by Rebecca King
‘We would behave cordially to guests who treat us with a modicum of respect and at least give us the courtesy of forewarning us before they call upon us,’ Tabitha murmured politely. ‘You, however, didn’t seem able to.’
Lynchgate’s eyes narrowed even more until they were nothing more than evil slits. ‘I didn’t realise I needed permission to see my own daughter.’
‘Oh, come now, it is a little late for you to claim to be my sire, isn’t it?’ Tabitha cried. ‘It has been what, thirteen years now? Besides, I am a woman in my own right now, Lynchgate, you should know that about me at least.’
‘Yes, I can see that you are no longer sixteen again,’ Lynchgate sneered, raking her with a spiteful look. He then turned somewhat accusing eyes on Daniel. ‘What of you? What am I to make of your presence in this house? Have you been shacking up with her?’
Mildred opened her mouth to object to his insult, but Tabitha merely lifted a hand and smiled at her father, outwardly at least completely unruffled by her father’s spite.
‘Daniel is my fiancé,’ she announced with a smile. ‘We have been engaged for this past month, if you must know. He has called upon me as any future husband has a right to call upon his future bride. We have wedding arrangements to discuss.’
‘Married?’ Lynchgate’s narrow eyes bulged. He sat up straighter and leaned forward in his seat. He pointed one short, pudgy finger at Daniel. ‘To him.’
Tabitha lifted a hand out to Daniel, who stepped forward and took it but only so he could press a kiss onto the back of it.
‘Yes, Daniel and I are to be married,’ Tabitha announced smoothly.
‘Over my dead body,’ Lynchgate blustered in outrage, heaving his ample girth out of the chair he was in. ‘I am not having that bastard in my family. Why, what about the shame of it?’
‘The shame? You have the gall to talk to me about shame? Why should we be ashamed of anything?’ Tabitha reasoned.
Now that she had found her composure, she used it as a shield; a wall which kept her emotions at bay and gave her the strength to keep control of the conversation. By doing that, and using Daniel’s presence beside her for added strength, Tabitha was able to look at her father as an adult. Just hearing his name no longer had the ability to catapult her back to the time when he controlled her life, her choices, everything about her day. The passing of the years, and the memories of what he had done to her life, stopped her from ever giving him the chance to have that much power or control over her.
‘He is a scoundrel,’ Lynchgate shouted.
‘Oh? I know Daniel to be gentle, caring, and a gentleman,’ Tabitha argued.
It was easy to rise to Daniel’s defence, even though she knew that Daniel was the very last man who needed it. What she had said about him was the truth. In a few short hours Daniel had displayed better manners, more compassion, and affection than Lynchgate ever had in all the years she had known him.
Lynchgate snorted contemptuously. ‘He is a pauper. I don’t know whose clothes he is wearing but they are not his. They are probably stolen. Do I have to remind you that he is poor? Dirt poor? People don’t live in the workhouse because they need a change of life, you know. They live there purely because they have made a mess of their own lives and expect others to look after them.’
‘Rubbish. How dare you condemn everybody like that,’ Tabitha snapped. ‘What would you know? What do you know of everybody’s circumstance in that workhouse? Do you ever stop to talk to any of them, and find out why they ended up there?’
‘Why in the Devil’s name would I want to talk to them?’ Lynchgate growled. ‘They aren’t there for the bloody social circuit.’
‘I should ask you to curb your language in this house,’ Tabitha snapped. ‘Your rudeness is inexcusable.’
Lynchgate opened his mouth as if to lambast his daughter for daring to question his conduct. At the last moment, he hesitated and slid a look at Mildred before briskly nodding his head. ‘Apologies for my forthright manner. However, I know far more than you about the people who occupy the workhouse seeing as I am on the Board of Governors and have been for several years now. You know nothing about the place, my dear.’
Daniel tightened his hold on Tabitha’s hand when she opened her mouth to speak to him about that. He wanted her to be careful what she told her father, not least because he didn’t want Lynchgate having any hint that Tabitha or Daniel was aware of what he was up to.
‘What do you do now then? How have you managed to dress in that finery?’ Lynchgate suddenly demanded of him.
‘I work for the War Office,’ Daniel replied smoothly.
‘The War Office, eh? Well, I suppose even they want messengers and can’t have them running around looking like paupers,’ Lynchgate snorted.
Tabitha gasped at the insult. ‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘How dare you? You mean, spiteful little man.’
‘It’s all right, Tabitha,’ Daniel murmured soothingly. ‘I am sure we can forgive Lynchgate his quick judgement seeing as he has little in the way of facts. He is, I am afraid, stuck in the past and has forgotten that we are no longer children.’
That was enough to make Lynchgate hesitate and turn his mean gaze on him. Daniel lifted his brows and stared coldly at the man before drawing himself up to his full six feet three inches in height. It was enough to make Lynchgate tip his head back and peer up at him before taking a wary step backward.
‘What do you do at the War Office?’ Lynchgate demanded crisply.
Daniel knew that Lynchgate was going to ask Sminter to do whatever he could to get him removed from his position. Stepping forward, he smirked and issued the man with a challenging glare as he said: ‘I work for the Lord Chief Justice now, Lynchgate. What of it?’
Lynchgate snorted before he began to chuckle. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that? And that is what you have told her, is it? And she believed you?’ His mirth increased and boomed around the room.
When Tabitha moved to step toward him, Daniel gently tugged her back. The infinitesimal shaking of his head went unnoticed by Lynchgate who was indulging in his mirth, but Tabitha saw it. She was immediately distracted by the second kiss Daniel pressed to the back of her hand and sighed gently without even realising she was doing it.
‘Well, boy, we have business to discuss so you had better go and find yourself something to do for a while,’ Lynchgate growled suddenly, his eyes hardening again.
‘Seeing as Daniel is to be my future husband, and therefore will own everything I have, he is to stay,’ Tabitha replied smoothly leaving Lynchgate to absorb that for a moment.
Lynchgate stared hard at Daniel. ‘If you think for one moment that I am going to sit back and allow you to romance my daughter’s fortune away from her you can think again.’
‘I neither want nor need your involvement in my life or my romance as you call it,’ Tabitha snapped. ‘You have no authority over me whatsoever and should not consider yourself to have any. Should you try to force authority over me I shall have no compunction against notifying my solicitor about your gross infringement of my privacy. I am an adult now, Lynchgate, not a child. Moreover, I am a self-sufficient adult, with a fortune and a home of my own. I need no approval from you, and as such need no authorisation from you to do anything with my life, including marrying Daniel.’
‘You do if you besmirch the family name,’ Lynchgate snapped. ‘I am not going to allow you to ruin everything I have worked for by associating with the likes of him.’
‘I would have thought it would serve to help you improve your social standing. I mean, the daughter of one of the workhouse governors marrying a former occupant of the workhouse who now works for one of the most powerful men in the land is something people will talk about.’ Tabitha sat back in her chair and watched Lynchgate pale before his face turned puce and then paled again as he warred with his emotions. She wondered which would win. They all waited for him to reply. It didn’t take long.
‘I am not going to be assoc
iated with a poor boy from the workhouse. I should have known that he wouldn’t leave you alone. I should have known that he would come sniffing after you the first chance he got. No wonder you didn’t want to return to me. No wonder you preferred to stay here.’ Lynchgate rounded on Mildred. ‘You supported this. You allowed him near her. You no doubt let that bastard through the front door and gave him the ability to romance her. Did you also allow her to whore herself to him? Is that why they are marrying?’
‘You can stand here and cast as many spiteful aspersions on everyone as you wish but you are the only one who is an embarrassment, Lynchgate. You are the one who is behaving worse than the people in the workhouse and they are supposed to be the lower classes according to you. You are the one who is behaving like an arrogant bore, and an ill bred one at that. How dare you come in here and start to insult people like an uncouth arrogant oaf? How dare you sneer at others without even bothering to get your facts together first? Well, I think that has concluded our meeting today. If you wish to say anything else to me, I suggest you do it through my solicitor. I have heard enough from you. Now get out and don’t come back.’ Tabitha stood up, straightened her spine and squared her shoulders before turning to glare at her sire.
Lynchgate didn’t rise. Instead, he raked her with a look that was thoughtful. ‘I take it you have been told about the factory that damned fool Muldoon left you then?’
‘What business is it of yours? I warn you now, Lynchgate, that I am not going to sell anything to you. Nor are you going to help yourself to what I own. You will be contacted by my solicitor who will make an offer for the shares you have. Ten, isn’t it?’ Tabitha raked him with an insulting look. ‘Never mind. Maybe the next time you decide to purchase shares in a business, you should look at cutting back on some of the luxuries you quite clearly like to over-indulge in, then you will probably be able to afford more shares, eh?’
Daniel’s lips twitched. He coughed to hide his laugh. He watched Lynchgate blink as the insult struck home. Lynchgate’s mouth fell open. Daniel waited for Lynchgate to issue an insult in retaliation or chastise her. When he didn’t, Daniel suspected it was because the man wanted something from Tabitha and couldn’t risk offending her too much until he got it.
Lynchgate glared at him. ‘I am not going to ever do business with the likes of you, so I want this matter concluded before you wed her. Then as far as I am concerned you can both do what you damned well like.’ He then turned his spite on Tabitha. ‘You were always like your mother. Always so bloody wayward you never used to do what you were told. Always thought you knew best and now look at you, shacked up with a pauper from a workhouse. God, let’s hope that nobody I know finds out about this. At least you are living out in the sticks here. I shall just have to tell everyone that you died or something I suppose.’
‘You always were a mean bastard,’ Mildred spat from her position beside the doorway. ‘You never could stand someone else stealing your thunder, could you? Always the controller, always must be the one to be better than everyone else when in fact you are far worse on every level. Why are you here? I doubt you have come all this way to try to make yourself feel cleverer than us, or wealthier?’
‘Which you are not by the way,’ Tabitha interrupted.
‘Not since Muldoon left you his entire fortune in any case, Tabitha,’ Daniel corrected.
‘Muldoon was in financial difficulty. He hadn’t got a penny in his pot. Why do you think he blew his brains out?’ Lynchgate snorted.
Daniel sighed. ‘You are wrong there, Lynchgate. Muldoon’s business wasn’t financially viable, not since he was foolish enough to sell his shares to you in any case. However, Muldoon’s personal fortune is an entirely different matter, not that he would discuss that with you seeing as he didn’t like you either.’
‘And I suppose Muldoon told you that, did he?’ Lynchgate sneered.
‘No, Muldoon’s solicitor did as a matter of fact, when he read the will last week. I think you will find that Tabitha is now a very wealthy woman in her own right, and it is all because of Reynold Muldoon. So, as her future husband, I demand that any discussions you may wish to have with her about her fortune are done so in my presence. You are not to consider your ten shares in that business of any value seeing as the business is no longer operational and requires a great amount of money to be invested in it before it is up and running again. Unless, of course, you are here to purchase Tabitha’s ninety shares or outline how much you are prepared to invest to get the business back open?’
Daniel knew that Lynchgate didn’t have a coin in his pot either and that was the only reason he had decided to call upon his daughter today. He was after her fortune.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Am I to take it that you have received the keys and ownership papers for the factory?’ Lynchgate asked his daughter without answering him.
‘You can ask what you like. I am not legally required to tell you anything,’ Tabitha replied pertly.
Lynchgate jerked forward in his seat, his fist clenching on the arm of the chair. Daniel had no doubt the man wouldn’t have hesitated to lunge for her had they been alone. Tabitha knew it too. It was there, in the look in her eyes as she stared coldly at her father. Rather than be cowed by him, Tabitha also raised herself to her full height and glared at the man she openly disliked.
‘If you wish to know any details about my personal affairs, I suggest you write to my solicitor expressing your reasons for wanting such personal information,’ Tabitha informed him.
‘I should expect you to at least be a little more grown up seeing as we need to conduct business, until you can find a suitable owner for your shares of course,’ Lynchgate drawled. ‘I am sure that I have someone in my contacts who might be prepared to buy them.’
‘No, thank you. My shares are not for sale right now,’ Tabitha replied firmly. ‘And if I do decide to sell them, I shall find my own buyer.’
Personally, she didn’t care who bought them if it allowed her to sever all ties with the odious man before her. She didn’t want anything to do with Lynchgate and wouldn’t have hesitated to sell the shares to him had he visited her before Daniel arrived. Now, she wanted to see what he would do when he found himself challenged by Daniel. The young boy she knew and had adored had gone, vanished completely. While little hints of him were still evident in the way Daniel tipped his head, or in the way his mouth curved when he almost smiled, the rest of the young man he had been was gone. It wasn’t to be unexpected, of course. It just saddened Tabitha to realise it.
‘We need to go into the factory to see what state Muldoon left it in,’ Lynchgate announced. ‘You had better come with me. I shall call by and fetch you in the morning. We can go and tour it and then see the solicitor in the afternoon. By then I should have found someone to buy your shares off you.’
‘No, thank you,’ Tabitha replied firmly. ‘I am busy tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.’
Lynchgate scowled at her. His gaze slid to Daniel. Again, he raked him with a condescending look. ‘Maybe you can talk some sense into the damned fool. She cannot just leave it standing idle. People’s livelihoods are suffering.’
‘People who are impoverished because they cannot work,’ Tabitha drawled.
‘Well, who else am I supposed to bloody mean, girl?’ Lynchgate snapped.
‘This, from the man who clearly doesn’t give a damn about the impoverished workers who are unable to work and have to reside in the workhouse he is a governor of,’ Tabitha sneered. ‘Do I detect a whiff of hypocrisy here? I mean, I know the workers in the workhouse don’t earn you a fortune, but their circumstances are no different, are they?’
Lynchgate quite clearly didn’t like being outsmarted by his own daughter and glared malevolently at her. ‘The workers in the factory are impoverished because you sit here beside your nice warm fire and refuse to get the factory up and running again.’
Daniel mentally winced because he knew that was indeed the case
. Tabitha did too. Although she paled, she didn’t outwardly respond other than lift a condescending brow.
‘And how do you know that I haven’t done anything about getting the factory up and running? Might I remind you that you own ten shares and only ten shares. I own most of the factory and, as such, don’t need to refer to you in anything I do. If I do need your help, however, you shall be hearing from my solicitor and shall be expected to reply via yours. Meantime, I don’t believe that we have any need to tour the factory you neither control nor own outright. Now if you don’t mind, I have other matters to attend to. Might I suggest that the next time you decide to inveigle upon anybody you have the good grace to notify them first? Manners are, after all, required from anybody of good breeding.’
With that, Tabitha raked Lynchgate with one last dark look before she turned her back and marched out of the room. Daniel looked at her straight back with loving delight and was already making his way across the room after her when Mildred coughed discretely.
‘I will show him out then, shall I?’ she asked with wry amusement.
‘Yes please, Mildred. If you wouldn’t mind,’ Daniel replied.
‘What happened to you? After I tossed you out into the gutter where you belonged,’ Lynchgate interrupted.
Daniel had no qualms about telling him. ‘I went to live with a very nice, kind lady who helped me until I could join the army.’
Lynchgate’s brows shot up. ‘The army, eh?’
‘Oh yes. The army. I fought for King and country,’ Daniel replied. ‘I proved to be such an excellent marksman that I was conscripted to work for the Lord Chief Justice and have remained with him ever since. So, I would strongly advise you to make sure that all your business dealings with Tabitha are legitimate, Lynchgate. Moreover, if you have any business to conduct with her you do it through the proper legal channels. You will receive an offer for the shares you own at their current market value. That is what most people get for shares they own, and you will be no different, but I warn you now that because the business no longer operates your shares are practically worthless.’