“Wha…?” She spluttered at the sheer absurdity of the demand. “Collateral?”
“Something wrong with your ears, girl? That’s what I said.”
“But you know very well I haven’t anything—”
“You’ve friends,” he hinted slyly. “Wealthy ones.”
The dread turned to anger. The man, she thought, was an abomination. “If I were comfortable asking the Coles for a loan,” she informed him coldly. “I wouldn’t be having this exchange with you.”
“Your comfort is immaterial.”
“It’s becoming clear that this entire conversation is immaterial,” she returned. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“I’ll not. Sit down, girl.” When she hesitated he slammed his drink to the table, splashing the liquid. “I said sit!”
She sat down, a lifetime of fear easily brushing aside pride.
“I need a minute to think this through,” he muttered. “Can’t be rash.”
To her great surprise and dismay, he levered himself out of his chair and began a lumbering pace behind the desk. She watched, disgusted, and just a little bit awed, as he heaved his mass slowly from one side of the room to the other in a display of physical exertion she hadn’t thought him capable of in years. The floor creaked and moaned beneath him, rivulets of sweat tracked down his face to pool in his cravat, and in between his heavy puffs of breath, he muttered to himself in fits and starts.
“Didn’t see it before…Legal contract…Specific dates…In de pen dent of the will.” He paused momentarily to pour himself another drink before resuming his walk. “Chit’ll be trouble…This way’s better…He’ll handle her.”
As he continued his one-sided rant, Mirabelle began to wonder if he’d forgotten she was there, or just didn’t care.
He hadn’t forgotten. He ended his pacing with another finger jab in her direction. “I’ll take your offer, but you’ll have Thurston’s coffers to back your word.”
“He won’t agree to it.” And she’d be damned if she would ask him.
“You’ll see that he does. And I want four thousand.”
“Four thousand what?” she asked, baffled. Perhaps the man had lost his mind at some point, and she simply hadn’t noticed.
“Pounds, you stupid chit. What else?”
“Pounds! You want four thousand pounds?” She gaped at him. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Does it look to you as if I’m playing, girl?”
It looked, she thought with a small bubble of hysterical laughter caught in her throat, as if he were on the verge of exploding. But knowing she could never be so lucky, she forced herself to speak in calm and reasonable tones. “Four thousand pounds is too large a sum. If—”
“You’ll pay it all the same.”
She shook her head. She’d rather all five thousand go to the ridiculous charity. “It would make more sense for me to wait out the will.”
“Then you can wait it out in St. Brigit’s.”
“I beg your pardon?” She couldn’t possibly have heard him threaten to send her to the asylum.
“I see I have your attention now,” he jeered.
“You can’t do that,” she forced out in a horrified whisper. “You won’t do that.”
“Can and will. Have that contract to me in a fortnight or you’ll spend the remainder of your years in a cage.”
“You would’ve put me there before this if you’d thought it worth your while. The expense alone—”
“Will take a pretty penny of the funds the will allows me, it’s true, but I’ll part with it you may be sure. Don’t believe me? Here.” He rooted through the desk. “Here. Deal’s all but done. I’ll not be gainsaid, girl.”
He held out a letter she didn’t recognize from the night she and Whit had been in the study. The letterhead read St. Brigit’s Asylum for the Infirm. And the contents—what little she could make out around her blurring vision—detailed the acceptance of one Miss Mirabelle Browning as a future occupant.
“But…I only just came to you. I…”
“Doesn’t follow I couldn’t have thought of it first, does it?”
She shook her head slowly. “No…No, this is wrong.”
Her mind whirled with a disorienting mixture of fear and anger and panic, but beneath it all was the notion that it was all somehow wrong. It didn’t make sense. Why was he so determined to have Whit’s cooperation? Why spend the money for sending her away when it cost him nothing to risk taking her word? Why would he already have the paper from St. Brigit’s?
Because he’d been planning to send her there long before today, she realized, and remembered what Mr. Hartsinger had said.
We’ll see each other again.
But why? An asylum cost a good deal of money. Why would he want to part with that money now when the terms of the will were…?
The terms of the will. He’d broken the terms of the will. Fear and panic were instantly drowned in a wave of blinding fury.
“There is no money, is there?” she breathed. Slowly, seeing red, she rose from the chair. “The dowry is gone. You’ve already spent it.”