‘I wouldn’t take your money if you offered it to me on a velvet pillow.’
He snatched the shipping share from the desk and shoved it in his pocket before turning a squinted eye to Laura. ‘Your father would turn in his grave if he knew his only daughter was now some moneylender’s wh—’
‘Out, now.’ Philip’s voice cracked over Mr Williams, stunning the importer silent.
‘Come on then.’ Mr Connor took Mr Williams by the arm and tugged him towards the door.
Mr Williams jerked free and left of his own accord, a trail of mumbled curses following him.
Philip rounded the desk and closed the door. ‘I apologise for what just happened.’
‘One would think I’d be used to bullying men after enduring my uncle.’ Laura opened her hand, her fingers tight from where she’d gripped the arm of the chair. ‘He used to fly into a rage whenever I questioned him about missing money or unpaid bills.’
She studied a deep scratch in the wood floor, following it from where it met the leg of Mr Williams’s chair to where it snaked under Philip’s desk. The pride she’d experienced when she’d spoken about her father’s shop faded like the scratch thinned beneath the desk.
She’d been a fool to think it would be so easy accepting a stranger as her husband. It had been even more simple-minded to imagine they’d touch a few times and it would be as if they were in love and well known to one another. That wasn’t how it would be at all. She was going to marry a stranger, live in a strange house and learn a business she wanted nothing to do with. Why? Because she was so desperate, she was willing to sell herself for safety, just as Mr Williams had been about to accuse her of doing before Philip had cut him off.
I’m not selling myself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, repeating the truth over and over. It still didn’t shift the weight sitting hard on her chest. I’m trying to make a secure life for me and my mother.
‘Laura?’ The sound of her name was soothing, like the sound of Thomas’s name on Philip’s lips last night. She opened her eyes, expecting to revel in the same softness, but Philip’s eyes were firm as he studied her.
‘In time, you’ll learn to disregard such people.’ He took up the stack of papers resting on the corner of the desk and shook them into a neat pile. ‘Men like Mr Williams often resort to personal attacks when questioned about their business or finances.’
‘I know. People who owed my father and couldn’t pay often reacted the same way when pressed.’ It wasn’t so very different and yet it was. They hadn’t looked down on her the way Mr Williams had just done. If they had done, her father would send them off and then remind her afterwards of her worth. What was her worth now? Certainly not what she’d once imagined, back when she’d dreamed of a loving husband standing with her behind the counter of their own shop, greeting clients together the way her parents had used to.
‘Many people come here when they’re desperate.’ Philip laid the papers back on the corner of the desk. ‘It affects their better sense.’
Laura wondered if she’d lost hers. Whatever comfort she’d taken in the clean clothes, comfortable bed and good food vanished. She eyed the neat stack of papers, wanting to knock it to the floor, scatter the sheets across the wood and cover the scratch. She’d been desperate enough to come here and turn over the only asset she still possessed to Philip, just as her uncle had been willing to relinquish the business, and Mr Williams the shipping shares. Unlike those men, Laura had been forced by others to part with what little she had left, just as she’d been forced to teach Uncle Robert the business when her father had brought him in, despite her and her mother’s protests. Then she’d been forced to watch while he’d taken everything away piece by awful piece. ‘I wish you hadn’t asked me to join you.’
‘I needed your assistance and experience. I knew the shipping shares were worthless. The company refuses to invest in steam engines which I and many others believe are the future, and their fleet is outdated. It was your expertise in cloth I needed.’
She sucked in a deep breath at the blunt statement, struggling to push back the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She straightened her spine and looked at him. If he could stand so impassively in front of her, she would do so, too, and not dissolve into some blubbering girl. ‘Surely there are other people you could have called on.’
‘There are, but I need to know if you can see through what a man says to find the truth of his situation, to gauge his suitability in case there comes a time when you must act alone.’ He pressed his fingers into the stack of papers, making them dip in the middle, something of unease in the simple motion. So he wasn’t infallible after all and he knew it. It was encouraging to know. It made him at last seem mortal, though no less irritating. ‘Your instincts proved correct, as I suspected they would.’
‘And what of my feelings?’ She swept the stack of papers off the desk, sending them fluttering to the floor, her anger fuelled as much by Mr Williams as all the frustrations and humiliations of the past year. ‘Did you ever take those into consideration, or how being bullied and brought low by a man like Mr Williams might hurt me?’
The papers settled over the floor like snow. Philip watched, emotionless, as a contract balanced on the edge of the seat cushion before sliding off to cover the scratch on the wood.
Outside, her mother and Jane passed by the window as they made their way inside.
Horror rushed in to blot out her anger. What had she done? This was Philip’s house, his business and she was here at his whim. His generosity could be withdrawn at any moment and she and her mother would be back in Seven Dials shivering and starving.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to act so childishly.’ She dropped to her knees and snatched up the papers. The edges flapped with her trembling hands as she tried to force them into a neat pile, but they wouldn’t cooperate. The more her hands shook, the more the helplessness widened to consume her. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise. I don’t know what came over me.’
He came around the desk and lowered himself on to one knee across from her. Taking the uneven stack out of her hands, he laid it on the floor beside him. Then he gently caught her chin with his fingers and tilted her face up to his. ‘Forgive me. I should have waited to introduce you to the business.’
Concern softened his blue eyes. He was sorry, genuinely so, with no trace of the false, self-serving contrition her uncle used to offer her father. The same faint bond which had slipped between them last night encircled them again. Philip cared for her and wanted her to be happy. The realisation drained the anger from her, but it couldn’t erase the hurt, worries, helplessness and humiliations she’d suffered so many times. They pressed down on her and not even Philip’s reassuring touch could drive them away.
‘I invited you here because you’re too strong to be bullied by such a man,’ Philip explained.
‘I wish I was.’ She rocked back on her heels and away from his fingers, then fled the room.
The hall and stairway blurred as her eyes filled with tears. They streaked steadily down her cheeks as she made for her mother’s room and pushed open the door without knocking. Thankfully, Jane wasn’t with her. Her mother looked up from the chair by the window, her smile vanishing at the sight of Laura’s expression. Without a word, she held out her arms and Laura flung herself into them, burying her face in her chest to cry.
* * *
