Undaunted Love (PART TWO): Banished Saga, Book 3.5 (26 page)

She placed Hope on the floor and watched as the little girl toddled over to Savannah. Hope patted at Savannah’s face, looking at her hands and laughing to find them wet. Savannah smiled blearily, reaching out to trace a loose tendril of her daughter’s darkening strawberry-blond hair.

“Harriett,” Mr. Woodhouse said from the doorway.

“Not yet, John,” she said. She knelt on the floor and continued to watch Savannah. Savannah started as Jeremy touched her on the shoulder, a momentary flash of fear replaced by acceptance.

“What did he do to you, Mrs. Montgomery?” Mrs. Woodhouse asked. At Savannah’s silence, she persisted. “You remind me of my sister,” she whispered.

Savannah raised curious eyes to her, waiting for her to continue.

“My family and I believed she’d married a good man. A man who’d provide well for her. But he was a beast. Treated her abominably. Derived his greatest pleasure in hurting her. Until one day, he went too far.” Her voice broke off. “We’d be condemning you to the same fate, wouldn’t we, Mrs. Montgomery?”

“Yes,” Savannah rasped as tears continued to leak out of her eyes.

“My husband never knew her. He never met him. It all occurred before we married.” She took a stuttering breath. “I was raised to live a good life. A proper life. One deemed worthy by religion and society. I’m not one to go against the norms, Mrs. Montgomery.” She sighed. “But you have given me much to consider.”

She rose, turning to her husband. He nodded his agreement to her silent communication. “We will return to Boston in a few days as we continue to determine what would be the best course of action. I remain unconvinced that living in a household of scandal would be the best place to raise our Hope. Might we call again in a few days, Mrs. Maidstone?”

“Of course,” Delia said.

“Thank you,” Savannah whispered as she squeezed her daughter’s hand one last time before Mrs. Woodhouse scooped her up. “Thank you for taking such good care of her.”

“We shall see you soon,” Mr. Woodhouse said as he ushered his wife out the door.

Jeremy settled next to her on the floor, pulling her into his arms. He scooted over until he was leaning
against the settee and held a sobbing Savannah. When her sobs turned to gentle shudders, she finally spoke.

“They’ll never let me have her, Jeremy.” She burrowed into his embrace. “It’s such a sweet torture holding her in my arms but knowing I’ll not be the one to raise her.”

“Hush, love. It’s too early to know what they will and won’t do. You must give them time to come to terms with losing the child they love.” He kissed her forehead and rubbed his hands up and down her back in an attempt to impart comfort.

Delia sat in the chair across from them. “I’m relieved they didn’t reject you out of hand, Mrs. Montgomery. For a moment I thought you’d lose all chance of seeing your daughter again.”

“I wish there were a way all of you could have a hand in raising her. It appears they are doing a good job, and a child can never be surrounded by enough love,” Aidan said.

Delia sniffed and rose. “I find I agree with Mr. McLeod. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must see to a few business matters.” She departed, closing the door with a silent click and granting them privacy.

“Tell me what you need,” Jeremy coaxed.

“I need time to consider what occurred and what might be the best for my daughter. She is with good people, and I don’t want to harm her by taking her away from them.”

“You’re a good person and have every right to want to raise her,” Jeremy said.

“Thank you.” She blinked away tears. “She doesn’t know me. And I fear tearing her away from them would only cause her pain.”

“Florence would say that the greatest pain the child would suffer as she grew would be to think that her mother hadn’t wanted her. I’d think you’d want to alleviate that for her,” Aidan murmured.

Savannah nodded. “I know. However, the thought of causing her any pain is almost more than I can bear.”

***

SAVANNAH NODDED an absent hello to Poole as he answered the door, handing her heavy wool coat, hat and gloves to him before walking up the stairs with Jeremy. They entered the front sitting room, well lit by lamps and warm with a fire roaring in the grate, to find Sophronia reading.

Sophronia’s smile faltered as she looked Savannah over from head to foot. “You look wretched, Savannah.” She shared a concerned glance with Jeremy. “Was Mrs. Maidstone incorrect in believing that girl to be your daughter?”

“No, she’s my baby. She has my eyes. My mouth.” Savannah bit back a sob and shook her head.

Sophronia raised an eyebrow and looked toward Jeremy for an explanation.

“It seems they are upstanding members of society and do not wish to see the daughter they’ve raised as their own exposed to ridicule by a woman living outside her marriage vows.”

“Succinctly stated,” Sophronia said. “Are they fools to believe you should return to that abomination of manhood?”

“At first I believed them to be, but then, as Mrs. Woodhouse was just about to leave, she shared that her sister had suffered at the hands of her husband and had died from his abuse. I think she might understand, although she worries about Hope.” Jeremy stroked a hand down Savannah’s quaking shoulder.

“Hope?”

“That’s what they named my daughter,” Savannah whispered.

Sophronia nodded. “An appropriate name, wouldn’t you agree, Savannah dearest?” At Savannah’s nod, Sophie sighed. “It appears to me that we need to find a way that she is raised by you, but that her foster parents remain involved in her life. Where do they live?”

“Lowell,” Jeremy said. “And that’s what my uncle said.”

“He’s sensible then.” Sophronia frowned as she thought. “Lowell isn’t that far away, but it’s not nearly as convenient as someplace in the city. Would they be interested in moving?”

“I’ve no idea. He’s a mason. He admitted work is harder to come by.” Savannah rubbed at her eyes.

“Excellent,” Sophronia said. “Then there’s always a way to entice a man with the promise of a good job. Especially if that means he and his wife will not be separated from the child they’ve come to love as their own. For I imagine that is what they claim?”

“Yes, although I believe it to be more than a claim,” Savannah said. “They were attached to her and her to them.”

“That’s how it should be,” Sophronia said.

“I know. But it’s hard to reconcile all the time I’ve lost with my daughter.” Savannah rubbed at her temples. “Those first months when I believed she was dead and then all that time due to Mrs. Maidstone lying to me. I know Mrs. Maidstone is helping me now, but I lost nearly nine months with Adelaide … with Hope …because of that woman’s deceit.”

“Did you ever suspect, even for a moment, that she might have been threatened by your husband? You did mention, months ago, that you’d seen him in the North End. I wonder if he’d been calling on her.”

“What could he possibly have said to her that would cause her to persistently lie and mislead us?” Jeremy asked.

“Fear is a tremendous motivator, as I’m sure you both understand. And we all have secrets, although we like to think we don’t. Determine what he was using as leverage, and then you might find it within you to have a little more compassion for the woman.” Sophronia sighed. “As for the Woodhouses, we must formulate a strategy that will entice them to our way of thinking.”

***

“I THANK YOU, DELIA, for attempting to help Savannah.” Aidan collapsed onto the hard wooden chair in front of her desk. “I can only imagine how much it meant to her to be able to hold her daughter.”

“What would you do if you were to hold your daughter in your arms again?”

“Weep while I rejoiced,” Aidan murmured, a distant look in his eyes. He shook his head as he focused on Delia. “But that’s not to be. I held my dead infant daughter in my arms. I know she’s lost to me.”

“What was your wife like?” Delia blushed as the question burst forth, unintended.

“Tall, buxom, opinionated.” He paused with a faint, fond smile as he remembered. “She had a vitality, an insurmountable amount of energy. Always saw everything in a positive manner. She wouldn’t allow me to rot away in my office or warehouse. Insisted I participate in all the events she organized. She was very social, was never happier than when she was with her friends.”

“She doesn’t seem the type of woman you’d like.” Delia frowned at his description.

“She forced me to embrace life, rather than wallow in my grief, as was my desire.” His smile was bittersweet. “In fact she reminded me of you.”

“Of me? She doesn’t sound a thing like me,” Delia sputtered.

“Well, I agree, not physically. But you were passionate like her. Full of life.”

“Please, Aidan,” Delia said as she held up her hand. “Please stop. Forget I asked such a foolish question.”

“I’m glad you did. There remains too much between us that’s unsettled.”

“It’s not possible to set to rights all that’s wrong between us.” Delia shuffled a pile of papers on her desk from one side to the other.

“I’d like the opportunity.”

At his soft, emphatic words, she met his gaze. After a few moments—where she stared into his eyes, seeing regret, loneliness and hope—she shook her head, breaking eye contact. “Too much has happened, Aidan.”

“Do you have someone else? A deep, dark secret that shames you?” he teased. “We’re old enough, Delia, for honesty.”

“I’m married to the orphanage. All my energy must go to the children here. I’ve nothing else to offer anyone.”

“I refuse to believe a woman as vibrant as you is satisfied by this half-life. You must want more. You deserve more. If only you had the courage to seek it. That’s an important lesson my wife taught me. The only limitations on our happiness are the ones we fasten for ourselves.”

Delia flushed with anger. “You have no idea what my life is like. What it’s been like. Don’t you dare judge me and intimate that all I need do to fashion my own happiness is to imagine it, and it will blissfully appear. As though all I needed to do was stroke the lamp and harken the genie. Life isn’t that simple, Aidan. Anyone who believes differently is a fool.”

“Do you believe I don’t know how hard it is to struggle every day to find happiness? I held my wife in my arms and watched her life’s blood seep from her, impotent to aid her in any way. I watched as my infant daughter struggled for every breath she took until finally the struggle was too great, and she died. I know what it is to claw myself out of apparently insurmountable grief by my fingernails. And I won’t be called a fool for believing I have the ability to create my own happiness.”

He breathed out through his nose in an attempt to calm himself, a brilliant flush limning his cheeks and fire lighting his deep blue eyes. “If you truly believe I was in any way trying to demean you, or the life you’ve led since I left Boston sixteen years ago, you never knew me.” He took a deep breath as he watched her with sorrow. “And I never knew you.”

Delia’s eyes filled with tears. “Of course you knew me. If you didn’t, then who else besides my mother has ever truly seen me?”

Aidan studied her during a tense silence. “Where is my courageous Delia? The one who stood up to me and showed me what a fool I was? What happened to her?”

“She learned how cruel and unforgiving life could be. That the world is not kind to women who don’t follow societal norms. It’s better to be unremarkable than to be noticed and suffer for the attention.”

“What happened to you?”

“I loved the wrong man.” She met his gaze with a defiant tilt to her head.

He sat back in his chair as though he’d been struck. “Me?” When she remained silent he asked again, “Me?”

Her sorrow-filled eyes were her only response, and Aidan held a hand to his head. “There’s no hope, is there, Delia?”

“None, as I attempted to tell you the last time you were here. Any association between the two of us is best come to an end.”

He studied her with inscrutable eyes. “So you’ve said.” He rose, heaving out a sigh. “I wish you a good day.”

“Do I have your word you’ll not return to the orphanage?”

“No, I can’t make any promises when I can’t see up from down.” He paused at the door, waiting a moment before he faced her and murmured, “I’ve never believed I loved the wrong woman.” He opened the door to the sound of her quiet sob.

CHAPTER 21

A LOW FIRE WAS LIT in the fireplace in the front parlor in the orphanage. Savannah moved from picture to picture, looking at the photos hanging on the wall. She paused at one, studying a girl standing in the second row. “Jeremy, look at this.”

He approached her, tracing a hand down her arm until he laced his fingers with hers. “Yes?”

“Is this Florence?” Savannah asked as she pointed to the grainy picture and the girl.

He leaned forward, squinting at the photograph. “I think so. I’d have to ask her to be certain, but I don’t know as she’ll ever want to return here.”

Savannah spun to face the door as it opened. Mrs. Maidstone entered with the Woodhouses. Mrs. Woodhouse carried little Hope. Mrs. Maidstone nodded to Savannah and then backed out of the room, closing it behind her, granting them privacy.