Chapter 33
Music drifted brightly through the Willards’ ballroom.
All the public rooms had been thrown open for the charity ball, transforming the house into a bright maze of people, floral arrangements, and elegantly arrayed tables where donations were being discreetly collected by formidable matrons.
Ladies in radiant silks moved through the dances like flower petals on the breeze, the gentlemen’s dark suits looking stark in comparison, and the gas chandeliers blazed above, their light scattering across polished floors and gilded mirrors until the entire house shimmered with motion and color.
And standing with Miss Eden at his side, a glass in hand, Jonathan watched the party unfold with an ease he rarely felt in public.
The music lulled, and at the far end of the ballroom, Mr. Willard stepped onto the low dais arranged for the musicians and lifted a hand for attention. It took a few moments for the laughter and conversations to ebb, but gradually the room settled into an expectant hush.
“Good evening to each and every one of you,” he began before detailing the good work to be accomplished by their donations, the many needs still to be met, and the funds already collected.
“Of course, I must offer particular gratitude to Mr. Virgil Eden and Eden the dancers swept past in a whirl of silk and black coats, yet none of it touched the quiet that encircled them.
“Please,” he said again, softer this time. “Tell me.”
Casting a glance about her, she said in the faintest of whispers, “My father is a liar, and I believe he may be a fraud.”
Miss Eden’s hand rose to cover her mouth, too late to call the words back.
But with a trembling breath, she pressed on, and the account came in rushed fragments, tumbling faster now that she had begun, as though stopping would make it impossible to start again, and with every passing moment, her brittle composure cracked further.
Jonathan didn’t move. Whatever passed through him, he kept it from his face, afraid that the wrong flash of feeling might make her retreat into silence again.
It was impossible. Not that he doubted her, but Miss Eden might as well have claimed the foundations beneath the Willards’ house had split open, and they were about to be swallowed into the pits of hell.
Last week he had sat with the gentleman, feeling as though Mr. Eden had thrown a rope to a drowning man, but that very salvation depended upon someone Miss Eden claimed to be false.
Worse still, Jonathan had browbeaten Mr. Sampson into remaining with Eden he’d only wanted to help the fellow, not tie him up for a lion to devour, and his actions left a sour taste coating his mouth.
“Papa insists that I do not understand, but I have read the report again and again, and I cannot see how it indicates anything other than fraud,” she said, though her eyes pleaded with him to disagree.
“Hatcher & Byrnes was listed?” he asked, fully knowing she had already said so.
“In clear, decipherable letters.”
Jonathan’s jaw worked once before he managed to still it, his mind reaching instinctively for explanations that did not require the whole world to tilt so violently beneath them.
“There may be some mechanism we are not seeing,” he said carefully, keeping his voice low. “Financial records can appear damaging when seen out of context.”
Miss Eden’s lips tightened.
“I believe you. I do,” he added in a rush.
“Clearly, there is something afoot, for we have no financial dealings with Eden & Co., but if your accusations are what they appear to be, this is not a mere misunderstanding. That is blatant fraud, pure and simple, and I struggle to comprehend how such a powerful and visible business could perpetrate such a massive deception.”
Brows furrowing, Miss Eden watched him with wary eyes.
“We must be careful,” he added. “It may indicate fraud. It may indicate an error. It may indicate something improper but not as widespread as we fear. But regardless, you are not alone in this. I will do everything in my power to sort this out. I give you my word.”