She simply wasn’t that person yet.
Yet.
“Just go. Please.”
His lips tightened but as Shane broke through the crowd and rushed to her side, he gave a tight nod and turned away.
But something told her that what burned between her and James held its own measure of inevitability. Perhaps once she found the strength she was looking for in herself, she’d have the power to take everything she knew she wanted.
That included him.
* * *
“I can’t imagine what you were thinking, Prim,” Shane chided for perhaps the third time during their short walk back down 5th Avenue to her house.
He’d practically dragged her away from the ball after James’s departure. A move that would no doubt only stir the gossip pots, she’d told him, but he wouldn’t listen.
“I was thinking a handsome man of my own choosing enjoys my company and asked me to dance,” she said, deciding on honesty of sorts. “So I did.”
“And became a source of scandal.”
“I think Mr. Leachman did that when he tried to cut in, don’t you? Did you put him up to it?”
“No, but I don’t understand why you can’t see Mossman is a far better fit for you,” Shane grumbled. “At least he cares about you.”
“You’re the fool if you think that’s true,” Prim said, sighing.
“You’ve got that right,” Jeremy agreed under his breath from her other side.
“He doesn’t care for me any more than I care for him, which is not at all,” she told him.
Now was the time. After what had just happened, there would never be a better time. Prim reminded herself of the emotions James had roused in her with his show of faith and gathered her strength.
“I don’t like Mr. Leachman, and I will never accept his suit. I wish you would accept that.”
“You’d rather have someone like MacKintosh?”
“In all honesty, I have no intention of remarrying. Ever,” she said flatly, though she knew it for the lie it was. There was one man who might persuade her to concede her freedom. One she’d trust enough to let her maintain some semblance of it. One who’d show her respect.
He’d be as appalled as her oldest brother was now, if he knew she’d even given it a moment’s consideration.
“But even if I were on the market for another husband, why wouldn’t I prefer Mr. MacKintosh over Mr. Leachman? Why wouldn’t I want someone closer to my own age? Someone who might be an active father to my children? Who I might grow old with, not nurse in his old age? Think about what you’d want in a wife and allow me to have the same.”
“She’s right,” Jeremy acknowledged with a nod. “I wouldn’t want to marry someone old enough to have birthed me. I’d like someone with as many years left in them as I potentially have myself.”
Prim looked up at Shane, willing him to understand. “There. You see?”
“But MacKintosh?” Shane still argued. “He’s the worst possible choice for you. He’ll ruin your reputation, if he hasn’t already. Promise me you won’t see him again.”
Mission accomplished. Prim’s knees nearly collapsed beneath her as it struck her. She’d won.
“Shane’s got a point, Prim,” Jeremy added. “I like the chap, but MacKintosh might not be the best man to be seen with repeatedly. He’s had every chance to wed if he were interested. Everyone knows he’s not. We can find someone else for you, right?”
“Yes,” Shane reluctantly agreed when Jeremy looked across her, prompting him. “Weston. We’ve talked about him before.”
But she didn’t want anyone else courting her. She didn’t want to give up James’s company. Not yet. He needn’t know she’d won her concession. Besides, they’d had a bargain and she hadn’t lived up to her side yet.
“You won’t see him again, will you?” Shane persisted.
Prim wouldn’t agree to it, but then again, the matter might have already been decided for her. The way she’d dismissed him, rejected him so publicly, he might be well and done with her.
Chapter 18
“You’re dangerous,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because you make me believe in the impossible.”
~ Simone Elkeles from Rules of Attraction
Thursday morning
James crumpled his sister-in-law’s letter in his fist with a low curse. It wasn’t the primary subject of the missive that had resulted in its mauling. Though it had come as a surprise to learn that Fiona was already with child and due to deliver Aylesbury an heir in the spring.
No, it was the tidbits of local gossip that riled him. Or, more to the point, one tidbit in particular.
The thick stationary received another sharp twist as he fought the urge to fling it into the flame of the roaring fire the Preston servants had lit to combat the winter chill.
“James, darling…?” Maggie strolled into the room carrying a few letters of her own. He stood to greet her. “Oh my, what has you all aflutter?
“Am I aflutter?” James asked innocently, dropping back into his chair after Maggie sat. “I hadn’t noticed.”
The lady just laughed lightly. “Two years you’ve been here, dear boy. I’ve come to think of you as my own son, the one I never had. A mother can read her child with astonishing ease, you know.”
“You are far too young to be my mother,” he parried, avoiding her question with the truth. “Besides, how can I be a son to you when apparently there’s some gossip out there that I live with you as your inamorato or something.”
“Really?” she asked, shocked. Then astonished him with a burst of laughter, rocking back in her chair and slapping her sack of letters against her knee. “Oh, how fabulous!”
“Fabulous?” Not at all the reaction he’d expected.
“Utterly.” She giggled like a schoolgirl again. “Oh, I knew those old biddies were jealous. I just had no idea how much so. They envy me my handsome young escort and all the attention you give me.”
“You think this is amusing?” He gaped at her.
“Oh, James, you take life far too seriously.”
“They paint me as your kept man.”
Maggie clapped her hands in delight. “We should go out tonight, then. The opera maybe to see the Nutcracker. I’ll flirt outrageously and simper all along as if I don’t know. What fun it’ll be!”
“It sounds like an unforgettable evening.”
The remainder of her amusement faded away. “Oh, dear boy. Come now, tell me what has you so troubled.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” She arched a blond brow. “Is that why you’re strangling that poor scrap of paper in your hand?”
With astonishing ease, she made him shift as guiltily as a stern look from his own mother had never managed.
There’d be no talking around her. He’d learned that much over the past two years.
“I’ve a letter from Eve.”
She cocked her head in curiosity. “What could my daughter possibly have said to upset you so? Surely you’re not upset about Fiona’s news?”
“Nay. Eve sends news as well that Ilona is nearing her delivery date and doing well. Between them, I’ll be an uncle again twice over and soon. I’m pleased for them both.”
“What then?” She waited. “James?”
With a sigh, James uncurled his fingers from around the letter and smoothed it out. “Lady Polwarth, too, has delivered an heir for her husband.”
“Lady Pol…? Oh, your Mrs. Ross?”
“Aye.” His native brogue weighed heavily on the word.
The lively light dimmed in Maggie’s gaze. “Oh. Are you regretting the choice you made?”
Two years in New York, he had few secrets from his hostess, so he didn’t try to pretend he didn’t understand the question. Besides, quite likely, she knew him better at this point than anyone ever had. Without him seeing it, she’d become a dear friend, perhaps his dearest. Smart, strong-willed, and shrewd. He was neve
r able to escape her keen gaze for long.
“Nay,” he said honestly.
“Then what is it?”
Shaking his head, he rose and strode to the front window, looking out over the gates marking the corner of the Central Park. However, it wasn’t the clumps of snow and ice falling off the trees he was seeing, but rather the memory of full skirts twirling around the dance floor of Haddington’s Edinburgh townhouse two years past. When he’d stood outside on the terrace, looking in.
“Nothing,” he answered at last. “I suppose it’s just the realization that life moves on.”
Yet, despite his best efforts, his had changed only minutely.
Perhaps that was the problem.
He’d come to New York with the express purpose of finding a bride and wedding as quickly as possible. To throw himself into the tumult of lovesick ecstasy. To find the wedded bliss that knotted his gut with envy.
He’d been confident of instantaneous success as he knew exactly what he was looking for. But the longer he was there, the more his disenchantment grew. The more he realized the impossibility of his search.
He’d thought, as he assured Maggie time and again, he’d put that fantasy behind him, content to focus on monetary achievement instead. Eve’s letter had roused that old envy’s ugly head for the first time in a long while. Reminding him that he was missing something all the greenbacks in America couldn’t buy. The satisfaction of all his success wasn’t quite enough to fully satiate his renewed disquiet that something more important was missing from his life.
Bloody hell, Prim hadn’t been wrong the other night. Despite Maggie’s friendship, he was lonely as Prim had said. While he hated the sensation, the good Lord knew how well acquainted he was with it.
It wasn’t only a matter of missing his family. It was missing something within himself. Despite being born amidst a near dozen siblings, he’d wallowed in it his whole life. No amount of companionship, laughter, or diversion ever filled it.
James slipped his hand into his pocket. His fingers curled around the locket his father had given him. It had been his mother’s before she’d died. Though he hadn’t opened it in years, he could picture in detail the aged and cracked miniature of his mother as a young woman on one side, his father on the other. Strands of their hair, braided together, were tucked within its hinged walls.
On his deathbed, his father had said he’d tried to live on this earth without his love but couldn’t go it alone. Not without his bonny Eileen. Loneliness ate at a man, he said. Of all his children, James might be the one to best understand.
He did.
His father had given him the locket that day so James would know he was never alone. In a way, it’d only served to amplify how alone he truly was.
As for love, after seeing how it’d wasted his father away, James had never wanted it. He hadn’t wanted to bear that kind of anguish. Ever. Then, after years of watching Francis’s first wife deliver misery in heaping helpings, he’d never wanted marriage either.
But he’d stood on that terrace two years ago, watching his brothers, becoming a believer for the first time. He’d realized that love didn’t only destroy. That it offered more than it stole from a man. He’d set off in search of that elusive emotion for himself.
And failed.
It wasn’t the search for a wife that kept him from home now. It wasn’t Larena’s happiness making him miserable. As much as he hated to admit it now as he wouldn’t then, it was envy, pure and simple.
He hated floundering about in this miserable solitude. He wanted what they had, what he apparently could not find for himself. He wanted someone to call his own. To be at his side, to find comfort in. To share a life. To shed the loneliness.
He wanted children around him. The joy they brought, the youth they restored in him.
He wanted love.
Bugger it all, he wanted to give his to someone.
All the wandering he’d done, all the diversion he’d entrenched himself in, hadn’t altered that simple truth.
He couldn’t go home having failed in that and face all that bloody wedded bliss alone once more.
And he wouldn’t.
He would marry. Sooner rather than later. Perhaps not for love but for that alone. For companionship. Friendship. A family of his own to keep him in good company.
“James, dear?”
“I’m ready to marry, Maggie,” he said pushing out of his chair to pour himself a celebratory glass of Scotch.
Maggie beamed in pleasure. “How lovely. I’ve been working on a new list of possibilities—”
“No need. I’ve already chosen my bride.”
“You’ve a devilish look in your eye,” Maggie said, a hint of trepidation in the words. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m going to marry Mrs. Eames.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
He might not love her but he liked her immensely. She’d be a boon companion for the rest of his years. With her came an instant family. Children who would be easy to adore.
And he desired her to boot. It would be no sacrifice to vow her his fidelity, something he refused to enter into marriage without.
Aye, she might not have all the qualities he’d hoped for, but then, according to Maggie, no one ever would. It could still be good for them. She’d give him what he was looking for.
He could do the same for her.
“After what happened the other night?”
“Despite it.”
He hadn’t heard or seen Prim since then, but she hadn’t returned the flowers that had accompanied his written apology. Nor had she written to decline the invitation to the Reformation Room he’d delivered at the Harkness Ball.
“Have you asked her?”
“Nay,” James admitted, swallowing a large portion of the drink. “And before you say anything else, I know you think she won’t have me.”
“She won’t. James…dear…”
“She will,” he shot back with equal assurance.
“She wants respect.”
“I respect her. Admire her even.”
“She fights for equality.”
James nodded. “And she can continue to do so. Hell, I’ll join the fight with her. Come what may, she’d have it in our home in any case.”
James knew he was man enough not to lose any of his masculinity by taking stock in a woman’s opinion.
“She wants independence.”
He wanted her to come into her own and be her own woman so in a certain sense, he’d give her that as well.
It would benefit them both.
“She’ll have it.”
“So much confidence, James,” Maggie sighed. “I’ll give you that, but you’re forgetting one tiny thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Mrs. Eames has told me unequivocally she has no desire to remarry.”
With a nod, James looked down into the amber liquid swirling around the bottom of his glass before tipping it back and gulping down the remainder.
No, Prim didn’t want a husband.
Well, he could find a way around that.
Chapter 19
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.
~ Robert Frost
Friday evening…
Prim poked her fork idly at her bread pudding. Like James’s had been at the Gould dinner a couple weeks past, her focus was entirely on the clock on the fireplace mantle. Each tick of the second hand rang like a gong in her mind. Each one making her feel more and more guilty as the clock rounded the half hour and crept up toward nine.
“Aren’t you hungry, Prim?” Jeremy asked, scraping his fork along the edge of his plate to catch up the last of the brandied peach sauce which had topped the dessert.
“Not really.”
“Can I…?”
Prim nudged her uneaten pudding in his direction before he even finished the question.
Then her eyes touched the clock again.
She’d shooed James away to spare herself a moment’s embarrassment and what had she gained? A quiet evening at home? How could she expect him to stand for her when she cowered from the part of herself she loved the most? Restraining herself in word or action had never been satisfying. It’d never spared her from being berated like a child. Or consoled her when she offered no more protest than fisted hands that had her fingernails digging into her palms. There’d been nothing but discontent from her inner voice, which scolded her as well. One victory and she’d given up the war.
Awash with self-loathing, Prim glanced at the clock again. She was a competent adult, not a child. She needed to pull herself together and flaunt it. For James. For her.
There was a battle still to be fought if she wanted to live life as she pleased.
She could begin tonight, grasp life with both hands. Though it was likely James wasn’t going to show up after her curt dismissal the other night. She hadn’t sent him a note specifically excusing herself from the evening he’d proposed. But she hadn’t accepted him either.
Would he take her lack of communication as a no then?
He didn’t seem the type to. Not at all.
And who would she disappoint more if she didn’t go? James or herself?
“What do you say about a game of backgammon after dinner, hmm?” her brother asked as he cleared away her portion with a hum of pleasure. “Oh, and I assume my room’s available for the night as usual?”
“Have you nowhere to be this evening?” she asked.
Jeremy shrugged, finishing off the dessert. “Not really. Shane’s dining with Declan and their old banking chap Ogilvie tonight. Dennis has been a bore since he’s taken up with that burlesque dan…uh, Dennis was unavailable.”
“So, I’ve come in as runner up for the finest company available on a Friday evening?”
He shot her a grin. “Well, it’s not as if you had anything better to do tonight, right?”
Oh, but she did.
Every fiber of her being yearned to do it. Seize the moment, her heart cried. Do as you please. As you desire.
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