Lucy snorted. “But correct.”
“I don’t know what’s come over you, Lucy. You’re usually so much more?—”
“Biddable? Silent?” She gave Sally a look. “Stupid? Naïve?” Eyeing the biscuits, she had the urge to toss them all at Sally.
She’s with child.
“I—do not know how long Mr. Waterstone can continue to thrive under these circumstances. Dufton has done all but force us out of society. We are facing impoverishment.” She reached across the table to take Lucy’s hand. “I understand your hatred for us, but surely, that does not extend to an innocent child.”
Lucy flinched, jerking her fingers away.
A tear rolled down Sally’s cheek. She sniffed as if seconds from falling to the floor in a fit of weeping. “I have nowhere else to turn.”
She watched the steam curl out of the pot of tea, her good mood from the visit to Pendergast gone. Harry had placed a large sum in an account under her name. Enormous, if she were being honest. Even if she redecorated every room in their new home, purchased crates of books from London, and every wheel of cheese Mr. Paul had, Lucy would never manage to deplete the sum. He’d wanted Lucy to have her own money to spend any way she wished.
Harry didn’t want her to feel trapped, as she had with Father.
Your loyalty will be to me. Not Gerald Waterstone.I’ll make him a good offer for Pendergast despite his deceit, far more than he deserves. But nothing else.If Ieverfind out you’ve gone behind my back. If you give him money or betray me to him, you will wish you had not.
Lucy took a small sip of tea, the taste bitter.
But this was not for Father. Or Sally. But for her brother or sister. An innocent child. One Lucy would gladly welcome into her life. Harry had supported his family after the death of his father. He would understand.
The sudden pitch of her stomach had her fingers pressing into the table.
Harry wouldnotunderstand.
“We only need a few thousand pounds,” Sally leaned forward. “Not much at all.”
A few thousand pounds. As if Sally were asking for a coin to purchase a sweet. The Bank of England had an office in Middlesbrough. Lucy could walk her stepmother down the street and withdraw the amount. She would be back in Ormesby well before Harry arrived home. When the time was right, Lucy would explain to him what she’d done and why.
“Very well,” Lucy said quietly, coming to her feet. “I’ve errands. Let us be quick.”
Sally stood, her sobs filling the air. “Thank you, Lucy. I won’t tell Mr. Waterstone. And I promise, we’ll bother you no more.”
“Doubtful,” Lucy whispered under her breath before turning to walk out of the Goat’s Head, hoping she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life.
26
Harry walked through the ironworks, always enthralled with the glow of the forges and the raw scent of iron about to be heated. Progress had been made since hiring his new ironmaster, McAddle, but there was still a great deal of work to be done. Contracts that Waterstone had defaulted on would be fulfilled because Harry didn’t want Pendergast’s reputation damaged further, no matter how much it cost. He debated about running the operation night and day, but that would require at least two shifts of men, which he did not currently have. McAddle had already put out advertisements for skilled workers.
Marsden was an entirely different matter, though he had another survey team in place. But it would be at least a year before the riches lying beneath the Cleveland Hills would come to light. That was fine with Harry. He was a patient man, especially when it came to growing his empire.
But for now, Pendergast was quiet. The hour was late, and nearly everyone had gone home for the day. Harry had stayed to finish a bit of paperwork, a necessary evil. He would have finished far earlier had he not been distracted by the appearanceof his wife with a basket filled by Mrs. Bartle. A most pleasant surprise.
There had been no eating the ham or cherry tarts, at least not at first. Harry’s hunger for his wife far exceeded that for food. Though the tarts had been delicious. Not as much as Lucy, of course. Nothing at all tasted as good as she did.
His once innocent wife, as it turned out, was remarkably adaptable to all manner of sexual experiences. She still blushed at his blatant innuendos, but Lucy was far from prudish. She’d even taken to saying ‘You’ve a large cock, Harry’in that breathless voice that made him near crazed with lust.
Harry adjusted his trousers as he walked across the main floor.
But the most erotic thing about Lucy was her mind, something Harry appreciated. Currently, his clever wife was immersed in studying the manufacture of shoes. Harry was so absorbed in iron and the building of things that he could become far too narrow in his thinking. Much like Blythe’s rope factory, he hadn’t considered…shoes.
Lucy insisted he invest in a shoe factory.
He whistled as he made his way through the quiet of the floor, thinking of a hot bath, something he never got tired of, and his wife. Lucy might be coaxed to join him. Maybe a brandy. He was considering how to dribble the brandy over her breasts when the sound of chains clanking together echoed in the silence. The entire floor was dark, only the banked fires of the forges lighting the edges.
“McAddle?”
