Chapter 23

The end must justifie the means;

He only sins who ill intends.

—Matthew Prior, Hans Carvel (1718)

"Miss Ellsworth?"

A great deal of staring and stammering and stumbling ensued, in which every person present save Edmund and the coachman participated, and during which it would be hard to determine who was more astonished.

At last, however, the Wolfes and Ellsworths clambered from the coach to be introduced to Mr. Clayton by a blushing Beatrice, the other gentlemen whom Edmund had mistaken for footpads hanging back to await the end of the interruption.

"Wolfe," repeated Clayton. "So you are the Colin Wolfe of Winchester who invested in a hundred shares? I did not at the time know your connection to Miss Ellsworth, but I assumed there must be one. The name Tyrone Ellsworth was plain to me, but can anyone identify a Mr. Weeks?"

"He's Aggie's father," said Beatrice quickly. "And—Aggie or Tyrone must have said something to him, for, of course, I am not in Winchester, and even if I had been, I remembered you asking me not to press my family—"

"Indeed, sir," Mrs. Wolfe interposed, seeing her stepdaughter's confusion, "if you preferred to avoid Wintonian investors, you would have done better to place the interdict upon Tyrone, for it was he who whipped up such zeal for your project among our family members."

"Are you really breaking ground for your canal?" blurted Willsie. "May we see?"

Clayton smiled at the youth's eagerness. "We are and you may. It's purely ceremonial, however, so you will likely be disappointed. A mere gathering of a few bigwigs to watch me turn over a spade of soil."

"May we, Mr. Wolfe?" demanded William, even as he and Edmund began backing toward the so-called bigwigs. And as soon as Mr. Wolfe gave his nod, they turned and dashed away.

Gesturing for the others to join him, Clayton followed the boys at a more dignified pace. "Have you been long in London?"

He flushed as soon as the words left his lips, for of course the Wolfes must have come to meet Rotherwood. He did not imagine they would withhold their blessing either, and then how long would it be before Miss Ellsworth became Mrs. Rotherwood? However the Wolfes answered him Clayton was hardly aware, but he said, "Well, whether you came this way to investigate the route or by sheer serendipity, it gratifies me exceedingly to meet you and to have you witness this first step."

A red ribbon enclosed a plot of overgrown ground marked off by stakes. Around the perimeter stood several men whom Clayton introduced as the Lord Stanley, a Mr. Alan Braham, and sundry Parliamentary and city dignitaries, the last of whom exclaimed, "Is this your pretty Miss Brand, Clayton? Miss Brand, I congratulate you. It happens I attend St. Anne's, and I heard the first reading of the banns last Sunday."

"This is not Miss Brand, Mr. Hogwood," Clayton replied instantly. "Allow me to introduce Miss Ellsworth and her family…" His back was to Beatrice, or he would have seen the color flood her face, only to drain away with alarming rapidity. And though Mrs. Wolfe was behind her daughter, she made haste to release her husband's arm, that she might put a hand to Beatrice to steady her.

The first reading of the banns! Mr. Clayton and Miss Brand had finally set a date then! And three weeks hence they would be married. And why should they not? There was no longer any need to wait, now that he had cut the Gordian knot preventing the commencement of his work.

In a daze, she managed to smile feebly at the abashed Mr. Hogwood and to murmur something—who knew what—before retreating to stand on the other side of her brothers. Looping an arm through Willsie's drew a glance from him, but he was too excited to question her, much less throw her off, and she drew comfort from his puppy-like warmth and effervescence. William would have to enjoy the ceremony enough for the both of them, for Beatrice heard not a word.

Clayton was scarcely better, though he mechanically read the speech he had written on a card and mechanically shook hands all around afterward and mechanically answered questions put to him. Then it was over, and all the important men were climbing back in their carriages, not unhappy to escape the damp fog, and he finally dared to glance at her.

She had mastered herself enough by then to meet this look, and she came forward with her hand held out. "Mr. Clayton, I congratulate you. Not only on raising your funds, but also on your impending nuptials."

Through their gloves and the numbness caused by the cold, he felt no more the touch and weight of her fingers than he would have the brush of butterfly wings, and he had to resist the urge to clutch at them. "Thank you, Miss Ellsworth. Yes. I do believe Priscilla intends on inviting you and the Huftons to the wedding breakfast. She and Miss Croy make the arrangements."

A tremulous smile met this, and from the corner of his eye, Clayton saw Mrs. Wolfe whisper something in her husband's ear. A suggestion that they, too, depart and seek warmth, most certainly, but Clayton could not bear yet to see them go—to see her go. If the next time he saw her would be at his own wedding—if she herself were not gone by then on her own wedding journey—he could not let this chance to speak slip away.

"Would you like to see the planned route?" he asked suddenly, addressing the boys in particular. "I showed it to the others before you arrived. It's a little over a half-mile in length, but we needn't go the entire way."

This suggestion met with delight from William and Edmund and was approved by Mrs. Wolfe after Beatrice gave her the hint of a nod. Yes, please. For she shared Clayton's thought. This might be the very last time they met as friends, the very last stolen moment for conversation. She could not resist its pull, even if it hurt her.

Beatrice took William's arm for the walk, but he was constantly dropping her to investigate something Clayton pointed out or to imitate his stepbrother Edmund, who had found a stick to whip through the grasses.

"You had better take my arm, Miss Ellsworth," Clayton said at last. "There's no ditch to tumble into as yet, but some of the ground is uneven. I wouldn't have you twist your ankle, or how would you dance at the next ball?"

Her heart beating faster, she wordlessly took hold of him, and each felt the bittersweet joy of being so near the other. But soon Beatrice began to fear she would have to content herself with his nearness alone, for of course he must describe what they were seeing, and of course her stepfather and Willsie had questions he must answer. Even Mr. Clayton's native kindness worked against her, for when Edmund made one of his monosyllabic utterances, what must Mr. Clayton do but draw him out, coaxing from him a rare sentence?

It was not until they could see the Jew's Harp House and Tea Gardens in the distance across the fields that they turned back and the group naturally began to travel at different paces, the boys rushing ahead to leap and scramble, while Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe strolled unhurriedly behind.

Only then did Beatrice take her courage in her hands and say, "Mr. Clayton, I hope you believed me when I said I did not encourage my brother to purchase shares, even though I wanted to, because you asked me to refrain. But it didn't matter in the end because it was your own merits—that is, your merits and the merits of the project—which carried the day with him."

He was silent a moment but then answered in a low voice, "Miss Ellsworth, if you think I can be so ungrateful to you or to Providence as to complain of my good fortune—No. It was my pride which asked you to forbear. My pride and my unwillingness to…impose upon the friendship you Ellsworths so kindly offered in Bognor."

"Offered!" scoffed Beatrice unhappily. "Sir, you know better than anyone what we owed to you—"

"I am not saying I did not do you a service," he rejoined, "though I thanked God then, and continue to thank Him now, that I was at hand that day—but you and the Tyrone Ellsworths gave me more than your gratitude in return. As I once alluded to—I hope I do not overstep by confessing—I have always been alone, in a way. Without family and, once Donald Brand died, without companionship. I had my work, but I could not say I had ever before experienced the—joy of having friends. That brief time in Bognor—and the memory of it—changed everything." His throat closed on these last words. He would have confessed that it—that she—had changed the whole course of his life, only the groove of that life—his outward life, at least—was so deeply scored by that point that there was no escaping.

Nor was an immediate reply possible for Beatrice. The wistfulness of his words, the loneliness of them pained her. Though Beatrice could not have Mr. Clayton for her own, she nevertheless would always have as a source of comfort her vast, enveloping, merry, loving family. But he—?

He would have Miss Brand. But was Miss Brand not a companion to him?

Something shifted in Beatrice's heart, and she thought, So this is what love is. For Mr. Clayton's sake, I would have him love Miss Brand and love her dearly, and she him, so that he would never feel alone again.

Having to release him from her heart and her wishes, even in the privacy of her own mind, caused a pang as if she were uprooting something within, inch by inch, but she struggled against it to muster a reply. "Mr. Clayton, we too have…treasured the memory of that time." Heat washed over her for what felt like the baldness of her declaration. The transparency of it. But this would be the last time.

She went on. "If you had not already guessed from Tyrone and Aggie's keenness to support your efforts—and—my own avidity, you may…rely always upon the firmness of our friendship. We—we—we wish you every success in your work and every joy in your union with Miss Brand."

"Thank you." His voice was barely audible. Clayton knew he ought to return in kind her generous sentiments. He ought to wish her prosperity and wedded bliss with Rotherwood, but he could not. For the life of him, he could not.

"In terms of the money, I find myself steering a course between the frying pan and the fire," he said, his gazed fixed ahead on where Edmund and William were now bowling clumps of sod to imaginary batters. "That is, I must accept both your family's contributions and Rotherwood's to make up the required sum, though doing so might wreck me."

Her step hitching momentarily, she regarded him in puzzlement. "Mr. Clayton, we have already settled the matter of my family choosing to purchase shares, and I daresay you will survive a little friendship being mixed with business, but what earthly problem can you have with Mr. Rotherwood's money? Heaven knows he has enough of it and likely forgot all about sending it to Mr. Braham the moment it left his hands."

Clayton winced at this reminder of the man's riches. "Yes. Perhaps neither the amount nor the gesture itself caused him any inconvenience…" He trailed off, perceiving the dangerous verge he approached.

"But it is harder to receive sometimes, than to give?" she prompted. When she saw his jaw tighten, she gave his forearm the merest pressure. "I understand that. Gratitude can be a ticklish thing." Trying to make him smile she added, "I would have been very sorry if it had been Bonaparte, say, who rescued me from drowning that day in Bognor, but it has been a pleasure to be beholden to you, Mr. Clayton. So if Mr. Rotherwood chose to invest in your enterprise after I—told him of it, if you don't like being grateful to him, cannot you skip right over him and be grateful to me? Then I would have repaid you, in a manner of speaking, and we might be quits!" She delivered this with a delighted laugh, only to break off with some embarrassment when he did not join her.

"Miss Ellsworth. I am grateful to you—again, for applying to Rotherwood. That is, I honor your intention, even if—"

"Even if…?" She waited, but when he did not resume, she said with her heart in her throat, "Even if you did not approve of my methods?" Was that what he had been on the point of saying? Had he somehow learned of her writing to Mr. Rotherwood? When he did not answer, Beatrice felt panic flutter in her. They were nearly back to the starting point of their walk, and anything which must be said must be said now.

"Sir, do you refer to me writing to Mr. Rotherwood?" she blurted. "Because I confess I did do that. There wasn't time to discuss it all with him at Almack's, and he told me I might—write to him—so I did. I was determined not to lose the opportunity out of fear of offending the proprieties."

"Of course, if you are engaged, there is no impropriety to speak of." His dark eyes met hers and held, and Beatrice prayed he could not feel her pulse hammering through the fabric of her glove and his sleeve. On the pretense of adjusting that glove, she dropped his arm.

"There is no engagement," she answered, her chin lifting though her voice was not quite steady.

"You are not engaged to Mr. Rotherwood?"

She wanted to say, Of course not! Why would I be engaged to him? All female London pursues him! You must think very highly of me, sir. But, as Lady Hufton and Marjorie had observed, her action in writing to Mr. Rotherwood implied that very conclusion.

"I am not," she said therefore, inspecting the cuff of her wool redingote. When he said nothing, she threw him an almost defiant glance. "I suppose you disapprove of my writing to him, as the Huftons do."

His lips parted and then shut again, and Beatrice felt indignation sweep her. After all this, after all his talk of supposed friendship, was he just another Marjorie Hufton? Believing the worst of her and condemning her actions from the heights of his own supposed faultlessness? This was ingratitude! Her normally mild eyes sparking, her strides grew quicker, so that he was forced to increase his own pace. "I do not ordinarily do such things, sir," she hissed. "Write to young men, I mean. And if I did so in this instance—which I do not deny—it was for your benefit! Not that I try to place any blame on you for my—misconduct—but I do deplore your—your—" (She could not think which word to hurl at him, needing one which encompassed "your ability to think poorly of me when I love you with my whole heart, you horrible man.") "Is this why you don't want his money?" she demanded. "You think it's—sullied—by the manner in which it came to you?"

"Beatrice."

"Throw it back at him, then! Though I daresay he won't even recall having sent it. And you may go whistle for my help in the future."

He threw up his palms. "I will take the money. I have taken the money. Braham's already tossed it in the bucket with all the rest so that we might begin to engage laborers. I only wanted to know the circumstances by which it came to me."

"And now you do."

"Wait a moment, Miss Ellsworth." His hand reached for her, falling again to his side when she halted. "I have been very clumsy about this. Unforgivably clumsy. Let me say again that I appreciate the efforts you have made. I did not, by questioning their…manner, mean to detract from that. Only, let me say one final thing—as your friend."

The anger which had lit her eyes faded, to be replaced by wariness. She gave one nod.

"Did you…write to Rotherwood in the hopes of engaging yourself to him?"

"Are you asking if I hoped to entrap him?" Beatrice gaped. "Entrap him by any means fair or foul?"

He shook his head. "I do not judge your means. If anything I judge him, for misleading you if he has no intention of—of—"

Of doing what I would give anything to do.

He swallowed. "Please. Only do me the courtesy of answering the question. Do you have such hopes?"

A rueful smile curved her lips, and the look she bestowed on him was almost pitying. Ah, how blind he was. Though she should thank God for that blindness. For there was only one man she loved in all the world, and he was the one man she could never tell.

She said only: "No, Mr. Clayton. I have no such hopes."

And then she turned to join her brothers.