by Carrie Lofty
“Mornin’.”
“Your accent is almost impossible when you’re groggy.”
“Och. No teasin’ now.”
But she was smiling already, as if daring him to do just that. To keep teasing until nothing mattered other than gathering more and more of her radiance.
Viv, you really must meet her.
I love her.
He touched two fingers to his lips and smelled Polly’s scent. On his skin. Threaded through the sheets and in the air. Oh, yes, he loved his new bride.
Yet why did he hesitate in telling her? Perhaps because he had forced her to wed. He had taken her from her home, and had taken from her the calling that defined so much of her life. And through it all, he kept the secrets of the mill masters. She would not forgive him for that.
More time. He needed more time to set everything to rights. Then he could confess the emotions that banged so fiercely in his heart. He would say it out loud and turn this capricious union into a lasting one.
She sat up and stretched. The pose offered him a breathtaking view of her back, where lush, vibrant hair trailed down to just below her ribs. Tempting twin divots marked the tops of her buttocks. With her arms over her head, she arched slightly, reminiscent of the way she’d arched while riding him. In three-quarter profile, her breasts stretched upward, too. Her nipples were pert and upturned, just like the tip of her nose.
Alex traced his hand up her side. He barely touched that soft flesh before she collapsed in a heap of giggles.
“So there’s your ticklish spot,” he said.
Pulled tight into a ball, she peeked out from beneath the shield of her hair. “Impossible man. I didn’t know what sort of monster I’d awaken.”
“Never poke a bear while it’s sleeping.”
“A bear?” She giggled again, then flipped her hair aside. Hands interlaced over his chest, she rested her chin atop them. Magnetic green eyes—eyes he’d been lost to for a long time—looked up at him with lurid delight. “You do rather remind me of one when you take your clothes off.”
“Excuse me?”
She pushed her fingertips into his chest hair. And scraped him. She smiled at his soft hiss. “No one would ever guess you hide this lovely body beneath your business suit. So strong. But you’ll give yourself away if you let that beard grow.”
Alex rubbed a hand over three days’ growth on his chin and cheeks. He’d never been lazy about his appearance, but other concerns had eclipsed his regular priorities. “I’ll shave.”
Polly frowned slightly.
“What?”
“I wish you didn’t have to,” she said. “It felt . . . wonderful.”
“Where?”
She blinked, seeming aghast. Only for a moment. “On my tits, love.”
Alex grabbed her around the waist. “Foulmouthed temptress.”
“Or you could always call me your wife. That works, too.”
Both of them went still. Their gazes locked. They hadn’t spoken about any of it—just went about their separate days and joined in breathless passion at night. Two married people lived under that roof, but they had yet to acknowledge the fact.
He sat up. “I’ll look like just another Scotsman if I keep the stubble. Seems my father passed on a touch of ginger I hadn’t known was there.”
Polly wasn’t letting him go. Up on her knees, she curled along his back. Breasts, stomach, hips. All for him. He felt the urge to shout for joy—and run to hide. He’d never known a woman more bent on having what she wanted. Clever hands mined the hard, tense places along his upper back. He remembered that long-ago evening at Idle Michael’s when she’d tended to his scrapes and cuts. How could he have known what pleasure yet awaited them? The groan she pulled out of him was completely unavoidable.
“But I like Scotsmen. They look burly and strong, like I’d be protected forever.” She pressed her lips down along his nape. “Isn’t that what you’ve offered me, Alex? What you promised my da?”
He turned his head and caught the back of hers. They kissed like that, as if they couldn’t even wait to face each other. Desire he’d thought thoroughly sated swelled so suddenly that he forgot to breathe.
This was what he’d been missing. All he’d never had.
“Yes,” he said against her wet lips—that lovely wide mouth with its teasing mischief. “It’s what I promised.”
She mussed his hair and climbed off the bed with the enthusiasm of a girl half her years. But she wasn’t smiling anymore. A sense of foreboding he couldn’t ignore gathered like a cloud over his happiness.
“Polly? What is it?”
“I’ve spoken to Tommy,” she said. “Since the wedding.”
He froze in the motion of sitting up. That meant she’d ventured into Calton, while he’d been arguing with men of business or bending over the journals that blur into lines of ink. He’d just . . . assumed she would stay home. His instructions had been for her own good, but he’d been a fool to believe Polly would give it all up. Knowing her history with Tommy added a surprising edge of jealousy.
“Why?”
Green eyes flashed before she hid them away, looking out the front window. She still wore no clothes. Was she doing it on purpose? The effect was undeniable. He traced the line of her buttocks even as his mind burned with a hundred terrible possibilities.
“He wanted to meet me because he’d heard we were married. I needed the chance to explain myself.”
“Who told you where to find him?”
“I’ve known where he was.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t about to hand him over to the police, now was I?”
She finally grabbed his dressing gown. If she’d planned to hold this conversation while nude, she thought better of it now. Yet Alex did not breathe easier. He pushed off the bed and shoved his legs into a pair of trousers.
“I had no need to tell you,” she continued. “I’m not a prisoner here. And besides, it wasn’t your business.”
“My mill nearly burned to the ground. You’ve been hiding the prime suspect. Then you sneak out of my house like a fugitive, to meet a man who is one. Jesus, Polly, you make it damned hard to keep you safe when you run through Calton looking for trouble. So tell me. How the hell is that not my business?”
“Your mill. Your house. Your business. And now I’m your wife. I’m to be dragged along with no say in anything! There’s a difference between being protected and being claimed by a tyrant.” She tossed her hair back. That God almighty stubborn chin volunteered to lead her resistance. “Speaking of tyrants, you might be interested in something he heard. Something about how the masters are set to decrease wages to compensate for recent losses.”
This was it. She knew.
Alex ran his hands through his hair. Feeling dangerous and barely in control, he stalked across the bedroom. He wanted to shake Polly until she begged and apologized—for what, he didn’t know. For turning him inside out? For making him regret the decisions he’d needed to make?
“Tommy’s not wrong,” he said at last.
Her laugh was a ragged, pathetic thing. “But not you. I told him that you’re different. Give me that much, Alex.”
She looked at him with a hope he could not honor. Just as he’d feared, he was out of time. He shoved his surprising, amazing desires into a box and closed it. Locked it. Buried it.
“The decision was unanimous,” he said soberly. “For the sake of the mill, I need to stand with the other masters.”
“You sided with those bastards?” Hurt registered so plainly across her dear face. Skin illuminated by the gathering sunlight pinched around her mouth. She pulled into herself, tightening the robe, hunching her shoulders. “For how long? How long have you been pretending to give a good goddamn about finding out the truth? Or about helping the weavers?”
He stared her down. She was as angry as he’d ever seen. Good. Because he was about to explode. “Since the morning before we saw the aurora. I agreed at the meeting
that followed.”
“So tell me, was spending time in Calton just a lark? You shouldn’t have been an astronomer or an industrialist, Alex. You should’ve been an actor, because I believed you actually cared.”
Alex snagged her chin and held fast, even when she tried to jerk away. “And you, wife. I actually believed you wanted to learn the truth about the fire. How long have you been hiding Tommy?”
“Weeks. And a good thing, too. He’d have been hanged before being given a chance to defend himself. You saw what the police did to stitch me up. I dare you to argue he would’ve been treated fairly.” Alex felt her teeth grind together beneath his fingertips. “In the meantime, you lied just long enough to twist me into this bloody marriage.”
He grasped her upper arms. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy this morning and I’ll call you a liar right back.”
“Let go of me! You don’t like being called a master, yet look what you’ve become. You’ve taken everything from me! I trusted you.”
“I can understand relenting for the sake of your family. Marrying me would protect them. Christ, I even encouraged that.” His mind rebelled against the memory of her daring words and how eagerly he’d drawn them in, like a lad with his first filthy fantasy. He clasped his fists at his side, standing silent and still in the bedroom that shared their mingled scents. “But did you marry me for the union?”
Those beautiful lips, still swollen from his kisses, tilted into a sneer. “Had I wanted anything from you that badly, I would’ve jumped at the chance to marry you. I’d have tattled to my da after our first fuck.”
“No, you knew exactly how to play me. Sex and innocence and prying under my skin.”
She slapped him. The shock banged through Alex’s skull. “I don’t recall dragging you into a factory office and forcing a kiss. Yes, I talked with Da about approaching you, getting to know you better. We needed that opportunity, just like you needed information from me. So don’t you dare tell me this was some sordid trickery.”
Polly rubbed her palm while Alex rubbed his cheek. “To think,” she said, breathless now, “I defended you! To everyone! I told Tommy outright that you wouldn’t side with those fat cats and their greed. You believe you’ve been taken as a fool, but that worthless honor is mine. You thickheaded idiot. I fell in love with you! I’ve sat in this house like a prisoner. Waiting. I’ve shared your bed and your body every night. Still waiting.”
Breath seared inside his chest. “For what?”
“For you to say anything. Anything to make me feel like more than some refugee you pulled out of the slums.” The flush of her cheeks had turned as pale as milk. “I’ve turned myself inside out in the hope you might see me as more than a lover wearing a wedding band—or the means to some industrial end. Turns out I’ve been blind to how far a master will stoop to add to his riches.”
Alex shrugged, as if their disagreement was no more devastating than being unable to agree on a wine to serve with supper. “That cannot be true because I am not a rich man. I’m worth little more than my largest telescope. To earn my inheritance and keep full custody of my son, I need to make this wretched company profitable by the end of 1883.”
She nodded curtly. “That year and a half you mentioned.”
“That’s right. And I’ll do anything—anything, Polly—to make it happen. Don’t believe for a second that your union is exempt.”
“I’ve shared so much with you. Tried to make you happy. Hoped you’d make me happy. You’ve treated me no better than gutter trash. Gutter trash, Alex.”
He’d thrown Winchester into the street for leveling that same insult at Polly. She looked just as he felt, as if ready to vomit.
He could tell her, I love you, too. He could tell her how wrong she was, that he respected her more than any woman he’d ever known. But his honesty would only muddy the situation. The mill and the union, his son and his wife—he needed to choose, just as he’d sacrificed passion for Mamie’s sake.
No one could have it all.
Cold. So cold. When had his room full of sunlight and love turned into four walls stuffed to the ceiling with ice?
“If you can’t live with the decisions I’ve made, then an annulment is for the best.”
The spark in her eyes faded. A layer of cloudy gray shaded their bright green beauty. She nodded. Stiffly. But her shoulders no longer bowed. She stood regally. “Have it your way, master. I’m used to that by now.”
The door to his bedroom shook. Agnes knocked roughly, her words raw as she shouted through the wood. “Mr. Christie? Where’s the missus, sir? Come quick. It’s her da.”
Twenty-three
Polly pinned her hair back in a severe bun, using the looking glass above her mother’s Georgian porcelain basin—one of her family’s few treasures. It had been passed down from mother to daughter, just like the genuine tortoiseshell combs she brought out for the funeral. Her hair finished, she donned the black she’d worn for her grandma’s funeral three years before.
She was wearing her own clothes, not the ones Alex had ordered made for her. And she was back in the home where she’d been born. Her old pallet had held her, not his strong arms. That she shared the tiny space with her mother and brothers was no longer such a dire concern. That she succumbed to random fits of tears . . . she tried constantly to hide that truth.
Her da was dead.
Hours later, after the somber service at the church, the mourners arrived at the graveyard where her father would be laid to rest. Flanked by her brothers, Polly supported Ma and worked to keep her steps even, slow, determined. She would not let the weakness in her knees get the best of her. They were as soft as the veil whipping across her line of sight. May leaves rustled on that breeze. Such a beautiful spring day. But black lace darkened her view.
Ma had never appeared older or more haggard. Whatever grief Polly felt paled by comparison. Maybe, in some odd way, she was lucky. The loss of her father competed with other gut-twisting emotions. A raging, red anger. And heartbreak. Both burned in her chest.
Dozens of people—maybe as many as a hundred—crowded around the gaping mouth of his open grave. Heath and Wallace joined Hamish and Les as they carried the coffin out from the church. Even Tommy was there, protected for a time by a community bound together in mourning.
Polly said nothing when the reverend paused in his recitation to allow last words from family members. Instead, fingers numb, she held her mother’s hand as they each tossed a clod of dirt into the grave. The pale pine of his coffin no longer gleamed. That beautiful wood had seemed such a waste, but the union membership had pooled donations to buy the finely crafted piece. The ground would own it forever. But, swallowing thickly, Polly was grateful now that they had insisted. It was a final measure of respect for a man few, if any, outside of Calton would remember.
No one said a word about her marriage. Her father’s final gift had been to shield her from talk on this, her first day back among her people. But she would’ve borne the worst whispers to have Alex at her side. She loved him. She needed him. That he remained at home flayed her down to muscle and bone. Her face hurt from holding back screams that yearned to come blaring out. She remained a married woman standing alone at her father’s funeral.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Reverend McCormick intoned.
He dipped his chin and led that final service for Graham Gowan. Every disagreement and grudge was set aside. Everyone wore the same drab black—for most, the best clothing they owned. They prayed the same prayer, which Polly could only mouth. Her throat hurt too badly to speak.
She supported her mother through the rigors of the day. The church food churned in her stomach as she endured best wishes from those who’d idolized her father. Soon, most of the men would slip away and raise a pint in his honor. She wished she could join them.
Shoulders aching, she pressed her back against an elm that stretched its newborn leaves high over the football pitch where she had watched Alex compete, seemingly ages a
go. Some boys and young men did so now. Sunday was their only freedom from the workweek, and no one—not even those grieving most deeply—begrudged them an hour of play.
Hamish Nyman joined her. The expression he wore was nearly . . . sheepish. She hadn’t expected that in the least.
“Here to offer your congratulations on my wedding, or your condolences for my loss?”
“He was a good man,” Hamish said, skirting her question.
“That he was. I wonder what you’ll do with the mantle you’ll pick up in his stead. Wear it or burn it?”
“Depends on you.” He hadn’t argued against her assumption. Hamish intended to make a play for the leadership.
“On me? Hardly. You’ll move on without me, and with good reason. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
He added a noncommittal noise, then worked to roll a cigarette. “You did what you had to. Only the worst of this lot would begrudge you that.”
She shook her head. “Don’t talk bollocks to me. I know better. And I know exactly what I’d be calling a girl like me.”
“You’ve never been just any girl.” He lit the cigarette and drew in a deep breath. Silvery smoke caught the breeze as he exhaled. “More than that, you’re still Graham’s daughter. If we want this strike to hold firm, we need you. Your support. Your blessing.”
Strike.
It was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid. The masters were planning to punish everyone for the actions of a few, whose identities remained unknown. They wanted to destroy the union her father had worked decades to forge. The wage decrease would cause an internal split—accept it for the sake of hungry children, or risk worse by fighting for more.
But no. They’d hold the line together. No one would take advantage of them.
“No violence, Hamish. We can’t have it.”
His shoulders slumped, as if relieved. “I didn’t think you’d agree at all.”
She pushed away from the tree. The weakness that had invaded her joints upon learning of her father’s death was nowhere to be found. “Just where do you believe my loyalty lies? After all these years? Don’t be absurd.”