by Diana Davis
She would have to post it. Soon.
But if Owen — no. If she loved Owen, she needed to respect his choice. Even if it meant she couldn’t join her fate to his.
She had been willing to sacrifice so much of what she’d wanted — what she’d hoped and dreamed of — what she knew to be true — to proclaim her love to Owen. Was it really so unreasonable to want one’s husband to simply stay alive? To not attempt to overthrow the government? To choose her and a life together over an unwinnable war?
Owen would not be her husband, she reminded herself. That would be Godfrey. Surely he wouldn’t do something so foolish.
No, he would just ask her to establish their marriage on a lie.
She couldn’t send this reply. She would have to talk to Godfrey in person. Perhaps there was a way . . .
Temperance excused herself from the table. She would see Godfrey again, and she would remember why she had wanted to marry him in the first place, and she would do just that. And she wouldn’t listen to her howling, hurting heart, no matter how long it pined for someone she couldn’t have. Or at least couldn’t keep.
In the quiet before the clerks had returned to the office from the dinner hour, Owen reviewed the list of cases he was working on. It had been a week since he’d won and lost Temperance Hayes in a matter of minutes, and he was still trying to set his mind to rights. Even work hadn’t offered enough of a distraction.
The paying clients he’d met through David’s associations were nearly half of his cases, but he’d spent more time meeting and dining with them than he had working on their contracts and affairs. He couldn’t continue that way, not if he hoped to actually fulfill their expectations.
And the other half of the cases, he’d likely never see a penny from. So why did he find himself wanting to work only on those cases?
He knew exactly why. Because these people needed him.
He set aside the stacks and stood, pacing the office. How could he simply walk away from someone like Antony Cooper? The old man had regarded him like a saint on the day Owen had paid that fine. Yes, they’d managed to avoid the branding, but it was mostly Owen’s fault he’d been in that position in the first place. The law was complex, but his was a very simple case.
The look in Cooper’s eyes was simple too. The same look Temperance had given him as a child when he’d saved her from Nan.
Now he was supposed to believe his efforts had meant nothing. He’d broken his arm for nothing. To this day, it still ached when snow threatened, but his sacrifice was worth less than a ha’penny to Temperance.
Owen stopped to stare out at the street, oddly devoid of snow in February. Was she right? He’d tried not to think of her story, her conclusion, for weeks. Clearly she’d seen past it for at least one night.
He knew her well enough to see exactly what she had learned: her money had saved him. Saved both of them. He glanced back at the papers and books on his table. It was still true. The men and women without money would virtually never find the help they needed, while the rich could pay people like him to help make them richer.
But did any of that change how young Temperance had looked at him? How Cooper had looked at him?
Would he have traded places with them to keep them safe from harm? In an instant. And no amount of money could have changed his mind.
He returned to the table, to his two stacks. Money certainly made lives easier, but it wasn’t much protection in the end. Nan could have just as easily taken the ha’penny and broken his other arm the next day.
Money was no protection without a conscience, without morals. Without someone to stand up for you.
Temperance might think her pittance had changed Nan’s mind. He had no idea where Nan might be now, but he was sure if he asked her, she wouldn’t remember the money. She’d remember the fire of that little girl, burning with anger even then. Standing up for someone who needed her, just as he’d done for her.
Money didn’t change what was right. How had he forgotten?
Owen strode to Hayes’s study door and knocked. Hayes bid him enter. “Afternoon, my boy. How are your cases?”
“Fine.”
“Are you managing them all well?”
The answer to that was no. He was still working far too hard, trying to balance the paying clients with the indigents. But that wasn’t why he was here. “Do you remember that old woman who came in a few weeks ago? Her son was accused of murder.”
Hayes narrowed his eyes, soft crinkles forming at their corners, but nodded once.
“I want to take that case.”
A slow smile suffused Hayes’s softened features. “I was beginning to worry you’d never ask.”
Owen laughed for the first time since Temperance had walked out of their rooms.
He was doing what was right at last: the Light Horse, helping another poor widow. If Temperance couldn’t bear to watch him do the right thing, he was better off.
Or at least, he’d try to convince himself he was.
Hayes handed over a sheaf of papers, and Owen tried to force himself to read them. To not remember that night. Surely he’d hallucinated the whole thing. The moment he’d finally let go of the mad fantasy, she appeared on his doorstep to proclaim her love. And he’d believed her. The delusion still had a sure grip on his mind.
Perhaps those four minutes of perfect bliss would be the most happiness he would ever have in this life. Perhaps that was all he needed.
That, and to do the right thing.
Although he hadn’t really read the papers, Owen thanked Hayes and retreated to the main office. His second pass at the case file was no more successful — had Temperance had to look so convincing, so passionately herself, so indignantly loving when she’d said those words?
The third time through, he managed to read the pages. If Hayes had been thorough, this case was hopeless. And Hayes was nothing if not thorough. Judging by the hedging in his brief notes, even he wasn’t certain whether the man could be defended.
Be that as it might, even guilty men deserved an adequate defense. Hayes would have given him that, though Hayes could certainly better afford to go without pay.
Owen didn’t have to take every pauper that came through the door, but taking this one was the right thing to do. He found the notation of the widow’s home. Hayes had likely not visited if he’d gathered all this information in his first meeting with the old woman, and yet he’d carefully recorded where she lived, as if he’d known all along Owen would think better of not taking the case.
Perhaps Hayes had always known him better than he’d known himself.
Owen collected his great coat and his satchel and headed for the door. Before he left, he regarded the two stacks on his table.
He would do everything necessary to ensure that his family was warm and fed. But he couldn’t let that keep him from doing the right thing.
Temperance Hayes was wrong. About a great many things, he hoped.
All morning, Temperance had put off her calls. First, she’d bested all her sisters in nine-man morris. Then checkers. Then fox and geese. Then all four of her sisters as a team with eighteen geese among them.
Verity had cried out when she’d lost her last goose, but Temperance remained impassive. Emotions had no place in games of strategy, as she knew all too well. Patience nearly pulled off the coup de grâce, but Temperance saw the flaw in her plan at the last minute and slaughtered the final goose necessary to win.
And she took no pleasure from it.
After that, her sisters lost interest in strategy games, defaulting to Mercy’s favorite of riddles. Temperance paced the drawing room and kept wandering back to the dining room.
She wasn’t hungry. Not for food, at least.
No, today she was out for blood.
How dare Owen Randolph tell her they had an obligation to defend their rights? He knew as well as she did what war would bring. Together, they had watched Papa yell like never
before, all about Uncle William. People died in a war.
And if love and security weren’t reason enough for him to want to stay alive — to choose her — then she had no business even thinking of Owen Randolph. Again. Constantly.
She found herself in the dining room again and turned on her heel. This was Owen. He always did the right thing. He helped everyone, especially anyone who had less than he did.
And she’d faulted him for doing that.
Temperance stopped short in the drawing room. She hadn’t meant to . . . But she had. She’d done nothing but dismiss his actual concerns about caring for his family. She’d never taken the time to truly understand his situation. He’d told her he was poor, he’d told her how much those clients needed him, and she’d only demanded he change.
She had been perfectly awful to him. She didn’t deserve him.
Temperance drew herself up to her full height and straightened her jacket. That suited perfectly, actually, since he would sooner choose death than her.
It was time to do what she’d been putting off all morning. She wasn’t supposed to ask Godfrey about his heart, but surely she could figure it out or even employ stratagem to force him to give himself away.
She marched to the cloak rack and swung her cloak about her. She glanced at Patience, who’d returned to her law volume. She wouldn’t want to return calls. Temperance sidled up to Constance on the couch. “Connie, let’s go visit Godfrey.”
Constance sat up, clutching the quilt. “Not . . .” She trailed off, though they both knew what she meant.
Not Owen.
“No,” Temperance said. “That’s well and truly done.” Her voice broke on the last word and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
There was no room for emotion in this game, she reminded herself. She’d begun playing it in pure strategy, and her objectives were finally in her grasp. Even if she’d thought those objectives could change — had changed — she’d been wrong.
She scanned the room. Only Constance seemed to have heard. “Will you come?” Temperance asked.
Constance wouldn’t dare argue with her. She sighed and dragged herself off the couch. She fetched her cloak as well and looped her arm through Temperance’s.
Constance was unnaturally quiet the whole trip to Godfrey’s. Temperance watched her from the corner of her eye. Normally, she would have been spinning off into a fantasy, imagining how romantic it would be to be poor, live in a tenement, have only your love to survive on, needing nothing else.
Temperance knew those dreams well. She’d indulged them for entire days.
Far too long.
Today, Constance was subdued. She didn’t even talk of her latest epic poem, something about a princess forced to become a shepherdess, trapped in poverty until a prince rescued her.
Temperance could only imagine what had inspired that kind of story. She didn’t have the luxury of such fantasies. She already knew how much of a trap poverty was, and if she’d married Owen, there would be no dramatic rescue.
Godfrey was supposed to be the prince in her story. The one who saved her from a life she didn’t want. Didn’t deserve.
She didn’t know what she deserved anymore.
A servant showed them to Godfrey’s drawing room, left, then reappeared to invite them to dine. Temperance wasn’t sure she’d ever want food again, but she accepted to be polite.
She found Godfrey in an excessively white room, at a table with a group of gentlemen friends. Well, perhaps not gentleman.
She was not expecting other company. That changed her strategy.
They’d clearly just rearranged the places to make room for her on the bench at his side. She thanked them and took the seat, Constance squeezing in next to her.
Normally, Constance would have mentally measured every man at the table for their romantic hero potential. She might have fallen in love on sight, although she’d never gone so far as to act on any of the fantasies that flitted through her mind. Today, however, she focused on her plate.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d got my letter,” Godfrey began.
“Oh, yes, I did,” she assured him. “Would it be terrible of me to consider it a bit longer? It’s such a big decision.”
He patted her hand. “Of course. I want you to be quite certain. I’m sure you’ll manage to puzzle it out.”
Temperance fought back a frown. Manage to puzzle it out? Did the man not realize exactly how much of this relationship she’d engineered? It certainly hadn’t been for his benefit that she’d gotten him invited to Euphemia’s dinner or herself to his home.
“Do you play checkers?” Constance asked Godfrey. “Temperance is a formidable opponent.”
“Oh, I haven’t the time for frivolous pursuits.”
This time Temperance gaped at Constance. The man took no interest in business or any other useful profession, and yet had no time for “frivolous pursuits”? What did he do with himself all day?
“Fox and geese?” Constance tried. “Nine-man morris?”
One of Godfrey’s friends chortled, and Temperance instantly bristled, but when she looked at him, she found the man had his gaze fixed on Godfrey, not Constance. Some sort of private jest, then?
She wouldn’t stand for it either way. “I certainly hope you don’t mean to ridicule my sister.” At her side, Constance lifted her chin. She had the bearing of a princess.
The gentleman cleared his throat. “Not at all.”
“Good,” Temperance said, her voice even sharper. “I couldn’t countenance that.” She turned to Godfrey, hoping to prompt him to join in Constance’s defense. He merely regarded his plate.
She looked at her own plate, prepared by a servant for her. Veal, potatoes, pickles, cabbage. None of it would change the ice in her middle. She shuddered, a chill drawing goose skin on her arms. Godfrey didn’t notice.
He wouldn’t stand up for her family members in the face of his friends?
Perhaps she misunderstood their private jest. But if that were the case, shouldn’t he have been the first to reassure her that Constance was not a target?
She had to try again. She spoke to Godfrey. “How do you occupy your time, then?”
“Philosophical discussions.”
“Oh?” Constance was also ready for a second attempt. “Cogitas, ergo es?”
Another of Godfrey’s friends tried to hide a chuckle, and Constance’s brows drew together. Why would he laugh? She’d conjugated everything correctly. Temperance shot him a white-hot scowl, and he immediately hung his head. Clearly his friends were treating Constance abominably; Godfrey had to do something about it.
He played with the hem of his napkin instead. He wouldn’t defend a helpless woman against his own friend’s rudeness? A woman whose sister he hoped to marry?
“You do not care for Descartes, then,” Constance concluded with enough of a sneer toward their tablemates to make it obvious she did know of which she spoke.
“Not that kind of discussion,” one friend finally murmured.
“Not that kind of philosophy,” another friend said, and the whole table burst into laughter.
Under the table, Temperance took Constance’s hand. Her sister squeezed her fingers. Godfrey; his oblique, jeering friends; this austere, icy room. This was all wrong. She no longer cared who Godfrey fancied. All she wanted was to be back at home.
“Oh,” Temperance exclaimed over the uproar. “Do you know, I’ve just remembered we have another call to make. Thank you so much for inviting us to dine with you.”
“Are you certain? You’ve hardly touched your plate.”
Constance snatched the roll off hers, and Temperance pushed hers aside. “Yes, thank you, though.”
“I shall walk you out.” Godfrey got up before she could stop him. He called for their cloaks and walked with them to the door. “You must expect a kiss,” Godfrey asked with a smile.
Was that supposed to be another jest
? But he moved toward her, so he must be in earnest. It would be the first time she hadn’t been the one to broach the subject.
Godfrey placed a perfunctory kiss on her lips and departed for his dining room again. Temperance pressed against her middle. She was still cold inside, but not only because this house was so frigid.
Owen wanted to defend the weakest among them, and Godfrey refused.
This would be her lot in his life. She wouldn’t be allowed to object to the company he kept or insist that they treat her family with respect. And her. She’d manage to puzzle it out?
And she would never again feel the love in Owen’s embrace. In Owen’s kiss.
Temperance closed her eyes until the urge to cry passed.
On the doorstep, Constance turned to her. “Do you really love Godfrey?” she asked softly.
“No.”
“Not now?” Constance glanced back at the door, as if worried she’d ruined Temperance’s courtship.
“Not ever.” She’d never expected to marry for love, but now that she’d had the briefest glimpse of that possibility, her scheme seemed more ludicrous than ever.
Constance still stared back at the black double doors. “He reminds me of Winthrop,” she murmured.
Temperance took her hand. “Was Winthrop ever that rude to you?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Not directly, I suppose. I certainly saw him treat people that way, though.”
“Well, that will never happen again.” And if she’d married Winthrop when she’d wanted to, she’d be a widow now. All the money in the world couldn’t change that.
“I’m perfectly frozen,” Temperance said. “Let’s go home and warm up.”
Owen moved to better catch the light in the office window. He flipped through Blackstone’s Commentaries again, hoping to find some legal doctrine against capital punishment in this particular case, although he knew it wouldn’t be there. Even Hayes hadn’t plotted out a suitable defense. Owen was beginning to regret meeting with the old widow.
