Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book Read online

  Longing for a Liberating Love

  A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL

  BRIDGET BARTON

  Copyright © 2019 by Bridget Barton

  All Rights Reserved.

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  Table of Contents

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  Longing for a Liberating Love

  Introduction

  Alina is trapped in a loveless marriage, tied to a husband who disdains her. She has resigned herself to a life in his shadow, but suddenly tragedy strikes and harsh reality forces her to now live as a repentant widow. When her husband’s lawyer approaches her and appears more than willing to offer her the protection she needs, she will find herself in total despair, unable to make a choice. Will she lay aside her doubts for a chance at love? Or will she deny herself this opportunity, fearing that society will frown down on her?

  Theodore has worked his entire life for a chance to prove himself and rise to a place of respect as a barrister. However, when he becomes the one to deliver the tragic news of one of his clients’ fate to his beautiful wife, he will start changing the way he has been facing things in life so far. His heart was aching watching this woman suffering all along, but now it is his time to finally intervene and show her his affection: everything she has ever longed for. Will he risk everything to touch the heart of a woman that once belonged to another?

  Just when Alina and Theodore start admitting to themselves the feelings and tenderness they have developed for each other, some dreadful news are about to reach the town. How far are they willing to get in order to claim their chance at happiness?

  Prologue

  Alina Hartley stood at the second-storey window of her husband’s grand estate, trying to focus her eyes past the rain-streaked glass to the lane beyond. It had been raining most of the day, a London caricature she generally enjoyed, but today it was playing with her mind, twisting her off-course.

  “You called, my lady?”

  Alina jumped, turning towards the door. It was the butler, standing tall and stiff as he always had since she’d first met him the day of her wedding.

  “Georges. I…was wondering if you’d heard word yet about Mr. Hartley.” She hated to ask it, hated the way his frozen face softened in momentary pity.

  “No, my lady. It’s late. Shall I send the maid up?”

  “No, I’ll wait for my husband.” She struggled to keep her voice steady and retain her fragile dignity. “I know the staff are all abed, but could you send up a last bit of tea before you turn in? I don’t expect you to wait up.” She took a shaky breath. “And, of course, send Willa to bed, as well.”

  She knew her maid was waiting in the other room, pretending to busy herself with mundane tasks so as to protect her mistress’ honor.

  “Whatever you wish, my lady.” He bowed formally, and was gone. Alina had long suspected that Georges and the other staff did not care for their master, Mr. Jonas George Hartley, who treated them with contempt and disrespect at every turn.

  He handled his estate abominably and was gone regularly on the ‘business’ trips that Alina knew involved only gambling, fashion, and high society. His sprawling estate, Marshall Gardens, fell mostly to the management of his solicitor, and Alina had found herself early on answering questions she didn’t really understand, just to keep up the appearance of Hartley’s involvement.

  There were other things she suspected about Jonas’ business trips, things she wished she could forget but lingered about the scent of his denials. A woman, maybe many. She knew it in her heart above all else, but had it confirmed to her by the sympathetic smiles that greeted her when she occasionally joined him in the wealthier circles of society. They all knew something, and were letting it happen for the sake of propriety.

  Georges returned in moments with a tray of hot ginger tea, which he laid out neatly on the table at Alina’s elbow. “Anything else, my lady?”

  “No.” She turned a weak smile in his direction. “Thank you, Georges. You’ve served me well this evening.”

  He bowed, refusing to smile out of duty, but she felt the warmth in his lined face. When she was alone again, she let herself indulge in a memory she rarely embraced these days—those few weeks before her wedding. She’d been so young then, barely seventeen, a blushing bride excited for her upcoming marriage.

  “You are a lucky girl,” her mother had said, helping Alina into the wedding gown for a final fitting. It was white with lace trim that would be talked about all around London. “Your wedding is the event of the century. A girl like you, from a wealthy family, wedding Jonas Hartley—why, you’ll be rolling in riches all your life, the talk of high society. You must be so excited.”

  She had been. She hadn’t known Jonas all that well, but the brief courting opportunities they’d had were all magical—blurred, golden images in her memory now where she could hardly remember what had moved her. Had he been so very silver-tongued after all, or had she just wanted desperately to be in love like other girls her age? He’d been handsome enough then, though a bit older, and he had dazzled her with gifts and rides through town in his carriage. He was so possessive of her, escorting her around and using phrases like “my lovely lady,” and “soon, you will be mine.” At the time, those words had seemed a release into a secret and magical world where Alina mattered desperately to somebody—but now, they seemed a cage.

  At their wedding celebration, he had seized her arm and dragged her onto the floor for the first dance, pulling her from a conversation with her mother on the sidelines, and it was the first time she felt a twinge of realization about his true nature. He did possess her, but not as a man and woman ought to possess one another—he owned her as a collector might own a piece of fine china, or a man might cage a songbird.

  “We can dance later,” she remembered protesting. “Please, love.”

  But there was his hand, tightening on her elbow. “If I tell you to dance, you dance,” he’d said sharply. “You’re my wife now. No more coy denials, if you please.”

  The same sentiment had held true in their bed chamber, and the pain there was only redeemed by the surprise gift of baby Jonas less than a year after their wedding. He was a sweet little boy, and now, five years later, Alina refused to call him by his given name. Little Jinx, he was, a boy she intended to raise as a man ought to be raised, not in the cruel, twisted nature of his father. So far, because of Jonas’ seeming unconcern for his family, she’d been successful. The boy hardly spoke of his father, and only then with cowering fear. He loved his mother and had adopted her gentle way with the servants. He was a secret favorite of Georges, she knew, and she hoped to see him grow into a fine and fair young man.

  Alina took another sip of the sharp ginger tea, and then rose to peer out the window once again at the cobbled lane. Marshall Gardens was a manor situated in the
finest, most fashionable streets of London, but such a lovely location came with a price. If there happened to be any neighbors as sleepless as she this evening, they would see Jonas’ carriage coming up the drive—or, worse, they would see it not arrive. She wondered for a moment whose arms he would be coming from that night, but she pushed the thought from her mind as quickly as possible. It was a bottomless pit, after all, the despair.

  She curled into the window seat, already dressed in her filmy nightgown with a silken gold shawl around her frail shoulders, and waited. She was small, with delicate bones and a fine figure. Her hair, waist-length and honey brown, took second fiddle to her bright blue eyes in most instances, but she’d found that, for Jonas, all her best features were meaningless. He had wanted her position in society to raise him above his station—rich as he was, he didn’t have the connections he felt he deserved—and when her young money proved inadequate, his seeming attentions had evaporated into disgust.

  She pulled the shawl tighter, catching her first glimpse of his coach rattling up to the front door of the house. She dreaded his arrival as much as she longed for it for society’s sake. There he was, climbing from the carriage in the pouring rain, his step uneven. He would be drunk, then, again.

  She climbed from the sill and stood in her bare feet in the freezing room until she heard his heavy tread climb the stairs and, at last, disappear into his bedroom. She heard him ring for a footman, and cringed to imagine Georges dragging some poor boy out of bed at this hour. She sat on the side of her own bed, twisting her hands in her shawl and trying to decide what she ought to do—it would be best for her, perhaps, to stay here in the safety of her own room, but her wifely duty plagued her and at last she decided to overcome her fear and tend to her husband’s welfare. When she heard the footman’s steady steps descend the stairs once again, she slipped quietly into the darkened hall and knocked tentatively on Jonas’ door.

  “Back already? Well, come in then,” he said gruffly, mistaking her for the servant. She opened the door gingerly, and slipped into the room. She felt small beside her husband’s enormous bulk, like a child, but she summoned her courage.

  “Jonas, I’m glad to see you are well.

  He looked up, his expression blackening at the sight of her. “What are you doing still awake, woman? Watching for me?”

  “I was concerned about your welfare, husband.”

  “Do you hear me calling you wife? Please, refrain from obvious attempts to flatter yourself with your connection to my wealth.”

  She winced, stung. She didn’t know why she always expected decency from him—he had given her no reason to come into his quarters with even a shred of hope.

  “Are you well?”

  There it was, the blur in his eyes, the smell on his breath and about his clothes. He’d been drinking heavily, just as she’d guessed. He was dangerous like this. She’d been bruised more than once, but always on her midsection or in arms—places she could hide from prying eyes. She took a nervous step back toward the closed door and put her hand on the knob.

  “I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he said coarsely. “Fairly rolling in happiness, if you ask me. A night to remember.”

  “Do you want to say goodnight to Jinx? He’s asleep already, but I’m sure he would love to see you.”

  “That boy doesn’t love anything but you,” Jonas snapped. “You’ve made certain of that. Who knows what lies you whisper to him while I am away, but I’ve no desire to drink from a well you’ve poisoned—no desire at all, wench.”

  She winced at his language, and swallowed hard as she watched her husband’s rough movements about the room. He was throwing clothes haphazardly into a trunk, filling it up as only a bachelor unused to self-care could.

  She stepped forward lightly on her bare feet and took one of his shirts in hand, folding it. “Where are you going?” she ventured fearfully.

  He snatched the shirt back, shoving it down the side of his suitcase. “A last-minute trip to the West Indies. I detest the way our company insists I go on these voyages; there isn’t anything worthwhile in the savage territories, just heat and bugs and savage women.”

  Alina pretended not to hear that last statement, trying again to fold some of his clothes. “If you’re leaving first thing, I understand why you can’t wake Georges to do this, but please, let me help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” he snapped.

  She reached out one small white hand and laid it on his sleeve. “Please, Jonas.”

  “Woman!” He pushed her hand roughly away and turned to her with disgust. “You cling to me like vines to a garden wall. I understand that you aren’t in a position to do anything else of worth here in the house all day, but just because you aren’t able to elevate your own mind doesn’t mean you have to act as though you haven’t a mind at all. Have a little self-respect. I don’t know how I could be any clearer about this.” He paused, his breathing heavy. “I don’t want you here.”

  Alina had long ago lost her ability to cry in front of Jonas. Now, he just made her feel empty and cold inside. She only wept alone, in the safety of her private chambers. Instead, she took another shirt in her hand, preparing to fold it, when she realized suddenly that it was a dirty article of clothing—probably the one he’d been wearing that night. There was a bright stain on the neck, and a smear of makeup across the collar. She stared at it, unbelieving that he would be so brazen.

  “I’m just trying to be a good wife,” she told him softly.

  “Wives are tedious,” he spat, noticing what she was looking at. She half-expected him to speak up in his own defense, or to deny his actions, but instead he came and stood quite close to her, taking one of her hands gripping the shirt into his own and pushing her fingers across the makeup stain. “Smell that?” he said with a mocking tone in his voice, “that’s the smell of an exciting perfume. No lavender and honeysuckle for this damsel.”

  Alina smelled her own honeysuckle scent like a foul odor. She tried to pull away, but Jonas kept her hand frozen in his own. “No, don’t pull back, not when you’ve made such an ingenious discovery. I tell you, little wife, that you don’t need to pretend to be some sort of investigator with me. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. All the bawdy details. Shall I begin?”

  She managed to pull away then, her throat closing in pain and disgust. “No. Go on your trip.”

  She made her way to the door, but just she’d laid hold of the handle when she caught his mocking tone behind her.

  “I’ll miss you, love. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure I’m not too lonely in your absence.”

  Gently, she shut the door behind her, trapped even now in the old habits of proper societal behavior. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion among the servants; she didn’t want to wake Jinx. Shaking in her thin nightgown, she slipped, ghostlike, to her own bedroom and put out the candle by her bed, crawling beneath the covers like a little girl. She was only 23 years old, trapped between the child she had been on her wedding day and the old woman she’d grown to be since enduring Jonas’ abuse.

  “Why?” she whispered to herself beneath the dark covers. “Always I think he will be different; always I think this will be the evening that I am free of his cruelty.”

  There, in the safety of darkness and solitude, she felt the tears slipping down her cheeks into the soft silk sheets. She muffled her weeping with the pillow, crying until her slight frame was spent and her heart was safe and empty again. That was as it should be. In the morning, she would be able to face Jonas, the household staff, and her son as she always was—a beautiful, graceful woman on the prow of society, self-contained and utterly free from the danger that anyone would guess just how desolate she was.

  Chapter 1

  “Baa baa, black sheep, have you any wool?” Alina listened as her son’s little voice drifted above the shifting tree-tops in sing-song laughter. “Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full.” He paused, skipping along the line of rocks he’d laid out as a
guide. He jumped on his right leg and balanced there.

  “One for the master,” he sang, and hopped to his left leg, “one for the dame,” he added, then he jumped twice on both feet and pointed his thumbs back at himself with a grin, “and one for the little boy who lives down the lane!”