“Chance remained married to you, did he?” her father asked.
“Yes,” she said, “he remained.” She tried to find words for how much more he had done, but Joseph’s actions had been a stream of intangibles. Patience, curiosity, support, regret, and acceptance. Today—love.
“I see the wardrobe he provides,” said Wallace. “Or perhaps he forces penance on you with this dress.”
Tessa looked down at her brown wool dress. Of course her appearance would be her father’s most relevant measure of her wellness. She had worked so hard to fix the parts of herself that had beguiled one man to impregnate her and another man marry her. In her father’s view, the reform translated only to plainness. There was no redemption in his eyes.
She almost said this,but her father narrowed his eyes to accusing slits and said slowly, “Would you like to know of your mother?”
Tessa closed her mouth. She did not expect this. She had assumed that being disinherited precluded information about the state of her mother. The truth was, in spite of everything else, she had missed her Maman. She had called out for her during the agonizing hours of labor; and again, when Christian had been a ravenous newborn who would not suckle. She had seen a pretty purple hat and thought of her mother’s love of violet, about their shared love of shops and pretty things and fashion.
But what of their shared love of each other?
Isobel’s love of the family’s reputation and her esteem in the eyes of society had been greater. Tessa had known this.
And still she asked, “Is... Maman well?” Concern edged out bitterness.
“No, she is not,” her father boasted. His eyes bulged and he held his hands out. His expression said,What did you expect?“She is heartbroken,” Wallace hissed. “Her only daughter is disgraced. Her son-in-law is a stranger, bribed with a dowry to give her child a name.”
Tessa took a small step back. How foolish it had been to ask. Tears blurred her vision, she felt her throat begin to constrict. The bustle of the street felt deafening, while individual voices and horse hooves grew indistinct. She was underwater. She heard everything from the bottom of a miserable sea.
“But why are you in Blair Street?” her father went on. “This is rare form, indeed, Tessa.”
“Joseph has business with a buyer. I’ve come to look on. I am learning the dockyard, if you can belie—”
Her father gave a snort of disgust. “Looking on?How can your brothers go about their business in Blackwall if they are to fear colliding with you?” His pugnacious frown pulled his entire face downward, like wax on a candle.
Tessa tried to say she would not acknowledge her brothers in future.
She tried to say that their business and her business need never intersect.
She tried to say that, by the way, Christian superseded any disgrace that she had brought on the family—
But her voice had grown high and thin, her lip quivered. And she did not have the opportunity. Joseph appeared at her side.
One moment she had been alone with her scowling family, and then Joseph had been there, tucking a broadsheet beneath his arm.
“Ah, Wallace, imagine the odds. I can see your surprise, but never fear. We won’t be in Blair Street long. Not today. And I wouldn’t worry too much about future encounters. Tessa and the baby and I are looking at property in County Durham. On the North Sea. In Bartlepool.”
“Hartlepool,” Tessa corrected.
“That’s what I meant,” said Joseph. “Hartlepool.”
His lips quirked up, betraying the slightest hint of a smile.
“Tessa has an interest in the new dockyard there,” he said. “She’s shown quite a capacity for importation. Entirely self-taught, obviously.”
Tessa looked back at her father and brothers, at their stunned expressions, their distaste, their entire lack of control over anything she said or did. Her tears receded, and she felt a wave of fresh courage. “The future is at St. Katharine, by the way. The West India Docks is on the decline. You might look into it.”
“Well said,” cheered Joseph and took her by the arm.
“If we’re all finished here,” he told Wallace St. Croix and his sons, and he shouldered ahead, giving them little choice but to step aside. He steered Tessa into the street.
She did not look back. She stared down Blair Street, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling shock and pride and gratification.
“Thank you,” she said.
Joseph gave a weak smile, a smile that answers mundane comments about the weather.
