Once an Heiress (29 page)

A frustrated cry caught in her throat, and Lily swung her reticule as though slashing with a saber. If she hurried, she could prevent Ethan from spending more than a few moments in that dreadful place, but here she was being delayed by some anonymous jarvey who hadn’t the slightest concern for her need.

She prowled around the entrance hall, stopping every few seconds to make the servant open the door and see whether the coach had arrived. When at last it did, she burst from the house and issued the address while clambering inside.

The whole of the maddeningly slow ride to her parents’ house, Lily was tormented with visions of Ethan being subjected to every horrible degradation. He would be deprived of his own bed to sleep in. He would be housed alongside likewise deprived and degraded men, who may be capable of doing him harm. She had to get him out of there!

His instructions rang in her mind. She swatted aside a twinge of guilt at defying his wishes. “Flexing that awkward honor of his,” she murmured — the same honor that held him responsible to his ridiculous gambling debts before the mortgage. If she lived a hundred years, Lily would never quite grasp this gentleman’s code that men spoke of, not when aspects of it flew in the face of all reason. Surely, he’d not hold her interference against her once she’d secured his release from prison. The alternative was for him to remain in gaol — unthinkable.

After an eternity of clogged streets and lumbering progress, the carriage finally drew to a stop in front of the Bachman house. Lily paid the jarvey and accepted the hand of the footman who appeared at the carriage door. She stalked past the butler without a glance, aiming straight for her father’s study.

The door was closed but Lily pushed her way in, paying no heed to the startled man sitting across the desk from Mr. Bachman.

“Father, I must speak with you.” Her fingers twitched in the material of her skirt.

Mr. Bachman’s heavy brows drew together. “Lily, I’m in the middle of a meeting! What is the meaning of — ”

“I’m sorry, Papa, sir,” she added, nodding toward the other man. “Were the matter not of grave importance I wouldn’t have — ” She pressed a fist to her mouth as her throat constricted and tears welled. “I wouldn’t ha-have in-terrupted.” Lily stood stock still, her eyes squeezed shut, while her father made a hasty apology to his associate and closed the door behind him. She opened them again only when they were alone and she felt his warm hands on her shoulders.

“What has happened?” His words rang with alarm.

She met his concerned gaze and wrung her hands at her waist. “Oh, Papa, Ethan’s been taken to gaol!”

Mr. Bachman’s face darkened and his jaw tightened. “Has he now?” He turned from Lily and shoved his hands into his pockets while he stalked to the window. A hard knot formed in Lily’s belly while she looked at his back. She gleaned no insight from the square set of his shoulders, nothing to suggest empathy for her plight. “His debts have caught up with him, I assume?” he asked in a clear voice.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she summoned her courage to proceed. “It was the mortgage, Papa, the bank took out the warrant. If you would only sign over the dowry — ”

Mr. Bachman’s fist slammed against the window frame. “The blasted dowry again!” He whirled to face her, thunderclouds marring his usually placid features. “I wish to God I never promised anything like it. I should have sent you off with ten thousand like every other chit on the mart. But no, I felt remorse for you still being unmarried at your age. I felt guilty for your having had to endure a year of mourning, further delaying your debut. I wanted the world to know what a treasure you are, that there was no blemish upon you, how I — ” he touched his fingertips to his chest, his voice growing thick. “How
I
treasure you,” he said in a more even tone. A deep breath lifted his ribs. Love and sadness mingled in his eyes. Lily hated having to come to him like this. What a disappointment he must think her now.

“But it’s never brought us anything but grief,” he continued. With a heavy sigh, Mr. Bachman looked toward his desk, still littered with the papers from his unfinished meeting. “So Thorburn sent you after the money.”

Lily shook her head and reached a trembling hand to her father’s arm. “No, I came on my own, Papa. Ethan doesn’t know I’m here. In fact, he told me not to ask you for it.” She breathed a humorless laugh and shrugged. “But here I am, anyway. I fear I’m hopeless at the ‘honor and obey’ part.”

Mr. Bachman gave her a half-smile before running a hand along his jaw. “I must confess, I’m pleasantly surprised to learn of Thorburn’s instructions. You’ll not like this, Lily, but I stand with him.”

Lily’s stomach plunged. “What can you mean, Papa?”

Mr. Bachman groaned as he settled himself into his chair at the desk. “I spoke plain, my dear. Your husband is quite right. I shall not turn the dowry over at this time.”

Desperation sent icy claws reaching around her. How could he not come to her aid? She quivered as she looked at the impassive man before her, anger stiffening her spine, putting words on her tongue before she’d even thought them through. “I don’t think you ever mean for us to have it!” Her hand cut an arc in front of her. “Your prejudice against Lord Thorburn has tainted your view of me, as well. Papa, I have done
everything
you’ve ever asked of me! I honored a betrothal to a man I scarcely knew, who was ten years my senior, fully prepared to marry him only because you wished it of me. I mourned that same man, though I did not grieve him. I married Lord Thorburn because you told me I must! And now that I find I do love him — ” At his astonished expression, she nodded. “Yes, Papa, it’s true. I love my husband, and though he’s not said the words, I think he loves me, as well. But now that we’ve a chance at happiness, you would keep us apart with meanness and spite and — ”

“That will do, Lily.”

“And — and
hate
, is what it is. You are being hateful — ”

“Madam, that will do!” he roared.

Lily flinched back at his fury, startled into silence.

Mr. Bachman’s nostrils flared while he pinned her in a ferocious stare. “Never before have you spoken to me with such impertinence, Lily. I will not begin to countenance it now; indeed, I will not. If you mean to continue in this fashion, you may leave this instant, for I’ll not hear another word of it.”

Lily’s head bowed under the shame washing over her. Where was the self-control she used to pride herself in owning? Ethan had dispossessed her of it. Rationality fled before her when she so much as thought of him. “Forgive me, Papa,” she murmured. “I’m only worried about Ethan. I never should have spoken so. It was unseemly and ill done and I apologize with my whole heart.”

Mr. Bachman rose and took her hands, cold against his warm palms. “There now, it’s done,” he said. “Let’s not quarrel, my dear.”

He led her to the sofa in the study’s seating area and Lily sank into the welcome support of the cushions. She felt tired and sick, weak with concern. The tinny chime of the clock on the mantelpiece caught her attention. Noon. Even now, Ethan would be at Fleet Prison. What was happening to him there? Was he being treated respectfully, or was he being abused by jailers happy to see a nobleman brought low?

Her eyes slid to her father, whose lips turned up in a sympathetic smile. “Please, Papa,” she whispered.

Mr. Bachman patted her hands. “I’m sorry, my dear, no. In the first place, I feel obliged to honor your husband’s wishes. If he does not want your dowry put to this use, I’ll not do it. Secondly, I see that I have engendered in you a dependency on my generosity. When you were my unmarried daughter, it was both my duty and my delight to provide for you to the best of my ability. Now you are Thorburn’s responsibility, and I should not have given you so many monetary gifts after your wedding. It was a disservice to you, my dear, and I do apologize for it.”

Lily stared at him, bewildered. “You apologize … for
spoiling
me? Is that it, Papa, are you calling me spoiled?”

Her father’s jaw worked from side to side. “Well, no, my dear. But you must admit you are
accustomed
to having my resources at your disposal.”

“That’s not my doing,” Lily said weakly. She felt hope slipping from her grasp. If her own father would not help her, what could she do for Ethan?

“I know it’s not,” Mr. Bachman said, “which is why I apologized.”

“But surely you must see that this is an extraordinary circumstance, Papa. I’m not asking you for pin money to buy a new bonnet!”

He shook his head, his jaw set in resolve. “No, Lily, I’m quite decided. It’s time for you and Thorburn to do for yourselves. You never saw the first home Mrs. Bachman and I shared in Brighton. What a mean little apartment it was, my dear. Just one small room, but I paid the rent myself.” He patted her knee. “Struggling together can bring a couple closer. If you truly have formed an attachment to Lord Thorburn, then you will find a way to muddle through and be better for it in the long run. Though I daresay that if he returns your regard, then it shan’t be long before the conditions Thorburn agreed to for the relinquishment of your dowry are met.”

Lily felt depleted, empty but for the aching need to bring Ethan home. “I’m happy,” she ventured, a final attempt to sway her sire.

He snorted at her words. “Far from it, m’dear. You’re miserable. You children get through this, and then we’ll see where things stand.”

Where things stood, Lily thought as she pressed a dutiful kiss to her father’s cheek before slipping from the house, was this: She had failed in procuring from her father any material support for her cause. She was a woman alone. There was no one else she could turn to. If only Isabelle were home, she might know what to do.
Perhaps Naomi,
Lily thought, before discarding the idea a second later. No, she could not draw her friends into her woes.

She pressed her fingers to her forehead as she walked toward the hackney stand on the corner. Mortgages and properties and money … all men’s affairs. Hazy images swirled through her mind as a driver handed her up into a carriage. The little bit of money she’d saved was laughable in the face of the sum needed to satisfy Ethan’s debt to the bank. If only she had property of her own to mortgage —

Lily’s eyes flew wide open.

“What direction, my lady?” the driver inquired.

Her lips trembled in hesitation for a moment before she firmly instructed the man to take her to the office of Mr. Eugene Wickenworth, Esquire.

Ethan scraped his tongue against his teeth and spit out the barred window, casting the wretched taste-smell of Fleet Prison onto the street just on the other side of his cell. He took a swig from the mug of sour ale standing on the little wooden table in the corner, swished it around his mouth to obliterate the remnants of the previous offensive taste, and then cast that out the window, as well. “Gah! That may be worse,” he muttered.

With a heavy sigh, he grasped hold of the bars and gazed out. A spectral fog lay over the city, reducing buildings to mere shadows of themselves, and all of the inhabitants shades. Little eddies of the fog fell through the bars into his cell. The dampness permeated his clothes; his shirt clung in places and hung limply in others.
There’s not enough starch in the world to make a cravat stand against this mess
, he reflected. And so he wore neither cravat nor waistcoat — the latter having conspired with the dampness to make him sweat like a sausage in its casing, despite the cool temperature — only a dark blue coat over his shirt, trousers, and boots. Water droplets gathered on the shoulders and sleeves of his outer garment; he swiped them away before resuming his glum inspection of the outside world.

Nearby stood the sponging houses, their roofs jutting up into the mist like drowning men struggling to regain the surface. Upon his arrival, the Keeper had smugly informed Ethan the sponging houses were all full, thus necessitating his being held in the prison proper for the time being. The best he could offer Ethan was a private cell.

At least the fog obscured the faces of passers-by. He couldn’t stand the combination of pity and scorn he saw when he met the eyes of those who walked free. Humiliation had clapped him over the head time after time in the last week. Had Ethan’s father — the detestable Earl of Kneath — done his offspring the favor of passing to his eternal reward, all of this could have been avoided. Not only would he already possess the funds needed to repay his obligations, but he’d be a peer in his own right, immune from arrest for debt.

“No,” he ground out, his hands tightening around the bars. Such thoughts were worthy of the Ethan Helling of several months ago, the man looking for quick money and easy answers, but not of the man he was striving to become.

For a long time he stood at the window, almost hypnotized by the undulating fog, its tentacles embracing and releasing pedestrians like some denizen of the deep.

A finely dressed woman passed nearby his window. He startled, thinking for a moment it was Lily. Excitement flooded his veins, but quickly turned to icy shame that she should see him in such squalor. The shame gave way to weary relief when he realized the woman was not Lily at all.

Turning his back to the window, lest he go mad attributing his wife’s persona to every passing female, Ethan collapsed onto the mean cot in his cell. Straw poked through the worn, stained ticking and dug into his thighs and back, a torment not nearly as great as that which he inflicted upon himself.

Resting the back of his wrist across his brow, his eyes closed and visions of his wife sprang before him. There was Lily in his bed on their wedding night, nervous and brave and passionate. There were her chocolate eyes and dark hair spilled across white sheets. Milky skin and eternally long legs and those breasts — Lord, those breasts! Desire, with no hope of fulfillment, thudded heavy through his veins.

He stifled a groan and squeezed his eyelids even tighter, forcing the erotic images away. The innocent vixen dissipated, to be replaced by Lily sitting beside him on a park bench, looking to him for advice and guidance. Lily standing in his vacant parlor, pertly dismissing him as an uppity butler. He chuckled at the memory. He’d been drawn to her from the first, entranced by her spirit and beauty even as he’d wanted to put the arrogant girl in her place.