‘I have yet to agree to your romantic proposal.’

‘You will.’

‘You’re so sure?’

‘You have no other options.’

She looked at the dirty cloth in her hands, picking off one loose thread around the frayed edge before she faced him again. ‘You’re right. I have no other options. However, you could present your case in a less businesslike tone, with a little civility and charm.’

‘You don’t strike me as a woman ruled by romantic notions.’

‘No, but I’m still a woman, and I would like to be wooed just a touch.’

For the second time that day he wanted to smile, but didn’t. Instead he stepped closer, admiring her spirit. She didn’t just surrender to him—sign her name on the contract, as it were—but demanded his respect … not his money or anything else. Once again his instinct for business had proved correct.

‘Miss Townsend, will you do me the honour of accepting me as your husband?’

AUTHOR NOTE

When Philip Rathbone first introduced himself to me as a character in Rescued from Ruin, he caught my attention. He was supposed to appear in one scene, say his lines and then disappear. However, he wouldn’t go so easily. I was intrigued by this young man who let nothing fluster him, and wondered what it was in his past that had forced him to be so stoic. Once I got to know Philip and his tragic backstory it was a challenge finding the right woman to help break down the walls he’d built around his heart.

Laura is the perfect woman to help Philip overcome his past. She too has suffered tragedy, but her resilience has kept her from withdrawing from the world. Instead she is determined to surmount obstacles—one of which becomes winning Philip’s heart.

A challenge for me in writing A Debt Paid in Marriage was developing Philip and Laura’s world. Researching the private lives of a moneylender and a draper’s daughter meant digging deep into first-hand accounts from the Regency. Moneylenders weren’t portrayed in the best light, and merchants didn’t leave many written records of their day-to-day existence. To explore Laura’s world I looked to books on the history of textiles, and examined the records of other merchants of her class. To get a sense of Philip’s life I had to study the world of money and credit. It was a challenge, but a fun one, that helped me make both the characters and their stories richer.

I hope you enjoy reading Philip and Laura’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

A Debt Paid in Marriage

Georgie Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A lifelong history buff, GEORGIE LEE hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then she fulfils her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading non-fiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent.

Please visit www.georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.

A special thanks to RWASD

for your inspiration and motivation.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

London—spring 1817

‘What exactly do you think you are doing?’ Mr Rathbone demanded, his deep-blue eyes fixing on her through the wisps of steam rising from the copper bathtub. Dark-brown hair lay damp over his forehead. One drop escaped the thickness of it, sliding down his face, then tracing the edge of his jaw before dropping into the tub.

Laura slid her finger away from the trigger, afraid of accidentally sending a ball through the moneylender’s sturdy, wet and very bare torso. She had no intention of killing him, only frightening him into giving back the inventory he’d seized from her uncle Robert. Judging by the hard eyes he fixed on her, he wasn’t a man to scare easily.

‘Well?’ he demanded and she jumped, her nerves as taut as the fabric over the back of a chair.

When she’d slipped into the house determined to face him, she’d expected to find him hunched over his desk counting piles of coins or whatever else it was a moneylender did at night. She hadn’t expected to surprise him in his bath with a film of soapy water the only thing standing between her and his modesty. What had seemed like a good plan in the pathetic rooms she shared with her uncle and her mother, when hunger gnawed at her stomach and cold crept in through the broken window, now seemed horrible.

Laura settled her shoulders, shoring up the courage faltering under his steady stare. Beyond this humid room was nothing but ruin and poverty. She had no choice but to continue. ‘I demand you return to me the fabric you seized from my uncle.’

The moneylender raised his arms out of the water, disturbing the calm suds, and she caught sight of his flat stomach before the soapy water settled back over it. His hands rested on the curved sides of the tub. They were long but sturdy, like those of the delivery men who used to haul the bolts of cloth off the cart and into her father’s draper shop. Mr Rathbone’s were smooth and free of calluses, however, and, except for the red of an old cut snaking along one knuckle, the hands of a gentleman.

She took a step back, expecting him to rise from the water and rush at her. He did nothing except study her, as though appraising her market value. ‘And who exactly is your uncle?’

Laura swallowed hard. Yes, this was important information to impart if one was to make demands of a naked man. ‘Robert Townsend.’

‘The gambling draper.’ Neither shock nor surprise broke his piercing stare. ‘He came to me six months ago in need of a loan to pay a large debt accrued at Mrs Topp’s, among many other establishments. In return for my money, he put up the inventory of the draper business as collateral. When he defaulted, I seized the goods, as was my right pursuant to our contract.’

The floor shifted beneath her. Uncle Robert had lost the business. In the past, he’d stolen merchandise from the storeroom, a bolt of silk or a cord of tassel, and sold it to fund his gambling. They were losses to the business, but not the whole business.

It couldn’t be gone, not after everything she’d done to hold on to it after her father’s death.

Anger overcame her shock and she gripped Uncle Robert’s old pistol tighter, her sweating palms making the wood handle stick to her skin. ‘I don’t believe you. I know how men of your ilk operate, taking advantage of desperate people with high interest rates until they have no choice but to turn everything they own over to your grasping hands.’

Mr Rathbone’s eyes narrowed a touch. What the gun and the element of surprise had failed to do, her smear of his character managed to achieve—a reaction.

‘If it’s proof you require, I’m most happy to oblige.’ He pushed up against the edge of the tub and rose.

‘Sir!’ Laura gasped and shuffled back until the edge of a table caught her hip. She clutched the pistol tighter, unable to tear her eyes away as fat drops poured down his slender body, catching in the ripples of his stomach before falling into the sloshing water of the tub. The drops were not thick enough to offer any semblance of modesty and she struggled to keep her gaze from wandering from his handsome face to the long length of chest, stomach and everything else beneath. Her heart pounded harder than when she’d crept into the house through the open terrace door, then pressed herself deep into the shadows of an alcove beneath the stairs when a maid had passed by.

He lifted one long leg, then the other over the copper tub and stepped dripping on to the small towel on the floor next to it. Over a nearby chair lay a brown banyan of fine silk—French, she guessed, by the subtle pattern in the weave. She expected him to take it up and pull it on over the long expanse of him, but he didn’t. Instead he strode past her, through the wide double doors adjoining the dressing-and-bathing room to his bedroom without so much as a second look, as though she were not standing there threatening his life and he was not stark naked and leaving a trail of wet footprints on the wood floor. He headed to the small desk in the opposite corner of the bedroom, near the windows and across from the tall, four-poster bed hung with expensive embroidered curtains. Behind the desk, he opened one of the drawers. Neither the neat stack of papers on top nor the oil lamp on the corner did anything to prevent her from seeing him as Eve must have seen Adam after they’d tasted the apple. Laura could feel her own judgement coming. What she wouldn’t give for a lightning bolt from above, or at the very least a large fig leaf.

‘Here is the contract we drew up the day he came to see me.’ Mr Rathbone came around the desk, holding out the paper.

Laura forced her eyes to meet his. ‘Would you please get dressed?’

‘This is my house. You broke into it and threatened me. I may stand as I like. Now here is your proof.’ The paper fluttered at the end of one stiff, outstretched arm.

In the flickering candlelight she read the list of her uncle’s debts laid out in points in the centre of the page. There were more names than just Mrs Topp’s. Most were unfamiliar, but a few she recognised from snatches of conversation she’d caught in the hallways of their ramshackle building. Below the terms were Mr Rathbone’s signature and that of a witness, a Mr Justin Connor. Next to them sat Uncle Robert’s uneven letters, the wide way he wrote his R and T clear.

It wasn’t so much his signing away the shop that shocked her, it was the document he’d put his name to. ‘Where did you get this paper?’

‘Mr Townsend brought it to me the night he came here seeking a loan.’

‘This is mine. I wrote this, it was my plan to save our business.’

‘It was an excellent one and, combined with the collateral he possessed to secure the loan, the reason I extended him the sum. He could have succeeded, if he hadn’t gambled the money away.’ He laid the document on the desk. ‘Are you quite satisfied?’

‘I am.’ And we’re ruined.

‘Good, then you won’t need this.’ Mr Rathbone grabbed the barrel of the pistol and wrenched it from her hands.

‘No,’ she cried, as naked as him without the weapon.

‘The gun would have done you no good. It was improperly loaded.’ He pulled the flint from the hammer and tossed the now-useless weapon on the desk along with the contract. ‘Had you fired it, you would have blown your pretty face off.’

She looked to where the weapon lay on the blotter, as useless as her hope and her foolish plans. This morning she had thought her situation couldn’t sink any lower. It seemed she had yet to reach the bottom, but all she could think of was her mother. Laura’s botched attempt to save them would no doubt land her in gaol. How would her mother survive without her and what would Uncle Robert do to her? ‘You should have let me fire it and finish myself.’

He strode past her back to the bathroom. ‘You’d have ruined the carpet.’

Anger overcame her sense of loss and she whirled on him. Without concern, he took up the banyan from the chair and slid his strong arms into the sleeves, pulling it shut over his nakedness. Laura’s anger flickered, nearly blown out by the sight of his skin caressed by the dark silk, before it flared again. ‘I can see all you care about is money.’

He pulled the banyan ties tight across his slim middle. ‘I’m a businessman, Miss Townsend. Men interested in financial backing for ventures come to me, as well as those seeking to shore up a struggling business. I offer them finance to be repaid with interest, or, if they default, as your uncle did, I seize their goods and sell them to cover my losses. I have a family and employees whose welfare I must ensure. I am not a charity.’

‘No, of course not.’ She looked down at the carpet he was so worried about, moving one toe of her worn-out half-boot to trace the swirling curve of a vine. In the brief time she’d spent plotting this ridiculous scheme, she’d failed to work out exactly how she might extricate herself from it without landing in the Old Bailey, or worse. She only hoped the generous nature he spoke of with his family and employees might extend to a very foolish young lady.

‘Mr Rathbone, please forgive me for intruding on your privacy and for trying to blacken your good name. I was not in possession of all the facts before I decided to confront you. It seems I was not in possession of my reason either.’ She smiled, trying to look the way she imagined a senseless young lady might look, in the hope of saving both her dignity and her freedom. It failed to soften the hard set of Mr Rathbone’s mouth.

‘Don’t play the fool. It’s not becoming of a woman of your ingenuity.’

She dropped the smile but not her hope, unwilling to concede defeat. She couldn’t, not with her mother shivering at home. ‘Then let me offer you a proposal, one that speaks to you as a businessman.’

Mr Rathbone stood silent and she couldn’t discern if he planned to listen or to summon a footman to fetch the constable. She didn’t give him a chance to answer, hoping her words might at least make him consider her offer and postpone for some time whatever fate he had in mind for her. ‘Among the contents of the inventory you seized was a large bolt of cotton woven into a very fine cloth. It’s from a special variety, grown in Egypt. It can be rendered, like the Indian kind, into a very fine, almost transparent cloth, but it costs less to produce. I plan to introduce it through Madame Pillet, a modiste to many fashionable and influential ladies. Their orders for the fabric alone could bring in hundreds of pounds. With the profits, I can import more and establish a fine trade. If you return the inventory to me, I’ll pay you a portion of the profits until the original debt is settled.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t entertain your proposal,’ he answered without consideration. ‘The contents of the draper shop were sold to settle Mr Townsend’s debts. I no longer have the bolt of cotton to which you are referring.’

‘But you know who has it. You could get it back and we could still reach an arrangement.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You’re leaving us to starve,’ she blurted out as even this slim hope dissolved. There was no chance of reviving the business, or doing anything other than sinking into even more degrading poverty.

No sign of sympathy or regret marred the smoothness of his face. ‘Your plan has merit, but will not succeed. If the cotton becomes fashionable, those with better connections and more money will race to import it before you can secure more, flooding the market with it and lessening its value.’

‘But before then?’ she protested meekly.

‘I can’t afford to gamble my money on the whims of the ton. Nor can you.’

‘I can’t rely on my uncle Robert if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s got everything out of us he wanted, my father’s business and what was left of the money,’ she scoffed. ‘It won’t be long before we see the backside of him. Then what will happen to me and my mother?’

‘You must have other family?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Friends?’

‘Uncle Robert saw to it that they were driven away when he borrowed money from them and never repaid it.’ She dropped her hands to her sides in imitation of Mr Rathbone, trying to appear as confident and sure as he did. ‘I know what I did tonight was foolish and I never meant to hurt you, I only wanted the merchandise back because I couldn’t see the business fail. It took my father years to build and my uncle Robert less than a year to destroy.’

* * *

If Philip had passed Miss Townsend on the street, he’d have overlooked her. Forced to stare down the end of a barrel at her, he couldn’t miss the stunning light of determination in her round hazel eyes. It was undiminished by the faint circles darkening the smooth skin underneath them or the slight hollow beneath the high cheekbones. Loose waves of auburn hair hung on either side of her face and down to the shoulders of her worn-out dress. The sad garment hung loose on her. Regular meals would bring back the fullness of her cheeks and the softness of her waist. Her skin was pale, like Arabella’s had been, but where illness had faded his late wife’s bloom, only hardship dampened the lustre of the lady before him. ‘In business, it’s always best to keep facts and emotions separate so one does not cloud the other.’

‘I’ll remember that when I’m starving,’ she spat.

‘You won’t starve. You’re too smart.’ There was something of life and fight in Miss Townsend, a trait Arabella had not possessed. Despite his annoyance at being disturbed tonight, he admired it too much to see it snuffed out by gaol fever. He swept the pistol from the desk and held it out to her. ‘Thank you for an interesting evening, Miss Townsend.’

Hope flooded her cheeks with a wash of pink. ‘You’re letting me go?’

‘Would you prefer I call the constable and have you hauled before the magistrate?’

‘No.’

He moved aside and waved his hand at the door. ‘Then go.’

In a flutter of threadbare bombazine, she was gone.

‘You there, stop.’ Justin’s voice sounded through the downstairs hall before the thud of the back door hitting the wall and the squeak of the garden gate let Philip know Miss Townsend was away.

A second later Justin came running in, his pistol drawn. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Quite.’ Philip sat down in his chair, rubbing his still-damp chin with his fingers. Miss Townsend had stirred something inside him—not pity, or even lust, though she was pretty. No, it was curiosity, like the first time he’d seen Arabella sitting across his desk next to her father, Dr Hale. Philip hadn’t been able to focus on anything but her while Dr Hale had laid out his plans for a small medical school. The school had failed and Dr Hale had lost both his and Philip’s money. It was the only time Philip had allowed emotion to guide a business decision.

‘Leave it to you to be so cavalier about an intruder threatening you.’ Justin lowered the hammer on the pistol.

‘She was never a threat.’ Philip curled one finger to rub it along his ring finger still missing the plain wedding band he’d buried with Arabella. No, this was nothing like the day he’d met his wife. There was no emotion to touch his love for Arabella, especially not in the guise of this stranger, no matter how intriguing she might appear.

‘You look like the devil.’ Justin slid the pistol in the holster under his coat.

‘It’s been a trying day.’ He’d thought the headaches of it were over when he’d sunk down into the hot water. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

He stared past Justin to the copper bathtub and the thin tendrils of steam still rising from it. Nothing but problems had plagued him today. A cobbler had called to secure a loan to increase his business. The cobbler’s endless words of reassurance and lack of collateral had warned Philip off the venture. The man hadn’t reacted kindly to Philip’s refusal. He’d only just been ejected from the house when Justin had arrived with news of an import company with an outstanding loan having been declared bankrupt. It’d been a scramble to seize the goods stored in the warehouse before the importer moved them and left Philip with the loss.

With business matters secured, household ones had rushed in to consume the remainder of the day. His sister, Jane, had tried his patience with yet another demand for an expensive dress too mature for a budding young woman of thirteen. She’d railed at him with their grandmother’s temper before stomping away after Philip threatened to cut off her dress allowance. On the heels of Jane’s tantrum came the news that Mrs Marston, his son Thomas’s nurse, was moving to Bath to take care of her grandson, leaving Philip with only a month to engage a replacement. Jane was too young to be of assistance and Mrs Palmer, despite running his house with the efficiency of a factory, was not up to the task of mothering his sister and son or finding a suitable replacement for Mrs Marston.

What Philip needed was a wife, someone to deal with these domestic matters.

Justin plucked a small chair from the wall, turned it around in front of the desk, then straddled it, leaning his elbows on the polished back. ‘So, who was the woman?’

‘The niece of Robert Townsend.’ Philip smoothed his hands over his wet hair. ‘She wanted her collateral back.’

‘Don’t they all.’ Justin snorted, propping his chin in his palm. ‘I left two extra men to guard the importer’s stock until you can sell it.’

‘We’ll see to it tomorrow,’ Philip said vaguely, his thoughts consumed with something other than business.

Justin raised one curious eyebrow. ‘What did she do to you?’

Philip straightened a pen on the blotter. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Never seen you this cavalier about a full warehouse. Usually you’re all plans until I’m up all night and engaged through most of tomorrow seeing to it, but not tonight. Why?’

Philip studied his old friend and partner. Justin had stood beside him at his wedding and at Arabella’s funeral. He balled his hand into a fist. His wife should have had the chance to raise their son and attend to their house. Now, it fell to the people Philip paid to assist him. Not the most ideal of situations and one he would soon correct.

Straightening in the chair, he laced his fingers over his stomach. It wasn’t Miss Townsend’s disturbance which troubled him now, as much as the opportunity she presented. His father had trained him to assess a client in a matter of seconds. He’d measured up Miss Townsend and, despite the ridiculousness of her attempted threat, found her useful qualities continued to tip the scales in her favour.

It was madness and he knew it. He should recommend her and the mother to Halcyon House, his charitable organisation, and be done with them both, not continue to entertain the plan developing in his mind. He’d chosen Arabella with his heart, ignoring her frailty, believing it wouldn’t come between them. He’d been a fool and in the end their love had killed her.

Small footsteps pattered down the long hallway outside his bedroom door before steady, larger ones followed. In a moment, he’d help Mrs Marston get Thomas back to sleep, but first there was business to discuss.

‘I have another plan in mind, Justin.’ He picked up Robert Townsend’s contract. It was sheer luck he’d decided to bring it upstairs with the others, as was his habit, to review before bed or if he was restless in the middle of the night. He handed it to his friend. ‘Find out everything you can about his niece.’

‘I knew I wouldn’t get off so easy tonight.’ He rose from the chair and set it back by the wall, then plucked the paper from Philip’s hand.

‘Speak to anyone who might know her from her lodgings and from the neighbourhood where the draper shop used to be, I’m sure you can discover its location.’

‘You know I can.’ He folded the contract and slid it into his pocket.

‘Get a sense of her reputation, character and situation. Find out any and every detail you can and bring it to me as soon as possible.’

‘Is she going to become a client?’

Philip rose, eager to see to his son. ‘No. She might become my wife.’

Chapter Two

Laura stared at the worn and splintered door, frozen where she stood, her uncle’s dirty tankard in one hand, a cleaning rag in the other.

Someone had knocked. No one ever knocked here. It couldn’t be good.

She jumped again as the wood rattled beneath the fist of whoever was on the other side. She set the tankard down and hurried to the door, eager to silence the person for fear they’d wake her mother.

‘Who is it?’ she hissed through a crack near the centre.

‘Mr Rathbone.’

She jolted away from the wood. It’d been two days since she’d fled from his house and there was nothing he could want from her, unless he’d changed his mind about seeing her gaoled. The constable might be outside with him now. She twisted the rag around one hand, then let go. No, the constable would have announced himself. She’d heard him banging on enough doors in the building to know. Mr Rathbone must want something else, but what? The cotton. Maybe he’d finally seen the sense in her offer, found a way to buy back the bolt and was here to discuss an arrangement.

She pulled open the door to find him standing on the other side. Unlike the few others who came here, he didn’t clutch a scented handkerchief to his face or look around as though expecting a rat to pounce. He stood exactly as he had two nights ago, businesslike, determined, a dark-blue redingote falling straight from his shoulders to cover his lithe but sturdy body. Her eyes trailed the length of him, from the low hat covering his almost black hair to the tips of his polished boots. Taking in this groomed and dressed moneylender, she tried not to imagine him without his clothes. If she hadn’t seen him in such a fashion, she would be more terrified of him now, not mesmerised by the way his high white collar traced the angle of his jaw to where it narrowed to his chin.

‘May I come in?’ His crisp but polite words snapped her out of her musing.

‘Yes, of course.’ She waved him in with the rag, closing the door behind him.

In four steps he reached the centre of the room. The faint, citrus scent of his bergamot cologne struck Laura harder than the stench of the street coming in through the window. The richness of the scent reminded her of the perfume shop situated next to her family’s old shop and for a moment took her away from the filth permeating her life.

Mr Rathbone glanced down at the table where the dirty tankard sat, then turned to face her, his scrutiny pulling her back into the mire. ‘Miss Townsend.’

‘Shh...’ Laura gestured to silence him, then caught sight of her dirty fingernails and lowered her hand as fast as she’d raised it. ‘I must ask you to speak quietly. My mother is resting. She slept poorly last night and every night before.’

He nodded and removed his hat, holding it against his left side. ‘Miss Townsend, I’ve come to speak to you about a business proposal.’

She twisted the rag tight between her hands. ‘You’ve come to accept my offer? You found a way to retrieve the cotton bolt and return it to me?’

‘No. As I told you, it is no longer in my possession.’

‘But—’

He raised a silencing hand. ‘Mr Townsend knew the consequences when he took my money and he will pay them. He is no longer my concern or yours.’

She perched one fist on her hip. ‘Then what is our concern?’

He shifted the hat to his other hand so it rested against his right thigh instead of his left. If she thought the man capable of emotion, she might say he was nervous. ‘You managed your father’s draper business before Mr Townsend assumed control?’

‘Before my uncle stole it from us,’ she corrected, more curious than cautious.

‘You kept accounts, inventory, credit?’

‘I did.’ She didn’t hide her pride. ‘My father thought it better for me to learn the business than attend a lady’s school.’

‘I know by the speed at which you comprehended the agreement that you can read and understand contracts and your business plan indicates you can write.’

‘A fine hand.’ She wondered where this line of questioning was leading. Maybe he’d taken pity on her and come to offer work. She smoothed one hand over her hair, wishing he’d given her some notice and a chance to make herself more presentable.

‘And you are well, your mother’s illness does not extend to you?’

‘I am very hearty, thank you. My mother broke her leg a few years ago and, though it healed, she’s afflicted with rheumatism. It’s nothing food and heat wouldn’t ease, but since we have neither, she suffers.’

His eyes dropped down, covering the length of her in a heartbeat before his head rose a touch as though appraising her collateral. She couldn’t imagine what he saw since she wore no jewellery and her dress was too old to be of much value to even a secondhand-clothes merchant. ‘There is no one, apart from your mother and Mr Townsend, to make a claim on you?’

Worry coiled inside her, fuelled by the memory of him parading before her naked without shame. ‘If you’ve come to make an immodest proposal, you can leave.’

‘There’s nothing untoward in what I’m about to suggest, Miss Townsend. After a great deal of thought, I have another venture which might interest you.’

From the next room, her mother coughed and Laura tensed, waiting to see if she settled back to sleep or awoke. Hopefully she’d sleep. She needed the rest as much as she needed a decent meal and a proper pelisse to keep out the cold. Eyeing the moneylender, her dread increased. Even if he made her an indecent offer, she couldn’t afford to refuse it. With the business lost, there were only more horrors waiting for her and her mother out on the street. ‘I’m listening, Mr Rathbone.’

* * *

Philip shifted his hat to his other hand. From somewhere outside he heard the cry of an infant. It sounded too much like the way Thomas had wailed in the nurse’s arms while Philip had held Arabella in his, clutching her to him as her life had slipped away.

He set the hat down on the table. This transaction had nothing to do with the past, but the more pressing needs of the present. ‘A year ago, I lost my wife in childbirth. I’m in need of the services of a woman with your skills.’

Her brow scrunched down over her straight nose. ‘You mean as a nurse?’

‘No, as a wife.’

‘A wife?’ Her jaw dropped open before she pulled it closed, her eyes wider than when he’d snatched the pistol from her.

‘I assume you’re not already married.’

‘No, but—’

‘And you have no suitors?’

‘Unless you consider the drunk who sits in the doorway and pesters me whenever I come and go, no.’

‘Good. At present, I employ a capable nurse for my son, but she is leaving at the end of the month. I think it preferable for family to see to the welfare of a child. My sister is thirteen and too young for such things. She is also in need of a guiding hand. She will soon be faced with suitors and I don’t have aunts or cousins on whom I may call to assist her.’

‘And my mother?’

‘I will see to her welfare and care.’

‘By placing her in a home with some ill-mannered nurse?’

‘She will have a suitable room in my house and a proper maid to attend her. You will learn my business and help me manage it.’

She continued to stare at him as if he’d suggested she be presented to the king. ‘I nearly killed you and you wish to trust me with your son and business?’

Her reservations needled him. He’d reviewed the facts last night and they made sense. There was no room for doubt. He pressed on. ‘You were never a threat to me.’

A tiny curve appeared at the corner of her mouth and he couldn’t tell if she was going to smile or frown. ‘How do you know I won’t steal from you and run off?’

‘Not likely with your mother residing under my roof.’

‘There is truth in that.’ She uncrossed her arms, the crease beside her lips growing deeper as she silently considered the merits of his offer as any wise client might contemplate the terms of a loan. ‘Why me? Why marriage?’

‘In my experience, a wife is a better business partner than any other as her interests are my interests. As to why you, you seem a quick wit, except where firearms are concerned.’ Her crease deepened into a disapproving frown but he didn’t let it deter or distract him. ‘Your brazen act the other night demonstrated a degree of courage and strength.’

‘Some might call it rash and reckless.’

‘It was, but your plans for the fabric demonstrated an innate sensibility and intelligence. Your prior experience in your father’s shop is an asset. Your reason for breaking into my house was to protect your mother. That demonstrates a proper degree of concern for those in your care. I have no doubt you can transfer such regard to my sister and son.’

Her brow rose a touch in surprise. ‘I have never heard my attributes stated in such a plain way. I’m not sure if I should thank you or chide you for insulting me.’

‘I meant it as a compliment.’

She nodded her thanks. ‘You may find me a poor partner. I know nothing of moneylending.’

‘You will learn so that if anything happens to me, you will know how to successfully carry on until our son reaches an age where he is able to assume control of the business.’

‘Our son?’

‘He will soon be as much yours as mine, and others will follow. I assume your courses are as they should be.’

She crossed her arms again. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘We’re making a bargain and, in such deals, we must be frank with one another.’

‘They are as they should be.’ No blush spread over her pale skin as her eyes dipped down the length of him, pausing near his hips before rising again to meet his gaze. ‘Is everything as it should be with you?’

The girl possessed pluck and for the first time in almost a year, he felt the twitch of a smile tug up the corner of his lips before he squashed it. ‘It is, as you will discover.’

‘I have yet to agree to your romantic proposal.’

‘You will.’

‘You’re so sure?’

‘You have no other options.’

She looked at the dirty cloth in her hands, picking off one loose thread around the frayed edge before she faced him again. ‘You’re right, I have no other options. However, you could present your case in a less businesslike tone, with a little civility and charm.’

‘You don’t strike me as a woman ruled by romantic notions.’

‘No, but I’m still a woman and would like to be wooed just a touch.’

For the second time today he wanted to smile but didn’t. Instead, he stepped closer, admiring her spirit. She didn’t just surrender to him, sign her name on the contract as it were, but demanded his respect, not his money or anything else. Once again, his instinct for business had proven correct. ‘Miss Townsend, will you do me the honour of accepting me as your husband?’

* * *

Laura stared up at the stranger who stood only an arm’s length from her, thankful he hadn’t taken her hand or dropped to one knee. She might have demanded a modicum of romance, but with her head still swimming from this unexpected proposal and a lack of food, she wasn’t sure she could handle the shock of his touch. Her parents had raised her to be sensible and she was, but it didn’t mean she didn’t have dreams. All her life she’d wanted the same happiness she’d seen between her parents, to have a shop and a family with a man she loved and respected. Uncle Robert had destroyed such dreams when he’d ground the shop and their reputations into the dirt. Whatever hope she possessed of reviving them now lay with this gentleman.

Mr Rathbone watched her and she studied him, trying to gauge something of the real person beneath the stiff businessman, but she could see very little. He’d not offered one ounce of warmth since he’d opened his distracting blue eyes in the tub, nor even a brief flicker of sympathy for her plight, yet now he wished to make her his wife and take care of both her and her mother. It defied all reason, except his argument made perfect, rational sense to the practical side of her.

It was the physical realities of marriage which nearly made her sensible side flee. He expected children and there was only one way to get them. The image of him naked in front of her seared her mind and she swallowed hard. After leaving his home, she’d hurried back here and slipped into bed beside her mother, trying and failing to sleep. Mr Rathbone’s was the first male body she’d ever seen undressed and the memory of it had insisted on teasing her.

She touched the loose bun at the nape of her neck, the skin beneath suddenly damp with perspiration. Seeing him naked hadn’t been an unpleasant experience. If she accepted him, she would see him again in such a state and he would see her, but what would their more intimate moments be like? Her fingers fumbled with the loose strands of hair she gathered up to tuck back in with the others. She’d heard the fallen women cackling together in the hallways. They clearly enjoyed congress with the men they ran after. However, late at night, through the cracked and thin walls of their tumbledown rooms, she often heard the couple next door and the indignities a cruel husband could inflict on his wife. She wasn’t sure whether it would be pain or pleasure she’d face with Mr Rathbone, if he would be tender or approach the matter with stiff efficiency. Whatever might pass between them, if she refused his offer, a hundred more degrading things from many strange men most likely awaited her. Their situation was already growing desperate and she knew what happened to desperate women in Seven Dials. There was as much uncertainty with Mr Rathbone as there was without him. At least with him, Laura knew they would be warm and well fed. ‘Yes, Mr Rathbone, I accept your proposal.’

‘Good. My men are waiting with a cart in the street.’ He strode to the window and waved to someone below. ‘Ready your things, we leave at once.’

‘You were so sure I’d accept.’ The man was unbelievable.

He faced her as he had in his room, his confidence as mesmerising as it was irksome. ‘I’m always sure when it comes to matters of business.’

Not a second later, the door opened and another young man in a tan coat entered. ‘Philip, you kept us waiting so long, you had me worried.’

‘Mr Connor, allow me to introduce Miss Townsend, my intended. Miss Townsend, this is my friend and associate, Mr Justin Connor.’

Mr Connor swept off his hat and made a low bow. He was shorter than Mr Rathbone and broader through the hips and chest. His hair was light brown like his eyes, which revealed his amusement as much as his smile. ‘A pleasure, Miss Townsend. It seems you’ve made quite an impression on my friend.’

Finally, someone with some sense of humour. ‘Yes, he was just telling me how much my beauty and charm have enthralled him.’

‘Spirited, too. I think it’ll be a successful match.’ He directed the comment as much to Mr Rathbone as to her.

If Mr Rathbone was needled by his associate’s wit, he gave no indication, his countenance the same as when she’d surprised him in his bath. She wondered if he possessed any other expression.

Behind Mr Connor, four burly men in coarse but clean jackets filed into the room. Laura shifted on her feet at the notable tension coursing between them as they took up positions along the wall and near the door. From their thick belts hung clubs like the ones the night watchmen used to carry in Cheapside, where the draper shop was situated. The old watchmen didn’t dare wander through these parts after dark. It was a wonder Laura had made it home unmolested after leaving Mr Rathbone’s. It seemed whatever luck had led her into his house and out again without landing her in the Old Bailey had followed her home. Hopefully, it would continue to walk with her down the aisle.

‘Mr Rathbone, is there some reason for the weapons?’ If he was to be her husband, there was no point being shy with him. ‘Are my mother and I to be made prisoners?’

Mr Rathbone moved closer, his eyes stern and serious. ‘Mr Townsend has proven himself selfish and uncaring. I assume he has held on to you and your mother for this long because he thinks there’s still something to gain from you. He won’t take kindly to my removing you from his control.’

Laura sank a little, sickened by how accurate a sketch Mr Rathbone drew of her uncle. ‘I don’t know what he could hope to gain from us. Everything we had, he took.’

‘Not everything.’ The words were softer than before, just like his eyes. Concern lingered behind his stiff countenance, faint like the subtle weave in a silk pattern, something one could only see if it were held the correct way in the right light. It dissolved some of her fear and made her wonder what other hidden depths existed beneath his stoic exterior.

Mr Connor’s watch case clicked closed. ‘Philip, we should hurry, he could return.’

The prodding snipped the faint connection between them like scissors against a fine silk thread.

Mr Rathbone’s eyes swept the room and, it seemed, deliberately avoided hers. ‘Now, Miss Townsend, what should we remove?’

Laura looked over the sad furniture, happy to break his gaze and the odd line of reasoning it created. The setting sun cut through the room and she wished there were curtains to close, anything to hide the mouldering walls announcing the extent of her poverty. Despite how far they’d fallen since her father’s death, the indignity of it all still burned. Most of the furniture was her uncle’s, from his time with the army in India, where he’d made even less of a success of himself than he had in London. It was all in a sorry state, chipped and scratched. A couple of pieces belonged to her and her mother, the remnants of happier days in the rooms above the draper shop.

‘We’ll take the portrait of Father.’ She motioned to the painting hanging over the sagging mantel. The varnish had turned dark around the edges, but those hazel eyes, so similar to Laura’s, still watched over them with the same clarity as they had in life. It was the one aspect of her father the artist had rendered perfectly.

One of Mr Rathbone’s men reached up and removed it from its nail, exposing the stained and faded wallpaper beneath it.

‘And this?’ Mr Rathbone tapped the tip of his walking stick against a locked trunk beside the bedroom door.

‘It belongs to my uncle.’ She rolled her wrist—the memory of the bruises she’d received when her uncle had caught her trying to pick the lock one night still stung. Whatever was in there, be it valuables or the body of a wife from India, he hadn’t wanted her to see it. At this moment, she didn’t care. He could have the trunk and whatever comfort he drew from the contents. ‘The desk was my grandmother’s. My mother will want it.’

Two men took up positions on either side of the desk, heaving it up and shuffling past the door to her mother’s room just as she tugged it open.

‘What’s going on here?’ she demanded, her thin frame barely filling the tilted and sagging jamb. She snapped up her walking stick, laying it across the chest of the closest burly man and stopping both cold. ‘Are we being evicted?’

Laura rushed to her mother, gently lowered the walking stick and took her by the arm to steady her. ‘No, we’re moving. Now, this moment.’

‘Moving? Where?’ She looked past Laura to the men behind her.

‘Mother, allow me to introduce Mr Rathbone.’

Mr Rathbone bowed with respect, not mockery, but it failed to ease the suspicion hardening her mother’s pale-brown eyes.

‘Yes, I know who he is.’ Her mother eyed the moneylender down the length of her straight nose like she used to do with ragamuffins intent on swiping a ribbon from the shop. The fierce look would send them scurrying off in search of easier pickings. Mr Rathbone wasn’t so easily cowed. He met her stern glare as he had met almost everything else which had transpired between them, with no emotion.

‘He and I are to be married and we are to live with him,’ Laura announced. There was no other way to break the startling news.

‘Was this the price of Robert’s loan?’ Her mother banged her walking stick against the floor. ‘If so, I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you sell yourself to pay off one of Robert’s debts. Your uncle isn’t worth it. I deny my permission for this marriage.’

Laura stiffened. At three and twenty, she was two years past the age when such consent was necessary. However, she could feel her mother’s strong will rising, a will which illness, misfortune and widowhood had sapped from her this past year. It gave Laura hope for her future.

‘You have every right to object,’ Mr Rathbone agreed, his features taking on a more civil countenance. ‘As Miss Townsend’s mother, I should have consulted you on the matter before making the proposal. I apologise for my breach of manners, but the circumstances of our betrothal are most unusual and allowed no time for a more formal courtship. May we discuss the matter now, in private?’

He moved forward and held out his arm. Beneath the stern set of her mother’s expression, Laura caught the subtle arch of a raised eyebrow. He’d won her with his manners, hopefully whatever he intended to say to her would win her favour for the match.

‘Yes, for I wish to know how my daughter has so suddenly transfixed you.’ Mrs Townsend laid her hand on his arm and allowed him to lead her back into the cramped bedroom and help her to sit on the edge of the broken-down bed.

Laura pulled the door closed on them, not envying Mr Rathbone. It’d been a long time since she’d experienced her mother’s chastising scrutiny. It was formidable, but she felt the moneylender equal to the challenge.

In the tiny sitting room, she tossed a weak smile to the two remaining men flanking the door. They nodded in return before Mr Connor came to stand beside her.

‘You’re a very fortunate lady, Miss Townsend.’ There was a hint of teasing in the compliment.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, the widowed Mrs Templeton has been trying to capture Philip’s attention for many months now. If I’d known aiming a pistol at him would do the trick, I’d have advised her to try it.’ He threw back his head and laughed, filling the room with the merriest sound that had been heard there for ages.

Laura let out a long breath, his humour allowing her to smile. ‘You are Mr Rathbone’s business partner then?’

‘We’re friends. Grew up together. My father worked for his father, seeing to the more practical aspects of the business.’ He nodded at the men by the door. ‘Just as I do. Though not for much longer. I intend to establish myself in a business, once I decide which is the best to pursue.’

‘Then I wish you the greatest success.’

‘As I do you.’ He threw her a wide sideways smile she couldn’t fail to meet with one of her own.

‘Tell me, is Mr Rathbone always so businesslike?’

‘Oh, he’s almost jovial today. You should see how stern he is with clients.’

‘Apparently, I will.’

The door to her mother’s room opened and she and Mr Rathbone stepped through it. His face revealed nothing of their conversation. Her mother, however, beamed, striding in on his arm as though a duchess in Hyde Park. Laura gaped at them, wondering if there would be any end to the surprises in store for her today. She wasn’t sure she could handle too many more.

‘You have nothing to worry about, my dear.’ Her mother patted her shoulder. ‘Now, let’s be off. I see they’ve taken the painting and the desk.’ She looked up at Mr Rathbone. ‘Would you please ask your men to fetch our trunk from the bedroom? Everything else Robert can have.’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ Mr Rathbone motioned to the two remaining men. They hurried past Laura into the bedroom, emerging a moment later with the sad trunk holding what remained of Laura’s and her mother’s possessions.

They were not a foot into the room when another figure staggered into the doorway, the stench of pipe smoke and cheap ale swirling around him.

Uncle Robert.

The air thickened with tension as Mr Rathbone’s men slowly set down the trunk and straightened, dropping their hands to the clubs hanging from their belts. Mr Connor stood behind her uncle, his laughter gone as he shifted back his redingote to reveal the smooth handle of the pistol fastened at his waist. Laura’s hand tightened on her mother’s arm, Mr Rathbone’s warning rushing back to her along with a cutting fear.

‘What’s all this then?’ Robert Townsend demanded, struggling through his stupor to pronounce each word. His eyes fixed on the two men carrying the trunk and his sallow face scrunched with confusion before his bleary look fell on Mr Rathbone. At once, his red-rimmed eyes ignited with anger and he advanced on the moneylender. ‘What’s the meaning of this? I paid my debt to you. I owe you nothing.’

‘My business here today doesn’t concern you, Mr Townsend.’ Philip crossed the room to the older man, preventing him from advancing any further. They were matched in height, but Robert Townsend was wider in the shoulders with a barrel chest made thicker by his large coat. ‘Your niece has agreed to marry me. She and Mrs Townsend are removing to my house.’

‘My business wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to have everything, you greedy pig.’ Her uncle swayed forward on his feet. ‘Do you know what Moll Topp pays for a virgin like her? It would have cleared all my debts.’

Her mother’s hand tightened in Laura’s the way it used to do when she was small and they would cross a busy street. Laura knew her uncle held no love for them, but she hadn’t thought he’d sink to such sickening depths to save himself. She trembled as the shadow of another possible fate passed over her.

Only the stretching of Philip’s leather glove as his hand tightened at his side revealed his disgust. ‘I ask you to remember we are in the presence of ladies.’

‘Don’t pretend you’re my better.’ Robert stuck one thick and dirty finger in Mr Rathbone’s face. ‘I know your kind, feeding off the backs of men like me until you’ve gained every last shilling from us, then crushing us under your boot heels. Well, I won’t be crushed, not by a coward like you.’

Robert pulled back his arm and rammed it forward. Mr Rathbone dipped, dodging the blow, then he came up fast, his fist catching Robert under the chin. The larger man stumbled back across the room, slamming into a small chair, his weight crushing it beneath him. He sat for a moment, stunned sober, and Laura wanted to rush over and add a few kicks of her own in retribution for all he’d done to her parents. There was no time, as Robert hauled himself to his feet, ready to rush at Mr Rathbone.

Mr Rathbone’s men stepped up behind him, sticks clasped in their hands. Mr Connor pulled out his pistol and levelled it at the drunk man.

‘I wouldn’t do that, sir,’ he warned.

Laura drew her mother back, ready to flee into the bedroom and bar the door, but no one moved. She barely dared to breathe.

Through the thin walls came the muffled voice of the man next door cursing at his wife.

Robert met Laura’s eyes over Mr Rathbone’s shoulder, hate twisting his lips into a sneer and drawing tight the red bruise forming beneath the grey stubble on his chin. ‘You think you’ve got the better of me, ya little wench, but ya haven’t. Neither have you, Mr Rathbone. Your men won’t always be around to protect you. Some day you’ll be alone and I’ll be there.’

He spat at Mr Rathbone’s feet.

Mr Rathbone plucked the hat from the table and settled it over his hair. ‘Good day, Mr Townsend.’

He took Mrs Townsend by the arm and escorted both her and Laura around Robert. Laura eyed the old man acidly. Behind them, Mr Rathbone’s men filed out, two carrying the trunk while the other two stood guard. Mr Connor was the last to leave, still brandishing the pistol.

Her mother leaned heavily on Mr Rathbone as they picked their way slowly down the stairs. It took all Laura’s energy not to sag against the railings as fear pressed down hard on her. As she reached the bottom and stepped out into the chill evening air, she willed herself not to think of her uncle or how horribly true Mr Rathbone’s assessment of him had proven. It no longer mattered.

Mr Rathbone settled her mother in the landau and Laura joined her. The hood was open and with the sun dipping, the air had taken on a chill. She drew the blanket over their knees as Mr Rathbone climbed in across from them.

Laura took one last look at the rickety building as the vehicle started to roll away. Robert stood at the filthy window, his obvious hate as searing as if the spring sun were reflecting off the panes. Laura swallowed hard. She might never see this rotting pile of beams again, but she felt certain this wasn’t the last she’d see of her uncle.

Chapter Three

If events had proceeded with stunning rapidity in their rented rooms, it was a marvel to see how they moved once they arrived at Mr Rathbone’s house. Business pulled him and Mr Connor away, leaving Laura and her mother in the capable hands of his housekeeper, Mrs Palmer. She proved as efficient as her employer, though much more talkative. In a flash she had them fed, their few things arranged in their separate but adjoining rooms, baths drawn and the clean nightclothes Mr Rathbone had procured from a client laid out on the bed.

While Mrs Palmer assisted Laura’s mother, her coarse laugh carrying through the walls at various intervals and joined by her mother’s higher one, Laura pulled on the cotton chemise. She sighed at the sweep of clean linen against her damp skin, revelling in it too much to be irritated by Mr Rathbone’s presumption she would accept his strange suit. When she pulled on the silk banyan lying next to it, she nearly burst into tears. She’d parted with her French one, a Christmas gift from her father, long ago to buy food. She never thought she’d enjoy such a simple luxury again.

If the chemise and banyan felt heavenly, she could only imagine how the clean sheets on the high bed would feel. She touched the turned-back covers, eager to slide between them and give in to the exhaustion heightened by the warm bath, a full stomach and the comfortable night-dress, when the door whispered open behind her.

She turned, expecting to see a maid coming to empty the hip bath. Instead it was a young lady draped in a pale-pink gown, the first small curves of a woman’s body just beginning to fill out the lines of it. Her face was round with the slight fullness of youth, but her chin was well defined and her eyes the same deep blue as Mr Rathbone’s.

‘Good evening, Miss Townsend. I’m Miss Jane Rathbone, Philip’s sister.’ She dipped a curtsy, pulling out the sides of her simple cotton gown before straightening, arms at her sides just as her brother held himself. ‘Philip told me to look in on you and make sure you have everything you need. He also asked me to inform you that you needn’t worry about what time you rise tomorrow.’

The girl spoke like her brother, too, but in a childish voice with the hint of a lisp.

‘Did he?’

She nodded, her dark curls bobbing around her face and neck. ‘You must enjoy it because it will probably be the last time. Philip likes everyone to keep to a schedule.’

‘I don’t doubt he does.’ Nor did she mind. Her parents, with a business to run, had rarely let her dawdle about without purpose. There was always something to do. ‘He’s very practical.’

‘You must be, too, if you agreed to marry him.’

Laura rubbed the soft banyan strings between her thumb and forefinger. ‘In this instance, I’ve proven myself as sensible as your brother.’

‘Then it will be a good match.’

I hope so, she thought, though any future now was better than the one her uncle had planned for her.

‘In the morning, I’ll see to it Mrs Townsend is dressed and has her breakfast. We were speaking earlier and she is eager for me to show her the garden, especially the roses.’

The girl’s efficiency was surprising, yet not wholly unexpected. Laura wondered what her mother made of the strange creature. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of her herself. ‘Thank you, she is very fond of roses.’

‘It’s time for bed now, Jane.’ Mr Rathbone appeared in the doorway behind his sister, his reminder more a firm request than the stern demand of a guardian.

Laura tightened the banyan a touch more about her neck. The chemise beneath stuck to her damp skin, pressing against it with an uncomfortable warmth and making her keenly aware of her undress beneath the silk. It brought to mind how he looked beneath his clothes.

His redingote was gone, revealing a dark jacket woven with a subtle checked pattern paired with tan breeches. Without the bulk of the wool, he seemed leaner, tighter. The well-tailored clothes emphasised his coiled strength, giving a hint of the lithe power he’d revealed when he’d avoided her uncle to land a stunning blow on his chin. Laura hadn’t expected Mr Rathbone to be so physical and she struggled to keep herself steady as his masculinity pounced on her.

‘Goodnight, Miss Townsend.’ Jane hurried out, pausing to rise up on her toes and press a small kiss against her brother’s cheek. He bent forward so she could reach him, straightening as she disappeared down the hall.

‘Your sister is very charming.’ Laura adjusted the banyan, trying to relieve some of the heat beneath it without the garment sliding open and making her appear a slatternly hoyden.

‘Don’t let her deceive you. She can be very stubborn when she wants to be.’

Laura smiled up at him. ‘A family trait, I suspect.’

‘Indeed.’ He motioned to the room. ‘May I?’

No!

‘Of course.’ Laura stepped back a touch as he entered, wondering at the awkwardness coming over her. The door was open and he maintained a respectful distance. Even his eyes had not wandered away from hers. Laura tried to match his fortitude, forcing her arms to stay at her sides instead of crossing over her chest. Though there was no point in covering herself entirely. In the very near future, he’d see more than her dressing gown.

‘I won’t keep you from your rest for long. I need to know if you’d prefer the banns to be read or if I should secure a common licence.’

‘Do you truly want my opinion on the matter or should I acquiesce to your wishes?’ She winced a little at her unsubtle question, but exhaustion, his presence in the room and the uncomfortable weight of the banyan were making her tetchy. She craved sleep and wanted to leave everything else until tomorrow.

If he minded she couldn’t tell, his steady countenance not changing, even when he spoke. ‘You’ll find, Miss Townsend, as my wife, I’ll often consult you on many things, this being only the first.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry, it’s been a long day, a long year in fact.’

‘I understand, the past year has been a trying one for me as well.’ His hard-set jaw softened and Laura remembered the only other time she had seen this happen, when he’d mentioned his wife. A grief she knew well from losing her father had washed over his face and the same expression crossed it again now. Whatever tragedy had brought him to the position of needing help under such unusual circumstances, it’d marked him as hard as all the trials of the past year had stamped her.

She was about to suggest the ease of the banns, eager to gain the three or four weeks it would take before the wedding to settle in and get to know something of the man she was about to share her life with, when an interrupting cough drew their attention to the door. From further away, Laura heard the wail of a small child.

A thin, middle-aged woman wearing a dark dress stepped into the room. ‘Excuse me, Mr Rathbone, I didn’t mean to disturb you in the middle of business.’

The woman’s gaze jumped back and forth between Laura and Mr Rathbone.

Laura pulled the silk closer to her chin. She could only imagine what the woman must think she’d walked in on.

‘Miss Marston, please meet my intended, Miss Townsend,’ Mr Rathbone intervened, the stiff mask of business descending over Philip’s face and covering the faint hint of emotion Laura had caught. ‘Miss Marston is Thomas’s nurse.’

‘Oh, Miss Townsend, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Mrs Marston’s smile was more surprised than relieved. Laura suspected she’d encounter many similar reactions in the days to come. ‘Mr Rathbone, Thomas awoke crying and nothing I do will calm him. You always have such a way with him. I thought you might come to the nursery for a moment.’

‘Yes, I will.’ He started for the door, then paused. ‘Miss Townsend, come and meet the gentleman who is part of our arrangement.’

His command given, he didn’t wait for her. Mrs Marston wasn’t at all surprised by the abruptness and followed her employer out of the room.

Laura walked behind them, the cries of a very young child growing louder as they stepped into the hallway. Mr Rathbone and Mrs Marston made steady strides for the door at the far end, but Laura’s progress was slower. When she at last reached the room, the sight inside amazed her. Mr Rathbone stood with the small child in his arms, a little face pressed against his coat, the tears soaking into the wool. One chubby hand clutched his lapel, wrinkling the perfectly pressed crease.

‘What’s wrong, Thomas? Did you have a bad dream?’ Mr Rathbone’s steady voice filled the quiet as he shifted back and forth on the toes of his boots. ‘You have nothing to worry about. I’m here.’

His deep voice conjured up memories of her father holding her and wiping away her tears after a nightmare. It seemed like such a long time since she’d felt so safe and loved. His words curled around her insides, soothing her as they did the boy until she wanted to lay her head on Mr Rathbone’s shoulder and cry away all her frustrations and fears from the past year.

‘He has such a way with the boy,’ Mrs Marston murmured from beside her.

‘Yes, he does.’

Whatever reasons she’d had for wanting to wait a month for the wedding disappeared. Too many things might happen in four weeks. He could change his mind and Laura didn’t want to go back to the stinking Seven Dials and the cold, lonely desperation which crept like the damp through those wretched rooms. Even if she never knew the same affection he showed his son, just being in the presence of such love eased the hopelessness and despair she’d suffered for far too long. She didn’t want to lose that.

Mr Rathbone buried his face in the child’s soft blond curls, lowering his voice, but never stopping his soothing words. The boy sniffed, his eyes growing heavy as his father continued to rock him and stroke his little back. Soon the child’s stuffy-nosed breaths gave way to steady, quiet snores. Mr Rathbone kissed his head, then gently laid Thomas back down in his bed. He pulled the blanket up under his chin, then brushed the soft curls with his hand before relinquishing his place next to the bed to Mrs Marston.

‘Come,’ he whispered to Laura, his entreaty for her to join him as soft as his soothing words to his son. ‘We mustn’t disturb him.’

In the hallway, with the door closed behind them, he faced her. A circle of wet from his son’s tears broke the smooth weave of his coat, but he didn’t brush at it or curse the spot. The caring father stood over her, the man of business gone as his eyes swept her face.

Then the look faded and he began to turn and walk away, but she wasn’t ready to see him go.

‘Mr Rathbone.’ She reached out and took his hand.

He whirled, eyes wide, just as stunned as she was by the gesture, but he didn’t pull away. A slight connection jumped between them like a cricket hops between two slender blades of grass, bending but not breaking them. One by one his fingertips pressed against the back of her hand and words deserted her as his breath whispered across her forehead. She didn’t know if the strange catch in her chest was from the excitement of the move, watching her uncle receive a well-deserved beating or the whirlwind of going from pauper to the expected wife of a well-to-do gentleman in the space of two days.

Swallowing hard, she recovered her wits enough to finally speak. ‘I’d prefer the common licence.’

* * *

With his son’s tears soaking through the wool to wet the linen underneath, Philip could deny Miss Townsend nothing, not even his hand. ‘Whatever you wish.’

Something whispered between them, subtle as the faint scent of lavender soap surrounding Laura. This was the first time they’d touched, but it was as comforting as if it were the hundredth. It soothed the panic the unexpected intimacy had sent shooting through him.

‘Thank you for all you did for us today.’ Her fingers tightened with her gratitude, digging into the bruises colouring his knuckles.

He winced and her grip eased. It was his chance to pull away, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

‘You hurt your hand.’ The sleeve of her banyan slid back as she traced the dark marks on his knuckles, revealing the soft skin and the hint of her chemise beneath.

‘It wasn’t the first time.’ He forced the words through his lips. She stood so close he could see the wet curls at the nape of her neck clinging to her skin. Heat rushed in hard beneath his stomach, making it difficult to stand still, or concentrate on anything beside the green and gold in her eyes. ‘Mr Connor and I train with a pugilist. It’s imperative my people and I know how to protect ourselves.’

‘Will I learn to box?’ A playful smile danced along the corners of her full lips.

The sharp twitch of old emotions he’d buried with his wife struck him, as hard as Laura’s pulse against his skin.

‘No, but you’ll learn to properly load and fire a pistol.’ He slid his hand out of hers, careful not to jerk away as he struggled to distance himself from her and the memories scratching at his heart. ‘Goodnight, Miss Townsend.’

She dropped her hands to cross them in front of her, letting him go. ‘Goodnight, Mr Rathbone.’

In the confines of the stairwell, out of her sight, Philip paused. Opening and closing his fist, he tried to shake off the heat of her fingers. There was only one other time in his life when he’d experienced a connection so powerful with a stranger. The first time he’d touched Arabella.

He jerked up straight and descended the stairs. This was nothing like what he’d experienced with Arabella. This was a business deal, a venture plain and simple. He’d researched the lady, spent hours pondering both the good and bad aspects of the union. Yet in the end, it hadn’t been the tally sheet which had tilted Philip towards her. It was intuition.

Fear nearly choked the breath from him.

Intuition had failed him before where marriage was concerned. What if it was failing him again?

‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you needed a drink,’ Justin chided as Philip stepped down into the hall.

‘I need exercise.’ Anything to clear the uncertainty pummelling him.

* * *

An hour later, Justin swung at Philip, who ducked and came up behind him. The skin over Philip’s bruised knuckles smarted as he curled his fingers into a tighter fist.

‘Not like you to be so sloppy.’ Justin danced around the ring out of Philip’s reach. ‘What’s gnawing at you?’

A bolt of pain raced along Philip’s arm as he jabbed at Justin and missed. They’d been sparring for over half an hour and neither the exertion nor the sweat trickling down the sides of his face had snuffed out the faint spark smouldering in the back of Philip’s mind, the spark ignited by Laura’s hand. The spark he feared was distracting him from noticing a potential mistake. ‘Nothing.’

‘You mean nothing as in your soon-to-be wife?’ They circled one another, fists raised. The sounds of other men fighting nearby and the pugilists calling out orders to them rang through the high-ceilinged hall. Though not as elegant or well fitted as Gentleman Joe Jackson’s establishment, the lessons here were for men like Philip and Justin who needed their skills to defend themselves, not simply dance around their opponents for show. ‘You know, if you have needs, I could arrange something less taxing than a wife.’

Justin stepped in to make a hit, but Philip side-stepped out of the way. ‘My needs have no bearing on the situation.’

His needs had nearly risen up in the hallway outside Thomas’s room to embarrass him and quite possibly her.

‘Liar.’ Justin circled Philip, whose raw knuckles itched to knock the smug grin off his friend’s face. ‘She’s the most attractive woman yet to appear on your doorstep, demanding her assets.’

Philip swung, his fist brushing Justin’s arm as he turned out of the way. ‘She wasn’t on my step, she was in my bedroom.’

‘And she will be again, many times with the way you’ve arranged it,’ Justin taunted, as unguarded with his words as Philip was guarded with his thoughts. ‘I still can’t believe you’re doing this.’

‘Why?’ Philip jabbed at Justin. ‘My son needs a mother, my sister a chaperon and my house a proper steward.’

The tally sheet he’d compiled on Miss Townsend rushed back to him. What was he failing to see? Why was he doubting himself?

‘You think it’ll be so simple, but mark my words, it won’t.’ Justin swung at him, but Philip didn’t turn fast enough and his shoulder burned from the hit. ‘It never is where women are concerned.’

Philip shook out his arm, the pain dull compared to his concern. Justin was right, it wasn’t so simple, nothing in life ever was. He’d loved Arabella and she’d loved him. They’d courted and married and she’d fallen pregnant with his child. Simple. The complications had begun with her pains. Then everything had turned into a nightmare.

‘We’ve sparred enough today.’ Philip snatched a towel from the hook on the wall and scraped the coarse linen over his face. It wasn’t too late to end the venture. He could send Miss Townsend to the safety of Halcyon House or provide her with a few pounds to start another draper business.

He ran the towel over the back of his neck, studying the mix of footprints in the sand on the floor. He couldn’t send her away any more than he could leave Thomas to cry in his bed. He’d seen her lodgings, heard Mr Townsend’s nasty words. He knew what waited for her beyond the protection of his home and name. He’d made her an offer and she’d accepted the terms of the deal. This would not become the first time he reneged on a contract.

His determination failed to erase his unease. ‘What if I’m wrong about Miss Townsend, the way I was with the silversmith I loaned money to all those years ago?’

‘Oh, you’re wrong. But not in the way you think.’ Justin rocked back on his heels and Philip nearly struck him in the gut. ‘You think you can keep Miss Townsend in your house, share her bed and still remain the aloof man of business?’

A bachelor with a taste for numerous women wasn’t a man to look to for marital advice, no matter how deep their friendship. ‘She understands the terms of our arrangement.’

‘Perhaps, but you don’t.’ He smacked Philip on the arm. ‘Now come and get cleaned up. You have tomorrow to face. Tonight, I have a very pleasurable venture of my own to see to.’

Justin turned and made for the dressing rooms.

Philip wrapped the towel behind his neck and gripped both ends. Justin was mistaken if he thought there was more to this contract than convenience. Miss Townsend was as practical as Philip, if not a little rash. She understood their arrangement. Or did she?

The idea Justin might be right about Miss Townsend wanting more nagged. He wasn’t stone enough not to feel something for her. She was too determined and strong not to admire. In many ways she reminded him of himself, still struggling to find her feet after a reeling loss. As his wife, she deserved his respect and he would give it. He refused to surrender his heart. Doing so was not a part of their bargain.

He strode to the dressing room, flinging the damp towel at the boy attendant near the door.

He’d made the mistake of writing his emotions into a marriage contract once before and had been made to regret it. He wouldn’t do it again.

Chapter Four

The steady chirping of birds broke through the haze of Laura’s fading dream. First one warbled, then another, until a chorus seemed to sit outside her window. Over the sharp tweets, Laura strained to hear the bell and her father’s voice through the floorboards as he greeted customers in the shop below her room. The only thing she heard was the click of the bedroom-door handle and the soft swish of shoes over the carpet. Laura snuggled deeper into the thick pillow, knowing it was her mother coming to chide her for sleeping late. She clutched the clean sheet up around her chin, trying to snatch a few more precious seconds of rest.

‘Miss Townsend, are you awake?’ Mrs Palmer asked.

Laura sat up, sweet memories of her old room, of her father alive and her mother well vanishing along with the feeling of warmth and love. The loss burned a hole through her chest.

‘Yes, I am.’

A fire crackled in the grate. Laura wondered how she’d managed to sleep through the maid coming in to light it. Perhaps it was the fact she’d slept at all which had allowed her to remain so soundly in her dreams. In Seven Dials, with all the noise from the other tenants and Uncle Robert’s drunken mutterings, it’d always been so difficult to sleep. ‘I’m sorry I’m still in bed. I should be up.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’ Mrs Palmer laid a simple blue-cotton dress across the foot of the bed. ‘Mr Rathbone had Mrs Fairley, Miss Jane’s modiste, send this over. I’m to tell you, you have an appointment with Mrs Fairley at her shop this afternoon. She has a few other dresses from an unpaid order and will alter them to tide you over until a new wardrobe can be made.’

New dresses. Excitement crowded in beneath Laura’s lingering sense of loss. The idea of wearing a dress which wasn’t practically threadbare proved as irresistible as waking in a clean bed with no sign of rats having traipsed across the floor during the night. Laura picked up the sleeve of the dress and examined the fine stitching. ‘I’ve never had a modiste make my dresses. Mother always did it.’

‘You’ll like Mrs Fairley. She does good work and is quite nice, too. Came to Mr Rathbone about two years ago seeking a loan to improve her business and has done quite well for herself since. Mr Rathbone prides himself on patronising those he helps who make a go of things instead of wasting the money.’

Laura didn’t have to ask what happened to those who wasted Philip’s money. She already knew.

She laid the sleeve of the dress down, running her hand over the length of it to press it flat. The dress was sewn from a sturdy but soft cotton, Indian most likely, more utilitarian than silk, but with a few ribbons or the right bonnet it would suit as well for an afternoon at home as it would for attending a small tea. A fond smile tugged at her lips. She could practically hear her father’s words in her own thoughts, see the fabric from the bolt draped over his arm as he explained the weave and quality to a prospective lady buyer. Laura’s hands stilled and the smile faded. That was all gone now. A visit from the modiste would be the closest she’d ever come to experiencing it again.

‘Is something wrong, miss?’ Mrs Palmer pressed.

‘I’m all right, only a little overwhelmed.’ Truth be told, her head was still spinning from everything and it was all she could do to focus. How she would make it through the myriad other, sure to be surprising things which might happen this week, she didn’t know. However, if the most troubling thing facing her today was the shock of a new dress, then she really had no troubles at all. After all, she’d dealt with worse problems during the past year, much worse.

Mrs Palmer slid Laura’s old black dress from the top of the chair where Laura had draped it last night. If Mrs Palmer was concerned about the tatty dress staining the fine silk upholstery, she didn’t reveal it. Her face was all kindness and concern, reminding Laura of the baker’s wife who used to give her leftover biscuits from time to time until her husband had found out and put a stop to it.

‘I know it all must seem so strange, Mr Rathbone making up his mind so quick about you, but I assure you, Miss Townsend, you couldn’t have asked for a better man.’

It seemed Mrs Palmer was as enamoured of Mr Rathbone as Laura’s mother. If only she could be so certain about her decision. However, it was a comfort to see the older woman so eager for Laura to like Mr Rathbone as much as she obviously did. It was better than her trying to secretly warn her off him.

Mrs Palmer’s ruddy smile returned to her full cheeks. ‘Here’s me gabbing with the day getting away from us both. There’s breakfast waiting for you in the dining room when you’re ready. I’ll send Mary up to help you dress.’

‘I can manage.’

‘I don’t doubt you can, but Mr Rathbone wants her to assist you. If you need anything, you be sure to let me know.’

Mrs Palmer dipped a curtsy then left as quietly as she’d entered, the nearly frayed edge of Laura’s old dress fluttering behind her and almost catching in the closing door. The dress would probably be tossed in the kitchen fire the moment she reached it. Laura was glad to see it go. It was an ugly reminder of how much she and her mother had lost during the past year.

What would the next year bring? She still couldn’t say.

Laura flung back the covers and slipped out of bed, determined not to complain or worry, but to face whatever was coming with optimism. At least her uncle had fallen in debt to a young, handsome moneylender and not to one of the many crooked, gap-toothed men she’d seen haunting the rookery in search of payment. It was the only thing of value he’d ever done for her.

A soft knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young woman with a snub nose and brown hair peeking out from beneath a white cap. ‘I’m Mary. I’m here to dress you.’

The girl said little as she helped Laura dress, lacing Laura’s worn stays over the crisp white chemise. Holding still so the maid could work gave Laura the chance to take her first real look at the room. It was smaller than Mr Rathbone’s, but well appointed with solid, simple pieces of furniture. She wondered if they’d been made by one of the upholsterers who used to frequent the shop. She studied the faint white line running through the flowing silk of the bed curtains, thinking it a familiar pattern, when the image of another room suddenly came to mind.

She wondered how many more mornings she’d wake up here before she found herself in Mr Rathbone’s bed.

She breathed hard against the tightening stays, fear and anticipation pressing against her chest. She should have asked for the banns instead of insisting on the common licence. She wasn’t ready for such intimacy, not yet, not with everything, especially their future together, so unsure.

Mary tied off the stays then picked up the dress, opening it so Laura could slip inside. She held up her arms and let the blue cotton flow down over her shoulders and body. The soft material made her sigh with delight and eased some of her fears. A man who was so loving and tender with his son wouldn’t be cruel to her.

Mary did up the row of buttons at the back, but the dress was too large in the bust. Even Laura’s well-formed breasts weren’t ample enough to keep the front from billowing and gaping open. While Mary pinned the dress to make it fit better, Laura opened and closed her hand. The shock of Mr Rathbone’s touch had remained with her long after she’d blown out her candle and settled into the clean sheets last night. It wasn’t his hand in hers which had remained with her the longest, but the conflict she’d noticed coursing beneath his calm exterior. More than once he’d begun to withdraw from her before his palm had settled again, surrendering to her hold. It was as if he both wanted and didn’t want to draw close to her. It seemed strange for a man who seemed so determined about everything to be confused about something as simple as touching his intended. Although it wasn’t as simple as she wanted to believe.

At Mary’s urging, Laura seated herself in the chair before the dressing table and let the young maid arrange her hair. She barely noticed the tugging and combing as she remembered Mr Rathbone’s eyes upon hers. There’d been more in the joining of their hands than conveying her desire to wed quickly. There was something she hadn’t allowed herself to consider possible when she’d accepted his proposal yesterday—a deeper concern for her than business.

The faint hint of it made her eager to be done with the dressing table and be in front of him again.

With her hair arranged into a simple jumble of curls at the back of her head, Laura made her way downstairs. She felt guilty leaving Mary behind to see to the room. She’d tried to assist her, perfectly capable of making her own bed, but the maid had insisted it was her duty to straighten it and Laura had reluctantly left her to it.

Laura took in the house as she moved slowly down the hallway. Last night, with the myriad arrangements and settling in, there hadn’t been time to explore. Her first time here, she’d been too occupied trying not to be seen to admire anything more than the direct route from the back door, down the hall, to the stairs.

The upstairs hall was plain, the length of it punctuated by doors to the various bedrooms and landscapes in gilded frames. The staircase at the far end made one turn before opening into the entrance hall below. It wasn’t overly high, but wider than those she’d seen in the few merchants’ houses she’d visited with her father when she was a child. Stone covered the floor, leading to a solid door flanked by two glass windows. Through them she could see people passing by in a steady stream along the pavement lining Bride Lane. Some of them entered the churchyard of St Bride’s across the street, the rest hurried on to nearby Fleet Street.

Making for the dining room at the back of the house, Laura noted the rich panelling lining the downstairs hall seemed less dark and foreboding in the bright morning light, though it still made her a touch uneasy to be striding so boldly through the house. It was nearly incomprehensible to think she would soon be mistress of it.

She passed the study, the masculine mahogany desk, neatly ordered shelves and solid chairs inside indicating this must be where Mr Rathbone managed his affairs. He wasn’t there and she ventured inside. The neatness and fine taste of the appointments matched his attire. Where the back room behind the draper shop had always been cluttered with account books and fabrics, not a speck of dirt or an out-of-place ledger marred the clean lines of this room. Though Laura was by no means slovenly, she wondered how she would be able to keep pace with such a man.

The French doors on the far wall leading to the garden drew her to them. Outside, the sky was clear, with a few wispy clouds floating past the sun. They were only a mile or so from Seven Dials, but it might have been halfway around the world for how different everything appeared here. The air seemed cleaner, the buildings solid stone instead of sagging wood. The whole garden was green, punctuated by the white and red of blooming roses, their brightness a welcome sight after the grime and dirt of Laura’s former lodgings.

The moneylender’s fortune must be larger than she’d thought for him to possess the luxury of such a garden, one surrounded by a tall, fine wall. Just beyond it, through the iron gate, the one she’d crept through the other night, she noticed a horse staring out from the mews.

In the centre of the garden, Jane escorted Laura’s mother around a raised brick bed filled with rosebushes. Excitement lightened each muffled word as Jane pointed out flower after flower, motioning to them with the pride of a silversmith displaying her finest wares.

As they made a turn, her mother caught sight of Laura. She raised a hand in greeting, her simple gesture joined by Jane’s more eager wave. Jane’s enthusiasm eased the stiffness in her posture and made her look more like a young girl rather than a female copy of her brother.

Whatever changes Laura’s mother had wrought in Jane, the young lady’s effect on the older woman was tenfold. Laura’s mother wore a dress of dark-blue muslin. It needed to be altered to fit properly, but the clean lines and fine material lent her a measure of dignity which showed itself in the new straightness in her posture. She didn’t lean as heavily on her walking stick as before and for the first time in over a year, she appeared rested and happy. Whatever Laura’s concerns about herself, they were eased by the smile gracing her mother’s thin face.

Laura’s stomach growled and she left the window and the room to search out the food Mrs Palmer had promised. The dining room sat across the hall from the study, a shining table with ball-and-claw feet dominating the centre. The panelling didn’t extend in here, but gave way to a pale-blue paper on the walls overseen by the portrait of a matronly woman in the dress and cap of a few decades ago.

A footman stood beside a heavy sideboard laden with silver dishes full of eggs, ham and bread. Laura gasped at the plenty of it. During all the weak suppers in Seven Dials, she never thought she’d ever see or enjoy such abundance again.

Taking the plate offered by the footman, she selected a little food from each silver server, then sat down at the table. She savoured every bite, glad to be alone so she could relish the simple food without the humiliation of revealing the depths of her previous deprivation. After using her toast to wipe up the last bits of her second helping, she rose to get another serving when Chesterton, the butler, stepped into the room.

‘Miss Townsend.’ Her name sounded so imperious and important in his deep voice. ‘Mr Rathbone would like you to join him in the sitting room.’

‘Of course.’ Laura slid the plate down on to the buffet, suddenly feeling like a thief for indulging so much. The fork scraped and clanked across the porcelain and she winced, wondering when she’d become such a scared mouse. She straightened the knife and fork on the plate, then stood straight, clasping her hands in a businesslike manner in front of her. ‘Would you please show me the way?’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ He almost smiled and Laura caught something of Mrs Palmer’s tenderness around his eyes. With everyone silently encouraging her rather than sneering, laughing or pitying her behind her back, it made the idea of easing into her new place as their mistress a great deal easier.

As she followed Chesterton out of the dining room and across the hall, she thought it strange to have so many people thinking well of her presence here and her the only one in doubt.

Jane came bounding down the stairs, carrying a book and Laura’s mother’s dark shawl, looking more like a thirteen-year-old than she had last night. Spying Laura, she halted and took the last few stairs with the elegance of a woman far beyond her years. ‘Good morning, Miss Townsend.’

‘Please, call me Laura.’ She smiled warmly, trying to put the girl at ease, disliking such seriousness in one so young.

The stiff set of Jane’s body eased with Laura’s invitation. ‘And you may call me Jane.’

‘I see you and my mother are getting along well.’

‘Very well.’ A proud smile spread over her stern lips, bringing back the youthful light which had illuminated her face as she’d come down the stairs. ‘We are to visit Mrs Fairley together tomorrow. She was too tired to go today, but you mustn’t worry about her. I’ll see she gets enough rest.’

‘Thank you. It means a great deal to me to have someone keeping her company while I’m occupied.’

‘It’s my pleasure. I’m going to read to her now. Where are you going?’

‘The sitting room.’

‘Philip summoned you?’

Laura choked back a laugh. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

The girl moved closer as if she possessed something urgent to impart. ‘Touch his hand again like you did last night. Miss Lavinia does it in The Wanderer and it drives Mr Welton absolutely mad.’

Laura crossed her arms, mimicking the way her mother used to stare at her whenever she’d offered unasked-for advice or stuck her nose in where it was unwanted. ‘Jane, were you spying on us?’

‘No, not at all.’ Jane possessed too much of her brother’s confidence to be cowed by Laura’s stern look. ‘I peeked out my door and saw you. You two looked just how I imagined Viscount Rapine and Miss Anne must look in The Lothario.’

‘You’re reading The Lothario?’ Her brother couldn’t possibly approve of such a choice.

Apparently he didn’t, for Jane clapped her hand over her mouth as if she’d mistakenly revealed a great secret. Her eyes darted to the butler standing a polite distance away, then back to Laura. ‘You won’t tell Philip, will you? If he finds out I’m reading romantic novels, he might end my subscription to the lending library.’

Laura dropped her stern look and all pretence at reprimanding. ‘As long as you reserve your employment of their knowledge to dispensing advice and nothing else, I won’t tell your brother and I won’t object.’

Jane sighed with relief. ‘Good, because Mrs Townsend would be very disappointed. We’re going to start reading Glenarvon this afternoon and I can’t wait.’

‘You and my mother are going to read Glenarvon?’ She never would have been allowed to read such a salacious book. With the exception of the few novels Laura had managed to borrow from friends and sneak into her room, her reading had been comprised of business tracts and the stock pages. While she was grateful for the education, especially now, she wondered when her mother had grown so soft.

‘Yes.’ Jane moved a touch closer, whispering with Laura in collusion. ‘I hear it’s quite scandalous.’

‘I’ve heard so, too.’ Laura dropped her voice, encouraging the youthful confidence between them. It was a treat to see Jane acting more like a young lady than a stiff governess. ‘When you’re done with it, I’d like to read it. I might learn a trick or two.’

Jane gaped at Laura. Then a smile broke the line of her lips and she laughed, a good genuine girlish one which brightened the hall. ‘I shall be happy to pass it on to you. Now, I must return to Mrs Townsend. I’ve kept her waiting long enough and she needs her shawl.’

‘And I must answer your brother’s summons.’

Jane sobered, laying a hand on Laura’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, Philip isn’t as stern as he likes everyone to think.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ And she would, for if his sister believed it, it was most likely true.

With a squeeze of her hand, Jane let go and hurried off down the hall, allowing the door at the back of the house leading to the garden to bang shut behind her.

Laura wished she could follow. After a year of looking after her mother, it felt odd to relinquish her duties to someone else, but at least Jane’s attention meant her mother wasn’t left alone in a strange place while Laura attended to business.

‘Here you are, Miss Townsend.’ Chesterton stopped at the sitting-room door at the front of the house.

Laura gave him a smile of gratitude and stepped inside.

Mr Rathbone stood near the fireplace, reviewing papers. Through the sheer curtains behind him passed the shadows of people moving on the pavement outside. Laura barely noticed them. The only thing she could concentrate on was the soft light coming through the delicate fabric and spreading over Mr Rathbone’s profile. It lightened his dark hair and caressed the strong line of his nose. A fine, camel-coloured jacket draped his shoulders, emphasising the solidness of the long arms arched gracefully in front of him as he reviewed papers. He appeared to her like one of the Greek statues she’d seen in the British Museum. She’d gone there before she’d sold her last decent dress to view the Elgin Marbles and distract herself from her troubles. Like the statues, Mr Rathbone was elegant and refined, yet the memory of his sudden, lethal movements facing her uncle made her shiver. There was an edge of danger beneath his calm facade, one she hoped he reserved only for the worst clients.

‘Good morning, Mr Rathbone.’ She tugged down the overlarge bodice, which kept rising up as she moved deeper into the room. She wished she looked as fine and well put together as him, instead of unkempt and thin in her second-hand clothes. ‘You summoned me?’

He didn’t look up from his papers. ‘My sister’s choice of words, I assume.’

‘She has a very interesting sense of humour.’

‘She’s a hoyden.’ He reached up and removed the dagger mounted on two brass hooks to a wood plaque hanging over the mantel. Behind it lay a small safe set into the wall. ‘However, Jane is smart and minds herself well enough for someone her age. She shouldn’t give you trouble. If she does, speak to me about it at once.’

She wouldn’t speak to him. No, she would handle it in her own way and see to it there was more of the spirited young lady on the stairs and less of the dour miss. ‘Yes, Mr Rathbone.’

Resting the mounted dagger on the floor, he finally met her eyes. ‘Please, call me Philip.’

His gaze was intense, but not stern, inviting her to explore more deeply the slight bond weaving them together like embroidery over fine netting.

‘Yes, of course, Philip.’ The name was as awkward on her tongue as a button held with her teeth while she was sewing. It would take practice getting used to such intimacy with this stranger. Except he wasn’t a stranger, but her husband-to-be.

‘And you may call me Laura.’ She adjusted the dress again, then dropped her hands, determined to face him with dignity. Her attire was only temporary and, with the modiste’s help, she’d soon appear respectable again.

Her confidence wavered. Whatever respectability she regained today, it would be thanks to his coin and effort, not hers. Something in her rankled. She’d struggled so hard to save the business, herself and her mother and in the end she could only do it by falling under this man’s protection. She tried to recall her mother’s encouraging words, or even Mrs Palmer’s simple observation about Philip, but none of them came back to her with enough force to push away the strange regret of not having achieved her own salvation, or the nasty idea she was selling herself.

Philip broke from her gaze to open the safe and slide the papers inside.

‘Are you sure you can trust your sister’s behaviour to a woman who sneaks into men’s houses and threatens them in the night?’ It was a flippant question with an edge of seriousness. He was certainly trusting her now by revealing the safe and the key on the small ring in his pocket which opened it. There was nothing to stop her from stealing the key, emptying the safe and sneaking away with her mother while he slept. She would never do such a deceitful thing, but he couldn’t know this.

‘You aren’t a thief.’ He swung the safe door closed and locked it.

Apparently, he did know she wasn’t capable of robbing him.

She tugged at the dress, wishing she possessed the same unshakeable confidence in herself and her decision to marry as he did in her and his own decisions.

He returned the mounted dagger to the hooks. The silver cufflinks holding the crisp ends of his sleeves together over his strong wrists flashed with the morning sunlight. Only the yellowing bruises along his knuckles kept his appearance from being perfect.

He’d received those bruises for defending her. It was ungrateful of her to stand here lamenting his help because it hadn’t come from her own effort, yet she still hated the idea of needing his charity.

His papers secure, this pleasant morning repartee came to an end. ‘I asked you to join me because a gentleman is here in need of a loan. It’s the perfect opportunity to begin your training.’

‘So soon?’ The eggs threatened to revolt in her stomach. Perhaps she shouldn’t have enjoyed a second serving.

‘The prospective client is a cloth importer and your expertise might be beneficial to the transaction. Before I decide whether or not to invest in his business, I need to know if his proposal has merit.’

‘My uncle’s plan had merit,’ she challenged.

‘Because it was yours,’ he answered flatly.

‘But you didn’t know that then.’

‘I do now.’

‘Yet you still lent to my uncle. Why?’ she persisted, her unease making her quarrelsome.

‘As I said before, he possessed the collateral to secure the loan. If he’d rebuilt the business, he wouldn’t have been the first unlikely client to exceed my expectations.’

She had the distinct impression the remark was directed at her, but it didn’t ease the way his past dealing with her uncle Robert continued to chafe. ‘Did you know about me and my mother?’

‘He failed to reveal your presence when he initially approached me, but in my research—’

‘Your research?’ Curse it, he was so methodical.

‘I research all my clients before extending a loan. I discovered your and Mrs Townsend’s presence.’

‘And you were still willing to let him ruin us?’

‘No.’ His expression remained impassive, but the force and sincerity behind the single word was strong enough to wilt her anger.

It didn’t stop her from gaping at him in disbelief, not knowing what to think. ‘But—’

‘I’ll explain all to you in good time. Now, we must see to Mr Williams.’ He motioned to the door instead of offering her his arm. ‘Shall we?’

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