CHAPTER 37
Jonathan couldn’t wait to have a hot bath. To soak his stiff muscles and rid himself of the city’s soot. As he entered his aunt’s shop through the rear door, though, the enticing aroma of fried meat, potatoes, and onions met his nose. His stomach grumbled, reminding him how many hours it had been since his last meal. Maybe a quick wash-up would do until he’d eaten. After almost a week in London, he looked forward to a good home-cooked dinner.
“I hope that’s your shepherd’s pie I smell,” he called as he climbed the stairs to their flat. “I’m hungry enough to eat the whole pan myself.” Grinning, he walked into the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt.
The kitchen table was draped in his aunt’s best tablecloth, one usually reserved for Christmas and Easter, with two settings of her good china on top. A long taper candle glowed in the center beside a vase of wildflowers. He looked around the empty room. The kitchen was spotless, every dish washed, a covered pan sitting on the stovetop. In the adjoining living area, the furniture fairly gleamed, every blanket folded, every book in its place. His aunt must have been bit by the cleaning bug.
Or had Jonathan forgotten a special occasion? He wracked his brain to think what it could be. His birthday wasn’t until next month. Trudy’s not until December.
He removed his cap and jacket and hung them on the peg on the wall.
“Aunt Trudy?” He crossed to the sink to wash his hands and face. “Why the good dishes? Are we celebrating something?”
A movement from the hall flickered at the edge of his vision. But when he turned to greet his aunt, he froze, the words dying in his throat.
“Hello, Jonathan. Welcome home.”
Emma! His heart chugged to a painful halt in his chest. How could this be? Clearly, he must be hallucinating.
He blinked, staring in disbelief. But the image didn’t change. She stood there in his kitchen, a vision in a silky blue dress, her hair piled on top of her head with a few long curls framing her face. For one ecstatic moment, a blast of pure joy soared through his system. His heart took off at a crazy speed, beating so fast he couldn’t seem to catch his breath or feel his limbs.
Until reality came rushing in, dousing him with a delayed sense of self-preservation. This was the woman who had rejected him. Who’d chosen her father and a life in Canada over him. What made him think anything had changed?
He took a breath and forced the walls back up around his heart. “Emmaline,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Your hands are dripping.” She came forward to hand him a towel. “That’s a rather long story. One I’ll tell you while we eat.” She flashed him a bright smile, yet he could tell she was nervous by the way she wouldn’t quite meet his gaze.
“I hope you like the meal I made. Trudy gave me her recipe.” She lifted the lid of the pan on the stove, then reached for a serving spoon. “Please, sit down. You must be tired after your trip.”
He dried his hands and face, then took a seat, his mind still reeling over her presence here. “Where is Aunt Trudy?”
“She had a potluck at the church tonight.” Emma ladled the food onto a plate and set it in front of him.
The familiar scent of her floral perfume wafted by him, taunting him.
Seconds later, she fixed her own plate and sat down across from him. The table was so small, their knees brushed.
The nerves in Jonathan’s stomach jumped. He scraped his chair back to avoid contact with her.
Why was she here wearing fancy clothes and serving him food on good china? He couldn’t eat one bite until he knew what was going on.
“What’s that scowl for?” Emma laid a napkin on her lap.
“I want to know what you’re doing here.”
“Can’t we just enjoy our meal first? I thought you were hungry.”
“Not until I make sense of this. You said you were staying in Canada with your family. Now, three weeks later, here you are. What happened?”
The candlelight flickered over her delicate features, creating a glow in her eyes. No, he could not relax and pretend this was just an ordinary meal, not without an explanation first.
Her brows crashed together. “Fine, have it your way.” She jutted out her chin. “It became apparent that it was never going to work out with my father. So I decided to come home.”
He knew her well enough to recognize there was much more she wasn’t saying. “What brought about this sudden realization?”
Her gaze slid to the table top. “Must we discuss all that unpleasantness now? After I spent hours cooking for you?”
“Emma.” He pinned her with his fiercest stare.
She huffed out a sigh. “All right. I’ll tell you the whole story. But first, why don’t you open your mail?”
A diversionary tactic if ever he’d heard one. He glanced down at the envelope beside his fork and frowned at the sight of the Oxford emblem. “What is this?”
Alarm bells blasted in his head. Her smile was a bit too smug for his liking and every instinct shouted that he was not going to like this, whatever it was.
Reluctantly, he slit open the envelope and pulled out a sheet of stationery. He scanned the typed words, his frown becoming deeper by the moment. “This says that my tuition has been paid in full, and I’m to report for classes as soon as possible.” He raised his head. “Is this your doing?”
“Indirectly.” Her eyes danced. “Isn’t it wonderful? Aunt Trudy sold her shop and was able to pay your tuition after all. She went down to the admissions office and apparently created quite a scene. Eventually, because she paid for the full year, they relented and allowed you back on the roster.”
Suspicion buzzed through his brain. “A new buyer must have come up very suddenly. Before I left, negotiations for the sale weren’t going well. I hope Aunt Trudy didn’t lower the price too much.” His mind whirled, trying to fit the pieces together. “But how are you involved?”
A grin spread over her face. “You’re looking at the new owner.”
“What?” He couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly.
“I bought Trudy’s shop.”
He stared, his mouth falling open. Heat flooded his system, blasting up his neck. Then he shoved his chair back and surged to his feet. “Why on earth would you do such a thing? You no more want to sew dresses than I want to shovel manure.”
Her smile faded, confusion clouding her features. “I thought it was a brilliant idea. A solution to everyone’s problems.”
Jonathan stalked over to the living room, raking a hand through his hair. Having Emma here, not only in Wheatley but in the very place he lived, was not a solution to his problem at all. In fact, it would be intolerable.
She came up behind him. “Why are you angry? I thought you’d be thrilled to finally have your dreams come true.” Hurt laced her words.
When he looked at her, her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Jonathan bit back a curse. Emma always had wonderful intentions, but she jumped into things without considering all the ramifications.
“Trudy gets to keep her store and her home,” she said slowly. “You get Oxford, and I—”
“What, Emma? What do you get, other than an empty pocketbook?”
Emma recoiled. She’d never seen Jonathan so upset, never heard him speak so harshly. “I get my own business to run. I have lots of ideas how to increase sales by bringing in new designs and new customers. Plus, if you’d bothered to let me explain, I would have told you that Trudy can buy in as a partner if she wants. Or she can continue as the head seamstress and invest the rest of her money elsewhere. She’ll have options now, rather than going to live with a cousin she doesn’t get on with.” She allowed herself to look at him fully. “I thought you’d be happy about that.”
She’d thought he’d be happy to see her too, but she’d obviously been wrong. She should have remembered that surprising people rarely turned out well.
He shook his head. “I am glad that Aunt Trudy doesn’t have to move, but—”
“But what?”
He threw out his hands, his eyes almost panicked. “Where are you going to live? I can’t have you staying under my roof.”
She crossed her arms and glared. “It’s my roof now. Or it will be once the paperwork is filed. But don’t worry, I’ll only be in your space until I can build my own quarters at the back of the store.”
His hands fisted at his side, and he uttered a coarse word.
Could he really not stand the sight of her now?
“That’s it, isn’t it? You hate that I own your home.” Or maybe he just hated her.
“It’s more than that.” He blew out a breath. “But it’s my problem, not yours. As you pointed out, it’s your roof now. I’ll just have to learn to deal with the situation.”
Emma held back any further attempts to convince him of her plan’s merit. She’d shocked him by showing up out of the blue and then surprising him with her purchase of the shop. One thing Jonathan was not and that was spontaneous. He always mulled a scenario over six ways to Sunday before he made a decision. Once he’d had time to digest the new turn of events, Emma was sure he’d see the benefit. Maybe then she could tell him how she felt about him.
Tonight was obviously not the right time for that.
Jonathan paced the braided rug in front of the fireplace and seemed to struggle to regain control of his emotions. He finally stopped and turned his intense brown eyes on her. “What really happened in Toronto that made you decide to come home?”
She bit back a sigh. The last thing she wanted was to rehash that painful event. At least not yet. “Can we not save that conversation for another time?”
“No, Emma. Something must have happened with your father to make you leave. I want to know what.”
She hesitated, but realized from the stubborn set of his jaw there was no point in putting off the inevitable. “Fine. If it’s a confession you want, I’ll tell you the ugly truth.” She crossed the room to the window that looked over the street below and gathered her courage. She’d never really considered what Jonathan’s reaction might be to learning the real story about her birth. Only one way to find out. “It all fell apart the night of the rally. Against everyone’s wishes, I went to see my father debate the mayor. Wainwright showed up, and the night turned into a disaster.”
“What did that lowlife do this time?”
“Actually, he did me a favor. He exposed my father for the coward he is.” She gripped her shaking hands together and turned to face him, needing to see his reaction to what she was about to say. “Not only did Randall deny that I was his daughter, it turns out he’d been lying to me all along.” She drew in a breath. “He never married my mother. That’s why my grandparents let me believe he was dead. They didn’t want me to know that . . . I was illegitimate. The product of a sinful union, not a romantic fairy tale after all.” Fresh tears burned her eyes. How humiliating to admit that everything she’d believed about the man had been false.
For a moment, she thought Jonathan was going to take her in his arms. Tell her it didn’t matter to him.
But instead he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry, Em. You must have been terribly upset.”
She nodded. “I finally realized I was wasting my time. My father was never going to love me the way I wanted, since I’m nothing but a reminder of his sordid past. His dirty little secret now exposed. That’s when I decided to come home.” She held her breath. Would Jonathan let his guard down at last? Tell her he was happy to have her back? That he’d missed her?
But his face went blank, the light of compassion fading from his eyes. He gave a laugh that sounded more like a sneer. “It all makes sense now. Your father let you down, shattered the last of your illusions, and you ran away.”
The harshness of his tone twisted her heart like wet laundry through a wringer. Her lungs ached. Her throat burned. She took a jerky step back. “I didn’t run away. I came back because I finally figured out where I belong.”
He stared at her warily, like she was a stranger. When had she lost his trust?
“I came back,” she said slowly, “because I’m in love with you. And I needed to tell you that.”
She swallowed, her pulse beating wildly in her throat. This was not how she imagined revealing her feelings to him. It was supposed to be a happy moment over candlelight and shepherd’s pie. She blinked away the moisture in her eyes, willing him to understand that she was telling the truth.
He closed his eyes, his face awash with pain. Tired lines formed around his mouth.
“Don’t you see, Emma?” he said wearily. “I’m always your second choice. Your father broke your heart, and you beat a hasty retreat home to the next best thing. Good old Jonathan. Always there when you need him.” His jaw tightened. “Sorry, but I’m not willing to settle for second best anymore.”
She inhaled sharply, her hand fluttering to her neck. “You’re wrong, Jonathan. I chose you over my father. Randall wanted me to stay. He even pulled out of the election to focus on his family. But I told him it was too late because I’d finally realized where my heart belonged. Where it’s always been. With you.”
He stared at her for a few long seconds, his brown eyes now filled with what looked like pity. Then he shook his head. “Tell Aunt Trudy I’ll stay at the inn tonight and be back for my things in the morning.”
Then he turned on his heel and left her standing alone, the smell of her untouched dinner lingering in the air, as the sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the stairs.