“I do wish to be alone.”
He removed his hat and held it with both hands. “I will leave again if that is your desire. However, might I ask that you allow me to stay for at least a moment? So we can talk?”
She glanced up, impaling him with her remarkable gaze. “If you wish.”
He settled onto the grass opposite her, perhaps six feet away, and beheld her in silence. She slumped with defeat, and he knew why. All the promise of the glorious meeting in the candlelit chapel had abated when he’d confessed who he was and what he intended to do. She clearly disregarded his need for justice entirely. He deeply wanted to rectify that. He wantedher to understand the way she understood him in virtually every other way. He needed her beside him through the difficulty to come.
“Well?” Her question made clear that the floor was his. He massaged his chin while gathering his best argument.
“I know you disagree with my plan. That much is evident.” She dropped her eyes and nodded. Though he expected it, the gesture still stabbed his heart. “I dislike the fact that we are not in accord. Therefore, I offer you a challenge.”
She lifted her head. “A challenge?”
“Yes. I propose that if you suggest a superior plan—one that dispenses justice without undue suffering of innocents—then I will consider it.”
He watched with wonderment as fire flared in her eyes. When she stood, he breathlessly mirrored her movement.
“I have been giving much thought to just that,” she said. “An alternative course of action.”
“Yes? And?”
“I have an idea.”
Her claim took him by surprise. For fifteen years, he had failed to envision any approach other than his current path. “Tell me, then.”
She moved a step nearer, her expression earnest and hopeful. “I propose that you force your father to return the wheat to the farmers in exchange for half of what he paid them. This will save the farmers and allow your father to preserve enough capital to support your family and perhaps eventually recover.”
He shook his head instinctively. “But I vowed to ruin my father for his misdeeds.”
“He would know that you held in your hands the power to ruin him and instead offered mercy for the sake of your family and the farmers. Can you not find justice in that?”
“He killed my Mary as certainly as if he’d done it with his own hand. Where isherjustice?”
Morgan blinked rapidly at his hot retort. “Do you not see? You have spent fifteen years dispensing justice in her name. Can you not offer mercy in her name just this once?”
“Mercy,” he spat. “He deserves no mercy. I deserve my retribution.”
She glared at him with hardening eyes. “True justice sometimes requires great sacrifice, Steadman.”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You promised you would consider a superior plan.”
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands while envisioning the outcome of what she suggested. All he could imagine was his father’s smug smile. His declaration that his son possessed little sense and no purpose. His lack of concern for those in his care. His superiority over avoiding the consequences of his actions. When he lowered his hands, he had his answer.
“I cannot allow him to go unpunished.”
All the hope that had built in Morgan’s eyes faded in an instant, like a candle reaching the end of its wick. The deepening disappointment of her expression nearly shoved him from his righteous perch, but he held fast. He watched as she retrieved her hat from the turf, brushed loose soil from its brim, and placed it on her head. She ran a sleeve across her eyes to clear them of rainwater.
“How will you do this deed, then? Ruin your father and whoever else might be in your path?”
Her accusation stung, but he squared his shoulders. “I dispatched letters to Lord Atwood and Mr. Dunwoody this morning informing them of the missing wheat and demanding that they meet me in the afternoon two days hence at Prescombe Manor.”
“So,” she said, her eyes colder still, “Your father will know it is you who is coming to ruin him.”
“I did not sign my name to the letters.”
Her brow creased and her frown deepened. “Why? Is this not the triumph you crave?”
