The Wedding of Molly O'Flaherty (2 page)

“Everything is more or less in order, Miss O’Flaherty,” my attorney said. “We only wanted to clarify a few more things before we arranged for your signatures.”

We sat in my office, myself and three of my lawyers, piles of onionskin paper stacked between us. I set down the pen I’d just taken up with a sigh. “What is it?” I asked.

They glanced at each other. Aaron Caldwell, my lead attorney, seemed to be the one silently nominated to explain. He looked down at the papers as we spoke, shuffling through a few of them. “We took the liberty of investigating Mr. Calvert’s holdings. Which is very standard, of course, in such a union as yours, where both parties are bringing considerable wealth to the marriage.”

I rolled my hand through the air. “Yes, Mr. Caldwell, I know.”

Get to your point
, I wanted to scream but didn’t. This day was awful enough without me alienating the few people left on my side.

“Well, Miss O’Flaherty, the thing is…Mr. Calvert
isn’t
bringing considerable wealth to your marriage.”

I froze. “Excuse me?”

“The Beaumont viscounty is quite depleted, both in land and in liquid assets, mainly due to some bad investments made by the Viscount’s late father. Mr. Calvert is actually in a very threadbare financial state.”

“How could that be?” I sputtered. I’d never seen Hugh lacking for money,
ever
, not when we were in Europe and not here in England. He’d always worn the most fashionable clothes and stayed in the most fashionable hotels, and never had he indicated that it was difficult for him to do so.

“Apparently, he has been sustained by loans from a relative.” Mr. Caldwell took a breath as the other lawyers shifted in their seats. “And we feel that you should know that the relative is Frederick Cunningham.”

It was as if the sound left the room, the sound and all the air and all the light, and for a moment there was nothing but a dull ringing and the knowledge that I’d been duped. Led. Manipulated.

Thoroughly and utterly fooled.

Mr. Caldwell kept talking. “It appears that Mr. Cunningham is a first cousin to Mr. Calvert, on his mother’s side. The age difference and Mr. Cunningham’s lack of title have meant that the two have never associated openly in the same social circles, but regardless, it’s been Mr. Cunningham keeping Mr. Calvert’s lifestyle in the manner in which he seems to have been accustomed.”

“No wonder Cunningham was so insistent that I marry Hugh,” I said, mostly to myself. Hugh had arrived only a couple of weeks before the board had laid down their edict, and at the time, I found his presence a happy coincidence. He kept me company, went to parties with me, played the part of a concerned friend, and now it was all too clear that he’d been courting me, hoping I’d choose him. And when that didn’t happen on its own, Cunningham stepped in and forced the choice upon me.

I turned to my lawyers, all of whom I trusted and all of whom had been indispensable through this crisis. “Does this change anything about my position in the company?” I asked bluntly. “Does this mean I can avoid marrying?”

“There is a clear conflict of interest here, but again, since the board would be acting purely of their own free will if they sold their shares—something they all have the freedom to do if they choose—there’s nothing legally reproachable here. Ethically, yes. But in a court of law…we would not be able to make a case.”

I stared down at my hands. “So the fact that this marriage directly benefits a member of the board is inconsequential?”

Their silence was sufficient.

I picked up my pen and unstoppered my inkwell. “Then I suppose I’m just as trapped as before.”

“With all due respect,” Mr. Caldwell said, “you still have the choice not to marry.”

“And then lose my company?”

“In a legal sense, you are already losing it.” Mr. Caldwell placed a large hand over the contract, preventing me from sliding it over to my side of the desk. “Please, Miss O’Flaherty. I’m saying this as an acquaintance who has the greatest respect and affection for you. There is so little to be gained from this match—there is a very real chance that you will be separated from your company and will not have any recourse anyway. Would it be so unthinkable to let the board sell their shares?”

“It would ruin the company,” I said flatly, pulling at the contract.

He let go, but his voice and posture remained impassioned. “And what then? With your land investments and other assets, we could make sure that you were comfortable the rest of your days, and then you would be free to marry whom you wanted.”

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Caldwell,” I said, irritated. Not irritated with him or his well-meant advice, but with everything else. This situation. This business climate. This country. “But this company is
mine
. My father and I built it from nothing after we lost everything, and I will do whatever I have to do in order to keep it alive. Understood?”

I signed the contract, my signature dark and savage on the paper.

A knock at the door prevented the lawyers from answering. I rubbed my forehead. It was barely noon, and between Hugh and the contract, I was feeling quite done with the day. An unexpected visitor did not bode well.

My butler came to the office door. “A Miss van der Sant, madam.”

My eyebrows raised. Birgit van der Sant was the adolescent daughter of Martjin van der Sant, a man that O’Flaherty Shipping was in negotiations to partner with for business. She’d also caught the eye of the predatory Frederick Cunningham, who had a known proclivity for virgins.

Known by me, at least.

I shivered and pushed away the dark memories.

“Let her in, Mason,” I told my butler. “Show her into the parlor, and I’ll be in shortly.”

Birgit sat on my sofa, her gloved hands twisting in her lap. When I entered the parlor, she looked up, her young face caught in an expression of vulnerable hope…which vanished after a few seconds, replaced by a calm facade of polite impassivity. I thought of her father—a stern older man with a reputation for rigid Teutonic morality—and decided she probably often had to hide her most vulnerable feelings, her most tumultuous ones. Martjin van der Sant did not seem like the kind of father who would indulge in displays of emotion.

She stood as I walked to her, and we clasped hands and exchanged kisses.

“Miss van der Sant,” I said, sitting and indicating she should do the same. “I’m quite pleased to see you, although I confess I’m a little surprised. How can I help you today?”

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth for an instant before releasing it, a childhood habit superseded by conscious control of her mannerisms, girlhood being subsumed by adulthood. For some reason, that made my heart squeeze, in nostalgia and regret all at the same time.

“You remember, the day before last, when you said to tell you if Mr. Cunningham asked to speak with me alone?”

My chest squeezed again, with anger this time. I kept my voice even as I answered. “Yes, I remember.”

“Yesterday evening he invited Father and me over for supper at his house. We went…and after the meal, when the ladies were retiring to the parlor, he caught me in the hallway.”

I tamped down the urge to fly out of my seat and start throwing things, but the strain showed in my voice when I asked, “Did he touch you?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, Miss O’Flaherty. I kept myself a respectable distance away from him at all times.”

“I hate that you feel it’s your job to maintain that respectful distance,” I said. “Please continue.”

She looked down at her gloves, her cheeks blushing a sweet shade of red. Shame colored her words when she spoke again. “He said that he enjoyed my company very much and wanted to see more of me while I stayed here in London. I said something about how Father and I would be happy to accept any invitations he might offer, but then he interrupted and said, ‘I think you understand that I am not talking about your father.’

“I felt sick with his words, because I knew then that you had been right. I made my excuses and left, and then I found Father and told him I was ill and that I needed to return to the hotel.” She took a deep breath, and I breathed my own quiet sigh of relief. She’d kept her wits about her and escaped unscathed. Thank God.

I put my hand over hers. “You did the right thing, Miss van der Sant. And you also did the right thing coming to me. I’ll make sure Cunningham can’t bother you again.”

“Excuse me, Miss O’Flaherty, but I’m not finished,” Birgit said in a soft voice. “Because he found me this morning. Father had meetings early, and so I took breakfast with my hired chaperone in the hotel dining room. She saw acquaintances across the room and went over to say hello…and once she did, Mr. Cunningham sat down at my table.” Her chin trembled. “He said he’d been waiting for me.”

I peered into her soft gray eyes, mosaics of fear and shame and the hidden iron kernel of strength every teenage girl carries with her. “What did he say to you, Birgit?”

The use of her Christian name seemed to comfort her a little. “He said that he wanted…
me
.” The shakiness with which she pronounced
me
made it very clear that she understood Cunningham’s meaning. “And he said that he was going to have me. And that if I tried to stop him, he would tell my father I’d been behaving loosely in London with several young men, and he would see to it that not only would I lose Father’s love, but that I would lose any chance of making a good match.” She swallowed.

“Mother Mary,” I whispered. I had thought there was no level of depravity that Cunningham could sink to that would surprise me…but here I was, surprised. I shouldn’t have been—with both Birgit and me, he had used our love of our fathers as leverage.

“He named a time and a place. I—” She broke off, fumbling in her small lace bag, fishing out a card with an address scrawled on the back. I recognized that address: The Hedgehog, his gentlemen’s club. I took the card and studied it, and then she admitted in a quiet voice. “I managed to escape my chaperone and come here to you.”

“It’s going to be okay,” I assured her. “We will make sure that you stay safe.”

A shine of tears in her eyes. “But I couldn’t help it. I agreed to meet him.”

“Oh, Birgit,” I said.

“How can I say
no
, Miss O’Flaherty? When if I don’t do as he asks, he will tell all those terrible lies to Father?”

Even though I already suspected the answer, I had to be sure. “And would your father believe him? Over your own word and what he knows to be true of your character?”

“Father is a good man,” she said slowly. “And he loves me. But like many good men, he is quick to believe the worst about others.”

We sat for a few moments without speaking, her words lingering in the air as I turned the card over in my fingers, the card stock scratching gently at my skin. I wanted to tell Birgit that she must not go, under any circumstances. That whatever else she had to endure, however hard it was to prove her innocence to her father, that everything would be so much better if she refused Mr. Cunningham outright. That even if she didn’t have the belief and trust of those around her, she could still cling to the certainty that she’d done nothing wrong. Because that was the genius of Cunningham’s manipulations—he made you feel complicit in his depravity. It didn’t matter how cerebrally and intellectually I knew that I had been just a girl, that I had been innocent, that the way he’d forced my body to respond did not negate the horror of what he’d done. Because as soon as I would repeat those thoughts to myself, as soon as I would comfort myself with the knowledge that he was the monster and that nothing I’d done made him any less so, then I would move on with my day and my thoughts would gradually drift to other matters, and soon enough, those ugly whispers in my mind would resurface again. It was an un-winnable battle.

I wanted to spare Birgit that.

But I couldn’t ignore the very real threat Cunningham had laid before her. His actions would have real consequences, consequences that could ruin Birgit’s life. And even if, miraculously, her Puritanical father believed her over the word of another businessman, Cunningham could still undermine her chances for a good marriage.

“We must tell your father about this plot, you and me together,” I said. “Before anything else transpires. We have Cunningham’s card, and I will tell your father my own story. That should be enough to cast doubt on his character.”

Birgit was already shaking her head. “He will dismiss it as a story. My father
is
a good man, Miss O’Flaherty, but when it comes to matters of the carnal…” She paused and blushed at the word
carnal
. There was no way I was allowing her to endure Cunningham’s touch. It had nearly broken me—as sensual and sturdy as my soul was. It would shred this delicate flower. She forced herself onward. “When it comes to those matters, Father can be quite…traditional. He feels that women are the weaker sex on many levels, especially when it comes to things like lying. And he abhors deceit.”

“So he would not consider this sufficient proof of wrongdoing on Cunningham’s part?” I held up the card. “He would assume you were lying simply because you are female and because he cannot imagine a fellow businessman capable of such horror?”

She nodded. “He couldn’t imagine it…unless there was strong proof.”

I handed her the card back, things finally fitting together for me. There was a reason I had run O’Flaherty Shipping successfully for this many years. I was talented at thinking outside the box, and I wasn’t afraid to be ruthless. “Then we force your father to confront the strongest proof we can offer.”

“But…” Her gray eyes swept up to mine, searching. “Even if we were somehow able to contrive such proof, Cunningham’s behavior would enrage Father. And even if you were involved in bringing the truth to light, he would still associate the moral taint with you. He would refuse to negotiate with your business any further. You can’t make such a sacrifice, not when it involves your company.”

I had been about to speak, but I stopped before the words came out. I had not thought of that particular consequence, and it was a serious one. O’Flaherty Shipping needed van der Sant and his ships, much more than he needed ours. Without this partnership, we would encounter a shrinking customer base and an ever faster-shrinking profit margin.

But perhaps O’Flaherty Shipping could manage. My father and I had run this business the way we felt was fair and just—with decent wages and honest practices, and I would not sabotage that principle now, especially not when an innocent girl was at risk. And there was the not-insignificant fact that I would be doing incredible injury to Cunningham’s reputation. That was perhaps enough salve to soothe whatever loss my company took as a result.

I put a hand on Birgit’s shoulder. “If it protects you from that man, then it is truly no sacrifice. Give me this afternoon to plan and consult with some allies, and by tonight, we will have this figured out.”

For the first time since our interview had started, she dared a smile. It was small and tremulous and hesitant, but it was definitely a smile. “Do you really think so?”

I squeezed her shoulder as hundreds of possible scenarios ran through my mind—scenarios that ended with Cunningham shamed or even arrested, scenarios that ended with my company faltering despite all I had done to save it. But one look at the frail blond sitting beside me confirmed what I knew deep inside—there was only one decision I could make, as a woman who finally had enough power to protect other women.

“Yes, Birgit. I’m going to help you. You’ll see.”

“We should have done this a decade ago,” Julian said, tossing his pen onto the table. I set my own pen down, flexing my cramped hand. We’d been signing papers for what felt like hours, long enough that George was now asleep on a blanket on the floor while Ivy sprawled nearby reading a book.

“I disagree,” I said, reaching for a glass of water and wishing it were gin. “I think Molly would have murdered us for interfering with her company.”

“You’re probably right,” Julian conceded. His green eyes swept over the table with their seemingly endless stacks of paper. “Do you think—is it enough, I mean? And are we in time to make a difference?”

“I think anything before she’s actually married is in time,” I replied with a tired smile. “But will it be enough? I don’t know. Honestly, it depends on what she believes.”

“I hope she believes it’s enough,” Julian said. “For her sake, and for the sake of my new holdings in O’Flaherty Shipping.”

Me too
, I added silently. Out loud, I said, “Thank you, Jules. I wouldn’t have been able to do this if it weren’t for you.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. I would have bought shares in Molly’s company in a heartbeat if I’d known what kind of danger she was in. I’m just glad you found enough people willing to part with their own shares.”