by Rebecca King
“It is a lot of work involved in living in your own house. What will you do? I mean, Frances won’t be there to cook, help clean, or anything.”
“I can manage,” Martha replied proudly. “Frances has been showing me a few tricks.”
“I am not saying you can’t, but what are you going to do with your day? It sounds terribly lonely,” Sian countered. “Have you thought about that? Isambard is going to be out at work all day.”
“I can get work somewhere, as a seamstress or something. We can make this work, Sian. I know we can. There is nothing we cannot do if we truly want to be together.”
Sian looked at the hope and desperation on Martha’s face and didn’t have the heart to say anything else that would quash her sister’s enthusiasm and youthful dreams.
But Martha isn’t youthful, she is two years younger than me.
Sian closed her eyes. “There is nothing that two people cannot overcome if the love is strong enough,” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s right. Well, Isambard has made plans and has thought everything over. He has done his sums and has said his wages can provide for us both. He has tried to speak to father, but you know what father is like.”
“You are going to run away with him, aren’t you? But you cannot run ten miles, Martha. What will you do if father finds you? With Cedrick looking to marry one of us, there is always the chance Father could force you back here to marry Cedrick yourself.”
“I would rather die,” Martha protested vehemently.
Sian puffed out her cheeks and shook her head. She could understand Martha’s sentiment.
“I don’t see why father shouldn’t marry the oaf seeing as he is so desperate for a wedding. I am not going to and neither are you. I have already told father that I am in love with Isambard.”
“Love doesn’t matter to father,” Sian countered flatly.
“Well, it matters to me, and to you.” Martha immediately looked contrite. “I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“Your situation with Ryan. I know you love him,” Martha whispered sadly. “If you cannot marry him because he is too blind and foolish to recognise your worth, what are you going to do? If you stay here, you know father is going to try to force you to wed Cedrick regardless of what you want.”
“I am going to have to go and stay with Cousin Sophia.”
“But that is miles away,” Martha cried.
“I have no choice. I need to get away and stay away until I know that Wilhelmina and Cedrick have given up and gone. Hopefully, by the time I do return it will all have blown over, and father will have gotten the message and given up trying to marry us off. With me not here he will at least be able to concentrate on getting this family out of the financial trouble we are in.”
“What happens if he can’t?” Martha whispered.
“Then I think my life is ruined before it has even truly begun. There is definitely one thing I do know and that is I am not going to marry anybody but Ryan, and he cannot ever contemplate someone like me as a wife.”
“Why not? There is nothing wrong with you. Why, you would make any man a wonderful wife.”
“But he lives in a different world to me, Martha,” Sian chided gently. “He is gentry whereas I am a nobody. I don’t have wealth. I don’t have a title. Soon, father won’t even be business associates with him. We will be quite impoverished. Marriage to someone like me would cause Ryan and his family a terrible scandal. I should have every door in society slammed in my face because of my situation. There is nothing I can do to change it. It is best that I do everything possible to forget Ryan Terrell ever existed.”
“To Cousin Sophia’s in Carlisle then?” Martha asked.
Sian nodded. She made her way over to the bureau and began to write a note to her distant cousin, the only member of her family apart from Martha who knew of her devotion to the handsome man next door.
Tucked away deep inside Terrell House, Ryan sat at a desk and was also scribbling a note. He folded it neatly and then held the dripping wax over the fold. Pressing a seal into the molten wax, he waited until the liquid solidified and then tucked it inside his pocket.
“Going to see her again, eh?” Norman called from across the room.
“I need to talk to her.”
“You are not going to let this go, are you?”
Ryan stopped and stared at the door before him for a few moments. “What is everyone saying?”
“That your heart is taken. Everyone is wondering who this lucky woman is. Names are being bandied about, but nobody really has a clue.” Norman removed a letter he had received from London and tossed it onto the low table he rested his boots on.
Ryan contemplated it with little interest.
“People will be curious.” Norman shrugged.
“You mean they are scandalised that my future wife is someone who doesn’t carry a title or has much in the way of wealth.”
“So, you have contemplated marrying her?” It wasn’t a question.
“I have no choice,” Ryan snapped. “She kissed me in front of her father.”
“But her father wants her to marry someone else.”
Ryan froze on his way to the door. “What? What do you know about that?”
Norman looked at his friend with a wariness that left Ryan without any doubt that what Norman was going to say was not good news. “Rumour has it that her father has already put it about that there is to be an engagement announcement soon, and it involves his oldest daughter. He has made it clear that there is a very special guest in the house who has captured her eye. Arthur has made it clear to everybody he has met that he won’t object to a union when he is approached, and that it is high time his daughters married.”
Ryan’s thoughts flew to Cedrick. He shook his head in disgust and studied the note in his hand.
“Will you be back in time to return to London with me?”
“No. You go on. I will follow you in a day or so. I have a few things here to sort out.”
“What do I tell the Sainsbury’s?”
“I don’t care what you tell them. I haven’t accepted their invitation. They are quite wrong to assume that I am going to attend any function of theirs. I have things to do here,” Ryan replied with uncharacteristic briskness.
Norman opened his mouth to speak but was left staring at the empty room as Ryan stomped angrily out. By the time Norman left his seat and made his way over to the window he was in time to watch Ryan race across the landscaped lawn toward Sian’s house. He just had to wonder what his good friend would do when he got there, not least because he had forgotten to tell Ryan that the expected engagement announcement related to Martha, not Sian.
“Still, if it kicks you into doing something about the love you feel for her then it is worth a lie or two,” Norman muttered.
With one last rueful look out of the window, he then went in search of his room to begin to pack. Not that he intended to go anywhere. He just suspected that Ryan was going to need a bit more help before he managed to secure his elusive bride’s hand.
Ryan knocked on the door to Sian’s house and stepped back. He shifted from one foot to the other impatiently while he waited for it to be answered.
“I am afraid the master is not at home, sir. He should be back later,” the maid informed him when she eventually answered the door.
“Is Miss Sian at home?”
“No, sir. She has gone into the village with her sister. She will be back in an hour or so, sir,” Frances replied.
“Well, give her this, will you?”
“Miss Sian?” Frances looked down at the note the handsome neighbour gave her and nodded.
Ryan turned to leave, a little struck by how disappointed he was not to have been able to at least see Sian.
“God, I really must do something before I go out of my mind altogether.” He whirled back around to face the maid just as she was closing the door. “Tell me something.”
“Sir?”
/> “Is there an engagement announcement being made?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Frances replied carefully.
Ryan nodded. “Well, tell Arthur I will come and see him later but that he is to get the papers ready. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The maid closed the door and returned to her duties, but not before leaving the note on the table beside the front door.
Ryan studied the closed door and contemplated what to do now. He had no idea if he should go to London for a few days, if only to try to get his mind off Sian. He could then move on to other matters, like the purchase of her father’s shares in the cotton mill his father owned in Lancashire. But Ryan suspected that any attempt to get away for a while would be futile because he couldn’t concentrate on anything except Sian, and the urgent need to know if she was the one who was engaged.
“What I don’t know is what in the Hell I am going to do if she is,” he growled as he mounted his horse.
For the first time in his life, his wealth and status meant nothing. It would do nothing to help him secure the future he wanted; a future that might never be his no matter who his connections were.
“But I have to try. I must do everything possible to ensure that Sian isn’t sold to that oaf, Cedrick. Just how do I get her to agree to marrying me without hating me for still being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want?” Ryan knew immediately who would be able to give him a few sage words of advice: Norman.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ryan removed his pocket watch and looked down at it for what felt like the hundredth time in the last half hour. It was now an hour later than when he had asked her to meet him, and Sian still hadn’t arrived. He wondered if Frances had forgotten to hand his note to her when Sian had returned from her jaunt to the village. Whatever had gone wrong, it was clear she wasn’t going to meet with him as he had requested.
“Is it because you are celebrating your engagement?” While he knew she had objected vehemently to any prospect of being married to Cedrick, Ryan didn’t know if she had been commanded to agree to it by her father.
“I need to know.” With that, Ryan swiftly left the ruins and made his way through the woods in search of his horse.
The journey to her house was longer than his wait in the ruins had been not least because what he found at the end of the journey had the potential to make his life a lot harder than it needed to be. Ryan needed time to think about what he was likely to face.
“I should have done something sooner,” he growled, wishing now that he had offered for her when he had returned to Arthur’s study the day Sian had kissed him.
“Ah, come on in,” Arthur called when Ryan stepped into the house moments later.
Windswept and a little out-of-breath still, Ryan dutifully did as he was told. His gaze fell immediately to the maid.
“Did you give her my note?” He asked without preamble.
“Well, I left it on the table, sir,” Frances replied hesitantly.
“What was that?” Arthur lifted his brows and looked from the maid to Ryan and back again.
“I was asking if you had received the paperwork that I left for you,” Ryan interrupted before the maid could tell him the truth. He threw the girl a cautionary look, which she appeared to understand. Ducking her head, she bobbed a curtsey and scurried back into the kitchen leaving Ryan to face Arthur.
“Come and take a seat,” Arthur offered. “Brandy?”
Ryan eyed the nearly empty carafe and shook his head, not least because he doubted Arthur had enough funds to replenish it.
“The papers have arrived, yes. I must say the share value isn’t quite what I expected,” Arthur began.
“Oh? Did you expect more? I can assure you it we have paid the going rate,” Ryan countered.
“No. No. It is a little more than I expected, if I am honest,” Arthur offered.
Ryan leaned back in his seat and rested his ankle on his knee. “There are rumours going around the village that there is to be an announcement in the near future.”
Arthur had the good grace to look a little sheepish. “You mustn’t pay too much attention to idle gossip and speculation.”
“Is it true?”
“Pardon?”
“Have you given people the impression that you are about to announce the engagement of one of your daughters?” Ryan’s face remained an implacable mask of polite civility which hid his true thoughts and feelings well. The only outward display of his emotions was the coiled fist that rested on his knee.
“Well, I might have mentioned that we expect there to be some good news to come of a close acquaintance one of my daughters has forged with a gentlemen suitor, yes,” Arthur edged.
“Might I know which one of your daughters I should offer my congratulations to?”
“I was hoping that they might wish to tell you themselves in all good time. For now, I don’t think it at all wise for me to be so presumptuous,” Arthur replied.
Ryan squinted at him. “Is it true or not, Arthur?”
“What does that have to do with the shares?”
Ryan leaned forward in his seat. “It is just that I have always considered you to be a somewhat sensible gentleman.”
“Long may that continue, eh?” Arthur huffed a laugh, but it died almost the instant it was uttered when Ryan didn’t smile.
Ryan’s gaze turned cold and hard as he pierced Arthur with a stare that made the older man look decidedly uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t like to think that you are the kind of gentleman that puts business and finances before the welfare of his family. One thing my family prides itself on is looking after family members.”
Arthur blinked. “Well, of course. Isn’t that what us gentlemen folk are expected to do? My daughters have everything they need. I can assure you that they want for nothing.”
“Except husbands of their choosing,” Ryan bit out.
“Well, I think I am in a position to know what is best for my daughters,” Arthur blustered, now becoming annoyed at having his parental abilities questioned.
“Really?” Ryan snapped sarcastically. “So why are they all so miserable, and determined to defy you?”
Before Arthur could answer, Ryan pushed to his feet and prepared to leave. “Given none of your daughters have accepted Cedrick’s hand, I wouldn’t risk ruining your reputation by trying to force a union to any of them, no matter what your sister tells you.”
“But-”
Ryan began to tug his gloves on. He lifted an arrogant brow in Arthur’s direction. “As you will see from the paperwork, we have purchased only half the shares but at more than the market rate. It should be enough to get you out of your current financial circumstances. However, if you continue to try to push for a union with Cedrick, I shall have no choice but to force the purchase of your remaining shares but at less than the market rate. The last thing my family wants is to be linked to people of his ilk, Arthur. Cedrick is clearly a scoundrel. You may want to let him into your family, but I can assure you that he shall never have any connection to mine, not even through business. I shall ensure that all connections between our families are severed immediately.”
“But you cannot do that,” Arthur objected, half launching out of his seat. “Your father and I have been friends for years.”
“My father is in full agreement. I received word from him in that regard only yesterday. He will not tolerate Cedrick being connected in any way to our business, and that is the end of the matter,” Ryan reported briskly. “Meantime, Arthur, I suggest you put your daughters’ welfare before your sister’s for once. Oh, and do something about Wilhelmina, Arthur. If there is one thing that I find more contemptable than Cedrick, it is your sister’s appalling behaviour. We are in business with you, not her. I should hate to think you are incapable of making decisions of your own without running to womenfolk like her for approval.”
Arthur’s mouth fell open, but Ryan had already yanked the door open and turned to leave. H
e was so fast that he almost walked straight into Mabel, who hovered in the hallway just outside the door, and had clearly been listening to what was said at the keyhole again. Ryan nodded briskly at her but didn’t take her to task for her nosiness. Not least when she looked about to cry with happiness. What did capture Ryan’s attention was the woman who hovered uncertainly half-way down the main flight of stairs.
The force that hit Ryan in his stomach when his gaze landed on her stole his breath. So many words hovered on his lips, but he was so disappointed that she hadn’t met him that he couldn’t speak. Consequently, he didn’t even nod at her before he stalked out of the house.
Sian watched him leave and sank onto the step behind her. Whatever had happened with her father had made Ryan coldly furious, of that there could be no doubt. She threw an accusing look at her father, but he was too busy glaring at his wife to notice.
“How many times have I told you not to listen at doors?” he scolded.
“How many times have I told you to stop closing us out? Whatever has gone wrong with the business and finances involves us,” Mabel snapped. “How many times do you have to be told?”
“What are you going to do about the problems, eh? What experience do you have to resolve them better than me?”
“We might be able to help in some way. We might be able to come up with some ideas that you might not have considered before,” Mabel countered.
“Like you would know how to run a business, would you?” Arthur snapped dismissively.
“Well, you have done no better or else we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Mabel retorted coldly.
Sian listened with only half an ear as her parents countered a war of words that left nobody who heard them in any doubt that their marriage lay in ruins. It was doubtful that anybody could repair any relationship as bad as the one her parents had now. Watching them just reinforced Sian’s belief that she had no choice but to make plans to leave the first chance she got.