Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

‘Which is one reason why I hired the biggest house I could find to rent in this area. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the nearest one to yours. I wanted to demonstrate, you see, that I have the means to support you. I realised, in Paris, that I might have given you the impression that I haven’t a feather to fly with—’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter one bit, Nathan, you see—’

‘Please, hear me out. I need to explain why I was living the way I was when you found me. I was doing it to prove a point. I wanted to demonstrate that I was good enough to make a living from my work alone. And I did. But I have independent means, as well. I can keep you in tolerable comfort, Amy. You don’t need to fear that we’ll ever have to worry about where the rent will come from.’

‘No, we won’t. Because I have money, too. Quite a lot of it, actually. Which was one of the reasons I was so suspicious of all the proposals you made to me before. I thought you must have found out about it somehow and was trying to...’

His face froze. ‘Yes? Trying to what?’

‘I’m so very, very sorry. I know it was nothing of the sort, now. It is just that my aunt, the one who took me in and left me this house, would keep on about how important it was to keep the extent of our fortune a secret, or we’d become targets for fortune hunters. I was convinced that no man would ever show an interest in me unless it was because he wanted to get his hands on my money. It became second nature to me to conceal the fact that I’m a wealthy woman.’

‘A wealthy woman.’ He frowned. ‘Exactly how large is this fortune?’

She cleared her throat and then, in a matter-of-fact tone, told him exactly how large, and in what it consisted, and that moreover she had plans to expand into France now trading there was legal again.

By the time she had finished he was looking at her as though she’d become a total stranger.

‘So you are not some simple country girl, eking out your existence on a modest little windfall from the spinster aunt you cared for in her last days. And what of Mrs Mountsorrel? Was she really just a widowed friend with whom you threw in your lot?’ He flung the words at her as though he was accusing her of something.

Amethyst shook her head. ‘I hired her as my companion so that I could continue living in this house and run the business interests my aunt had taught me how to govern. Nathan, why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Can you not imagine?’

She shook her head again, her insides turning into a cold, solid lump as his gaze turned downright scornful.

‘I thought I knew you. I thought that in spite of the hard veneer you’d acquired, deep down you were still that girl who so enchanted me with her simple, direct approach to life. But you’re not her at all, are you?’

‘Yes, I am. Just because I’m rich, too—’

He got to his feet, his eyes suddenly blazing with contempt. ‘It’s not just being rich that is the problem though, is it? You run businesses. You own factories and mills and mines and God knows what else. And you sit here, in this stuffy little town, hidden away like some...spider, spinning a web. Aye, an invisible web, at that. For nobody is supposed to know that it is a woman at the heart of all this enterprise. I never saw it before, but the whole purpose is to make fools of men, isn’t it? You delight in making fools of us all. Well, you’ve certainly made a fool of me.’

‘No, I haven’t. Truly I haven’t. I’ve explained why I didn’t want you to know about it, at first.’

‘Not just at first. Even after we’d become lovers. Even when you spurned me, you never admitted the true reason. And it is what you thought, isn’t it? That I’m some contemptible fortune hunter. Little things you said to me, your attitude whenever I touched on making our relationship permanent, they should have warned me.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do you think I could want to marry a woman for her money, again? After what I went through last time? Do you know what it does to a man’s pride to be labelled a fortune hunter?’

She hadn’t. But she was beginning to get an idea.

‘The last thing I want is to get leg-shackled to another woman who sees nothing wrong with telling lies to get what she wants. Who has so little integrity she has to buy friends and can only keep them with promise of advancement.’

What?

‘Nathan, you don’t mean that,’ she managed to gasp through the fingers of dread that were squeezing her throat. ‘I wasn’t lying to you...’ His face shuttered.

‘Not exactly...’

With a muttered oath he turned and strode for the door.

‘You were right all along,’ he said coldly, as he set his hand to the door latch. ‘We can’t go back. We aren’t the same people we were when we first met. I...’ His face twisted. ‘I thought I’d fallen in love with you, all over again, in Paris. I thought you’d got over the pain I put you through and had grown into a strong, admirable woman. A woman I would have been proud to call my wife, and bear my children. I thought...’

He closed his eyes, and shook his head.

‘I might have known it was too good to be true. It wasn’t real, was it? None of it was real. I’ve been chasing after a dream. Like some...’

He straightened up and opened his eyes. Eyes which had gone dead and hard.

‘Forgive me for taking up your valuable time. I will leave you now. And will not bother you again.’

‘Nathan...’ She tried to tell him to stop, but her words got tangled up in a sob. She slumped down on to her chair, all strength gone from her legs, as she heard the front door slam behind him.

Oh, why hadn’t she said yes, when she had the chance? If she’d said yes to him in Paris, and then explained about her money, he wouldn’t have flown into a rage like this, would he?

Would he?

Chapter Fifteen

Shock had taken her legs out from under her. She could no more have run after Nathan and begged him not to go than she could have flown to the moon.

One minute she’d thought all her dreams had come true. Next moment she’d descended into a hellish nightmare. She’d thought Nathan loved her just as she was, but then he’d said he’d never really known her. That he couldn’t marry her. That they weren’t the same people who’d fallen in love with each other in their youth.

Was he right? Was it too late?

She shut her eyes and bowed her head.

Had they only imagined they’d fallen in love again, in Paris, because they’d both been pretending to be something they were not?

No...no! It was real. She’d had all these long, lonely weeks to ponder it all and she knew it was real. Nathan hadn’t had time to think it through, that was all. She dashed a tear from her eye. He’d lashed out—the way she’d done when he’d shocked her with that confession about why they’d broken up the first time.

She leapt to her feet. He’d come after her when she’d lost her temper with him. When her habit of being suspicious had made her afraid to believe in their love. Now it was her turn to go after him and talk some sense into him.

She was halfway across the room to ring for a maid to fetch her coat and bonnet, when she decided she hadn’t the patience to wait that long. Far quicker to run upstairs and plunge her arms into her coat herself. Stuff her bonnet on her head as she hurried down the stairs and tie the ribbons as she trotted down the garden path.

She was in such a hurry to catch Nathan and tell him that he was wrong that she didn’t see Mrs Podmore coming up the front path until she almost barrelled into her.

‘Oh, good. I have just caught you,’ said Mrs Podmore, tilting her umbrella to one side to make room for Amethyst. ‘I can see you are in a hurry, but this won’t take a moment—’