Chapter 25

CHAPTER25

“You have to let go of her at some point, Celia,” Marianne said, exasperated and sighing loudly.

“Thank you, Mama, for that insight. Forgive me if I ignore you.” Celia’s rather sharp tone showed she had no intention of listening to their mother, and Violet was happy about it. She continued to embrace her sister tightly, the two of them leaning against one another on the settee of their front parlor.

Marianne kept fidgeting, still sitting tall and prim in the nearest chair, while Jonathan paced around the room. He didn’t look anywhere near as formal as his wife, for he had shed his cravat and his tailcoat and had letters in his hand.

“It’s settled, we’ll go to the country estate,” he said with finality.

“What? The country?” Marianne stood up in alarm. “But… the Season is upon us.”

Celia flinched so much that Violet actually sat up straight, and Jonathan came to such a harsh halt that Marianne fidgeted once more.

Slowly, Jonathan turned around to face his wife with such anger on his face that Violet wasn’t sure she had ever seen him so mad at their mother before.

“I will get my daughter out of London and away from the man who has hurt her like this. That is my priority, as it should be yours,” Jonathan muttered scathingly. “It’s time you let go of what the ton thinks of you and this family, Marianne. The ton is not what you should fear, but the people within it, just as we should have all feared the Duke of Barlow. Now, I shall make arrangements so we can go to the country at the end of the week.”

With these final words, he marched out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Jonathan?” Marianne called and ran after him, scrambling to fling open the door and run after him.

Violet had a bad headache, which she supposed was unsurprising after how much crying she had done. She closed her eyes, bearing with the pain as her mother continued to shout and let the door swing shut loudly once again.

“So peaceful,” Violet whispered.

“Just what you needed, eh?” Celia said with a sigh. “I’m sorry it has come to this, you know? Truly, I am. If I had known what would come, I never would have set that dare.”

“Do not worry yourself, Celia.” Violet stood up and moved across the room. Feeling suddenly cold, she knelt down in front of the fire, wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders.

She forced a smile, but it only lasted for a second, as the pounding in her head was too painful, and she could not dissuade the ache in her heart.

“We could hardly know what would follow, and even I didn’t know that what I felt for him… would become as strong as it has.”

“You love him?” Celia whispered, moving to the edge of her seat. It wasn’t said in an excited tone, but a wary one.

Violet didn’t utter the words but just nodded. She knew she did. There could be no doubt about it after her heartbreak.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Celia flung herself back on the seat but sat up again a second later as a bell rang in a distant part of the house. “At last, they’re here!” She leapt to her feet.

“Who’s here?”

Yet, Violet didn’t get an answer to her question, as Celia ran out of the room, and, once more, the door slammed shut loudly.

“Ow,” Violet groaned and rubbed her temple, desperate to relieve the pain in her head.

She knew why she had such a headache. It was to do with the constant dehydration from crying so much, and the fact she didn’t sleep the night before. Each time she closed her eyes, she was tormented by haunting dreams.

Sometimes, she saw herself and Xander together on the bed, tangled up as they made love. She thought of the way he entered her, strongly, fervently, kissing her with passion, but then as she reached up to wrap her arms around him, he disappeared.

The dream would change. She was alone in the bed, surrounded by blackness, unable to see anything. She heard whispers from the corners of the room, heard heavy breath.

He’s here.

She called out for him in that darkness, desperate to see him. When she caught a glimpse of him, he was standing in the corner, as still as an alabaster statue, glaring at her, coldness in those blue eyes.

“I want you out of here.”

She scrambled from the bed, reaching toward him, panic-stricken as heavy breathing and whispers filled the air. Yet, she had to stop, for he had started marching toward her, anger in his steps. Afraid, she had fallen back on the bed, then…

All was gone, and she jerked awake.

She breathed heavily now as she stared into the fire. It seemed her dreams were set to torture her, both with the desire for Xander, missing him, and with the fear that it could now never be the same again.

“Violet?” Celia called from the door. “Look who has come to see you.”

Violet shifted on the hearth rug, turning to see that in the doorway stood Diana, Grace, and Eleanor.

“Violet!” Eleanor cried and ran toward her, pushing her spectacles up her nose.

Violet stood up and was embraced by her the next second.

Grace and Diana followed, to the point that Violet was drowning in their embrace. With so many arms wrapped around her, she could scarcely breathe, though she didn’t mind. To be surrounded by such warmth and kindness meant everything at this moment.

“We have just heard,” Grace said as they eventually stepped back. “Oh, it’s just too awful.”

“Is it in the scandal sheets?” Violet asked.

“Not yet.” Diana shook her head.

“No, Celia wrote to us and told us,” Eleanor explained. “But be warned, Violet. It may not be long before the scandal sheets get hold of something, especially if you stay here.”

“We are to go to the country house.” Violet sighed, looking at her friends’ faces in turn. She saw the sorriness, the pity, and it made her heart ache all the more. “If we’re quick enough, the writers may not realize he and I… have…”

“Separated?” Celia offered from the doorway.

“Parted,” Violet said. To her, “separated” sounded as if they might come back together someday, but that seemed impossible.

He loves another. It’s always been Tilly for him. He’ll never come back to me, unless, as she said, he just wanted someone to warm his bed.

“I do not understand how this has happened,” Grace said, thrusting her hands into her hair in panic. “You two married. He made vows to you.”

“Vows which are apparently not as important as the promise he made to Tilly,” Violet went on.

She urged her friends to take seats around the room, but none of them moved. They all continued to stand beside her.

“And this woman?” Eleanor asked. “Lady Tilly. She is alive and well, after all?”

“Very alive. And well… I’m not sure how well she is.” Violet wrinkled her nose, thinking of the temperament Tilly had shown. There had been something altogether odd about her. “She’s as alive as you and I, though. I suppose I should feel some victory in being right that Xander had nothing to do with her disappearance, yet I feel no happiness about it. All I feel is…”

She couldn’t manage to utter the word. She just stood there, inhaling sharply to stop more tears.

Diana took her hand and held it tight as Eleanor ran a hand up and down her arm in comfort.

“Maybe this is all some dreadful misunderstanding,” Diana said pleadingly. “Some odd matter which in time will soon be all sorted out.”

“You are too benevolent for your own good.” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “He sent her out of the house!”

Diana pinkened, looking embarrassed.

“I fear there is no misunderstanding, Diana.” Violet looked at her friend. “Your kindness does you credit, but perhaps there was no better side of him, after all. We always knew there was a mystery, a darkness, did we not? My mistake was believing in the goodness there, when it was not there, after all.”

“What were you to him, then?” Grace asked, wrinkling her nose and looking altogether very afraid.

“Someone to warm his bed, I think.” Violet’s answer made them all curse.

“Shh,” Celia urged from the doorway. “I hardly mind if we curse, but do not let our mother hear you. She’s in high dudgeon and panic already this morning.”

Violet was glad of her sister’s jest, and as the others smiled, she tried to as well, but it did not last.

Try as she might, she couldn’t shift the darkness from her heart, as if somehow, from a great distance, Xander’s shadowy hand still had a hold on it.

* * *

“Say that again,” Helena urged as they stood looking out the window, waiting for a carriage or cart to appear on the driveway. Infuriatingly, it remained empty, though the letter in Xander’s hand assured him there would be someone coming this morning.

“Yes, say it again,” Katherine ordered in a panicked tone from further back in the room. “You sent your lovely wife away because…”

“I had no choice.” Xander turned to face his mother. “Tilly threatened her. She threatened to kill Violet. What would you have me do? Keep Violet in a house with an unstable woman? No. I am not so much of a monster as to risk that, no matter how much I wished to keep Violet close.”

“You’re protecting her?” Helena said hurriedly.

“Is that such a shock?” Xander asked sharply. “God’s blood, Helena. You’re looking at me as if I have grown two heads!”

“Well, we just all assumed you had sent her away because Tilly had returned. That you’d want to return to her—”

“Why would I return to a woman who wanted nothing to do with me and left me at the altar?” he asked loudly, utterly bemused by the accusation. “Tilly and I were never joined by the heart, if that’s what you think.”

Helena shifted uncomfortably at his sharp tone.

“And you and Violet?” Katherine asked. “Do you love your wife, Xander?”

Love?

He’d not used that word. How could he? He’d always sworn he would not indulge in that feeling. It would mean a worse pain someday than that he’d felt when Tilly had walked out.

Wait… is this pain not worse? It is! The knowledge Violet is no longer here is agony.

“They’re here!” Helena abruptly cried.

Xander whipped around, staring out the window at the horse and cart now racing down the driveway. He stuffed the letter from his steward into the pocket of his tailcoat and ran out of the room, going so fast that he nearly knocked his mother over and had to call back to apologize to her.

He leapt out onto the drive just as the horse and cart came to a stop, and then he halted, looking at the three people in the cart.

Holding the reins of the single horse that towed them was his steward, who now bowed his head to him.

“Thank you,” Xander called to him before his eyes darted to the other man in the cart.

Slowly, the man who had once been his stable boy stood on the kickboard of the cart. He was older, yes, by a few years, but he was just the same. The same dark blonde hair but cropped shorter, and there was a little stubble on his cheeks. His clothes were poor but very well kept, and he was strong in build. He clearly knew how to take care of himself.

“Jarvis?” Xander called to him.

“Your Grace.” The man jumped down from the cart and bowed, moving toward him. He looked awkward, walking in an ungainly way.

Clearly, just as Xander did not know how to behave around him, Jarvis didn’t know what to do either.

“I… I don’t understand what is happening.”

“That makes two of us,” Xander said, struggling for words. “First, are you well?”

Jarvis blinked, the shock plain on his face before he nodded. “I am.”

“Good. That is good to hear.”

“Papa?” a small voice called.

Just as Jarvis looked back at the cart, Xander did, too. A small boy, no older than four, was kneeling up in the back of the cart. He bore blonde hair, closer to his mother’s hair in tone, and his eyes…

They’re Jarvis’s eyes.

Xander felt relief and shock overwhelming him. Once more, Tilly had lied. Whatever madness or confusion was upsetting her, it had driven her to lie once again. She had said her son had Xander’s eyes, but he was not. In every way, this boy was the son of the man standing before Xander.

“Your son?” Xander said softly to Jarvis. “Would you introduce me?”

Jarvis smiled, the relief plain on his face.

“I’d be delighted to. Tommy? Come meet the Duke of Barlow.” He beckoned his boy to climb off the back of the cart.

Tommy did so with a little difficulty but managed it and ran to his father’s side, gripping his hand.

“This is Tommy. My boy.” Jarvis patted his son’s head lovingly, ruffling his blonde hair.

Now that he was standing so close, Xander could see it all the more clearly. He bent down to Tommy’s level, admiring the dark brown eyes and the cheekbones that he’d also inherited from his father.

“How are you, Tommy?” Xander said, smiling at the boy.

“Hungry.”

“Hungry, eh?” Xander laughed as Jarvis urged his son to behave.

“We are not here to eat, son.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“We’ll find something for him.” Xander stood and met Jarvis’s gaze. “Come, let us find something for him, then you and I can talk, Jarvis.”

“Your Grace.” Jarvis hesitated, not quite following Xander yet as he walked toward the house. “I am surely not welcome here. Not after… what I did.” He was referring to his elopement.

“You are very welcome here,” Xander assured him. “Had you not eloped with Tilly, the best thing that ever happened to me wouldn’t have happened. I owe you more than you think. Now, come.”

This time, Jarvis followed, with the smallest of smiles on his lips.

* * *

“Are you ready, Jarvis?” Xander asked as he turned the cart onto the driveway of Anthony’s family home. He had gladly taken the position of the steward in the cart, steering the horse.

Jarvis sat beside him calmly as behind them Tommy knelt up in the back of the cart. “Are we going to see Mama?” he asked excitedly. “I miss her.”

“She misses you, too. Yes, we’re going to see her.” Jarvis reached back and patted his son’s head again, then he turned to face Xander in the driver’s seat.

As Tommy had been fed by Mrs. Winters, the two of them had talked. Xander had discovered that Tilly’s confusion was no recent thing but had been growing steadily worse across the last two years. Jarvis loved her still, though, and would do anything to bring her home.

Xander in turn had explained how he had found Jarvis, sending his steward out to trace them as soon as Tilly had turned up at his house.

“I’m ready,” Jarvis said, answering Xander’s previous question. “She may not want to come back with me, though,” he whispered, making sure his son couldn’t hear him. “She says she loves me still, but things… have not been easy.”

“What do you think started it all?” Xander asked. “I don’t particularly want to call it madness, but…”

“It could be a type of madness.” Jarvis shrugged. “I didn’t want to report it. I love her too much to see her put somewhere like Bedlam.” He grimaced in disgust. “I made up my mind long ago to take care of her. When it comes to what started it, I am not sure. It could be the hardness of our life. It would be a lie to say everything is easy. I do not earn a lot of money, and that was certainly a shock to her system when we first married.”

“What do you do for a living, Jarvis?”

“I help with the horses at our local coaching inn. It doesn’t pay much.”

Xander looked back at the boy in the cart. Like Jarvis, he was well cared for. Their clothes were clean, and even with Tilly gone, they were clearly capable of taking care of themselves, but both the boy and his father were thin—perhaps a little too thin.

They need some help.

Xander was already planning on securing Jarvis a new position somewhere when he pulled the cart to a stop on the driveway.

Jarvis stepped down, a nervous look in his eyes, though he tried to hide it from his son. He helped Tommy down, who stood there excitedly, pulling on his father’s hand.

“Where’s Mama?” Tommy asked again. “Is she in this big house? Why would she be here?”

Jarvis looked helpless, unsure how to explain to his son what was going on.

Xander stayed put in the cart as the door to the house opened. He’d warned Anthony with a rushed note that morning how he had found Jarvis and intended to bring him to see Tilly. Evidently, someone had been looking out the window, waiting for their arrival, for that door was flung open fast.

It was not Anthony who had opened it, though, but Tilly. She wore a clean, new dress as she stumbled down the front porch steps and came to a stop, staring at her husband and son.