Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Tommy, I need you to get that stupid grin off of your face before I take it off for you.”
Tommy only laughed harder at Jonny’s threat, knowing that he would never actually follow through. Not with him.
“Didn’t know you were such a dancing dandy,” Colin noted, his lip turned up in a quirk as he threw the next card. The four of them were playing cards in what had been converted to a card room for the evening. Ada’s father was at a table a few away, so Jonny was trying not to mention her name.
“You don’t know everything about me, do you know that, Tom?” Jonny muttered as he threw his next card down.
“Maybe because you refuse to say a word about yourself.”
“Maybe,” he said, pulling out his pocket watch once more.
“Have somewhere to be?” Rhys asked.
“Away from you lot is all,” Jonny said, telling himself he had to wait for what felt like at least five minutes before he checked his watch again, not wanting to miss the time Ada had asked him to meet her.
He knew he shouldn’t go, and yet, he couldn’t seem to keep himself away.
Just like their dance.
He had loved how she fit perfectly in his arms, how she had practically nuzzled into his chest, and he had wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her, bury his nose in her hair, and hold her close against him.
He recognized that he should never have asked her to dance, that he should never have pulled her closer or allowed her to so invade his senses, his thoughts.
But he wasn’t sure that there was any force greater than that which was pulling them together.
He was disrupted from his thoughts when he sensed motion from beside him. Ada’s father was standing from his card table, along with the two men who were sitting with him.
David Carter was one. Jonny’s lip curled upward in disgust. That must be his father beside him, judging from the resemblance.
Carter was everything Jonny wasn’t. Tall. Traditionally handsome. Polished. He carried an air about him that told others he felt himself better than everyone else around him, which Jonny passionately despised.
They moved to a different table to play a new game of cards, putting them right beside Jonny.
He felt the eyes of his teammates on him, and he just shook his head as they all stayed silent for a moment, playing their game of cards, which allowed Jonny to overhear the conversation that seemed to be a continuation of one before it.
“It’s time,” Ada’s father was saying. His voice was lower than the others, slightly raspier. “It’s been years, Carter.”
“Things have changed,” said the elder Mr. Carter. “You assured us that you had nothing to do with Blackwood’s organization. That you hadn’t for years.”
“I haven’t!”
“Then why is your daughter’s name on everyone’s lips?”
“I don’t know, but she has done nothing.”
“Besides hang around footballers,” David said in distaste.
Jonny snorted as he exchanged a look with the other men. The businessmen’s arrogance had caused them to not even realize who was beside them. Of course not.
“Her friends are married to them,” Mr. Jones said, although not without dissatisfaction in his tone. “And they certainly are not part of Blackwood’s world. Besides, Blackwood isn’t even here anymore.”
Thanks to Ada.
“Others have taken his place,” the elder Mr. Carter said. “The stakes are raised. We want fifty percent of your business. Then we will merge your munitions company with our iron and steel company, along with your daughter’s hand.”
“That is preposterous!” Mr. Jones blustered as Jonny’s spine stiffened.
They were bartering Ada’s life as though it were part of this business transaction.
He saw Tommy was similarly affected, likely because it reminded him of what had nearly happened to his own wife last year.
“You will not tell me what we are doing. Do you know who I am?”
“I know all too well,” Mr. Carter said, leaning forward. “Is that not what has gotten us here?”
Jones sputtered as Carter continued.
“This must be completed quickly. I will not have my son looking like an idiot. After his dance with your daughter, one of those footballers had her on the dance floor and they looked a little more than friendly. Why Harcourt lowered himself to invite them, I’ll never know.
I’d be careful if I were you, Jones. If her reputation is sullied any further, this deal is off. ”
Jonny risked a glimpse at David, who sat there, fuming, although he said nothing. Jonny smirked, wishing he had taken a chance to watch the man’s face while the woman who was supposed to be his was in Jonny’s arms instead.
“My daughter would never compromise herself,” Jones said vehemently, and Jonny couldn’t help it.
He looked up, caught the incredulous stares of his friends, and he grinned.
It had been five minutes.
He checked his pocket watch. Time for him to go.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, placing his cards down, winning the hand. “I must be off. Tell me if anything else of interest comes up, will you?”
At that, he was walking out of the room, whistling to himself as he strutted past the drawing room, seeking the parlor, and the woman who tempted him.
Ada paced back and forth in front of the parlor window.
Was this a mistake?
She was putting so much at risk by meeting Jonny here.
In the moment, however, she had been so overcome with need to be close to him, to not let him walk away from her, that she had issued an invitation in haste.
Once she had made it, however, she could hardly not be here to meet him.
She couldn’t leave him waiting alone. She wouldn’t do that to him.
She didn’t have much time to consider it, however, for just when she was about to look out the door, it opened, and there he was, standing in the entry.
“Jonny,” she breathed out as he shut the door behind him.
“Expecting anyone else?” he asked, his lids heavy as he stared at her from beneath them.
“No.”
“Not your David Carter?”
She snorted, uncaring that it was quite unladylike.
“David Carter is not mine,” she said. “Nor have I wanted him to be for some time.”
“Hard to believe when you are promised to be married to him.”
This was not how she had wanted the conversation to go, but there appeared to be much more emotion behind his words than she ever would have guessed, and she was driven to answer him.
“Maybe I’m not anymore.”
“Don’t think anyone else in your family knows that.”
“I’ve told them time and again,” she said in frustration. “They don’t seem to care what I want.”
He took three long strides toward her then, stopping so close that she could see the indents in his cheeks, where the sun and a life of hard work had deepened some of the lines around his eyes and lips.
“And what do you want?”
“Right now?” she said, her breath quickening, “I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting time with you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
“You said yourself that I was a risk.”
“You are.”
“Then why are you here? Why don’t you stay away from me?”
She licked her lips, staring at the way his brows had slanted over his eyes, in confusion or anger, she wasn’t certain.
“I wish I could tell you,” she said somewhat helplessly. “But what I know I should do and what I want to do just aren’t lining up.”
“What are we supposed to do about that?”
“I don’t have much answer for you,” she said. “Besides to take a chance and see what happens.”
“You can’t stand me.”
“Oftentimes, I can’t,” she said, before it was her turn to furrow her brow. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this?” Her stomach rolled slightly. “Did I read this wrong?”
“It’s not that,” he said, looking over to the side for a moment. “It’s that I know how this is going to end. You’re going to end up marrying Carter even if you don’t want to, and I’m going to look like the idiot who went after you and was left behind for another.”
That hurt her more than she’d like. For one, that he would think she would do something she didn’t want to, and second, that he would care more about how it looked than how they felt.
“So, what others think matters that much to you?”
“That’s not what matters.”
“Then what does?”
He shrugged.
Ada placed her hands on her hips, frustrated that he always seemed to prefer to keep his words to himself.
What was it that he didn’t want to admit?
She tried to put herself in his place and realized that if a man chose another over – and after – her, she would feel the exact same.
She hadn’t thought someone like Jonny would care so much.
“I cannot tell you the future,” she said, answering as though he had told her how he felt instead of just shrugging those broad and very masculine shoulders of his. “I can just tell you that, right now, I am refusing marriage to David Carter and choosing what I want. And what I want is you.”
“I’m not going to run off and marry you like Tommy did for Minnie,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
That was a bit of a blow, but then, everyone knew that Tommy had always been in love with Minnie. Jonny had said no such thing to Ada. Sometimes she wondered if he even liked her.
“Didn’t ask you to,” she said, not letting him see that his words had affected her in any way.
“So, what do you want?”
“I don’t know what my future holds,” she said. “All I know is that I want to choose for myself. I want to know what it’s like to do something for me, to follow my instincts to something that feels right. I want to be excited about the present, about what’s right in front of me.”
She looked at him straight in the eye.
“And what’s in front of me is you. Wherever I go. Whatever I do. I keep coming back to you.”
She stepped closer, tilting her face up so that she was looking at him.
“No one has ever kissed me like you do,” she said, her voice coming out breathier as she reached up, tracing his brow with her index finger, as she had been longing to since the day he had caught her in that tavern.
“Tell me that you don’t want me. Because I don’t see how that could be true from the way you kissed me. Tell me.”
His eyes flicked from one of her eyes to the other, and even though he said nothing, she knew what he was thinking. He couldn’t tell her. Because despite his tough words, that exterior he wore, he did want her. He enjoyed those kisses. They told the truth of what he was feeling.
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered, just moments before they both moved together.
She couldn’t have said which one of them kissed the other, rather that, in silent understanding, their lips met, fusing together as though that was where they were meant to be.
And, as she melted into his arms, she knew that there was no denying this. Whether it was just physical or not, she couldn’t step away from him.
Engagement or not, this was the man she was promised to.
For now, at least.