It Happened One Midnight (PG8) (35 page)

Yes. I’m sure your motives are just that altruistic,
Tommy thought.

She jerked her chin high. I will not cry, not even furious tears, in front of this man.

“You are correct not to worry about me, Mr. Redmond. And isn’t it fortunate for you that Jonathan will shortly be choosing a bride from a deck of cards? For aren’t women of fine families all interchangeable? One is very like another, and surely his happiness is guaranteed as long as your expectations are met. Surely he’ll never be hurt as long as
you
are satisfied. And you may rest easy.
I
never posed for any deck of cards.”

He smiled faintly. “I’m glad we understand each other, Miss de Ballesteros.”

He stood again, and looked down at her for a curious moment. As if memorizing her.

And then he bowed, and departed without another word.

A
ND THAT AFTERNOON,
Jonathan bolted up the stairs, rushed in, and flung off his hat, and loosened his cravat.

“You on top!” he announced gleefully and lunged for her.

She laughed, she couldn’t help it, as he swept her up in his arms, his hands cupping her bottom. She wrapped her legs round his waist and her arms round his neck and he dropped backward on the settee with her straddling him.

“Kiss me,” he ordered on a whisper, while she worked open his trouser buttons, and she did, while he furled up her dress, stroking the tender insides of her thighs above her stockings. His mouth was hot and sweet, it was opium. There was a ferocity, a new urgency to him.

And she shifted to slide her wetness against him, teasing, and he closed his eyes, the chords of his neck taut with the pleasure of it.

“Tease me,” he whispered.

And so she did. She slid down on him, and moved over him slowly, so slowly. Until a long moan of pleasure was dragged from him. Until his brow beaded in sweat. Until she could scarcely bear it herself. She played toreador with hot spiky pleasure building, building in her; and then she played toreador with his pleasure.

She dipped her tongue into his ear, traced the whorls of it, and his groan evolved into a short laugh of near despair.

“Had enough torture?” she whispered.

He seized her hips and urged her on. They rocked together, hard and furious, graceless and greedy for the extraordinary pleasure they knew would be theirs in seconds.

And their cries mingled together

“Boom,” he whispered. His head tucked beneath her chin.

She felt every precious rise and fall of his chest as his breath mingled with hers.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. So soft, like a boy’s. Glossy dark.

His hair, of all things, was going to make her cry.

She slipped from his arms, and straightened her dress, and sat next to him on the settee, hands folded tightly on her lap.

And didn’t look at him.

He stared at her, eyes still dreamy from lovemaking, surprised she was able to even move.

She inhaled for courage. And then turned to him.

“Jonathan . . . there’s something I need to say to you.”

She met his eyes.

His eyes went from dreamy to wary. He studied her closely.

She bravely withstood his scrutiny.

And then his eyes narrowed. “My
father,
” he spat. “My father spoke to you.”

She was shocked.

“How did you—? No.”

“Don’t
lie
to me, Tommy. I know it’s true. It’s something he would do. And I know the look of someone who’s been
got to
by Isaiah Redmond. What the bloody hell did he say? Did he try to warn you away from me?”

He was fastening his trousers now. Movements quick and jerky, furious.

“Jonathan,” she tried softly. “No matter what you think of him . . . he’s right. You’ll come to hate me. Because he’ll cut you off from everything you love if you stay with me, and you’ll be cut off from the society you know, and from opportunities you might have.”

“I love
you
.”

Oh, the words. The precious words.
She loved him, she loved him
.

She closed her eyes.

“You love me, Tommy. I know you do. Say it.”

“What difference does it make, Jonathan?”

“Say it!”

“Jonathan . . .”

“Don’t
do
this, Tommy. Not yet. Not yet.”

“Then when? The day before you wed Lady Penelope Moneystacks? No, it’s better we end it now.”

“Because you’re afraid.”

She stared at him incredulously. And now she was furious.

“You’re bloody well right I’m afraid! Of never having anything permanent to call my own, of reliving my mother’s life, of watching you marry someone else, of knowing someone else sleeps next to you at night! I’m afraid! I’m afraid of you growing to hate me because if you choose me while everything else you love is forbidden to you. . . . The way I see it, I get to choose the way in which I’m hurt, and I choose this way. Now, rather than later. Now, with my pride intact and other options before me.”

He went still.

“What other options?” His voice was low and taut.

She inhaled, knowing the words would be like a dagger driven into him. “Lord Prescott has asked me to marry him.”

He took the words like a blow. She could see the blank shock, the flinch. He shook his head. “
Prescott?
But . . .”

“Because he
wants
me, Jonathan. Just the way you do. And apparently that’s the price he’s willing—and able—to pay.”

She could tell the news was reverberating through him.

“Prescott. Prescott gave you the pearls.”

She didn’t deny it.

“What did you give him in return?”

“Unworthy, Jonathan,” she said. “I gave him nothing, and you know it. But it’s what he wants that matters here.”

“What
he
wants?”

“Think about it. If you love me, would you rather I live day to day like I am now, in this building, or in a measure of safety and comfort and security—all the things that someone like your sister, or Lady Grace Worthington, will always have? Why shouldn’t I have it, too?”

“You don’t want to marry him.”

“Of course not, you ass!”

And that shocked both of them.

But now she was near to weeping with fury and futility and fear. “And there you have it. My other option. Unless you count the possibility of our fortune arriving tomorrow. But we haven’t a fortune yet, have we, Jonathan?

“No,” he said. “But we will. Don’t do it, Tommy. Not now. You don’t have to do it now.”

“He gave me until the end of the month to give him a decision.”

He closed his eyes. “Mother of God.”

And then he swore violently beneath his breath.

She flinched.

“Jonathan . . . think about it. Do you want to live like that, cut off from everything else you love? Do you want me to live like this forever?
Do
you?”

She couldn’t bear it. He was moving as though he’d been scalded, dressing furiously, jamming his arms through his shirtsleeves, knotting his cravat as though he wished it were a noose for his father.

He stood staring down at her. Gulping her down with his eyes.

“My father won’t win, Tommy.
I
will.” He said it quietly, evenly. It thrummed with the conviction of a blood vow. “I’ll have everything I want. And so will you. You just have to decide whether you trust me. And whether you love me more than you fear the future.”

They stared at each other in furious weighted silence.

Fear. How she hated to be accused of it. But she wasn’t prepared to make that decision now, when fear of the pain of losing him outweighed every other consideration. For it was that she couldn’t bear.

“You best go now,” she said gently. “I need you to go now.”

He closed his eyes. And when he opened them again, his expression almost made her say, “I take all of it back. Don’t go. Don’t go. Never leave me.”

He didn’t move. He was tensed as a closed fist.

Instead, she said, “Are you looking for something to throw?”

He didn’t find something to throw. He found something to kick, however.

The door. Hard. On his way out.

Chapter 28

I
N THE DAYS THAT
followed, Jonathan returned to the Redmond town house on St. James Square as if he’d never left. He was all that was polite and glib at the breakfast table.

His father didn’t ask any questions. If he cast one or two lingering, querying looks in Jonathan’s direction, assessing him for signs of rebellion or heartbreak, Jonathan simply smiled benignly.

You won’t win, Father
.
I will.

It was his only thought as he passed the marmalade to his father, as he shaved in the morning, when his head hit the pillow in the evening. It was in the air he breathed.

His behavior was so faultless that Isaiah departed for Sussex again to oversee business there.

Jonathan frequented the print shop to see to the progress of orders, to review the plates, to pore over the books. Men and women had begun to commission decks of cards featuring
their
visages only on all the suits. Because they were single orders, requiring the preparation of unique plates, Klaus gleefully charged an exorbitant fee. Ah, the money to be had from the rich vein of vanity that ran through London.

And Jonathan himself commissioned a special deck.

“I’ll need it quickly, Wyndham. By the time the Diamonds of the First Water decks are prepared.”

And then a scientist wished to publish a book featuring colorful anatomical illustrations, and Klaus was beside himself with possibility. Soon after that, a publisher commissioned Klaus to print colorfully illustrated limited editions of Miles Redmond’s famous South Sea Journals. Klaus had built two more printers and hired another helper at fair wages, a young man from the Bethnal Green workhouse named William, to help with all the extra work. But Charlie was quick and clever and thriving, and would soon be capable of more than sweeping and errand-running.

And in every waking moment, in every step he took, Jonathan quietly seethed with purpose.

And when his investment in the recent silks cargo
finally
paid off—nearly triple the original investment—Jonathan Redmond realized he was, officially and quite apart from his family’s money, wealthy. Modestly, yes.

Certainly not
Isaiah Redmond
wealthy.

Yet.

But it was all his.

He used the money to repay Tommy’s investment. She wasn’t wealthy, but she now had choices, which really was what she’d wanted all along.

And he knew a fierce satisfaction that he was the one who had ensured she would be comfortable and safe. If she didn’t want to live in a building made of kindling anymore, then she certainly didn’t need to. If she didn’t want to marry a man with a title, she didn’t need to.

If she didn’t want to marry anyone at
all,
she didn’t need to.

He deposited her share in her account and sent round a message to tell her simply that.

And he added:

You wanted choices. Now you have many.

P.S. Don’t do anything rash. —J

Hardly a love note. But he wasn’t going to beg. If she trusted him, she quite simply wouldn’t do anything stupid, like leave London, or marry a viscount.

And then he went to visit a solicitor.

R
OMULUS
B
EAN
,
E
SQUIRE
.

The sign swung in a light breeze. His offices were in a rather unassuming location for a man who had caused Isaiah Redmond and the Duke of Greyfolk sleepless nights of tormented covetousness.

Jonathan blew out a breath. And climbed the stairs, and opened the door.

It was a tiny office, sparsely and elegantly furnished, impeccably neat. Mr. Romulus Bean was behind his desk, and like his office, he was a compact neat man, whose spectacles had slipped to the tip of his nose, and whose few remaining hairs clung to his head like shipwreck victims to a raft.

Jonathan bowed. “Please forgive my intrusion, Mr. Bean, but I’d hoped you’d have a moment to speak with me.”

Mr. Bean adjusted his spectacles and peered up at Jonathan. Evidently approving of the clothing, the accent, the bearing.

“My name is Jonathan Redmond.”

And that’s when a hint of irony darkened his features.

“Are you related to . . . Mr. Isaiah Redmond?”

He said it gingerly. And it was curiously uninflected. The way he said it rather called to mind how Jonathan felt about his father.

“Yes, but he doesn’t know I’m here. I’m here entirely on my own behalf.”

“Ah. Please do have a seat, Mr. Redmond. What then is the nature of your inquiry?”

Jonathan settled into the chair across from the man’s desk. “I understand you’re the solicitor charged with the sale of the Lancaster Cotton Mill.”

“I am indeed.”

“I would like to purchase it.”

Mr. Bean fell as silent as if someone had dropped a dome over him.