Chapter Seventeen Sins of Mary Beth Blackthorn #2
“Certainly.”
Mary Beth handed the statement to the bank manager first.
Benedict fixed on her, and for once the control in his face slipped badly enough that everyone nearest him could see it.
The bank manager read the relevant lines, then passed the paper to the York representative. From there it moved through two other hands.
“A solicitor’s notation proves an inquiry,” Benedict said. “Nothing more. Tavener was involved with the woman whose estate was paying him. There were obvious questions.”
“Questions you never asked me.”
“Would you have answered?”
“Yes. You asked about the gamekeeper. I answered. You asked whether Ambrose was my lover. I told you he was the man I loved. You did not need stolen letters to discover either fact.”
A murmur traveled across the morning room.
Benedict’s composure returned by effort.
“You are presenting ordinary caution as persecution because you dislike the conclusions people drew. I cannot be responsible for every merchant who becomes nervous or every newspaper that embellishes a rumor.”
“I don’t hold you responsible for every whisper in Yorkshire. I hold you responsible for the ones you purchased, encouraged, and carried to men whose decisions affected my estate. Then, when the consequences arrived, you offered to remove them if I became your wife.”
“I offered to protect you.”
“From a fire you had been feeding.”
The phrase came out harsher than she intended, but she did not withdraw it.
Benedict’s voice dropped. “You have no idea what I could have prevented.”
“That may be true. It does not excuse what you caused.”
He glanced around the room as though remembering the witnesses and choosing another approach.
“I wanted to marry you despite every reason a man of my position might have declined. I was prepared to defend your name. I was prepared to preserve Blackthorn. I was prepared to give you a place in society that you had spent years throwing away.”
“And I was expected to be grateful enough to obey you.”
“You were expected to behave as a married woman.”
“You meant as your married woman. We established the difference on Saturday.”
His mouth thinned.
Mary Beth closed the folder.
“There is one accusation I will answer directly before I finish. Mr. Tavener did not pursue me for money, contracts, or position. I hired him because Blackthorn needed an engineer. I seduced him because I wanted him.”
Someone made a small choking sound.
The elderly widow said, quite clearly, “Good for you.”
This time the laughter could not be contained.
Mary Beth felt heat climb her neck and decided she had earned it.
Benedict did not laugh.
“And where is Tavener now?” he asked.
The question cut because it was fair.
Mary Beth held his gaze.
“I don’t know.”
“He left you.”
“He left because he believed removing himself would protect me. I was furious with him for it. I remain furious.”
“Yet you have gathered the county to defend a man who could not even be troubled to stand beside you.”
From the entrance hall came the sound of a door opening.
Then a man’s voice, low and unmistakable, speaking to a servant.
Mary Beth forgot the room.
Ambrose appeared beneath the archway with travel dust on the lower edge of his coat and a leather case in one hand. He had shaved badly. There was a nick near his jaw. He stopped when he saw thirty people facing him.
His eyes found Mary Beth.
“You said Saturday,” he said.
“I did.”
“You neglected to mention the invasion.”
“I was afraid you might make another noble decision on my behalf.”
A corner of his mouth moved.
“That seems fair.”
He set down the case.
Benedict turned toward him.
“How convenient.”
Ambrose’s attention shifted to Benedict, and whatever softness had been in his face vanished.
“Lord Sablehurst.”
“Mr. Tavener. You arrive just in time to see Mrs. Blackthorn turn private indiscretion into public spectacle.”
“She has always had a better sense of timing than I do.”
Mary Beth could have kissed him for that alone.
Benedict gave a humorless smile. “And what happens now? You return to the blue room? Accept another contract? Allow her to continue mistaking defiance for a future?”
Ambrose went still.
Mary Beth stepped between them before he could answer.
“You have said enough about my future.”
Benedict’s restraint finally cracked.
“Then tell them what it is. Tell these people what you imagine comes next. Do you expect the county to believe you mean to make a husband of a quarryman’s son?”
The contempt beneath his careful language had finally become plain.
The letters, the bank, even the gardener who had never been her lover were only parts of it. Beneath Benedict’s talk of protection and order was something simpler: he could not forgive the possibility that Mary Beth might choose a man he considered beneath her and remain content with the choice.
She turned away from Benedict.
Ambrose was watching her now with alarm growing behind his eyes.
Mary Beth walked across the room to him.
“I don’t require them to believe it,” she said. “I require them to witness it.”
Ambrose’s alarm became certainty.
“Mary Beth.”
“No. You have had your turn at deciding what is best for me.”
“I apologized for that.”
“You wrote ’I am sorry’ after vanishing.”
“The letter said more than that.”
“It still wasn’t enough.”
The elderly widow coughed into one gloved hand. Mary Beth suspected she was hiding a laugh.
Ambrose lowered his voice. “Do not do this because Sablehurst has forced you into a corner.”
“He hasn’t.”
“Because you want to win the room, then.”
“I don’t care whether I win the room.”
“You invited the room.”
“Yes, and I am beginning to regret several of them.”
A few smiles appeared around them.
Mary Beth reached for Ambrose’s hand.
He let her take it, but his fingers were tense.
“I asked you to come back through my front door,” she said. “I asked you to come back after Wakefield. Before that I asked you to stay when the wall was finished. I have been asking you, in pieces, for weeks. I am tired of pieces.”
His face changed.
Mary Beth had imagined this moment differently once she realized she wanted marriage.
She had pictured privacy, perhaps the north field in spring, perhaps Ambrose being awkward and earnest while pretending not to be terrified.
She had never pictured thirty witnesses, Benedict beside the mantel, and a bank manager holding papers that connected Sablehurst to the pressure on Blackthorn.
Life had been inconsiderate enough not to wait for the prettier version.
“Ambrose Tavener,” she said, “will you marry me?”
The room seemed to inhale.
Ambrose did not answer immediately.
Mary Beth’s heart gave one painful thud.
Then he stepped closer.
“If I thought for one second you were offering me marriage to save your reputation, I would say no.”
“My reputation is beyond saving. I have become rather attached to it.”
“If you are doing it to punish him—”
“I can punish Benedict without involving a clergyman.”
Someone laughed again.
Ambrose’s thumb moved once across her knuckles.
“Ask me when there isn’t an audience.”
Mary Beth’s stomach dropped.
He continued before she could release his hand.
“Ask me tomorrow morning when you are angry about the way I take my tea. Ask me next month when I have been away three days on a job and returned with mud on your carpet. Ask me when no one is watching and you have nothing to prove. If the answer is still what it is now, I will marry you before you finish the question.”
Mary Beth studied him.
He was entirely serious, which ought not to have surprised her.