by Merry Farmer
Suspicion pinched at Danny’s insides, but he didn’t have a chance to demand to know what was going on.
“He isn’t staying,” Phoebe said, drawing his full focus. She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“I’m sorry, Phoebe.” Danny stepped closer to her, reaching for her. He considered it a small miracle that she let him rest his hands on her arms. “I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t tell you about the inheritance. I only found out about it last week. And with so much else going on—the land deal, the fire, all of my other business—I never found the time to mention it.”
“But you found the time to propose to me,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Danny pulled his hands back, squirming under her scrutiny, and running a hand through his hair. “Well, truth be told, that proposal came as a bit of a surprise to me too. The circumstances at the time were—” He glanced awkwardly to Phoebe’s mother, who was doing a poor job of pretending she wasn’t listening to the conversation.
Phoebe blushed a dark shade of red. She grabbed Danny’s arm and dragged him out of the main room and into the kitchen. “Do you mean to tell me that you only asked me to marry you because you were caught up in the throes of passion?” she hissed, sending a wary look out through the kitchen door to make certain her mother wasn’t listening.
“No!” Danny said, too loud as usual. “God, no. I had already made up my mind to marry you.”
“After learning of my inheritance,” Phoebe said in a flat voice.
“No, love, that’s not it at all.” He laughed in spite of himself, though the sound was bitter and tense. Everything he said was just digging his grave deeper. “Sweetheart, I have piles of money of my own,” he told her. It was too late to worry about how she would react to the truth. The truth needed to be spoken. “I own property all over London, not just this building and my pub. My family has been investing in London real estate for four generations. Name the richest nob you know, and I can guarantee you that I’m worth twice as much.”
Instead of lighting up at the idea, Phoebe crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “If you are so wealthy, why are you living in a three-room flat in Fitzrovia instead of a palatial townhouse in, I don’t know, Kensington?”
“I don’t want to live around a bunch of hoity-toity nobs who would be as like as not to turn up their noses at me and cross the street to walk on the other side when they see me coming,” he said.
“Precisely,” Phoebe said, letting out an exhausted breath and letting her arms and shoulders drop. “Danny, I’ve known you for long enough to know that money isn’t as important to you as the way people see you. You want to be respected. You want to be treated as an equal by society. So, of course, marrying the daughter of a marquess would accomplish that for you.”
Danny flinched, partially because she had sketched his character so well, and partly in aversion to the idea that she thought he saw her as a pawn in his game. “That’s not true,” he insisted. “You’re so much more to me than that.”
“Am I?” she asked, back to challenging him. “You knew who I was when I stumbled into your pub on that rainy day. You knew what I’d been reduced to. Are you certain you didn’t see in me an opportunity to get everything you’ve wanted in life?”
He frowned. “And what about how you saw me? I offered you a place to live when you’d been turned out. Are you certain you didn’t see me as a shot at a secure future?”
Her cheeks flared pink all over again, and she turned her face away.
Danny went on. “You needed something practical too, love. I gave it to you. Would you have loved me in your former life? Would you have gone to bed with me and made me the happiest man in the world if you really were just the daughter of a marquess and I was just a lower-class pub owner?”
She snapped her head back to him. “Do you realize that every time you have described yourself to me, you’ve said you are nothing but a lower-class pub owner?”
Danny blinked, uncertain what she meant.
She took a half step toward him. “Danny, you’ve just told me that you’re amazingly wealthy and that you own real estate all over London. You’re on your way to a parliamentary committee that is going to award you an extremely high-profile land development deal that will earn you even more money. A fact, by the way, that is not lost on me. Nor is the understanding that in order to carry out such a development, one must have capital first.”
Danny shook his head. “Are you saying you knew about my money?”
“I guessed,” she sighed, shrugging and glancing briefly out the window. “And also, Natalia is a terrible gossip who, I believed, greatly exaggerated your worth when I sought her solace and council about this whole matter yesterday evening.”
A strange twist of relief filled Danny’s chest. She’d gone to visit Natalia Townsend.
“So you knew,” he repeated.
She stared square at him. “What I know, Danny Long, is that you may be worth a fortune, but you undervalue yourself. You long for the respect and appreciation of men who, frankly, will never fully give it to you—because of their own arrogance and not anything having to do with you. But the only person’s respect you need is your own.” She took another step closer to him and poked a finger into his chest. “You need to respect yourself. You need to embrace your own worth instead of forever seeking validation from the outside world. You need to decide if you are simply a pub owner or whether you are an entrepreneur and an economic emperor. Marrying the daughter of a marquess and inheriting her country estate isn’t going to change how you feel about yourself.”
Danny was so stunned by her words that when he opened his mouth to reply, nothing came out. He could only stand there, gaping at her, his heart swelling so tenderly that it came near to bursting.
“Phoebe!” Her mother stepped into the doorway, jolting Danny out of the astounded thoughts that had him frozen. “Hurry up,” her mother hissed. “We cannot keep him waiting.”
Phoebe huffed out a breath and marched past Danny into the main room. “I’m coming, Mama.”
Danny turned to watch her gather her purse and hat. His attention was snagged as Phoebe’s mother sniffed at him.
“You should have behaved with more decorum,” she scolded him. “She has always been too good for you, and now everything will be as it should always have been.” She punctuated her words with a nod before marching out of the kitchen.
Danny followed in a daze. Phoebe’s mother flounced her way out to the hall through the open door that Phoebe held. Phoebe manned her post by the door until Danny stepped out of the flat. Then she shut and locked the door behind her with all the finality of someone snapping a book closed after finishing with it. Danny followed the two women to the stairs and descended with them, but his head was too full of the things Phoebe had said to rush after them to demand to know where they were going or what they were doing.
“Oh, good. You’re downstairs. I won’t have to climb all the way up there to discuss business with you before the hearing,” Tuttle said, entering the building as Phoebe and her mother left.
“I’m not sure I have enough of a brain left to handle business at all, after everything I’ve just been through,” Danny said, still watching the empty doorway where Phoebe had been moments before.
“Well, you’d better locate your brain forthwith,” Tuttle said, slapping Danny’s back. “I’d look in your trousers, if I were you.”
On any other day, Danny would have laughed at the ribald joke. He was still too stunned to do anything but crack a smile, though.
Tuttle nudged him toward the door. “Good thing I’ll be by your side at this hearing.”
Danny hummed as they made their way to the street and hailed a cab. Phoebe and her mother were just visible at the far end of the street, walking toward what looked to be Mayfair.
“If you are, in fact, planning to take the plunge, we need to discuss your plans for marriage soon,” Tuttle said as a carriage veered toward them. “And for secu
ring Lady Phoebe’s inheritance. If everything you told me was true, it might be a bit of a struggle to—”
“I’m not sure the marriage is going to happen,” Danny said, giving voice to the deep-seated fear he hadn’t been able to shake since the tea party.
“What?” Tuttle laughed as though Danny were joking. “I thought the two of you were madly in love.”
Danny was still madly in love, but he couldn’t tell about Phoebe anymore. She’d grown into a woman of her own mind, a woman who would run circles around him in every way. “We’ve had a bit of a tiff,” he admitted, glancing off to the corner she’d disappeared around. “I honestly don’t know what her thoughts on the subject of marriage are at the moment.”
The cab had stopped at the curb, and Tuttle had opened the door. He gestured for Danny to get in. “Every loving couple fights now and then,” he said. “It’s a good way to clear the air. The two of you will be right as rain in no time, you’ll see.”
Danny hummed and hopped into the carriage, but he wasn’t so sure. Not every deal came off without a hitch. Sometimes the things he wanted the most slipped through his fingers.
Chapter 19
Both Phoebe’s head and heart ached as she escorted her mother through the bustling, commercial streets around Oxford Street and deeper into the heart of Mayfair. She was still racked with confusion about everything that had transpired during and since the tea party Miss Garrett hosted. Her emotions were in an even bigger tumult after the conversation she’d just had with Danny.
Had he really not seen the depth of his own need to be accepted? The expression that had come over his face when she spelled things out for him was so profoundly startled that, for the first time, she began to see that he wasn’t the ever-confident lion that she’d always assumed he was. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if all of his noise and bluster, all of his teasing and playing around with accents, dress, and the sensibilities of the gentlemen he came into contact with was little more than a way for him to pretend he believed he was worthy.
It was ridiculous for Danny to think he wasn’t equal with or superior to every other titled man Phoebe had ever known. She should have guessed he was wealthier and more powerful than he’d let on. Natalia hadn’t truly told her anything new when Phoebe had gone to her for a shoulder to cry on the evening before. And if truth be told, Phoebe still loved Danny beyond reason, in spite of everything that had happened and everything that would likely happen next.
“You are too quiet, my dear,” her mother said with too much cheer as they entered Mayfair. “This is a day for you to rejoice. It is a happy day indeed.” Her mother chuckled and clapped her hands to emphasize her point.
“If you say so,” Phoebe sighed.
She rubbed her pounding head. After her visit with Natalia, she’d come home only to fall straight into the middle of her mother’s most outlandish scheme yet. She still couldn’t believe that her mother had continued her plotting where Lord Cosgrove was concerned. And she never would have guessed things would turn out the way they were about to after all the water that had flowed under that bridge. She’d lain awake most of the night, racked with guilt about what her mother had planned without Phoebe even being aware of it. The irony of the whole thing was astounding.
“Smile,” her mother ordered her as they turned onto Mount Street, where Lord Cosgrove’s townhouse was located. “We’re about to get everything we’ve wanted since your father died.”
“Are we?” Phoebe sent her a sideways look.
“Yes. So stop your grousing,” her mother snapped.
Phoebe clenched her jaw as they walked on, feeling lower than she had in weeks.
“It’s that lout, Mr. Long, isn’t it,” her mother said when they reached a small cross street. “He upset you this morning.”
“Anything between me and Mr. Long is none of your business, Mama,” Phoebe sighed.
“You are my daughter. Your business will always be my business.” When Phoebe didn’t say anything, her mother went on with, “It’s for the best that the two of you had a row. It will make everything else that much easier.”
“Danny will be furious about this,” Phoebe said, feeling how true it was down to the marrow of her bones. He would see the whole thing as a massive betrayal.
Her mother surprised her by stopping abruptly and spinning to face her. “Stop your pouting this instant, young lady.”
“I have reason to pout, Mama,” Phoebe snapped back.
Her mother looked equal parts exasperated and determined. “I have done what is best to secure our futures,” she said.
“Have you?” Phoebe arched one eyebrow.
“You don’t know what it was like,” her mother said with sudden passion, her face pinching with misery. “You don’t know what it was like being married to your father. I never wanted the marriage to begin with. My father arranged it with his friend. Your father was an odious pig from the very start.”
“Mama!” Phoebe’s heart sped up, and she glanced around to see if anyone were listening in.
“He squandered my dowry within a year,” her mother went on. “He got me with child, then ignored me, claiming that I was the defective one when you were born and proved to be a girl. He flouted his mistresses in my face, not to mention his illegitimate sons.”
Phoebe gasped. “I didn’t know he had other children.”
“He had far more than that,” her mother growled. “He had bastards and he had debts. He had wasted investments and he had loans with frightening terms. I know you felt the impact of his sin as the two of us watched everything we had—materially and socially—vanish without either of us being able to do a thing about it. But imagine how that made me feel. I was thrown into a situation not of my choosing, it destroyed me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”
Phoebe’s eyes went wide at her mother’s coarse language, and she pressed a hand to her stomach.
“I know you don’t understand why I have championed Lord Cosgrove so heartily for so long,” her mother went on. “I know you despise him. But believe me, my dear. I know from bitter experience what it is like to be cast out on your own. I know the pain and suffering that can cause. No, Lord Cosgrove is not the best of men, but neither is he entirely like your father. He is greedy and he is vain, but he is not profligate, and he is not a criminal. We might not like it, but we will be secure with him.”
Phoebe was speechless in the wake of her mother’s words. Her mother’s line of reasoning was not new to her, but the passion with which she spoke, the strength of her convictions, was a side to her mother that she’d never seen before. Sudden guilt over the way Phoebe had discounted and diminished her mother for so many years—like too many others had washed their hands of her as a silly woman with silly ideas—gripped her. She’d never truly stopped to see their situation through her mother’s eyes. She’d been too busy fighting and scraping to keep the two of them safe. Fighting her own way. She still wasn’t convinced that her mother’s way was any better than hers, but for the first time, she thought that perhaps she understood it.
“All right, Mama,” she said, reaching for her mother’s hand and squeezing it. “I understand. I’m sorry you had to endure all that.”
“It was beyond endurance,” her mother said, bursting into a sob.
Phoebe’s heart went out to the woman. She surprised both of them by throwing her arms around her mother and hugging her. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, squeezing her mother tight. “You know I’m not happy about it, but I’ll go through with this whole thing. I won’t fight it or protest anymore. I understand.”
“Thank you, my darling girl.” Her mother sniffed and snorted, stepping back and fishing in her sleeve for a handkerchief. “You have no idea how much this means to me.
Phoebe smiled at her and walked on toward Lord Cosgrove’s house, feeling as though she were going to the gallows. It would make her mother happy, but all she could think was that Danny was going to be furious.
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The hearing to decide which proposal for the development of the land in Earl’s Court was not held in any of the grand chambers of The Palace of Westminster, nor on the floor of the House of Commons. A matter of everyday business, like land deals, was decided in a small office off of Whitehall, which was where Danny found himself, pacing the halls and wishing the whole thing would just be over.
“Steady as she goes, man,” Tuttle said from his seat on a bench beside the door behind which the committee was meeting. “There’s no chance of you losing the deal at this point.”
Danny grunted, but that was all the response he was capable of. Cosgrove hadn’t shown up for the meeting, which was a startlingly good sign that the man intended to make good on his promise to back out of the running for the deal.
He paced to the end of the hall, pushing a hand through his hair—which was standing out wildly, considering how often he’d repeated the gesture in the past half hour—to check around the corner that led to the staircase and the building’s lobby. If Danny knew Cosgrove like he thought he did, the bastard would still try something. He might march up the stairs and down the hall to the committee meeting at any moment. He might demand his proposal be accepted over Danny’s because he was a bloody viscount and Danny was nothing.
His heart caught in his chest at the track his thoughts had taken. Phoebe’s speech that morning rushed back in on him. He wasn’t nothing, but he’d been telling himself that he was for far too long. He’d been doing it without even realizing it.
He turned and marched back to Tuttle, who was watching him with a vaguely amused look.
“Tuttle, what would you say I am?” he demanded, stopping to stand in front of the man.
Tuttle’s brow shot up at the question. “What are you?”
“Yes.” Danny nodded. “If you had to describe me, what would you say I am?”
The corner of Tuttle’s mouth twitched. “I’d say you were a male of the human species.”
