“You know, you could have just gotten married like the rest of us. If only you tried to be a bit more pleasant and smiled from time to time, you could have a bride by the end of the week.”
“And you know that is the last thing I want.” While he himself seemed a curmudgeon to most, he did care. That was what caused him to be so abrupt. It warded people away and protected them. He wanted no one else to fall victim to his father’smanaging ways, especially as far as bringing children into the world went.
Andrew’s face softened. “I understand, Leonard. Really, I do. But marriage is not the awful affair you think it is. With the right person, it can be incredibly fulfilling.”
He shook his head. Now that he had officially lost the wager, there was nothing to induce him to try now. “The family line will not continue through me.”
“Then it likely will not continue at all.”
Leonard stood, facing his friend. “And that pleases me just fine.” Andrew opened his mouth as if to speak, but Leonard held up a hand. “Just pull the money, if you would, please. And that will be the end of this awful ordeal.”
“If that is really what you want.”
What Leonard really wanted was for his brother to be well, and for his father to stop controlling his life. But as that wasn’t what Andrew was referring to, Leonard pressed on. “Yes. That’s what I want.”
He turned on his heel, walking out his friend’s office door and through the bank until he was outside in the unseasonable cold of late September.
Rushing to his father’s carriage, he paused on the bottom step as another carriage rolled to a stop. It was quite a ridiculous affair. Painted a garish yellow with tasseled window coverings, it screamed, “Look how rich and important I am.”
It was only annoyance that kept Leonard from entering his own carriage.
The coachman descended and opened the door, and what came next made Leonard take a step down from his own conveyance.
A slippered foot came first, and then a young woman ducked out just enough to open her parasol before taking her coachman’s hand and exiting fully.
The hair, the face, the eyes—he knew them.
It washer.
He shot into his carriage, not waiting for Nichols to open the door. Instead, he practically pressed his nose to the window as he watched the young woman enter the bank Leonard had just left.
Part of him wished to run out and confront her, but it was all so unexpected. He really didn’t know how to go about doing that, especially on a public street. Instead, he waited what seemed like an hour, and when she came back outside, glancing both ways on the sidewalk before entering her own conveyance, he headed back inside.
A man walked forward. “Can I help you?”
“Just here to see Mr. Langford.” He continued to Andrew’s office, taking the chair opposite his desk.
“Stanton?” His brow puckered. “Change your mind already?”
“Who was that young woman in here just now?”
He pulled his chin back as he lifted a paper from his desk and studied it. “Which young woman?”
“Blonde. Pretty. Blue eyes.”
Andrew’s eyes shot up from the page he held, tipping his head to the side. “Mrs. Gillingham?”
“I don’t know her name. That’s what I want to know. But she was just here and left not two minutes ago.”
Andrew dropped the paper back onto his desk. “That would be her, then. But what about her? Did you change your mind about marriage too?”
“No.” Leonard shook his head. “She is the one who stole my great-grandmother’s ring.”
Andrew’s brow furrowed, and he slowly shook his head as if in disbelief. “No. That cannot be. While she is a bit . . . eccentric, she has always been a good client. A whizz with numbersactually. She took a meager inheritance from her husband and turned it into a thriving one.”
“She is the woman,” Leonard pressed. “You must admit she has a face one does not easily forget.”
Andrew seemed to give the thought pause. “I just cannot fathom why she would steal from you, let alone anyone. I cannot reveal all she has, but I will say it is no small sum.” Sorting the papers together, as if needing to do something, Andrew picked them up and tapped them into neat order. “I simply cannot believe it.”
