“You’re shaking.” He put his arms around her. “God,” he said. “You’re cold. You’re so cold.”
His arms were warm. And perhaps he was not the only one who had stored up bitterness, because her next words spilled over from some wounded place, buried deep in her heart.
“You could have waited,” she said. “I asked you to wait. Wait until you had a trade of your own, until you could provide for us without begging your parents. But no. It always had to be now—today, and not tomorrow; this month, and never next year. Don’t tell me I didn’t love you. You weren’t willing to hold off a few years for something that mattered so deeply to me.”
He had grown utterly still as she spoke.
She drew another shuddering breath. “It was not all my fault. It wasn’t.”
“Oh, Ginny.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just…used to pushing at you. I thought it was just another aspect of the game we always played—my insisting on one thing, and your demanding another.”
“I loved you,” she said. “Just because I knew it was impossible didn’t mean I loved you less. And I hated you for forcing me to choose.”
He was wrapped around her, warm and solid. Their breaths combined in a ragged symphony. As much as it had hurt, it had felt good for Ginny to let out that tightly-controlled emotion, to release it into the air. Every breath she took was charged with the pain she’d buried for so long.
But his arms around her told another story. Yes, they’d hurt one another. But he could still make her feel better.
And then he took a deep, shuddering breath.
She opened her eyes. “But here we are,” she said. “After all these years. Maybe it can still be possible.”
“No.” His voice was quiet. Too quiet. “It can’t. It bloody well can’t. I can’t do this to you.”
She tilted her head. His mouth was set in a grim line; he’d made fists of his hands.
She had been so certain that he’d been joking in the beginning. When he’d threatened to hurt her—he’d never meant it. She gave him a watery smile. “Is this the part where you rip out my heart and stomp on it?” she asked.
“No.” He let out a long, slow breath. “This is the part where I rip out my own. I told you I was a wealthy man. It was...not exactly a lie. But, you see, I’ve made an investment. I’ve mortgaged everything I have to finish a railway line. We’re weeks from completion. If I’d managed it, it would have created a direct line from London to Castingham, the first ever. I would have been richer than I’ve ever dreamed.”
She looked down. “I knew that. I’ve followed your company’s progress in the papers.”
“Ha. There’s something you should know that is not in the papers. There’s a canal owner who wants to stop me. He’s bought a majority of my company. Tomorrow, he’ll record the transfer of shares, and after that, he’ll call a special meeting of the shareholders. It’s only a matter of time until he stops work altogether. I have liens on everything—my home, my business, even my expectations from my father. All of my debts are about to come crashing down on my head. I’ll have to sell my damned cuff links just to make the final payroll. When everything has settled, I’ll be destitute.”
She didn’t know how to describe the emotion that filled her—hard and impossibly prickly. She hadn’t known the extent of his debts. And…he’d believed that he had nothing, and he hadn’t told her?
She was still reeling from this when he spoke again. “That’s why I had to marry you today,” he said flatly. “Not tomorrow or next week. Because if I’d waited even twenty-four hours, the news would have become public. And you wouldn’t have married me.”
She’d buried all her worries next to her heart for so long that they’d become second nature to her. This time, she wasn’t going to let them fester. She didn’t try to hold back how upset she was, didn’t try to smooth it into calm politeness. “You knew I had a horror of poverty, and you were going to trick me into it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awful.” She was crying, now. She didn’t care if he saw it—she wanted him to know, this time, how furious she was.
“Oh, Ginny.” His thumb traced the tear down her cheek. His hands were still warm.
She still loved him. She could have forgiven recklessness on his part. But to deliberately imply an untruth about the one thing that he knew would matter to her? He’d intended to put her back in the hell she’d gone through before—only this time, he would have bound her into it with matrimony, swallowing any chance of escape. She loved him, but right now her love seemed a painful thing.
“I’ve bungled this so badly,” he said. “God. I’ve made a mess from the start. I wish I’d—I wish I’d done anything except hurt you.”
But he had. He’d hurt her seven years ago, when he’d not listened to her protests. And he’d hurt her again now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
He’d hurt her, but still he held her through her tears. He held her until her sobs faded to sniffles.
“I’ve made one fortune,” he finally said. “I can make another.”
A new wave of anger hit her, and Ginny looked up. “You still think this is about nothing more than the money? I was crying because my best friend in the entire world lied to me and admitted that he was planning to defraud me. I was crying because I am afraid that I’ve found you only to lose you again. It’s not just about the money. It’s about the fact that you think you can push me into doing whatever it is that you want by any means necessary.”
“It has to be about the money!” he protested. “I can figure out how to make money. I can’t figure out how to make this right.”
She took that in silence, waiting for him to hear what he’d said.
It took only a few heartbeats for his cheeks to grow pale. Then she spoke. “You can’t tell me I don’t have a problem simply because you can’t figure out how to solve it.”
“I know. I know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I know it all. And I have to go back to London this morning. My things are all at the inn.” He let out a shaky laugh. “I have a fortune to lose on the morrow. I can’t be late. But I can’t leave you like this.”
“Yes,” Ginny said stiffly, “you can.”
He winced, and then stood on shaky legs and took two steps toward the door.
She sniffed. “Put on trousers before you go.”
He stopped, turned, and crossed the room to where his clothing lay in a heap and shook out his shirt. He didn’t say anything as he dressed, but his jaw was squaring once more, with that familiar determination. When he’d pulled his coat on, he turned to her.
“So this is what I have to do. Obtain a massive fortune. Figure out how to stop being such a damned beast, when I’ve been one my whole life.” He nodded. “It basically seems impossible.”
Ginny sniffled again.
He crossed the room to her and then knelt beside her. “I love you,” he said. “And I may have a bloody stupid way of showing it, but I will fix this.”
“It’s not a thing to be fixed,” she said. “Don’t you see?”
He shook his head. “It will be,” he said grimly. “Once I’m done with it.”
He snapped on his ostentatious cuff links. He shouldn’t have looked so handsome in a rumpled cravat and a wrinkled coat. But he did. Her heart hurt, deep inside her.
“You’ll see,” he repeated doggedly. “I’m not sure how, but…” And on that note, he sketched her a short bow and left.
Her whole body seemed to ache in time with the sound of his retreating footsteps. She could run after him, but…
Her bedroom door opened, and Alice bustled through. She stopped at the sight of Ginny, still unclothed, nestled in the sheets. Ginny wiped frantically at her eyes, but the telltale ruddiness in her cheeks gave everything away.
“Well,” her maid said. “That did not go quite according to plan, did it?”
“I was improvising.?
?? Ginny scrubbed at her eyes. “Circumstances rather demanded it.”
Alice frowned. “Are you still going, then? After he made you cry?”
Ginny looked up at the ceiling. All that pain was fading to a dull throb, settling into numbing disbelief. He’d hurt her. He’d made her cry. If he had actually trapped her into marriage under those circumstances, she wasn’t sure if she could ever have forgiven him. But he hadn’t done it.
He’d just wanted to.
But no matter how her mind circled, no matter how her heart ached, she would find no answers sitting in this house waiting placidly for his return.
Ginny let out a resigned breath. “I’m going. How long do I have?”
“If you still mean to board at Anniston, rather than Chester? You’ll have to be out of the house in thirty minutes. Charles is coming with the cart.”
Ginny got out of bed, and Alice came to help her dress. “My valise?” she said, as Alice tightened her corset.
“Is packed downstairs.”
“And the tickets?”
“In the front pocket of the valise, along with your tulip money.”
Twenty pounds. Barely enough to cover the cost of the trip and the deed-stamps.
“Good,” Ginny said. “I’ve got one impossible thing to do. The rest, I suppose, will be up to him.”
Chapter Six
SIMON’S HEAD WAS STILL POUNDING by the time he entered the corporation’s office on Thursday morning. His train had arrived in London late on the previous night, and he’d not been able to sleep until just before dawn. He’d managed a few hours. He could have stayed in bed for days.
But there was nothing to be done for it. He had an appointment with Ridgeway, and if he had to beg the man, he’d beg. Which was why he found himself half tripping over his feet, scarcely awake, and wishing he could be anywhere else. Ridgeway had already arrived. He sat on a bench opposite Simon in the receiving room, arms folded, legs crossed, a glower on his face.
“You always thought you were the clever one,” Ridgeway said. “So. What is it you have to say—”
He squinted up at Simon’s face, and a look of revulsion passed over him.
Simon had no idea how he appeared. He hadn’t cared to look at himself in the mirror. He was sure his eyes were red from lack of sleep.
“Out late last night?” the other man asked caustically.
“Obvious, is it?”
“It must have been quite the celebration.” There was always something angry about the man’s tone—understandably so, as Simon had threatened his profitability. But today, that cranky note seemed all the more heightened. And when he talked of celebration, he hadn’t seemed to mean it sarcastically.
Simon was just beginning to wonder what Ridgeway meant by that when a door opened down the hall, and the company secretary stepped out, followed by Andrew Fortas. Simon stood, but Mr. Teller didn’t look for him. Instead, he turned back into the room, speaking to someone Simon couldn’t quite see. It didn’t make sense; he’d supposed that Ridgeway would already have transferred his shares. If he had, who was that in Teller’s office?
“I’ll get the gentlemen, then?” he heard Teller ask. Fortas went back into the room.
An indistinct response came in reply, and then Teller turned and motioned to the two men. Simon stood and walked toward him, all the more confused. He was scarcely aware of Ridgeway following behind him.
When he turned into the room, his whirling confusion came to a standstill. All emotion seemed to wash from him, leaving him a vessel empty of everything except stunned surprise.
“This,” Mr. Teller was saying, “is Mr. Bagswin, and his client, Mrs. Croswell. Mrs. Croswell, Mr. Bagswin—these are the other main shareholders of Long Northern, Mr. Davenant and Mr. Ridgeway.”
Simon swallowed. “Ginny,” he said. “I mean—Mrs. Croswell. What the devil are you doing here?”
The secretary frowned at his language.
But a small, sad smile played across Ginny’s lips. She looked down and examined her gloves. She seemed quite proper at the moment: respectable, and altogether demure. That, more than anything, convinced him that something was afoot.
“Well.” She brushed some unseen piece of dirt from her gloves and raised her eyes to his. “As you know, Mr. Davenant, I am newly widowed. Having liquidated most of the assets left to me by my husband, and then some—”
He made a choking sound.
“I did tell you of that,” she said innocently. “In fact, you remarked on it yourself. Well, never mind. Having liquidated the assets left by my husband, it seemed prudent to invest. I have always had an interest in railways. And so my solicitor, Mr. Bagswin—”
“Your solicitor,” Simon repeated stupidly.
“My solicitor,” she repeated, “purchased one hundred and thirteen shares of the Long Northern Railway on my behalf.”
“Oh, you little minx,” he said, startled. “You bought my company?”
“Come, Mr. Davenant. You cannot be angry with me. I did tell you when you arrived at my house that you were already checkmated. It is not my fault that you didn’t believe me.”
Angry? It wasn’t anger that made his hands shake. He was just beginning to be able to think, to understand what this all meant. Ridgeway hadn’t wrested control of his company from him. She’d bought enough shares to prevent his ever obtaining a majority. Simon wasn’t ruined.
And that made no sense. “Those shares were purchased before I went to Chester-on-Woolsey. How—why—”
“It was really quite simple.” She looked away from him. “I told you I was still a Barrett—given to mad, foolish financial gestures. I’ve been following your company quite closely. I knew what Mr. Ridgeway was doing. I have a horror of poverty.” She raised her eyes, dark and liquid, to his. “How, then, could I see you in it?”
It took him a moment to comprehend what she had said. Without hope of return, she had sold everything she had to keep him safe. He found himself blinking furiously. Dust. There was too much dust in this damned office.
He crossed the room, ignoring her solicitor and his secretary, and knelt before her.
“You ridiculous creature,” he said. “You—you—”
Her hand ruffled his hair. “The word you are looking for is ‘darling,’” she supplied.
“Yes, that.” He took her hands in his and clasped them hard. He was almost afraid to look up, scared that if he did, he would discover it all to be a lie. He pressed his lips to her palm. “And this one,” he whispered into her fingers. “Sweetest.”
He was dimly aware of her solicitor, gathering everyone up and herding them outside. The door closed and they were alone.
“I’m not certain you deserve it,” Ginny said.
“I’m certain I don’t.”
She smiled at that, but he hadn’t intended it as a jest. He finally understood the truth of it. He’d wanted her—desperately—but his had been a selfish love. He’d wanted her more than he’d wanted to make her happy. All these years, he’d foolishly imagined that he’d loved her better simply because he’d loved her louder.
She’d been right. It wasn’t a thing to fix. There was nothing he could do to make it better. It was a question of who he had to become. Obtaining right-of-ways and the approval of Parliament seemed easy next to this.
He raised his head. “I never wanted to spend all those years yearning for you. But every time I tried to fit some other woman in my heart, I failed. There was no room for anyone else. You were already there.”
Her hands compressed around his, and her eyes shone. “Idiot,” she said with a little sniffle. “You’re going to make me cry. I wasn’t supposed to cry in your corporate office. I had planned to savor my victory.”
“Savor as much as you like. I’m on my knees.” He set his hand against her cheek and rubbed away a tear.
A woman didn’t save a man’s fortune and then lean into his touch without feeling a certain amount of affection. If he wanted, he could have h
er now for the price of an abject apology. A mere twelve hours ago, he would have grabbed at the chance and not let go. He would have pulled out his special license—somehow, it was still stowed safely in his coat pocket—and suggested they head for the nearest bed, diverting only long enough to get the vicar’s approval.
But he didn’t want her to marry the person who would do that to her.
He couldn’t bear it if Ginny married a man who took her love for granted, who saw her sacrifice as nothing more than proof that he could grab an advantage. That person would hurt her, and hurt her again.
He’d left her crying once. He wasn’t going to let it happen a second time.
“Ginny,” he said. “I want to ask you a question. A very important question.”
She nodded and straightened expectantly.
He adjusted her hands in his, and looked up into her face. “Ginny,” he repeated, “will you do me the very great honor of…”
She had begun to smile. “Of?”
He let out a deep breath. “Of letting me prove that I’m worthy of you.”
Chapter Seven
Another small town, five weeks later
TODAY WAS THE FIRST DAY that Simon had seen Ginny in colors.
She stood almost fifteen feet in the air on a scaffold erected for the occasion, the full yellow skirts of her day gown rippling behind her in the breeze. One of the white ribbons that ringed her fitted sleeve had come untied; it flapped merrily in the wind, in cheery counterpoint to the murmur of the crowd.
Even from twenty feet away, she drew his eye. And it wasn’t just Simon who looked at her. The crowd was massed in the hundreds, and not a one of them was gawking at the steam engine that she was about to christen. They were all watching her.
And no wonder. The sun glinted off her dark hair, framed by her straw bonnet. The rays twinkled against the bottle of champagne that she held over her head. She smiled, and the entire throng seemed to hold its breath alongside Simon.