She set her jaw firmly in response to his rebuff. “But don’t you see that is exactly why you should talk? They know nothing about what you are facing. If you told them—“
“If I told them, they wouldn’t believe me. They think they know it all already, and that I am making myself rich at their expense,” he shot back, barely controlling his pent-up rage.
She stood her ground, her chest heaving at his rebuke. “I see, then, that coming to you is fruitless. I expected you to be reasonable, but I am mistaken,” she said, keeping her voice even with a shaky deliberation. She pressed her lips together as she studied him. “You are just as stubborn in your views as you say these men are,” she added. She swiftly turned to go.
He lunged forward and grasped her arm, spinning her back to face him.
Her eyes went wide, and her lips—not far from his now—were parted in surprise. He hesitated, every nerve ending burning with the desire to capture that bold mouth of hers with his.
He loosened his hold of her and stepped back from his overbearing position.
“Forgive me,” he said, looking to the floor in disgust at what he had done. “I had no right to…” He could not finish.
He met her frightened gaze, his anger tempered now by guilt at his recklessness. “I will attempt to meet with this Higgins…for your sake. But I make no promises beyond that.”
“I thank you,” she replied in a breathless voice, and quickly left the room.
He stood, running his fingers through his hair, as remorse overtook all other emotions. What kind of brute was he, to handle her that way? What she must think of him!
He agonized over the reasonable answer: that she must now see him for what he truly was—an uncouth and rough man, who was not worthy of her affections.
He drew his hands into fists at his own stupidity, at letting violent passion overthrow his self-control. What was the power she held over him, to undo all his careful restraint?
She would never see him as a suitor now. Why should he torture himself by pursuing her further? It tore his heart to reason thus, but it was of no use. He still wanted her.
That she had dared to come to him at all made him want her all the more. And she had come—she with her pure heart, full of compassion—and proved herself unafraid to stand against him for what she believed.
She made him doubt himself again and again. She drove him to madness in wanting to prove himself to her.
Nevertheless, he wanted her as his wife. And there would be no cure for his yearning until she was in his home, and in his bed.
Chapter eighteen
Margaret stepped shakily from the confines of the mill and burst into the mill yard, heading quickly toward the street. Everything that had happened raced through her mind: their heated words, his bare arms, the look of fire in his eyes! She could still feel the strong imprint of his grip on her arm. Her breath came more rapidly still as she thought of that suspended moment when his face was close to hers as he held her captive. She tried to shake off the vision as she rounded a corner.
Tears stung her eyes as she rushed to the tall stone houses toward her home. His sharp words had made her feel foolish for believing she could help in some way. Well! It was best to discover now what manner of man he was when his business was at risk. A gentleman would never have treated her in such a manner. It would be madness to consider marrying him!
She dashed a tear away with the back of her hand, glad for the darkening sky.
Mr. Thornton did not come to his lesson that week. He wrote to Mr. Hale to say that he was too busy at present and that it might be some time before he could resume his lessons.
Margaret wondered how much truth was in his statement, or if she was the real reason he did not come. Was he still angry with her for insisting that he take action according to her sense of things?
She hardly knew what to think of him of late. One moment her pride rose in indignation at how he had chastised her. After all, she had come to him with good intent! But the next moment, her whole body stilled, and her heart beat fervently as she remembered how close their bodies had been. The way he had looked at her filled her head with wild images. How would it feel to be pressed against him in a tight embrace—to be caught in his arms as his wife?
She endeavored to chase such notions from her mind.
Mr. Thornton muttered a curse to himself when he thought of the promise he had made to attempt to communicate with the union leader. He had far too many decisions to make daily with the threat of a strike looming. He would be hard-pressed to keep the flow of production going if his workers joined the strike.
But he took time enough to make inquiries about Higgins, gathering an account of his role in the Union as well as where he lived.
Long after the throng of workers had emptied from his factory to go home to their dinners, the Master of Marlborough Mills made his way to the Princeton District where many of his mill workers lived.
His tall, imposing figure was a mere shadow in the dark alleyways. He was glad to come at this time, when most ofthe inhabitants would be inside their dwellings for the evening, instead of cluttering the walkways as they eyed him as an intruder to their realm.
Only the drunkards were out, lying on the sides of the passageways. And as he passed by the Goulden Dragon, he heard the bawdy laughter and clinking of mugs within the drinking hole. His hatred of such places could hardly be described. He had seen many lives wasted away by such a snare, and had a deep disgust for the weak-minded who entered there of their free will.
The second door down from the left was his destination, and he knocked with the swift decisiveness and purpose that had become his life habit.
