Stepping forward, his heart clubbed the base of his throat. The words were out before he could stop them. “You might as well rip up the will now. The answer is no.”
CHAPTER 6
The repulsion in his words cut through Georgina. She took one step back, as if she’d been slapped, and worked to keep the tears from springing to her lashes. What had she walked into?
The room was tiny, stifling, with the door already clicking shut behind her. She told herself to run. The last thing in the world she had strength for was to be trapped this close to him—the object of so many of her dreams, now flesh and bone, staring at her as if she was despicable.
“Do have a seat, Miss Whitmore.”
She glanced at the empty leather chair before the desk, anywhere so she would not have to look at his face—but she did not move. She could not move.
“Well.” Sir Walter rose from behind his desk. “As both of you are averse to sitting, I believe I will stand too. Shall we begin?”
Neither answered.
Her heart hammered so fast in her ears that the roar of it drowned out the man’s voice. Something about finding his spectacles. The vices of disorganization. Giving and bequeathing and monies to the steward and relicts to the clergyman and shillings to the destitute mud-lark boy and—
“Spare us the specifics.” Simon’s words rattled the room, even in quietness.
Sir Walter lowered the will, forehead marked with lines. “After your brother’s death, not many years after your own departure, your father altered his will.”
“Go on.”
“He did not know if you would ever return, even in the event of his death. Nevertheless, it was his greatest wish that you, his only living heir, should inherit Sowerby House.”
“And the stipulation?”
“From the time of his death, he has allotted exactly twelve months. If you have not returned to claim your inheritance by then, and if you have not fulfilled the specifications of the will, then the entire inheritance will go to your mother, in her own power. She may do with any property and monies as she so chooses.”
“And the specifications?”
The same dread in Simon’s tone coiled around her chest, as Sir Walter walked around the edge of the desk. He cast the will atop scattered letters and papers. “You are to marry Miss Georgina Whitmore, as was arranged before.”
Her heart dropped. Despite every pleading not to, she lifted her face to look at him.
He stood erect and tall in a green tailcoat with silver buttons. His cheeks were shaven. Every line of his face was visible—the curve of his tense jaw, the faint dimple in his right cheek, the heated blaze of fury on his sun-weathered complexion.
Without looking at her, he nodded. “I am sorry to have taken up your time unnecessarily.” He started for the door—
“I would not make your decision so hastily, Mr. Fancourt.”
“There is nothing to decide.”
“You realize, of course, that without the benefits of this inheritance, you will be penniless.”
Silence.
“And your mother has already made arrangements to sell Sowerby House, in the event you did not arrive or cooperate.”
More silence.
Georgina glanced back at Simon, as he creaked open the door without exiting, the weight of the words slumping his broad shoulders.
Sir Walter rubbed his palms together, as if washing his hands of an unpleasant matter. “Whatever the case, you only have two months left. Then I fear, Sowerby House is lost to you forever. I only pray your father never hears of this tragedy in his grave.”
Simon departed the office without response, and Georgina pressed her hand to a chest that thumped hard and out of control. She had lost twelve years of her life and most of her heart to the man who just fled this room.
Now she had lost more to him.
