“Do I look much like an angel to you?”
“I’m not entirely sure you wish me to answer that.”
“Why agree to meet me after all these years? You could have easily instructed your attorney to create some pretty fiction.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Were you hoping for a familial connection? A renewal of our acquaintance?”
As much as he found himself fascinated anew, that wasn’t yet an option. The very freshness that clung to her like dew would be swept away by a single touch from his dirtied hands. He had to make things right first.
“No. That wouldn’t be appropriate. I’ve decided to offer you a dowry. Or if you prefer, an endowment. Enough that you may live as you like.”
“I see.” She scooped up her skirts as she stood. “If that is all, I thank you for the effort you’ve gone to on my behalf. I decline your offer and wish you well in the future.”
He jumped out of his chair in a flash. His hand wrapped around her upper arm, gripping tightly. He’d put too much effort and consideration into her upbringing to let her dismiss him in such a high-handed manner. And the money. Not only the funds that had already gone into her schooling and her clothing. Where did she think her pin money came from?
He’d practically
made
her.
He wouldn’t let her throw it all away on becoming a drudge. A woman who took employment. Such a wife wouldn’t suit his ambitions in the least.
“Wait just a moment. You can’t do that.”
She looked down her nose at his hand. “Can I not? I disagree.”
An unfamiliar chagrin made him draw back his grip. Somewhere at the fringes of the room, her maid shuffled and twisted her hands, but she mattered little. Frightening Sera unduly was his only concern.
“Bemoaning the source of my support for all these years is pointless,” she said. “What is done is done and I thank you. I’ve benefitted immeasurably. But that’s different than continuing to accept charity bought by dirty money. That I cannot in good conscience do.”
“Waywroth Academy did a better job than I expected.” How the smile stayed on his face was a mystery when red-hot anger charred a path through his insides. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake. All his careful plans wouldn’t be undone by the willfulness of a headstrong, naïve girl. “You won’t have a choice in this, Seraphina.”
“Sera,” she corrected, her voice calm and steady.
“Sera, Seraphina.” He advanced until she craned her neck backward to see him. She was so damn fragile. Given half a chance, the world would break her.
He
could shatter her without the least effort. That base lust, too, would require time to restrain. “Whatever you call yourself doesn’t matter. Accounts will be initiated in your name. The money will be there.”
“And it will remain there. I’ll continue with my plan to take employment at the academy.” She stretched up on her toes and brushed a kiss over his cheek.
The simple act was enough to stun him. Not even his chest moved. Such innocent kindness was exactly what he’d wished to protect. But he’d also made her stubbornly ignorant of his own character.
She’d get the money, like it or not. And use it as well.
“I thank you, Digger. For everything.” On the distinct soft swish of expensive fabric that denoted a gentlewoman’s petticoats, she stepped backwards, out of his reach.
But she wouldn’t remain out of reach for long.
Chapter Four
“I simply do not understand.” Victoria leaned her golden head nearer and spoke in a harsh-edged whisper, which likely did nothing to conceal their conversation.
Sera sat upright in the tiny theater chair. Not that she could escape anywhere, however, because Lottie sat as avidly close at her other side. “That’s because there’s nothing to understand,” Sera said.
She stared over the railing of the theater box. The scrumptiously colored gowns and iridescent jewels of their fellow theatergoers had become as blurred as a bad watercolor. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on Victoria’s earlier introductions. Her fiancé, the Duke of Ashby, was present, along with her aunt, Lady Dalrymple, but beyond that Sera had not a clue who else milled about the box.
She hadn’t followed a single word of dialogue through the first act, having only realized the start of intermission when Victoria pressed close and whispered in her ear.
Confusion muddled Lottie’s green eyes. “I thought Mrs. Waywroth already offered you the instructress position. Monday last, you said.”
“I did say so.” Her fingers wrapped knuckle by knuckle around the stem of her fan. “Because she
did
offer.”
Victoria wrinkled her nose. “I’m afraid I don’t understand this employment business. Is that allowed? To rescind an offer like that?”
“She may do whatever she likes.” Frustration wrapped coils about Sera’s body, squeezing every muscle. If she tried to move, her bones would crack into ash.
She knew what had happened. Fletcher Thomas, that’s what. Somehow he’d prevented Mrs. Waywroth from hiring her because Sera refused to continue accepting his bounty.
“It’s simply not fair.” Lottie spoke across her, directing the words at Victoria.
“If she wishes to work, she should be afforded the opportunity.” Victoria accompanied the statement with a decisive nod, then looked past Sera to offer her fiancé a wan smile. Lord Ashby hovered at the back of the booth looking as bored as humanly possible while still breathing. A handsome man, his dark hair and eyes were a credit to generations of patrician matches. He wouldn’t look fondly at all upon his fiancée if he knew she regularly agitated for women’s suffrage.
Lottie’s wide smile lit her elfin features. “I have it! I can pay you to take over more duties at my society. You already teach the etiquette classes. You can simply add a few more tasks. I must admit I’m getting a touch bored with the endeavor.”
Lottie ran a social club of sorts for underprivileged factory girls. In exchange for etiquette and elocution lessons, they agreed to attend a certain number of social functions with eligible bachelors, most of them clerks or factory managers.
As much as Sera enjoyed occasionally offering lessons, she shook her head immediately. “I couldn’t work for you. You’d drive me mad. What I value in a friend would make me take a parasol to your head in an employer.”
“Our Lottie could do with a good knock to the head now and then,” Victoria added in a prim voice.
In lieu of her usual gesture of sticking out her tongue, Lottie faintly crossed her eyes. “What will you do instead?”
“I don’t know.” Sera gave into the impulse to rub at the pain pinching the bridge of her nose. “Likely look for someone who needs a companion. Victoria, that’s something about which your assistance would be appreciated.”
She patted Sera’s hand. “Consider it done. I’ll even endeavor to find you someone who’s fun, so you’re not locked in a parlor reading Bible verses all day.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to express how much I appreciate you both.” With a cooling breath she forced back the tears prickling her eyes.
Lord Ashby loomed above them. “Can I get you ladies some refreshment?”
Victoria turned up her rounded face and beamed. “Do you think they might have pomegranate punch? I would adore such.”
Lord Ashby didn’t even blink at her ridiculous request. He never did, no matter how far Victoria pushed him. “I don’t believe so. Would you like some champagne instead?”
“That sounds wonderful, Your Grace,” Sera interjected before Victoria could continue her baiting. At the moment she had no patience to watch her friend’s games. She waited for the duke’s wide back to slip out the door of the theater box before continuing. “You should stop.”
Not even the slightest hint of regret passed over Victoria’s beatific features. “I give him what he expects and he leaves me alone. If his idea of womanly pursuits and mine do not dovetail, so much the worse for him.”
Before Sera could chastise her friend any further, a curious weight settled across her collarbones. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck clawed upright as if she were being watched. Though it had been a long time since she’d felt hunted in such a manner, she knew how to respond. She quieted herself and made a surreptitious appraisal of the theater.
No one in the box watched her. She turned her look outward, across the sea of less fortunate theatergoers who occupied seats in the main house. No faces turned up toward her.
Across the way was another matter. In a tiny jewel of a theater box, a man watched her.
Digger.
No, he was Digger no longer. Not to her and not to anyone else. He was Fletcher Thomas.
He stood half-concealed by the crimson velvet hangings that separated each group, entirely apart from the rest of those occupying the box. His wide shoulders filled out the black and white evening dress with aplomb, not a stitch out of place. A hugely gaudy jewel winked from his cravat.
Yet he seemed more dangerous and wild than the lion she’d once seen at a traveling circus exhibit. That beast had stared back at Sera. The whole time she’d known it only remained behind the rickety fence by its own will. When it decided to break free, its roar would herald her doom.
Though the distance was too great to see the pale blue of his eyes, he watched her. He even had the audacity to tip his chin in a nod. One side of his mouth bent into that half smile he’d used in his parlor three days earlier.
Sera became angry. No, more than that—she was incandescently furious. Her fingertips tingled with the need to do harm. Her stomach wound into a sickly bundle. Sweat sprang up at the back of her neck. She would not sit there and allow him to continue such scrutiny.
She launched to her feet suddenly and without grace. The short train of her gown caught a chair leg as she turned. “Please, pardon me for a moment. I need air.”
To see Lottie’s wide mouth flatten with concern was unusual but heartening. “What’s wrong?”
Sera forced herself to shake her head. If her friends went with her, she’d likely end up venting and the venting would soon lead to screaming. “I’m fine. I only need a trip to the withdrawing room.”
“Would you like us to go with you?”
“No, that’s quite all right.”
It took entirely too long to cross the tiny box. Victoria’s aunt, Lady Dalrymple, was half asleep in her chair next to the door. The ostrich feathers in her headdress bobbed along with each snuffling snore.
Theatergoers crowded the hallway. Breath and heat and musky smells pressed in on her from all sides. Away from the surge of people headed toward the refreshments, she exited toward the quiet, empty hallways leading to the exits.
Near a curtained alcove she stopped, not wanting to venture much farther and risk censure for roving without a chaperone. She flattened a hand against the wallpaper. The flocking snagged softly against her glove. She bent her neck and dragged in heavy breaths. Life had been so much simpler a few days ago. She’d known her place. The charity case. The probable by-blow. But she’d also known how to continue in a respectable mien.
Now she was lost.
An arm reached through the curtains and wrapped around her waist. With a yank, she was pulled into the dark. Panic flooded her veins. She opened her mouth to scream.
A hand covered her mouth. A heavy, large and undoubtedly male body pressed along her back. His chest burned into her shoulders and his arm lay warm across collarbones bared by her low-cut evening gown. Fear overwhelmed her, but only until she smelled a spicy wash of familiar soap.
The fingers across her mouth loosened but still didn’t release. He leaned over her, speaking quietly into her ear. “It’s me. If I release you, do you promise not to scream?”
Fletcher’s breath sent shivers down her neck. She only resented him more for it.
Regrettably, screaming for the pure unadulterated joy of it was not an option. Even if it were acceptable to release one’s anger in such a fishwife manner, she’d only get him in trouble and risk her own reputation.
Finally, she nodded.
His hand slid away. Each finger dragged across her skin. Tingles washed over her.
Sera turned and pressed her back to the wall, but the reflexive retreat didn’t gain her much room. The alcove was little more than a curtain concealing a doorway. He loomed too near, taking up the precious air with his vitality. His mouth was a hard slash of darkness amid more gray. The tiny streams of light that arrowed around the edges of the curtain only accentuated the shadows draping his body.
The first thing that popped into her mind then fell out of her mouth. “You were in the Earl of Linsley’s box.”
Somehow he managed to infuse arrogance in a single nod. “That I was. Are you surprised?”
She slid her hands behind her back, the better to hide their nervous twisting. The rear seam of her bodice abraded her knuckles. “In all honesty, yes. You said you’d taken over your father’s interests. I didn’t think Linsley was the type to…dabble.”
“He’s not. More woe to me for it.” He rubbed a hand across the top of his head. “It might be easier to crack his consortium if he were,” he muttered, so low that Sera barely heard him.
“Consortium?”
“Railroad.” He waved a hand. “No matter. I’ve come to find out if you’ll take the money.”