Emily shook her head. “I am a fool, Annie. Worse, a fool in love.”
“It’s only been two days. Mr. Samson will be back.”
“He won’t. I need to accept my fate.” Emily pulled back her shoulders as Annie set another pin into the hem of her dress. “He was the first man to turn my head but now I must grow up and understand love affairs for what they really are.”
“Miss?”
“A means to an end, Annie. A step along the path of future assurance for the next generation. I should never have thought my marriage to Nicholas could be delayed, altered, or cancelled. Love does not exist.”
“You do not mean that.” Annie shook her head. “You love Mr. Samson and you should be with him. Even Mr. Darson thinks so.”
Emily looked at the crown of her maid’s head and pursed her lips. “Father thinks a lot of things but his hands are as equally tied as mine. He’s dying. He is weakened by his illness and deep down knows Nicholas is in far too good a position for us to fight him and not lose every penny.” She looked to the open window. “I know Mr. Samson promised Papa he’d be back with a plan to make everything right, but I can’t afford to believe a word of it.”
“Why? I think Mr. Samson is capable of anything.”
Emily met her gaze. The girl’s eyes were dreamy as she stared ahead at absolutely nothing. Emily frowned. “He might have told me the truth about his history with Nicholas in the end but still . . .”
“You cannot blame him for keeping something like that to himself.” Annie stared, her eyes wide. “How was he supposed to tell you his mother was a prostitute? Or that he intended to bash Mr. Milne into next week? Which I think he fully deserves, by the way.”
Emily smiled. “Oh, I am not berating him for it. Nicholas deserves it. All of it. I am merely facing the reality that Will can look anyone in the face and convince them white is black.” She sighed. “Even though I have feelings for him, it would be stupid of me to act like a blind woman. If I fail to carry out my promise to marry Nicholas, not only will I lose all Papa’s money, I will have nothing of my own.”
Annie sat back on her haunches. “It’s not fair. None of it.” “We’re not alone.” Emily’s mind wandered to each of her female friends who were tied in a loveless marriage. “I do not know how I’d survive or where I’d go without a penny to my name. Father’s illness has used all we had. I allowed myself to relish in the fantasy of true love. That was foolish.” She laughed, the sound sharp and devoid of emotion. “What a dimwitted little girl I am.”
“Dimwitted is the last thing you are.” Annie frowned. “What else has happened to make you doubt Mr. Samson’s return so fervently? He is a good man, a handsome man . . . a man most women would give their eyeteeth to see swim naked in the river.”
She gave a saucy wink and Emily’s cheeks heated with knowing and a little longing, but she kept her face somber. “I have no idea why you find any of this amusing. If I lose father’s legacy to Nicholas, what do you imagine will happen to you? I will never be able to afford to keep a maid in employment.”
Annie shrugged. “What of it? I will find work elsewhere. It’s your happiness that matters right now. I wish you wouldn’t doubt him so.”
“Nicholas will see this marriage through to the end.”
“Mr. Milne is a thug and a bully. He raised his hand to you. You cannot marry him. What about everything you stand for? You will find a way to get your money and your man, just you wait.”
When tears threatened, Emily lifted her skirts and stepped down from the overturned box, annoyance prickling her agitated nerves. “There is no release. Will used me to get to Nicholas. Men are a race unto themselves.” Her emotions lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her. “A race that, for now, we are bound to rely on. Our job is to ensure that is not true for our daughters too.”
Annie pushed to her feet and planted her fisted hands on her hips. “Mr. Samson will be back. I know it and so do you. You’re afraid, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with fear if you channel it to make you stronger. Mr. Samson loves you.”
Heat burned at Emily’s cheeks and in her heart. She couldn’t bear travelling the same path for yet another day. Her bones were tired and her belief weak. Will left and his absence rocked her to her very core. She needed him. She thought they were destined to be together. Separated they were strong, but together they were invincible. She swallowed as tears burned her eyes, blurring Annie’s face. With Will gone, there was no use in contemplating the dreams they could’ve achieved.
“Oh, Annie.” Emily thrust her hands to her face as the tears she fought so hard to contain burst forth. “If he doesn’t return, my heart will be broken forever.”
“Oh, Miss. Don’t cry.”
Emily let Annie take her in the soft circle of her embrace. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against Annie’s shoulder and tears slid warm and soft over her cheeks. “I love him and my need for him is hardly his fault. A sad and desperate fact that’s breaking my spirit and my optimism for something good to come of my life.”
“You and Mr. Samson are meant to be together and you will be.” Annie’s fingers were comforting over the surface of her hair. “He’s more of a man than any I’ve ever met. He loves you. Whatever comes after that, the two of you will face united.”
Emily shook her head and eased back from her arms. “He told me he needed to go back to Bristol to collect some more money and then return to find a solicitor willing to help his quest for Nicholas’s incarceration.”
Annie grinned. “He has money? Well, that’s even better.”
“He is comfortable, but you are missing the point. He came to Bath looking for revenge, nothing less, nothing more. He lied to us all and I fear my feelings for him have blurred the truth.”
Annie’s smile dissolved. “What truth?”
“He has no missing nephew and managed to infiltrate his way into our home to get closer to Nicholas. Why would I think just because I gave myself to him—”
“You laid with him?” Annie’s eyes protruded from their sockets like two eggs from a hen’s behind.
Heat seared Emily’s cheeks even as undeniable excitement pulsed at her most illicit place. Memories of their night together flooded her senses and warmed her heart. She tried and failed to stem her lips curving into a smile. “Yes.”
Annie squealed and gripped her hand like the friend she really was, pulling Emily to the bed. They sat side by side, their hands joined. “I don’t believe it. That is . . . astounding.”
Emily laughed. “Despite the ache in my heart, I’ll never regret what I’ve done. Ever.”
Annie grinned. “Mr. Samson will be back to claim you as his own. Mark my words.”
Hopelessness twisted at Emily’s heart. “Real life rarely turns out the way we wish it.”
A sharp rap at the bedroom door had Annie leaping to her feet.
With a quick nod to each other, Emily cleared her throat. “Come in.”
Malcolm walked in carrying a letter. With a curt bow, he held it out to her. “This arrived with the afternoon post, Miss Darson. Your father told me to bring it straight to you.” He grimaced. “It appears to be from Mr. Milne.”
Dread turned Emily’s blood cold. “How is father?” She rose from the bed and took the envelope. “Has his fever reduced since Doctor Morgan left?”
Malcolm shook his head, his forehead creasing. “No, Miss. The badness inside him has strengthened its grip. I really don’t know what else I can do. I try to think of new ways to help him but . . .”
Emily patted his arm. Malcolm had worked for her father for close on twenty years. “I know. More importantly, he knows. My father is strong. He wants to see me married. He won’t be going anywhere soon.” She smiled, forcing optimism into her voice.
The weight of losing Will bore down on Emily’s chest. She cupped Malcolm’s elbow and turned him toward the door, lest he see her distress. “Now off you go and try not to worry. All will be well.”
The moment the door closed behind him, Emily hurried to her bureau and took out her letter opener. She sliced the seal and extracted the letter, hating that her hands shook so vigorously. Her gaze quickly scanned the words until sickness settled like a hardened lump of gruel in her stomach. “Nicholas wishes to take me out driving at eleven tomorrow morning.”
Annie stood beside her and touched her hand to Emily’s shoulder. “Does he say where he is taking you?”
“It’s not that which concerns me.” She looked into Annie’s eyes.
“His presence will upset Papa immeasurably. It is too soon after Will’s revelations about Nicholas’s past . . . and present. He can’t come to the house. I must prevent Nicholas from coming here until I’m sure Father won’t risk a heart attack by launching at Nicholas upon sight.”
“How will you get a message to Mr. Milne before tomorrow morning?”
Emily snatched her writing box from a drawer in the bureau. “I will send Malcolm right away. He can deliver a note asking Nicholas to meet me at the Pump Rooms for tea instead.” She met Annie’s eyes. “That way I am in the safety of public company, if nothing else.”
Annie pulled back her shoulders. “I’ll come with you.”
Emily smiled and touched her palm to her cheek. “There’s no need. I will be quite safe.”
“Please, Miss. Let me. Mr. Darson does not wish you to go out alone so there is no use in trying to dissuade me. Mr. Milne would not dare attempt to strike you again if I am there. A coward like him would never risk your father’s or Mr. Samson’s wrath.”
Emily frowned and slipped her hand from her maid’s cheek. “Mr. Samson is not coming back. We must move on.”
Annie’s expression broached no debate.
Emily rolled her eyes. “Fine. You can come but please, no more talk about Mr. Samson’s return. My heart cannot take it.” Taking out a sheet of writing parchment, Emily turned from Annie’s unwavering gaze.
Hope for Will’s return threatened to bloom inside her. She could not let Annie sway her acceptance of his rebuff. Emily considered herself a woman of fortitude and she would take whatever Nicholas threw at her alone and without Will. Nicholas did not scare her. His attack in the carriage had shocked and frightened her, but he would never get close enough to her to be able to do something like that again.
Even if they married. Nicholas would never sleep with her or even eat with her. They would tell the world she was barren. Emily’s eyes smarted with tears. Did that mean without a child her fight for her father’s legacy was wasted? She shook her head. She would find a way then as she would now.
While Annie busied herself with other duties, Emily wrote a clear and decisive letter to her fiancé. The last time she’d seen Nicholas, he’d been enveloped in a cloud of dust. The next time she saw him, he would be cleaned up and undoubtedly angry enough to beat her as he had Will’s mother. The only difference was, Emily was forewarned and if he so much as laid a finger on her, she would give him as good a fight as any man.
Chapter Eighteen
Will wished Emily were with him. The choice to leave her for a few days had been as necessary as it was difficult. She needed to be home with her father, not dealing with the likes of police, prostitutes, and the horror stories of what Milne had done throughout the years she’d been tied to him. He’d taken a couple of nights in a rented room in the heart of Bath and prayed to God she didn’t come across him.
In case anything happened to him during his investigation—God only knew whom Milne would pay to have Will’s head in a box—he preferred she thought him a cad than dead.
The lie he was returning home for money stuck like a jagged rock in his throat. When he told her the truth about Milne, he hoped the end of the lies came with it. It just hurt too much to see the hope in her eyes. The hope they would one day be together, come what may. He prayed it would happen but until he was certain . . .
With each hour that passed, Will’s need to return to her grew. Today he would.
Pride swelled behind his ribcage as Laura and the other ladies spoke to Sergeant Middleton in front of him. One by one they told him their truth and he wrote it all down on his notepad. Will’s heart beat like a drum. Admiration and respect for each of the prostitutes ran through his blood, filling him with the promise of vengeance for his mother.
The world was in for a change bigger than Will ever imagined. Women were shining supreme. He was honored to be in the presence of such courage. Despite Emily’s confidence that things would be different for the next generation, his belief in that wavered. How could the dreams of the women surviving in poverty come to fruition, when he saw time and again how they struggled with daily abuse? Their confidence was shaken, their optimism crushed with each blow of their lovers’ fists.
Yet here. Now. This was how things changed. He smiled. Fire pulsed in his belly to see how stupid he was to doubt the combined power of a group of women on a mission. Something bigger than he could have ever hoped for when he arrived in Bath was unfolding right in front of his eyes. All he’d wanted was Milne dead or begging for mercy at his feet. What happened now was a million times better.
Katherine Carter stood shoulder to shoulder with Laura and two other women Milne had paid money to in exchange for sex. Katherine, in her tailored clothes and beribboned hat, wore the same expression as Laura and the poorer, if not more elaborately dressed, women of the street. Disgust twisted their lips, anger flashed in their eyes, and determination turned their cheeks rosy. Nothing separated them. Wealth, class, and creed vanished when you suffered a man’s fist at your temple.
Having found a man of the law willing to listen, the rest was up to them. Middleton was a respected and upstanding copper who believed in a woman’s voice being heard as much as Will and Emily did. This was all the vengeance Will needed. The very women Milne used would be the ones to slam the bolt on his prison door. A perfect circle ending.
“Each of you is willing to testify against Mr. Milne in court?” Sergeant Middleton looked at each woman in turn. His steel-gray eyes invited no leeway or doubt. “If I am going after a man of Milne’s stature for physical assault, rape, and attempted murder, I need to be sure I have your backing. Anything less and I risk my professional position . . . and pride.”
“I want him dead but if this is the only way . . .” One of the prostitutes shrugged. “He tried to strangle me, sir. If my son hadn’t been in the other room—”
“He stamped on my hand and broke four fingers.” Another woman raised her hand. The bones were healed but horribly misshapen.
Will’s gut twisted with anger. They could not fail.
“He deserves everything coming to him.” Laura fisted her hands on slender hips. “This has gone on for too long. I don’t want to hear about a girl being killed by him when I could have done something to prevent it.”
“And you?” The sergeant looked at Katherine. “You don’t seem as vocal about this as the rest of these ladies.”
Putting his hands behind his back, Will clenched them together. As unjust as it was, he needed Katherine more than the others. She was the golden ticket to sealing Milne’s future in prison. A lady who owned a business, kept herself and her child well-dressed and respectable was their only real chance of a judge making the decision to retain Milne indefinitely. If she balked, Will doubted Laura’s and the others’ testimony would be enough to ensure Milne served time behind bars.
Katherine’s gaze darted from each woman to Will and back to the sergeant.
Will’s stretched nerves got the better of him and he stepped forward. “Katherine?” He gently touched her arm.
She started. “Yes?”
“The sergeant asked if you are willing to testify in court against Nicholas. Are you?”
She stared at him, her eyes as sad as any he’d ever seen. “Does Emily know?”
“About you and him?”
She nodded.
Will swall
owed. “Yes. And that he is little Aimee’s father.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “God, how I wish that wasn’t true.”
“Emily doesn’t blame you. She knows what Nicholas is capable of now. She knows poison runs through the very marrow of his bones.”
“And yet she has to marry him.”
“If you don’t testify, yes.” It was a low shot. Even without her testimony he would find another way. There wasn’t a hell’s chance of Emily marrying Milne. This might be the only way to harness Katherine’s strength.
Tilting her chin, she faced the sergeant. “Yes, sir. I am willing to testify and tell the world everything he made me do, say, and put up with over the last ten years. Nicholas Milne may be the father of my child, but he is also the reason I’ve little of my own and the reason my best friend risks spending the rest of her life in misery.”
The sergeant’s lips tilted upward in a near smile. “Then, in that case, I will take this to my superior and unless I am completely inept at my job, we have reason enough to get this piece of. . . this man put under arrest.”
All four women turned to Will, their faces and eyes alight with triumph.
Will grinned. “Well, thank you, Sergeant. We look forward to hearing news of that over the next few days.”
“Indeed, Mr. Samson. Indeed.” With a click of his heels, the sergeant walked away.
Will faced his new best friends. “Right then, ladies. Who is coming with me to tell our good news to Miss Darson before she goes ahead with the stupidity of marrying a man not fit to clean her shoes?”
The women laughed and linked arms. Laura pulled Will onto the end of the chain. Together, they walked toward Royal Crescent looking like the strangest group of justice victors ever to grace the cobblestones of Bath.
Emily glanced at Nicholas from beneath lowered lashes. A business associate intercepted their departure from the Pump Rooms and now they spoke in earnest. The late afternoon sun was still high in the sky and the Abbey cast its shadow across the flagstones at their feet. Enduring tea with Nicholas had been arduous. The increasingly fraught atmosphere bore down on Emily’s chest, making it hard for her to breathe. The conversation was forced at best, veiled in accusation at worst. Annie sat beside her, silent and straight-backed, her face drawn into a permanent scowl.
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