Heiress in Red Silk (Duke's Heiress #2) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,5

yet—it all depended on the purpose of the home, didn’t it?

If she intended to be a milliner, a modest abode would do. However, if she intended to—

She hesitated giving the dream words. She always feared that hoping too much would destroy the hope itself. Yet if she were going to consider this other step, she needed to face why. Her heart stretched with ache and yearning while she forced herself to do just that.

The question was, if she were wealthy, if she lived in a fine house and wore fine garments, if she were more than a servant or a milliner, would she then be good enough for Charles to marry her?

She closed her eyes while she thought of his name and saw him clearly in her mind, so handsome and fine, with a smile that made her heart beat faster from the first day she saw it. The memory of his face had been preserved carefully over the last five years. True love preserved it, and faith and loyalty. Such a love deserved to have a life if it could, didn’t it? A future? Even his parents might accept her if she was rich, and Charles—he had never forsaken her of his own choice. He’d been forced, and sent away, just as she had been forced from the Copleys’ house.

She relived the last kiss he had given her before the carriage took him to the coast. She had crept back to the house and waited in the street’s shadows to watch him go. He’d seen her, and walked straight to her, ignoring the glares of his parents and the command of his new tutor. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her fully, and promised they would be together some day.

She was not a dreamer by nature. She knew better than to depend on that day arriving. After all, he was the son of a gentleman and she was the daughter of a tenant farmer in Oxfordshire. Such matches were not made. With her situation she had little time to think of it even if she wanted to. Yet she continued loving him and secretly hoping against all reason. And dreaming.

Now, with this legacy, there was a chance to make the dream real.

Her thoughts ran. The first items on a list came fast, then she cast a more serious mind on some others. Would this work? Should she risk it? Like those bulbs out the window, her dream sent up shoots that wanted to grow tall and flower.

A scratch on the door interrupted her. She bid the person enter, and Minerva opened the door with the maid next to her.

“I see you are awake. Mary here has brought up water and will help you to dress.”

“It be late, I suppose. Past time to start me day. I have some places I want to go this afternoon.”

Minerva entered and closed the door behind her, shutting out the maid. “I need to tell you something. Your business partner is below, waiting to meet you.”

Business partner? Oh, yes. “The other Mr. Radnor, you mean. Kenneth.”

“Kevin. As I told you, he is my husband’s cousin.”

“Then I must see him, so your husband is not insulted.”

“You should see him because you are tied together in that enterprise, not because of my husband.”

She hadn’t understood anything about that business when nice Mr. Sanders explained it. Not that she’d listened much. She was still so stunned regarding the money she’d inherited. Nor did she want to meet this other Mr. Radnor yet. Not today. She wanted to go walk the streets around this house, looking for shops and homes to let. She wanted to imagine herself riding along in a carriage with Charles . . .

“I will dress and be down soon.”

* * *

Kevin paced the library for half an hour, then chose a book from a shelf and threw himself onto the divan. He read a while, then realized he did not remember one word his eyes had scanned. He threw the book aside, rested his head against the cushion, and closed his eyes.

This was hell. He had learned how to talk business with men. He had even adopted the bonhomie that industrialists used with one another, even though it did not come naturally to him. But a woman? Not for the first time since his uncle the duke had died, he wondered if the man had gone a little mad at the end.

The old sense of betrayal began to well up inside him,