marrying her. But despite the Boyds’ seemingly endless generosity, she could not impose forever. Her friend Willow had already moved to Yorkshire to be with her husband’s family. Willow’s aunt and uncle were dear, generous souls, but Tessa arrived on their doorstep as one person, and now she was a mother with a baby and a nursemaid. By springtime at latest, she and the baby must move on.
“Mary and Arthur are calling on clients at the moment,” Tessa told Joseph, clipping up the steps and knocking for the butler to admit them.And the baby is napping,she added silently in her head. Joseph would eventually have to meet the child who bore his name, but good lord, one thing at a time.
The butler admitted them and signaled for a footman to relieve her of her shopping. She unpinned her hat. Her hands shook, the movement appearing tense and jerky. Her heart raced like she’d sprinted home from the shops.
She said, “Sabine is out—she’s always out—so we should be able to sit alone in the parlor, ring for tea, and discuss what’s happened.”
“Forgettea,” Joseph sighed impatiently. “I prefer to get right to it, if you don’t mind.”
Or,she thought,we will get right to it.
The butler hovered discreetly, and she handed him her hat and pelisse and dismissed him. She turned back to Joseph. He looked prepared to shout,You did what?regardless of how she explained the new situation. She would not be intimidated by him, but she was a little saddened. She never meant for his return to be combative. She took a deep breath and resigned herself.
“My parents traveled to London in late spring to call on me,” she said. It felt strange to tell this story while they hovered in the entryway, but she couldn’t force him to sit down. She’d forced him enough already.
