Chapter 9 #2
There was nothing to be gained by crying, she reminded herself fiercely, and everything to be lost if she allowed herself the luxury of wasting time by sitting around weeping.
And so she dabbed her eyes for the hundredth time with her sodden handkerchief and dipped her quill in the inkwell, determined to finish this last letter to Queen Victoria, in which she pleaded, as both a woman and a mother, for clemency on behalf of Charlotte.
She had already made an impassioned plea in letters to Sheriff Trotter and to Viscount Palmerston, the prime minister.
She realized the chances were remote that Her Majesty might actually read her letter, but she intended to write her every day nonetheless.
At some point one of her ministers or secretaries would be compelled to bring the matter to her attention.
Surely any woman with children would be horrified to learn of the cruelty of sending a mere child to prison for the relatively paltry crime of theft?
Or would the queen think that lower-class children who ran afoul of the law were the basis of all that was wrong with the world, and that they were best locked up in dark prisons and forgotten, so the rest of society could go on safely about its business?
The treacherous tears began to leak from her eyes, unstoppable as rain, until the desperately scrawled letter began to dissolve beneath wet blotches of salty ink.
Someone knocked upon her door.
“Please go away,” Genevieve managed, fighting not to sound as if she were on the brink of hysteria. Her children depended on her to be strong and sure and in control of herself. She could not let anyone see her in her current condition.
“I need to speak with you, Genevieve.” Haydon’s voice was low and insistent. “It is a matter of great importance.”
Genevieve swallowed and blotted at her eyes with her crumpled handkerchief.
She did not want to see Haydon. She did not want to see anyone.
Why couldn’t they understand that? All day long Eunice, Doreen, and Oliver had been pounding relentlessly at her door, bringing her trays and begging her to go downstairs and eat something.
She did not want to eat. How could she ingest even a sip of clean water knowing that Charlotte was sitting in a cell being offered putrid milk and sour porridge?
And despite all their kind intentions, she did not want to talk to anyone.
Her heart was shattered, and nothing anyone could say or do was going to ease the terrible pain ripping through her.
“Please go away,” she repeated.
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, Genevieve. Open the door.”
“I am not feeling well,” she insisted. “Just leave me alone.”
There was a moment of silence.
The door began to open.
Genevieve turned from her desk, poised to lash at him in anger and despair, to scream at him for being so callous and cruel when all she asked for was to be left to suffer her agony in solitude.
And then she saw Charlotte standing in the doorway, her precious face lit with a hesitant smile, as if she was not entirely sure that Genevieve would be happy to see her.
A cry pierced the air, the sound of utter joy mingled with pain.
Genevieve tore across the room, grabbed Charlotte, and wrapped her arms around her before kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hair, touching her all over to make sure she was well and whole.
Jamie, Annabelle, Grace, and Simon giggled and yelled out as they burst from their hiding place in the hallway.
“Surprise, Genevieve!”
“Aren’t you glad Haydon opened the door?”
“See, you told us Charlotte would be coming home again, and now she has!”
“Don’t you want to let her take her hat and coat off?”
“Why are you still crying, Genevieve?”
Genevieve buried her face in Charlotte’s hair and began to sob, the long, heaving sound of emotions that have suddenly burst free from their fetters and then cannot be restrained.
The children watched her in stricken silence, unable to comprehend her apparent misery when there was so much to celebrate.
Only Charlotte seemed to understand, for she began to weep as well, and the sound of both of them crying vanquished the merriment that had filled the other children with such tittering anticipation as the entire household traipsed secretly up the stairs.
“Come, duckies,” said Eunice, wiping her nose with the hem of her apron as she fought back her own tears. “Let’s leave Miss Genevieve and Charlotte to have some time on their own.”
Doreen sniffled loudly. “There’s some nice warm bannocks in the kitchen.”
“I’m thinkin’ a wee walk might be just the thing,” suggested Oliver, his voice choked.
“No.” Genevieve shook her head as she held fast to Charlotte. “I want my children with me.” She opened her arms, beckoning them to come and be enfolded in her protective embrace.
The children surged toward her in a crushing wave, engulfing both her and Charlotte in a ring of love. Genevieve hugged and kissed all of them, feeling desperately protective, promising herself that she would never let any of them so much as leave her sight ever again.
It was only as Oliver closed the door that she suddenly realized that Jack was not amongst them and that Haydon had silently slipped away, leaving her noisy, clamoring family strangely incomplete.
NIGHT HAD SPREAD ITS VELVET WINGS OVER THE house, leaving Genevieve to make her way up the narrow wooden stairs by the pale waver of her candle flame.
The children were all sleeping safely in their beds, and judging by the steady rumble of phlegmy snoring that greeted her on the third floor, so were Oliver, Eunice, and Doreen.
She stood outside the door of Haydon’s room and listened, her flesh chilled by the cold night air.
She did not hear anything. She did not know whether she was glad of that or not.
If he had been snoring loudly, she would have swiftly descended the stairs and retreated to her room, telling herself that she would speak with him another time.
But the silence beyond his door was deafening.
Somehow she knew that he did not sleep, but was awake, listening to her standing lost and alone in the corridor.
She hesitated a long moment. Finally, she poised her knuckles to tap upon the wood.
Before her skin brushed against the panel, the door opened and Haydon stood before her, naked except for the plaid from his bed, which he had carelessly draped around his waist. His muscular arms, chest, and torso were sculpted in the wintry shadows of the night and the flickering glow of her candle.
He regarded her intently, his expression guarded but composed, as if he had been expecting her.
Her courage began to fail as she stared at him.
She wanted to leave, she was certain of it.
Instead she adjusted the soft woolen shawl she had wrapped around herself and slipped past him into the room, filling the inky space with a wash of golden light.
She set the candle upon the small table that stood by the narrow, rumpled bed.
There was a plain wardrobe in one corner of the room, with a door that wouldn’t close properly.
Doreen had asked Oliver numerous times, if he could fix it and while he always assured her that he could, he never seemed to find the occasion to do so.
Within the wardrobe hung several neatly arranged jackets, shirts, and folded pairs of trousers.
Obviously Eunice and Doreen had been trying their best to outfit Haydon in the midst of keeping up with all their other household responsibilities.
There was a low washstand in another corner, which needed a fresh coat of paint.
On it sat a chipped jug and basin that was decorated in a clumsy pink rose pattern.
It had all seemed clean and cheerful enough when the room was prepared for Doreen, but for a man of Haydon’s enormous physical stature and wealth, it was hopelessly cramped and shabby and spartan.
The Marquess of Redmond was undoubtedly accustomed to spacious, luxurious surroundings, and here he was sleeping in a servant’s room without so much as the benefit of a chair.
A shiver rippled through her and she realized the room was also gruelingly cold, as it lacked even a tiny hearth to generate some heat.
“Here,” said Haydon, jerking the remaining plaid off the bed. “You’re shaking.”
She held her breath as his hands grazed her shoulders, steeling herself against the potent eroticism of his touch.
The wool was suffused with the masculine scent and warmth of his body, and she realized he had been lying naked beneath it before she came.
It seemed shockingly intimate to have his warmth wrapped all around her, but the sensation was so comforting she made no move to take it off.
Instead she retreated to the far corner of the small room, no great distance in terms of space, but enough that she felt marginally safer.
From herself or Haydon, she wasn’t certain.