“But why? You can’t be—” She tried again. “Evan, you don’t seem to have those kind of feelings for me.”
“I’m very fond of you, Kate. We have interests in common, and we get on well. If I didn’t think we could make a happy life together, I would never suggest it.”
“But there’s something else,” she intuited. “Some other reason you’re proposing now.”
“I won’t insult you with a denial.” He leaned toward her. “Kate, I’ve told you there would be an inheritance.”
She nodded.
“But I haven’t told you the precise size of that inheritance.”
“Well, what size is it?” She scanned his worried expression. “Precisely?”
He looked her in the eye. “You’ll have everything, Kate. Everything. I’ll keep Rook’s Fell—the one entailed property that comes with the marquessate. Aside from that, the entire Gramercy family fortune is yours. Eight properties. Several hundred thousand pounds.”
Kate gripped the edge of the seat. “But . . . I don’t want all that. What would I even do with such wealth? A fortune like that is a full-time occupation, and you’re the one who has always managed everything.” She blinked hard. “What of Harry’s income? Lark’s dowry? Aunt Marmoset’s living?”
“All yours as well. I set the money aside in trusts, but they’ll no longer be valid. Legally, the money was never mine to give away.”
“Oh dear. Oh, Evan.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So now you understand, this is the quandary that’s kept me up nights.”
“Seething,” she whispered.
“Yes, seething.” He lowered his hand and gave her a bittersweet smile. “I will no longer make pretensions otherwise. I have been exceedingly worried over the future of the family. Not for myself, but for my siblings. The Gramercys have always been a queer lot, but we’ve been wealthy enough that we’re forgiven our eccentricities.”
“And that won’t be the case anymore.”
Kate was no solicitor, but she understood Evan’s dilemma. If she married Thorne, the entire fortune would be out of Gramercy hands. Evan would have no means to protect and support his family. They would all be her dependents—or if she married him, Thorne’s.
That would be an awkward situation.
“If I’d only known about you,” he said, staring out the window. “We had other properties from my mother’s side. Foreign land holdings, mostly. In India, the West Indies. But then Bennett went to view them, and he came back . . . changed. I sold all the land at a loss years ago, wanting nothing more to do with plantations or slaving. The land here in England was more than enough, I thought.”
“You thought right,” Kate said. “You did right. And you needn’t fear. I won’t abandon you. We’ll find some way. Can’t I just refuse the inheritance, or give it all back?”
He smiled. “It’s not that easy, I’m afraid.”
“What if I went away?” This might be the answer to both their problems. She could go to America with Thorne, and Evan would remain the head of the family. “I could leave the country. Or stay here in Spindle Cove. No one needs to know I exist.”
“I will know you exist. We all know, and it wouldn’t be right. Kate, I want to secure my siblings’ future, but I refuse to destroy our souls in the process. We can’t simply deny your existence. To do so would be to deny your parents’ love for each other, to deny their love for you. You can’t want that.”
No. She supposed she didn’t.
“We wouldn’t want that, either,” Evan went on. “And what’s more, Kate, the solicitors know about you. Legal proceedings have been set in motion. If you were to disappear now . . . we’d have to wait seven years with everything tied up in court, and then petition to have you declared dead.” He made a grimace. “So please don’t think of it.”
“But it’s just so unfair,” she said. “You’ve been so generous and welcoming to me, and now you must pay this terrible price.”
“You are the one who has suffered unjustly,” he argued. “Never think otherwise.”
“Did you know all along? Even when you first came to find me, did you know that I could be taking the entire fortune?”
He nodded. “I suspected.”
“But you came to find me anyway. With no hesitation.”
“Yes, of course.” His intelligent brow lifted. “Family above everything. That’s the Gramercy way.”
He was so very decent and good, and under different circumstances, she should have been overjoyed to marry a man like him. But she was in love with Samuel. She was committed to Samuel. She’d been intimate with Samuel. There was no way she could marry Evan now.