Confide
It wasn’t as if Meg hadn’t had plenty of time to prepare herself for this. She’d known all along that he would react precisely the way he had, though she was actually surprised he had let her go without chasing her down and yelling at her. Maybe that would still happen, though she doubted it. He was an extremely level-headed person, and while she still expected to face him, she was fairly certain he was more likely to be disappointed than angry. In a way, she had actually wished he would have followed her, called her every name in the book. At least then she’d know how he was doing. Now, she could only assume he was somewhere cursing her name. Or perhaps she had meant so little to him that he was able to shrug it off and go on about his way.
She didn’t think that was the case, however. No, she was quite confident that Charlie was brokenhearted again—at her hand. The feelings of despair and guilt she was wallowing in now were well deserved, and within a few minutes she found herself struggling to hold back her tears. But she refused to let herself break down. She didn’t deserve it. How could she cry over someone she had willingly given up? Any personal pain she felt at the loss of a relationship with Charles Ashton was self-induced, and therefore, should garner no sympathy from anyone, including herself.
Familiar footsteps behind her caught her attention sooner than she had expected; she thought it would take at least a few hours before Jonathan hunted her down. As he came to rest on the railing beside her, she couldn’t muster enough courage to look at him, and they stood there in silence for a long moment, staring at the ocean.
Eventually, he asked, “How is he?”
Puzzled, she turned and looked at him then. “You don’t know?” she asked. He shook his head, and she returned her focus to the more welcoming frigid Atlantic before she said, “I’m not sure. Angry, I would guess. Disappointed. Stunned, perhaps.”
Jonathan was silent again for quite some time before he asked, “Was there a scene?”
“No,” she assured him. “Well, not over that. I may have pissed off Mrs. Appleton before I left.” He actually snickered at that, which she found strange considering the circumstances. Then she added, “I think he’s probably with Molly.”
“Good,” Jonathan replied. “He shouldn’t be alone.”
She agreed. “I just assumed he’d sent you. Or he’d told you what happened, and you came to… give me what for.”
“No, I haven’t seen him since before dinner. I had plans myself but ended up cutting them just a bit short so that I could come and find you,” he explained.
“With who?” she asked quietly.
“Christine,” he replied. She nodded in acknowledgement, and he said no more, knowing he didn’t have to.
“So then you know… everything,” she stated, returning her gaze out to the sea.
“Yes.”
“Who else…?”
“I made her promise not to say anything to anyone, or else I would let Mrs. Brown know she’d been eavesdropping, and she’d lose her employment. Of course, the only reason she was eavesdropping in the first place was because I paid her to do so, but that is neither here nor there.”
Meg shook her head. “I knew you were good at your job, but I didn’t see that coming.”
“What can I say? You’re right. I’ve got to know what’s imminent before it happens. I’ve already fallen short of protecting him—twice—in the same week—from the same girl. I was desperate to find out who you are and what you wanted. Now that I know, well, we just need to find a way to fix this.”
Meg looked at him in shock. “Fix it?” she asked. She was having a hard time believing what she was hearing. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… you make Charlie happy. And even though he’s probably cursing your name right now—both of them—once he hears the whole story, I think he’ll understand more than you give him credit for,” Jonathan explained.
Though she wanted to believe what he was saying was possible, that there might be a chance she could reconcile with Charlie, she just couldn’t bear to get her hopes up, only to have them come crashing down again. “But what I did to him was… horrible.”
“Oh, I know. You don’t have to tell me. I was there, remember?”
Meg nodded, dropping her eyes back to the water.
“But when he hears everything you’ve been through, for so long, he’ll understand. And he’ll be outraged at your mother and uncle, too, that’s for certain. You can be sure he’ll do whatever he can to make sure they pay for what they’ve done to you.”
Meg couldn’t bear to think about that presently, so she pushed those despicable thoughts aside. “But what about Ezra?” she asked. “Surely, he’ll be angry about that.”
“Possibly,” he admitted. “I’m really not sure. I mean, desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s not as if Charlie is a saint himself you know. There was a time, before he was officially engaged to you, that he was a bit of a playboy.”
She didn’t know, though she had assumed he’d probably been with a woman or two. Still, standards were different for men, and she could easily see some men being very unforgiving when it came to a woman’s virtue—especially when she had the audacity to sleep with another man when she was supposed to be meeting her fiancé for the first time. Nevertheless, she saw no reason to go into such a discussion with Jonathan now.
She began to realize there was a very small possibility that she actually might end up with Charlie after all, but the fear of accepting that prospect was almost overwhelming. Those tears she had been fighting back for over an hour now were threatening to spill over. She clenched her eyes tightly and took a few deep breaths, putting all of her energy toward regaining her composure. Finally, she turned to him, looked him in the eyes and said, “Jonathan, will you help me?”
“Of course,” he said, and she flung herself into his arms, no longer able to contain her emotions. “It’s all right, Meg. Don’t cry. Everything will be all right.”
But she realized that he was crying as well, and after a few moments, she pulled away a bit so that she could look at him. “Jonathan, why would you…” she began swiping at the tears streaming down her face. “I don’t understand….”
He managed a small smile, and using his thumb, he gently wiped a tear from her cheek. “I just want him to be happy. You can do that, Meg, can’t you?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “I know I can. If he’ll just give me one more chance.”
He nodded in return and pulled her back into his arms. “It will take time. This isn’t something we can fix overnight. But if we work together, I think we can make him see why you did the things you did. In the meantime, you just need to stay in Steerage, make yourself invisible, and wait for him to come to you, all right?”
“All right,” she nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good. Now, let me go see what I can do.”
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