Page 53 of The Widower Without a Will
She nodded.
“Is that why you came to Bath?”
“I needed to say goodbye.”She leaned her head against the tree trunk, eyes closed, and Martin’s heart twisted at her burden.A mother should never have to bury her child; if she did have to, she should not have to chase down his grave a decade later.“I needed him to forgive me.”
“Forgive you?”They had bonded over this before, yet, with his children’s blessings filling his heart, Martin suddenly saw it in a new light.Martha had done no worse by Lucas than he had done by Caroline, and that was to make honest mistakes.“For loving him as best you could as his mother?For trying to protect him?”
“He didn’t come to me for support—for money or for his grief—because I was always too busy telling him the right thing to do.Experience told him that my advice, if I even dared to see him, would only make things worse.”Eyes still closed, she pressed her hands to her heart.“And I think he was right.”
Martin didn’t agree.Had her son come to her in despair, he knew Martha would have reacted with wisdom and care.But this was not about arguing the point.He asked, “Has he forgiven you, then?”
At last, her eyes opened, and she smiled beatifically at the landscape beyond.“Yes, I think so.”
He sank onto the ground beside her.“Tell me about him.”
“He was a feeling kind of boy,” Martha said, running her fingers over the yellowed grass under which Lucas might now be resting.“When he was five, I lost a baby, and he understood enough to know that I was upset, even though I tried not to let him see me ill or crying.He made me a little doll out of straw to cheer me up.”
“That’s a good heart.”
“He looked out for others, too, not just me.One of his best friends broke his ankle, and Lucas spent every afternoon inside keeping him company, even on the most beautiful summer afternoons.He always put others first.”
Martin watched her whole countenance brighten even as tears shone in her eyes.Wanting to see more of this, he asked, “And did he never make mischief?”
“Oh, he knew how to get my hackles up, that’s for sure.Every time I made him a new suit of clothes—every time, I swear!—he managed to tear it or roll around in mud or otherwise ruin it within the first two days.He must have been sixteen the time that we purchased him a proper coat from a shop in town, so he could be proud at school, and that very afternoon, he somehow ended up in the river.He was wet from head to toe.”
Martin smiled because she was smiling.“I’ll never stop being amazed at how young people can speak and look like adults only to behave like the littlest of children.”
“Lucas was like that.Sometimes, he said the wisest things to me.Other times, he did the most harebrained things.”Her gaze drifted over the crossroads.“I was never sympathetic to him falling in love with Lady Imogen.I told him to keep his eyes off her; he didn’t listen.I told him not to go following her around the countryside; he didn’t listen.I told him he would never be allowed to marry her; he told me I could never understand him.When they eloped, and when he…it is only since I have fallen in love with you that I understand why he couldn’t see reason.He was young.What match was he for the power of the heart?”
Martin knew this moment was not about him.Yet he heard her confession—I have fallen in love with you—and all the fears and shadows that had been weighing him down disappeared.He had been afraid her heart had already released him.He couldn’t help but sweep Martha’s beautiful hands into his.“We are old, and what match are we for the power of our hearts?”
She looked at him with that shield over her emotions again.“Why have you come after me, Lord Preston?”
He had too many apologies to make.He didn’t know where to start.When he opened his mouth, none of them came out.“I came to tell you that I am in love with you, too.”
She softened only a little.“This is a long journey to make just to say such a thing.”
“It is no small thing to say.”Martin dared kiss the tips of her fingers, which she hadn’t yet pulled from his clasp.“If that is all you want to hear from me, then I will return home knowing that at least you know the truth of my heart.”
Martha whispered, “And if I want to hear more from you?”
“Then I shall tell you that I am so deeply sorry for how I treated you.All this time, we called ourselves friends, and I was afraid to admit that we were more than friends because I could not bear to wonder what a future might hold for us.Now I have seen what a future iswithoutyou, and I hate it.I am at my worst without you.”He forced himself to not look away as he confessed: “I burned down Northfield Hall.”
“Burned it down?”She jerked forward.“Not the whole building, surely?How?Is everyone all right?”
Before his admission to his children, Martin would have absorbed her questions as accusations.Now, he refused to let guilt sink its claws into his heart.He would be honest; no more, no less.“Luckily, no one was injured, but I’m afraid the whole building burned.I had too much to drink, and the fire in the hearth got out of control.”
He would not shrink away from her, not even as she frowned.“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“And yet, it was me.My fault.My actions.”Martin’s heart was beating in triple time again.“That is who I became when I tried so very hard to deny that I am a man with a heart.A heart that, at the time, was in great pain.”
Her eyes cast down as she said sympathetically, “Grief makes us do strange things.”
“Yes, and I have been grieving a great many things.Mr.Maulvi.My good relationship with my children.You.But do you know, it is Caroline who prodded me into realizing that I needn’t grieve you at all.”Martin dared to hold her hand a little more tightly.“You have been the best partner to me, Martha.I was ashamed of all the wrong things.I should never have sent you away.I should have begged you to stay.I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I humble myself with the apology because at the very least, you deserve to know that I repent every injury I caused you.”
Martha’s fingers began to tremble.“You are worthy of forgiveness.”
He remembered her last words to him:It doesn’t do any good when you are so hard on yourself.“My son Benjamin recently informed me that I am human, and therefore I inevitably will fail.Which is very similar to advice Maulvi used to give me, and perhaps even what Lolly used to remind me of all those years ago.”
