Mr. Fairclough's Inherited Bride

by Georgie Lee

  While his sister was a mature woman now, his mother had changed very little except for the faint lines around her mouth. Her skin was still smooth and her wavy hair still as dark brown as it had been when he was a boy. She was a little thinner and Silas prayed it wasn’t from worry over the missing money and possibly losing everything she and his father had worked to create. As Silas strode to her, he looked down on her, having forgotten how short she was compared to him. Silas braced himself as he waited for her greeting, wondering how effusive or restrained it would be. ‘Mother, it’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you.’ She raised her arms to embrace him, then paused as if afraid he might push her away. He didn’t and she pulled him close, the slight scent of vanilla and rosewater taking him back to when he was a very small child and a nightmare had woken him and he’d gone to her for comfort. He should have been here to offer her comfort in return. He hadn’t been, but he was home now, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant for either of them. ‘I was so worried when we heard no word from you.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you write?’ Silas cursed his tongue. They were not minutes together and already the tension was rising. This time it was his fault.

  She let go of him and stepped back, the reserve that she employed with Foundation women who had broken the rules coming over her. ‘Your sisters wrote. I was doing all I could to make sure we survived on our limited funds.’

  This checked Silas’s irritation. ‘I’ll make sure that never happens again and we’ll find out what happened to the missing bank drafts and apparently Millie’s and Lottie’s letters and mine. I never heard anything from anyone until my solicitor called on you and even he was remiss in getting the information to me in a timely fashion.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it later, Silas. There’s so much else to hear about, isn’t there?’ She let go of him, a faraway look of disappointment in her eyes. It was the same one that had marred her expression when she’d agreed to find him a place with Jasper’s father’s engineering company in Liverpool instead of insisting that he remain here. He caught it before she turned to approach Mary and it cut him to the core. She hadn’t forgiven him any more than he had forgiven himself. ‘Welcome to the family, Lady Mary.’

  * * *

  Mary’s stared over Mrs Fairclough’s shoulder at Silas in stunned silence as his mother embraced her.

  She called me Lady Mary.

  Either Mrs Fairclough had been standing at the door listening to their conversation before she’d entered or she already knew Mary by reputation alone. Given her work, it wasn’t impossible to think that she kept abreast of who might need her services no matter what class they were part of. It might have been years since Mary’s fall, but as she’d told Silas, stories as sensational as hers never died. It was told to young girls as a warning of what could happen to them and everyone knew why certain daughters of titled men who’d once been coveted marriage partners suddenly disappeared and were treated as if they’d never existed.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs Fairclough,’ Mary replied as eagerly a she could, trying to curry favour with her new mother-in-law and ignore how brief the embrace was and how guarded Mrs Fairclough remained as she stood across from her, taking her measure.

  I was right to be afraid. She doesn’t want me in her family.

  ‘It’s probably the real reason why we haven’t heard from him in so long,’ Lottie teased. ‘He was too busy with his railroad and his bride.’

  The maid entered with tea and Jasper took his leave of them and his wife, having business to attend to in the city, but he promised to return for dinner. While they ate, Lottie told them all about her and Jasper’s adventure finding her friend Harriet and everything they’d uncovered during their escapade. Nothing about Lottie’s behaviour as she described roping Jasper into visiting some of the seedier parts of London appeared to surprise Silas or Mrs Fairclough. It stunned Mary, though, as it did Mrs Fairclough listening to her daughter’s story without sneering in disgust at how she’d risked her reputation to help a fallen woman.

  Mrs Fairclough caught Mary’s eyes with the same studying expression as before. Mary twisted her teacup in her saucer, wishing she’d stayed in America. She remembered all the times she’d sat with Ruth in church, waiting for people to judge her, afraid they would speak out against her. She’d detested that feeling and by coming back to England she was dealing with it in droves all over again, of having the people who were now her family look askance at her.

  She shifted towards Silas on the sofa, wanting to draw comfort and strength from him, but the stiffness of his bearing stopped her from sitting too close. Whatever reservations and regrets Mary had about being here, Silas held some, too, as if he also worried that at any moment this light-hearted gathering could turn to one of accusations and derision. Mary caught his eye and offered him an encouraging smile. He matched it with an answering one of his own, each of them breathing easier because they were not alone.

  Lottie, unaware of their awkwardness, finished her story and was about to start another when someone clearing his throat brought their attention to the sitting-room door. A middle-aged man of average height, with blond hair that was more brown than light and who wore a finely tailored if not lesser quality wool suit very much in the current style, stood patiently. Whoever he was, the fact that he had thought so carefully about his attire was clear, even to Mary.

  ‘Mr Edwards, you must meet my brother, Silas.’ Lottie jumped up and took the man by the arm and dragged him into the room. He glanced at her fingers as they pressed into his coat sleeve and Mary wondered if he would shake off her grip and accuse her of wrinkling the fabric the way her brother used to do if either Jane or Mary dared to touch him. He didn’t, but stiffly followed her to the table to take Jasper’s vacated seat. He barely acknowledged Mary or the other women, but fixed on Silas as if he were some interloping suitor, his eyes a strange mixture of one blue and one brown, with one being a touch darker than the other. ‘Silas, this is Jerome Edwards, the Foundation’s new manager.’

  ‘Mr Fairclough, it’s a pleasure to finally meet the man to whom so much of the Foundation’s financial success is due,’ Mr Edwards offered with all the deference and caution of a butler welcoming a new lord to the manor. ‘Septimus always spoke very highly of you.’

  * * *

  Silas shook the man’s hand. The new manager was friendly enough, but there was a reservation behind his smile, much like Silas’s mother’s. Heaven only knew what complaints about Silas’s failings his mother must have made to Mr Edwards while they’d endured the last few lean months. ‘I’ll have to pay Septimus a visit while I’m home. How is he these days?’

  ‘He resides in the country with his sister, away from the foul London air.’ Mr Edwards laid one hand on his chest and cast a wistful look at the ceiling. ‘It’s a life that we can all aspire to.’

  ‘It is. In the meantime, I have some Foundation business to discuss with you,’ Silas said, addressing him as he would Mr Hachman. ‘Tomorrow, I’d like to meet with you to discuss possible reasons why the bank drafts went missing. I’d also like to review the Foundation accounts to ensure that the Foundation is on solid financial footing. I won’t allow this sort of thing to happen again or leave Mother to rely on the Marquess or Jasper for handouts.’

  Silas’s announcement cleared all pastoral dreams from Mr Edwards’s eyes. ‘I assure you that the accounts are in perfect order. The trouble must be with the bank.’

  ‘I’ll investigate that, too, but I still want to see the accounts so I can best help my mother with the trust I’m establishing for her.’ It was a bald-faced lie. While Silas did want to know how best to help his mother, he also wished to make sure that the accounts were in as pristine a shape as Mr Edwards claimed and that nothing more nefarious than a simple mistake with the bank had taken place. He didn’t wish to accuse the manager of anything, but he didn’t
know him well enough to place him above suspicion. ‘I’ll also be appointing a trustee, someone like Jasper who can act as my agent and can keep on top of things so that if there is trouble I’m not learning about it six months later from some solicitor with no personal interest in the matter.’

  Mr Edwards exchanged an almost-indignant look with Silas’s mother, visibly struggling against his shock to maintain his deference. ‘Of course. Your mother and the Foundation’s well-being are of the utmost concern to all of us. If you’ll excuse me, I have accounts to attend to.’

  Mr Edwards bowed and took his leave.

  ‘You were very curt with Mr Edwards,’ Silas’s mother remarked, as pleased as Mr Edwards had been about Silas’s announcements.

  ‘It’s nothing more than business. As a manager, he should understand that.’

  ‘Of course, but we can’t have him thinking that he’s being accused of anything either,’ his mother warned in a soft but firm voice that made it clear that Silas was not to jeopardise Mr Edwards’s employment. ‘The Foundation is a welcoming place for everyone in need of help, including Mr Edwards. He fell on hard time when he lost his last position because his prior employer made too many bad investments.’

  ‘Then he of all people should welcome the security of steady funds from a trust,’ Silas shot back, irked that his mother seemed more concerned with keeping Mr Edwards than the roof over her head.

  ‘He will, if you phrase it with a little more delicacy.’

  Silas didn’t answer and the awkward strain that had marred the first moments of their reunion returned, so much so that Lottie shot Mary a discomforting look before she broke in with her bright voice.

  ‘I’m sure Mr Edwards will do everything he can to help Silas avoid such problems in the future. He wants as much as we do for the Foundation to succeed. In the meantime, tell us about your railroad, Silas.’

  * * *

  Mary listened while Silas told them about the Baltimore Southern Railway, the stiffness in his back from his mother’s rebuke easing as he described his work with the same energy that had convinced his investors to part with money for the foundry.

  ‘I knew you’d put all that charm to good use one day,’ Lottie teased, as captivated as Mary by her successful brother. Preston had never done anything more than stand to inherit an estate, biding his time until he’d became a viscount by gambling and running up debts that Jane had written to her about much later. Mary could see from this simple house and neighbourhood how far Silas had raised himself through his efforts and it increased her admiration for him.

  Mrs Fairclough was much more reserved in her reaction and it tempered some of Silas’s natural enthusiasm. Mary wondered if it was a true lack of interest in his success or that he’d marred it through his poor choice of bride that made his mother withhold effusive praise. Whatever it was, Mary hoped that the undercurrent of tension between them could be resolved by the time they returned to America. She knew what it was to have the weight of her parent’s disappointment dragging at her. She didn’t wish to add Mrs Fairclough’s to it or for Silas to come to resent Mary for being the cause of it.

  Chapter Nine

  Silas led Mary into his old bedroom, ready for the night. Jasper had joined them for dinner as promised, but they had yet to see Millie and her illustrious husband. Silas was glad the Marquess hadn’t been there. After their long travels and the reunion that had been both joyous and discomforting, Silas was in no mood to charm a man. It was a rare occasion when he sought solitude instead of company, especially as he set his lamp down on the top of the old dresser. It had once held his model soldier collection until he’d replaced it with small replicas of steam engines. The toys had been sold ages ago for their lead to help pay for necessities after his father had died.

  Silas breathed in the slight mustiness from the damp old wood, the faint smoke from a chimney that sometimes didn’t clear, and felt the lumpiness of the knotted rug under his feet. Little about the room had changed in the past ten years and the part of him that enjoyed a well-appointed room in Baltimore rebelled at the puritan simplicity, especially as Mary searched through her leather and wood trunk. She deserved more, Silas had worked for more and yet this was home.

  ‘Are you all right, Silas?’ Mary faced him, her fine night things draped over one arm.

  ‘I always imagined I’d return, but it’s hard to believe I’m here. There are so many memories. Not all of them are good.’ Comfort hung in the air along with the recollection of reading about the latest in steam innovation, dreaming of the railroads and attending to his studies with his father standing over him. It was kneeling beside the turned wood bed praying that his father would live so that he could make peace with him that made it hard to be here. His father hadn’t survived, stealing Silas’s chance at forgiveness and changing everything.

  Mary didn’t ask for more and he stared into her round brown eyes. She understood better than he could place into words the conflict between being home and wanting to be anywhere else. Here, the old failures settled around him like the dust not even a good cleaning could clear from the room after all these years. He longed to tell Mary of the argument with his father about Silas wanting to work for the railway instead of the Foundation, of his father accusing him of being as grasping as the grandfather Silas had never met and the ugly words of frustration that Silas had hurled at him in return. Then he’d stalked off to find employment anyway. It was Millie who’d found him at the railway yard a week later to tell him their father had caught typhoid and it was dire. It didn’t matter that Silas had returned home immediately. His father had never come out of his delirium long enough for Silas to know if he ever forgave him. He was too ashamed to reveal it, especially since he’d made the same mistake again, quarrelling with his mother about his future, thinking he had no way forward but to run off to America, leaving her with nothing more than a letter he knew she’d receive long after he was at sea, swearing Jasper to secrecy so no one could stop him. These acts of cowardice clung to him so tightly that even his successes couldn’t peel them off as his unease during tea and dinner and in his mother’s presence had reminded him. ‘My mother wasn’t exactly enamoured of my success tonight.’

  It was as close to the truth as he was willing to venture. Mary would think less of him if he told her the details about his leaving for America. After having her fiancé walk away from her, he refused to give her any reason to believe that he might do the same to her some day. Silas was an honourable man who upheld his promises to himself and others. He shouldn’t allow one act of cowardice to define him, but it was easier to say than it was to believe it.

  ‘Your sister is over the moon that we’re here.’

  ‘It’ll be hard on her when we leave again.’ He would make a better effort with his departure this time, but he still worried that his family would view it as him turning his back on them. There’d been no mistaking his mother’s reference to his prior departure during tea. It’d confirmed every suspicion he’d had that she hadn’t forgiven him for leaving. She might not again, but he must go. His life was in America. ‘It’ll give my mother another reason to be disappointed in me.’

  ‘I think it’s me she’s disappointed in. She wasn’t any more ecstatic about my presence than she was your railroad.’ Mary sat down on the edge of the bed, dropping her nightgown beside her, her dejection troubling him.

  He sat down beside her. ‘Don’t worry about that, it’s just her way. She takes the measure of everyone who comes here.’

  ‘Then maybe that’s her way with you, too, especially since you’ve been gone for so long. You’ve changed and she doesn’t know how to approach it or you.’

  ‘Not my mother. She’s spent her life solving problems for others and the Foundation.’ He tugged loose the cravat knot and unwound the silk from around his neck. ‘If anyone can adjust to change, it’s her. She’s had no choice but to do so.’

&n
bsp; ‘It doesn’t mean she likes it or doesn’t struggle with it like we do.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it does.’ Silas undid his coat and slipped it off. Mary was right. His mother had endured a great deal of change after his father had passed and she’d been forced to face more of it in the last few weeks. Perhaps she was struggling as much as he and, as hard as it was to imagine, maybe she didn’t know what to do any more than he did. However, it still didn’t explain why she hadn’t written to him over the years or in the last few months when they were all in doubt about his health and whereabouts. He turned to Mary and brushed a curl away from her face, leaving his hand to linger on her cheek, her skin warm and soft beneath his. ‘I’m glad Richard sent you here.’

  ‘So am I.’ He kissed her, running his fingers through Mary’s hair and dislodging a number of pins that plinked against the floorboards at their feet. He slid his arm around her waist and drew her close, craving the arch of her body against his. She was everything he was now instead of the past, a way to taste and touch the new world they had left behind in Baltimore. Her embrace and her words gave him back the pride that made him walk with his head held high in Maryland and to look people like Mr Penniman straight in the eye and convince them that their money was well spent with him. In the light brush of her fingertips against the skin on the back of his neck lay all the dreams he had accomplished in a few short years and all the ones he still had left to pursue. He would not fail, but continue to be the successful man she’d married, even here where the past tried to pull him down.

  * * *

  Mary lay in Silas’s arms, listening to the early morning sounds of London outside the window. She’d slept a good portion of the night, the train ride here and the apprehension of meeting his family and their lovemaking having left her exhausted. Then the familiar clop of horses and the rattle of carts on the street before sunrise as the bakers and the brewers had begun their day had awakened her. This part of London was so different than the one she’d grown up in, but the sounds were familiar in a way they had not been in Baltimore or even in the country with Ruth.