Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“What do you mean he’s gone missing? What on earth happened?” Jane stepped closer, her nerves frantic with worry.
James paled and held his hands out in an effort to placate her.
“We do not actually know, Your Grace. The little lord has been rather upset since you left and in a bid to keep him from sulking in his room all day, the maids take him for short walks around the estate. It would seem that he vanished when a maid momentarily left him by himself to procure refreshments for him. We’ve searched the whole house but he was nowhere to be found,” he explained, his expression contorted into a nervous since.
“Thomas,” Jane mumbled suddenly, knowing how devasted he must feel. “What about the duke? Is he all right?”
“He is still leading the search around the estate. He asked that we do not involve you in fear of interrupting something important but Mrs Greene sent me to fetch you. She said you might know where he might be.”
Jane could not truthfully think of a single place where Reuben could be, but she was going to search for him anyway.
“Let us go, James. Nothing here is worth more to me than Reuben,” she prompted.
Without glancing back at her parents, she ran out of the house, her mind spinning as she tried to think of any place Reuben might have snuck off to that would keep him out of sight – for a few hours at least.
She urged the valet towards her family’s carriage, not caring what her father would say if he found out, informing the coach man to,
“Head to the Ravencroft estate please.”
They were on their way in moments, Jane’s heart beat echoing in her ears with how loudly it was beating.
She wondered if this was her fault somehow. If her impromptu departure had devastated the boy enough to cause him to act out. Reuben was playful and perhaps a little stubborn sometimes, but he was barely even mischievous enough to have done this deliberately to cause his family any harm.
Jane could barely concern herself with how anyone else was feeling, more worried about the boy more than anyone else.
But Thomas... she could picture him clearly, worried but somehow maintaining a cool demeanour as he likely tore his estate apart in an effort to find his child. Jane hoped he was not blaming himself, her heart hurting at the thought of him all by himself, trying to shoulder this burden.
“Oh God, please,” she put her hands together and whispered. “Please let us be able to find him soon.”
They arrived to the estate in minutes, because the coachman had heard the urgency in her voice.
Jane had been staring out the window at the estate as it drew closer and closer, wondering what she would say to Thomas, and from the corner of her eye, she spotted a small figure walking down the street.
He was going in the opposite direction of the estate, his eyes trained forward and his brows set with determination.
The moment Jane recognized him, she leaned out of the window and shouted,
“Reuben Wetherby! Stop right there!”
The boy stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening as he turned around at the sound of his name.
Jane ordered the carriage to stop and it had barely done so before she was out of it and on the street, running towards the child with open arms. She lifted him up and carried him back into her carriage, her chest heaving as the energy that had surged within her, keeping her tense and stressed started to dissipate.
She leaned back to look at his face, relieved to watch the recognition wash over his expression. Gently but efficiently, Jane ran her hands over him, checking for injuries.
“Reuben, what on earth were you thinking, leaving home like that? Do you have any idea how worried everyone is –”
The child started wailing all of a sudden, cutting Jane’s worried complaints, and she was further surprised when Reuben hugged her.
“Oh, darling,” she cooed softly, wrapping an arm around him her free hand stroked his hair. “You must have been startled and lost. I'm so sorry –”
“Y-You left!” he whined, tightening his hold on her. “You left me too – just like mama did. And papa was sad again. Why did you leave? I searched the whole house and I couldn’t find you. E-Even in the garden!”
His distress saddened Jane greatly. She could only imagine how he had felt when he had awoken and she was nowhere to be found. She had never thought it would remind him of his late mother who had also disappeared overnight.
And if he had checked the garden for her too... he had probably feared that Jane had met the same fate his mother had.
“I'm sorry, darling,” she murmured, lifting him onto her lap as the carriage started to move again. “I am truly sorry. I did not want to leave. It was so hard to let you go and I did not want to. I did not think you would – it does not matter. Please, do not cry, my precious boy.”
It seemed he had been convinced she would not vanish, because he leaned back and allowed her to dab his tears away, burrowing into her arms once she was gone, clearly still afraid of putting too much distance between them.
The carriage came to a stop soon and Jane knew they had arrived at the estate.
“Come along, dear. We need to tell your father and the others that you are all right,” she told him gently.
He nodded, finally willing to stand on his own. James opened the door of the carriage and helped them out, Jane taking Reuben’s hand in hers before she leading him into the house.
It felt surreal... to be back so soon after she had left, but Jane did not have much time to think about what it meant, because Thomas spotted them as soon as they entered the foyer.
“Reuben?” the duke called out, his face crumbling in relief. “My God – it is you!”
Thomas practically ran towards them, sinking to his knees to embrace his son. Jane watched him hold the child, the amount of love and affection he had been carrying without properly relaying to Reuben spilling out of him now.
“I-I don’t understand – why would you – never again.
You must never act this way again. I was worried!
We all were – we searched for you for hours!
I-I'm not upset with you, but I need you to know that if anything happened to you, I would not be able to live. Please... never scare me like that again.” he said firmly, pulling back so he could look Reuben in the eye to enforce his seriousness.
“I promise never to leave again... if Jane stays,” Reuben stated quietly.
Thomas inhaled sharply, his gaze rising to Jane’s face, as though he was just seeing her for the first time.
Jane stared back, feeling all the yearning and need she had ignored for days bubble up to the surface and threaten to smother her.
She did not know whether to feel devastated or thankful when Thomas looked away first, refocusing his attention on Reuben.
“We cannot keep her here, Reuben. You like her a lot, don’t you?” Thomas asked Reuben patiently.
When the child nodded, Thomas inhaled sharply, as though he had imagined receiving a different answer and now he was not sure what to do with the response he had gotten.
“Well, when you like someone – or if you care about them, you want the best for them. You’d like them to be happy and at peace, not just around you, but with themselves as well.
Jane is not happy here. So – it would not be right for us to keep her to ourselves, just because we want her to stay,” Thomas explained patiently, holding onto Reuben’s hands.
The child’s eyes filled with tears again and Thomas looked devastated at the sight, quickly lifting the child into his arms.
“There, there,” he muttered, the action sinking deep into Jane’s mind because she was certain he had learned to do that from her. “It will be all right, Reuben. We’ll be –”
“Thomas,” Jane interrupted softly, reaching out to pat Reuben’s back in hopes of comforting him. “We should talk. Alone, please.”
Thomas nodded, tightening his hold on Reuben momentarily.
“All right. I’ll just set him down to rest. I imagine he’s quite exhausted, after the day he’s had.”
Jane nodded and watched Thomas carry Reuben up the stairs to his room, leaving her to wonder not for the first time if she had done the right thing by leaving.
She had expected Reuben to be upset, but not to this magnitude. And Thomas... he appeared to have not slept much in the last few days. She was having a hard time as well, and it begged to question if holding up the terms of their deal was worth their collective suffering.
Jane made her way to the duke’s study, unable to settle down once she arrived, so she decided to stand by his desk.
It was quite messy and since she was too anxious to wait calmly, she began to arrange some of his documents.
She did not know what order to put them in and had no intention of giving him more work, so she did her best to declutter the surface without taking anything away.
As she was putting the papers together into a neat stack, she came across a document that caught her attention. She had it in her hand for a moment, only able to notice a single word before Thomas arrived and she straightened and added the papers to the pile.
“My apologies. He was quite exhausted – like I assumed he would be and he fell asleep almost immediately. I wanted to make sure he was all right, so I lingered for a moment,” Thomas said as he approached her.
Jane nodded, barely hearing what he said over the echoing of the word in her mind.
Annulment.
Although she had expected it, seeing the official document for the process disheartened her, as much as it confused her. Did he not already finish the process? If he had not... what reason did he have for the delay?
“You wished to speak to me?” he inquired, gesturing at her to sit.
But she refused to do so, remaining standing as a question burst out of her.
“Why did you not send for me? When you noticed Reuben was missing?”
Tomas faltered, then his form deflated.
“I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with us.
You had been intent on leaving and I – I depended on you too much.
I hoped that I could be able to find him myself and prove that I was useful to him.
Of course, we can clearly see that hubris will not get us anywhere but.
.. I really only wanted to keep my mess out of your life, Jane. That’s all.” He told her sincerely.
Jane inhaled deeply, feeling too tired and wound up to be delicate about what she wanted to say.
“I'm in love with you, Thomas.”
The announcement seemed slow on the uptake, because at first, he stared at her blankly. Then, as the news sank into his mind, his eyes widened and his jaw lowered.
“What –”
“I love you, Thomas, so much. But I do not wish to relinquish control over my own life. It has always been my biggest fear – getting married and relying so heavily on my husband that my sense of self is inevitably lost. I have fought hard, to be a strongly minded person, and I am not willing to trade it for a feeling that might be one sided. I will not be a mindless creature that follows your every command, practically forgetting that I am alive as well,” she stated firmly.
Thomas was silent at first, then his eyebrows twisted together in mirth and a laugh escaped his lips, sounding a tad surprised.
“Jane, you could never be a mindless creature if you tried. And that is precisely why I succumbed to your charm,” he chuckled, his words tinged with amusement and sincerity.
“You are more than just your lovely face, my dear. You are headstrong, stubborn and feisty, as well as smart, thoughtful and caring in ways I can only hope to emulate. I love you for all of those qualities and for who you are at your core. Everything we did – giving me your body does not mean you have been stripped of your control. Quite the opposite, actually. I love you too, Jane, so much – as much as I have never had any control over you.”
She had barely understood the things he was saying and what it meant that they went beyond her expectations, but as it turns out, Thomas was intent on surprising her, because he sank down to his knees, whilst keeping his eyes locked on hers.
“A single word. That is all it would take for me to be here, at your feet, ready to worship you with all that I am. And I would thank you for it, every time,” he added with a proud nod.
Jane could scarcely believe her ears.
Did this mean it was all right? To choose and have this life? Would she really be as safe as she felt in that moment, for the rest of their days?
Her heart had already made its decision, because it had been beating uncontrollably since she wound up in the same room with Thomas, and her mind was catching up with those feelings, quieting down at his blatant display of loyalty.
“I love you,” Jane repeated, reaching for him with tears in her eyes. “But I am frightened.”
“As am I. I never knew how much I desired to be a good husband until I met you. I had tried and failed previously, as you know, but I would like a second chance with you. If you’d have me.
There would be a shift, in our relationship with each other and we would have to navigate being Reuben’s parents as well – properly this time.
But he has told me that he doesn’t want any one else as his mother.
Just you. And I feel the same. I could not have taken anyone else as a wife.
Only you, Jane. I'd never had any control over this from the beginning... and I like the way things are. I think it suits us that way. Don’t you?
” he asked, taking her hands in his and pressing his lips to her knuckles.
Jane realized resolutely that she truly could have not done it. She could not have hoped to live a life separate from this man and his child, because they were her family and she would never have chosen otherwise.
She tugged him up to his feet and fell into his arms, pressing her lips to his.
Thomas welcomed her into his embrace, his hands braced to hold her face gingerly as their lips met in a passionate kiss.
He held her close, his fingers tangling in her at the nape of her neck, deepening the kiss when she sighed against his mouth.
“I do not wish to annul our marriage, Jane. Can’t we simply forget about the three-month timeline and try to do this longer? Forever perhaps? I cannot bear the thought letting you go,” he muttered softly against her lips.
Jane smiled up at him, her fear and concerns dissipating into nothing, leaving behind renewed hope and eagerness over what the future held for them. She stood on her toes and kissed him chastely, still beaming as she replied,
“Forever sounds like a wonderful idea, my love.”