“I will. Rebuilding the company will take months and there will be costs involved.” His gut tightened at the prospect of explaining his failures to someone else. “I have a debt I must repay soon. The lender is... impatient.”
“I could advance you funds.”
“No, thatischarity.”
“For the love of god, ye’re as stubborn as Cass.” Angus shook his head and looked, for the first time since James had met the man, a bit deflated.“I was going to give you funds anyway—to secure Invermere for my lady. Thought we could keep it quiet. A holding fee, say, so ye willnae sell to anyone else.”
“How much?” James hated that everything came down to cold hard cash for him of late, but anytime he thought of Beck’s thugs at his home, his scruples melted away.
“You name the sum. As I told ye, I could buy it outright.”
“Then perhaps you should.” James stood and offered the bottle to Blackwood, noting that his glass was empty.
The old man nodded, and James added two fingers to his glass.
“If she learns I betrayed her—”
“Will she really not see that you do it out of love for her?”
“Independence came at a great cost for Cass, so she values it now above all else.”
Angus spoke of his lady with the same fervent admiration James felt for Lucy and her determination to find her purpose and be true to her own desires, despite what it might cost her.
“I’ll go and speak to her. Try again.” He didn’t look like he expected any more success than previous attempts, but he still smiled. “I have missed the beguiling wench.”
The man was besotted, and James never expected to understand the feeling so well.
“Consider what I’ve said. Consider my offer.Come and see my distillery if you doubt the seriousness of my enterprise. I leave in the morning.” Ambling across the room, Angus clapped him on the shoulder. “We could help each other, my boy. I don’t offer ye pity. I offer ye a means of rebuilding yer business and growing mine.”
“I’ll consider everything you’ve said, and even do so again in the morning when I’ve slept off the whiskey.”
“Cannae ask for more than that.” Angus shocked him by gripping his face in his hands. “Ye must show her no fear. My lady. She’s a lioness, but one of good heart. Take my offer. Give her a chance to buy and sell to no other. Let there be peace.”
“I’d like peace.” More than just between himself and Lady Cassandra. For so long, he’d no peace within himself, with the choices he’d made. He longed to make choices that would bring him true and lasting peace with himself.
James turned the older man once he’d stepped outside the cottage, making sure he was pointing in the direction of the house.
Then he stepped back inside, took the comfortable chair, and closed his eyes. And there she was.
Lucy. Lovely, bold, impulsive woman. The images spun like a kaleidoscope in his whiskey-addled mind. Lucy smiling and glaring at him. Her soft hand in his. Her lush, ripe mouth against his neck. The taste of her kisses.
Oh yes, he was besotted. Smitten. Somehow, at the tail end of the worst year of his life, when he’dbecome a desperate, craven bastard who’d come to take a woman’s home from her, he’d met the woman whom he believed—no, he damn well knew—was the love of his benighted life.
And he could do nothing about it until he got his shambles of a life back into some semblance of stability. She deserved that, at the very least.
But the bloody hell of it was that he couldn’t imagine any future day of his life without her.
Chapter Eighteen
Any young woman who’d been through a London Season knew there was a lengthy list of ways a lady’s reputation could be ruined. Having been throughthree, Lucy knew them all as well as she knew the correlating shades on a color wheel.
Since stepping onto the platform at King’s Cross Station, she’d already ticked off several items on that ruination list: being alone with a gentleman, kissing a gentleman, letting a gentleman stroke the most intimate parts of her body until she melted into incoherent bliss.
She almost stumbled in her path at the memory of that moment. But she wouldn’t be deterred. She lifted the lantern she’d brought since the clouds hid the moon tonight, hitched her skirt up an inch, and took the overgrown path a little more carefully.
Tonight, with all the knowledge she had of the means to a lady’s downfall, she was taking the final step toward ruin. Yet she felt no fear. In fact, once she’d decided, she reveled in the anticipation that made her body vibrate.
She had a plan, of course, though she was honest enough with herself to know the plan might goastray. Pride was a delicate thing with men, and she respected James as much as she craved this night with him.
