Page 61 of Courting Trouble
Sauvageau nodded. “Conleith is a bit too Irish for current times, I suppose.” He looked Titus up and down. “You’re young for such a celebrated surgeon.”
“No older than you, I’d wager.”
“Touché.” A dark brow lifted. “I assume you didn’t send your ravishing lover and her entourage to procure you this gold.”
“I’d never,” Titus vowed before sending Nora a hard look. “She’d insisted she didn’t know where it was.”
“She only learned of this warehouse last night,” Mercy rushed to explain, whilst still rubbing a hand over Felicity’s back as she glared imperiously at Sauvageau. “This wassupposedto be her grand gesture, andyouare ruining it.”
Raphael’s dark eyes lit with amusement even as he said, “I’ve ruined a great many things, and people, Miss Goode, but this is the first time a grand gesture has fallen victim to my name.”
Titus was as irate as he was confused. “Grand gesture? Nora, what is she on about?”
Nora rubbed at her eyes as though to wipe away tears, but they remained curiously dry.
Mercy fielded the question before she could summon an explanation. “We—Felicity and I—told Nora that we didn’t give a fig about husbands, or our reputations, and so she doesn’t have to marry the Duke’s son. We thought that if we could retrieve the money you needed for your clinics, then you might forgive her for leaving you…even if itwaspartly to save you.” She tossed her golden curls. “Again.”
“Mercy,” Nora hissed.
Everyone in the room fell away until, in Titus’s vision, there was only her, dressed in raven black, her pale skin gilded by lamplight. “Is this true?”
She glanced around at their audience and drew a steadying breath as she drifted to the edge of the platform. “I thought…” She hesitated. Swallowed. Once. Twice. “Iknewthat if you loved me, you stood to lose everything, and I couldn’t live with that. But I imagined that if… if I could give you the fortune you stood to lose, we could possibly see a way to—to be together.”
His anger welled to the surface. “You could see a way.Youcould see a way, Nora, because the path has always been clear to me. I told you that.”
She shook her head, her eyes fathomless wells of regret. “I realize you think that now. But I’ve seen what the loss of fortune does to a man. It drove my husband to the very depths of madness. To do unspeakable things and to ally himself with criminal dregs.”
“You wound me, my lady.” Sauvageau covered his heart as if she’d pierced it. “After I’ve worked so hard to fashion myself as the criminal elite.”
She went on as if he wasn’t even there. “William hated me in the end… did you know that? That a man can love and hate at the same time? It is an ugly thing, Titus. I couldn’t have born that from you. It would have destroyed me to watch the light leave your eyes. To see those who respect you turn their backs. To watch as doors are slammed in your face and friends desert you. You might think that you’re strong enough to survive that, and maybe you are… but I’m not. This city needs you. The world needs what you’re going to discover. The miracles you’ll perform.”
Titus suddenly wished he could sit down. It all made a bit more sense now. This entire time he’d expected her to trust him. To understand what he wanted and what he meant for them and to believe that he could bring it all to pass. However, in doing so, he’d forgotten that the men in Nora’s life were forever making decisions for her. And she’d been tossed about on that turbulent sea like a boat with torn sails and no anchor.
What cause had she to believe in anyone?
“Nora, I—”
A heartrending sob broke through the noise, and they all turned to see Felicity bravely holding both hands over her mouth, now, as hot tears streamed from her eyes.
Raphael, who seemed to have made a point to remain close by, handed Felicity a handkerchief as the soft-hearted girl wept.
She stared at it for a moment, as if it might bite her, then reached out and took it.
The gangster’s face softened in miraculous increments. “You must be possessed of a heart as cold as mine, Miss Goode, to remain unmoved by their plight.”
She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes, her lashes wiping at the fog of her spectacles. “I just… I thought I’d arranged a happy ending…”
His mercurial noise might have been a chuckle. “You are a clever girl. You don’t really believe there is such a thing as a happy ending, do you?”
“Of course I do.” She emitted a hiccupping sigh before taking several hitching breaths. “I believe that sometimes the stars can align. That one change of heart can change the course of fate. That forgiveness and love are possible, even against the most terrible odds…even for someone like you.”
Raphael snorted and started to retort. Then, as if he heard a summons no one else did, he turned to the shadowy corner of the room where the hooded figure stood. “Permit me to confer with my brother a moment.” He strode to Gabriel, where they held court in rapid, quiet French.
After several bombastic and crude gestures, he returned, wearing a carefully blank look. It was impossible to tell if he’d won or lost.
“Gabriel and I have come to a conclusion,” he announced from between clenched teeth. “It seems we wish to make a charitable donation, enough to build a handful of hospitals.”
“Oh come off it,” Dorian Blackwell called from the dark. “No oneisthataltruistic.”
