Chapter 36
They say a good night’s rest does a world of good. Jonathan supposed that might be true if one were able to secure a proper night’s rest, but with morning dawning across the city and a mountain of work piled high upon his desk, there was no good to be found.
Correspondence waited in fresh stacks, contracts required review, and Mr. Vane had already brought in three matters demanding decisions.
Everything around Jonathan insisted upon order and urgency, yet he’d read the same paragraph four times without retaining a word of it.
Figures blurred and shifted into memories of last night.
Miss Eden’s startled eyes in the darkness.
The tremor in her voice. The terrible strain beneath every syllable.
Jonathan set down his pen and kneaded his forehead. Honor demanded he respect her choice. Miss Eden had every right to decide her future and with whom she wished to share it, and no amount of affection on his part entitled him to press where he was not wanted.
Yet that was where the difficulty lay.
If the lady did not desire marriage, Jonathan could respect that. And dislike it immensely, of course. However, it was her decision to make, and he could sweep up the broken bits of his heart and continue on as he had before. Or as much as one could when the light vanished from the world.
Jonathan drew in a slow breath and scratched at his beard as he leaned back in his chair to stare blindly at the window.
Miss Eden was no actress, and he would swear before a court of law that her answer had been a blatant lie.
The memory of her expression and tone haunted every attempt at sensible resignation, leaving his heart to pull stubbornly free of any constraints he placed upon it.
Miss Eden cared for him. Jonathan knew it as surely as he knew the figures in his own ledgers.
Whatever had driven her away, it had not been the absence of feeling.
And that knowledge comforted and tormented in equal measure. There was nothing to do but wait, and having spent half of his life waiting to find his Miss Eden, he was both well-versed in patience and heartily sick of it.
With a sigh, Jonathan gathered the abandoned agreement, and dipped his pen in the ink once more, forcing himself into the machinery of work by sheer discipline.
Whenever Miss Eden came to mind, he dragged his thoughts back to figures, dates, clauses, signatures.
His heart may insist on being useless, but the rest of him was going to do something worthwhile.
Contracts were read and marked, invoices approved, letters sorted into the appropriate piles for response, and a troublesome matter involving delayed materials from a supplier was settled.
It was all handled with enough competency that no one else would guess how often his thoughts slipped their leash.
Clerks came and went. The telegraph boy appeared with a message that required immediate reply.
Mr. Vane brought in three documents requiring signatures and a note regarding a contractor who had arrived early for an appointment.
Jonathan answered, signed, corrected, and directed until the morning waned, and a soft knock sounded at the door just as he crossed out a large section of a letter he’d rewritten twice.
“Come,” he called without looking up.
Mr. Vane entered with his usual composure, though something in the carefulness of his expression drew attention before the clerk spoke. “Mr. Virgil Eden to see you, sir.”
Jonathan’s pen halted above the paper, and for one strange instant, every thought in his mind scattered, and Miss Eden’s whispered accusations and Father’s warnings rang through the silence they left behind.
He set the pen down with deliberate care, buying himself a moment to steady his hands and arrange his expression into something suitably neutral.
“Thank you, Mr. Vane. Please show him in.”
The clerk withdrew, and Jonathan rose from behind his desk, smoothing one hand down the front of his coat as though the gesture might smooth the disquiet beneath it as well.
“Mr. Hatcher,” greeted Mr. Eden as he swept into the office. Giving Jonathan a hearty shake of the hand, he took the seat opposite the desk. “I was sorry that we did not have the opportunity to speak last night. I looked for you, but I suppose you were too occupied with my daughter to notice.”
There was a good-natured spark in the gentleman’s gaze as Mr. Eden sent him a knowing look, but Jonathan did not respond. There was no reason to broach that subject at present.
“If you have come for news concerning my uncle, I fear he isn’t ready to make a firm commitment,” began Jonathan, though he wasn’t certain what he would say to Uncle Oliver in his next message.
But as he considered the figures he’d passed on, Jonathan finally allowed himself to wonder how any private banker could guarantee such high returns.
If he removed all the dazzle of Mr. Virgil Eden’s reputation and considered the proposal on its own merits, many of his promises were of the “too good to be true” variety.
Mr. Eden’s voice entered Jonathan’s thoughts with all his usual excuses about flighty investors and the need to assure them by whatever means necessary, but that did more to sour Jonathan’s confidence than restore it.
Little signs. So tiny they were easy to ignore. But when one considered them altogether—
“Have no fear, Mr. Hatcher,” said Mr. Eden, raising his hands in placation before resting them on the arms of his chair.
“That is not what I wished to speak with you about—though I do hope you remind your uncle of my deadline. I have enough skittish clients and do not wish to take on another. There are people aplenty who wish to invest with my company.”
Excuses rose to Jonathan’s lips, but he held them fast. Those words, spoken in Mr. Eden’s jovial manner, prompted one to beg and apologize, and Jonathan fought against the frown that now threatened to pull at his features.
“No, my boy,” continued Mr. Eden, banging a hand on his chair, “I thought it time to invest in you.”
Straightening, Jonathan watched the fellow. “You wish to invest in Hatcher one simply needed to be a victim of one’s circumstances and allow others to choose.
No.
The refusal formed first in the tightening of his shoulders. Then the firmness in his chest. It felt as though he relaxed and tensed at the same time, determination and peace settling into a confusing blend.
For months, the desperate need to save the company had consumed him, narrowing his world to figures, deadlines, and the relentless pursuit of a solution.
Though every strained, exhausted part of him wanted relief so badly that Jonathan could almost taste it, he felt in his bones that accepting Mr. Eden’s “gift” was the first step down a road he didn’t want to travel.
Perhaps the gentleman was innocent. But if not, Jonathan would be selling his heart and soul, and no amount of success or money was worth that. And that realization was freeing, though failure and ruin remained close enough to touch.
Rising to his feet, Mr. Eden held out a hand as though everything was agreed upon, and Jonathan moved slowly, his joints feeling as though they belonged to a man with far more than three and thirty years to his credit.
“That is generous of you, Mr. Eden. But I must decline.”