Chapter Twenty-Four
Exhausted from her sleepless night after the ball, Maria had fallen into a doze as soon as the carriage left Halstead Hall. But although Mr. Pinter had made sure they were as comfortable as possible in his cold, rickety coach, being beaten half to death by ruts in the road wasn’t conducive to good sleep. So once they returned to the coach after their late stop for dinner at an inn, she and Mr. Pinter began discussing the situation regarding Nathan.
Freddy had decided opinions about it. “I have my sword. I’ll call him out. If I put a blade through him, there won’t be a problem with your inheritance.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—you’re not going to duel with Nathan,” she said. Though Freddy was fairly adept with a sword, she’d never forgive herself if he got himself killed.
“You should have told his lordship you were leaving,” Freddy said. “You should have let him come along and fight Nathan.”
She ignored Mr. Pinter’s none-too-subtle interest in the conversation. She’d explained at dinner the arrangement between her and Oliver, naturally leaving out the part about Oliver bedding her, then proposing marriage. “This has nothing to do with Lord Stoneville,” she said firmly.
“He’s your fiancé, isn’t he?” Freddy persisted.
“That was a sham for his grandmother’s benefit, and you know it. Do be quiet about it, will you?”
“I don’t think it was all a sham,” he said, surprising her.
“Of course it was.”
“Not according to what Lady Celia and the lads told me last night on the way to the ball. They said those pearls he gave you were worth a fortune.”
Mr. Pinter sat up straighter on the seat.
She cast Freddy an irritated glance. “Don’t be ridiculous. As his lordship said, he would have sold them by now if they were worth so much.”
“Lady Celia said he couldn’t bear to part with them. He sold the jewels that his father bought. But Mrs. Plumtree gave those pearls to his mother upon her debut, and that made them special.”
Maria’s breath dried in her throat. “Celia must have been mistaken,” she whispered. “You must have misunderstood.”
But in her heart, she knew he hadn’t. And it increased her growing guilt over having left Halstead Hall so abruptly. She’d been a coward. Oliver deserved to have his proposal properly refused to his face.
Still, she had refused him last night. He’d simply chosen to ignore her refusal. Was it cowardice to flee when one lacked the strength to hold fast to one’s convictions?
Unfortunately, Freddy’s revelation prompted Mr. Pinter to ask her yet again about the special license. When she made it clear she didn’t want to discuss Oliver further, the conversation dwindled into nothing.
Mr. Pinter probably considered her a fool for trying to protect a man of Oliver’s lofty station. She didn’t care. Every time she thought of Oliver suffering all those years over the manner of his parents’ deaths, it broke her heart.
By the time they reached Southampton, it was two a.m. Much as she wanted to march right over to Nathan’s lodgings, Mr. Pinter advised against it, saying she needed rest before confronting her fiancé. He did have a point; she’d never been so tired in all her life.
Fortunately, one of the coaching inns still had empty rooms, so Mr. Pinter was able to take one for her and one for him and Freddy. Before she parted with them, she drew Mr. Pinter aside and instructed him to leave Freddy sleeping in the morning and to awaken her early. She wasn’t about to let Freddy and his sword go with them to see Nathan.
Then Maria went to her room, where she fell onto the bed and into a dreamless sleep without even bothering to take off her clothes.
When a knock at the stout oak door awakened her, it seemed like only moments had passed. But the dull gray of impending dawn and the bitter chill of the room now that the fire had died down proved that not to be the case.
“Miss Butterfield?” said Mr. Pinter through the door. “You said that you wished to be roused by seven. I’ve brought the maid to assist you.”
“Thank you!” she called as she dragged herself from the bed and crossed to the door in stocking feet. She opened it to let a sour-faced girl into the room, and stuck her head around the edge of the door to tell Mr. Pinter, “I’ll be downstairs shortly.”
No doubt used to attending travelers in a hurry, the inn maid briskly helped Maria change from her traveling clothes into her mourning attire. It made Maria long for her lovely new gowns, not to mention Betty and her chatty sweetness.
Stop that! At least you’re no longer living a lie. You’re back to being yourself.
But was she herself, when her heart yearned to be elsewhere? At Halstead Hall, she’d be awakening in that glorious fairy-tale bed now, waiting for Betty to bring her a pot of chocolate and some toast to nibble until she went down to breakfast with the family. They’d chat about the estate as Betty helped her dress before the roaring fire. She’d be looking forward to seeing Oliver—
Ohh, it was no use. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. But she had to keep her mind focused on what she would say to the traitorous Nathan when she saw him.
She left the room, then hastened her steps as she heard a ruckus downstairs. Oh, mercy—Freddy was awake.
“I’m going with you,” he was saying to Mr. Pinter. “I see you trying to sneak out without me.”
“Nonsense,” Maria said as she reached them. “Mr. Pinter and I still need to discuss a few matters about Nathan. Since we haven’t had breakfast, I was about to awaken you so you could get some kidney pies for us from that shop we saw on the edge of town as we came in.”
Freddy’s face lit up at the promise of pies. Then his eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t we eating breakfast here?”
Thankful that no one was around to hear her, she said, “The breakfast at this inn is very costly, isn’t it, Mr. Pinter?”
“Yes, very costly,” he said dryly.
“I figured that we should save money where we can.” She fished a few coins from the meager store in her reticule and gave her cousin her most winsome smile. “So if you’d be a dear and fetch us some kidney pies, it would be perfect.”
He looked wary, but kidney pies were his favorite. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled. “But I’ll be back directly. Don’t go anywhere without me.”
“Of course not.”
As soon as he was out of sight, she urged Mr. Pinter out the door and toward the lodging house that thankfully lay in the opposite direction. Since Freddy had no idea where it was, her ploy should keep him and his sword safely away.
When they arrived at the neat little cruckwork cottage, Mr. Pinter asked to see Mr. Hyatt. The owner went to fetch him, leaving them in a country parlor with cupboards displaying pretty crockery.
As they waited, Maria moved so that she stood out of sight of the door, over by the window and away from Mr. Pinter. She wanted to catch Nathan unawares.
When he entered, however, he caught her unawares. Nathan looked like an entirely different person as he strode toward Mr. Pinter. He’d grown his side-whiskers down almost to his chin, and his hair fell in loose curls instead of the straight blond mop it usually was. Had he begun curling his hair?
And his clothes! He’d always been dismissive of fashion, having grown up resenting his father’s emphasis on it. Yet here he stood, dressed in fine attire that would outshine even that of the Sharpe brothers.
Seeing him looking so well, behaving as if nothing were amiss, brought an anger roaring up inside her that threatened to incinerate everything around her.
And he still had not noticed her standing there, the oblivious wretch!
“May I help you, sir?” Nathan asked Mr. Pinter in the cool tone of a man of business.
That was the last straw. Before Mr. Pinter could answer, she said, “Good morning, Nathan.”
As he whirled to face her, the blood drained from his features. “Maria! What are you—” He halted as he took in her clothes. “What’s happened?”
“Father is dead,” she snapped, barely able to remain civil.
“My God!” He looked sincerely stricken. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“Yes, I know that perfectly well.” The words poured out of her. “I sent you several letters, all of which you failed to answer. Meanwhile, the trustees couldn’t settle the estate without you, because of Papa’s cursed will.”
She marched forward, her fury growing with each step. “I had to use my dwindling resources to travel to England in search of you. Now I can’t even afford to pay Mr. Pinter his fee for finding you. And here you are, using the knowledge that my father taught you, to start a business that would ruin his company!”
“I can explain,” he said in a hoarse voice as he stepped toward her.
But there was no stopping her now. “And all this time, I thought you might be dead somewhere!” Tears welled in her eyes that she ruthlessly fought back. “Freddy and I scoured London, sure that you had met with some dreadful mishap.”
“Oh, my darling, I’m—”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” she cried. “It was all lies, wasn’t it? The marriage proposal, your kisses.”
“Maria,” he said, glancing at Mr. Pinter, “it is not appropriate for you to mention—”
“Appropriate!” she practically howled. “What about lying to your business partner and stealing from him? Are those ‘appropriate’?”
He drew himself up, clearly offended. “I didn’t steal from your father. I would never do that.”
“Really? So you somehow acquired a fleet of clipper ships that you’re offering for sale, even though half of them don’t belong to you?”
He flinched. With another glance at Mr. Pinter, he lowered his voice. “Could we please have this conversation privately?”
“Absolutely not.” She’d learned a thing or two from her reading about crime. Schemers always used their victims’ soft hearts against them. She needed Mr. Pinter’s stony good sense to deflect any urge she had to believe Nathan’s lies. “I want Mr. Pinter to witness this. I don’t trust you.”
“It isn’t what you think!” He fixed her with an earnest gaze. “I did it for us.”
“For us?” She was incredulous that he could even claim such a thing.
“Has it never struck you that four years is a long time for a betrothal?”
“Of course, but Papa said—”
“I know.” His lip curled in disdain. “He said he had to be sure I could run the company before he entrusted you to me.”
“He was only testing you. He always believed in you. Why else would he leave half his company to you in his will?”
“Did he? He said he was going to. But I could never be sure he’d do as he promised.” Taking her by surprise, he seized her hands. “He has dangled you before me as a prize for four years, and every time I brought up the possibility of us marrying, he said I wasn’t ready.”
She gaped at him. “That can’t be true!”
“Trust me, it is.” He squeezed her hands. “I began to fear he only wanted to get as much work out of me as he could, before selling his half to some other chap.”
She snatched her hands from his. “Why would he do that? He had no son to inherit. He needed a strong man like you to run the company after he was gone.”
“Yet he refused to let us marry. I couldn’t wait. I wanted a wife.”
“So you went off to find one in England?”
“No!” He rubbed his side-whiskers nervously. “He told me if I could make the deal in London work, he’d let us marry. But negotiations in London fell through. They kept saying your father was an old man—that they couldn’t trust New Bedford Ships to provide the ships when I owned only half the company. If something happened to your father, they would be left in limbo.”
As she stared at him uncertainly, he softened his voice. “I explained about our betrothal, but they hesitated to trust such an informal arrangement. They feared you might decide not to marry me and instead sell your half to some other partner. Where would that leave them?”
“You knew I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, but they didn’t know it. So I thought if I settled a deal for the ships on my own as an independent company, I could return to America in a position of strength. I could threaten to take my half of the business—and my new deal—if your father didn’t approve the marriage.”
It all sounded very convincing . . . except for one thing. “What about me? While you were off arranging your future—”
“Our future,” he corrected her.
“—I was left not knowing what had happened to you, not knowing if you had changed your mind about the betrothal or if you’d died somewhere.”
“I had no choice,” he said in the patient tone he’d always taken with her when he discussed business. Why had she never noticed how condescending he was? “If I’d written you, your father would have heard of it. You know he would never have allowed us to correspond privately. I couldn’t risk tipping my hand.”
“So you decided that my feelings, my worries, didn’t matter?”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course they mattered. But I figured you would understand once I achieved the goal we both wanted—a speedy marriage.”
“If a speedy marriage was our goal, we could have eloped,” she pointed out. Disillusionment crept into her voice. “But you wouldn’t have risked that. Papa might have refused to leave his half of the company to you.”
“Now, Maria, you know that’s got nothing to do with it,” he began in the placating voice that had seriously begun to grate on her nerves.
Her temper flared again. “Do you think I’m stupid?” She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “Or maybe you just thought me so desperate for a husband that I would sit patiently waiting until you remembered you had a fiancée. Clearly you weren’t worried I might find someone else during the months when I didn’t hear from you.”
He blinked.
A bitter smile twisted her lips. “And why should you? After all, who would want to marry the too-forthright daughter of a bastard? I’d be lucky to have a man of your social consequence, right? I’d never risk losing a fellow as lofty as you. I’m sure you thought I would wait for you forever.”
“That’s not . . . I didn’t look at it . . . Dash it all, I knew your character! You’d made a promise to me. I knew you would honor your promise.”
She fought to ignore the twinge of guilt his words roused. “Yet you felt no compunction to honor your promise.”
“What do you mean?” he asked warily.
“You’re courting the daughter of Mr. Kinsley, who owns the company that might buy the ships you don’t fully own.”
A dull flush rose in his face, and his gaze shot to Mr. Pinter, confirming what she’d heard. Her heart sank. How had she not seen this side of him before? How could she have been so blind to the shark in him?
“I suppose you’re the man spouting these lies in my fiancée’s ear?” Nathan snapped at Mr. Pinter.
“I passed on what I heard here, yes,” Mr. Pinter said coolly. “That’s what she hired me to do. You were seen out walking with Miss Kinsley several times, not to mention accompanying her and her mother to concerts and the like.”
Nathan tugged at his cravat, as if it was choking him. “I was merely attempting to be polite. It’s not unusual in business.”
“Rumor has it that you’re on the verge of making an offer,” Mr. Pinter said.
Nathan returned his gaze to Maria. “You don’t believe these rumors, do you?”
She gazed steadily at him. “Should I?”
“No!” When she merely lifted an eyebrow, his color deepened. “All right, I’ll admit I smoothed the way for this deal by cozying up to Mr. Kinsley’s family, but—”
“That’s what I thought.” She turned for the door. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney. If you wish to purchase my half of the company—”
“Dash it all, Maria, don’t be absurd!” He grabbed her by the arm. “I made no promises to the young woman. She means nothing to me!”
She snatched her arm free. “How odd. Neither do I, apparently.”
“That’s not true!”
Anger surged up in her again. “I cried for you. I worried about you. When you didn’t answer my letters, I came all the way to this curst country to find you—and you hadn’t even left word at the company as to where you’d gone! I had little money, and no idea what to do—”
“Then you should have stayed home, where you belonged!”
She stared at him incredulously. Now the real Nathan came out. All this time she’d believed him to be her friend, a man who understood why she wasn’t like other women. But the truth was, he’d always tried to suppress whatever he saw as improper in her. He’d done it in little ways—an admonition here, a disapproving smile there—but disapproval had always lain beneath their easy relationship.
If she were honest, she’d admit that he’d never approved of her the way she was. Only Oliver had done that.
The thought of Oliver roused a powerful yearning to see him. She could almost hear the cynical remarks he would make about Nathan; then he would tell her she deserved better. She would know he meant every word, because for all Oliver’s faults, for all his reticence about his past, he’d never lied to her.
“You have no idea how glad I am that I did not stay home,” she said softly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have discovered how utterly unsuited we are to marry.”
He shook his head. “You’re wrong. You’re just angry right now.” He reached up as if to caress her cheek, but when she recoiled, his expression hardened. “We’re still legally betrothed. If you break it off because of some silly petulance over Miss Kinsley, you’ll force me to take action.”
Her pulse pounding in her ears, she stared at him. “What do you mean?”
Determination glinted in his eyes. “I’ll sue you for breach of promise. The court will be very understanding when I point out that your father wanted us to marry, you agreed to the betrothal, and only a fit of pique has you refusing me. I’ll regale them with stories of all I did to enhance the company’s worth. I can keep the company’s assets tied up in the courts for some time. Is that what you want?”
“How dare you?” she cried, appalled that he would even try such a thing. “And what about your fraudulent behavior, making business deals based on a lie? What do you think the courts will say to that?”
“They won’t even blink,” he said coolly. “There’s nothing illegal about a man setting up another company. I had to protect my own interests. I’ll say I kept your father out of it for his own good, which is the truth.”
“It is not! You operated behind his back. That’s what you did.”
“You can’t prove that. He’s dead. I could argue that he consented to the subterfuge.”
“You know perfectly well he did not,” she said, shocked by his utter lack of ethics. “What sort of man are you?”
His eyes glinted with determination. “The sort of man who wants a chance. Who still wants you for his wife.”
Oliver’s words of a week ago leapt into her memory: I’m watching you head blithely for a marriage to some fellow who will set you up on a shelf with his other possessions, and take you down only when he has a use for you.
“You don’t want me for a wife. You don’t even know who I am. You want the daughter of Adam Butterfield, half owner of New Bedford Ships.”
“Think what you wish. But if you take this hasty action and bring lawyers into it, you’d better be prepared for a battle.”
She glared at him. “Go to hell.”
While he was still gaping at her over her scandalous language, she walked out.
But even as she congratulated herself for giving him what for, her practical side pointed out that everything was in his favor. She knew how easily a man could blacken a woman’s reputation. And once the court learned of her odd “betrothal” to Oliver, any sympathy for her over Nathan’s ignoring her for months would evaporate.
A chill swept through her. She glanced at Mr. Pinter, who walked silently beside her. “Can he really sue me for breach of promise?”
“I’m afraid so. I know of at least one case in America where a man sued and won a large settlement.”
“He can’t take my half of the company from me, can he?”
“It’s possible. He’ll argue that he had every expectation of receiving it upon his marriage to you, and that by refusing the marriage you originally contracted for, you deprived him of what was promised to him.”
Her stomach twisted into a knot. “But won’t his fraud sway the court?”
Mr. Pinter grimaced. “As he said, you can’t prove he wasn’t acting on your father’s behalf.”
Despair gripped her. “But surely it would hurt his plans with Mr. Kinsley to have it be known that he had a fiancée the entire time he was courting Miss Kinsley.”
“The deal isn’t set yet, and he has no chance of it being so without your half of the company, which I daresay he lacks the blunt to buy. So if he can’t have your half through marriage, he means to get it through treachery. It’s his only choice, if you refuse to marry him. He’ll blacken your name to get what he wants.”
“And he’ll use my public betrothal to Lord Stoneville to bolster his case.”
“Most likely. Unfortunately, the court disapproves of jilts.”
She wished to God she’d never laid eyes on Nathan Hyatt. If Papa had only realized what the man was. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing that Papa had been just as deceived in his character as she.
Or . . . maybe not. Papa had dragged his feet at their marriage. A pity that he had left his will intact.
They reached the inn. She was surprised that Freddy wasn’t waiting in the hall for them. He had to be spitting mad by now.
“What we need to do,” Mr. Pinter said as they climbed the stairs, “is hurry back to London and engage an attorney as soon as possible. I’m sure that your father’s will can be circumvented somehow. Don’t give up hope.”
She sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Pinter, but I think your generosity has been stretched beyond acceptable limits. I truly cannot afford to pay you any longer.”
“Nonsense,” he said with a wave of his hand. “It is to my advantage to pursue this to its ultimate conclusion. Think of it this way: if I can extricate you from Mr. Hyatt successfully, you will receive your fortune and be able to pay me, not to mention recommend me to all your friends.”
“Of which I have none in England.” She thought wistfully of the Sharpes, but seeking their help was impossible. Not only did they have their own troubles, but she could never face Oliver, considering how she had left.
He patted her shoulder as they halted before the door to his and Freddy’s room. “You have one friend, Miss Butterfield. You have a friend in me. Remember that.”
She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Surely you have more pressing matters to occupy you in London.”
His expression turned serious. “I once knew a woman in a similar situation to yours. She truly had no friends, and it was her undoing. I like to think that by helping you, I’m doing what someone should have done for her.” He forced a smile as he unlocked his door. “But that is neither here nor there.”
The room was empty.
“That’s odd,” she said. “Freddy ought to have been back by now.”
“I’ll go fetch him from the pie shop while you go pack up.” Tipping his hat, he hurried back down the stairs.
She walked to her own room, discouragement weighing her steps. She couldn’t believe that it had come to this—Nathan threatening to sue her.
Reaching her door, she looked down to see a parcel. When she opened it, she found two kidney pies, still warm. So Freddy had already been here, and recently, too. Where was he now? Shaking her head in bewilderment, she unlocked her door and walked in.
Oliver’s voice said from the window, “It’s about time you returned.”
Startled, she dropped the pies.
Despite the shadows beneath his eyes, she’d never seen a more welcome sight. Even with his cravat badly tied, his black hair sticking out in all directions, and his expression uncertain, he made her breath catch in her throat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You forgot something when you left Halstead Hall,” he said hoarsely.
“What?”
Her heart leapt into her throat as he strode purposefully toward her. “Me.”