Courtney Milan (50 page)

“Three days from now, on Thursday. Perhaps not by chance, the timing of that arrangement coincides with the timing of your meeting with Ridgeway.”

Simon tapped his fingers on the table. It was precisely as he’d feared. He was about to lose everything that he’d worked for. He’d built his success up piece by piece, starting with his first foray into railways—a small line connecting a coal mine in Wales to the coast. Over the years, he’d become more aggressive. This last project, though… In order to make it happen, he’d borrowed against all his assets, and then he’d borrowed against the assets he’d purchased.

“Ah,” he said. “Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Et cetera. Insert whatever other platitudes you can recall; I can’t be bothered. The payroll is safe, at least. Please assure the men of that.”

Fortas gave him a reproving look. “With all that about to fall on your head, you’re really going to spend the next handful of days here, in—in—Chester-on-Bloody-Who-Cares?”

“With all that,” Simon said quietly, “this is my only window of opportunity. Once this becomes public...”

In his mind, it was simple.

He loved her, and she’d married someone else.

For years, Ginny had been utterly impossible to him. And then her husband had died. It was awful to rejoice in another man’s death…but then, Simon had always been aware that he bordered on the awful. He had at least planned to wait until her year of mourning had passed before presenting himself on her doorstep. But Ridgeway’s machinations had changed everything.

I’m not poor anymore,
Simon had told her. But what he hadn’t said was this:
I’m about to be.

He knew from painfully bitter experience that Ginny wouldn’t marry a poor man. She hadn’t done it seven years ago, and she wouldn’t do it today. Once his ruin became public, she’d turn from him once more. This time, when she married someone else, it might not be a man with a heart complaint. This time, she might pick someone hale and hearty, someone who would live forever.

If he didn’t marry her in the next three days, he might never have her. The last seven years had been hell enough.

There’d only ever been one way to win with Ginny: to confuse her as to what the game was. So long as she believed that he was intent on her seduction, all her efforts would go toward resisting the wrong thing. If she thought he only intended to have her in bed, she’d think herself the victor when he changed it all to marriage. And by the time she found out the truth…

She would hate him at first. He didn’t care. It would be too late by then. At least he’d have her, hatred and all. He’d win her back—eventually—and remake his fortune.

“I would have thought,” Fortas was saying, “that you would do anything to save your future.”

It had never been the money he cared about—not for himself. It had always been Ginny, even when he wished it hadn’t been.

Simon pressed his lips together. “You’re quite right about that,” he said. “I
will
do anything.”

“S
O,
” G
INNY SAID
, when Simon appeared on her doorstep the next morning. “You have only two days to seduce me. How ever are you going to accomplish that?”

She felt better this morning. She’d let him unnerve her yesterday; a good night’s sleep had restored her serenity. The truth was, no matter how much they might have hurt one another in the past, Simon wouldn’t find it difficult to seduce her. He’d meant so much more to her than those final acrimonious weeks.

He looked as handsome as ever. More handsome, in fact; his boyish features had hardened into strong, masculine lines. His eyes had always seemed roguishly blue; now, when he looked at her, they made her think of outright wickedness rather than mere mischief.

“I had hoped,” he said, “that I would just dazzle you with my wealth.” So saying, he yawned, covering his mouth. Something sparkly at his wrists flashed at her.

Ginny stepped forward. “Are those
diamonds
on your cuff links?” she asked, caught halfway between horror and wonder.

He grinned. He always smiled any time she betrayed emotion. “Pretty, aren’t they?” He took one off and threw it to her.

She caught it automatically. “Oh my Lord,” Ginny said. “You’ve become one of those dreadful
nouveaux-riches
that I’m always hearing decried in the papers, flashing your money about.” But she opened her hand to look at the little gold piece that he’d tossed her way. When she did, her breath caught. “It’s a beetle,” she finally said. “A gold beetle with diamond eyes.”

“I had them made four years ago.” He didn’t quite look her way. “I have fond memories of beetles.”

From any other man, this statement would have been odd. From Simon…

It had all started with a beetle. Ginny had been ten years old, and she’d only come to stay with her aunt two months before. But summer had come, and with it, the Davenants. Mr. Davenant was a famous London barrister who took his family to the country when the law courts shut down out of term-time. The other inhabitants of Chester-on-Woolsey were far less exalted personages, and they’d held the family in collective awe.

His son, Simon—eleven years old, and already a student at Harrow—had known it. He had sauntered by Ginny, where she played at spillikins with two of her new friends.

“Be careful,” Emily whispered, gesturing toward him. “He’s a regular
beast
.”

Simon noticed them looking, and he’d come over.

“You’re new,” he said to Ginny.

“Yes.” And then, because he was taller than her and looking her over with an imperious demeanor, she added: “Sir.”

He opened his fist to reveal a great big fat beetle—one with a brilliantly iridescent carapace. “I’m going to put this down your dress,” he announced.

Ginny had already known one important truth: The only way to silence a boy who was trying to disgust you was to refuse to admit that he’d succeeded.

So she reached out and plucked the beetle from Simon’s hand. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “How beautiful! You picked her because she was beautiful, didn’t you?”

“I did not!” He stepped back, insulted.

“I’m going to call her Mrs. Rainbow,” Ginny cooed.

“It’s a boy beetle! His name is Mr. Slugfit!” When neither of these pronunciations drew a response, he tried again. “I got it off a dead body!”

“Oh, no,” Ginny said, running a finger lightly along the beetle’s back. “Poor Mrs. Rainbow. What a dreadful ordeal. You’re safe now.”

She’d ignored Simon’s gagging noises all afternoon, and taken Mrs. Rainbow to tea. And that was how the game had begun—with a beetle and a casual announcement. Over the course of that summer, they’d made their way from “You can’t catch a fish,” to “I’m going to beat you to the top of that tree.” They’d become friends—friends who would never have admitted their friendship, of course, but fast friends nonetheless.

To find that he’d made cuff links of beetles… Ginny sighed and turned over the trinket. “Are you filthy rich, then?”

He held her eyes, his face somber. “I positively stink with wealth,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, I’ve only got forty-eight hours to seduce you, now. I was hoping to convince you to walk with me to the oak today.”

“Am I supposed to be so overcome with nostalgia when you bring me there that I succumb to your most desperate overtures?”

“My
irresistible
overtures,” he said confidently. “And yes—you’ve got the general idea.”

Ginny let herself appear to think this over. “Well. I’m overcome with the need to fetch my bonnet.”

But she didn’t go. Instead, she stepped forward and took his wrist. She heard the slight intake of his breath as she examined his hand—a man’s hand, big and broad, with a callus on his thumb and index finger where he’d wielded a pen. Little nicks marred his skin, ones that hadn’t existed seven years ago.

She turned his hand over.

“On second thought,” he said. “We could adjourn to your bedchamber now.”

Ginny undid the backing of his cufflink and slipped it into place. “Poor Simon,” she said, making sure the little diamond-eyed beetle was secure. “Do you want me very, very badly then?”

His other hand touched her face. Slowly—almost unwillingly—she let him raise her chin from contemplation of his wrist. His eyes seemed dark, and they glittered with some unspoken emotion. “Yes,” he said. “God knows I’ve wished it otherwise over the years. But yes. I have wanted you since I first knew what want was.”

Under the rules of the game, she should make light of that admission. She needed to say something to defuse those words of their latent power.

But she could not make herself do it. Some things were too true to dismiss.

He leaned down and ever so lightly brushed his lips against hers—so softly, it was as if their breath kissed, rather than their mouths.

“Go get your bonnet,” he told her.

Chapter Three

T
HEY DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING
for the first minute of their walk. Then he noticed the men working in the field and he turned to her in shock.

“They’re cutting your tulips,” he said. “Why are they bloo—I mean, why are they cutting your tulips?”

Ginny sighed. She didn’t want to have this conversation. “Because Mr. Redright is paying me twenty pounds for them.”

“But—”

“Maybe twenty pounds is nothing to a man with diamond cuff links, but it’s a great deal to me at the moment.”

He scowled. “God, Ginny, I—”

“Don’t worry about me.” She patted his hand. “I’m just showing my foolhardy Barrett blood after all these years.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I hate it when you talk that way about yourself. I hated it when my parents did it. I hated it when anyone else did it. So you weren’t as well-off as my people. What does that matter?”

He had always been hotheaded and ill-mannered. Her other friends had never been able to understand why she enjoyed his company. But the other side of his total disregard for etiquette had been an utter indifference to the disparity in their stations.

True, he’d never treated her like a lady. He’d treated her like an equal instead, and that had seemed far more precious.

“Simon,” she said slowly, “I was—I
am
—a Barrett.”

“So?”

“So, we’re not just polite folk who quietly run a little out-of-pocket from time to time. Barretts are the most foolish of any fools who have ever had pretensions to gentility. Just look around us.” She spun, indicating the acres of tulips. “Where do you think these came from?”

“I have no idea. I really don’t care. I thought they grew because your aunt liked them.”

Ginny let out a shuddering laugh. “Two acres of tulips? No. They’ve been here for centuries. Old Farwell Barrett was a modest tradesman who thought to make his fortune on one simple gamble. So he sold his fine home, and a good bit of land beside. He sunk the entirety of his funds into an investment that—he was sure—could not lose: tulip bulbs. Which, at the time, were selling for an ungodly sum of money, the price going up on a daily basis.” She laughed again, and wished she could feel the humor. “Six weeks later, everyone realized how ridiculous it was to go mad over tulips, and the price plummeted. In a fit of pique, he planted every one of those bulbs here. And
that
is why the cottage is called Barrett’s Folly.”

“Hm,” he said, sounding unconvinced.

“Marrying you would have been the sort of thing that a mad Barrett would do. Trading on hope and delusions. If I had married you, your parents would have been right about me. I’d have been a foolish, impecunious schemer, just like my forebears. I told you I wouldn’t marry a poor man.”

He leaned forward and touched one finger to her chin. “And what do you think of me now, then?”

“You’re every bit as bad as you were before.”

“Yes, but…”

“If I had somehow missed your fashionable hat and your cunning cuff links, I would have noticed your pronouncement yesterday. Also, I do read the newspapers, and from time to time they make comments about wealthy, eligible bachelors. Come, Simon. You did not use to be so gauche as to wear jewels simply to impress a woman.”