Page 51 of The Heart of Bennet Hollow
William holstered his gun. The moment he unlatched the door, his aunt appeared dressed in silks and taffeta and brimming with perfume. Her silver hair was piled high and the gold comb holding it in place held sparkling jewels.
“Aunt.”
“William.” She brushed past him, barely acknowledging the servants, or the engineer in the dining room.
Instead, she turned to him in a rustle of skirts. “We need to speak. We don’t have much time and this conversation has cost me a fortune.”
Moving to the window, William shoved the curtains aside.
Lights from her summer estate glowed in the distance like the eyes of a jack-o’-lantern through the evening haze.
He’d scarcely given their location much thought with it so early in the year when the house usually sat empty. Clearly his aunt had other plans.
He let the curtains conceal the sight. “You paid the conductor to stop the train here?”
Callum returned, looking shocked as well. When his face held questions, William shook his head.
“This way, aunt.” After running a hand over his forehead, William led the way down the hallway to his office.
His nerves frayed for more reason than one as his ears pricked for any sound of a coming train.
These were lives she was toying with and here this train sat—asleep on the rails, just waiting for a disaster.
“We’ll speak here.” He braced the door open and shoved it closed after her.
She spoke without turning. “I’ve had some unsettling news.”
He worked to keep his voice even. “Have you?” While he’d always been one to keep his cards close to his chest, this woman who had helped raise him spoke her every thought and whim.
“Regarding your time in that coal town you’re so fond of.”
“Would you like to sit?”
Her voice stretched like an iron track between them. “We haven’t the time and you know it.” Marching forward, she stepped close enough that he might have felt like a child again had he not stood a good head taller than her now.
William straightened his shoulders.
“Your lovely friend, Miss Caroline Brydolf, has written to me of a place called Bennet Hollow .” The name snapped off her tongue. “And the local girls living there. The daughters of a coal miner .”
William’s jaw tensed. “He’s a geologist, actually.”
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“It depends on what it is that you’re asking.”
Her gray-blue eyes sparked. “Do you intend to engage yourself to one of these young ladies? To the daughter of a lowly backwoodsman with barely a degree to his name?”
“He graduated top of his class. Or so I’ve heard.”
“William!” Swiping her thick skirts aside, she stepped nearer, perfume cloying the air between them. “Tell me here and now that it is not so.”
“To answer your question directly, aunt, no engagement has been made.”
“And you promise it will stay that way?”
“No, ma’am.”
She scoffed, an aged scrape against his confidence. Her skin paled further beneath her rouged cheeks. “The nerve!” The fire in her eyes brightened. “Your grandfather and I did not build this empire, this family and its wealth, for you to throw it away on some girl from the garden shed!”
“Let me assure you that I have no intention of doing such.”
She lifted her chin and her thin lips pursed.
“But I do intend to speak again to the young woman who I believe you’re referring to. A Lizbeth Bennet.”
With a huff she waved the name aside. “Be sure that no such thing occurs.”
“That I will not promise you. I do apologize for upsetting you but I must proceed as I see fit.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And do you have any idea what it will cost you?” Gold earrings caught the glow of lights overhead.
“I’m beginning to sense the answer, ma’am.”
She stormed across the carpet, stopping just in front of the bookshelf. Overhead, the glass dome grayed under the evening sky.
“Think of Lady Light,” she demanded.
“I have.”
“And you’re willing to forfeit her entirely?”
“I’ve been hoping it wouldn’t come to that. If you’d let me take over ownership, I can pay her worth.”
How uncanny that like Mr. Bennet, William stood in a similar situation.
A promise made on a handshake and nothing more.
“However, if you decide to confiscate her, I ask that you do so after the Belmont races.” At a sting in his throat, William swallowed.
Few things were his soft spots, but his sister and Lady Light were two of them.
As was Lizbeth now, which was why he couldn’t stand down.
No matter how much it hurt. “She has worked hard to get there.”
“I’ll be the decider of that.”
Rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, William steeled his nerves. “Is there anything else you wish to speak of?”
She stared at him for several heartbeats and despite the fact that her anger was palpable, he knew he had won. For himself at least. His future and where it needed to take him.
“This will not be the end of it.” She moved to brush past him, but he stopped her.
“As for me...”
She halted.
“I need you to know that I’m on your side.”
Another scoff.
“I’m on the side of this family. Our fortune. And all that you and my parents have done to build it up for generations. I mean only to carry on that legacy. To see it through to a good future.”
The powdery lines around her eyes tightened, but vulnerability tiptoed across the steely gaze.
“In order to do that, I must marry for love.” Whenever that might be.
“I must also make the business decisions that I can stand behind with a clear conscience. I don’t ask you to agree with that, but it must be said all the same.
” He took her cold, wrinkled hand in both of his.
“I hope to earn your faith again one day.”
Blinking away a glossy look, she turned aside and without another sound, left the room.
William waited, standing there as murmurs filtered through the dining room. The far door opened and then closed. In the distance, a horse and carriage clomped into motion.
The train whistle blew.
With a kindled resolve, William returned to the dining room and stopped in front of the fireplace.
There he pulled his aunt’s portrait from behind a padded chair.
Flipping the frame over, he broke the seal on the matting and hefted out the oil painting.
He gave the painting the dignity of a quick roll up before leaning the canvas in the corner.
From the mantel, he pulled down a paper-wrapped parcel and split it open.
A delicate sampler unfurled, one he’d purchased before it even reached the shop’s wall.
One of berries and brambles and hand-dyed threads.
A piece he’d worked hard to procure and that spoke more joy into his soul than any portrait of the old woman ever could.
This piece of art was stitched with care, and wise words whittled their way into the very core of his being as he laid it across the open frame.
The night is far spent,
the day is at hand:
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
and let us put on the armour of light.