by Julia Kelly
“She doesn’t like him,” he ground out.
“Then why did she agree to dine at his house last night?” Caleb asked.
Because she’s working for me and scaring me witless while doing it. Except he couldn’t say that, so instead he kept his mouth shut.
“I won’t pretend to like the way Wark looks at my sister. What man would? But sometimes there are other powers at play,” said Caleb.
“Like what?” asked Andrew.
“Money.”
Money. It was what had motivated Andrew for years, taking him away from Eyemouth and Lavinia in the quest to build a life for her that he thought she deserved. It had been in the pursuit of money that he’d sailed out on the voyage that had nearly killed him. And when he saw who she’d married and convinced himself as to why, it had all come back to money. He’d spent the past twelve years of his life wrapped up in the hard pursuit of it, yet he hadn’t become him any happier for it, only a more comfortable version of himself.
“Your sister is a successful dressmaker. Surely the shop is pulling in a tidy profit,” he said.
Caleb’s eyes darted down to the left, and Andrew knew the next words out of his old friend’s mouth would be a lie. “It’s a more expensive enterprise than you’d think. She’s barely keeping her head above water.”
Andrew frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen the number of orders she’s working on.”
This time it was Caleb to raise his brows. “You have?”
Andrew’s cock thickened as he thought of her spread out on the workshop floor, hair spilling down over her shoulders and cheeks flush from her climax. A vision. A delight. A danger.
“Actually,” Caleb said, “I suspect I’d rather not know. Just remember that she’s had a life these last twelve years without you, and she doesn’t need you now.”
Her brother might as well have growled, Stay away. She’s not for you. But what Caleb didn’t know was that it wasn’t that easy for Andrew when it came to Lavinia.
Andrew grunted rather than giving his consent, but that seemed enough for Caleb, who rapped his knuckles on the counter. “I’m off. They expect me to show up at my place of employment from time to time. It’s rather a bore, if you ask me.”
Andrew watched Lavinia’s younger brother saunter out of his shop and down the street and shook his head. A crumpled piece of paper on the ground caught his eye, and he rounded the corner to pick it up. He smoothed it out on the counter, his lips thinning into a hard line when he realized what it was.
Although I received your banknote of £20, you will find that you still have an outstanding debt of £130. I took you to be a man of your word, Malcolm. I expect the debt to be settled by the end of the month.
Caleb always had been enchanted by games of chance, even when they were small children. Now, Andrew hated to think how many hounding notes from his creditors Caleb had for him to be so casual with the ones he carried.
He folded the note carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. If Lavinia’s brother was ensnared by debt, she should know. He’d go that night, tell her, and leave. It would be easier that way.
Yet even as he promised himself that he’d steel himself against the temptation of another blissful night together, Andrew knew that one day away from her was already too much.
Andrew didn’t come to Lavinia the night after their reconciliation. She tried not to let that bother her. She had enough to worry about, what with the prince’s ball growing ever closer and the stack of orders that needed finishing seeming to multiply by the hour. After Wark had left her shop, she’d locked herself up in the frantic world of Mrs. Parkem’s workshop, her needle flying and mounds of tissue and string littering the floor as she and her seamstresses sent out package after package. She hadn’t even had time to scribble out a coded message to Andrew, informing him and Gillie of Wark’s invitation.
Now, however, one day later as she walked back from her last delivery of the day with aching feet and a sore neck, she found her unoccupied thoughts slipping to Andrew. Her stomach tightened as she remembered flashes of his lips grazing over her skin, drinking her in as though he’d never be able to have enough. Being with him had felt right, like returning home after a long time away. It frightened her because she knew there was more history there than one night together could brush away—but then, it didn’t have to be only one night. Did it?
She chewed on her lip as she walked, lost so deep in her thoughts that she hardly noticed a large black carriage with gold detailing around the windows pull up to her until it stopped and the door flew open.
“Mrs. Parkem, how fortuitous,” said Douglas, his silver-haired head emerging from inside the carriage.
“Mr. Douglas, you surprised me,” she said, her heart ramming against her rib cage.
The man smiled all too knowingly and stepped down from the vehicle. “Perhaps you would like a ride home. You must be tired after all of your deliveries.”
Something about the knowing way he said it set her on edge. “Thank you, but I’ll walk. I could do with the fresh air.”
“Come along, Mrs. Parkem. There’s no need to be coy.” Mrs. Wark’s voice pierced through from the darkness of the carriage. The lady shifted, the fast-falling twilight showing just the faintest outline of her features.
“Join me,” Mrs. Wark continued. “There are details I wish to discuss about my ball gown.”
That, Lavinia knew, was a lie. They’d been over the design of Mrs. Wark’s gown three times since the lady had commissioned it several months before, and they’d had two fittings. The dress, which would be wrapped in tissue and delivered to the house the following day, was perfect.
Still, she found herself delicately lifting her skirts and placing her hand as lightly as possible into Douglas’s to climb into the carriage. Andrew needed her help, and thus far Wark had turned up little to no useful information. It was time to begin to broaden her strategy.
As Lavinia settled onto the plush bench seat across from Mrs. Wark, the door swung closed, plunging them into near darkness.
“There, now we’re alone,” said Mrs. Wark.
“Will Mr. Douglas not be joining us?” asked Lavinia, wishing her eyes would adjust to the dim light faster.
“He knows that some matters must be spoken of woman to woman, and this is one of those. Mrs. Parkem, you’ll be aware by now that I’m not a woman who minces her words, so I will ask you plainly: what are your intentions toward my son?”
There are some women who speak to their dressmakers as they might to a confidante, hardly able to stop their secrets and worries pouring out of them. Mrs. Wark had never been that sort of woman, instead skewing to the other end of the spectrum. She treated Lavinia at best like a member of staff who had a skill that ensured her continued employment. Yet since Andrew had arrived, their roles had shifted somewhat. Lavinia could feel Mrs. Wark’s grip on the power in their relationship loosening, and she knew the lady must be desperate to clutch it to her.
Perhaps that’s why rather than apologizing or denying, Lavinia simply said, “I believe that’s normally a question directed at the other sex.”
“It’s directed at whomever is the predatory party. In this case, it’s you.”
Lavinia laughed. “If you believe I’m the predatory animal in this scenario, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“You persuaded my son to offer you an invitation to my table. You. A seamstress,” Mrs. Wark nearly spat.
“I can assure you, it was not necessary for me to persuade him. He gave that invitation of his own free will with no encouragement from me.”
“And what of this invitation to the prince’s ball?” Mrs. Wark asked.
“What does it matter to you whether he invited me or not?” Lavinia asked. “I’m a woman of good reputation who isn’t married,” she said, even as she knew how her reputation would suffer for attending an event publicly with Wark. Her reputation had probably already suffered when he’d sent his carriage to
collect her before the dinner party. But that had no bearing on what Mrs. Wark spoke of. Lavinia would not be cowed by this woman.
“I am your client and I say that you will not attend,” said Mrs. Wark.
“And your son is the one who pays my invoices, so I’m rather more concerned about his feelings on the matter.”
“My son?” The woman laughed.
“And it seems to me that you’re rather quick to judge for a woman whose own son isn’t happy with the company she keeps,” said Lavinia.
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, Lavinia could just see Mrs. Wark’s eyes narrow. “What are you implying?” snapped the older woman.
“That Mr. Wark doesn’t seem particularly thrilled by the attention Mr. Douglas pays to you,” she said.
“Harold doesn’t know anything,” the older woman shot back. “Mr. Douglas is a close business associate.”
“A woolen merchant and an ironmonger? That hardly seems like a fruitful partnership.”
Mrs. Wark’s chin lifted. “Sometimes the mutually beneficial nature of relationships are difficult for the untrained eye to see. Mr. Douglas has just completed the purchase of one of Harold’s warehouses in Leith.”
“Is your son aware of that sale?” asked Lavinia, doubtful that Wark would sell anything to Douglas, a man for whom he seemed to have nary a kind word.
“Harold need not bother himself with every detail of the running of the business. He has other responsibilities.”
“Like the prince’s committee?”
“Just so. Now,” said Mrs. Wark, with a nod to the door, “you will no doubt wish to be on your way.”
Summarily dismissed, Lavinia opened the door to the fresh evening air, happy to be free of the carriage. But before her foot hit the ground, Mrs. Wark said, “Mrs. Parkem, it would be best if you would send one of your girls to deliver my dress. And it would be preferable if a member of your staff were to attend my fittings in your place in the future.”
Lavinia’s cheeks flamed furious red. Mrs. Wark might be difficult, but she was still a customer of long standing. For the woman to suggest that Lavinia was somehow neither fit nor suitable to attend to the lady herself was as clear an insult as a slap across the face.
She drew in a deep breath and turned to face the open door of the carriage. “I believe, Mrs. Wark, that it will be impossible for my girls or myself to attend to you any longer. If you wish to come into the shop for your fittings, you will be most welcome. Good evening.”
Lavinia had intended to march off in triumph at having the parting shot, but instead she found herself almost face-to-face with Douglas, who was watching her with a studied casualness that set her on edge.
“Why, Mrs. Parkem, you look angry enough to bite through steel,” he said.
Ignoring the jab, she asked, “You purchased Mr. Wark’s warehouse?”
“That’s right. The final documents were signed just yesterday,” he said.
“What does an ironmonger want with a woolen merchant’s warehouse?” she asked.
“There’s money in iron, my dear, but every man has to diversify.”
“Diversify into what?” she asked.
“I’m thinking of something rather more . . . dynamic,” he said with a wink.
She opened her mouth to press him, but before she could he asked, “And how is your head wound?”
Her fingers immediately went to the cut on at her hairline that was just beginning to heal.
“You know, it’s a funny thing, fainting. It can be such an easy thing to pretend at. All one has to do is play dead. Good evening, Mrs. Parkem,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.
A touch of fear flared up in her stomach as she watched the man climb back into the carriage. He paused at the door and shot her a smile over his shoulder, but there was nothing sweet about it. It was laced with something harder, something altogether more cunning, and as the carriage rolled off, it took everything Lavinia had not to whirl around on her boot heel and race home as fast as her feet could carry her.
Chapter Sixteen
A FEW HOURS later, when the shop was quiet and most of Edinburgh slept, Lavinia was up to her elbows in dishwater when a knock came on the back door.
“Of course someone comes now,” she muttered, blowing a stream of air to push a curl that, with the late hour, had escaped the knot of hair she’d piled on top of her head.
“One moment!” she called out.
She was just reaching for a dish towel to wipe her hands when the door swung open and Andrew trooped in, stomping his boots on the woven rug in front of the door to shake the rain off.
“Please do come in,” she said with a wry smile.
He looked up, a retort on his lips, but instead he fell silent staring at her.
“What?” she asked, touching her hair that she knew had frizzed in the steam from the hot water she’d poured into the sink.
In an instant, he closed the gap in three steps, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her deep.
Oh, to be kissed by Andrew Colter at the end of a long night. It was as luxurious as slipping into a hot bath after a day hunched over her sewing machine. His lips worked over her as she melted into him, her still damp fingers clinging to the front of his shirt. His hands stroked up her sides, skimming her breasts before sweeping down again to grip and pull her flush against his body.
She stepped blindly as he walked her until her back bumped against the wood block that formed her counter. Her bedroom was just up the stairs. If only he would scoop her up and—
Andrew tore his lips from hers, his breath ragged and fast. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”
“Kiss me?” she asked, a little breathless herself.
“Kiss you the moment I walked in the door.”
“Why not?”
His lips tugged up a half inch, but he took a deliberate step back. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.”
Drat. He was all business and intent spy again. No fun at all.
She sighed. “I need to do the same.”
He looked up sharply. “Is everything all right?”
She paused, thinking back to Mrs. Wark’s threats and the unsettling way Douglas had dismissed her that afternoon. And then there was the matter of the invitation. No, it was best to let him go first and ease him into this once he’d unburdened himself.
“Everything is fine,” she said, turning back to the sinkful of dishes and picking up her scrubbing brush again. “Tell me your business first.”
He leaned on the counter next to her. It felt comfortable having him here in her space. No man other than Caleb had ever spent much time in her kitchen, but she found that she liked having Andrew there. It felt as though he fit.
“Your brother visited me,” he said.
“He was here when I came back home yesterday morning. He wasn’t happy with the late hour.”
“And what did you tell him?” he asked.
“That if he does not desist in passing judgment on my decisions, he can look forward to life without the benefits of having an older sister.”
“Do those benefits extend to paying his gambling debts?”
Her hands stilled in the water. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Andrew pull out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and held it up. It was a note demanding the payment of part of Caleb’s debt.
“He told you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “This fell out of his pocket. I doubt he realizes I have it. How much is his debt?”
“Nearly two thousand pounds,” she said.
“Two thousand?”
“As you’re an intelligent man, you’ll observe that this is the same amount I asked you for in exchange for working for the War Office.”
“I’m going to kill him,” he growled.
“No, you won’t.” She dried her hands and laid one on his cheek to turn him to face her. “Caleb is an adult, just as I am. What’s more, he’s famil
y. He and I will figure this out between the two of us.”
“He’s bleeding you dry.”
“And I’m letting him,” she said with a sigh, her hand falling away. “I’m fully aware that I enable my brother in the worst sort of way, but when he came to my door bruised and bloodied, all I wanted to do was make the threat go away.”
“When was this?” he asked.
“The night after you arrived.”
He shook his head slowly. “And that’s why you were at Mrs. Sullivan’s home the following day, looking for help.”
Instead of answering, she simply watched him, knowing he’d fill in all of the gaps in her story more or less accurately.
“I’m sorry, Lavinia.”
“There’s no use in being sorry. Not when it won’t change anything.”
“How do you know you’ll keep Caleb from coming to you again if you pay his debts? I assume this isn’t the first time he’s come to you for help.”
She swallowed her pride and fixed him with a look. “I’ll tell him no. I’ll have to. I’ve never touched the capital of the business to help him, but after this I might have to.”
“You can’t let that happen. You love this shop. You told me yourself that you built it from nothing.”
He understood, and that warmed her through. It would’ve been so easy for him to look at her and assume that her social standing had fallen, and maybe it had, but she’d never been so happy in her life as the first month when she’d turned a profit and finally felt as though her life had purpose again.
You were happy with Andrew once.
But that seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d been a mere child, naively thinking that together they could conquer the world and nothing would hold them back. Not when they were so very much in love.
She remembered the power of that love—a sensation that had taken over her entire body and swept her away. She’d been able to spend hours thinking of him, gathering wool while she blissfully ignored her mother’s chattering as friends and neighbors made calls. Nothing would ever feel like that first flush of love again, but she couldn’t deny that something lingered. It was the solid, reassuring knowledge that no matter what happened, Andrew would be there beside her.