“Do not compare me with those bastards! You know what they did to me. What I suffered?—”
“Yet you are willing to inflict suffering on blameless villagers? Listen to me.” Gigi was as stern as he’d ever seen her. “You have the opportunity to be different from those who hurt you. Instead of destroying lives, you could save them. Chuddums has much to offer. Look how far my scheme with the water has gone. You could use your wealth and skill to help the economy grow?—”
“You are wasting your breath, daughter.” The marquess regarded Conrad as if he were vermin. “A leopard does not change its spots. Godwin has, and always will be, a man without ethics or principles. He is not good enough for you.”
The pressure shot up in Conrad’s veins. “You know nothing about me, you judgmental bastard. I have my reasons?—”
“Do not speak to my papa that way.” Her eyes flaring, Gigi set her shoulders back. “I don’t care about your reasons. All I care about now is what you will do with Chuddums.”
She doesn’t care about my reasons? What I’ve gone through? She cares more about those stupid villagers than me—her own husband?
His vision flashed scarlet.
“You wish to hear my plan? Here it is. I am going to sell that place off to the highest bidders, brick by brick,” he said concisely. “I will make a tidy profit, but the true returns will come from the satisfaction of wiping Abel Pearce’s legacy from the face of this earth.”
“If you do this, you are not the man I believed you to be. The man I thought I married would never choose vengeance over everything…over love.” Her voice wavered, but her resolve clearly did not. “If you destroy Chuddums, our marriage is over.”
It had been a long while since anyone dared to give him an ultimatum. To be issued one from Gigi, the one person he’d trusted with his darkest secrets, felt like a knife between the shoulder blades—like the inflicting of all the scars on his back combined. Worst of all, he felt panic whirling inside him. The closing in of the dark forest.
Chest heaving, he jabbed a finger at her. “You do not get to make that decision.”
“I am leaving,” Gigi said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She turned her back on him.
Turned. Her. Back.
A moment later, she walked out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Certain I can’t persuade you to stay in the carriage, guv?”
The question came from Adrian Foxworth, the investigator hired by Conrad to find the cutthroat who’d tried to kill him. In his late forties, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and tilted hazel eyes, Foxworth had come through for Conrad in the past, and this time was no different. He’d traced the pawn ticket Gigi had found to a shop in Spitalfields and persuaded the owner to give up the client’s name and address. As it turned out, “John Brown” was an alias of Gregory Johnson, who lived in a nearby tenement.
When Foxworth informed Conrad of the development, Conrad had decided to go along. Currently, he, Foxworth, and three of the latter’s men were monitoring Johnson’s tenement. Foxworth and Conrad were parked in a carriage in the lane behind the building, watching the rear gate. People had come and gone, none of them matching the description of the waiter at the gala.
Taking out his pistol, Conrad checked that it was ready for use.
“If Johnson shows up, I can handle myself,” he said.
“I don’t doubt it.” Foxworth was gazing through a slit in the curtains. “But I make it a policy not to put clients in danger.”
Truth be told, Conrad wouldn’t mind a little violence. Since Gigi left yesterday, he’d teetered between rage and despair, and he craved an outlet for his roiling emotions. A few moments when he didn’t have to feel the swirling emptiness inside him. When he didn’t have to see the hurt in Gigi’s eyes…as if he had somehow betrayed her. While he could concede that he probably ought to have told her his plans earlier, her reaction had been proof positive of why he hadn’t.
She claimed to love me. Yet when push came to shove, she left. Just like everyone else.
He couldn’t believe that she had given him an ultimatum. That she would make him choose between her or his revenge. He despised manipulation and yet… Now that his temper was cooling a little, he also felt prickling unease.
For the sake of revenge, are you willing to become like those men who hurt you?
He wanted justice for what had been done to him. His intention wasn’t to hurt innocent people…and, he thought righteously, he was willing to give the Chuddumites jobs. He’d even offered to build them a square. But that wasn’t good enough for Gigi. No, she wanted…what the hell did she want, anyway?
You are the one keeping secrets. You are the one hiding things from me.
The feeling of discomfort grew. While Gigi had given him an ultimatum, she wasn’t trying to manipulate him for her own gain. What she wanted was honesty and trust...things she had a right to ask for in a marriage. Things that he, himself, valued. She wanted him to do right by the people of Chuddums who, for some godforsaken reason, had welcomed him into their odd little fold. He thought of all the well-wishers who’d interrupted his packing, of Kenneth pestering him for lessons, of Wally’s interminable tours…and Christ.
For the first time in a long time, he felt…ashamed.
