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‘Firstly, I want to know how much, exactly, you stood to inherit from your grandfather. Since you accused me of wishing to marry you so that I could get my hands on it.’
‘I was very wrong to think that,’ she said. ‘I know now you wouldn’t have done anything so underhand. It isn’t you.’
‘How much, Prudence?’ He planted his hands on his hips and glowered down at her.
She supposed it didn’t matter now. ‘It was ten thousand pounds.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Per year?’
‘No. Ten thousand pounds total. In trust.’
He gave a bark of bitter laughter. ‘I could drop that amount in one session at White’s and not turn a hair. Haven’t you taken a good look at this house? Don’t you realise it’s only one of my smaller properties? So far from London or any of the race courses that I chose it only as a rendezvous for settling up with Hugo? And you heard what Lady Mixby said about me letting her run tame here. What kind of man can afford a profligate widgeon like her for a pensioner, do you suppose?’
She swallowed. It had been bad enough to learn of the discrepancy in their rank. But now...
‘My main seat is in Sussex,’ he continued. ‘It is one of the largest houses in the country. I employ hundreds of servants in my houses, and untold numbers in my factories, mines and farms.’
A cold hollowness opened up inside her. He was that rich? So rich that her ten thousand pounds was like a drop in an ocean? Oh, to think she’d accused him of wanting to gain control of her money. What had seemed like a fortune to a girl born into an army family, then brought up amongst the middle classes, turned out to be small change in the world Gregory inhabited.
So why had he been so determined to stick to a betrothal she’d instigated when she couldn’t even bring what he’d think of as wealth to the union ?
Why, precisely for the reasons he’d given. Because he’d wanted to restore her damaged reputation. And to be in a strong position to bring her guardians to justice. And get her money back for her.
All very fine, honourable motives. None of which would have been of any benefit to him.
And she’d flung it all back in his face.
No wonder he’d looked at her with such coldness. No wonder he’d stalked away and turned his back on her. She couldn’t have offered him a worse insult if she’d been trying.
‘So that’s that point dealt with,’ he said. ‘Secondly, let us discuss your attitude to the wager I had with Hugo. I saw your face when he said one of the conditions was that I was not supposed to pawn anything. What do you suspect me of there?’
She sighed. He was determined to make her eat her words. Even the ones she’d only thought.
‘I felt like an idiot for not understanding why you’d been so reluctant to pawn your watch. I thought at the time that it was because it had some sentimental value to you, but now I can see that it meant you losing the wager.’
‘I concede,’ he said, ‘that I was smarting over having to sink to the depths of visiting a pawn shop. But I told you later, didn’t I, that I regretted not doing all in my power to bring you here safely? You must know by now that your welfare had become more important than winning a wager that I’d agreed to in a fit of...of temporary insanity?’
She recalled his horror when he’d seen the state of her feet. His words of contrition.
‘I know you were sorry you’d let me walk all day with no stockings on,’ she conceded, ‘once you saw my blisters. But I can’t help wondering if you agreed to my suggestion to leave the horse where it was because you were still trying to delay meeting up with Hugo until the agreed time.’
‘It was not a deliberate delaying tactic,’ he said, coming to stand over her. ‘And you know how much I detested that horse. I was downright glad at the prospect of never having to set eyes on it again.’
She didn’t like the way he was towering over her.
‘You let me sing in the market square,’ she pointed out, surging to her feet so she wouldn’t feel quite so far beneath him. ‘I was accosted by those drunken fops...’
‘I didn’t let you sing in the market square. I couldn’t stop you. You even stole my hat to collect the takings.’
They were standing toe to toe now, just the way they had stood when they’d been arguing at the foot of the market cross.
‘And don’t forget,’ he said, pointing his finger at her, ‘that this morning I climbed the wall of my own property so you wouldn’t have to walk all the way round to the front gate. Is that the act of a man who is trying to delay his return?’
