‘Who is he?’ Eaton asked the moment the carriage was underway. A suspicion had blossomed at the familiarity between them. This was the friend she’d mentioned that night in the orangery. The man she’d mentioned on the beach, who had proposed and been refused.
‘Miles Detford is a shareholder and the primary administrator of the Porth Karrek mine,’ Eliza answered, but Eaton had already lost her. The open woman at the fort was gone, her thoughts racing ahead to the conversation to come with this Miles Detford, this man she’d sent for, her brain already wondering what news he might have brought.
‘Do all the shareholders call you “my dear”?’ Eaton was terse. He was not keen on men who made a habit of so fluidly mixing business with pleasure, perhaps with the deliberate intent of confusing the line between both.
Eliza’s eyes flashed. Good. She understood exactly what he was asking. ‘He’s a shareholder and a friend. He’s been a support since Huntingdon died.’ It was telling that Eliza would defend him. How much of a friend was he? Eaton refrained from asking. To insinuate there’d been more than friendship was to do her a disservice, but that did not quiet the little green monster in him, or the doubt that began to mewl alongside. Was this why she resisted the spark between them? Because she had a lover back in Truro and it was this Miles Detford? He could not believe it of her, not after her protestations of privacy and the need to remain alone. Or was it that he didn’t want to believe it of her?
* * *
When they arrived at the dower house, he helped her down and took his leave with a final question in his eyes. Did she want him to leave her with this man? He would not abandon her. ‘I think I must see him, Eaton.’ It was a softly whispered reminder that she had a life beyond the dower house, a life he still knew precious little about. The intruder was very physical evidence that she had a life elsewhere and some day soon she’d rejoin it.
He let her go. He had no choice. ‘Come to me later. I’ll be in the orangery if you still want to talk things through, or even if you don’t want to talk.’ He whispered the invitation as she moved away. Even if you want me just to hold you like I did on the cliffs. That had been a moment of heaven, the two of them against the wind. He would reclaim that moment if he could. Not just for himself, but for her. Miles Detford might call her his dear, but she did not welcome his attentions in that fashion, Eaton would bet his last guinea on it. He waited until Eliza and Sophie were inside, the door closed behind them, before he gave the signal to drive away. He would go to the orangery where he could be alone with his dog and his thoughts. And he would wait.
Chapter Twelve
‘What were you thinking, Eliza?’ Detford sputtered incredulously as he paced the front parlour in overt agitation.
Now that they were alone, he let loose his emotions, his polished veneer slipping. Sophie was upstairs with Miss Gilchrist having a bath and Eaton had decorously taken his leave at the front door, but not before slanting her a querying look that asked questions: Who was Miles Detford? Was he more than a business partner? But mostly, there’d been concern in Eaton’s gaze, his dark eyes asking silently, Should I leave you alone with this man, this intruder who has pre-empted our talk?
But she could not afford to think of Eaton’s dark eyes now, or the way his arms had felt about her. Miles was in the middle of a tirade and she needed her wits about her to keep him in check. ‘For heaven’s sake, Eliza, you were out there alone with him.’
‘Sophie was with us. What is the crime, Miles?’ Eliza snapped impatiently. If there was any crime committed, it was his. He’d kept her waiting for three weeks. She’d summoned him to help resolve a problem and he’d taken his time to make his way here. Now he had the audacity to act as if he had some claim on her.
Miles Detford stopped pacing and speared her with a stare. ‘You know very well what the crime is. He’s heir to a dukedom and you are a widow who can choose to be available to him without the benefit of marriage.’ He folded his arms across his chest and she was struck by the dissimilarity between him and Eaton. Miles was a mediocre man in all ways: neither tall nor short, neither thin or large. His features were refined and finished, bland in their smoothness. He was nowhere near as rugged or as interesting as Eaton. Eaton looked like Cornwall. Miles looked like London. He thought like London, too, with his quick, wicked insinuations. He raised a blond brow and asked point-blank, ‘Are you available to him, Eliza?’
‘Hush! Do you want the servants to hear you!’ Eliza scolded. How dare he suggest such slander. She ought to tell him the truth, that absolutely no, she was not ‘available’ to Eaton, but that would only affirm for Miles that he had the right to lecture her on behaviour, that she answered to him, which she most assuredly did not. He answered to her. She controlled the mines. He was her employee, nothing more. ‘Envy is unbecoming on you, Miles. Is that it? May no one have me because you cannot?’
Anger flared in Miles Detford’s pale blue eyes, so very light where Eaton’s were dark. Once, she might have found those eyes attractive, once she might have compared them to sea glass, but whatever nascent attraction had existed was long ago extinguished. Miles Detford might be a friend, but he could never be more. He sat beside her on the sofa, his anger banked now, his tone softer. ‘It is your reputation I’m concerned about, Eliza, and the mines. This is not a good time for a dalliance. Too much hangs in the balance.’
‘I don’t think it’s as dire as all that. I merely requested you to come and look over a few things for me as the shareholder primarily responsible for this mine. I have some questions about the tunnel,’ Eliza chided him. He was for ever making mountains out of molehills and, while she appreciated his ability to think critically about situations, it was wearisome to have everything presented as a crisis. He glanced away briefly, and there was the slightest hesitation; but it was enough to put her on alert.
‘There is something else?’ she prompted coolly. ‘Perhaps a reason why you delayed in coming?’
‘You know I would have come immediately if there hadn’t been a good reason to wait. I have news, something I hope you’ll be happy to hear.’
‘Good news, then?’ Eliza probed. He seemed too tentative for it to truly be good news.
‘I think it can be, my dear, but I need you to listen with an open mind.’ He reached for her hand and she frowned at the familiarity, but did not withdraw. One could never have too many friends and she’d made her position with Miles clear. Surely there was no harm in allowing this simple touch and it would perhaps reassure him that nothing existed between her and Eaton, especially when there was something more important to consider. ‘The shareholders want to put a proposal to you at the upcoming meeting,’ Miles said. ‘They want to make a generous offer to buy out your shares. Isn’t that wonderful? You will be as wealthy as you are now without all the effort. You needn’t be Atlas any more and carry the world on your shoulders. You can get on with your life.’
Get on with her life? This was her life. Every choice she’d made since the day Huntingdon died had been for this. But there was another implication, too, and that was the one that took her like a blow to the stomach. Miles thought the idea sounded splendid. He wanted her to take the offer. At the moment, she couldn’t decide which news was more earth-shattering: that the board had concocted a secret deal to buy her out or that Miles Detford, someone she’d counted as a friend, thought the action ought to be allowed, accepted even, as a boon. She was betrayed on all fronts.
Eliza did draw her hand away, then, spearing Miles with the daggers of her gaze. ‘The mines are my life. Why would anyone think I’d want to be bought out? Or that I would give up control of Sophie’s inheritance?’ She rose from the sofa, agitated. ‘This is not generosity, this is a hard shove off a very high cliff. They are pushing me aside.’ Her stomach was roiling. This was evil wrapped in a very pretty package. What was the cause of this? Had she not made the mines successful? Had she not lined the sharehol
ders’ pockets with profit every quarter?
Eliza racked her mind, searching for a reason, and settled on one. ‘This is about the tunnel. I thought we’d resolved that. We decided not to dig out under the ocean.’ She’d thought a lot of things had been settled, though. Apparently not. The shareholders had been plotting against her behind false pretences of acceptance. For how long? How long had they faced her with smiles at the board meetings and nodded their heads while they whispered behind her back?
She faced Miles. ‘Surely not everyone agrees with the decision to dig under the ocean? It’s not safe for the workers and it’s not safe for the investors. Who knows what we’ll find out there? Maybe nothing that justifies the risk. One accident will be all it takes for poor men to lose their lives and rich men to lose their money. Are we all not rich enough as it is? Why do we need to grasp for more wealth and for such stakes?’
‘Is anyone ever rich enough?’ Miles countered with a patronising chuckle, sidestepping the real issue. Did he think she wouldn’t notice? Did he think that she was so easily distracted? ‘Perhaps this is exactly the reason you should take the offer and step away. I laud your concerns, Eliza, but money isn’t made by playing it safe. I understand, though, that risk is not in your nature. You aren’t made for it. No woman is.’
That had her bristling. ‘You think a woman won’t take a risk? You think it is my gender that makes me cautious as opposed to my good sense?’ She whirled on him, making him the target of her anger, her disgust at the board’s betrayal. Better to be angry than to be shocked. Shock made one weak, anger could make one strong, at least temporarily, and she needed to be strong now.
‘It’s not my opinion that matters, Eliza, but the board’s. I am your friend. It’s my job to help you see things as others see them. You have to understand what the board sees. They see steady profits, not rising profits—’
‘At a time when smaller mines are shutting down!’ she interrupted fiercely.
‘At a time, my dear, when you are asking them to put funds into new safety equipment and schools for miners’ children. There is no profit in those things. The board thinks it is too much coddling while we’re not making enough of the mines’ natural resources.’
‘People are our natural resource,’ she argued. ‘They are not disposable.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. They are disposable. I know you don’t like to hear it, but there it is. There are plenty of miners looking for work and willing to claim a pitch beneath the ocean. I wouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it, if I were you.’
If he called her ‘my dear’ one more time, she’d scream or worse.
‘I suppose I am disposable, too?’ She saw what this was. A power grab, a chance for greedy men to seize more wealth at the expense of others. ‘It would be a mistake to think so. I will fight this.’
‘Then take my advice. Stay away from the Marquess. The last thing you need is for the board to hear you’re having an affair.’
‘Is that a threat?’ She faced Miles squarely. ‘Who would tell them such a thing? Would you? Otherwise where else would they learn of it?’
Miles looked wounded. ‘Eliza, be fair. I wouldn’t need to say a thing. You know how it will look to the shareholders. You’re living on his property, you were out gallivanting with him en famille. Dear heavens, it’s like Prinny and Mrs Fitzherbert all over again.’
Her eyes narrowed; she did not miss the insult in his exasperation. ‘I should slap you for that. You’ve no cause to assume anything of the sort.’ But she knew what Miles did not, that her association with Lynford had progressed far beyond a trip to Bosrigan Fort. There’d been numerous outings, all discreet, all designed so that no one might see them together. She knew that Eaton dined in her home almost nightly, that he carried her child up to bed, that he’d kissed her twice now, he’d wooed her in his orangery with parakeets and champagne. Miles didn’t know the half of it. Perhaps she needed to stop denying that other half existed, the half where her pulse raced when Eaton touched her, where she coveted each hot glance he sent her way and craved each kiss as if it were the treasure Eaton alluded to.
‘If you want my counsel, Eliza, it is this: take the money, step away from the mines and you can tup whomever you like. No one will care. This offer is freedom, the one thing you crave above all else. I wish you could see it that way, my dear.’
My dear. It was the last straw. ‘Get out.’ She would not stand here and be condescended to, lectured, berated for sins she had not committed, not after all she’d endured. Miles’s elegant brows knit in perplexity. ‘Did you not understand me, Miles? Or is it that you can’t believe I’d actually throw you out?’
Miles straightened and picked up his hat from the table with unhurried gestures that patronised her further. ‘What I understand is that you’re upset. We will talk again later when you’ve had time to think. We need to discuss the tunnel further.’ Not any more, not after today’s revelations, not when she was so suddenly aware that even Miles’s loyalty might be questionable. If he was truly loyal to her, he would understand this was not an offer she could accept.
‘It’s nothing. I can sort it out myself,’ Eliza lied. She wanted him gone before she broke down, before she showed how much his news had shaken her.
She saw him to the door and shut it firmly behind him. Miles might claim to be her friend, but he was a man easily swayed by the mind of the crowd. After all, he’d proposed to her out of social pressure to scotch mere rumours of their association. How long would he stand beside her now if he thought her decision a poor one? Especially if others were willing to line his pockets? She’d like to think better of him, but she could not. To award him attributes he didn’t possess would be naive and it would make her vulnerable if she was wrong.
Eliza leaned against the door, exhausted. When would it end? When would she be left in peace to run her mines and live her life? She’d held up the world for so long. She was tired, but she could not relent. She climbed the stairs and checked on Sophie. She was asleep with a smile on her face. Perhaps her sweet girl was dreaming of their magical day. Eliza was envious. Her dreams would not be as sweet. But they were a far-off consideration. Her mind was still churning from Miles’s visit. Eliza returned downstairs, occupying herself with a tour of the house, checking doors and windows, although the servants had already done it. There was little for her to do and she was restless. She needed exercise, something to ease her mind over the news and something to provide objectivity. Perhaps a walk?
Eliza took her shawl from a peg by the door and wrapped it about her shoulders. A moonlit walk would do her good. An emotional response to this latest gambit from her shareholders would not solve anything. She needed to be rational and she needed to be grateful to Miles, who’d told her the news. Friends risked much when they had to impart difficult news. The shareholders had meant to take her unawares by presenting the offer at the meeting and forcing her to a spontaneous response. But Miles, for all his differing views, had bought her time to think, time to marshal her troops even when she disagreed with him. Wasn’t that the hallmark of a true friend? She had not treated him well for it.
The moon was bright and she walked without fear or thought of distance. After all, she was on Eaton’s land and as long as she kept the main house visible to her right, she wouldn’t get lost. She thought over the offer as she walked. Perhaps she should sell her shares? She could purchase an estate like this one, where Sophie could run and play all day and she’d never have to worry about leaving for a meeting. No, Eliza knew she’d be bored within a month. What would she do with herself all day without the mines to run? There wasn’t just the activity to think of, there was the legacy as well. The shareholders would run Blaxland Mining into the ground if she stepped away. They’d pursue profit at any price.
The orangery loomed before her, the moonlight reflecting off the glass. Her feet had led her here even if he
r thoughts had not, at least not her conscious thoughts. Perhaps her subconscious? Perhaps she’d wanted to see Eaton all along, wanted to borrow his strength for a moment as she had on the cliffs that afternoon. Was it really so wrong to want to lay down the burden for a moment? Especially when one had been invited to do that very thing?
Come to me later...if you still want to talk, or even if you don’t...
Eaton was not pressing her, he was giving her space and choices, two things Miles Detford was not keen to offer. Right now, those things looked like heaven. Or hell. Her hand stalled on the orangery door as her conscience whispered its final admonition.
Step in there and you will be tempted. The hour is late, you are tired, and he is persuasive. Who is the real devil, Eliza? Detford with his truth or Eaton Falmage with his fantasies?
Eliza turned the knob of the orangery door. To hell with it, then. Tonight she needed Eaton in his garden.
Chapter Thirteen
Baldor’s ears pricked up and the big dog rose to his feet from beside the worktable. Eaton set down his tools, a satisfied smile taking his mouth. Eliza was coming. He could hear her on the path winding through the orangery, swishing skirts, staccato steps. She had not entered the orangery timidly despite the darkness, nor was she picking her way through. She was coming at full speed, straight and direct...to him. He wondered which Eliza had come to him tonight: the determined woman who’d ambushed him in his own school, or the woman he’d held in his arms on the cliffs today, the woman who was both strong and vulnerable. He was ready for either woman. He’d come to care for both. Goodness knew he’d waited longer for Eliza Blaxland than he’d waited for any woman. Not that three weeks was any great length to wait in general, but for a man who was used to having his every wish carried out instantaneously, used to having his pick of lovers, being in hard pursuit with no surety of success was something of a novelty—a very trying novelty. And yet these three weeks with Eliza and Sophie had been the best three weeks he could recall in his adult life.
The Secrets of Lord Lynford Page 12