He shook his head and began again, “Your parents seemed like reasonable people. Granted, I did not know them well. I was at Berymede only a matter of weeks.” He frowned. “A little adherent to propriety, I suppose.” Another frown. “But to disown you?”
“It was always ambitious to think they would not discover my... secret.”
“Alright, fine, they learned about the baby. But to separate from you entirely?”
Tessa threw up her hands, fingers spread. “Joseph? Why do you think I kept the baby secret and scrambled to find a husband? For what reason did I marry you?”
Not because you loved me,he thought.Not because you trusted me to help you.
Joseph shook his head. “Because you made some solitary plan and were determined to see it through?”
She raised her hands again. “Because I knew this would be their reaction.” She turned away and stalked the length of the room. When she spoke again, her voice was controlled. “To them, reputation is paramount. Even if they had managed some compassion or understanding, their shame would have been very great. I would have been secreted away, my baby taken from me, some fabrication would have been spun about my absence.”
She shrugged. “But they are not compassionate or understanding. As I knew they would not be.” She circled a yellow chair and then dropped into it. “At least they’ve been quiet about it. A public shunning would only have compounded their humiliation. To the world, we married for love and had a baby right away. So, please do not think our marriage was in vain.”
“I do not believe we married in vain,” he said.
To his surprise, she blushed at his statement. Her color was already high, she’d had so much to convey. She looked, he thought, so beautiful. Despite her terrible dress and the tight, unyielding way she’d styled her hair. Despite the look of distress on her face.
But beauty had never been the problem. He had spent sleepless nights on the island, dreaming about her beauty. He wanted to stare. To take in what he remembered and account for the changes. To admire. To lo—
Instead, he cleared his throat and looked around the room.
The decor of the townhome was lovely. The walls and upholstery were coated in soft colors. There were potted ferns. A lush garden glowed autumn red and gold through the window.
“The Boyds’ house is lovely,” he said. From nowhere, he thought,Tell me you hate it.
Weep and tell me you hate it.
Beg me to take you away from it.
Ask me to take you anywhere.
Joseph blinked, reeling from this radical new line of thought.
Tessa told him, “Willow’s aunt and uncle have been so very generous. And it is a fine house. This townhome will always be the envy of the neighborhood, even with mansions going up around it. It has been very comfortable.”
Joseph nodded and looked around again. It was not an unfit house. Certainly, it was more modern and tastefully arranged than his own London home. He’d bought a house in Blackheath the year before, sparing no expense. Blackheath was a respectable neighborhood (theonlyrespectable neighborhood) near the London docks, but the house sat empty while he was at sea. He furnished it in fits and starts, a work in progress.
Is it fit for a wife and baby?he wondered, surprising himself again—shocking himself. He’d not come here to relocate Tessa and her baby to his own home. He’d not planned to come here at all.
Tessa finished, “It’s been lovely, but I have a mind to move us in the near future. In the spring, I hope.”
Joseph’s heart stopped.
He realized with stunning clarity that, somewhere deep inside the hard knot of his heart, hehadfantasized about taking her and the baby away. He’d fantasized so many scenarios for her.
As for the baby?
Honestly, Joseph had expected to encounter the child immediately upon entering the house. When he had thought of Tessa from Barbadoes (which had been frequent), he thought of her always with the child. In his mind’s eye, the infant would be crying, or she would be preoccupied, or both.
And yet now here he was, his first day back in England, sitting down with Tessa, and there was no baby to be seen. And now Tessa was telling him she would relocate, and Joseph’s throat felt like it was closing up.
His brain screamed,I’ve not even seen the boy—
Tessa interjected, “The baby and I cannot impose on Mary and Arthur forever. I am accustomed to caring for him now.” She looked up and gave him a weak smile. “This took some... time. Also, Willow’s former lady’s maid, Perry, has agreed to stay on as our nurse for a while longer. But the baby and I must eventually settle somewhere in... in earnest. This was always temporary, wasn’t it?”
As revelations went (and it felt very much like a revelation), it was calmly stated and oddly devoid of specifics. She hardly sounded happy, but he could not name the other flat emotion in her words or her expression.
