Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
“You look awful.” Martha wrinkled her nose as she walked into the study.
Tobias blinked blearily up at her from where he was sitting on the floor, leaning against his wooden desk. His hand brushed against the half-empty bottle of scotch, and he winced as it clattered to the floor.
Sunlight filled the room as Martha opened the curtains, and Tobias groaned, shielding his eyes from it. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and he could taste stale whiskey and cigar smoke.
His stomach growled, and he put a hand over it. He could not remember when he had last eaten. He had barely had an appetite.
“What are you doing here?” He groaned as his head started to pound.
“You asked me to visit you before I left for Arlington, remember?” Martha gave him a quizzical look.
Tobias frowned. “But that was not until the sixth.”
“It is the sixth, Tobias.” Martha rocked Erica, who was starting to fuss.
“What? It cannot be.” Tobias shook his head and immediately regretted it, as the pounding only worsened.
“Well, it is.” Martha sat on the chaise and began bouncing Erica up and down on her lap.
That meant it had been three days since Rowen had left. It had been three days since she had walked out the door and his life had come crashing down around him.
The halls were quiet and empty. He kept turning around, expecting the children to appear at any moment. The scent of violets lingered on his bed, taunting him with the memory of what could have been.
She did not want to stay.
It was better this way. He had let himself get carried away, and it had almost trapped her with him forever. He had done the right thing.
“When was the last time you shaved? Or ate? Or even slept?” Martha’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “I cannot imagine your wife will be thrilled about this behavior. Where is she, anyway?”
“She is gone. They all are.” Tobias rose unsteadily to his feet. His joints cracked ominously as he stretched, and he grimaced. “They left a few days ago, actually.”
He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, making a dismissive motion with his other hand. He hoped that Martha would drop the subject, but she did not.
“What do you mean?” She frowned. “Have they gone to the country? Why did you not go with them?”
“I mean, they no longer live here. Rowen, Georgie, and Alistair will not be coming back.” Tobias slumped into an armchair as the room tilted. “It is over.”
“What happened?” Martha asked, carefully laying a now-calm Erica on the chaise and moving closer to him. “I thought the repairs at Irving Manor were not finished.”
“They’re not.” His voice was clipped.
“Then why has she left? Did you have an argument? I know that things were not always easy between the two of you, but it seemed like you had turned a corner of late.” Martha pursed her lips. “At least, from the letters I have received from you and what some of the servants have mentioned.”
“Her brother is not dead.” Tobias closed his eyes, not wanting to see the pity on her face. “The only reason she needed to marry me was because he would not be able to support her any longer, and well… Now that he can do that, we do not need to stay married.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Forget that any of this ever happened?”
He wished that it were that easy. That he could just erase her. But the hole in his chest only seemed to grow further.
“If that was the only reason for you to remain married, then that might be reasonable to say,” Martha said slowly, as though choosing her words carefully.
Tobias waved a hand dismissively. “There was no other reason for us to stay together.”
“Really?” Martha arched an eyebrow. “I can think of one reason or two.”
Tobias frowned. “Such as?”
“Love.”
He scoffed. “Love has nothing to do with this.”
“I think it has everything to do with this, Tobias.” Martha hesitated and then nodded, as though coming to a decision. “If you love her, that is more than enough reason for you to stay married. Especially if she loves you as well.”
“I have no idea how she feels about me, so the point is moot.” Tobias drummed his fingers against his thigh.
Martha hesitated, and after a few moments, she said, “You told me that you considered me your sister-in-law, and in truth, I feel the same about you. I have never seen you like this—you are utterly wretched.”
“Thanks, that is just what I needed to hear,” he said sarcastically, folding his arms over his chest.
Martha ignored him. “You look like a man who has had his heart broken.”
That is because I am heartbroken.
“If she is happy, whether my heart is broken or not is inconsequential. None of this matters.”
“It does matter, Tobias. It matters a great deal.” Martha leaned towards him and took his hand. “I loved your brother more than I will ever love another soul. When he died, it felt like the sun had been stolen from me. Like life itself should stop.
“When I lost Eric, I was furious at the world. I lashed out, and I was unkind. I could not bear to be happy because it felt like some kind of cruel joke. How could the world keep turning when the light of my life had been snuffed out of it? I pushed everyone away with my anger.”
Tobias watched as her eyes flitted to Eric’s portrait, and saw tears form.
“But it only made everything worse. I became the worst version of myself, and when Erica was born, I realized that I could not carry on as I had. My anger nearly cost Lady Adele her life. My grief controlled me, and I let it.” Martha stroked Erica’s head softly.
“I feared that if I stopped grieving, if I stopped being angry even for a minute, then I would lose what small piece of Eric I still had left. But I was wrong.”
Tobias felt his chest constrict as the fragments of his heart tumbled around his chest. He wanted to say something to her, to comfort her. After all, he understood her pain. But his words failed him.
“Eric does not live in my grief.” Martha smiled and touched a hand to her chest. “He lives here, in my heart. And he lives in Erica. My grief lets me know that I loved him, but I do not need it to keep hold of him.”
“What are you saying?” Tobias rubbed his temples with his knuckles.
“That you are allowed to be happy, Tobias. I can see that you are doing what I did, but directing it at yourself. You put all that anger and frustration inside. I have watched you do it. The only time I have ever seen that change is when you are playing with Erica, and even then, it has only been fleeting.” She took his hand and squeezed it gently.
“But the longer Rowen has been here, the more you have come alive. You have laughed longer and louder.”
“But the pain is still there.” Tobias gestured to the painting on the wall. “I still feel his loss every day. He is gone.”
And so is she.
How could Rowen’s loss hurt like Eric’s? How could they tear his heart into pieces in different ways?
What is wrong with me?
“I know. And hurting yourself will not bring him back. The remedy for your pain is not to wallow in it, nor to ignore it. The true remedy is love. It is filling your life with love and happiness and all the joy that makes these precious days worth living.” Martha’s eyes lit up. “That is what you deserve.”
“I do not know what I deserve. Eric was the one who deserved all of this.” Tobias gestured around them, at the furniture, at Erica. “He should have had a family. This was his life to live, not mine.”
“And yet you are the one who is here, not him. He would not have wanted you to punish yourself simply because you lived and he did not.” Martha moved towards the portrait, her smile small, full of unspoken memories. “That was not the kind of man he was.”
“I do not want to turn into my father.” Tobias swallowed. “I do not want to be a monster. I do not want to force Rowen into a life she does not want. How can I do that to her?”
“And how do you know she does not want this? Have you asked her?” Martha folded her arms over her chest.
“I… No… But it does not matter. What’s done is done, and I have already hurt her. I do not want to hurt her anymore.” Tobias ran a hand through his hair and let out a growl of frustration. “It is better this way. Better that she is free. She has already known enough pain without me adding to it.”
“Tobias, you cannot make that decision for her.”
“That is not what I am doing.”
“It is. If you do not tell her what you want, how you truly feel about her, then you are robbing her of that choice.”
“If she wanted to stay, she would be here.”
“Did you ask her to stay? After all, by your own logic, if you wanted her to stay, you would have asked.” Martha’s smile was triumphant.
Tobias opened his mouth to argue, to point out the flaw in her logic, but he could not.
She was right. He had not asked Rowen to stay. No, more than that, he had let her leave without so much as a word. He had let her believe that he did not want her, that she was only an obligation.
“I have been a complete and utter fool.” Tobias dropped his head in his hands.
“You have,” Martha agreed. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“I am going to bring my wife back home,” Tobias growled, standing up.
“An excellent idea, but I think it would be better if you shaved first. And perhaps wash.” Martha grinned at him. “After all, you only have one opportunity to win back your wife.”