Three Weddings and a Murder

by Milan, Courtney

  “You must be here for a good long while, then,” she said.

  “Three days. I’ve urgent business back in town after that.”

  “You’ve allotted three days to accomplish all your threats?” Now she did smile. “My. You’ll be working quickly. When last we spoke, you said that if I married Mr. Croswell, I’d regret it.”

  “I don’t believe I used quite those words. But yes, you’ve got the general gist of my sentiment.”

  She put her head to one side, looking off into the distance. “You claimed that when he passed away, you’d seduce me, and once I’d fallen in love with you, you’d stomp on my bleeding heart and leave me weeping.” She recited those words as sweetly as if she were discussing a favorite recipe for plum preserves. “Oh, don’t give me that freezing look; I’m just trying to make sure our memories are in accord.”

  There was only one thing for it. He was going to have to lie.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “You’ve got one thing wrong, Ginny. I didn’t just claim that I’d do those things. I promised I would.” He stroked his thumb across her palm. “And you know I always keep my promises.”

  His heart was racing. It was just like one of their old games—this time with a touch more bitterness, and with stakes so high he was afraid to breathe. Her hand was cool against his. Another woman might have taken him at his word and pulled away. But after all these years, Ginny still knew him, heart and soul.

  She curled her fingers around his. Not in surrender; Ginny never surrendered.

  “Goodness,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips. “You think you can accomplish all that in seventy-two hours?”

  He drew a little circle on her wrist. “I know I can. You have no idea how these last seven years have honed my instincts.”

  That was how they’d always played the game. He made some arrogant claim of utter balderdash in an attempt to provoke Ginny into an uncharacteristic response. She, in return, tried to flummox him with her restraint.

  She beamed at him as if all those bitter years between them had come to nothing. “How lovely. Would you know, I’m twenty-five years old, and I’ve not once been seduced? All I’ve been exposed to thus far is the regular sort of marital intercourse. I am positively looking forward to the experience. I trust you’ll do a creditable job?”

  God, he had missed her. There was a reason that no other woman had ever taken her place. He’d tried, damn it, he’d tried. But everyone else simply found him...intimidating. Announce to any other woman that you planned to seduce her, and she’d slap your face. Ginny, on the other hand, brought him to life.

  He stifled a grin. “I can hardly stomp on your bleeding heart if I make a hash of your seduction.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then I look forward to the…attempt.” There was a slight emphasis on that last word. That small pause, the rise in her voice…

  She might as well have thrown down a gauntlet. She pulled her hand away and took a long, lingering sip of tea. As she did, she glanced at him through her eyelashes. “But you know, Simon, informing me of your plans was always your downfall. It makes you so much easier to thwart.”

  “What can I say? I’m a gentleman. I have to give you a sporting chance.” He paired those words with an indulgent smile. But inside, he was grimacing. Not this time. This time, he’d lie to her, deceive her. Whatever it took to have her, he was going to do it.

  “Poor Simon,” she said. “You’re checkmated already, did you know that?”

  He shrugged once more, cheerful despite the wretched events of the last few weeks. He’d been right to come here—right not to wait until her mourning had passed. “So long as it’s you who mates me,” he said breezily, “I’ll have no complaints.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. No, despite what he was going to do to her, he couldn’t make himself regret it. This time, she was going to be his.

  HE WAS HERE. He was here! He had come. He had come!

  Ginny wasn’t sure how to say the words, how even to think them with the proper emphasis. She was all tangled on the inside—tangled and confused and scared and giddy—and she hadn’t felt that way in seven years. On the outside…

  She was walking sedately down a track that cut through the pale spring meadow grasses, still scarcely high enough to tickle her ankles. Her fingertips rested on Simon’s elbow; his hand, encased in soft, fine leather, covered hers. It was all very proper, if one happened to observe the two of them from thirty yards’ distance.

  If one were closer…

  Simon wasn’t just covering her hand with his. He was stroking her fingers. Even through their gloves, his caress sent a light, excited pulse through her body.

  Her body, it turned out, had taken one good look at him and blithely dismissed all need to contemplate their past history. Her body would have been perfectly content to skip right past the arguments and the hurt they’d imposed on each other, and get straight to the seduction. Given the way he was touching her, he felt the same way.

  Alas. That light, sensual caress only meant she had his attention. The martial set of his jaw suggested that she had a long way to go to win his approval.

  And she wasn’t even sure she wanted it.

  The tips of his fingers brushed her wrist and then slipped beneath her sleeve. She held her breath when he touched her bare skin—but he stopped walking and pulled her hand closer.

  Her gloves had been white once, but an unfortunate spill had left one discolored. The edges of her sleeve were fraying. She’d have to turn the gown again in a few months.

  “Well,” he said, the first word he’d spoken since they’d left the house. “I can see it didn’t turn out as you expected, marrying a rich man.”

  Simon had never been one to let old wounds heal. No; he’d jab at them repeatedly with a sharp stick. “Mr. Croswell left me nothing to complain about.” Ginny squared her jaw. “I tell you, Simon, I’ll not hear you speak ill of the dead.”

  “Nothing to complain about?” He raised one eyebrow. “It looks like he left you nothing at all. No fine house in Anniston. One maid, if I’m not mistaken. Old mirrors and old furniture and dust in the entry. It wasn’t even this bad when your aunt was among the living.” He slid his finger over her fraying cuff.

  “There have been some expenses since his death,” she admitted. “But I’ve managed to meet them all.” Barely.

  His mouth formed a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Poor Ginny. Maybe you should have married me after all.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad as to drive me to wish that,” she said, as breezily as she dared. “I have enough, and this is really only a temporary shortfall.”

  His false friendliness faded into an altogether more believable frown.

  “You see,” she added, “having enough is superior to marrying a man still in university, one whose parents promised to cut him off if he married that dreadfully impecunious Virginia Barrett.” She was very proud of the fact that her voice didn’t shake. After all these years, she scarcely felt anything at all when she uttered those words. She’d buried that pain too deeply to be hurt by it.

  He pulled away from her, his movements stiff. “Damn it.”

  “Your language hasn’t improved any, I see.”

  He looked relieved at the change of topic. Anything to spare themselves from revisiting that old argument.

  “If anything, it’s grown worse. I spend all my time around men, more than half of them laborers.” His hand drifted to the top button of his jacket, and he undid it. “When there are no women about for miles, they say the most amazing things. You would bloody love it.”

  She couldn’t pull her eyes from his fingers. It wasn’t as if he were actually disrobing—he had a shirt and a waistcoat on underneath. Still, he was slowly and methodically unbuttoning his coat. Unsettled as she was, she still found herself watching those buttons with far too avid an interest.

  He undid another button and tilted his head down the path. “You see tha
t bench there?”

  “Yes?”

  He popped the next button, and glanced over at her. She colored and looked away. A loss; he had always tried to get a response out of her. But then, it would have been an equal loss if he’d noticed how she’d been staring.

  And perhaps he had noticed anyway, because he smiled faintly—a real smile, this time.

  “I’m going to race you there.” He continued undoing his coat. “And I’m going to win.”

  He probably would. She had, in a fit of vanity, donned half boots that had a hint of heel before they had left. But that arrogant assertion put her back up.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said. “The lady always wins.”

  “Ha.” He undid the last button on his coat and rolled his shoulders, finding his range of motion after confinement. “If memory serves, the lady always blusters.”

  “By all accounts,” Ginny continued, ignoring him, “you’ve been slaving away, burning the midnight oil and all that. How fast can a man run, when he spends his days trapped behind a desk? It’s a wonder you haven’t gone to fat.”

  “I’ll have you know, I spend long days in the field—” He stopped before he could truly start his tirade, and shook his head ruefully. “Ah. You almost had me there.”

  “I’m going to have you again,” Ginny said, and took off running.

  She could scarcely breathe with the boning of her corset bound tightly around her. Her shoes kept sinking into the new spring ground. He passed her easily. By the time she came to the bench, he had positioned himself behind it, one hand leaning on it casually. He did a creditable job of disguising the fact that he was gasping for breath.

  “It’s not really fair,” she pointed out. “I’m wearing stays. And heels.”

  “I’m not playing fair, Ginny,” he responded. “Most especially not about you. When you jilted me—”

  “I never jilted you! How could I have? I never agreed to marry you in the first place.”

  “What has that got to do with anything?” he shouted back. “Who else were you going to marry?”

  “I think that is rather obvious. I was going to marry Mr. Lionel Croswell.”

  He growled at that—actually growled, like a dog. But he didn’t reach for her. Instead, he ran his hands through his hair and spoke in a lower voice. “Maybe what I meant was—who else was I going to marry?”

  It was, perhaps, the first honest thing they’d said to each other since his arrival. He said it with such bitterness in his tone that he almost broke her heart. She could feel his pain like a sharp knife, could feel her own remorse at a decision made long ago. The years of their separation had cut them both equally.

  He folded his arms and frowned into the distance.

  “I didn’t care,” he said eventually. “I didn’t care if my parents disowned me. I didn’t care if I had nothing. I only ever cared about you.”

  “That was always the problem.” Ginny shook her head slowly. “I did care. I wasn’t going to marry a poor man. Especially not one who had no trade.” The weight of that worry had nearly suffocated her back then. “Only the wealthy have the luxury to claim they care nothing for money. You’ve never been poor. You don’t know what poverty would mean.”

  He straightened and jerked away from her. He didn’t meet her eyes; he just started to button up his jacket once more. Maybe it was her imagination that his cuff links—were those really gold?—glinted at her.

  “Well,” he finally said, when he had restored himself to proper order. “I’m not poor any longer.” And with a final challenging look, he held out his arm to her.

  Ginny hesitated. So many years. So much pain they’d caused each other. A fortune or two couldn’t paper over all of that. But when he gestured, she went to him and took his arm.

  SIMON’S MAN WAS WAITING in the inn’s common room. Andrew Fortas had not ordered so much as a glass of beer; he looked uncomfortably out of place, sitting ramrod-straight in the rustic wooden chairs and gawking about, as if he’d never been anywhere so backward as Chester-on-Woolsey. He had a stack of papers with him, tied up in blue cotton tape. They were turned facedown on the counter. His fingers played a silent rhythm on the arm of his chair.

  Simon came and sat in the wooden stool next to him. “I came here regularly as a child, you know, and nobody ever tried to kill me.”

  “Yes.” Fortas glanced briefly at him. “I do know that.”

  Of course the man knew. He knew everything; it was his job. Still, he looked as he always did anytime they had to venture out of the metropolis. London born and bred, Fortas always peered about the smaller towns in distrust, as if he suspected the residents secretly indulged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. Fortas was even more awkward than Simon was, and that was saying a great deal.

  Simon sighed. “So, those shares.” No point in beating about the bush. “Ridgeway’s got them, then?”

  Fortas simply steepled his fingers. “Some of them, certainly.” He glanced suspiciously about again, as if Ridgeway—the owner of most of Prince’s Canal—might have spies even in this inn. But there was nobody in earshot; the innkeeper stood on the other side of the room, wiping glasses down with a clean towel.

  Simon met the proprietor’s eye across the room and held up two fingers.

  Fortas waited until the man drew the beer, and then stared in his unnerving way, challenging the fellow as he crossed the room. He did not speak until the man had moved away. Then, and only then, did he turn over the papers he had brought with him.

  “This details the disposition of the shares of the Long Northern Railway.” His meticulous handwriting covered the page in crisp, clear columns.

  “Two thousand shares issued.” Fortas tapped one column. “Of those, you retained four hundred and ten, and have repurchased five hundred and seven, making your ownership in the company slightly more than forty-six percent.”

  “I know my own shares,” Simon said mildly.

  Fortas ignored this. “As you suspected, Ridgeway has been quietly buying the remainder. His solicitor was in the company office yesterday, just after you left, perfecting the transfer of nine hundred shares to his name.”

  Simon had prayed it wasn’t so bad. He’d feared it was worse. He took a swallow of tepid beer. It wasn’t nearly strong enough to wash away the thought of what Ridgeway would do, if he got a clear majority. “Nine hundred. Good God.”

  “That leaves one hundred eighty-three shares outstanding. Of the shares that I have not yet accounted for, there are Calloway’s original seventy-five.”

  Simon nodded. “You bought them. Tell me you bought them.”

  “He, ah...” There was a long pause. Fortas sighed. “He rejected our offer.”

  “Did he, then. Did you offer more?”

  “Couldn’t. Don’t look at me like that—I really couldn’t. You’ve already extended yourself to the very edge of solvency. I offered all that I could. Ridgeway offered more, and Calloway sold to him. The sale’s not recorded yet, but it’s a matter of time.”

  “Damn him. That puts him what, twenty-something shares from control of the company?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  Simon bit his lip. Most of the railways that had been built so far were short, stubby legs, connecting one city haphazardly to the next. The line he’d planned would have connected London with Castingham. It would, in one stroke, have united iron manufacturers and coal mines with the heart of commerce. There would have been no need to send everything by water. Just one simple intercity railway. He’d have made a profit almost overnight. All he had to do was lay the final miles of track.

  But Ridgeway owned half of the meandering canal line that provided transport between the two cities. If Simon had succeeded, he would have diverted an enormous amount of business, and the man hadn’t been about to surrender without a fight. Ridgeway had tried to bribe him to give up the idea six months ago. When that hadn’t worked, he’d tried to get Parliament to dissolve their corporation. And when that ha
dn’t worked, he’d resorted to brute force: outright purchase of the shares of their stock.

  If he scraped together ownership in a majority of the company, Ridgeway wouldn’t just take the profits. He’d take control. And to protect the money he was already making, he’d shut the line down before it even began.

  “Where does all of this leave us?” Fortas asked.

  Simon reached out and flipped through a few of the pages. He found the accounting. He didn’t say a word, just inclined the page so that it could be easily read. “See this?” he said, “Everything else I have is mortgaged for this, and with the cloud over the railway line, I can’t get a cent more for it. You tell me where that leaves us.”

  Fortas whistled slowly. “We’re standing in a storm of piss.”

  “With shite for an umbrella,” Simon agreed.

  Your vocabulary isn’t getting any better, he heard Ginny chide. Yes, he wanted to answer her, and neither are my finances.

  Building a railway wasn’t cheap. He’d leveraged every asset that he had for this. In his desperate attempt to purchase shares before Ridgeway could, he’d even mortgaged his interest in the estate he would inherit from his parents, something he hoped they would never discover. It would have been worth it, too—if he’d succeeded. It all would have been worth it.

  “Ah, well.” He tried to keep the despair from his voice. “There’s still hope, isn’t there? He doesn’t have those last twenty-six shares, and he can’t stop us without them.”

  Fortas glanced away. “Hm,” he said, which was not promising at all.

  “Damn it, Fortas. Tell me he doesn’t have them.”

  “We have been in contact with the remaining shareholders,” Fortas said slowly. “We told them that if they sold to Ridgeway, the venture would be over—all progress would be completely halted—and they all agreed that they wouldn’t sell to him.”

  “So they’re holding, then.”

  “I thought so at first. Ridgeway made an offer, and was rebuffed.”

  Maybe all was not lost.

  “But it’s hard to convince men to hold when someone is trying to stop all operations. The shares will be worthless if Ridgeway succeeds. Nobody wants to be left holding nothing but liens.”