Starlight (30 page)

Yet if he insisted on talking logic, she could, too.

“Do you have any idea what this will do to your
reputation when the masters learn of your proposal to a factory girl? It’s wasteful and foolish.”

“What business is it to them?”

“Are you really so naïve? The influence you’ve earned as a newcomer would become suspect, if not wiped out entirely. As for me, I’ll be labeled all manner of turncoat, with my motives suddenly suspect. ‘Has she always been a social climber?’ they’ll ask. ‘Was her plan to entrap the first gullible master?’ ”

“Won’t they see the benefits, just as you have, in associating with me in the first place? Union and mill masters working together will be advantageous to everyone.”

He kept his posture distant and strict. Apparently the walls disguising his deeper self could be rebuilt in an instant. Polly wondered briefly if he taught his astronomy classes so formally, or if he would show more passion for the subject than he did toward her.

“Those on both sides who harbor more resentment than sense will see no such thing,” she said.

“They cannot be that stubborn.”

Polly laughed, but it wasn’t an expression of joy. “Good Lord, Alex. You’re not a dumb man. Look at this with your damned logic! Da could never convince
everyone
to see the bigger picture. Sometimes food in their bellies and medicine for their children took precedence over pay decreases in hard times. With prodding, they rarely see that sticking together means the advancement of all. As their equal, I have a trustworthy voice—one they might heed now. Hamish or Les will take my place, and they haven’t the patience or temperament to keep that optimism
alive. I’ll be relegated to the edges of all I’ve helped build.”

Alex’s expression hardened. Flashes from each gaslamp they passed made his features more intimidating. With staunch, sharp cheekbones, he frowned with the severity of a stern parent. And he was behaving as one.

“You expect to continue with the union after we’re wed?”

Her heart stopped cold. “You expect me to stop?”

His shrug made her want to scream. The one hint of humanity he’d shown during their carriage ride was one of condescension. “You’ll be my wife. I’ll support your politics to the best of my ability, but I will not abide by the dangers you court. And I will not see my business fail.”

“I courted plenty of danger in that alleyway with you, but I didn’t hear you protest.” Anger burned her face and chilled her limbs. “Did you plan all of this?”

“Plan what?”

The accusation took on more strength in her mind. “Tonight. You didn’t want me to return to my family. So you set the constables on me with little hints about our relationship. Suddenly they pounced on me with ready-made charges of prostitution. Now you think I’ll be your wife. Just like that!”

“You’re courting madness, woman.” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his thighs. “I saved you from that infernal place, and this is the thanks I get? You live in a city where hundreds of people die of cholera because of poor living conditions. Girls with access to free elementary education
work instead as piecers and apprentice weavers before they can tie their own boots. And you refuse the opportunity to get free? I cannot believe you would be so stubborn. Not even you.”

Polly crossed her arms to hide her fists. “Did you thrust this sort of decree on Mamie, too?”

His hand tightened on the head of that intimidating walking stick. “
What
did you say?”

She realized that she’d stepped over some invisible line. But she was too spitting angry to back down now. “You told me you’d made plans for years to get her away from her father. I wonder if she had any hand in that decision, or if you simply barged in and whisked her away.”

“You know nothing about what we endured.”

“Only what you’ve told me. That’s more than enough to suspect history repeating itself.”

He slid across the carriage’s small space and dragged her close. Violently. His deeply expressive eyes—eyes that had reveled in the colors of the aurora, and had revealed so much emotion during their joining—were as lifeless as marble. The warmth of his breath against her cheek only made her shiver. She turned her face, but he cupped her jaw and brought her back to his unrelenting gaze.

“Feel whatever you want, Polly. But know this. I answered my door this morning only to learn that you’d been arrested. It was difficult enough to let you go last night. You cannot assume I’d be fool enough to do that twice.”

The kiss he claimed was fast. Deep. Aggressive. It pushed past her defenses just as surely as his tongue
forced open her lips. He pushed inside with the confidence of a man who always got his way. For just a moment, she permitted herself the enjoyment he gave, and the memories of how much more they could conjure.

But only for a moment.

She pushed against his chest to edge a scant few inches of space between their mouths. “This isn’t gallantry or even some decision made of logic. This is you being selfish. You’ve finally let yourself indulge in something more than duty. Not even the most pigheaded man would want to give that up.”

“I have never been so insulted.” A lock of gleaming blond hair traipsed onto his forehead. Although a gentleman, his skewed ascot and that single lock of hair revealed what she’d always known: his power and potential for rough, almost brutal impatience. He looked like the villain she needed to believe he was. “I’m giving you a future you never could’ve achieved on your own.”

“And now who’s been insulted? Shut your mouth, girl, and be grateful?”

A grimace twisted his lips. “You make it sound as if gratefulness is so terribly demanding. You won’t have to worry about any of it now. You’ll be free to live above it all.”

Maybe her shudder finally put him off. He let go of her shoulders, where his hands had been clamped like vises. “When you think to force me into this so-called marriage, consider how unkindly your future wife will respond to your methods.” She looked him up and down with raised brows. “Do
you ever expect a repeat of what we did last night? Not from me.”

Alex turned away. Silence claimed the vehicle as they rattled through the night. She wanted to keep railing, to argue until he saw sense and released her from the temptation to simply . . . go along with his plan. He was the master of Christie Textiles and could, by right of fortune and influence, marry whomever he chose. Few new-money industrialists cared much about class or proper station. It would be an easy thing to turn her back to the deprivation—the crushing responsibilities—and live as a rich man’s wife.

Easy, if she were a different person altogether.

That would mean thinking herself better than her family and her upbringing. How could she contemplate such an offense to those she loved? She would live and die in Calton, although the renewed thought of that hardship tightened her stomach into a fierce little ball. When compared to the soft, enveloping luxury of Alex’s bed, her meager pallet seemed a punishment on top of her sacrifices.

The carriage stopped, jostling their knees together. Polly sucked in a shallow breath. Alex didn’t even blink. His face remained in profile, half shaded in orange and gold. She found herself tracing the line of his jaw where it angled back toward his earlobe. That light growth of evening stubble against her skin had been a revelation. Beneath his rumpled ascot waited his prominent Adam’s apple and the firm tendons of his throat. She’d sunk her teeth into his strength.

“It’s your decision to make, Polly,” he said quietly.
“Outside that door is your family’s tenement. I’m coming in with you. You decide what we say to them.”

“I won’t do it.”

She scowled, trying to break the blunt spell he cast. Alex Christie had the entire world figured out. She hated that he was stealing her choices, one by one.

“If you want to go through with this,” she said, “you’ll do the talking. Will you barge into my family’s home like you did that police station? Go, then. Tell Da how it will be.”

He only offered a barely-there ghost of a smile. “I won’t be deterred in this. And one day, you’ll see that I’m right.”

He opened the carriage door and stood waiting for her hand. She stared ahead, her heart galloping. To herself she whispered, “A cold day in hell, Mr. Christie.”

Sitting at a rickety table in the kitchen, Alex offered Polly’s family a truncated version of the evening’s events. He was only glad her brothers had already left for the docks. The little tenement was no bigger than his bedroom, although neat and organized to make use of every inch of space.

Her ma offered to serve him a plate of breakfast. One look at how little they had to share among five people and Alex gave voice to a polite refusal. Besides, he could not eat. Not after so much unchecked emotion. The tiny room felt like a noose choking off his air. Lust, fear, indignation , disappointment, hope—they stirred a toxic cocktail in his stomach.

Polly wanted to remain there, when he offered so much more?

No. Her stubborn pride was forcing his hand.

She offered no contradiction or clarification as he spoke, but sat with her hands wrapped around an earthenware mug of milky tea. Occasionally she picked at a crevice in the wood of the scarred table. The proud curve of her neck caught his attention, as always.

“Which is why we wanted to speak with you, so that you know fact from fiction,” he concluded.

Her father, Graham, shared many of Polly’s features, including the shrewd glint of intelligence in his vivid green eyes. He had yet to say anything, but his rough cough had punctuated every third minute of Alex’s recitation.

The man leaned back in his chair and rubbed an idle hand across his chest. “So you’re here to put right the wrong you’ve already committed against my daughter.”

Inwardly, Alex blanched. He’d behaved with less decorum than a tomcat. Being reminded so bluntly was no easy thing to hear.

“Several times,” Graham continued, “if I were to wager by how late she’s dragged in these past weeks. Any chance you could be with child, girl?”

The color leached from Polly’s face. Alex fought the impulse to touch her—her back, her thigh, her palm. Anywhere. Just to acknowledge that he was equally culpable. But she would snap off his hand with her teeth if he tried.

Tension glinted off her body in hot pulses. “Yes.”

“And what do you have to say about that?”

She straightened, pulling her hands into her lap. The defiance Alex had come to admire turned her posture brittle. “I’d say it was a mistake that we shouldn’t make worse.”

He could only watch as the two squared off, stare for stare. Polly’s mother, though the picture of robust womanhood, seemed not to factor in at all. She continued with the morning’s chores, obviously listening, but this was a contest between father and daughter. He knew so little about Graham Gowan, other than by reputation, that he couldn’t begin to guess the outcome.

The man turned his attention to Alex, studying, probing. In the scheme of intimidating fathers, however, he had faced tougher opponents. William Christie. Josiah Todd. For Polly to have grown into the woman she was, full of dreams and principles, she would’ve needed to be raised by compassionate parents—stern, yet benevolent and determined that she should have a chance at happiness.

Alex was that chance.

“Make your case, young man.”

No deference or false prostrations. To Graham Gowan, Alex might as well be Tommy or Les—a no-good bastard who wanted his little girl.

Yes, Alex wanted her. He admitted it freely now. How that desire would mature through the years remained beyond his ability to see. All he knew was that she would slip through his fingers if he didn’t grab hold. And she would leave him forever if she found out what business secrets he kept.

“I want to marry her, Mr. Gowan. I’ll give her a good life.” Daring to catch a glimpse of Polly’s profile, he found no hint of encouragement. True to her word, she was leaving this to his conviction.

Graham’s fit of coughing obliterated the tense silence. His wife fetched another cup of tea and a hot, damp towel, then placed it over his mouth and nose, softly encouraging him to breathe the humid air. Alex could only watch with sympathy. Skulking fear took up residence in his heart.

Polly’s father was dying.

Was that the real reason she hadn’t wanted him to see her home? The good name of the union rested on the reputation of Graham Gowan. His death would leave only Polly. She would be targeted by police and by those wishing to take power. As a woman, she would be even more vulnerable. A wrongful charge against her would ruin her forever. She might even face prison time.

That thought squeezed Alex’s veins. Everything throbbed. He would not see her broken.

By the time Graham’s fit had passed, Alex cleared his throat. He met the man’s eyes, which were bloodshot and pinched at the corners. “You’ll live out the rest of your days in comfort, sir. Your wife will be provided for when you’re gone.”

Polly practically jumped up from her seat. She hauled her skirts out from the clutch of chair and table legs, then whirled on Alex. “How can you talk that way? Right in front of him? Do you think any of us want to be reminded of a future without . . . without . . . ”