It was, perhaps, the first honest thing they’d said to each other since his arrival. He said it with such bitterness in his tone that he almost broke her heart. She could feel his pain like a sharp knife, could feel her own remorse at a decision made long ago. The years of their separation had cut them both equally.
He folded his arms and frowned into the distance.
“I didn’t care,” he said eventually. “I didn’t care if my parents disowned me. I didn’t care if I had nothing. I only ever cared about you.”
“That was always the problem.” Ginny shook her head slowly. “I did care. I wasn’t going to marry a poor man. Especially not one who had no trade.” The weight of that worry had nearly suffocated her back then. “Only the wealthy have the luxury to claim they care nothing for money. You’ve never been poor. You don’t know what poverty would mean.”
He straightened and jerked away from her. He didn’t meet her eyes; he just started to button up his jacket once more. Maybe it was her imagination that his cuff links—were those really gold?—glinted at her.
“Well,” he finally said, when he had restored himself to proper order. “I’m not poor any longer.” And with a final challenging look, he held out his arm to her.
Ginny hesitated. So many years. So much pain they’d caused each other. A fortune or two couldn’t paper over all of that. But when he gestured, she went to him and took his arm.
SIMON’S MAN WAS WAITING in the inn’s common room. Andrew Fortas had not ordered so much as a glass of beer; he looked uncomfortably out of place, sitting ramrod-straight in the rustic wooden chairs and gawking about, as if he’d never been anywhere so backward as Chester-on-Woolsey. He had a stack of papers with him, tied up in blue cotton tape. They were turned facedown on the counter. His fingers played a silent rhythm on the arm of his chair.
Simon came and sat in the wooden stool next to him. “I came here regularly as a child, you know, and nobody ever tried to kill me.”
“Yes.” Fortas glanced briefly at him. “I do know that.”
Of course the man knew. He knew everything; it was his job. Still, he looked as he always did anytime they had to venture out of the metropolis. London born and bred, Fortas always peered about the smaller towns in distrust, as if he suspected the residents secretly indulged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. Fortas was even more awkward than Simon was, and that was saying a great deal.
Simon sighed. “So, those shares.” No point in beating about the bush. “Ridgeway’s got them, then?”
Fortas simply steepled his fingers. “Some of them, certainly.” He glanced suspiciously about again, as if Ridgeway—the owner of most of Prince’s Canal—might have spies even in this inn. But there was nobody in earshot; the innkeeper stood on the other side of the room, wiping glasses down with a clean towel.
Simon met the proprietor’s eye across the room and held up two fingers.
Fortas waited until the man drew the beer, and then stared in his unnerving way, challenging the fellow as he crossed the room. He did not speak until the man had moved away. Then, and only then, did he turn over the papers he had brought with him.
“This details the disposition of the shares of the Long Northern Railway.” His meticulous handwriting covered the page in crisp, clear columns.
“Two thousand shares issued.” Fortas tapped one column. “Of those, you retained four hundred and ten, and have repurchased five hundred and seven, making your ownership in the company slightly more than forty-six percent.”
“I know my own shares,” Simon said mildly.
Fortas ignored this. “As you suspected, Ridgeway has been quietly buying the remainder. His solicitor was in the company office yesterday, just after you left, perfecting the transfer of nine hundred shares to his name.”
Simon had prayed it wasn’t so bad. He’d feared it was worse. He took a swallow of tepid beer. It wasn’t nearly strong enough to wash away the thought of what Ridgeway would do, if he got a clear majority. “Nine hundred. Good God.”
“That leaves one hundred eighty-three shares outstanding. Of the shares that I have not yet accounted for, there are Calloway’s original seventy-five.”
Simon nodded. “You bought them. Tell me you bought them.”
“He, ah...” There was a long pause. Fortas sighed. “He rejected our offer.”
“Did he, then. Did you offer more?”
“Couldn’t. Don’t look at me like that—I really couldn’t. You’ve already extended yourself to the very edge of solvency. I offered all that I could. Ridgeway offered more, and Calloway sold to him. The sale’s not recorded yet, but it’s a matter of time.”
“Damn him. That puts him what, twenty-something shares from control of the company?”