Free Dangerous Decisions by Margaret Kaine

Oliver. You’ve told me so much about it.’
    â€˜I have heard,’ Beatrice said, ‘that it is an exceptionally fine house.’
    Jacob didn’t mention the fact that in a drawer in his study lay an image of Graylings; one he had sourced months ago. The reason he hadn’t shown it to Helena was because he had wanted to be sure that his daughter’s decision wasn’t influenced by the grandeur of her future home. Beatrice he had kept in ignorance, thinking that she might then find it difficult to behave so naturally with their guest. Both he and his sister had been born into a background that some might have thought extremely comfortable, but he had always known that being in trade brought with it a social stigma. Jacob’s astute business brain had developed his father’s modest brewery into a leading company and he learned long ago that success and an air of assurance smoothed many tricky situations.
    He gazed thoughtfully at his future son-in-law, knowing that there were important negotiations to take place. Their respective lawyers would of course handle the marriage settlement, and Jacob suspected that Oliver would not be the easiest man to deal with. Already he was insisting on an early wedding, a matter he confessed he had not yet broached with Helena. Jacob looked across the table at his excited daughter; he on occasions thought that she looked a shade troubled, doubtful even. Now he felt somewhat reassured.
    It was dawn before Helena eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep. The euphoria and relief that Oliver had at last made his offer had sustained her all through the evening. But once curled up beneath the silken eiderdown, she felt ‘full of nerves’, as one of her governesses used to say when confronted with a new experience.
    Her betrothal wasn’t the golden picture she had dreamed of as a young girl; there still seemed to be faint shadows around the edges. Although she had always dreamed of a fairy-tale proposal, Helena could understand that a man like Oliver would consider it undignified to go down on one knee. Although where had been his declaration of undying love? Wasn’t that what every woman, no matter what her age, longed to hear? For her suitor to say those wonderful words, ‘I love you’?
    Then Helena thought – but if he had, could I in truth say those words to him, that I loved him too? I think I do, but what if it is merely an infatuation. How does one know such a thing for certainty?
    As an image of her ‘mystery doctor’ crept into her mind, she thought of the intensity of his gaze that time before the opera, then shook up her pillows with annoyance. For heaven’s sake, surely now, after all that had happened, she could finally forget
that
nonsense. For how could it be anything else?

Chapter Nine
    â€˜Where did you say you’d bin, Johnnie?’ Cora leaned on one elbow and looked down at him.
    â€˜Lichfield.’
    â€˜Where’s that, then?’
    â€˜Staffordshire – you know up north, well the Midlands really.’
    â€˜I’ve never ’eard of either of them.’
    â€˜I can understand your not knowing of Lichfield, but surely you drink out of cups and eat off plates?’
    â€˜Cheeky beggar, of course I do.’
    â€˜Look underneath sometime,’ he told her lazily. ‘The words Stoke-on-Trent will probably be stamped there. It’s usually called the Potteries. That’s in Staffordshire.’
    â€˜I’ve ’eard of that. There used to be a bloke on Petticoat Lane Market from there, sold all sorts of crockery.’ She glanced curiously at him. ‘I thought you nobs kept away from manufacturing towns.’
    â€˜I didn’t say I was there, Cora – I said that I was in the same county.’ He grinned at her. ‘There wasn’t a girl in the place who could measure up to you.’
    â€˜A country estate, was it?’
    He