“I would never; I’ve merely been busy, you see. It is my daughter’s first season, and without a wife, much of the responsibility has fallen to me.”
Sniveling, his tone was one I had never heard. It was obsequious and nasal. Subservient, almost. It was entirely new to me and utterly horrid. Underneath my shock, a touch of indignation burned. His characterization of the efforts he undertook on my behalf was an overstatement at best.
“So, I’ve heard. I’m confident I’ll have the £6,000 you owe me in hand on the morrow. I’ve been assured that you and your daughter have no pending engagements.”
The sum caught in my mind, circling there. A missing puzzle piece I had not yet manipulated to fit.
“Now, Wayland, you must be reasonable—”
“I’ve been reasonable for weeks, Richard. You’ve yet to see me in an unreasonable state.”
He did not deny it. My father did not deny the debt. £6,000. It was an insurmountable sum: my entire dowry and more. And he made not the slightest effort to refute it.
“—So, you see, if you just wait until Rosehill weds the chit in five months’ time, he’ll give me the funds for you—”
My father’s sycophantic pleading was abruptly cut off with a choking sound. Shelves at my side shuddered under sudden weight and motion. From what little I could discern through the cloth, the man had shoved my father against the shelf. His forearm pressed against Father’s neck.
“You’re selling your only daughter to pay your debts?” The man’s voice was a penetrating growl; my hair rose on end in the face of such intensity.
“Oh, come off it. He needs an heir out of her, and he hasn’t any other takers,” my father’s voice was only a wheeze. The shelves rattled again as the man adjusted his grip.
“I won’t accept funds at your daughter’s expense. Find another source.” The words were bit out between clenched teeth.
He was defending me? There was no sense in it. A man so unscrupulous as to confront a gentleman during a ball, so determined to collect his funds, he had all but thrown a man against a shelf.Thisman was scrupulous enough to care about the source of his payment?
“Papers have already been signed. And he added another £2,000 on top of the six. He will have my head if I back out now.”
“You should be afraid of me,” he said, voice taut with anger. “If you sell that girl, I’ll have your head, but that will be the last piece of you I receive. Do we have an understanding?”
The bile rose in my throat as truth finally dawned.
“Yes,” my father bit out with no small amount of venom.
The man released him abruptly. My father dropped to his knees with the weight of his sudden freedom. Meanwhile, the man stalked to the hall door; his motion oddly graceful in opposition to the brutality I had just witnessed. He yanked it open, light streaming in from the hall once more, silhouetting the position of both men. My father straightened from the floor, righting his clothing in an absurd display of pride before he strode out with the remnants of his dignity.
“Have a lovely evening,” the man threw the words down the hall after him. There was no small amount of sarcasm in the phrase. The door clicked gently closed, a contrast to the violence of the last minutes.
For the briefest moment, I was free to grapple with all I had learned—privacy abundant under my cloth. Then, heavy footsteps revealed that, instead of abandoning me, the man had enclosed us both in the darkened library once more. He crossed back to the table, leaning against it. The slap of palms landed on the wood, accompanied by a fatigued sigh. I was still trapped, then.
I released a near-silent, shaky breath; one, two, three.
The cloth was unexpectedly ripped up. I startled and tried to shuffle away in the non-existent space. Instead, I banged my head against the leg of the table. The knock upset a vase on the top and flowers spilled and water dripped to the floor beside me.
The man leaned down, his head peering sideways under the table. He was all dark hair, fiery eyes, and sharp cheekbones.
“Learn anything interesting, little eavesdropper?” he asked, his eyes smoky, tone unreadable. Annoyed perhaps. It was slightly preferable to the barely suppressed rage he had offered my father.
I nodded mutely, mouth gaping. I could not seem to command my eyes to blink. He brought a hand down and held it out to me. He was… helping me up? Should he not be raging at me? I couldn’t bring myself to take his hand. Instead, I scooted awkwardly on my bottom, freeing myself from my table prison, before pressing myself up to stand beside him. I misjudged the distance between us though. Once I rose, I was pressed, too close, against him—bare inches between us.
He took a dignified step back and reached past me to the table. He pulled back, presenting me with my own gloves. I closed my eyes against the humiliation rushing through me. The entire time…
“Care to tell me what you were doing down there?” His tone was… amused? His grin was crooked, and his earlier rage seemed to have evaporated.
“I was searching for a book.”
“Under the table?”
“Yes.”
