She smiled. ‘Very well, of course — and thank you.’
As she kicked Lady to a canter she didn’t notice the sudden, almost imperceptible tightening of the lips, or the cold ice-blue quality of his stare. Blue — yes, but remote and chilling as the shadows of snow peaks in brilliant sunshine.
He wanted her; to have her under his control as neatly scheduled as the butterflies, pinned in his special collection under glass. A proud young madam, he thought, but he’d have and tame her.
That same evening he surprised his father by announcing calmly, ‘The girl you had here — Miss Fairley—’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to marry her.’
‘You — what?’ Like a bullet from a gun the last word shattered the air.
‘I want her for my wife.’
‘Then you can damn well want,’ Jonathan said roughly. ‘When you take a wife it’ll be someone of class, and with a good dowry. I’m having no cheeky little nobody in the Bradley family. It wasn’t for that you went to Public School and Oxford, so just get that idea out of your head once and for all, lad. It won’t be long before the right girl appears, to eat out of your hand when she knows how lucky she is.’
‘This one will,’ Arthur stated calmly, ‘and she’s the one I want.’
Eventually Bradley was forced to the conclusion that his heir — a stubborn and odd character, if ever there was one — really meant it.
Well if that was the case, he could do worse, he supposed. He didn’t need a woman with cash, and marrying Emma might solve a number of problems.
So the matter was left in abeyance, and as it happened something occurred the following week which tragically solved everything.
Mary Williams, The Velvet Glove
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