She supposed she could be obstinate and stay in the cottage, though she didn’t feel safe doing so. The nearby village likely had a room to let. She could stay there and ask around. But that felt strange and intrusive. She flopped onto the bed. What was she supposed to do? She’d gone from deliriously happy to feeling alone in the space of a day. This wasn’t how adults behaved. Why was he shutting her out like this?
Georgie would not let her wallow like this. Nor would Eleanor or Ophelia or Justine. She might as well go back to London. There was a low ache in her belly. This was rejection. Not just being ignored or not explicitly valued. This was being evaluated, and found wanting. And somehow, this hurt worse. A tear slipped out of one eye, which she furiously wiped away. This Prudence didn’t cry. This Prudence had bent railroad barons to her will. This Prudence made money out of nothing more than rotted timber and melted down Confederate cannons. This Prudence had buried her husband. This Prudence sailed across oceans.
This Prudence wouldn’t miss Leo Moon’s inability to be a decent human being.
Chapter Nine
LEO’S MOTHER FLUNGopen the door of his study. She’d been back for four days—he’d been back far longer than that. The heavy wooden door hit the wall behind it, no doubt scarring the wood.
Leo put down his pen and folded his hands. “Yes, Mother.”
“Why isn’t Mrs. Cabot coming?”
He smiled faintly, indulging her fury. “Coming where?”
“Here! What did you do? All was well when I left. Did you press her?” His mother, surprisingly, lifted her cane to point at him. He could see the woman from his childhood so clearly right now. Instead of the fluffy white-haired coif, her hair was a dark walnut brown, severely pulled back in a low bun. She’d been a housekeeper for years, after all. Some habits were hard to break. Her face had been clear and clean, the kind of neutral expression that years of service built into a person. Her punishments were swift and severe, but never given with malice.
Now that she was as close to a lady as she’d ever be, her anger could be aired. The lines and wrinkles of her face twisted and contorted, giving an almost cartoonish range of emotion. The two women were hardly recognizable as the same one.
“Press her about what, exactly?” Leo couldn’t even guess. He was still muddled and incoherent himself. He’d sent dozens of notes. The ones with a postmark were returned. The notes from his footman were ignored. The only indignity he could muster was that she refused to end their business deal with civility and grace.
“You wouldn’t,” his mother now gasped. She tottered forward and sunk into a chair.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Leo picked up his pen again. “If you have something coherent to say, I’d be happy to discuss it. As it is, I’ve been accused of pressing her, and then a horror so unspeakable you could only gasp. If you have nothing more than exhalations for me, I’d like to get back to work.”
“Iknewit.” His mother shook her head. “Youdiddo something. I’ll write to Mrs. Cabot right away. I’m sure I can smooth whatever this faux pas of yours is. I’ll not lose a friend because you don’t have the decency to practice social niceties.”
His mother left, hooking the heavy door with her cane, slamming it behind her. He buried his head in his hands. What was he supposed to tell her? Granson knew him? That he’d gone back to Thornridge at all? That the very thing they’d worried about, he walked right into like some kind of fool?
Leo didn’t know if it was his father or if it was Granson acting by himself. Either way, it was trouble. And now Leo had something to lose—he was no longer a boy yearning to protect a mother who could handle herself. Now he was a man who did need to protect his mother. And Prudence. And he wouldn’t mind protecting his fortune either, while he was at it. He’d made a small life here in London, lost amongst another few million people. Reginald Morgan should never surface again because his son Lenny no longer existed. There was nothing left for Reggie.
*
“I’M SO NERVOUS,”Eleanor said. They all stood in their shifts in Ophelia’s dressing room. One last meal before they would be dressed and masked for the party.
Ophelia gave a tight nod of agreement. Prudence thought she looked far calmer when they were descending Ben Nevis in gale-force winds, two members of their expedition missing, and all of them unable to feel their toes.
“But the tickets are sold out,” Justine said, the calmest looking one out of all of them. “So as long as the auctions go well, we’re in the clear. We’re going to Switzerland.”
Prudence felt like she was going to throw up. The stress of directing all the set up over the last week had taken its toll on her. Even Georgie had come and helped. She stayed not at the Strawbridge, but at Ophelia’s house, as the guest of Lord and Lady Rascomb, which sounded very fancy, even if it only meant staying with friends.
The hotel was kind enough to forward her correspondence, but most of it she threw directly in the fire. There was a delightful missive from Mrs. Moon, full of snark and gossip, sounding exactly as she spoke. She missed the older woman, but she couldn’t stand the idea of setting foot into Leo Moon’s house. Not after he was so willing to abandon her out in the middle of the English countryside. She honestly had no idea where they were, and he would justleave? Even the thought of it now filled her with impotent anger.
He didn’t even bother conversing with her. She’d tried to make him explain, speak to her—even when she revealed her beliefs—that he in fact was the Lenny Morgan the stranger was seeking. And while Leo didn’t owe her his life story—after all, they weren’t courting, though their business arrangement was far from strictly handshakes—he did owe her kindness. And he couldn’t manage that. When she pushed back about leaving their paradise early, why had he been so cruel to her? So cold?
She wasn’t having it. And that sacrifice also meant the friendship of Mrs. Moon, which was the real shame. There was something very comforting to Prudence about being with other widows. They understood marriage, and they understood the upheaval of having the man who ultimately controlled theirevery aspect vanish. No matter how good or poor of a wife a woman had been, it didn’t matter, for then every man who’d ever breathed the same air as their husband found themselves entitled to the furniture you sat on, the bed you slept in, even the jewels that had adorned your breast. It made a person feel not just abandoned, but worthless. As if you were an afterthought to his life—a life that had ended. And if your husband were in the grave, what did that make you? Nothing. Invisible.
True, Prudence had her money—thank goodness for iron-clad contracts and sympathetic lawyers—and she had her freedom. But she was still adrift. That afterthought. The woman who could just be left alone in the countryside, because no one really cared what happened to her.
“Pru?” Justine said, putting a hand on her bare shoulder.
The touch shook her out of her reverie. She sighed. “Apologies. Thousand-mile stare.”
Three sets of eyes turned to stare at her. “Pardon?” Ophelia said.
“It’s just what you say when you stare off, not paying attention.”
“We say ‘woolgathering.’” Eleanor picked up a plate loaded with cheese and fruit and handed it to Prudence.
