The expression of frustration and anger that flashed across Mrs. Heath’s face was so raw that for a moment Laurence almost pitied her.
“Fine,” the older woman said at last. “You shall be permitted into my home each quarter on this date and at no other time. Is that understood?”
So much for my invite to Christmas dinner with the family
. “As you wish,” Laurence said, bowing and turning away, desperate to be gone from this place and this woman.
* * * *
Under Laurence’s leadership, Heath & Heath’s reputation as one of the City’s best firms continued to grow. When the Earl of Bewleton went looking for a new solicitor, no one was surprised when he selected the firm.
“I want the best of everything,” the Earl had told Laurence. “To hell with the cost.”
“Of course, sir,” Laurence had said. “Heath & Heath is here to provide you with whatever you wish.” It was a promise that she would come to regret dearly.
Chapter Three
“Your signature goes right here, Lady Bewleton,” said Laurence, gesturing at the sheet of parchment that lay on the desk. The Earl of Bewleton was barely cold in his grave, and here was his widow doing what no woman should have to do to survive.
“Thank you, Mr. Heath,” she said. And with regret, Laurence watched as Catherine Corvedale, widow of the Earl of Bewleton, signed her name to the document. As hard as Laurence had tried, she had been unable to persuade the late earl to stop the ruinous spending that had bankrupted his family and was now forcing his widow to enter into an illicit liaison with the Marquess of Huntley.
The contract had been written by Huntley’s solicitor in a deliberately vague manner, stating only that the debts owed by the estate of Charles Corvedale would be forgiven in their entirety upon the “
satisfactory performance of certain personal services undertaken by Lady Bewleton at Lord Huntley’s direction over the seven-day period commencing 15 April
…”
Laurence was no fool, knowing what sort of arrangement with Lady Bewleton would inspire a man like Huntley to forgive such a staggering debt. But if Huntley had any skeletons in his closet, Laurence had been unable to find them, despite the best efforts of Mrs. Arundel. Laurence was privately heartsick at her failure to come up with a plan for saving the lovely countess from such a degrading fate.
“A most unorthodox arrangement, my lady,” Laurence said somberly.
“As experience has no doubt taught you, Mr. Heath, there are times in life when one must be flexible in resolving one’s problems,” Lady Bewleton said, handing Laurence the freshly signed document.
“Indeed, my lady. We all must be ready to make…adjustments when facing difficult circumstances,” Laurence replied, carefully dusting the contract with powder to set the ink before rolling up the sheets of paper.
* * * *
Laurence was startled from her gloomy reverie over Lady Bewleton’s situation by a knock on the door to her private office.
“Come in,” she called out. The door opened to reveal Matthew Hastings. “Good evening to you, Hastings. It’s nearly eight o’clock. What is keeping you here at such a late hour?”
“I was preparing to leave, and I saw your light was still burning. I wondered if you might wish to join me for a bite of supper,” Hastings said.
Still smarting from her lack of success that day, Laurence was in no mood to socialize. She opened her mouth to decline the invitation but was forestalled by Hastings’s next words.
“I was hoping to get your thoughts on a matter I am working on for Lord Worrell,” Hastings said, sounding almost apologetic. “It’s a bit sticky, and I think your perspective could be valuable.”
Under the guise of stacking the papers on her desk, Laurence surreptitiously slid the file marked
The Hon. Emmeline Winthrop
out of Hastings’s view.
“Delighted to help if I can, Hastings. Let me just wind up a few things here and we can be off. Shall we go to my club? They make the best roast in London. The wine isn’t bad either.”
By necessity, Laurence had no close friends, and Matthew Hastings proved to be a more interesting dinner companion than she had anticipated, particularly given that he was from Manchester, which tended to be a bit provincial compared to London. But Hastings possessed a lively intellect and wit and was easy to talk to. Truth be told, he wasn’t exactly difficult to look at either, what with his dark hair and blue eyes. He was downright handsome, in fact. And each time their eyes met, Laurence felt something. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but it was definitely something. Not that she cared about such things, of course. Her work had been and would always be the primary focus of her life.
“Be a good boy, Laurence, and your father will always love you…”
* * * *
She had been eight years old when she had first seen her father with his other family. Laurence and her mother, Nell, had been walking past the shops on Bond Street enjoying a warm autumn afternoon when she had spotted her father’s carriage in front of a shop on the next corner.
“Look, Mummy, it’s Father,” she had cried out excitedly.
“Laurence, no, you mustn’t—” her mother said, but it was too late, for Laurence had broken free from Nell’s grasp and was racing down the block toward Edward.
“Father, it’s me, Laurence,” she shouted. She was dressed in a sailor suit, and she waved her arms madly to catch his attention, her skinny legs pumping as fast as they could to carry her down the cobblestone walkway.
Drawing closer, she could see he was smiling at a little girl as she emerged from the carriage. The girl was just about Laurence’s age and dressed in a frothy pink dress with a giant bow holding back golden curls that streamed down her back.
When Edward looked up at last and saw Laurence dashing toward them, he froze, the look of dismay on his face so clear that it stopped her in her tracks. Their hazel eyes, so alike in shape and color, met briefly, and Laurence knew her father had recognized her. But instead of greeting her affectionately as he normally did, Edward looked away as if he had not seen her at all.
“Come along, Violet. I will buy you a sweet for being so good with your lessons,” Edward said loudly, taking the little girl by the hand and walking into the sweetshop without once looking back.
Laurence barely had a chance to register the sting of her father’s rejection when her arm was nearly yanked out of its socket from behind.
“What were you thinking to run away from me like that?” a breathless Nell said furiously, dragging a reluctant Laurence back down the street.
“It was Father, I saw him,” Laurence said, still not understanding why her father had not acknowledged her. “He saw me too, I know that he did. Who was that little girl he took in the sweetshop, Mummy?”
“I’ll explain when we get home, Laurence,” her mother promised with a sad look. “Come along now, and quit dragging your feet.”
Late that night, when Edward came to their house in Hans Town, Laurence heard her father shouting at her mother.
“Keep the little whelp away from my children, do you hear me, Nell, or I’ll make you sorry,” Edward said, his tone angrier than she’d ever heard before.
“I’m sorry, Eddie, the boy got excited about seeing you. It won’t happen again, I promise,” she heard her mother say tearfully.
”See that it doesn’t,” Edward said.
Laurence pulled the covers up over her head to drown out their words. She had upset her father and put her mother at risk. It wouldn’t happen again, she vowed.
* * * *
“I see I’ve bored you into oblivion by going on about the books I am reading.”
Laurence blinked and looked up to see Matthew Hastings staring at her most earnestly from across the table.
“Not at all, Hastings. A bit of woolgathering. My apologies for being rude. You were saying again?”
In the end, Laurence found it to be a most enjoyable evening, the conversation flowing as easily as the wine. They discussed current events, debated politics, and discovered a mutual disdain for snuff. Like Laurence, Hastings had been raised in a city, but had hopes of building a house in the countryside one day.
“Nothing huge, just a place where the air is clean and the boys can have some space to run about,” Hastings confided as they relaxed over glasses of brandy. “Although I suppose by the time I get around to actually doing it, they will be old enough to be giving me grandchildren.”
Laurence knew little about children but quite enjoyed seeing how animated Hastings became when talking about his sons.
“You have two boys, as I recall,” she said. She was just being polite, of course. She didn’t really care, did she? Surely not.
“My elder son Samuel is smart as a whip—takes after his mother, that’s for sure. Can be a bit too serious at times, so his brother is constantly needling him, but he is tops in his class at school. And nearly as tall as me these days,” Hastings said, his eyes shining with a mix of pride and laughter. “Lucas is the younger by two years and also growing like a weed. When he was just a tiny lad and would go missing, we’d always find him up in a tree or messing about where he shouldn’t be. He and his schoolmates claim to have invented a new type of football where they pick up the ball and run with it, if you can imagine that. He’s so mad for it that he can barely be persuaded to go to class these days. He’s a handful, that one.”
“He’s the one who takes after his father, then?” Heath asked, rather surprised at herself for posing such an impertinent question to someone who was nearly a stranger to her. Hastings did not take offense.
“There might be a bit of truth in that,” he said with a mischievous grin that lit up his blue eyes like sparklers, giving her the oddest fluttery feeling in her chest.
Get a grip on yourself, Laurence Heath, or this man is going to think you’re a total bufflehead.
Hastings did not inquire about her own lack of family. He, like all the other partners, no doubt believed Laurence was entirely devoted to his career with no room for an outside life. Not having a family had never much bothered her before, and it wasn’t as if she’d had any choice in the matter. The guiding decision of her life had been made by her mother when she was born.
All in all, things hadn’t turned out badly, had they? Thanks to her mother’s resourcefulness, Laurence led a very comfortable life doing meaningful work that she greatly enjoyed. She had never been the sort of person to waste time on regrets. So why were Matthew Hastings’s shiny blue eyes now causing her to reconsider things?
When the dishes had been cleared away, Laurence raised the matter that had brought them to dine together in the first place. “Say now, Hastings, wasn’t there some sort of legal tangle you wanted to discuss?”
“Indeed,” Hastings replied, launching into a detailed description of Lord Worrell’s woes. Laurence listened intently, offered a few comments here and there, and confirmed to Hastings that he was taking the correct approach in resolving the situation.
They finished their drinks and, as the evening was mild, walked the short distance back to Laurence’s townhouse.
“I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you allowing me to stay with you, Heath,” Hastings said. “It’s been a godsend given how busy I have been at the firm. I will do my best to try to find time this week to search for a new place.”
“No need, Hastings. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like,” Laurence said, realizing that she meant it. Sharing a glass of port in the evening or a meal at the breakfast table in the morning with another person made her feel…well, less alone.
Before his arrival she had not realized she felt this way. When he left, as he would eventually, would she be lonely? Perhaps the answer was to get a dog. She had never been overly fond of animals, but she knew people who were mad for their pets. Yes, a dog could be just the thing.
Or maybe Matthew Hastings might be persuaded to stay a while longer. That seemed the better option, actually.
“Stay as long as you like,” Laurence repeated, wanting Hastings to know she was sincere. “The house is absurdly large for one person. With you about, Martin and Mrs. Campbell can finally earn their keep.”
Hastings smiled. “You’re doing an outstanding job persuading me that my imposition on your household is serving the greater good.”
As they came inside the house, Laurence found she wasn’t quite ready for the evening to be over. “Shall we adjourn into the library for a nightcap?” she said as Martin relieved them of their coats.
“That sounds just the thing,” agreed Hastings.
“Bring us a bottle of port, Martin,” Laurence said to her manservant. “The DaSilva. It’s been quite a day.”
They settled companionably into chairs on either side of the fireplace and somewhere around the third glass of spirits found themselves engaged in passionate debate about contract law theory.
“Mansfield ruled in Carter that where the burden was on the insured to disclose a material fact, any concealment of that information voids the contract,” said Hastings, but Laurence gave no ground.
“You’ve totally missed the buttonhole on that point, Hastings. A concealment need not be active. When it arises because of a mistake, the contract could also be voided. Any other view is absurd,” she said.
Instead of responding with another verbal volley, he smiled, catching her entirely off guard. “You know what’s really absurd?”
She blinked. “Canning denouncing Brougham as a liar in Parliament?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Nay. The fact that you and I have spent the better part of an hour arguing about theories of contract law that most people outside our profession have no idea even exist and would have no clue to the purpose even if we explained it to them.”
She stared at him. He had such a lovely laugh. The sound of it rolled across her entire being, warming her and making her suddenly long for things that could never be. When was the last time she had laughed like this? She couldn’t remember. Maybe never.
When she didn’t respond right away to his quip, his smile faded and an abashed look crept into those vivid eyes. What shade of blue were his eyes, anyway? She couldn’t put her finger on it, but suddenly longed to fling herself into their depths nonetheless. She was becoming obsessed. She needed to calm herself.