Page 44 of Margins of Love
Rachel knew precisely who Ilan meant, a couple that had left. As a result, Fave became her dinner partner.
“In any case, I forgave her two thousand pounds and lent her another five.”
Rachel nodded, flapping her long lashes.
But Ilan would have none of her gratitude for the fatherly protection that she should have taken for granted. “Then she offered your mother support in procuring you a match.”
“And how did Mama react?”
“At first, she played along. But Bustle-Smith was too eager too quickly and would have wrapped you up with a bow at the altar by the start of the season if we forgave her entire debt.”
Rachel stifled a giggle. There must be something about her that made everyone wish to marry her off. And pay for it! It was not funny, but she was too nervous not to laugh.
“That’s not all. We had to tell her that you’re betrothed. To slow her down, you understand…”
Rachel’s eyes widened.
“No, no, she has no idea that we are Jewish. Only that you are soon to be wed.”
Rachel leaned back. “That’s why she paired me up with a rake?”
Gustav nodded.
A chill traveled along Rachel’s spine and scalp. Bustle-Smith had dangled her before a shark, and she had willfully jumped into the beast’s mouth. She had been set up with Fave. And the night at the orangeries? She closed her eyes and thought about their last kiss. The one when Fave leaned in and froze, waiting for a noise. Was he expecting to get caught?
“Papa, are you telling me it was a scheme?” Rachel was virtually burning with rage, embarrassment, and heartbreak. Her heart raced, and she could not breathe. Everything was too tight, her dress, her corset, her lungs. She stood up and paced the room.
“And, myMaidale, I am afraid she owes the Pearlers a lot more money than us,” Ilan added hesitantly and slowly, knowing the news would break his daughter’s heart.
He got up and followed her, trying to keep up with her walking back and forth in the room. When she was too fast, he blocked off her way and grabbed her shoulders gently. “Ruchale, she is threatening to ruin your reputation if we do not forgive the debt.”
“So she owes you eighteen thousand?” Rachel asked.
“No, twenty,” her father said.
“Why twenty?”
“She had open invoices from her barrister. I paid him directly. I personally brought him the money at his Inner Temple offices as soon as we returned from Brockton House.”
Rachel shook her head and swallowed her tears. She had been used. A pawn in a game of money shuffling. Her heart was broken, and she could not get Fave’s face out of her head. She shook and shook, but he was there. Her mind circled his piercing blue-grey eyes, the shades of gold in his curly hair, the feel of his delicious growls when she pulled him in to deepen a kiss. She closed her eyes and wished for her love for him to melt away as the pain muddled her heart.
Her father held her shoulders, waiting.
Rachel’s eyes burned. Her tear-rimmed lashes sticking together and blurring her vision. The sparkle was gone, the heartbreak had gagged her innocent first love. Rachel no longer felt like herself, only a hull was left, filled with the shards of her broken heart. She bit her lips and then met her father’s pained look, connecting on a level that had its foundation in all the sorrow from their time before England.
“Your match could fall through if she acts on her threat.” Rachel closed her eyes and deflated. Ilan took her into a warm fatherly hug. And then he dropped his head into Rachel’s hair and added, “I don’t know where to find another good Jewish husband for you.”
Rachel understood that this could mean moving away again for they lived outside London’s Jewish community. An ocean of uncertainty would be the punishment for losing her match now. If they moved, Sammy could not get a gentleman’s education. That would be too cruel after all her parents had done to secure a better future for their children than the one they had.
“So what now?” Rachel whispered.
“We move up the wedding.” Ilan held still, waiting for a reaction but to no avail. “Before the season starts. You’ll still have your season, but you shall dance with your husband instead of ton gentlemen. Bustle-Smith will have nothing to hold over our heads. Is that a compromise,Ruchale?” Ilan’s voice was earnest.
A pang of pain shot through her veins. She had to fight for someone she did not know, and she had to fight off the one she wanted. Rachel’s dreams peeled off her like dry bark off a tree. She resigned to her immediate future as the wife of a stranger. But at least in London, close to her parents. “What about Sammy? She could still reveal that we are Jewish.”
Ilan shook his head. “She is an unstoppable fury.”
“Medusa!” Rachel added.
