* * *
This was without a doubt the finest house Rosamund had ever entered. She marveled again at the drapery on her bed and the windows and the elegant paintings on the walls. The size of the chamber had impressed her, as had those of the public spaces below. Although still sparsely furnished, the furniture that did exist was of high quality.
Even the Copleys did not live like this, and they were gentlefolk. Not of the degree of Mr. and Mrs. Radnor, of course. Chase Radnor was grandson of one duke and cousin to the current one, after all.
She rose from the bed with regret. She had laid there awake for at least an hour, thinking about her change in fortune and what she would do with that money. She would put some aside to make sure her sister never had to do as she had done and go into service in a strange house. Lily would receive a proper education, too. That she could now provide for Lily was her greatest joy about this legacy.
Some of the rest she would use to open her London shop. Mrs. Ingram could continue with the one in Richmond until it was decided whether to keep both. She would need some help here in Town, though. That was one thing she needed to start looking into.
She could not stay forever in this house, so she needed a place of her own, and soon. But this was the point where her thinking changed from practical, sensible, and clear to something more muddled.
Now she looked out the window at the overcast day. Below the garden showed green starting to form near the ground. Bulbs sending up shoots, most likely. She continued considering her new home while she pictured tulips and narcissus fully up and blooming. A small apartment would be enough, even when Lily visited her. She had no need for more. And yet—it all depended on the purpose of the home, didn’t it?
If she intended to be a milliner, a modest abode would do. However, if she intended to—
She hesitated giving the dream words. She always feared that hoping too much would destroy the hope itself. Yet if she were going to consider this other step, she needed to face why. Her heart stretched with ache and yearning while she forced herself to do just that.
The question was, if she were wealthy, if she lived in a fine house and wore fine garments, if she were more than a servant or a milliner, would she then be good enough for Charles to marry her?
She closed her eyes while she thought of his name and saw him clearly in her mind, so handsome and fine, with a smile that made her heart beat faster from the first day she saw it. The memory of his face had been preserved carefully over the last five years. True love preserved it, and faith and loyalty. Such a love deserved to have a life if it could, didn’t it? A future? Even his parents might accept her if she was rich, and Charles—he had never forsaken her of his own choice. He’d been forced, and sent away, just as she had been forced from the Copleys’ house.
She relived the last kiss he had given her before the carriage took him to the coast. She had crept back to the house and waited in the street’s shadows to watch him go. He’d seen her, and walked straight to her, ignoring the glares of his parents and the command of his new tutor. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her fully, and promised they would be together some day.
She was not a dreamer by nature. She knew better than to depend on that day arriving. After all, he was the son of a gentleman and she was the daughter of a tenant farmer in Oxfordshire. Such matches were not made. With her situation she had little time to think of it even if she wanted to. Yet she continued loving him and secretly hoping against all reason. And dreaming.
Now, with this legacy, there was a chance to make the dream real.
Her thoughts ran. The first items on a list came fast, then she cast a more serious mind on some others. Would this work? Should she risk it? Like those bulbs out the window, her dream sent up shoots that wanted to grow tall and flower.
A scratch on the door interrupted her. She bid the person enter, and Minerva opened the door with the maid next to her.
“I see you are awake. Mary here has brought up water and will help you to dress.”
“It be late, I suppose. Past time to start me day. I have some places I want to go this afternoon.”
Minerva entered and closed the door behind her, shutting out the maid. “I need to tell you something. Your business partner is below, waiting to meet you.”
Business partner? Oh, yes. “The other Mr. Radnor, you mean. Kenneth.”
“Kevin. As I told you, he is my husband’s cousin.”
“Then I must see him, so your husband is not insulted.”
“You should see him because you are tied together in that enterprise, not because of my husband.”
She hadn’t understood anything about that business when nice Mr. Sanders explained it. Not that she’d listened much. She was still so stunned regarding the money she’d inherited. Nor did she want to meet this other Mr. Radnor yet. Not today. She wanted to go walk the streets around this house, looking for shops and homes to let. She wanted to imagine herself riding along in a carriage with Charles . . .
“I will dress and be down soon.”
* * *
Kevin paced the library for half an hour, then chose a book from a shelf and threw himself onto the divan. He read a while, then realized he did not remember one word his eyes had scanned. He threw the book aside, rested his head against the cushion, and closed his eyes.
This was hell. He had learned how to talk business with men. He had even adopted the bonhomie that industrialists used with one another, even though it did not come naturally to him. But a woman? Not for the first time since his uncle the duke had died, he wondered if the man had gone a little mad at the end.
The old sense of betrayal began to well up inside him, but he swallowed it. It was Uncle Frederick’s personal fortune to do with as he chose. If, in a gesture of bizarre largess and insurmountable eccentricity, he decided to give half a promising enterprise to a little milliner of dubious background and no knowledge of machinery and engineering, that was his right.
He had also considered this often enough, and long enough, to accept that the decision perhaps spoke of a lack of faith in Kevin himself. Much as he preferred to disregard that notion, it was difficult to reject completely. It entered his mind now. Only this time hecouldreject it. If Uncle Frederick had not trusted Kevin with the enterprise on his own, he could have left the other half to a successful man of industry. Not Rosamund Jameson. Just finding her had cost him a year of progress at a time when matters of industry moved faster each day.
