Chapter Four
Susannah fidgeted with the lace at her bodice nervously, then remembered that a lady of her station never did such a thing, and jerked her expensively gloved hands away and folded them in her lap. She ought to have protested when she had been asked to wait on the bench in the hall, but it had been so long since she had felt like anyone who could expect cordiality, she had done nothing but nod.
She felt as though she were wearing a costume, playing a part in some ghastly play with poor writing and even poorer acting. The deep navy dress she wore was a bit faded, but she was in no position to be particular. The entire ensemble she had borrowed from Sasha, who had quite the selection of costumes to choose from. Some were far less respectable than others, but she knew better than to ask any questions. And she did not care enough to. Once, Susannah would have balked at the merest hint of such people, or such tawdry items. Now she was only grateful.
“Pardon me, madam.”
The grating voice of the assistant broke her reverie and she turned her head only with a rather imperious look. She had thought such airs long forgotten, yet it was natural with him.
Whether that spoke of his nature or her desperation, she could not tell.
“Yes?” she replied in a crisp tone.
He bowed stiffly. “Mr. Goulding will see you now.”
She sniffed, but tempered it with a faint smile. “Thank you.”
The younger man looked a bit taken aback, but pleasantly so.
Blast. She did not need any such admiring, not from him or anyone. “Will you show me the way or must I find it myself?” she finally snapped when he said nothing.
His thick brow furrowed and he gestured the way. Feeling once again in control, she swept past him and enjoyed once again hearing the sharp clicks of her heels against the floor. The shoes were torturing her feet, as they were at least one size too small, but Sasha assured her that they were necessary if she wanted to be believed.
Once, this had all been normal. The click of heels against a polished floor reminded her of that. And made her a trifle sad.
“Turn left,” ordered the assistant from behind her.
Her spine stiffened in response, ugly memories rearing their heads at such a tone of command. She swallowed nervously, forced the memories back, and raised her chin higher. She did not need to reply, no one of her station would dare to comment on such behavior to an inferior.
Once she had made the turn, the office was in plain sight, and was a touch too ornate for a simple solicitor. But when one had the right sort of clientele, she supposed anything was possible. Mr. Goulding had never done her wrong before, in spite of everything else, so she would ignore the finery of his office and not ask where or how he had obtained the funds for such things.
Even the large mahogany desk at which the older man sat, his full and wavy head of graying hair bowed low to it as he scribbled, was carved and detailed in such an extraordinary away that she could easily have seen such a piece of furniture residing at Pavel House. But, of course, she had never seen her husband’s offices or private rooms, so there was no way to tell if it actually had come from Pavel House. But it had come from somewhere and from someone.
When Mr. Goulding made no motion in acknowledging her and the assistant made no effort to announce her, she cleared her throat a bit obnoxiously, as her late aunt Harriet used to when she wanted something.
Mr. Goulding raised his head and his eyes widened at once. He sprang from his chair and bowed. “Lady Hawkins-Dean! What a pleasant surprise!”
Behind her, the assistant seemed to croak in distress. Ah, so no one had told him her identity. The poor man, he had no idea with whom he had been so rude. Pity she was not more powerful.
“Mr. Goulding,” she replied cordially, taking the seat that the assistant had been quick to pull out for her. “I trust it is no trouble to your schedule to see me on such short notice?”
“No, no, not at all, my lady!” he replied with a swift shake of his head. “I have all the time in the world for you. Thank you, Reynolds, that will be all.”
The assistant nodded, bowed to Susannah with a soft and sincere “my lady,” and vacated the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Mr. Goulding hesitated for a long moment, then took his seat. “I did not know that your ladyship would be in London,” he said slowly, folding his hands across the desk.
Susannah had to force herself not to look down at her gloves. “I have some friends in the area who have invited us to stay for a little while, and we were close to Town today, so I thought I should come by and see what the situation is at present.”
He nodded in understanding, but his eyes showed a glimmer of disbelief.
She tilted her chin a bit and forced her superior voice to shine through. “Did you receive the funds I sent last month?”
“I did,” he said with a hint of a sigh, “but it will not be enough to satisfy them. They want more for settlement. They claim it is not enough for what Sir Martin owed them. It was, after all, a great deal and they did not like our suggestion of portioned payments to make up the difference, but they agreed to it. Now they are increasing the amount demands and claim they will require more interest if you cannot meet it.”
Susannah touched her brow and fought back a whimper of distress. If only he, or they, knew what she had given up, what she had sacrificed, in order to meet the previous demand. For more to be required… She did not have more to give, and earning it would be harder than ever before.
“I know it seems a great deal,” Goulding murmured softly, sounding as if he spoke from a very great distance, “but surely it will not be so difficult for a woman in your position?”
She nearly laughed. A woman in her position? He had no idea what sort of a position she was in. She used a different solicitor for her own affairs and to get the necessary funding to her family, so as to keep Sir Martin as far from her concerns as humanly possible, and thus Mr. Goulding would never know.
No one would.
She forced herself to smile tightly, as if she were merely displeased. “Of course not. I shall do what I can. And the other matter?”
Mr. Goulding now looked very uncomfortable indeed. That did not bode well. He was a good enough man, had always treated her as fairly as Sir Martin allowed him, and since his death, had done all he could to help Susannah to retain as much as was possible, which had been a pitiful amount. He may not have known how bad her situation was, but he knew enough to understand that it was not good by any stretch. Yet he had always maintained a hope about it, sworn to find a way, and his letters to her had been regular and detailed.
He had not looked this poorly since they had discussed the last will and testament of Sir Martin, and all of its evils revealed.
“There is nothing I can do about that,” he told her in a rough tone. “I have had the documents examined by a number of lawyers with more power and influence than myself, have searched for every loophole and alternative possible, but there is nothing. However careless and ill-conceived your late husband’s financial affairs were, in this matter he was uncharacteristically thorough and complete. There is no possible reversal of his claim of your son’s illegitimacy. He denied ever siring an heir, provided what appears to be irrefutable proof of this, and went so far as to have a physician declare him impotent. Thus, your son cannot inherit any portion of Pavel House, nor any of the other properties, even if they were in a financial position for him to do so.”
She closed her eyes in horror. Not that Pavel House had any particular sentimental value to her, but it could have been razed and rebuilt into something fine for Freddie. For his future. But now…
“And does my word mean nothing?” she asked a broken, hoarse tone.
Mr. Goulding sighed and she heard his elbows squeak on the gleaming desk surface. “I am afraid not, my lady. What with the sale of all the estates, and with such proof on his side…”
“They are not inclined to listen to a woman’s side of the story,” she finished with an irritated sigh.
Mr. Goulding had the good sense to look sympathetic.
Susannah scowled and muttered, “Does it matter that I could produce a list of the names of several women who have borne his real illegitimate children, and thus disprove his claim? For there were several, I could fill pages, he was perfectly capable…”
Mr. Goulding surprised her by snorting loudly. “I know, my lady.”
She gave him a curious look.
“Who do you think had to arrange all of that and pay those women for their silence at the time?” He sat back in his chair and watched her. “There were several things I had to do, my lady, in the service of your husband, that I would rather not recall. I cannot undo them now, though I have tried. There were no provisions in the will about any of the women, nor the illegitimate children. All that remains for me to do in his service is see the debts repaid, and then it is done. Believe me, had I means, I would help you in this regard, but I have not.”
“I understand.” And she did, in some respect. No one would wish to deal with such unsavory men as they had to in this business, and he was right to wish out of it. He knew as she did that there was no running or hiding, no way out but to do exactly as they wished.
Susannah sighed and straightened. “Is there anything else?”
“Sir Martin’s cousin is demanding we pay for the repairs to Pavel House.”
“What?” she cried, surging forward in her seat. “That is not possible, he bought it from the creditors, it is not my duty!”
“He feels that the responsibility is that of the late owners. I have convinced him to consent to half, and he has no plans to live there in the next five years, so time is on our side.” He smiled at her in what was undoubtedly supposed to be a comforting way. “He is not so demanding and unfeeling as the creditors.”
No, he probably was not. But he was also a relation of her late husband, which meant she could not trust a single word he said. And it still tightened the noose around her neck.
“We couldn’t convince Sir Martin to make the repairs when he was alive,” she moaned to herself.
“I know. It is far from an ideal situation, is it not?”
Susannah gave him a potent look of disbelief. “Far from ideal?” she repeated dangerously. “My son has been declared illegitimate, we have no house, every farthing is spoken for, and more funds are demanded than…” She bit her lip and held the rest back. She again forced the barest hint of a wan smile. “I am afraid, my dear Mr. Goulding, that the phrase ‘far from ideal’ would be a haven compared to what we now face.”
The solicitor swallowed and shuffled papers on his desk. “As I said,” he began in quick, nervous bursts of words, “I will continue to do what I can. I trust you can continue to send the funds to me so that I might forward them on?”
She nodded, painfully sliding her cool mask of haughty indifference back into place. “You may expect it, yes. I shall send what I can when I can.”
“Excellent.” He was all business now, a sure sign that he was vastly uncomfortable. “And should I need to contact you? Where will you be staying in Town?”
“We are not staying in Town,” she lied easily. “Our friends travel the country and we will be in their party. I cannot say where I will be or when, so contacting me shall be quite difficult. If I can convince my friends to remain in one place for any given amount of time, I shall send you notice of it.”
He stared at her for another long moment, but when her expression did not change, he nodded and rose. It was a breach of protocol for him to rise before she did so, but she was hardly in the mood to demand propriety now. She rose as well and inclined her head, before turning towards the door.
“Lady Hawkins-Dean?”
She turned back and raised a brow.
He pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Do be careful. These men to whom you are in debt are not the sort to be trifled with. They will come for you if they are dissatisfied. And they will be neither kind nor courteous about it.”
She took a moment to process that, then nodded. “Thank you. Good day, Mr. Goulding.”
And with a heavy heart and numb to all else, Susannah strode from the office, giving neither the assistant nor the butler the courtesy of acknowledgement.
It was all far worse than she could ever have imagined it to be.
She had no leads to finding any sort of employment yet, although Mrs. Grovner assured her that patience was needed. Interviews were apparently forthcoming, though none had been set. Every day without possibilities made Susannah nervous. After all, her references were almost entirely falsified, save for the sisters at the hospital near Pavel House, and there was no way for any of her claims to be verified. Anyone who actually wanted to check her references would be grossly disappointed and her secret would be out.
For the time being, she was working as a laundress and seamstress for the lady who owned and ran the boarding house in which she now resided. She had been forced to do without a maid or any servant to do mending the last few years at Pavel House, so she had learned to do it herself, and had grown quite accomplished at it. It had come in handy when she had worked at the hospital in Milfield in that time as well, and there she had learned the proper way to launder linens. It had quite shocked the sisters and nurses that she, a fine lady in the largest house in the area, would perform so menial of tasks, let alone be willing to actually get her hands dirty in her volunteering. They soon learned, however, that she was not the usual sort of fine lady, and eventually put her to use quite often.
She was grateful for that now. She might not have all of the attributes or talents that a lady of quality should possess, but she did not need those anymore. All she needed were the skills she had attained in her life, for they were what would enable her to make any sort of living and perhaps one day, provide for her and her son.
But for now, she had nothing. Absolutely nothing except for an impossible mountain of debts and her relative anonymity in this massive city. She was invisible to just about everybody, and that was exactly how she preferred it.
She knew full well that the debt collectors would not rest until they were settled, which would take many years, if ever. She knew that they would soon be in London to look for her, if they were not there already. She fully expected that they had sources in London looking for her, or waiting for the merest hint or rumor of her.
Time was not on her side, so all she had, for the present, was her invisibility.
Oh, Colin, she thought, as she often did and had so often done before, what do I do?
But, as always, there were no answers from him, and she was on her own to formulate a plan.
So focused on her situation and lost in her thoughts was she that she did not notice the bustling of the streets, nor anything except the path before her, and she quite suddenly found herself slammed against another person, one much larger and stronger than she. It was all she could do to avoid toppling over, and his hands on her arms was the only balance she had.
“I beg your pardon, please excuse me,” said the man, and she felt her stomach clench in apprehension of the face she was about to see.
Colin.
Against her will, she looked up, her hands very innocently resting on his forearms for balance, though she was now quite steady in that respect.
The power in his blue eyes caused a fire to sear her hands, seeming to burn through the thick gloves where she touched him.
His eyes were wide as they met hers. “You…” he finally breathed.
She swallowed a cry and prayed her composure would remain intact. It was sheer agony seeing him in the flesh now when she had just been clinging to her memory of him. But the reality of him… She could not move, could barely breathe.
“I knew it was you,” Colin said softly, his hands still at her arms, ignorant as to her torment. “I knew I had not imagined you.”
She could not bear this. “Excuse me.” She dropped her hands and tried to go around.
He held her fast in place. “No, you are not excused, wait a second.”
“No, sir, you are mistaken, please let me pass.” Panic was beginning to rise within her. She was not yet able to steel herself against him, had no defenses, and absolutely no strength to draw upon.
Still he held her. “I am never mistaken. I know you and you know it.”
“No, sir, you do not, now please!” Her voice was becoming shrill and they would draw attention soon. He would not let her go, she knew it, so she closed her eyes and stomped with all of her might, driving that slight heel of the too-small shoe into his toes.
He grunted in pain and released her, and she dashed around him.
But he recovered quickly, and called after her, “Susannah Merritt, whatever are you doing in London after all these years?”
She halted suddenly and whirled, horrified at his volume, his identification of her, and how her name on his lips still made her heart dance. Her traitorous heart pounded against her ribs, an unsteady cadence of pain and fear, worrying at who might have heard, and what sort of emotions the man before her was engulfed in.
Without thinking, without even considering it, she rushed forward and stopped a hair’s breadth from him. “Do not call me that. Do not even speak to me,” she rasped fiercely, her words more of a sob than anything else. “Forget you saw me. Forget everything. Please.” That last word had come out as a plea, begging him, and herself, to forget him, and them, and all possibilities that had ever lain therein.
His face was one of utter confusion, anger, surprise, and yes, curiosity. But his eyes were pure ice in their assessment of her, and she could not bear it.
She took advantage of his frigid silence, and whirled around again, dashing between people and buildings and carriages, desperate to disappear into their depths. She was grateful for the crowds, for the inability of London’s finest to notice anything, and for her invisibility.
On and on she ran, tears burning her eyes. She was panting, hardly able to catch her breath, and her legs ached furiously. She did not hear any sort of pursuit, but she did not stop until she had reached her building.
Rather than enter, she moved to the alley just beside, leaned against the brick, and let her sobs finally be freed, covering her mouth to stifle the depth and despair of her cries.
Colin walked back towards his house slowly, every step dragging as if weighted down by chains. He had stood there in the street for so long he had begun to draw comment, but none of those even remotely registered in his mind. He could not acknowledge a single person, let alone their questions or teasings or flirtations.
He could not do anything except stare at the place where Susannah had disappeared.
Eventually, he had come to himself and turned around to go back the way he had come, whatever his purpose or errand had been entirely forgotten. And was now completely irrelevant.
So. She was here. He had not imagined her the other day. That was a slight comfort, as he had never before devised her appearance so vividly. But it was also the single most disconcerting thing he had ever known in his life.
He was angry. How dare she invade his life in this manner when he was already experiencing so much turmoil. And with her return into his world, she brought along painful memories that he had spent years burying. But all was forced to the surface now, the wounds as raw and exposed as the day he sustained them.
Anger had never been a sensible thing for him, and that had just been made evident again. His rage outstripped his good taste and behaviors, and bared its fangs in the light of day. Perhaps it was for the best.
What angered him the most was how beautiful she still was. Why could she not have grown ugly and old and fat and wrinkled in the intervening years since they last met? It would have given him a righteous sense of justice to see her so altered, and he would have felt no qualms whatsoever about hating her all these years. But no, she was not so altered. She was more beautiful than she had been at sixteen, which seemed so impossible to comprehend that he was sure he had conjured that by sheer imagination.
The pounding of his heart still informed him that he was not immune to her looks now any more than he had ever been, despite his current emotional cacophony. And for that, he was livid with himself.
In the midst of his overwhelming anger, there was also, he had to admit, a hint of curiosity. Perhaps confusion would have been a better word, but he was curious, as he usually was. The woman he had just seen had been on the verge of a torrent of emotions that he did not dare attempt to filter through. He had seen it in her eyes, in the shaking of her frame, the change in her tone… Even now, he could read her as easily as he had before. And her expression when he had called after her, impertinent and juvenile as it was on his part…
It had been the look of sheer and utter terror, and it had frozen his heart in his chest. And never, in all the years he had known her, had she ever spoken to him in that way.
What in the world could possibly have caused such fear in her? What had happened to make her change so? Why was she hiding? He could very well understand hiding from him, as she certainly had to know that seeing her would give him no pleasure. But she seemed to be hiding from everyone and everything, and Susannah had never been particularly shy or retreating.
The contradiction between the two versions of her had his mind reeling.
But then, fifteen years was a long time. A great many changes could have occurred.
Not that it mattered to him, he insisted to himself as he re-entered his home. He could not have cared less about Susannah Merritt, or whoever she was now, and had absolutely no interest in her being in London, in her life for the last fifteen years, or in what manner she had changed.
She was nothing to him now.
But he could not keep from wondering.
He was distracted for a time by Bitty, whose merry greeting of him prompted further questioning, leading to the admission that she had lost Rosie’s comb and would pay dearly for it if she could not find it quickly. Dutiful as ever, Colin considered himself recruited for the search party.
Having sisters was proving quite a trial. Thankfully, he discovered he had a maid in his home who had many younger siblings of her own, and she was more than happy to look after the girls until they settled on a more permanent solution. They were adjusting well, and Rosie claimed to only have gotten lost four times in the house, though he suspected it was closer to ten. Even so, he was surprised at how much he wanted them to feel as though they belonged, as if this were truly their home now.
He let Bitty take his hand and they began to walk from room to room in search of the troublesome comb, avoiding Rosie when they had to, and looking high and low for their quarry. Bitty chattered animatedly the entire time, and it surprised Colin that never once did he find himself bored or irritated by it.
It was an entirely new world that he had entered, and as yet, neither he nor Kit had ruined anything. Even so, he thanked the heavens that his friends would arrive in a few days, and was even more grateful that their wives were coming. He needed guidance on these children, and there was no way he and Kit could do this alone.
In spite of his current desperate search for the comb, and in spite of his chatterbox little sister, yet again his mind wandered, and wondered, and the topic of his mind’s occupation made him more curious than the fact that he was curious did.
And that, indeed, was a curious thing.