Mr. Fairclough's Inherited Bride

by Georgie Lee

  Silas strode out of the office, not bothering to close the door behind him or acknowledge the two clerks he passed who stopped writing to look up at him. They’d overheard his conversation and the rare moment of emotion when he’d been unable to check himself. Good, let them hear that their employer was a coward, let those among them who were using their position as a stepping stone or a chance to make money while pursuing their own ventures take this lesson to heart. A timid man who bound himself to the will of others did not succeed.

  Silas walked away from Mr Williams’s office, disappointment nipping at him. It wasn’t only Richard and the Baltimore Southern he’d failed in not securing the patent, but Mary. For the second time in as many days the promise he’d made to her that her past didn’t matter had been proven wrong. It had risen up as she’d feared to bite them both and there was nothing he could do to overcome it, to make Mr Williams see the foolishness of his decision or to convince his investor to crack open his stubbornly shut mind. Without the patent Silas would have to find another engine and attempt to acquire it, assuming some lord with a prissy sense of things didn’t control that engineer, too. It might take months in England to discover a new one, leaving the Baltimore Southern’s new rail lines fallow and Richard with the burden of managing things. It might weaken him enough to deliver the fatal blow, his death hastened by Silas’s failure. He couldn’t have that, nor could he go home and tell Mary the real reason why they must extend their stay. If there was an American option he would seize it, but there wasn’t. People’s inability to think ahead and build foundries for rails extended to steam engines, too. They thought they could rely on England and her goods for ever, but Silas knew better. Perhaps he could convince a designer to follow him across the Atlantic, but this would also take time and an honest explanation for Mary, one he was loath to give.

  Silas slowed his steps. Not since the two years after his father’s illness when he’d risen each morning to work at the Foundation, all the while longing to be elsewhere, had Silas felt so trapped by a situation. He wanted to return to his mother’s house, order their things packed, board the next steamer to Baltimore and leave this frustration behind, but he couldn’t. Lottie and Millie, despite their disappointment, might understand his abrupt departure, but his mother wouldn’t and all chance for a reconciliation with her would be lost. He’d been so preoccupied with business that he hadn’t spoken to his mother as Mary had urged. His leaving might make it so that they never discussed what had happened and it continued to hang over them, but he couldn’t stay here. He refused to allow Mary to take the blame for losing the engine patent. It would undo everything she’d accomplished by attending the ball.

  He hailed a hack and gave the driver instruction to take him to his solicitor. He would finish arranging the new trust for his mother and, if he could, discover who had stolen the bank notes. It would all be concluded as quickly as possible so he and Mary could return to Baltimore. He wished he could do it before he had to tell Mary the truth about Mr Williams. He could lie to her, but she would see through it. He wanted no deception between them, but he didn’t want to hurt her or ruin everything that she’d accomplished when she’d faced Lord Longford either. With luck, it wouldn’t come to that, but as he’d seen this morning, his luck had become precarious.

  * * *

  ‘Leave London, so soon?’ Mary gasped when Silas told her.

  ‘Our life is in America, not here. I see no reason to linger somewhere that has caused us so much misery.’ Silas paced back and forth across his small bedroom like a tiger in a cage.

  ‘It hasn’t all been misery. I’ve enjoyed working with the women, and getting to know your family. I’d like us to spend more time with Lottie and Millie, and to thank Millie and her husband for what they did for me at the ball.’

  Her hesitation about going home surprised him. He thought she’d want to leave on the success of the ball. Silas straightened his cufflinks, unable to tell her how far the incident at the ball had crept into their lives and was now affecting the future. ‘I’m sorry. I’d like for us to stay longer, but we can’t. There’s business that must be seen to in America and I fear for Richard’s health if we dally here too long.’

  ‘Did you receive a letter from him? Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, but like you I’m concerned about him and his future, and ours.’ He leaned hard on the fireplace mantel, watching the small fire in it flicker and threaten to go out. The chill in the room was as pervasive as his shame. He should tell her the truth, but couldn’t risk hurting her like that.

  ‘You didn’t receive the patent. That’s why Mr Williams asked you to see him today, isn’t it?’ She’d guessed the truth as easily as his mother used to do.

  ‘I was unable to convince Mr Williams, or I should say his investor, of the validity of my proposal and it was clear that there was nothing I could say to change either men’s minds.’

  ‘And you’re giving up, just like that. Why?’

  ‘You’re right, Mary, not every obstacle can be overcome.’

  ‘This isn’t the Silas I know. Something else happened. What was it? Tell me so I can help you.’ She rested a hand on his shoulder. Her touch should have soothed him, but it increased the conflict between being honest with her and protecting her. He avoided her gaze, afraid she would see the truth in his eyes. She didn’t need to see his face to guess. ‘It was because of me and my past, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar, Silas.’

  ‘So what if I am? I failed to receive the patent, not because of something you did, but because of small-minded men, the kind that infest London’s upper classes making it difficult for men of real dreams and visions who weren’t born on the right side of the Thames to achieve them.’

  ‘Small-minded men who never would have had a reason to look down on you and your ideas if it hadn’t been for me. How many patrons will your mother lose because of it, how much more damage will my being here do to the young women she helps?’

  ‘None, because I set up the trust today. Nothing and no one can come between my mother and the safety of her living ever again.’

  ‘But what about the Foundation? She needs patrons and she’s a proud woman who sees securing them as part of her work. Charity from you will rob her of that.’

  ‘Lord Falconmore’s influence will guarantee supporters.’

  ‘But what about the missing bank drafts? We can’t leave until you’ve figured out what happened to them and your letters. Whoever stole the money might do it again.’

  ‘My mother is right. The Foundation business is not mine to interfere in. I gave up that right when I left five years ago.’

  ‘And you wish to do it again?’

  ‘I’m not sneaking away, but leaving somewhere that has nothing for me or us. I despise London and the way it’s tried to beat us down despite everything we’ve accomplished.’

  ‘What about your family? Will you leave them behind again to wonder what happened to you and why you left?’

  ‘Mother will probably be glad I’m gone instead of here prying into her business. I’m nothing but a disappointment to her.’

  ‘You aren’t. They don’t care about what happened before, only that you’re here and with them, opening up the possibility that you’ll be a part of their lives again. You can’t take that away from them or us.’

  Silas slid his father’s signet ring on and off his finger. Everything that had happened today and all Mary said was tumbling through his mind until he couldn’t keep anything straight. She was asking him to stay in the face of his desire to leave, to remain in this confusion when all he wanted was to flee from it. He looked about the room, the old feeling of being stifled and confined sweeping over him. ‘I have to go out.’

  ‘Where?’

  He took up his walking stick and hat. ‘Some place where I can think.’

&n
bsp; ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, I need to be alone.’

  ‘Silas, please.’

  ‘I said I need to be alone.’

  * * *

  Mary watched as he flung his redingote over his shoulders and stepped out into the hall, leaving her the way Preston had done.

  No, he’s nothing like Preston. He’s had a shock and he needs some time to think about it. Then he’ll be back. He’ll devise some solution, a way out of this tangle. He always does.

  She said this over and over, struggling to believe it. His marriage to her had cost him the much-needed patent. He might deny that fact it in front of her, but surely he thought it even now as she heard the front door open and close. He wasn’t going off to think about the patent or whether or not they should leave, but whether or not he should return to her. She thought she’d triumphed over her past when she’d stood up to Lord Longford, but she hadn’t and it had cost Silas what he’d wanted the most.

  Mary pressed her hand to her chest, her stays tight beneath her dress.

  I never should have come back to England.

  She should go downstairs to the Foundation and help the women instead of sitting here fretting about what might happen, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t cross into the building and face those women who looked up to her. She was a fraud unworthy of their respect and that of her husband’s.

  Mary began to pace, afraid of what might happen if she and Silas returned to America in haste. He might set her aside to find a wife who could bring him more honour and grandeur than anything that she could bestow on him by her faint connection with her family and she would be left with nothing. The divorce laws in America would make this easier for him to do and then she would be as shamed there as she was here, cast off by one man to sink into the obscurity from which he’d plucked her.

  Unless there’s a child.

  She laid her hands over her flat stomach. Her courses still hadn’t come, making this possibility more and more likely as the days passed. Silas believed in doing right by those he loved, but to keep him only because of a child brought her no comfort. A marriage of duty and obligation wasn’t what she wanted, not after the love they’d shared over the last few weeks, the one that had given Mary hope that her married life would be different and happier than her parents’. She’d never witnessed true affection between them, instead she’d seen how alone and isolated her mother had grown through the years. She’d had children, but because of her position she’d only enjoyed the most tenuous of connections with them. It had made it even easier for her to turn her back on Mary when the time had come.

  Mary rose and searched the room for a calendar, but there was none. There was one on the desk in the sitting room and without thinking she made her way downstairs to furiously flip through it and count the days since her last courses. She checked and rechecked the dates, but the travel and everything that had happened with Richard made her unsure of when her courses had last been. It must have been before the wedding in Baltimore for they had not happened on the steam ship or during their time in London. She could not say for certain that she was with child, but the likelihood it was possible was growing stronger with each passing day.

  Mary swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, remembering the start of the blood the last time and how it had ended with all her hopes for redemption. It could happen again, one miscarriage might mean others and Silas would have even more grounds to leave her. What would she do without him? Grow alone in Richard’s house in Baltimore, shunned and forgotten.

  ‘Mary, are you well?’ Lilian approached her in the low light of the room.

  Mary couldn’t hide the tears from her this time, but shook her head, sinking down on to the couch and sobbing. Lilian sat beside her and held her until the tears subsided and the words began. She told her everything: what had happened with Preston, at the ball and her time with Silas. Lilian listened, not blaming her or shying away from the truth, but embracing Mary and taking in everything she told her.

  ‘I love him and I’m afraid he’ll come to resent and hate me because of my past,’ Mary choked out, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I have already cost him the patent and who knows what else.’

  ‘Silas isn’t like that.’

  ‘I know, but it’s so hard not to be afraid.’

  ‘I understand.’ Lilian rested her hands in her lap, studying her long fingers and the gold wedding band that still adorned her left hand. ‘When Silas sailed off, I thought it was because of all of the demands I’d placed on him after his father died. I was so focused on keeping the Foundation going, to honour my husband’s memory and to bury my grief, that I couldn’t see the truth of what was before me. I refused to see how much he needed to follow his heart the way his father had. I didn’t understand his need to pursue his dreams or support him the way you do, and I drove him away. I’ve been careful with him since his return, afraid I might do it again.’

  ‘He wants to be here with you, but he thinks you don’t approve of what he does.’ Mary hated to see Lilian suffer the same torment that racked Mary and Silas. ‘He regrets what he did with you and his father.’

  ‘And I regret how I treated him. I approve of anything and anyone that makes him happy and the railroad and you make him very happy.’ Lilian took Mary’s hands, a determination in her eyes that reminded Mary of how Silas looked whenever he talked of his plans and his belief that he would achieve them. ‘I’ve watched the two of you together. Silas’s face lights up when you’re beside him as much as it does when he discusses his railroad. You understand him in a way neither I nor his father ever could and you encourage him in his ventures as a wife should, as I used to do when I worked beside my husband. I know the value in that because it’s the thing someone like Silas needs the most when a dream is on the verge of failing or he’s facing tough times with no signs of a remedy. He won’t leave you, Mary, but he needs you very much. Don’t be afraid to go to him, to speak to him the way I’ve been afraid to do. Don’t let this distance grow between you like the one between me and Silas. Be brave and honest with him and you’ll see that everything will be all right.’

  Mary stared down at her wedding ring, the symbol of the vows connecting her to Silas. Lilian was right. In the circle of his arms the distance from her family didn’t feel as all consuming and the loneliness it had created in her life faded away. She didn’t want to lose that comfort or his love because of her fears. Silas was facing a bitter disappointment and she refused to allow him to do it alone. She would support him and help him remember that he was the success he believed and that there was a solution to these troubles like there were to all his others. She would be beside him to help him find it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Silas leaned against the wrought-iron railing to watch the trains pass by on the tracks below, the sound of the pistons as they turned the wheels, the smell of soot and steam failing to calm him. The truth was, it never had. In all the times he’d come here as a young man to try to find answers or think things through, there had never been a solution in the engines, simply the space to try to find one. The same held true today. His dreams had started here and he was afraid they might die here, too. He’d placed a great deal of the future on securing the English patent. He wasn’t sure what he would do without it. He would have to think of something else, some new plan, but at the moment, with the memory of Mary’s anguish haunting him along with every failure that had marked him when he’d lived in London and when he’d left it, he could think of nothing and it scared him.

  ‘Silas?’

  Silas turned to see Mary approaching, her yellow-cotton gown bright against the overcast day. He wanted to rush to her and take her in his arms, but he didn’t move, ashamed of himself and the way he’d stormed away from her. This wasn’t the man he was, but it was the one being in England made him and he hated it. ‘How did you know where to find me?’<
br />
  ‘Where else would you be?’

  She was right, just as she’d been right all along about her past and the impact it would have on them. He’d been naive to dismiss her just as he’d been blind to think he could succeed in London. There had never been success for him here like there had been in America, not in business or among those he loved. ‘I shouldn’t have walked away from you. I’m sorry, it was wrong of me.’

  ‘We are all allowed to be wrong from time to time.’

  ‘I was wrong about a lot of things. I failed you, Mary, I failed us both.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You built me up and made me believe in myself when I wanted to fade into the woodwork, you helped me see that I’m more than my mistakes.’

  ‘I made you promises that I couldn’t keep.’

  ‘Not because you didn’t believe in them, but because others are too petty and shallow to see who I am the way you do, the way I sometimes fail to do. Let them have their prejudices and gossip, it doesn’t matter to us.’

  ‘Not this time. I needed that patent.’

  ‘And you’ll think of some way around it, another way to get what you want. You don’t give up that easily, Silas. I wouldn’t be married to you if you did.’

  Her faith in him offered more comfort and peace than the passing trains or even leaving England ever could. With her beside him, he felt like the man he was in America who didn’t allow anything to stop him, who had made a success of himself by believing in the possibility of his dreams and those of the people he cared about. He wasn’t a failure or a man to allow setback to stop him, but a success who would carry on as he had before but with Mary by his side. ‘Then you’re ready to go home?’