Regency Surrender: Debts Reclaimed: A Debt Paid in Marriage / A Too Convenient Marriage

‘Some might call it rash and reckless.’

‘It was, but your plans for the fabric demonstrated an innate sensibility and intelligence. Your prior experience in your father’s shop is an asset. Your reason for breaking into my house was to protect your mother. That demonstrates a proper degree of concern for those in your care. I have no doubt you can transfer such regard to my sister and son.’

Her brow rose a touch in surprise. ‘I have never heard my attributes stated in such a plain way. I’m not sure if I should thank you or chide you for insulting me.’

‘I meant it as a compliment.’

She nodded her thanks. ‘You may find me a poor partner. I know nothing of moneylending.’

‘You will learn so that if anything happens to me, you will know how to successfully carry on until our son reaches an age where he is able to assume control of the business.’

‘Our son?’

‘He will soon be as much yours as mine, and others will follow. I assume your courses are as they should be.’

She crossed her arms again. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘We’re making a bargain and, in such deals, we must be frank with one another.’

‘They are as they should be.’ No blush spread over her pale skin as her eyes dipped down the length of him, pausing near his hips before rising again to meet his gaze. ‘Is everything as it should be with you?’

The girl possessed pluck and for the first time in almost a year, he felt the twitch of a smile tug up the corner of his lips before he squashed it. ‘It is, as you will discover.’

‘I have yet to agree to your romantic proposal.’

‘You will.’

‘You’re so sure?’

‘You have no other options.’

She looked at the dirty cloth in her hands, picking off one loose thread around the frayed edge before she faced him again. ‘You’re right, I have no other options. However, you could present your case in a less businesslike tone, with a little civility and charm.’

‘You don’t strike me as a woman ruled by romantic notions.’

‘No, but I’m still a woman and would like to be wooed just a touch.’

For the second time today he wanted to smile but didn’t. Instead, he stepped closer, admiring her spirit. She didn’t just surrender to him, sign her name on the contract as it were, but demanded his respect, not his money or anything else. Once again, his instinct for business had proven correct. ‘Miss Townsend, will you do me the honour of accepting me as your husband?’

* * *

Laura stared up at the stranger who stood only an arm’s length from her, thankful he hadn’t taken her hand or dropped to one knee. She might have demanded a modicum of romance, but with her head still swimming from this unexpected proposal and a lack of food, she wasn’t sure she could handle the shock of his touch. Her parents had raised her to be sensible and she was, but it didn’t mean she didn’t have dreams. All her life she’d wanted the same happiness she’d seen between her parents, to have a shop and a family with a man she loved and respected. Uncle Robert had destroyed such dreams when he’d ground the shop and their reputations into the dirt. Whatever hope she possessed of reviving them now lay with this gentleman.

Mr Rathbone watched her and she studied him, trying to gauge something of the real person beneath the stiff businessman, but she could see very little. He’d not offered one ounce of warmth since he’d opened his distracting blue eyes in the tub, nor even a brief flicker of sympathy for her plight, yet now he wished to make her his wife and take care of both her and her mother. It defied all reason, except his argument made perfect, rational sense to the practical side of her.

It was the physical realities of marriage which nearly made her sensible side flee. He expected children and there was only one way to get them. The image of him naked in front of her seared her mind and she swallowed hard. After leaving his home, she’d hurried back here and slipped into bed beside her mother, trying and failing to sleep. Mr Rathbone’s was the first male body she’d ever seen undressed and the memory of it had insisted on teasing her.

She touched the loose bun at the nape of her neck, the skin beneath suddenly damp with perspiration. Seeing him naked hadn’t been an unpleasant experience. If she accepted him, she would see him again in such a state and he would see her, but what would their more intimate moments be like? Her fingers fumbled with the loose strands of hair she gathered up to tuck back in with the others. She’d heard the fallen women cackling together in the hallways. They clearly enjoyed congress with the men they ran after. However, late at night, through the cracked and thin walls of their tumbledown rooms, she often heard the couple next door and the indignities a cruel husband could inflict on his wife. She wasn’t sure whether it would be pain or pleasure she’d face with Mr Rathbone, if he would be tender or approach the matter with stiff efficiency. Whatever might pass between them, if she refused his offer, a hundred more degrading things from many strange men most likely awaited her. Their situation was already growing desperate and she knew what happened to desperate women in Seven Dials. There was as much uncertainty with Mr Rathbone as there was without him. At least with him, Laura knew they would be warm and well fed. ‘Yes, Mr Rathbone, I accept your proposal.’

‘Good. My men are waiting with a cart in the street.’ He strode to the window and waved to someone below. ‘Ready your things, we leave at once.’

‘You were so sure I’d accept.’ The man was unbelievable.

He faced her as he had in his room, his confidence as mesmerising as it was irksome. ‘I’m always sure when it comes to matters of business.’

Not a second later, the door opened and another young man in a tan coat entered. ‘Philip, you kept us waiting so long, you had me worried.’

‘Mr Connor, allow me to introduce Miss Townsend, my intended. Miss Townsend, this is my friend and associate, Mr Justin Connor.’

Mr Connor swept off his hat and made a low bow. He was shorter than Mr Rathbone and broader through the hips and chest. His hair was light brown like his eyes, which revealed his amusement as much as his smile. ‘A pleasure, Miss Townsend. It seems you’ve made quite an impression on my friend.’

Finally, someone with some sense of humour. ‘Yes, he was just telling me how much my beauty and charm have enthralled him.’

‘Spirited, too. I think it’ll be a successful match.’ He directed the comment as much to Mr Rathbone as to her.

If Mr Rathbone was needled by his associate’s wit, he gave no indication, his countenance the same as when she’d surprised him in his bath. She wondered if he possessed any other expression.

Behind Mr Connor, four burly men in coarse but clean jackets filed into the room. Laura shifted on her feet at the notable tension coursing between them as they took up positions along the wall and near the door. From their thick belts hung clubs like the ones the night watchmen used to carry in Cheapside, where the draper shop was situated. The old watchmen didn’t dare wander through these parts after dark. It was a wonder Laura had made it home unmolested after leaving Mr Rathbone’s. It seemed whatever luck had led her into his house and out again without landing her in the Old Bailey had followed her home. Hopefully, it would continue to walk with her down the aisle.

‘Mr Rathbone, is there some reason for the weapons?’ If he was to be her husband, there was no point being shy with him. ‘Are my mother and I to be made prisoners?’

Mr Rathbone moved closer, his eyes stern and serious. ‘Mr Townsend has proven himself selfish and uncaring. I assume he has held on to you and your mother for this long because he thinks there’s still something to gain from you. He won’t take kindly to my removing you from his control.’

Laura sank a little, sickened by how accurate a sketch Mr Rathbone drew of her uncle. ‘I don’t know what he could hope to gain from us. Everything we had, he took.’

‘Not everything.’ The words were softer than before, just like his eyes. Concern lingered behind his stiff countenance, faint like the subtle weave in a silk pattern, something one could only see if it were held the correct way in the right light. It dissolved some of her fear and made her wonder what other hidden depths existed beneath his stoic exterior.

Mr Connor’s watch case clicked closed. ‘Philip, we should hurry, he could return.’

The prodding snipped the faint connection between them like scissors against a fine silk thread.

Mr Rathbone’s eyes swept the room and, it seemed, deliberately avoided hers. ‘Now, Miss Townsend, what should we remove?’

Laura looked over the sad furniture, happy to break his gaze and the odd line of reasoning it created. The setting sun cut through the room and she wished there were curtains to close, anything to hide the mouldering walls announcing the extent of her poverty. Despite how far they’d fallen since her father’s death, the indignity of it all still burned. Most of the furniture was her uncle’s, from his time with the army in India, where he’d made even less of a success of himself than he had in London. It was all in a sorry state, chipped and scratched. A couple of pieces belonged to her and her mother, the remnants of happier days in the rooms above the draper shop.

‘We’ll take the portrait of Father.’ She motioned to the painting hanging over the sagging mantel. The varnish had turned dark around the edges, but those hazel eyes, so similar to Laura’s, still watched over them with the same clarity as they had in life. It was the one aspect of her father the artist had rendered perfectly.

One of Mr Rathbone’s men reached up and removed it from its nail, exposing the stained and faded wallpaper beneath it.

‘And this?’ Mr Rathbone tapped the tip of his walking stick against a locked trunk beside the bedroom door.

‘It belongs to my uncle.’ She rolled her wrist—the memory of the bruises she’d received when her uncle had caught her trying to pick the lock one night still stung. Whatever was in there, be it valuables or the body of a wife from India, he hadn’t wanted her to see it. At this moment, she didn’t care. He could have the trunk and whatever comfort he drew from the contents. ‘The desk was my grandmother’s. My mother will want it.’

Two men took up positions on either side of the desk, heaving it up and shuffling past the door to her mother’s room just as she tugged it open.

‘What’s going on here?’ she demanded, her thin frame barely filling the tilted and sagging jamb. She snapped up her walking stick, laying it across the chest of the closest burly man and stopping both cold. ‘Are we being evicted?’

Laura rushed to her mother, gently lowered the walking stick and took her by the arm to steady her. ‘No, we’re moving. Now, this moment.’