Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Elizabeth twirled in a waltz of triumph. “Oh, Fiona, in two days, I’ll be Mrs. Zachary Rourke and be gone from this loveless place. For once, I’ll have someone who loves me for myself.”
“And wedding bells are contagious. In a few weeks, I’ll be Mrs. Daniel O’Reilly. It is a perfect time!”
“Zachary and I are going to be married in a little church, Our Lady of the Rosary, and live in a brownstone. We are adopting Caroline. My life will be perfect, and no one will be able to take away my happiness.”
Elizabeth clapped her hands. “We must decide what is important to take. I must pack light.”
“May I suggest you pack some trunks of items you want to take. You must be prepared. I always say, you never iron a four-leaf clover. You don’t want to press your luck.
We could say we are shipping your trunks to the poor.
My brother could pick them up and divert them to my home to be stored for you. ”
Elizabeth embraced her good friend. “Oh, Fiona, that is a wonderful idea.”
Elizabeth’s heart twinged thinking how disappointed her father might be. How he’d been on her side upon her return from Missouri, allowing her to go to college.
She breathed a sigh of relief thinking of her mother’s machinations to have her married off. To be away from Alva’s constant sniping on her unnatural unmarried status. Gooseflesh rippled off her back, the ticking time bomb her mother had orchestrated. So far, Elizabeth had eluded that pressure.
Elizabeth pulled gowns out of her wardrobe and laid them on her bed, deciding which ones she’d take with her. “Everything is going to be perfect. No more untoward duke or other perverse suitors. Can you close the window, Fiona? It seems unseasonably cold all of a sudden.”
“It’s your nerves,” Fiona reminded her. “Big changes. A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”
A maid knocked at her door. “Miss Elizabeth, your father wishes to see you in his office.”
Elizabeth peered at Fiona, felt the blood run from her face. “What is it about?”
The maid curtseyed. “I don’t know, Miss. He says you are to come to him immediately.”
An invisible spider crawled up Elizabeth’s spine, tickling the hairs on her neck.
She looked again to Fiona and mouthed for her to hurry with the packing.
As Elizabeth descended the cold marble steps, she felt a darkness surround her, told herself she could walk away from it, forgetting how difficult it was to run from that which she could not see coming.
Elizabeth walked into her father’s office, stopped before his desk.
Of late, he was doing more of his work at home.
For a couple of minutes, he rifled off a letter with corrections and computations, muttering sharp comment to his secretary as if Elizabeth were not there.
For once, she studied her father and how others might perceive him.
He was a forbidding-looking man who did not suffer fools.
Short on words himself, he subscribed that the long-winded, liberal use of language and expectations of finance were the marks of a pervert or someone with an incurable malady.
She thought about what O’Reilly had once harangued.
Why is it all the wars are started by bankers?
A sense of wrongness, of fraught unease incubated in the silence, like long nails scraped against the surface of a blackboard. If her father thought to make her wait and create the uneasy environment, his plan worked.
For the first time, she turned, noticed Rawlins, one arm resting casually over the arm of a chair. Her mother sat in a pool of lamplight. Why were they here?
Her father finally looked up from his papers. “It has come to my attention how you’ve been carrying on with Mr. Rourke.”
Was her father baiting her? “Whatever would give you that idea?”
“I have it on good authority, and from the newspapers.” He tossed the papers with bold damning headlines in front of her.
Elizabeth inhaled. A wave of vertigo passed over her.
Her mother sprang from behind. Her face contorted like a graven image of Medusa. “How could you, Elizabeth? Again, you have brought disgrace to our family. But why am I not surprised? I told your father to rein in your independent streak. The duke has cried off.”
“I assume the state of marriage was something you aspired to. Was I misguided?” Her father’s cold words were like dagger blows, straight for the jugular.
Elizabeth fisted her hands, stared hotly at Rawlins, knew the birth of the rumors. The mysterious carriages…he was the one spying on her. A snake will die unless it sheds its skin. Obviously, Rawlins Dyer had shed his skin.
The very air stood still, waiting for someone to act.
Her father stood. When he spoke, tension crackled in the air as though there was another conversation being had, one between Dyer, her mother and himself. “Damage control is paramount. Rawlins has generously offered for your hand in marriage.”
Elizabeth could not believe her ears. She scanned the room. Dyer nodded his head and smiled. Her father’s face like granite.
Her mother returned to her chair, so demure, the caricature of ladylike reserve, her father’s face like granite. “Rawlins is generous to take your hand in marriage which I perceive is a charity knowing your lack of innocence. He’s also giving your father a pre-wedding gift of a railroad.”
“Shut up, Alva,” ordered her father.
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open with the unthinkable. “I’m being sold for a railroad?”
“Rawlins is making a stupendous offer for you. You will accept his proposal,” her father said.
“It’s not proper. Rawlins is twice my age.” Her stomach swelled tight with nausea.
Her father’s voice hardened. “I will decide what is proper and what isn’t. And this is a conversation I will not continue. You are going to do what your mother and I have ordered. If not, I can’t help what might happen to Mr. Rourke. At the very least, I’ll call in his chits.”
“You wouldn’t dare—”
“Elizabeth, I’m a powerful man. I can do anything I please.”
“Elizabeth,” said Rawlins, “I will give you everything your heart desires. I’ve had a fondness for you for years and do not want to see you hurt by your indiscretion.”
“Tomorrow, dressmakers will come to fit you for a trousseau. That should satisfy you,” fumed Alva.
Elizabeth turned on her mother. “To placate me with clothes? I’m not a trained dog waiting to fetch a treat. None of this is going to happen.”
Her father shook with black rage. “Go to your room and stay there. You will never see Mr. Rourke again—that’s if you want nothing to happen to him.”
She whirled to leave. Her father followed her retreat, grabbed her arm, jerked her to face him.
Elizabeth flinched. The first violence upon her person by her father. Anger spurring her words, she snapped. “It’s not every day one gets sold for a railroad. I’m marrying Zachary Rourke. End of discussion.”
“You better keep a tight rein on her,” Alva said, rising and speaking to Dyer. “To think you hid that bastard child under our noses.”
“My only mistake was lying to myself, hiding my daughter in the orphanage. I did that to protect her. To keep her from being around you, Mother. You are shallow, self-serving and toxic. She is too good for you.”
“One more thing, Elizabeth.” Alva catapulted from her chair, stepped nearer, closing the space between them until she could whisper harshly and be sure to be heard. “I can always have the child removed—”
Dyer drew up beside her. “Sometimes life flows in unexpected directions, Elizabeth.” His eyes were cold, his features hardened, slinking, oozing charm with a bright false smile. Did he believe she’d be jumping for the opportunity to marry him?
“I’d like to have a few words with my fiancée alone,” Rawlins said.
She watched the unlikely occurrence of her parents departing. Sullivan closed the door with a snap, leaving her entombed. The butler had heard everything.
A chill cascaded along her spine and she shivered. No, something more sinister like a cobra seeking prey.
“Think of Caroline,” he said. “She’d have everything. I’ll adopt her and raise her as my own.”
Without a doubt, he had known about her daughter. Ice clattered up her spine with the looming threat. He gave her a self-important sniff, pleased to be the one to give her news she had already gleaned. Her daughter was the only thing he could hold over her. “You wouldn’t dare”
“And Mr. Rourke…to have him above ground or below is in your hands.”