Page 44 of The Widower Without a Will
She had cursed him for being foolish.She had beseeched the heavens to tell her how she had raised a son who made such terrible mistakes.
And now Martha knew.She and Lucas had the same doomed heart.
At least, if she had to lose Lord Preston, she was a little bit closer to her lost son.
Martha found it in her to say one last thing.“It doesn’t do any good when you are so hard on yourself.”Then, holding fast to the banknote, she removed herself from his rooms.
Chapter Seventeen
Shedepartedwithallthe dignity she could muster.For appearance’s sake, she pretended to have at long last received the letter from Georgina inviting her to come make a home in London.After packing her meager inventory of belongings, she descended to take breakfast with the family—but the footman informed her they had all elected to take the meal in their rooms.She lingered at the table as Mrs.Chow called for the carriage, and then she waited in the doorway as Boyle packed her bag into the coach.
Lord Preston did not come down to make things right.He did not send a note of apology with Mrs.Chow.He did not even show himself to say farewell as the servants assembled to wish her a safe journey.
His absence made it easier to leave—frankly, made it easier to be angry instead of devastated as she climbed into his fancy carriage with his hundred-pound banknote sewn safely into the hem of her petticoat.
She had not asked anything of him.She had not accused him of anything.She had not done anything except bare her heart to him, and he repaid her by sending her away.
Perhaps everyone else was right and he was not the man he claimed to be.
As she settled onto the carriage bench—back stiff so as to demonstrate perfect posture to anyone looking—she got her final glimpse of Lord Preston.He stood in the bay window of his study, just behind the gauzy window curtains that screened for privacy while letting in sunlight.At the moment, the sky was steel gray and shedding a light, unpleasant drizzle of icy rain.He was hardly more than a shadow behind that layer of white linen, a statue of a man with his hands frozen behind his back, his head bowed as if in prayer.
For the briefest of moments, their gazes collided, and Martha forgot to be angry, so desperate was she for him to make everything right.
And then the horses began to walk and the carriage began to roll and Martha was pulled away from him.
She allowed herself to cry in the carriage.If he had died, she would have been allowed to sob in a bedroom without question, or at least keen with the village as they all mourned their lost lord.But he was not dead; he simply no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.And so this grief, unlike all her others, must remain secret.When her tears became more audible, more like sobs, she pulled herself together, gasping in air until she was calm again, so that Boyle wouldn’t hear.
By the time they arrived at the Fox and Hound, Martha had tucked her handkerchief into her sleeve and returned to being the somber woman she had been before Northfield Hall.She secured a room for a week with her own ten shillings and bid Boyle farewell with a tip of a half crown.
“We’ll miss you around the Hall,” he said gruffly, tugging at his cap as if she were a great lady deserving of his respect.
“Everything has its season.Take good care of yourself.”
She wondered if Lord Preston would ask Boyle how she looked as he took his leave.Should she call Boyle back and leave some final words with him for Lord Preston to interpret?
But she didn’t know what she wanted to say, other thanTake it back, please.
She made a routine for herself at the Fox and Hound as she endured the week.Breakfast—bread, cheese, and actual tea—in her room.A walk around the green, during which she allowed herself to stop in at one shop a day.In the afternoons, she sat in the inn’s parlor with her embroidery hoop.She took supper in the common room and then retired to her bedchamber, where she read by candlelight before forcing herself to at leasttryto sleep.
It wasn’t much of a life, but it afforded her a heartbeat within which to consider her options.
She yearned to return Lord Preston’s hundred pounds.Even though she hadn’t heard from Georgina, she could go to Battersea and join the family of seven in a bed that might well be in the same room as those five children.It was the proper place for an old widow, the only place where Martha could hope to have people take notice of her as she grew weaker and weaker.
Try as she might—and she tried especially hard that week—Martha couldn’t imagine herself in Georgina’s family.She couldn’t see herself disappearing into a corner of chaos, nor could she summon excitement at the prospect of watching over all those children.There would be so much life in that house, if it was even a house; Martha wasn’t sure she had the wherewithal to sustain it.
If she hadn’t been at Northfield Hall, perhaps she could have been happy with Georgina.But shehadgone to Northfield Hall; shehadunlocked her heart to Lord Preston, for better or worse, and now the hopes and dreams and loves that had lain dormant inside her for years were awakened again.Martha did not merely want to survive.She wanted to thrive.She wanted to be as full and happy and flawed a person as she had been when Lucas was alive.
Which meant, she concluded as her days at the Fox and Hound drew to a close, that she needed to do what she had not done all these years.
She needed to say a proper goodbye to Lucas.
And to do that, she needed to accept Lord Preston’s bitter gift.
Andsohislifereverted to what it should be.A quiet Northfield Hall, emptied of his children, who had seen fit to build lives very different and apart from his.Plodding winter days full of correspondence and decisions.Cold reviews of the estate to discover the latest problems sprouting on top of the ones just fixed.
It was the right thing to send Martha away.It had been wrong to dally with her—wrong to kiss those fingertips, unbraid that hair, taste that delicate skin—and so it was right to tear himself away from her, though the rip was violent and painful.When she left, he checked her bedchamber, fearing she had left him a final note that a maid might find, and took in his last breath of her scent.There was only a lace glove, lost beneath the bed, which she had often worn to supper with his daughters in that last month.Martin tucked it into his pocket, in case she wrote upon discovering its loss.
He didn’t hear from her, but he did keep the glove close.He didn’t allow himself to think of her, but he did stroke those lace fingers when he was alone in his study.He didn’t permit his thoughts to wander to Theale, but he did, every so often, press the lace to his nose and inhale the sensible scent of Martha.
