“Miss Eden, there is something I must tell you,” he said quietly, each word requiring more effort than the last. The lady straightened and watched him with such wariness that Jonathan felt as though someone were digging needles into his chest, burying them deep until they pierced his very heart.
“I was not honest the first time I approached you,” he continued, but paused as he reconsidered it and amended. “In fact, I was dishonest from the moment I convinced my brother to approach you.”
And with that, the words flowed from the dark and forgotten corners of his conscience, laying out the whole of his guilt. As much as he longed to usher in a litany of excuses, Jonathan knew he did not deserve them. All he could do was pray that Miss Eden would understand and forgive.
A polka lilted through the air as she watched him, her lips trembling ever so slightly as a sheen brightened the deep brown of her eyes, causing Jonathan’s ribs to constrict until he could not breathe.
“I am so very sorry—”
But a watery laugh cut him short.
Miss Eden raised a hand to her mouth, smothering another that came quick upon its heels. She tried to speak, but her mirth had her shaking her head and struggling for words, though the sound had a frantic edge to it.
Of all the responses he’d been prepared to endure—anger, dismissal, silence—humor was not amongst them. The sound left him utterly adrift, standing at her side amidst the bright movement of the Willards’ ballroom whilst the secret he had carried like a weight for weeks landed with all the heft of a feather pillow.
And for a moment, Jonathan could do nothing but stare at her.
“Oh, you are a dear, Mr. Hatcher. I knew what you were doing.”
“You knew?” he asked, the words emerging faintly.
Miss Eden drew in a breath that trembled slightly despite the amusement still tugging at her lips. “Mr. Hatcher, neither you nor your brother are subtle creatures. I guessed it from almost the moment he approached.”
Jonathan’s mouth opened, but no words came. And then, with a faint but steady smile, Miss Eden turned his world on itshead as she detailed the whole of what had happened the night they’d met.
“I shall have to repay Adam for his treachery,” muttered Jonathan, but the lady leaned closer, slipping her arm through his with a pat.
“You shall have to thank him heartily,” she corrected. And her tone thickened as she added, “Our friendship has been a great blessing to me, Mr. Hatcher, regardless of how it began.”
Turning so that he faced her, Jonathan studied her, though she did not meet his gaze. “Then if I am not the cause of your distress, what is?”
Miss Eden drew back slightly, the fragile humor fading from her face as though he had touched an injury she could not bear to have inspected.
“It is nothing you can mend,” she said, attempting lightness, though the sentiment scarcely survived the first word. “And my melancholy has imposed quite enough upon this evening. Let us agree that I am tired, unreasonable, and in desperate need of something sweet before I become a blight upon the Willards’ charitable efforts.”
But Jonathan did not smile, and her gaze darted away, seeking refuge amongst the bright motion of the room.
“Please do not look at me that way, Mr. Hatcher. I cannot stand firm against your concern.”
“Then do not stand firm,” he said quietly, stepping near so that his words remained for her ears alone. “Tell me what has made you look as though the ground is giving way beneath you.”
“I cannot.” Her mouth trembled once before she pressed it into a firm line, and the sight of that small effort nearly undid him.
“Please, Miss Eden. You do not have to bear your burdens alone.”
Her gaze met his, those eyes wild and wide as though he’d handed her something too tempting to refuse and too fragile to touch, and the polished ballroom receded; the dancers swept past in a whirl of silk and black coats, yet none of it touched the quiet that encircled them.
“Please,” he said again, softer this time. “Tell me.”
Casting a glance about her, she said in the faintest of whispers, “My father is a liar, and I believe he may be a fraud.”
Miss Eden’s hand rose to cover her mouth, too late to call the words back. But with a trembling breath, she pressed on, and the account came in rushed fragments, tumbling faster now that she had begun, as though stopping would make it impossible to start again, and with every passing moment, her brittle composure cracked further.
Jonathan didn’t move. Whatever passed through him, he kept it from his face, afraid that the wrong flash of feeling might make her retreat into silence again. It was impossible. Not that he doubted her, but Miss Eden might as well have claimed the foundations beneath the Willards’ house had split open, and they were about to be swallowed into the pits of hell.
Last week he had sat with the gentleman, feeling as though Mr. Eden had thrown a rope to a drowning man, but that very salvation depended upon someone Miss Eden claimed to be false. Worse still, Jonathan had browbeaten Mr. Sampson into remaining with Eden & Co.; he’d only wanted to help the fellow, not tie him up for a lion to devour, and his actions left a sour taste coating his mouth.
“Papa insists that I do not understand, but I have read the report again and again, and I cannot see how it indicates anything other than fraud,” she said, though her eyes pleaded with him to disagree.