Mischances #7
“Father, please consider!” She came to him, caught his elbow, and pleaded. “I can bear my future. Truly I can! But I could not bear it if Frederick were exposed. What is a lesser life for myself when his could be taken? No, Father!”
“Margaret,” he murmured in a low tone, “I shall ask you only this: which man is known for saying one thing and doing another?”
Margaret set her jaw. “Mr Hamper.”
“And which conducted himself with mercy and justice after the riots?”
She closed her eyes. “Mr Thornton.”
“I shall send John a note. I do hope he can come this very afternoon.”
John scarcely lifted his head at the knock on the door. If he ignored it, whoever it was would probably go away. His letter was far more critical than any mill crisis. He dipped his pen again.
The knock sounded once more. He frowned, then completed the line he was composing.
A third knock echoed.
“Very well, damn you,” he grumbled and rose from his desk. He thought to catch his coat but, if the intruder was so impertinent, he would bloody well receive them in his shirt sleeves. “Come in.”
The first thing he saw was the lady’s gloved fingers on the latch, and he knew. Margaret. He hastened to the door.
“Miss Hale!”
She hesitated, her eyes widening faintly when they fell on his informal attire. He retreated quickly for his coat, but not before he noted the delicate blush to her cheeks.
“Forgive me for interrupting you, sir.”
“Not at all. Will you be seated?” He gestured to the chair before his desk but was secretly relieved when she coloured again and declined. Had she taken the seat, he would have been obliged to do the same and his work-covered desk would have stood between them.
Margaret bent her head and withdrew a note from her coin purse. “My father wrote this for you and asked for it to be delivered, but Dixon and Martha were out. He felt it urgent.”
John took it with a sceptical frown. “And you substituted yourself for an errand boy who would have brought it for a ha’p’orth?”
Again, those chiselled cheeks darkened. “It is a matter of some delicacy, as I am sure you must understand.”
He grunted and slowly read Mr Hale’s cultured script…then stopped cold. Lifting his eyes again to Margaret, he found her fidgeting with her glove tips and trembling. “What is this mystery your father speaks of? Shall I guess?”
“I doubt you could,” she returned flatly.
“Nevertheless, I shall try. Your father objects to his gently bred daughter being betrothed to a manufacturer. He has corresponded with this…er…admirer of yours, and there remains some obstacle to your safe betrothal to the man. Perhaps he is not free to marry or is in need of money or has run afoul of the law. Or perhaps he is unwilling, and your father is begging of me to threaten him into an engagement by reopening the murder investigation?”
She cast her eyes to the ceiling and snatched her father’s note back. “My father is not one who readily yields sensitive intelligence on any matter, and you mock him when he begs for that privilege?”
He held up his hands. “Forgive me, Miss Hale, but I am only acting the bitter, calloused brute that you no doubt expect.”
She studied him—a fine line appearing between her brows and her lips drawn into a thoughtful rosette.
She startled him by her gentle, almost remorseful tones when she spoke.
“I am sure you could cast the blame for that at my feet. I have been unkind and unfeeling, but you have done better than I. Whatever else you have been, you were always honest with me.”
He opened his mouth for a ready retort but failed to utter it. Swallowing, he heard his voice crack. “Perhaps, Miss Hale, you will do me the courtesy of accepting my apology.”
Her rigid posture relaxed somewhat, and she drew a long sigh of apparent relief. “If you will accept mine, sir.” She put out her hand—a gesture previously foreign to her ways that spoke much of her sincerity.
He clasped it eagerly and held it somewhat longer than was proper, but she did not pull away. Instead, she steadily met his gaze with eyes rimmed by moisture. “Mr Thornton, I need your help.”
“Anything, Miss Hale.”
“The truth is—” she turned away to pace and visibly repressed a shudder as she continued brokenly—”I do not wish to marry Mr Hamper.”
“I knew that. What made you agree to it? Will you trust me with the truth this time?”
She looked back, a soulful, aching expression in her eyes. “It is one thing to trust someone with my own life. It is quite different to trust someone with another’s life.”
He followed her across the room and reached boldly again for her hand.
“Your life! Miss Hale, I am already indebted to you for my own life. Have you so readily forgotten? You may not count it an obligation, but I do, and I bless you each day I draw breath. Aye, I have confessed my heart to you—you cannot claim ignorance, but know that I cherish your happiness above my own. Though it cost me all, if you ask anything, I would do it.”
She had grown pale; the curve of her nostrils flared in astonishment and her fingers slackened in his own. “Mr… Mr Thornton, I…” She gently cleared her throat and tried again. “Sir, I cannot know what to say to such a speech.”
He gazed steadily down into her face, wishing to burn that impression into his memory for the rest of his years. “Ask what you will. Tell me what you must. But please do not go yet.” If only he could savour this nearness, this vulnerability for a lifetime!
Her eyes rounded and, for a moment, he thought she would become faint. But then something even more extraordinary happened. A tear slid down her cheek…and then another. It was as if a tide had been unleashed, and she began to shiver, to quake, and dipped her head before him.
“Miss Hale—Margaret,” he called softly. She attempted to lift her head, but a gasp escaped her, and she gripped his hand with a desperate fervour.
His heart pulsed and ached. Daring, he held his breath and grazed his fingertips over her cheek, brushing away the tears.
“What are you so afraid of telling me?” he asked, his voice as gentle as he could make it.
How he longed to gather her against his chest!
She was listing, tipping unsteadily as if some magnetic allure drew her close, but still she tottered in uncertainty.
She gave one more strangled sob, bowing still more as her hair nearly touched his shoulder.
Then she sucked in a few short draughts of air, making a visible effort to straighten.
His hand fell away, and she seemed to glance at it in some regret before swallowing and looking into his face.
“Mr Thornton, I—I must trust you…what I mean is that no matter your true thoughts, you have ever been good.”
“Good? I have been a fool. Had I been less prideful, I might have bent more easily—might have made a friend of you.”
“But you have done so,” she insisted. “And I could not have trusted one who was any less…” Another gasp—the remnant of tears—shook her anew and she put a hand to her face.
“Permit me,” he offered, and touched his own handkerchief to her cheek as her grey eyes gazed up in silent wonder.
“Margaret, you know I could never let any harm come to you. Aye, I would sweep you away and make you my own if I could but, if I cannot, then at least know that much. Tell me how I can help.”
She drew her upper lip between her teeth and studied him for a second or two before bracing herself. “I have a brother,” she blurted all in a rush.
“What?” He shook his head. “A brother? How?”
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly. “It is hard to…please, may I sit a moment?”
He led her to the chair, but rather than distancing himself in a seat of his own, he crouched at her knee, retaining her hand for himself. “Frederick…Hale,” he murmured. His brow pinched. “I have heard that name somewhere before.”
She bobbed an unsteady acknowledgment. “If you did not hear it from your witness statements, you may have read it in the paper. Fred went to the navy when he was young. He was accused of mutiny six years ago and has been an exile ever since. It was my mother’s dying wish to see him again, and so he came.
” She bit her lips together and stared expectantly—as if waiting for him to denounce her.
“This is my father’s great secret—he wished to trust you with it.
He is waiting even now to tell you of it. ”
“And so…rather than give your brother up or let word of his presence on English soil spread, you took the scandal upon yourself? How did Hamper enter into this?”
“He heard Frederick’s Christian name when Leonards cried out—or perhaps it was my own cry.
He certainly saw Frederick’s face, nearer than any other did.
If I allow gossip and curious talk to spread of some rumoured lover until someone begins repeating his name or, worse, offend Mr Hamper, who can identify him, then Frederick is lost. Mr Thornton, my brother is innocent, and I would make a pact with the Devil himself to save him. ”
“I believe you have found one of his messengers, at least,” John growled. “Hamper knows what he is about, blackmailing you as he is doing. Before you ask, I have already spoken with him and he proved rather immovable.”
She looked crestfallen. “I see,” she answered, her tones fragile. She stared blindly for half a moment, then bent to gather her skirt. “Then I shall trouble you no more.”
“Margaret, wait.”
The familiar name had slipped from his tongue again, but this time the haughty indignation of former days gave way to gentle awe. Her expressive brow furrowed, and she stilled, gazing at him in such a tender, broken manner that his heart seemed to seize. Slowly, he dared to claim her other hand.
“Margaret,” he repeated, “I did not say I was without hope, nor that I meant to yield easily to Hamper’s intentions.”
He watched her throat tremble as she began to blink rapidly. “But what is to be done? I have no means of persuading him, nothing but myself to offer.”