To Dream Again (48 page)

Adrian smiled at Mara as he walked toward her. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Elliot. This is certainly a pleasure. Would you care for tea?"

"No."

He gestured to the sofa and chairs around him. "It's quite cold today. Please sit down by the fire and be comfortable."

"I'd rather stand."

He was making an effort to be courteous and her icy tone was quite irritating. The least she could do was show a bit of civility. After all, he hadn't done anything to her. Her stupid little company was still intact. He discarded formalities. "I believe you have something for me?"

"Yes." She pulled a sheaf of papers out of her portfolio, but when he reached for them, she did not hand the documents to him. Instead, she hugged the papers to her breast and looked up at him. "You have the money?"

"Of course. I'll write you a bank draft."

"Good." She glanced past him at the coal fire in the grate. "You were right, my lord," she said as she stepped around him and walked toward the sofa. "It is cold outside, and I think I will take a moment to warm myself."

He walked to the desk and pulled out his bankbook, then he reached for pen and ink. As he wrote the draft, he paused to glance at her, but she wasn’t watching him. Instead, she was staring at the orange coals burning in the grate, her profile to him. With her chin down, her shoulders hunches, her pose seemed one of such defeat, it made him smile. He returned his attention to his task, signing his name and blotting the draft.

"Lord Leyland?"

He tore the bank draft out of his bank book and tossed down the pen. "Yes, Mrs. Elliot?" he asked as he stood up. “What is it?”

"Your fire is much too low. I believe it needs fuel."

She bent down, jerked back the fire screen with one gloved hand, and he watched in astonishment as she tossed the documents into the grate.

“My God!” he shouted, circling the desk and crossing the room toward her, staring at the sheaf of documents as they caught fire. “What have you done?”

“I believe I just jumped off of a cliff, my lord,” Mara answered, and she laughed.

Reaching her side, he shoved her out of the way, and she stumbled, but caught herself before she fell. As she straightened, she noticed a plump and pretty blonde woman, richly dressed, standing in the study doorway with her hands poised on the knobs as if she had just entered, a horrified expression on her face. Mara glanced at the viscount, but he was occupied with trying to reach for the documents in the fire, and he did not notice the woman.

His efforts proved futile. The hot coals had already ignited the papers, turning them into a ball of fire. He jerked his burned hand back with a cry of pain and fury as he whirled around to face her.

"You stupid chit! What have you done?"

Enraged, he lifted his hand to strike her, but Mara stood motionless, daring him to do it, and he slowly lowered his hand.

"This is a business deal between my brother and myself!" he shouted at her. "You are only his junior partner, and a mere woman, besides. You have no right to intervene!"

"Too late, my lord. I already did." Her eyes on him, she took two long steps back and bent to pick up what he had dropped. Then she straightened. "On your brother's behalf, I formally reject your offer," she said as she ripped the bank draft to shreds, which she then tossed in his face. "Bribe all the suppliers you can. Hire all the vandals you like. Use your fiancée's money to coerce the bankers to your heart's content. Nathaniel and I will not submit to your extortion and blackmail."

He took a deep breath. Brushing the scraps of paper off his shoulders, he met her gaze, and she could see the rage in his eyes. "You have made a very serious mistake, madam, and you will live to regret it, I promise you. You have just destroyed Nathaniel and yourself."

She knew he was probably right. But at this moment, she just couldn't find it within herself to be afraid. Her heart was too full of exultation for that. She smiled at him. "Well, my lord, I am only a woman, after all," she said sweetly. "We can be quite silly, you know."

"Adrian?"

The voice had both of them glancing toward the doorway, but Mara's gaze shifted at once back to Lord Leyland, who was staring at the woman in shock and dismay.

"Honoria, my dear," he said awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"

So, this was the viscount's wealthy fiancée. How delightful. Mara moved toward the doors, and the woman stepped aside to let her pass.

"Good afternoon, Miss Montrose." Mara gave a nod and a smile to one of the world's wealthiest women before she walked out of the room.

"What is happening here?"

Honoria's demand caused Mara to pause a moment outside the study. She could not hear Lord Leyland's reply, only the smooth, low pitch of his voice.

His soothing tone seemed to have little effect on the woman. "Don't patronize me, my lord. You intended to strike that woman. And what is all this talk of extortion and blackmail and coercing bankers with my money?"

Mara smiled. Crossing the foyer, she left Lord Leyland to explain the situation to his fiancée as all his well-laid plans burned to ashes.

***

When Mara returned to Whitechapel, she found no one at the factory, so she went to Nathaniel's flat. Without bothering to knock, she walked in. Following the sound of voices, she walked to the bedroom and found Nathaniel packing, Michael pacing, Finch quietly watching, and Billy crying. Everything was in quite a muddle, and none of them noticed her arrival.

"I don't know why yer leavin', Nathaniel." Billy glared at him from his perch atop the huge mahogany bed, his eyes filled with angry tears. He punched one of the pillows. "It ain't fair."

Nathaniel tossed his shaving kit into the open trunk on the floor. "I have to go, Billy. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it."

"Yes, there is." Michael stopped pacing and turned toward him. "You can stay here and fight."

Nathaniel tossed another shirt into the trunk. "I can't do that."

Michael turned to the solicitor. "Can't you persuade him?"

Finch leaned one shoulder against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. He shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

The engineer gave a snort of disgust. "This is ridiculous. I can find you the money to pay back the loan."

Nathaniel stuffed a handful of socks into a corner of the trunk. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it does, if Joslyn Brothers is calling your

loan. Listen, my Uncle Hiram's wife has a third cousin, Jacob, who knows Solomon Leibowitz, the moneylender. He'll give you a loan. I'm sure of it."

"Why?" Nathaniel slammed one drawer of the wardrobe shut and opened another. "Because I'm such a good credit risk?"

"That's not your fault. Your brother was responsible for all that. Solomon Leibowitz would love the chance at revenge against Leyland for his refusal to hire Jews. I'm sure of it."

"I told you, it doesn't matter." Nathaniel lifted a bundle of clothes out of the drawer and dumped them haphazardly into the trunk. "I can't fight him forever. I won't put Mara through that. It's too risky."

"But—"

"No." Nathaniel slammed the lid down on the trunk and shoved it aside. Then he opened another and began to fill it with more of his belongings. "I won't risk Mara's future."

Mara coughed, and all three men turned to find her standing there. "Don't you think I have something to say about it?" she asked.

Billy jumped off the bed and ran to her, wrapping his arms around her legs. "Nathaniel says 'e's leaving, 'e says 'e ain't comin' back."

She brushed a hand over Billy's hair, but she kept her gaze on Nathaniel. "Yes, I know what he says. But he's not going anywhere."

Michael stopped pacing. Finch straightened away from the wall. Billy sniffed. And Nathaniel stopped packing.

She looked at him and lifted her chin stubbornly at the scowl he gave her. Their eyes met for a moment, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned and grabbed a handful of cravats and ties out of the drawer.

She turned to Michael. "Would you and Mr. Finch please take Billy out for some ice cream? I want to talk to Nathaniel alone."

The two men left the office with an unpacified Billy between them.

Mara turned to Nathaniel. "Packing already, I see?" she whispered painfully. "Were you planning to say good-bye before you left? Or did you feel a letter would suffice?"

He continued tossing clothes into the trunk without even looking at her. "I wouldn't leave without saying good-bye."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

The question was so soft, he barely heard the words. He stopped packing and stared down at the shirt in his hands. "You know why," he answered. "Finch said he explained it all to you."

"He did, but I want to hear it from you. Tell me why."

"I'd hoped Adrian would back down if we could have the trains out on time. I was wrong. He would have destroyed the company. You would have lost everything. I couldn't let that happen."

"Michael said he could find us a moneylender."

"That's not the point." He threw the shirt into the trunk and faced her. "If I don't stop, it won't end here. You realized that long before I did. He'll keep after us until he succeeds in bankrupting us. This way, it'll only be me that's affected. You'll be secure. I've made sure of that."

"How noble of you."

Her sarcasm caught him by surprise. He lifted his head and looked at her, only to find her crystal gray eyes sparkling with anger.

"So that's it, then?" Her voice began to shake, and he could hear pain behind her anger. "It's becoming too difficult here, so it's time to move on?"

"That's not it at all!"

"Isn't it?" She strode forward until she was a mere foot away. Tilting her chin, she looked up at him. "You came to London with a dream. You filled my head with it, you made me believe it, you made all of us believe it. And now, you intend to just turn your back on us and leave it all behind?"

"You're the one who asked me to stop all this in the first place!"

"Yes, and it was a mistake. I was wrong. I let my fear control me, and I wanted it to control you." She watched him shake his head from side to side, and she reached up, cupping his face in her hands to stop his denials before he could say them. "Don't you remember what you told me? You said we can't spend our lives being afraid. We have to grab what we want and hang on. Well, I'm hanging on, Nathaniel Chase, and so are you. You need to return downstairs and finish making those trains. We don't have much time. We're supposed to deliver them by Friday."

"We can't do that. Haven't you been listening to me? I've sold Adrian the patent on the train so that Joslyn Brothers could be paid."

"Well..." She lowered her hands and clasped them behind her back. She ducked her head and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "You didn't sell your brother the train. Not quite."

"What do you mean?"

She lifted her head and gave a little cough. "I...umm...I sort of threw a spanner in the works."

"Mara, what have you done?" he demanded.

She told him.

"I don't believe this," he muttered when she'd finished. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Probably. Love does that to a person."

He didn't take in her confession of love or the fact that she was using his own words against him. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. "What you've done changes nothing."

"Yes, it does. We'll deliver our trains to the stores. We'll go to this Solomon Leibowitz and obtain a loan to pay Joslyn Brothers. When the money from the trains comes in, we reinvest it in the business and carry on."

"And then what happens?" he asked and grabbed her hands tight in his. "Assuming we do find the money to pay back the loan, then what? What happens when Adrian finally succeeds and we lose it all?"

"We start over." She took his hands in hers, entwining their fingers. "Together."

She felt his hand tighten around hers at the word before he slowly pulled back and stepped away from her.

"Then Adrian will eventually bankrupt us again," he said. "What kind of future would that be? James all over again. I love you, but I would have nothing to offer you."

She looked up at him, wondering how to make him see that her future meant nothing without him. "Words again. Why do you love me, Nathaniel? What is there in me that you love so much that you would sacrifice all your dreams for my sake?"

He raked a hand through his hair. "How do you expect me to answer a question like that? How am I supposed to explain?"

"You have said I'm lovely. So, is it my beauty that you love?"

"Not only that." The words came out slowly, as if each one caused him pain. "It's so much more than that."

"What then? My warm heart? It was cold and empty and bitter before you came. An unlovable heart, to be sure."

"No." He shook his head. "Not to me."

"My courage, perhaps?" She choked out a laugh. "I, who have spent the past four years hiding from the world?"

"You do have courage. You are a very brave woman."

"Indeed? I don't feel brave at all. I find the idea of spending the rest of my life without you a terrifying prospect."

"If I'm gone, Adrian won't bother you. You'll have the means to support yourself and Billy."

"You would abandon him, too?"

"He'll have you to care for him. His future and yours will be safe."

"Safe?" She considered that for a moment, then she nodded. "Yes, I suppose so. I'll endure, I'll save my pennies in my little tin bank, and I'll wear gloves to hide my scars. I'll try to be a good mother to Billy. I'll hold him when he cries, I'll put on a brave face, and I'll be strong for him. But, tell me, Nathaniel, if you leave, who will be strong for me?"

She wrapped her arms around her ribs as she felt herself splintering apart. "Who will fill me with hope when all I feel is despair? Who will fly kites with me when I feel chained to the ground and make me laugh when I want to weep? Who will give me upside-down kisses and dance with me and fill my heart with joy? Who will give me dreams to strive for and music to soothe me to sleep? Who—”