All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy) - By Maureen Lang Page 0,65

before this, hadn’t he? Well, perhaps happy wasn’t the right word. Certainly content. At least he hadn’t been unhappy living withdrawn from the world, detached and dispassionate. It was a life he’d been resigned to ever since the day he left Chicago. It was there he’d realized the choices he’d made before had allowed business success but destroyed any hope of success in personal matters.

When Tobias rapped on the door as he opened it, Henry was relieved at the interruption.

For the first ten minutes as Tobias went over various reports he’d brought with him, Henry kept his mind where it ought to have been all morning. No more visions of Dessa Caldwell—or worse, Turk Foster calling on Dessa Caldwell. Perhaps he would have a productive day after all.

When Tobias rose from his chair to leave, he shifted his paperwork from both hands to one, then put his free hand into his pocket.

“Henry,” he said, as if unsure of his next words. He pulled something from that pocket—a familiar handkerchief, although it was an odd shade for anyone’s taste, a lackluster beige. Henry had seen that particular slip of material before, when Tobias had stuffed it into one of the drawers of his desk. An odd handkerchief, indeed, that he seemed strangely protective of. “I wonder if I could have a word with you.”

Henry looked up at him, not annoyed but not interested, either. “I thought that was what we’ve been doing?”

Tobias shook his head. “No, this is rather more personal than business. It’s just . . . I’m not sure how to approach the subject, or if it’s my place to do so.”

Henry folded his arms over his chest. “Neither of us has time to stutter and stumble through some awkward uncle-to-nephew conversation. Why don’t you go back to your own office, and once you’ve figured out what you want to say—and if you still want to say it—come back and have done with it.”

Tobias opened his mouth, once again tugged on the material from his pocket, only to return it to where it had been. Then he shook his head, turned, and walked to the door. “No.”

“No?”

He turned back at the door. “I haven’t any peace about it just yet. Perhaps the subject is unnecessary, after all. Good day, Henry.”

Henry glanced at the clock on his wall. “Good day? Are you leaving, Tobias? The day’s barely begun.”

But Tobias didn’t answer; he walked from the office, not bothering to close the door on his way out.

Henry watched his uncle as long as he could, but Tobias disappeared once he rounded Mr. Sprott’s desk.

Henry scowled as he tried shifting his attention back to his work. He knew exactly what Tobias wanted to talk to him about. They may have settled into a bank-president-and-manager relationship over the years, but the fact remained that Tobias was the only relative Henry still had any contact with. As Henry’s uncle, perhaps he felt it his duty to speak up about Henry’s choice to live the life of a social recluse. Heaven knew he’d tried many times to draw Henry out. Those dinner parties he held to impress investors hadn’t been Henry’s idea.

And now Tobias probably suspected Henry’s growing, unwieldy infatuation with Dessa Caldwell. Tobias had already tried nurturing it, and he’d no doubt push them right down the aisle if he could. Why not? Wasn’t his nephew like every other healthy young man, wanting home, hearth, and family?

And Henry did. Oh, how he did. He wasn’t foolish enough to forget the fact that he was getting older. If he didn’t marry soon, obtaining a wife and having children would become more a burden to them than a blessing. What wife wanted an old husband? Worse, what child wanted a father who more resembled a grandfather? Henry knew what it was like to lose a father; it wasn’t something he wished upon his own children.

There was only one question that trumped all of those. What wife, what child, wanted a man who might very well be destined for financial and social ruin?

Unfortunately for Henry, even the most somber answer did not keep him from devising possible reasons to see Miss Caldwell—even without Uncle Tobias’s interference.

20

DESSA HAD WORRIED that having a man sit at their breakfast, lunch, and dinner table would invade the privacy and female camaraderie she was trying so hard to build between herself and her two new boarders. But Fergal Dunne was more like an eccentric old uncle than an interloper—and he never ate

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