Chapter 49
Mr. Hatcher’s voice, low and careful, reached the place nothing else had managed to touch, and her lips trembled.
Nora looked down at the folded note resting upon the stair beside her, and she held it out to him with unsteady fingers.
Mr. Hatcher took it gently, and her eyes burned as tears blurred the empty room, the pale patches on the walls, and his solemn features.
“Suspecting how the verdict would go today, Mama has taken the others and left.” Though Nora did not need to explain what was written in clear letters, she needed to say the words aloud.
“She took what she could with her—including the children who still matter to her—and left. No doubt she has hidden away some money on the Continent and will be comfortable enough if she is prudent.”
A small, broken sound escaped before she could bury it, and Mr. Hatcher’s eyes lifted from the note.
Nora pressed one hand to her mouth, but it did little good.
Curling inward, she hid her face, but she couldn’t stop the sobs that emerged—and strengthened when strong arms wrapped around her.
Mr. Hatcher crouched on the stair beside her, and Nora couldn’t fight the impulse that had her turning into him.
Surely there could be nothing left for her to feel after the trial, Papa’s sentence, and returning to a house stripped bare and a dismissive note from Mama, yet the grief surged, tearing through that hollow place with such force that she could scarcely draw breath between sobs.
Her fingers clutched blindly at Mr. Hatcher’s coat, not with dignity, not with restraint, but with the desperation of someone who had been left behind too many times and could not bear to be abandoned again.
For several long moments, nothing existed beyond the terrible sound breaking from her and the warmth of Mr. Hatcher’s arms around her.
The gentleman made no sound. Gave no assurances or gentle platitudes.
Mr. Hatcher merely held her there on the stairs in the stripped entryway, one arm firm about her shoulders while his other hand rested lightly at the back of her head, steadying without confining.
The quiet certainty of him only made her cry harder, because it asked nothing of her.
“She didn’t even say farewell,” Nora choked out, the words broken and jagged. “Did I not matter to her in the slightest?”
Pressing her face against his shoulder, she let the whole of her composure come apart. Every severed thread of her life knotted together until Nora could no longer tell which hurt belonged to which loss. It was all one wound now, too large to cover, too deep to touch without bleeding afresh.
And through it all, Mr. Hatcher held her.
Time lost all shape. The afternoon light shifted slowly across the stripped entryway, retreating from one bare patch on the wall to another, whilst Nora wept until her body forgot how to do anything else.
At times the sobs came harshly, tearing through her with enough force that she could do nothing but cling to him until the worst of it passed.
At others, the tears slipped out quietly, drawing out the last of her strength as they dampened the shoulder of his coat.
And only after every last tear was spilled and Nora released her hold on him, did Mr. Hatcher move.
“Come,” he said, rising to his feet.
“Pardon?” Nora brushed at her cheeks and rubbed her eyes before staring at the hand he extended to her.
“We are going to pack your things, assuming the vultures haven’t taken everything.” The gentleman paused before adding in a dismissive tone. “If they have, we will simply buy you new things.”
And as if that settled matters, Mr. Hatcher offered his hand again, looking at her with raised brows as though she ought to have accepted it already.
“You are speaking nonsense, sir.”
But Mr. Hatcher shook his head. “You are going to stay with my parents. For as long as you need.”
Shooting to her feet, Nora gaped at him. “No, I will not. I cannot.”
“If you do not want to marry me, that is your choice, but I will not walk out that door and abandon you to this,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal. “You will take my family’s assistance for as long as you require it.”
“Nothing has changed, Mr. Hatcher,” she said, gesturing at the house around her. “If anything, matters are much worse. I will not add another name to the list of those harmed by my family!”
The gentleman’s expression shuttered, and he watched her through narrowed eyes for a long moment before turning on his heels and climbing the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she said, stepping around him to block his path.
“If all the cowards in your family have fled, that means your bedchamber will be the only one with things in it, so it shan’t be difficult to locate. I would prefer your assistance, but I shall simply have to pack everything I find.”
And with that, Mr. Hatcher barreled ahead, though his hands were gentle as they guided her to one side so he could move past her.
“Hatchers are not like Edens,” he said, calling from over his shoulder. “We do not abandon our own. Ever.”
For one suspended moment, Nora could only stand there upon the stairs, one hand gripping the banister as Mr. Hatcher continued upward with all the stubborn certainty of a man who had already decided the matter and would not permit anything to turn him from his course.
The warmth that rose inside her hurt almost as much as the grief, though differently.
Sharper, perhaps, because it carried light into places that had grown accustomed to darkness, like the first attempts to open one’s eyes in the morning when the curtains were thrown wide.
Had Nora ever known love? Papa wielded it like chains and manacles.
Mama’s was as brittle as tissue paper. Her siblings knew nothing other than that which served their own interests and needs.
Even the men who had claimed to love her beyond all reason fled at the slightest difficulty, brushing her aside for the sake of fear and self-interest.
And then there was Mr. Hatcher, striding through the wreckage of her life as though claiming her was the most natural thing in the world.
A bitter ache twisted through the warmth, for Nora could see it now with almost painful clarity.
She had spent her whole life mistaking obligation for devotion, approval for affection, protection for care.
But love was not meant to control. It did not bend with a whim.
It did not falter when the storms of life raged.
Love sacrificed. It persevered. It even packed trunks.
“I do not want you to pay for my father’s actions,” she whispered, though Nora couldn’t say if she were pleading with him to argue or surrender.
Mr. Hatcher halted at the top of the stairs and turned slowly to face her, his brows pulled low as fire burned in his gaze. “The only thing hurting me is your rejection.”
“But your business—”
“Hang my business!” he said, the words emerging not quite as a shout, though only just. Then surging down the stairs, Mr. Hatcher drew so close that Nora leaned back, though his hand steadied her when she teetered.
“Don’t you understand?” he said, his voice low and warm. “If my business is ruined, I shall build another. But I shall never find another you.”
Nora’s lips parted, but no sound came, but it mattered little for Mr. Hatcher forged ahead.
“If every contract I hold vanished this instant, if every investor turned from me tomorrow, that loss would not compare to the prospect of walking out of this house and leaving you behind because you have convinced yourself I am too fragile to choose my own future,” he whispered.
“But I would tear down every brick of my home and burn my office to the ground if I could have you.”
Tears blurred him into soft lines and dark shadows, but Nora did not look away. “It would be selfish of me…”
“You destroyed your life to protect others and remained when others fled,” said Mr. Hatcher, his eyes blazing with the pride and awe that had driven him to write that note to her all those weeks ago.
“You do not know the meaning of selfishness, Nora Eden. You are courageous and strong. If, as you fear, being with you ruins everything else in my life, that would be a small price to have you in it.”
The words settled deep into her soul, filling the places that had remained empty for so long that Nora had forgotten they were there.
Mr. Hatcher looked upon every broken piece of her life, every consequence still waiting beyond that stripped house, and saw something worth choosing. Something worth loving.
Slowly, Nora lifted her hand to his cheek, and Mr. Hatcher stilled beneath her touch, his breath catching.
The house was silent around them, the ghosts of the past fading into the ether as she considered the choice before her.
If she accepted him now, it would not be because she was swept away in some flurry of romantic foolishness.
Or the desperate need for safety and comfort.
This decision formed through the tears blurring her sight, through the ache lodged in her heart, and through every warning that whispered that the world would punish him for daring to love her.
Nora considered it all.
Then she pressed her lips to his.
*
For one impossible instant, Jonathan couldn’t move.
Then her lips touched his and every reckless impulse inside him surged forward at once, demanding he draw her close and deepen the kiss until he convinced her by sheer force of will that she was safe with him.
But the slight tremble in her hand against his cheek held him still.
This was not a moment to take. This was a moment to receive.
So Jonathan quieted every hungry, aching part of himself.
His hands remained steady and firm enough to reassure, and when Nora leaned nearer, he met her gently.
When her breath shivered, he did not chase more than she offered.
The restraint nearly undid him, yet beneath it grew something far greater than desire.
Nora was giving him trust, fragile and trembling and more precious than gold.
After everything done to her, every false promise, every abandonment, every cruel lesson that had ground her certainty to dust, Nora Eden was giving her heart to him.
The knowledge filled him until his chest ached, and he touched her with all the reverence she and her beautiful heart deserved.
The kiss ended as gently as it had begun, and for a moment, neither of them moved.
Jonathan remained close enough to feel the unevenness of Nora’s breath, close enough that the slightest shift would bring them together again, yet he held himself still and let the quiet settle around them.
The weight of that cruel day receded until there were only the two of them there, her eyes bright with tears and her hand still resting against his cheek.
“Marry me?” he whispered.
Nora’s eyes widened, and Jonathan felt the whole of his future balance upon that small stair. He had asked too quickly. Too bluntly. But after so much waiting, the words forced themselves free of their constraints. Jonathan’s patience was still a growing thing, after all.
“Please,” he whispered. “If you wish me to wait, I will wait. If you require time, I will give you all the time you require. But I cannot pretend that friendship is all I wish from you.”
The fear and worry lingered in the widened shape of her eyes, in the faint parting of her lips, in the stillness of her hand against his cheek.
Yet beneath it, something warmer took shape.
Not certainty rushing recklessly ahead, nor the fragile hope of a woman desperate to be rescued, but a quiet unfolding that moved through her features by degrees until the fear no longer held them so tightly.
“You may come to regret it—” she began.
“The only regret I could ever have is losing you.”
Nora looked at him as though she were seeing both the risk and the promise at once, no longer weighing it with panic but the tender solemnity of someone finally allowing herself to imagine a future beyond survival, and the warmth in her eyes deepened.
“Please, Nora. Marry me.”
For one breath, she did not answer. Then her hand slipped around his neck, and she leaned into him with a tenderness that stole the breath from his lungs.
When her lips met his this time, the trembling remained, but the uncertainty had altered into something sweeter, and Jonathan closed his eyes and happily fell into the embrace.
When she drew back, her eyes remained on his as she whispered, “It seems I must pack.”