“Any ideas?” Kit prompted, his voice steadier than the tirade she’d been listening to for a quarter of an hour. “He certainly thinks highly of you.” He gestured disgustedly at the letter.
“Mr. Daughtry has been here longer than Gab—longer than Mr. Adamson. He can take over his duties until we find a replacement.” The word replacement tasted awful on her tongue. They might find another man to sit at his desk, but she could never imagine another managing the many functions of Ruthven’s as he had. And with as much ruthless efficiency.
“Will you stay on?” Kit’s question cut into her thoughts. “You could continue your mentorship, as Adamson suggests and then . . . ” He shrugged and tipped his head as he assessed her. “Would you be interested in managing Ruthven’s?”
Clary opened her mouth but no words would come. All that truly interested her at the moment was speaking to the man who belonged behind that desk. And the first thing she’d do would be to lead him outside the office and straight back to the shelter of that leafy oak tree in Regent’s Park, where he’d vowed that taking the step they had would mean there was no retreat.
“Not immediately, of course,” Kit continued. “Go on learning as much as you can. But according to Mr. Daughtry, you fit in here. Everyone adores you, and I did think you seemed to be enjoying the publishing business.”
“Yes.” She’d fallen in love with the place, the processes, and the man who ruled over every aspect of Ruthven’s operation. “I’ll consider a larger role, but not yet. I still wish to be involved with Fisk Academy, and I haven’t given up on my magazine project.”
Kit filled his lungs in a long, drawn breath. When he exhaled, the punishing line of his shoulders seemed to ease, his gaze softened, and a grin pulled up the corners of his mouth. “No, you rarely give up on anything, do you?”
If only believing in something, and someone, was enough. If she could bring Gabriel back with the power of her faith in him, he’d already be at her side, but that clearly wasn’t sufficient. Not until he believed in himself. What would that take?
“Clary?” Kit’s face had scrunched into grim lines. “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
She stared down at Gabriel’s note until the black letters merged into a blurry mess. She was the worst liar in England. But how could she confess the truth to her brother? He’d speak of her ruin and reputation and probably wish to force Gabriel to marry her.
“I simply wish I knew why,” Kit mused as he scratched at his temple. “Did you know I gave him an increase in salary a few weeks ago?”
“No, you never told me.”
Now it was Kit’s turn to duck his head and stare at the blotter on Gabriel’s desk as if the square of black was the most interesting sight in the world. “Just before he began mentoring you.”
The stretch of days felt like a lifetime now. As if she’d lived more vibrantly, been more alive, in that collection of hours than all the years before. She’d fallen for and lost the only man she’d ever loved. And she still wasn’t sure why he was gone.
Kit shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and the truth of what he’d done came to her like sunlight spearing through the clouds.
“You paid him to mentor me in the hope I’d be too busy to go to the East End.” The irony almost made her laugh, though the familiar tickle in her chest never came. Only a constant ache lodged there. “Did you know he’s from Whitechapel?”
“Adamson? No, Clary. You’ve heard him. He has an accent sharp enough to cut glass.” Kit guffawed. “I imagine the little upstart went to Eton or Harrow. Father wouldn’t stomach anything less for his precious publishing enterprise.”
“But he did, Kit. Father did many things that I suspect would surprise both of us.” A painful knocking started in her head, and she swiped a hand across her brow. “Gabriel’s history isn’t mine to tell.”
“Yet clearly you’re privy to his past, and I’m not.” Her brother had a gaze that saw deep, behind whatever facades people erected. He cast her one of those searching gazes now. “My God, if he’s taken advantage of you in any way—”
“No, he never took anything from me I didn’t willingly give.” Body, heart, devotion, love—there was so much she wished to give Gabriel. Now her feelings for him were a tangled knot. His departure devastated her. Was it only Friday when he’d held her hand at the waxworks? Made love to her as if it was all he ever wished to do? She hated how easy it had been for him to walk away. But if he came striding into Ruthven’s at that moment, there was no place she’d want to be but in his arms.
“Clary?” Kit had spoken her name more than once while she’d been lost in thoughts of Gabriel. “What are you saying?” He clenched a fist on the desktop. “Tell me he hasn’t touched you. R-ruined you.”
Clary walked calmly to the edge of the desk, remembering how she’d walked into the V of Gabriel’s thighs. Washed paint from his forehead. Slid her fingers through his hair.
“Clary, tell me the truth.”
“I love him.” Mercy, it felt good to say the words aloud again. Especially to Kit. She was tired of keeping secrets from him. Exhausted with secrets all together. “Maybe I did from the first moment I saw him in this office. I never forgot Gabriel, even after four years at Rothley. Some part of me knew he’d come back into my life.” Her voice quavered to admit it. She hadn’t even admitted that much to herself. “I knew the path I was on would lead me to him.”
Standing and coming around from behind the desk, Kit laid a hand gently on her arm. “You’re rambling, sweet.” Softly, in his brotherly tone, he cajoled, “Just tell me what he did to you. If he . . . ruined you.”
“That’s an ugly word. An ugly sentiment.” Clary couldn’t bear to look at him. Not because she was embarrassed, but because he wasn’t listening to a word she’d said. “I told you, Kit. I love him.” Finally, she lifted her head, confident and clear on that one certainty above all else. “I regret nothing.”
He nodded, and for a moment she thought he understood. That he heard her and had some sense of what Gabriel meant to her. Placing a hand her shoulder, he offered her a mournful pinched-brow look. “I’m sorry I entrusted you to his care, Clary. I thought I could trust him. Now I fear I’m going to have to kill him.”
“Mr. Wellbeck will see you now, Mr. Adamson.” Talbot, Wellbeck’s spindly-limbed managing editor, swept a hand toward the offices of T. J. Wellbeck.
Gabe rose to his feet, straightened the lapels of his suit, and strode into the spacious room.
“Have a seat wherever you can find one.” A white-haired man sat behind a room-spanning desk, inspecting a document through pince-nez glasses, and gestured toward a collection of chairs, most of which were overflowing with folders, documents, and books.
Gabe found a bare seat and pulled the chair closer to the cluttered desk.
“Tell me who you are again?” Wellbeck quizzed, finally casting his squinty gaze over the edge of his document.
“Gabriel Adamson, Mr. Wellbeck. Former manager and editor at Ruthven Publishing.” Gabe cleared his throat to push away the razor-sharp scratchiness that hadn’t eased since his last words to Clary. As if his body was determined to remind him that if he was going to speak, his words should be to her. “You did offer me a position a few weeks ago, sir. And several months before that.”
“Ah, yes.” Wellbeck settled back in his chair and piled his hands one on top of the other. “Former manager of Ruthven’s, you say? Have they dismissed you?”
“No, sir.” This, Gabe had known, would be the sticking point. “I have resigned my position.”
“Without first securing another?” Wellbeck huffed and fluttered his hands in the air before dropping them on a pile of correspondence. He rifled through and plucked one particular letter from the stack. “According to this letter dated . . . ” He peered up.
“About a month ago, sir.”
“Precisely. A month since one Gabriel Adamson sent a rather curt, artless refusal of our offer. Never
to be heard from again, I presumed.” He dove his nose toward his desk, and his heavy-lidded eyes bulged in Gabe’s direction. “Yet here you are.”
“Is the position you offered still available, Mr. Wellbeck?”
His head bobbed up and down on his neck. “The position remains vacant.”
Gabe let out the breath he’d been holding. There was no burst of relief in his chest, loosening knots, or easing of the jagged pain there. But Wellbeck’s news brought a marginal lessening of the fear he’d known since leaving a resignation letter on his desk at Ruthven’s before anyone else arrived. He’d been desperately tempted to remain and wait for Clary. If she did come. Perhaps she planned to stay away to avoid him. He couldn’t blame her. Whatever she felt today—regret, hatred, anger—he couldn’t blame her for any of it.
He hoped one day to be able to earn her forgiveness. He dreamed of one day deserving her love. But there’d been no question of his remaining at Ruthven’s. He’d broken the trust of her family. Taken advantage of the forced nearness of her mentorship.
Gabe realized the old man was staring at him, glaring as he waited for him to speak again. “Mr. Wellbeck, I would be very much obliged if you would allow me to accept the position now.”
After a long sniff and a purse of his thin, dry lips, the man’s face stretched in a grin. “No,” he pronounced with decided satisfaction in his bulging eyes.
“No? But you did say the position is unfilled.” Gabe leaned forward in his chair. “I assure you, Mr. Wellbeck, I am the man to fill it. I have nearly a decade of experience earned at Ruthven’s, where I managed every aspect of the enterprise.” Sitting up, Gabe squared his shoulders. On the question of his aptitude for this role, he had no doubts. With Ruthven, he may have wheedled and connived to get a chance at employment, but in this case, he had every qualification the publisher could require. And then some.
“The answer remains the same, young man. A most emphatic no. I gave you a chance. Several of them, if my aged brain does not fail me. You snubbed your nose at us every time.” The man flicked his fingers at Gabe, as if he wished he could snap like a magician and make him disappear. “Now you make the absurd decision to leave your post before you’ve secured another and expect us to fill the gap. It won’t do, Mr. Adamson.”
Wounded pride. Gabe knew that bitterness all too well. But if Wellbeck expected him to grovel or beg, he would wait a long while. Gabe’s begging days were over. As were his days of demeaning himself to win favor with men who wished to lord their power over him.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Wellbeck.” With a glance around at the chaos in the man’s office, he added, “Wellbeck’s would have benefited from my skills in management and organization.” Standing, he lifted his chin and cast the man a smug grin. “Now another publishing house will enjoy the advantage of my experience.” He executed a curt half bow. “Good day to you, sir.”
As he started for the door, he heard the old man grumbling to himself.
“Wait, Adamson. Stop right there, young man.”
Gabe stopped on the threshold to indulge Wellbeck. Mostly because once he’d stormed from the man’s offices, he had no real notion of where to go next.
“You would do well to curb your arrogance, boy,” Wellbeck said, with equal arrogance. “Rumor is you’re rather fierce in your management methods, but every man must bow to his betters. You’re far too young to have earned your brand of smugness.”
Give the man coal-black eyes, some grime in his wrinkles, and a lit cheroot in his mouth, and he’d look a bit like Rigg. He certainly sounded like the old puppet master. Rigg loved nothing better than to lecture others on how best to bend themselves to his will. To hell with both of them.
“Did you hear me, boy?”
He was six and twenty and had long ago tired of being called boy. “I heard you, Wellbeck. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a job.”
Walking out of Wellbeck’s felt as if a binding had been loosed. A relief not to be under that bitter man’s control but also a terrifying freedom. He had no job. No prospects. And the woman he longed for was probably a few buildings away, hearing of his abrupt departure from Ruthven’s. His feet started the familiar path toward the office, and he forced himself to turn back.
He’d promised Sara he would meet her and Thomas Tidwell for lunch after his meeting, and if he wished to be the kind of man who deserved Clary, he needed to begin by keeping his promises.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“How bleedin’ dare ye?”
“If you don’t lower your voice, we’ll be kicked out of my favorite coffee shop.” Gabe lifted a hand but didn’t dare touch his sister. She was bristling like an angry badger. “Sara, I can explain.”
“I’m going to start charging you thruppence every time you say those words to me.” She slashed a hand toward him across the table. “Or any man, for that matter.”
“What can I do to calm you down?”
She took an angry sip of coffee, belting the hot liquid back and slamming the mug down onto the table. “Start by telling me why you crept behind me back to make some arrangement with Thomas.” Before he could answer, she added, “Didn’t you think he’d wish to marry me without you bribing him to do the deed?”
“I never bribed him. And I didn’t creep behind your back.” Gabe gripped the back of his neck before taking another swig of black coffee. “As your only living male relative, it’s not unusual that I would wish to arrange a dowry on your behalf.”
Sara snorted and glared at him. “You speak like we were born in Belgravia. I wager there’s never been a King girl wot had a dowry paid for her.”
King was their father’s name. Adam King. He’d been killed in the prize-fighting ring, according to their mother, but Gabe didn’t possess a single memory of the man. As their mother told the tale, he died the year of Sara’s birth, when Gabe had just turned two.
“Well, I’m content to start a new tradition. And you mustn’t direct your ire at Tidwell for expecting me to assist with getting you two off to a good start. He has high hopes, your man. Plans to be a solicitor one day.”
“He is ambitious,” she conceded, “but he says we must wait on you before arranging our wedding and new lodgings. Not sure I like that he must have my brother’s money afore he’ll be my husband.”
“I asked him to wait.” Gabe leaned closer to whisper. “Before I knew about the babe. You two should start out with as much as you can. Consider the blunt a wedding gift.”
“ ’Twould be happy to, if Thomas weren’t determined to have the sum before we wed.”
Gabe had stopped by the bank and withdrawn nearly every pound to his name. He lifted the notes and coins from his inner coat pocket and laid them on the table between them.
Sara dove toward the pile and clasped her arms over the cash as if a gang of pickpockets were at her back. “Are you mad, Gabe? A man doesn’t flash his coin in public. Especially when he’s carrying such a pile.”
Gabe placed his hand over hers. “This is Knightsbridge, Sara. I think we’re safe.” Lifting her hands, he gathered the notes and coins and placed neat piles in them. “Now, take this and get yourself to the registry office. Tell Thomas I’ll send more as soon as I’m able.”
“And you’ve still enough for rent at the boardinghouse?”
He offered her a smile that felt stiff and unnatural on his face. “This month’s rent is paid. I’ll find more for next month.”
“Find more?” As she stuffed the money into her pockets, her brow pleated in a fretful crease. “Won’t your wages be coming next week?”
Gabe raised his mug to drink the gritty dregs of his coffee. “I quit my job at Ruthven’s. Another will come along.” He heard the lie in his tone. There wouldn’t be another assistant as loyal as Daughtry, nor an employer as willing to trust his judgement as Kit Ruthven. There sure as hell would never be another Clary Ruthven.
“This has to do with the daughter.” Sara’s fingers were cool as she reached
for his hand. “You told her the truth, didn’t you? About Rigg and what you did to get your position at Ruthven’s?”
“She deserved the truth.”
“I cannot disagree.” Settling back, she placed her palms against her belly. “I’m only sorry she couldn’t find forgiveness in her heart.”
“Clary has more forgiveness in her heart than anyone I’ve ever known,” he retorted. And too harshly.
Sara’s eyes widened. “Clary, is it? Goodness, you took my advice, then? Told the young lady what you felt for her?”
Gabe scrubbed a hand across his face. “She knows what she means to me.” Yet he hadn’t said the three words to her that she’d said to him. I love you. Because he wasn’t at all sure he could back up the words with actions. Clary had every inch of his rotten heart, but could he give her all that a loved one deserved? Could he provide for her? Protect her from his past?
“And yet you still gave up the post that changed everything.” Sara ducked her head to catch his gaze. “You did enjoy your work, didn’t you?”
“Every single day. I relished having a purpose of my own choosing. Knowing that the money in my pocket had been fairly earned, and no one had to bleed for my earnings.”
“Then why did you give her up?”
Gabe wasn’t sure whether his sister had referred to his job at Ruthven’s or the woman he loved. “I got them both by lying. Clary didn’t know the truth of who I am the first time I touched her. She sure as hell didn’t know I’d blackmailed her father for a job.” He hunched over his coffee cup as he would a mug of beer or a glass of rotgut gin, inhaling the fumes, considering whether he could manage another cup. “I don’t deserve her, Sara. I’m not sure I ever will.”
“Codswallop.” She pointed an insistent finger at him. “You listen here, brother of mine. We don’t choose whom we love, and we don’t choose where we’re born or to whom. Her father was a right bastard, according to Rigg’s girls. Our mother was little better. What does any of that matter now? You love the girl. If she loves you, go to her, Gabe. Marry her.”
How to Woo a Wallflower Page 19
