Chapter 32: The Hours in Our Days
Lydia stood under the tree where Fredrick told her to meet him. She kept glancing up and down the path to make sure she was alone and that no one was going to happen by their secluded conversation. Fredrick was still engaged to Lydia's sister, and that was common knowledge in these parts. She didn't care for after, when that engagement was severed and people talked, because hopefully by then this ordeal as a whole would be over. But right now, if he was seen with her and people began to talk, word would reach her uncle, and disaster would ensue.
All that aside, where was he? She hoped nothing went wrong. God, how she despised her uncle for using Fredrick so! Every man had a weakness, there was no wrong in that, but a man exploiting another's weakness was a horrid thing to do. She was not sure if she could look at her uncle, the man who used to buy her pretty things from his travels, play with her, and read her stories, the same ever again. Had she known this from the start, she would have made it her mission to see that her uncle's plan didn't work. He was in this for himself, and that made her sick.
No wonder father disliked Uncle Robert! The man is a snake.
Lydia felt anger surge through her at the thought of being blood related to such a man. How could he use his own nieces to further his ends? What manner of beast was he?
"Lydia?"
She turned and felt her heart soar at seeing Fredrick standing there. He was so handsome, dressed in his finest attire. Perhaps he had just come from a meeting with important associates, or he just looked fine in whatever he wore, she did not know. But she loved him, that she did know.
"Fredrick," she stepped forward and threw her arms around him, holding him tight before realizing what an open display of affection would do. She stepped back and blushed, smiling shyly. "It's good to see you."
Fredrick did not look too pleased at having her out of his arms too soon, but he accepted it and smiled back. "And you, my dear. I've missed you."
"It's not been long since we last saw each other," Lydia reminded him. Their last encounter had been at the ball, when he had told her everything.
"For me, it has felt like a lifetime," he replied.
"Good thing Mr. Covington is not here," Lydia replied with a small laugh, trying to ease the heavy moment.
The corners of Fredrick's mouth twitched, but he did not laugh. "Have you heard from your sister?"
Lydia shook her head and sighed. "She said she would write to me when she left London. I am sure I will receive word very soon either way, but for the time being I don't know much of anything. It scares me," she looked up at Fredrick. "I do not like not knowing whether or not my sister is alright."
Fredrick looked like he wanted desperately to comfort her. "I will reach out to my contacts in London and see if they can ask after her and your mother."
"No, don't," Lydia replied. "Such things can be traced easily, especially by my uncle. And from what you've told me, your contacts and his are quite mutual; it's far too risky. But..." She frowned. "I've been thinking..."
"Of?"
Lydia looked around them again to make sure they were alone before continuing. "I have this gut feeling that when Lucy leaves London, she will go to Lanfore. I cannot recall if she told me that that was her intent or not, but either way, I feel as though I myself should be there for her, should anything happen."
Fredrick did not look too keen on that. "What is it do you think will happen, Lydia?"
"I don't know," Lydia replied honestly. "But whatever does happen, I should be there by her side. I do not know how her encounter with our mother went, and if I know Lucy, she will not reach out to her friends in London for help. To top it all, Ross is still missing, as far as we know. If she goes to Lanfore, she will go alone and without allies. She will want to take care of matters alone, but I cannot let her. I have to go there too."
"No, Lydia, it's dangerous," Fredrick protested. "If this Magistrate had it in him to condemn an innocent woman of murder, who knows what he will do to you?"
"But he doesn't know me," Lydia reminded him. "He knows of me, but he has never met me."
"It's too risky," Fredrick shook his head. "I cannot let you do it."
Lydia frowned. "Let me? Fredrick... You've no right to tell me what to do. You're not my guardian, you're not my father, and you're not my fiancé."
"That may all be true, but Lydia," he reached forward and took her hands in his, "you are dealing with dangerous men. I do not know this Magistrate but I do know your uncle. He is the sort to throw you to the wolves to fulfill his own ends, and I cannot let that happen to you."
"But you can let it happen to my sister?"
Fredrick froze and said nothing.
"I love you," Lydia said, reaching forward to stroke his face. "You have no idea just how much, Fredrick. But I love my sister as well and, now more than ever, she comes first. You must understand."
Fredrick shook his head, but it was clear that he was not going to go out of his way to stop Lydia, as he had no right. "What are you going to do?"
Lydia shrugged. "Find my uncle, or someone I know and wait until Lucy arrives. When she does, I will stand by her side."
Fredrick clenched his jaw and said nothing. He was clearly troubled by this, but Lydia realized that, though she loved him, she cared only for Lucy's safety. It was a stubborn sort of one-mindedness that she had inherited from her father.
"You would do the same for Phillip," she pressed on. "If he was in a bind, you would go out of your way to see that he was helped out of it. Clearly he is now doing the same thing for you, Fredrick. So do not be so shocked that I am willing to do the same for my sister."
"I know, I know," he sighed. "I respect you so very much for doing this, Lydia. This strength is what I fell in love with, after all," he smiled weakly. "I suppose I have never known a love such as this, and I am not so ready to lose it."
Lydia smiled back and shook her head. "You won't, I promise. My love for you is the strength I will take with me. It will give me a reason to come back."
"And you will?" He asked. "Will you return to me, Lydia?"
She nodded, too moved then for words. God knew she would cross the seas and towards distant horizons thousands of miles or even worlds away to return to Fredrick. Even if her loyalty to her sister kept her away for too long, still she would find a way to return to him. That much she knew, and she kept that in her heart to give her strength.
Fredrick reached into the pocket of his coat and produced something he kept hidden in his fist. He looked at her and then took her hand, pressing the object into it, and closing her fingers around it before he spoke.
"Keep safe for me," he said. "When this is all over and you return to me, I will use it to make our love boundless forever."
Lydia wanted to open her hand to look at the object, but instead she met Fredrick's eyes. "I will return to you."
"I know."
"I love you."
He smiled and winked. "I know."
"Say it, then," Lydia insisted. "I need to hear it before I go."
He took her face in her hands and kissed her forehead. "I love you, Lydia Quincy. Always, forever, and whatever comes after that."
Lydia smiled and wiped a stray tear away with her free hand. "I should go before we are seen."
Fredrick nodded. "Very well," he stroked her cheek gently with his knuckles and smiled one last time. "I will wait for you."
They parted then. As Lydia hustled away to her own humble dwellings, she dared not look back to see if he was still there, watching her leave. It broke her heart, but her determination to be by Lucy's side kept her going. She would see Fredrick again, she just knew it. It was something that was out of the question, it would happen.
When Lydia arrived home, she waited until she was sequestered in her room and away from the servants before opening her hand to see what Fredrick had placed in it.
It was a ring.
XXX
Lanfore, Hertfordshire
"Darling, may I ask you something?"
Sebastian looked up from his book and saw his wife standing there, a strange and determined gleam in her eyes. "What is it?"
Elizabeth paused before stepping forward. "I've been thinking about this for some time now, but I would like to invite my parents over for dinner."
Sebastian laughed at the thought, but stopped when he saw how serious his wife was. "Begging your pardon?"
"I want to invite my father and my mother here for dinner," she said again, looking miffed. "It would be rather suspicious if I cut off communications entirely, especially after..." she lowered her voice, "I stole from my father."
"Dear, you do not have to whisper, your father is not here," Sebastian sighed and placed his book to one side, gesturing at the seat in front of him. "What inspired this grand idea?"
Elizabeth sat down and folded her hands daintily on her lap. "Can a daughter not invited her beloved parents to her own home?"
Sebastian nodded. "Of course she can. And if that was your only intention, I would not give it a second thought, you know that. But it's not, is it?"
"Of course it's not."
"Then I hope you understand my hesitance." Sebastian said. "After all, you were the one who brought the list to me, and it has been very helpful, but I suspect your father may or may not think that you were the one who stole it."
"Perhaps he will think that Bertha did it!" Elizabeth protested.
"Darling, Bertha was probably the one who told him to make it in the first place, the woman is a devious snake." Sebastian forced out a smile. "I am only looking out for your safety."
Elizabeth smiled back at him and reached forward to place her hand over his. "You kept the list with you so that if my father suspected I took it, you would step in and protect my honor. And you have gone out of your way to find out as much as you can about the people on the list. You have protected me enough, and I know you will continue to do so in the future, Sebastian, but let me do this one thing. Let me invite my parents over for dinner and we can settle whatever suspicions he may have. If anything, it will give my parents a chance to be in the same room for once, without that whore, Bertha, flitting around."
Sebastian found it difficult to argue with that. His mind drifted to the conversation he had had with Robert, Phillip, and Ross about the list and his insides churned. Though they had made a pact to see this mission through, it was very clear that each of them had their own ulterior motives. Sebastian couldn't criticize them too much, as he had his own, but still it was obvious that this list was more trouble than it was worth. If he could have his way, he would burn it, much like Robert had tried to do the night Sebastian had brought them men the lit, but it was something substantial against the magistrate, and they needed that if they wanted to accuse him of murdering James Boatwright.
While Robert was taking care of the legal matters, Phillip was working on a letter for his brother, to ensure that Lucy remained in Derbyshire. Ross was going about Lanfore, mainly the market, to be the eyes and the ears of the group and figure out how the public's sentiments for the Quincy family were after the magistrate's accusations. It was going slow, but the plan was coming together, and Sebastian feared that inviting the magistrate to his home would throw a wrench in all of it.
"If anything it will allow for my father to see that I am not in any way suspicious of what he is doing," Elizabeth offered when Sebastian continued to remain silent. "If I openly invite my parents here, then he won't suspect that I took the list."
"Or he shall suspect it even more with your grand display," Sebastian noted. "Inviting them over alone would be suspicious, Elizabeth, especially so soon after the list went missing."
"But sitting around and festering is already suspicious enough!" Elizabeth protested. "If I ignore him surely he will sense something."
"Indeed he will, which is why we need to think bigger," Sebastian sat forward. "A dinner party. Here, in our home. We will invite all of Lanfore's best, including Mary Boatwright and Robert Quincy. We will put everyone together under the same roof under the guise of a dinner party. Hearty discussion, excellent food, hidden animosities..." He grinned. "It's the perfect cover."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
Oh, if only she knew. At the moment, the men needed proof, something tangible to make the list mean something incriminating for the magistrate. At the moment, it was just a garble of names and utterly useless. But with the dinner party and the right amount of liquor and probing, with just the right about of witnesses, it would become the secret weapon they all needed to pin James Boatwright's death on the magistrate.
"For whatever it is you have planned, dear," Sebastian replied smoothly. "If there are more people there and we give off the atmosphere of a proper dinner party, then a sudden invitation won't seem as suspicious to your father. And if he needs a reason as to why we are even throwing one, say that we are celebrating the coming holiday season. You've been wanting to decorate our foyer for a while now, here's your chance!"
Elizabeth beamed and stood. "You do know how to make me happy, Sebastian!"
He felt a pang in his chest. Though he did not love Elizabeth, he did care for her, as any man did his wife. He hated lying to her, or even twisting the truth. But it was for her own good, and he knew that. As much as her father's antics angered her, Elizabeth would never in her life accept him being accused for a murder he did not commit.
The devil take him, but Sebastian was protecting her. In the end, he was doing the right thing.
"When shall we have the party, then?" She asked, drawing Sebastian from his musings.
Sebastian shrugged. "Soon, I should think."
Elizabeth thought that over for a minute, then nodded. "Very well, I shall have the invitations sent out immediately. Then I shall get stared with the decorations. I will have to go to the market... Oh well, I have been meaning to go there all day, this is a good reason to!" She stood. "Two nights from now, then! Since you are good friends with Mr. Quincy, perhaps you can deliver his invitation?"
"Of course," Sebastian replied. "And if you mean to invite them, I'll deliver Captain Beauchamp's and Mr. Doyle's invitations as well."
"Splendid! It is settled," Elizabeth kissed Sebastian's cheek. "I'll see to the preparations at once, then."
She swept out of the room without giving Sebastian a chance to reply. He sat there in his silence and found his gaze wandering out the window, oddly, towards the path that led to Dawn-Bridge. It would be an interesting affair to have Mary Boatwright and the magistrate under the same roof. In fact, this entire affair was going to be interesting. Disastrous, surely, but interesting.
He just hoped the world itself didn't implode as a result.
XXX
Charlestown, South Carolina
John sat quietly while Eliza read Lucy's note. He didn't dare look at his wife's face, but he could imagine what she was feeling, as she and Lucy had been close friends during Lucy's time in Belmoran. He had felt a sense of rage and sorrow upon reading what had happened to Lucy that night, so naturally Eliza felt that and more.
"I... I don't know what to say," Eliza whispered finally, closing the letter with trembling hands. "I saw her that night..."
"We both did," John reminded her gently.
"No, but I should have known that Lucy was in danger," she insisted. "I had a feeling, it was slight, but no less present. I knew something bad was going to happen. It was obvious, John! James was on the island and she was terrified. We let her go off on her own and this happens?" She shook her head. "And Ross... God, poor Ross! He did what he thought he had to and now he's on the run like some fugitive! This has all been happening, how could we not know?"
John understood her anger, he felt it as well. He himself felt helpless, more so now than when he was reading the note. The last time he had felt this sheer sense of helplessness was when Eliza was giving birth to their daughter. He hated himself for letting Lucy go that night, he should have gone with her.
"We aren't perfect humans, my love," he finally said. "And our lives will be bleak if we keep asking ourselves 'what if' or 'why'. It happened."
"And now we must figure out what to do because of it." Eliza replied sharply. "Lucy said that she is going to Lanfore, that is where we must be too. I refuse to let her be alone any longer!"
"Eliza, you're still recovering from your labor, and Hope is too young to travel by ship for any manner of distance."
"Then we can leave her with Malia."
"You and I both know that you do not want to be away from her," John reminded his wife gently. "And Hope cannot be without her mother."
"But she can be without her father?" When John remained silent, Eliza continued. "You cannot go alone to help Lucy, John. She needs all the help she can get. She may not want it, but she needs it."
"If I go, Samuel is staying here with you," John said before Eliza could suggest it. "And my mother will not want to travel anywhere, let alone Lanfore."
"Perhaps you can let me decide that?"
John and Eliza both turned to see Malia walk into the drawing room with baby Hope swaddled in her arms. She gently handed the child to Eliza and then looked at John with her rare, stern expression.
"I will go with you."
John sighed and shook his head. "Mother, I cannot make you do that."
"You aren't making me do anything, John," Malia responded. "It's high time that I return, is it not? I need to put the past the rest after all..." she lowered her eyes. "I never got to say goodbye to your father, you know that."
Eliza placed a sympathetic hand on Malia's shoulder and looked at John. "Perhaps it's for the best."
"I just know the memories you have in Lanfore, mother," John pressed on. "The murders that summer, the things that you went through, all for him!"
"And the things that I went through and did to protect you as well," Malia reminded him gently. "You do not know the whole story, John. For the sake of keeping this life of yours far away from my mistakes, I will keep those portions of the tale to myself, but you have to allow me to face them one last time."
John didn't like it, but he couldn't argue with his mother. "If it means that much to you..."
"It does," she said, stepping forward to place a hand on John's face. "I've tried to protect you from my past for a very long time. My affair with your father was not your fault, but it was mine. Eventually, I have to face it."
John placed his hand over his mother's and slowly removed it. He squeezed her hand one more time before letting go and stepping back. "I will see to the arrangements. Any ship leaving the harbor for Portsmouth on short notice will not be cheap, but I will find one." He looked at his wife. "Samuel will stay here, with you and Hope."
Eliza nodded. "I don't like it, I would like to be by Lucy's side as well, but you're right," she smiled down at their daughter. "Hope needs me, and no matter what she comes first."
John smiled and kissed his wife before placing a kiss on his daughter's forehead. "Being away from her and you will break my heart..."
"It's for a good reason," Eliza assured him. "And it won't be for long."
"We will return as soon as we can," Malia assured her.
"Yes," John nodded firmly. "Yes we will." He glanced out the window. "I will head down to the docks while it's still daylight and see if I can secure a vessel."
With that, John left the room, leaving the two women standing there in silence. They feared for what was to come, both of them for different reasons.
The truth of the matter was that the moment John and Malia stepped on that ship to Portsmouth, life as they had all known it for the year would change forever. For better or for worse? Only God and the Fates knew that now.
XXX
Samuel backed away from the door he had listened in from and stood there for a moment, frozen in time. He tried to process everything he had heard, trying to figure out some sort of way to make sense of it all. Was this the secret that Eliza and John—even Malia!—had kept from him?
John was a bastard?
How could I ever allow my sister to marry a man who was not born honorably?
Samuel felt his hands ball into fists. He prepared himself to kick the door down and storm in there, all rage and storm, but he stopped himself and took in a deep breath. John was leaving and he was taking Malia with him. When they were gone, Eliza and Hope would be alone, with him.
In that time, he hoped he had the chance to speak his mind to her about John, and if it took it, he would force her to come home with him. He could condone her marrying a man of humble means, but in no way could he condone her marrying a bastard.
After all, she was a Worthington. She would always be a Worthington.
____________________
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