“Let us go, James. Nothing here is worth more to me than Reuben,” she prompted.
Without glancing back at her parents, she ran out of the house, her mind spinning as she tried to think of any place Reuben might have snuck off to that would keep him out of sight – for a few hours at least.
She urged the valet towards her family’s carriage, not caring what her father would say if he found out, informing the coach man to,
“Head to the Ravencroft estate please.”
They were on their way in moments, Jane’s heart beat echoing in her ears with how loudly it was beating.
She wondered if this was her fault somehow. If her impromptu departure had devastated the boy enough to cause him to act out. Reuben was playful and perhaps a little stubborn sometimes, but he was barely even mischievous enough to have done this deliberately to cause his family any harm.
Jane could barely concern herself with how anyone else was feeling, more worried about the boy more than anyone else.
But Thomas... she could picture him clearly, worried but somehow maintaining a cool demeanour as he likely tore his estate apart in an effort to find his child. Jane hoped he was not blaming himself, her heart hurting at the thought of him all by himself, trying to shoulder this burden.
“Oh God, please,” she put her hands together and whispered. “Please let us be able to find him soon.”
They arrived to the estate in minutes, because the coachman had heard the urgency in her voice. Jane had been staring out the window at the estate as it drew closer and closer, wondering what she would say to Thomas, and from the corner of her eye, she spotted a small figure walking down the street.
He was going in the opposite direction of the estate, his eyes trained forward and his brows set with determination.
The moment Jane recognized him, she leaned out of the window and shouted,
“Reuben Wetherby! Stop right there!”
The boy stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening as he turned around at the sound of his name. Jane ordered the carriage to stop and it had barely done so before she was out of it and on the street, running towards the child with open arms. She liftedhim up and carried him back into her carriage, her chest heaving as the energy that had surged within her, keeping her tense and stressed started to dissipate.
She leaned back to look at his face, relieved to watch the recognition wash over his expression. Gently but efficiently, Jane ran her hands over him, checking for injuries.
“Reuben, what on earth were you thinking, leaving home like that? Do you have any idea how worried everyone is –”
The child started wailing all of a sudden, cutting Jane’s worried complaints, and she was further surprised when Reuben hugged her.
“Oh, darling,” she cooed softly, wrapping an arm around him her free hand stroked his hair. “You must have been startled and lost. I'm so sorry –”
“Y-You left!” he whined, tightening his hold on her. “You left me too – just like mama did. And papa was sad again. Why did you leave? I searched the whole house and I couldn’t find you. E-Even in the garden!”
His distress saddened Jane greatly. She could only imagine how he had felt when he had awoken and she was nowhere to be found. She had never thought it would remind him of his late mother who had also disappeared overnight.
And if he had checked the garden for her too... he had probably feared that Jane had met the same fate his mother had.
“I'm sorry, darling,” she murmured, lifting him onto her lap as the carriage started to move again. “I am truly sorry. I did not want to leave. It was so hard to let you go and I did not want to. I did not think you would – it does not matter. Please, do not cry, my precious boy.”
It seemed he had been convinced she would not vanish, because he leaned back and allowed her to dab his tears away, burrowing into her arms once she was gone, clearly still afraid of putting too much distance between them.
The carriage came to a stop soon and Jane knew they had arrived at the estate.
“Come along, dear. We need to tell your father and the others that you are all right,” she told him gently.
He nodded, finally willing to stand on his own. James opened the door of the carriage and helped them out, Jane taking Reuben’s hand in hers before she leading him into the house.
It felt surreal... to be back so soon after she had left, but Jane did not have much time to think about what it meant, because Thomas spotted them as soon as they entered the foyer.
“Reuben?” the duke called out, his face crumbling in relief. “My God – it is you!”
Thomas practically ran towards them, sinking to his knees to embrace his son. Jane watched him hold the child, the amount of love and affection he had been carrying without properly relaying to Reuben spilling out of him now.
“I-I don’t understand – why would you – never again. You must never act this way again. I was worried! We all were – we searched for you for hours! I-I'm not upset with you, but I need you to know that if anything happened to you, I would not be able to live. Please... never scare me like that again.” he said firmly, pulling back so he could look Reuben in the eye to enforce his seriousness.
