“It’s your nerves,” Fiona reminded her. “Big changes. A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”
A maid knocked at her door. “Miss Elizabeth, your father wishes to see you in his office.”
Elizabeth peered at Fiona, felt the blood run from her face. “What is it about?”
The maid curtseyed. “I don’t know, Miss. He says you are to come to him immediately.”
An invisible spider crawled up Elizabeth’s spine, tickling the hairs on her neck. She looked again to Fiona and mouthed for her to hurry with the packing. As Elizabeth descended the cold marble steps, she felt a darkness surround her, told herself she could walk away from it, forgetting how difficult it was to run from that which she could not see coming.
Elizabeth walked into her father’s office, stopped before his desk. Of late, he was doing more of his work at home. For acouple of minutes, he rifled off a letter with corrections and computations, muttering sharp comment to his secretary as if Elizabeth were not there. For once, she studied her father and how others might perceive him. He was a forbidding-looking man who did not suffer fools. Short on words himself, he subscribed that the long-winded, liberal use of language and expectations of finance were the marks of a pervert or someone with an incurable malady. She thought about what O’Reilly had once harangued.Why is it all the wars are started by bankers?
A sense of wrongness, of fraught unease incubated in the silence, like long nails scraped against the surface of a blackboard. If her father thought to make her wait and create the uneasy environment, his plan worked.
For the first time, she turned, noticed Rawlins, one arm resting casually over the arm of a chair. Her mother sat in a pool of lamplight. Why were they here?
Her father finally looked up from his papers. “It has come to my attention how you’ve been carrying on with Mr. Rourke.”
Was her father baiting her? “Whatever would give you that idea?”
“I have it on good authority, and from the newspapers.” He tossed the papers with bold damning headlines in front of her.
Elizabeth inhaled. A wave of vertigo passed over her.
Her mother sprang from behind. Her face contorted like a graven image of Medusa. “How could you, Elizabeth? Again, you have brought disgrace to our family. But why am I not surprised? I told your father to rein in your independent streak. The duke has cried off.”
“I assume the state of marriage was something you aspired to. Was I misguided?” Her father’s cold words were like dagger blows, straight for the jugular.
Elizabeth fisted her hands, stared hotly at Rawlins, knew the birth of the rumors. The mysterious carriages…he was theone spying on her.A snake will die unless it sheds its skin. Obviously, Rawlins Dyer had shed his skin.
The very air stood still, waiting for someone to act.
Her father stood. When he spoke, tension crackled in the air as though there was another conversation being had, one between Dyer, her mother and himself. “Damage control is paramount. Rawlins has generously offered for your hand in marriage.”
Elizabeth could not believe her ears. She scanned the room. Dyer nodded his head and smiled. Her father’s face like granite.
Her mother returned to her chair, so demure, the caricature of ladylike reserve, her father’s face like granite. “Rawlins is generous to take your hand in marriage which I perceive is a charity knowing your lack of innocence. He’s also giving your father a pre-wedding gift of a railroad.”
“Shut up, Alva,” ordered her father.
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open with the unthinkable. “I’m being sold for a railroad?”
“Rawlins is making a stupendous offer for you. You will accept his proposal,” her father said.
“It’s not proper. Rawlins is twice my age.” Her stomach swelled tight with nausea.
Her father’s voice hardened. “I will decide what is proper and what isn’t. And this is a conversation I will not continue. You are going to do what your mother and I have ordered. If not, I can’t help what might happen to Mr. Rourke. At the very least, I’ll call in his chits.”
“You wouldn’t dare?—”
“Elizabeth, I’m a powerful man. I can do anything I please.”
“Elizabeth,” said Rawlins, “I will give you everything your heart desires. I’ve had a fondness for you for years and do not want to see you hurt by your indiscretion.”
“Tomorrow, dressmakers will come to fit you for a trousseau. That should satisfy you,” fumed Alva.
Elizabeth turned on her mother. “To placate me with clothes? I’m not a trained dog waiting to fetch a treat. None of this is going to happen.”
Her father shook with black rage. “Go to your room and stay there. You will never see Mr. Rourke again—that’s if you want nothing to happen to him.”
