An Innocent Affair

XXXIII

But in doing so, I traded her happiness, and I traded her safety, for security. My own security. I will have to live with my own wicked mistakes, but I will try to atone for them.

I cannot help but wonder at what my Cressie's life would have been like now had I granted you permission five years ago. The mother in me still knows that I thought I was doing what was best for my child. You could not have provided for Cressie, or anyone, five years ago.

But if I had allowed you the time to earn your living

The sentence was unfinished. Almost as though the thought had been too painful, too regretful, for Mrs Martin to commit to paper.

I will forfeit this house, and I will travel to London to collect my daughter. I failed her once, and I will not do so again. I will make her safe.

I will journey as soon as I am able. I will need to sell a few of my possessions in order to procure a carriage and horses for the journey. I am afforded very little.

Please watch over my Cressie for me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting word to me.

Yours gratefully,

Anne Martin

Jem folded the letter and stuffed it in his breast pocket. He had stopped on the landing to read, and he then proceeded to march towards his bedroom so that he could reply, and send funds, so that Mrs Martin could arrange her travel as soon as possible.

Her mother was a way out. Mrs Martin could take Cressie back. It happened all the time. Well, possibly. He had heard of wives leaving their husband's homes and returning to their parents when marriages of convenience turned sour. Cecily had gossiped about such matters before.

Jem knew that he could arrange housing for them in Ashwood and everything would be as it was.

Aside from the fact that Cressie would have a husband elsewhere ...

But so long as the man could not get within a hundred miles of Cressie, Jem did not care. He was only glad that Cressie did not have any children with the wretch.

As Jem sat down to write the woman who had once refused him permission to marry her daughter, Jem knew that the likely outcome of the entire situation would not be won for him. He knew that he would not get to wed Cressie. That was not the object, no matter how it disappointed him.

Jem loved her enough to be entirely satisfied that she was safe and happy. He knew that if Cressie was safe, then he wouldn't need anything else.

A servant collected Jem's reply a little while later, and Jem subsequently sat in his bedroom drumming his fingers atop the desk in agitation. Jem couldn't tell Cressie the news. He had already been to call upon them that morning. He could not call twice in one day without arousing some odd suspicions amongst the servants.

If Cressie's maid was a spy, then others probably were, too.

By the time Jem had eaten his supper, the agitation and urge to speak to Cressie had been festering inside of him all day, and he had made a rather foolish decision.

A ridiculous, reckless decision, really, and if any one of siblings had been aware of his plan, then Jem was certain that they would have tied him to a chair in order to slap some sense into him.

But they weren't. Grace and Kate were happily at home in Ashwood with their families. Likewise, Peter and Claire were in London with their own lovely broods.

Jem was alone. And senseless.

He waited until the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon and set off from Ashwood Place while the sky was still lit faintly with purple and pink auroras. The streetlamps had already been lit as Jem walked with purpose along the familiar route.