Courtney Milan (14 page)

The rain was still coming down hard, the wind driving it in gusts against the window.

“Your wife?” she said softly. “John, I intend to be so much more than that.”

He shut his eyes.

Her hand sought his. “We can have so much more than that. You’ll see,” she said soothingly.

“Will I?”

“I only want the same chances you had.” She reached out for his hand. “I want your quiet confidence. You set yourself impossible tasks and you solve them. By yourself. There’s…there’s one thing I need to put right. I want you to let me go, so I can do it. No—I
need
to know that you will let me go.”

He wanted to refuse, to deny her. He wanted to pin her in place. But Sir Walter had put her in a cage for long enough. All he could do was watch her leave.

He felt hoarse, and he hadn’t even been shouting. “You’ll come back, after?”

Her only answer was to kiss his cheek—sweetly, not passionately, and to move away.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I’ll let you go—but not like that, Mary. Not like that.” He set his hand on her shoulder and gently, oh so gently, turned her toward him.

I love you.
He kissed the words into her lips. Her chin. Her neck.

I love you.
The tip of her breast brushed his hands; her sigh of acceptance nearly undid him.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Caress after caress bore those words. He swallowed the emotions he felt and gave them back to her as kisses. And perhaps she heard what he meant, because she stretched out beneath him. Her eyes were shut, her hair strewn across the pillow. She threw her head back, and the long column of her throat begged for his kisses.

I love you.

He kissed the hollow in her neck, the point of her chin. But when he made to kiss her lips, she turned away from him. He was losing her, and he had no way to hold on.

“I wish you every happiness,” he whispered.

Even without me.

But he didn’t say that last. He didn’t dare.

Chapter Twelve

I
T TOOK DAYS BEFORE
John finished the drainage work on Beauregard’s farm and headed home. He felt bruised and weary. Even though his nightly walks had come to an end when Mary left, he had found himself unable to sleep. She had money this time. She would be well, wouldn’t she?

Still, he vowed that if he didn’t hear from her when he arrived back in Southampton, he would search her out, and this time, he wouldn’t stop until he found her.

But there was no rest to be had when he arrived back at home. His sister met him at the railway station even though he hadn’t given her any word about the precise day of his arrival.

“John,” she said, waving madly at him from the platform.

“Elizabeth.” He managed not to groan her name in greeting.

Don’t ask me how it went.

“So,” she said. There was a gleam in her eye—the kind of sisterly gleam that suggested that somehow, she was going to make his life miserable. “How did it all go?”

“Hmm,” he said, warily.

“Never mind.” She spoke swiftly. She always spoke swiftly. “There will be time for you to tell me everything later, and besides, I can already guess how it went. I was sure you would be coming in today. Come now; we haven’t much time.”

“Time for what?” he asked in befuddlement, but she was already sweeping away in front of him, gesturing to her waiting carriage.

He followed after, feeling more than a little confused. A footman relieved him of his pair of valises and stored them in the boot. He had no choice but to join Eliza in the carriage. But instead of setting off in the direction of his farm, the driver turned and headed toward the center of town.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, giving him a shake of her head. “When you saw Mary Chartley, it took you three minutes to lose all hint of sternness and to become nice again.”

“Uh… No. It took days, in fact.”

“And you count it days too long.”

He let out an aggravated breath of air. “Yes, well. You’ve got the right of it.”

She wagged her finger at him, but there was no real exasperation in the gesture.

“I asked her to marry me,” he said. “And if I can find her, she might still say yes.”

“
Might
say yes!” Eliza rolled her eyes. “You mean to tell me that you couldn’t even get her to agree to that? Good God, John.”

“I thought she’d had enough of people ordering her about.”

His sister met his eyes, and she shook her head again. “In any event, I did say that there would be time for all that later. We’ve urgent business in town. I need you.”

He sat up straighter. “What do you need me for?”

“I need you to be male,” she said. “If you’re not in the room, nobody will take us seriously. If they insist on talking to you, as they always do, direct them back to me, as I know what is going on.”

“Are we talking to your banker again?” he asked dubiously.

“Something like that,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Ah, here we are!”

Her carriage drew up in front of a public house.

He’d been traveling by rail for the better part of the day, and it was already six in the evening. The sun was still out, but he was nonetheless exhausted. He was
not
in the mood for a beer and a friendly chat. But Eliza had always put him in mind of a tropical cyclone. If she touched land in the vicinity, one couldn’t say no to her. She wouldn’t even understand what the word meant.

She let him hand her out of the carriage and then marched into the building. Apparently, they were expected; the proprietor took one look at the two of them, bowed, and escorted them to a back room.

“Who is here so far?” Eliza asked.

“Just the lady who was here when you left earlier, ma’am.”

“Good,” Eliza said. And she swept into the room as the man opened the door.

John followed. He took two steps into the private chamber before stopping completely. He hadn’t known what to expect—he’d supposed that he was here to act as mediator in some dispute with Eliza’s neighbors or to smooth the way for Eliza with the banker.

But Mary was sitting at the table in front of him. She was wearing a new gown—a blue satin that brought out the gray of her eyes. He simply stared, unable to say anything. Unable to even step forward and take her in his arms. All he could do was
want,
and that more deeply than he had ever done.

Eliza swept up to her, as if finding her here after an absence of a year and a half was hardly a surprise, and kissed her on the cheek.

Mary’s pale hair was bound up into a pretty little chignon, complete with curls; she returned Eliza’s kiss and then looked over at John. And then, little minx, she winked at him.

“You,” he said stupidly. “Do you know how I’ve worried about you?”

Her eyes sparkled in response.
Sparkled
was the wrong word for it. Sparkling made him think of candlelight glinting off silver—all shine, no depth. Her eyes put him in mind of moonlight reflecting off a deep lake. All that brilliant luster, reflected from untold deeps.

“Miss Chartley has been telling me quite the tale,” his sister said.

“She’s right,” John said swiftly. “I believe her implicitly. Because she’s right. And because it’s logical—because it’s the only explanation that makes sense of the available evidence. I’m not merely saying that because I—”

Because I want to get her in bed. Because I have to have her in my life. Because I can’t bear to have her leave me again.

Beside him, Eliza shook her head. “Goodness,” she said. “Could you babble any more, John?”

Mary smiled more broadly, and something in the vicinity of his chest cracked. His heart, maybe, or his lungs. All his internal organs. He reached out to take her hand.

Eliza smacked his wrist with her fan so hard that it stung. “Behave yourself, John,” she admonished. “Spare my nerves and save your lovemaking for when I am not present. As I was saying, Miss Chartley has told me everything.” She gave a sniff.

“Not precisely
everything,
I hope.” If she had, Eliza might well have aimed her fan rather lower than his hand.

“Attend to me for five minutes,” his sister said. “Five minutes. This is your duty: You are to sit quietly, act like a hulking male, and observe.” She pointed at a chair at the head of the table, and John sat.

Eliza gave him a sharp nod.

To Mary, John said, “I know it appears that my sister is browbeating me. Don’t worry. I can stand up to her. It’s just easier to let her think she’s getting her way for the things that don’t matter.”

Eliza stuck out her tongue at him. “Fiddlesticks. You listen to me because I’m right. I always am.”

John thumbed his nose at her; she smiled back cordially.

“There,” Eliza said, turning to Mary. “That is how one handles him. You can thank me for the lesson later.”

Mary shook her head and smiled. “Perhaps, but I think I’d prefer less sisterly methods.”

The two women held each other’s gazes for a long moment. And that was when John realized there was no tension in their exchange. Mary’s father had stolen Eliza’s son’s inheritance. Eliza should have been on the verge of tearing her hair out or screaming imprecations. Instead, the two were sitting at a table together and exchanging meaningful glances.

Something had happened. His sister and the love of his life were in league with one another. And that made him feel… Befuddled. Amazed. Delighted. And very, very afraid. He’d wondered how to convince Eliza to be polite; now he was yearning to be a part of whatever it was they had planned.

Eliza sniffed. “We’ve distracted ourselves. The substance of the matter, John, is that Miss Chartley has brought the most unimaginable—”

But she didn’t get to finish her sentence. The door opened behind them, and two men entered the room.

It had been a few months since John had last seen Mr. Frost and Mr. Lawson, the other partners. They swept in.

“Mr. Mason. Mrs. Tallant.” That last with a nod in the direction of his sister, but they scarcely glanced at the women sitting at the table.

John stood and shook their hands; behind their backs, Eliza made a face.

“What’s this all about?” Lawson asked. “You’d think, Mason, that you might give us more than twenty-four hours before calling an urgent meeting.”

John glanced at his sister and Mary, but they both sat at the table, looking on with silent interest. Apparently, the introductions were to be left to him. If only he knew what he was introducing.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he improvised. “We’ve just received some, uh, some information.” Safe enough. “We thought it would be of interest to you gentlemen.”

“This is about the partnership, yes?” Lawson sighed and brushed past him to pull out a seat from the table. “Don’t tell me you’ve managed to track down Chartley’s bitch of a daughter.” He sat—and only then realized that the women sitting at the table were not, as he’d supposed, Mrs. Elizabeth Tallant and a servant, but Mrs. Tallant and…

He sat back and coughed heavily.

“Yes,” Mary said calmly. “Mr. Mason did find—how did you put it?—Chartley’s bitch of a daughter.”

Lawson flinched at her wording. But John knew that light in her eyes. It was the way she’d looked when she’d given him Lady Northword’s earring. If ever she’d directed that look at him, he’d have run screaming for his life.

“As it turns out, gentlemen, I had something in my possession that I believe will shed some light on a few things.” She undid a clasp on a large brown envelope and pulled out a few pages—frayed along the folds, well-inked, and charred on the edges.

“These are the pages that were missing from my father’s account book,” she said. “As the book I sent earlier documented, some eight thousand pounds were taken over a period of four years. This shows the final withdrawals from the account where my father kept them: around two thousand pounds. Leaving a balance, on the day of his death, of five thousand, nine hundred and sixty-seven guineas.”

John’s heart began to pound. They’d told him the account had eight hundred pounds in it—eight
hundred,
not almost six thousand.

Lawson, who hadn’t seated himself, snorted dismissively. “Surely you aren’t trusting to the accounting of a thief—and a document held by a liar.”

“No,” Mary said calmly. “He doesn’t need to trust me.” She passed over another sheet of paper. “This is a copy of the account balances and withdrawals, certified by Mr. Waring, the bank director. According to this, the balance—which precisely matches my father’s figures, once one accounts for the interest that was paid in—was withdrawn two weeks after my father’s death by Mr. Frost on behalf of the partnership.”

Silence. She was beautiful in her triumph, so beautiful. John held his breath, waiting to see what Frost would say to that accusation.

“Lies,” Frost breathed.

Lawson didn’t move.

“And this,” Mary continued, “is an accounting of what was done with those funds. They were rolled over into a new account on behalf of the partnership again. Don’t you find it odd, Mr. Mason, that the partnership has had an entire new account and that neither you nor your sister were told about it? It’s nice to know that the partnership has finally begun to prosper. Over the last year, they’ve managed a thirty-five-percent profit. Extremely handsome.”