Spending Christmas in Hell (Diamonds of London #8)

Chapter Three

What the deuce had just happened?

For a few seconds, Timothy stood in the narrow corridor with a smarting nose from where the door panel had slammed into that appendage. To say nothing of the complete rudeness of the woman within who’d unceremoniously tossed him out and didn’t give him the late rents.

As she stared with shock at the closed door, his mind whirled. What to do now?

The decision was made for him when he heard what sounded suspiciously like sobbing coming from inside the small and very modest townhouse. If Miss Athercrombe was truly either in peril or near scandal, she needed at the very least guidance. She also was owed a dressing down. It didn’t matter how horrible her life had turned; she had no call to treat a member of the ton like that.

With a huff of annoyance, he turned the knob and then pushed open the door. “I believe I said I wasn’t quite finished with our conversation,” he said as he burst into the front room that served as a drawing room.

Only to find it empty, but the sound of sobbing continued.

Not knowing what to expect, Timothy set his folio on a chair then he moved into the back room that apparently served as a small kitchen and dining room. A kettle was steaming on the stove like mad, but Miss Athercrombe sat on the floor crying, folded up as if she were an unwanted ragdoll.

Well, damn.

He moved over to the stove, relocated the kettle from the cooking rack on the fire to a nearby trivet waiting on the counter, then knelt at the young woman’s side. “Miss Athercrombe, are you quite well?”

When she raised her head and her gaze met his, the emerald green of her eyes took him by surprise. “What do you think? I can’t imagine you are that dense, even if you are English.”

Never had he met a woman with such a tart mouth or who possessed that delighted Irish brogue when under high emotion. Her penchant for plain speaking rather amused him, but he tamped the urge to grin. “Well, my ancestry aside, you are the one who is sobbing out her soul on the floor. What say we get you up and settled somewhere more appropriate?” As he spoke, he offered her a gloved hand.

For the space of a few heartbeats, she looked up at him. There was still annoyance in her eyes and expression, but at least the tears had stopped. “That might be best, even if I didn’t invite you in this second time.”

“Be that as it may, you and I hadn’t finished our previous conversation, and when I heard your distress—”

“—you burst in here without permission. Don’t you understand that women cry upon occasion?” Yet she slipped her fingers into his hand, and the second he lifted her upward, low-grade tingling heat danced up his arm to the elbow.

“I do, of course. However, hysterical sobbing after a counting house man shows up on your doorstep would indicate the presence of something much greater at play.” As soon as she’d gained her feet, he released her hand.

“Can you blame me?” Wiping away the moisture from her cheeks, Miss Athercrombe led him into the other room and gestured toward a sofa with a high wooden-backed frame. “Please sit.”

“Not until you do.” He might be here to collect rent, but there were niceties after all.

She blew out a breath. “Fine.” When she perched at the edge of the sofa that had no doubt been quite lovely and bright pink brocade at the height of its use but had faded over the years, she sighed. “What do you want?”

“The same thing I wanted ten minutes ago before you slammed the door in my face.” In fact, his nose still hurt. When she bristled, he held up a hand. “However, before we enter yet another pointless conversation, perhaps we should have a cup of tea.”

A bitter bark of laughter issued from her. “You can try. I only have enough tea leaves to make probably a cup.”

That shocked him, but he kept his expression blank as best he could. “Well, weak tea is better than no tea at all, wouldn’t you say?”

“You have a point.” Miss Athercrombe rose to her feet. “I’ll make two cups. Meanwhile, make yourself as comfortable as you can. The house isn’t much.”

Before he could stop her, she’d already moved into the other room. With nothing else to do, Timothy wandered about the room.

Besides the sofa, there were a couple of winged back chairs, as worn and loved as the sofa, a low table in the middle of the grouping, and a couple of small round tables. One near a chair contained a pipe as well as a square porcelain box no doubt filled with tobacco. A matching container of matches waited nearby with a thin layer of dust on all the flat surfaces. A crocheted blanket, tidily folded, lay on the chair.

Obviously, there wasn’t a maid either in residence or in Miss Athercrombe’s employ.

Mauve brocade drapes hung at the front window that overlooked the street. A couple of oil paintings of country vistas hung in wooden frames on the opposite wall. On the shall mantel over the fireplace was a single candle holder of tarnished brass where a candle guttered. A matching candle much in the same state shed anemic light from a small round table on the opposite side of the sofa. As he moved about the small space, he noted the thin Aubusson carpet that had probably been pretty in its prime.

When he spied a willow basket full of balls of colored wool along with a color of knitting needles and a length of handiwork tucked neatly away beneath that small table, he frowned. Clearly, someone was talented in that quarter, but other housekeeping skills had slipped.

“I hope you weren’t hoping for cream or even sugar, since I don’t have either.”

He turned at the sound of her voice and watched as she brought a tray into the room. When she set it on the low table, he frowned, for the tray contained two cups and a tea pot only. “Ah, then you are in the habit of taking tea straight?” In a bid to appear more comfortable and help her relax, he removed his greatcoat. After he draped it over the back of one of the chairs, he took off his top hat as well as his gloves and carefully deposited them onto the chair as well.

“Not at all.” A faint blush stained her cheeks while she sat on the sofa and then poured out a cup. “I simply don’t have the coin to buy the extras.” If there was embarrassment in the admission, she certainly didn’t show it.

That raw pride had his respect for her going up. “I see.” Then he sat on the other chair, the one nearest to her location. “How long have you lived here with your father?”

Her hand holding a teacup shook ever so slightly as she offered it to him. When her fingers brushed his, another tingle of heat went up his arm. Had she felt it too? Yet nothing in her expression indicated that. “About ten years. We moved here when I turned nineteen. It was around the time my father was quite a popular merchant and had many connections within the ton . That same year, he made a point to have me launched into society.”

“Ah.” Timothy sipped his tea. Yes, it was on the weak side but not off-putting. The warmth of the liquid slid down his throat in a rather pleasant way. “Your father’s name is familiar to me.”

She snorted. “It should be. He sold clocks as well as pocket watches to members of the beau monde for years.”

“Right.” Slowly, he nodded. “My grandfather as well as my father patronized his shop for a long time, yet not at this location.”

“When we first arrived in London, he didn’t have much coin, so we made do with a tiny shop in the Covent Garden area.” Her chin wobbled and a trace of tears reached her eyes. “My father was a hard worker. He believed that eventually those efforts would be rewarded, and he always maintained that there were far more opportunities to improve life in London than there were in County Cork, Ireland.”

The lilt in her voice had a way of setting him at ease and wrapping around him like a magical mist. He roved his gaze over her face, nearly tumbled into the emerald pools of her eyes, noted the blush in her cheeks was no doubt due to grief and anger over embarrassment. The dress she wore was a few years out of fashion. A bit of mud and muck decorated the hem as well as clung to the soles of her worn leather half-boots. Where had she been before arriving home? Regardless, she was attractive in an understated way, but if she were given a maid and fashionable clothing, she would cause men to stare.

“What happened to your mother?” If it was too bold a question, he couldn’t help it.

After a large sip of tea, she frowned. “Mama died of pneumonia a few years after we came to London. Papa was consumed by grief, so he threw himself into his work even more heavily.” She wiped at a tear on her cheek. “I’m afraid I didn’t have enough time with her.”

No one ever does with loved ones. “Leaving you with tutors?”

“Yes, and two years after that, I came to work with him in the shop a few days a week after lessons. I helped fulfil orders, package them up, take in broken clocks and watches.” She shrugged and looked at a point over his left shoulder. “It allowed me to stay close to him, keep an eye on him.”

How interesting. “Then eventually, you moved here.”

“He wanted a future for me that was beyond what I could have in Ireland, beyond what might be afforded me as an immigrant.”

“Yet by that time, you’d been here ten years.”

A bitter snort escaped her. “That doesn’t seem to matter to some people in society. They look at me, hear me speak, and immediately judge me by the same stick they do with any Irish person.” She took another sip of tea. “I have enough stubbornness and brash disrespect to either ignore them or lash out with my tongue.”

“I believe it, after how you treated me upon our first meeting.” One corner of his mouth quirked with the beginnings of a grin. After draining his cup, he placed the porcelain onto the tray. “Don’t put too much stock on the opinions of the ton . They’ll gossip about anyone and will eventually turn on their own when there is no other news.”

“So I have witnessed.” She tucked a lock of dark brown hair behind her ear when it escaped its pins. That lock had a decided tendency to curl, and he almost wished he could touch it, encourage it around his finger to see if it would coil. “In any event, the more popular my father’s work became, the more connections he made. He was given access to events and parties, and that mean I did too.” Inappropriate interest shivered down his shaft. Why the devil was he having such a reaction to a woman he knew not at all?

“He hoped you would make an advantageous match.” It wasn’t a question, for any parent would want the same for their daughter.

Miss Athercrombe nodded. “He’d promised my mother that I would marry well.”

“Except… you haven’t.” It was obvious since she was still here and apparently barely surviving.

“Of course not.” The waspish tone had returned. “For years my father was inundated with his work. I couldn’t leave him to his own devices if I were to have accepted the couple of offers given to me.”

“You sacrificed yourself for him?”

“He was all I had left, Sir Timothy. Wouldn’t you?”

“At the altar of my own survival? I rather think not.” One couldn’t help others if their own situation was crumbling.

“Because you are the most selfish prick I have ever met.” When he didn’t answer, Miss Athercrombe put her cup on the tray and then glared at him. “Which is why you’re here collecting when you already know it is a difficult time of year.”

“Your father shouldn’t have left things so poorly after his demise.”

She blew out a breath. “What does that have to do with rent on the building?”

“The owner of the building sold to one of our investors. That man, in turn, sold to my counting house, which means the rent is now due to us.” Not that he needed to explain anything to her. Financials were not a woman’s problem. “Additionally, your father came to us two years ago for a small loan. We incorporated that into the cost of the rent, and both are in arrears.” Silence met the announcement. “How did things come to this pass? If your father was so dedicated to his business, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have left you well off.”

Again, her chin trembled. I’m sure that is what he thought he would do, but it didn’t work out that way.”

“Meaning?” The longer he sat here in her drawing room, the more sympathy he had for her, and that wouldn’t bode well for his ability to collect.

“My dear father was a respected gentleman; everyone liked him and held him in high esteem, but the Year Without a Summer had a horrid effect on his business. When his clients experienced a dip in their income, they weren’t buying new clocks or watches, and seldom did they have the broken ones repaired.”

“Ah, so his own income dried up.” That was an angle that hadn’t occurred to him before. Even if that had occurred over two years before, the ramifications were ongoing.

“Essentially.” Miss Athercrombe nodded. “About a year before he died, Papa was tricked into losing all his coin by a highborn lord at a gaming hell.” Her voice caught. “Apparently, he was frightened that he would go bankrupt and leave me nothing, so he gambled…”

“Thinking it would win it all back and then some,” Timothy softly finished for her.

“Yes. In any event, the Earl of Holcomb willingly and quite heartlessly left my father a pauper at the table that night. When Papa came home, he was a changed man, a broken man. I fully believe that turn of bad luck ushered in my father’s weakened health.” When she looked at him, tears had gathered in her eyes. “He lived six months after that time, turned into a frail shell of himself who lost all interest in his work, in me, in everything.”

“Until he died of a broken heart.” Annoyance stabbed hotly through his chest, for he knew the Earl of Holcomb, and occasionally he attended the same club as the man. Hell, he’d even sat at the same gaming tables as the man and had laughed when the earl’s good luck had rubbed off on him. Heated shame followed on the heels of annoyance, for he had known better, had known what sort of man Holcomb truly was, yet he’d enjoyed rubbing elbows with men higher on the social ladder. “I’m sorry.”

“Since he died, I have been trying to make ends meet. However, some days I struggle with guilt and sadness, especially during this time of year. Papa adored Christmastide…” For a few moments, she grappled with reining in her emotions. “I have my charity to fill my time.”

“Which is what?”

“Bringing day old bread to needy families in the Dials. I also knit blankets for babies and small children. I don’t like thinking of them being cold in the nights.”

He frowned. That explained the handicraft basket. “Where does the money come from to buy bread and wool for knitting?”

A blush filled her cheeks. “I use my monthly allowance.”

“That your father left?”

“Yes.”

“The coin you should spend on coal to heat this house, food to eat for yourself, tea, and at the very least the luxury of sugar to put in that tea?” With every word, the more appalled Timothy grew. This way no way for anyone to live.

“Unless you believe I’ve suddenly had a magical tree sprout in the garden that grows coin, then yes. I do what I can with what I have.”

“Except you’re clearly starving yourself!” Agitated, he launched himself out of the chair in favor of pacing about the front room with its shabby furnishings and worn textiles. Why did how she lived her life bother him so much?

“It’s better to take care of others ahead of myself,” she said in a haughty voice. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that since I rather doubt you have ever put anyone above you.”

Perhaps that was true to an extent, for he couldn’t imagine going hungry to feed anyone else. “If you don’t eat, you will eventually slip away, Miss Athercrombe. Then who will you help? Is that what you believe your father wanted for you?”

Tears sparkled in her emerald eyes. “My father is dead. He put me into these dire straits. The point of what he wanted is rather moot now.”

Damn, but that moisture made her spectacular eyes luminous and even more stunning. When his gaze happened to drop to her trembling, dark pink lips, his chest tightened, and his shaft twitched with interest. With a stern warning to himself, Timothy shoved the reaction away. “None of that matters. Your rent is due, madam.”

“I see.” Miss Athercrombe rose to her feet. She crossed her arms beneath her bosom, which thrust those modest charms closer to the plain bodice of her even plainer dress. “Then you will prove cold-hearted at this time of year and demand that I squeeze blood from a stone?” When he glared, silent, she tapped the toe of one foot against the floor as if aggravated. “If so, you’ll wait a long time because I have nothing. Not even the stone.”

“Then I’m afraid I’ll need to foreclose on the townhouse.”

“What?”

He nodded even if the decision felt as if it would split him apart. This was all she had. Yet he had a responsibility to his investors, to his partner, to the people they employed at the counting house. And that weighed heavily on his shoulders. “Failure to pay your rent—and according to my ledgers that rent has only partially been paid since your father died—warrants a foreclosure. If that happens, I will demand the sale of your father’s shop.”

“Get out!” She pointed to the door. “I refuse to continue this conversation.”

“You can deny it all you want, Miss Athercrombe, but that won’t change the reality. You are behind on your rent for more months than you probably wish to remember. Partial payments aren’t the same thing, and doing charitable work with the rest won’t endear you to my counting house.”

“It was in good faith.”

“And so will be my letting you remain here until year’s end.” As she moved toward the chair and reached for his greatcoat, she gasped.

“You will throw me into the gutter?”

“Not unless you don’t pay the rent.”

“I have no money.”

“Pawn some of your father’s possessions. If you prove bullish about that, then yes, your arse will be out in the cold.” With savage movements, he shoved his arms into the sleeves of his greatcoat.

“I haven’t been in that shop since Papa died. And yes, I know I’ll need to sell some of his things, but I am not certain I’m strong enough for that just now.” A half-strangled sob came from her. “It will break my heart to lose the thing he loved most in this world.”

“Yet he didn’t feel the same way about you, for he was irresponsible enough to gamble away the coin that was supposed to see to your future.” That was unacceptable. “A man who can’t care for the people closest to him—”

“Papa wasn’t a bad man! He was coerced at that gaming table!”

There was no doubt that he was, and if he—Timothy—ever came across the earl in question, there would be more than words exchanged. “He shouldn’t have been there at all, and hell, you should have accepted one of the suitors your mentioned, for then we both wouldn’t be here at an impossible juncture.” Why the devil did he care so much about this woman’s future? She was no one to him.

Some of the color leeched from her face. “Both of those men weren’t what I…” She cleared her throat. “Weren’t what I imagined a husband to be like.”

And that meant what, exactly?

“What… Uh, what would you take in lieu of payment, Sir Timothy?”

“I beg your pardon?” Surely, she couldn’t be attempting to proposition him. He reached for his top hat even as his chest tightened again.

“You could, um, have whatever you want from my father’s shop or…” Her swallow was audible. “If you demand that I use my body to pay the rent, I suppose I would have no choice.”

Bloody hell.

“You are insane, Miss Athercrombe.” He jammed his top hat atop his head. And he rather doubted she’d ever been bedded, not that he would accept her offer.

When he retrieved his gloves and started toward the back room to find his ledger, she followed on his heels. “Do you not find me attractive? I’m certain I could hold your attention for at least two couplings. And it wouldn’t be a hardship, for you are a handsome man.”

“Stop!” He turned about so quickly that she crashed into him. To steady her, Timothy rested a hand on her shoulder while he held tight to his gloves with the other. “You would sell your body merely to pay your father’s debts? Beyond that, don’t you care about your reputation? Truly, do you wish to bring scandal to your name when that is the only thing you have left? The legacy from your father?”

The tears in her eyes spilled onto her cheeks. She peered up at him with moisture-spiked eyes. “What else can I do? I have no other avenues available to me.”

“Sell your father’s shop. The proceeds after you are taxed will allow you to remain here for a few years.” Unless she stupidly continued to fritter away her funding on other people throughout London. He believed in helping the less fortunate, but not at the expense of her own health.

“It’s all I have left of him. I need more time…”

“I’m afraid you are all out of that. Don’t be desperate. It’s unbecoming.” The blasted woman was so close, the faint scent of roses wafted to his nose, but not the usual kind. The scent was more wild, a bit sweeter, tinged with what he thought summer smelled like.

It suited her.

“You’ve not lost someone close to you, have you, Sir Timothy?” When he remained silent, she rushed on, a mess of tears and a runny nose, which prompted him to give over his handkerchief. “If you had, you would know the grief is overwhelming at times, and when it’s not, there is emptiness left behind, a loneliness.” As she mopped her face, Miss Athercrombe shook her head. “I have lost everyone in my life and am about to lose everything I have ever had around me. So you tell me why I shouldn’t make a last second suggestion out of desperation.”

Devil take it. Why did she have to mention loneliness and desperation?

“It is bad enough facing Christmastide without anyone in my life, but to do so on the street because you are such a skin flint that you value coin above everything else? Which is the worse crime?”

For long moments he regarded her with thoughts warring through his head and conflicting emotions doing the same in his chest. Finally, everything came together, and he was shocked with what he was about to say.

“There is another option.”

“What?”

“Marry me.” Dear God, he’d gone mad and had apparently, he’d lost his grip on reality.

Shock reflected in her eyes and expression, the same emotion that tightened his chest. “You can’t be serious.”

“I can understand why you might think that. Marry me, and I will call the rent paid until we can get the townhouse sold as well as your father’s shop. Obviously, once we’re wed, you won’t need to worry about the rent.”

And he’d have a wife, a companion to stave off his own loneliness, a person that would distract him from being lost in his own thoughts.

Damn the consequences.