Chapter 40
“What have you done?” demanded Lionel, with a look so wild and stricken that Nora scarcely recognized him. “What were you thinking? Did you imagine yourself some grand heroine bringing justice to the world? Did you consider what this would do to the rest of us?”
“He did it,” said Nora, her brows lowering as she glanced at the angry faces gathered round her. “Lionel, you heard him. He confessed.”
“And so you handed your father to the newspapers? To the police?” cried Mama, her face crumpled as grief and fury stripped away every ounce of softness. “You took this family’s private shame and delivered it up to amuse the public?”
Nora’s fingers curled into her skirts, though she forced her voice to remain firm. “But he stole from people. He ruined them. Papa must be stopped before it grows worse.”
“‘Before it grows worse?’” Mama echoed, a harsh, disbelieving breath breaking from her as she gestured at the doorway through which Papa had vanished. “Look around you. This is worse. This is ruin. And this is your doing.”
Nora stared at the lady, unable to make sense of the shape the argument had taken. Papa had admitted it. Before all of them, without a whisper of remorse. The fraud, the lies, the money gone, all of it laid bare in his own voice, yet they looked at her with disgust and anger.
“I did not make him guilty,” she whispered. “I only told the truth.”
Tossing the newspaper aside, Lionel rubbed at his face, leaving a smear of ink on his cheek. “No, you paraded our private business into the public eye. We do not even know what was done precisely—”
“Are you mad, Lionel?” said Nora, a burst of heat warming her words. “He stood in this very room and confessed! His business has been a lie from the first, and I shan’t be a part of it!”
Gretchen leapt from her seat, her hand cocking back and flying forward with all her strength, cracking across Nora’s cheek before she knew it was coming. Gaping, Nora held her hand to the place and stepped backward as her sister railed.
“Papa gave you everything, and this is how you repay him—”
“No, he didn’t. It was the people he stole from that gave us all that we have.
” Nora struggled to form the words, for she couldn’t believe she needed to speak them.
Glancing about, her eyes widened as she saw nothing but fury directed back at her, and for several moments, she could do nothing but stand there with her palm pressed to her burning cheek, the sting spreading hot beneath her fingers.
Papa had confessed, yet that fact slipped from the room like smoke, and Nora’s throat tightened around words that would not come as the parlor splintered around her.
Gretchen and Mama spewed forth accusations and insults whilst Camilla burst into tears and Lionel paced with frantic steps.
Voices rose over one another until meaning dissolved into chaos, and Nora’s cheek burned, though the sting was a distant pain compared to the ache spreading from her heart.
She had done the right thing. The thought came faintly now, small and battered beneath the weight of so many accusing eyes, but Nora clung to it for there was nothing else left to hold.
***
A fine drizzle settled over Berkeley Square, making the white facades gleam; water gathered along the iron railings and dripped in slow beads from the eaves and windowsills. It was not enough rain to force everyone indoors, but enough to dampen Jonathan’s hat and darken the shoulders of his coat.
Yet he could not look away from No. 27. Standing upon the pavement, Jonathan couldn’t decide whether this was kind or presumptuous, so the minutes ticked away as he studied the windows, though no movement could be seen from within.
Perhaps it was a bit of both, but Jonathan could not allow the sun to set without letting her know.
Mounting the steps before better judgment could seize him by the collar and drag him back to Holborn, Jonathan lifted the knocker and let it fall.
The sound rang sharply against the door, ringing through the quiet square, and his hand dropped to his side as he waited.
It opened to reveal a footman whose composed expression had the strained blankness of a household attempting dignity while disaster moved through the corridors behind him.
“I am here to see Miss Nora Eden,” Jonathan said.
“Miss Eden is not receiving visitors, sir.”
Jonathan’s hand moved to his pocket before the thought fully formed, and drawing out a business card, he searched for a pencil. The space on the back was small, too small for even a fraction of what pressed against his chest, but perhaps brevity was for the best.
With quick strokes, Jonathan wrote the most important words and handed it to the servant. “Please see that she gets this.”
The footman accepted it with a bow, and the door closed.
Despite expecting this outcome, Jonathan heaved a sigh as he descended the steps, though every instinct urged him to turn back and lift the knocker again; his hands curled at his sides as though feeling the shape of it beneath his palm, cold and solid and tempting.
Surely five minutes alone would convince Miss Eden to give up this foolish separation. She needed him now more than ever.
And then Jonathan could add his name to the list of men who had forced their will upon her and twisted that poor lady about.
That would prove his love, indeed.
Miss Eden had lived her whole life beneath the authority of a father who had used her loyalty and affection for his own desires, and she deserved the freedom to choose without being cornered into a decision.
It was one thing to give those little reassurances that he had not abandoned her, but anything more was selfish.
The knowledge sat in him like a blade. Sharp. Necessary. And almost unbearable. But Jonathan drew a slow breath and stepped back from the house. He had promised to wait, and he would keep that promise even when every part of him strained against it. He would.
Gaze lifting to the front windows, he spied only glass, curtains, and pale reflections of the square.
Then a faint movement stirred at one of the upper windows, and Jonathan stilled.
Miss Eden stood there half-hidden behind the curtain, her figure indistinct through the pane but unmistakable all the same, and for one suspended moment, he forgot the street entirely.
Pressing his fingers to his lips, Jonathan lifted the token to her, the gesture small enough for passersby to ignore but clear enough for her to understand. And he waited there, looking at her through the glass and the distance she’d placed between them. He would keep waiting.
And foolish though it may be, Jonathan allowed himself to hope that Miss Eden would make some sign in return, but the curtain fell back into place, and at last he made himself step away.
The drizzle had strengthened without his noticing, not into proper rain but into a damp that slipped beneath the brim of his hat and worked its way through his coat with quiet determination.
Jonathan paid it little mind. He moved through the streets without any particular destination, past quiet squares and busier crossings, past carriages whose wheels sent up thin sprays of wet grit.
Miss Eden had done what stronger men had failed to do.
Not because it served her interests. Not because it protected her comfort or reputation.
Indeed, the truth had stripped both those things away from her.
Though one could not predict the future, Jonathan knew human nature enough to know the torment that would be heaped upon her simply because of her surname.
Yet still Miss Eden had chosen to approach that reporter. Chosen the right thing when every consequence stood ready to punish her for it. Though her name was never mentioned in print, Jonathan knew without a doubt that Miss Eden was their informant.
Nora. The lady hadn’t given him leave to use that name, yet Jonathan couldn’t help but embrace that familiarity in the safety of his thoughts.
Her strength settled deeper into his heart with every step, humbling and steadying him in equal measure.
Jonathan had spent months fearing the loss of investors, reputation, money, confidence; all important things, certainly, but Nora had placed everything upon the altar of conscience, and now, she stood amid the ashes as her world burned to the ground.
Surely he could muster a fraction of her courage.
By the time Jonathan reached the next corner, the decision had formed so quietly that he almost did not recognize it as a decision at all.
It was simply there, a firm resolution buried beneath the damp and the ache in his chest. It was time for Jonathan to follow Nora’s lead, and before he knew what his feet were about, they dragged him to Highbury Terrace.
Words rose and fell in his mind, each one inadequate before it had fully formed.
Apologies sounded too small. Explanations too self-serving.
Confessions too blunt after weeks of careful omissions and assurances.
Yet Jonathan wouldn’t turn back now. Not with his borrowed courage burning quietly in his heart.
His parents’ home appeared through the drizzle, the steps scrubbed clean and the windows glowing faintly against the gray afternoon. Jonathan paused long enough to draw in a breath, which did nothing to steady him, before he mounted the steps and swept inside.
Within moments, his hat and coat were taken, and Jonathan made his way to his father’s study, each familiar turn of the house tightening something in him further until his every defense was stripped away.
Father sat near the desk with a newspaper folded beside him, and when he looked up, quiet concern sharpened in his gaze.
The time for hiding was over. Despite all the thought and consideration given, Jonathan’s words escaped him as he took his seat, and there was nothing left but the abject truth.
“I haven’t been honest with you,” said Jonathan, settling his hands upon his knees. Forcing himself to meet Father’s gaze, he forced the words free. “Matters are far worse than I have claimed, and I am struggling. I wish I could offer up some grand excuse, but I was a coward, and I apologize.”
Once begun, the confession gathered a momentum Jonathan could not have stopped even had he wished to.
He told Father everything he ought to have said months ago, including his interactions with Mr. Eden.
And then, because anything less would be cowardice twice over, Jonathan admitted how desperately he’d wanted that man’s approval, and how close he’d come to following him down dark paths.
Throughout it all, Father did not interrupt.
He sat with one hand resting against the arm of his chair and the other loosely folded in his lap, his expression so still that Jonathan could not read what judgment gathered behind it.
Only that steady, impenetrable attention remained fixed upon him, allowing every word to slip free.
More than once his voice faltered, but Jonathan forced himself onward until every ugly corner was brought into the light, and by the end of it, he felt wrung out and hollow, his hands clasped tightly between his knees as he awaited Father’s disappointment to finally make itself known.
“I require assistance,” said Jonathan, the heat in his cheeks growing unbearable. “I have tried my best, but I have made a muck of it all, and I need your guidance.” Stomach sinking, Jonathan forced the final confession free. “And I require funds.”