But what could she do against him, even if she could reach him? And without putting Joshua at risk?
“Why, Willingham?” demanded Joshua. “It doesn't make sense. Why did you hire someone to paint a Luddite slogan on the mill wall? Why did you pay someone to start a fire, and to attack Miss Fossington? What can you possibly hope to gain?”
That's right, Joshua, keep him talking, thought Rebecca, casting round for some way of helping him that would not get him killed: if she tried something and failed then the gun would go off and Joshua would be finished.
“If you shoot me, it won't benefit you in any way,” Joshua was saying. “It won't get you cheaper cotton to use in your weaving mill. So what is the point?”
“Cheaper cotton?” mocked Mr Willingham. “Are you really so short-sighted? Do you still not see? I don't want cheaper cotton — I want your mill. With your cotton mill and my weaving and dyeing mill, I will have control of the whole production process. That means a drop in costs, and a huge rise in profits.”
“But killing me won't get you that,” said Joshua uncomprehendingly. “My share of the mill doesn't go to you if I die.”
Mr Willingham smirked. “I know. It goes to the lovely Rebecca.”
Rebecca had to bite back an angry exclamation. Even so, she began to see Mr Willingham's plan and she saw a similar gleam of understanding dawning on Joshua's face.
“How the devil do you know that?” asked Joshua, taking a step forward.
“I know which firm of London lawyers Jebadiah Marsden used. It wasn't difficult to bribe one of the clerks to tell me the terms of his will,” said Mr Willingham, taking a step back.
Rebecca recalled the unctuous clerk who had let them into Mr Wesley's office. She had thought there was something shifty about him, and she was in no doubt that he was the clerk who had been bribed.
“And he, I suppose, was responsible for the attacks on me in London.”
Mr Willingham shook his head. “He would not have been capable of it — sneaking is his forte, not daring action — but it was another low-life in my pay.”
“Another mystery explained,” said Joshua. “Even so... even though my share goes to Rebecca, I don't see how... ” And then his face changed. As understanding dawned his eyes burned with barely-concealed rage. “You mean to marry her,' he said. “Once you kill me, my share will go to her, and once you marry her it will pass to you, as part of her dowry. Giving you control of the mill. But you're mad if you think shell do it. Rebecca will never marry you.”
Rebecca's heart soared as she heard the words. There was something in Joshua's expression that suggested he felt much more than the scorn he might have been expected to feel at Mr Willingham's expectation she would marry him. There was also a look of contempt that told her he respected her, as well as a flash of jealousy that made her wonder, against her better judgement, if his feelings for her had changed over the last few weeks, maturing from simple protection of his godfather's granddaughter, together with a strong physical attraction, into something deeper and more complex; feelings, in fact, which matched her feelings for him.
Mr Willingham spoke dryly. “Rebecca won't get a choice. You can't seriously believe I intend to let her decide for herself? I shall propose, of course, next week, after she has dinner with my mother and myself —”
“She won't accept you.”
“No. I don't suppose she will. Which is why I intend to have a special licence in my pocket and a clergyman standing by. She will marry me before she leaves the house, or she will not leave it alive.”
Rebecca, incensed at what she had just heard, found her imagination had wings. An idea occurred to her with such blinding clarity that she acted on it instantly, sweeping up the heaviest piece of porcelain that decorated the embrasure — a large jug — and leaping to her feet. Standing on the window seat she pulled back the curtain. The noise distracted Mr Willingham, who looked round, and Joshua, seeing his chance, lost only a fraction of a second in surprise before hurling himself at Mr Willingham. Mr Willingham, turning his attention back to Joshua, lifted the gun — and Rebecca brought the jug crashing down on his head. He stood for one moment, and Rebecca thought her efforts had been wasted — but then he swayed and fell, crumpling up in a heap on the floor.
Joshua caught the gun as it dropped out of his hand and checked that Mr Willingham, now lying prone, was really out cold, and then turned to Rebecca, who was still standing on the window-seat.
Now that it was all over Rebecca felt very peculiar. The strain of the last ten minutes, coupled with her cramped conditions — which had left her with pins and needles in her legs, so that they could barely hold her — made her begin to sway. Joshua held out his arms, and as she lost her balance he caught her in his strong embrace.
“Becky,” he said, with such a look in his eyes that she felt herself melting.
“Josh,” she said breathlessly, feeling the heat of his body against her own.
He looked into her eyes for a long moment. Then, as if remembering she had been through something of an ordeal, he carried her over to one of the chairs and set her down gently in it before kneeling in front of her.
“Your hands are cold,” he said. He began to chafe them.
“It was cold in the window embrasure,” she said. “And I forgot my shawl. It's still in the ballroom.”
He moved her chair closer to the fire.
“But what were you doing behind the curtains in the first place?” he asked as he continued to chafe her hands.
Briefly, she explained why she had taken refuge there.
“It's a good thing you did. Otherwise I may well be —”
“Don't, Josh,” she said, putting a finger to his lips. “Don't even say it.”
He took her hand and kissed her fingers, then, turning it over, he kissed the palm and the inside of her wrist.
Could his feelings have changed? she wondered again as the most intoxicating shiver washed over her. Could they have developed into something as deep and sincere as her own? For she was no longer in any doubt as to the nature of her own feelings for Joshua. She was in love with him.
Oh, yes, she was in love with him, and no matter how hard she had tried to deny it, she knew that she had been so for a long time.
To begin with, she had felt no more for him than physical attraction, but her feelings had soon begun to undergo a transformation. When she had been caught in the path of the charging horse in London and he had pushed her to safety she had been filled with a sense of security and safely that had warmed her through. His tenderness towards her following the incident had surprised her, revealing that there was a gentler side to his nature than the one he generally showed the world. His concern for her reputation had earned her esteem, and his obvious devotion to her beloved grandfather had earned her affection and her gratitude. His drive and ambition had struck a chord in her own nature — she was not Jebadiah's granddaughter for nothing! — and his ruthlessness, once she had realized it did not spill over into cruelty, had roused her respect; for she knew it would be impossible to succeed in his chosen sphere of business without it.
And yet all these feelings, whilst explaining some of what she felt for him, did not explain it all, for she felt something she had never felt for any man before: that she wanted to join herself to him — in every way.
She felt a warm tingling sensation spread through her as the realization hit her with full force.
How strange. She had never thought, when she had first met him at The Nag's Head, that she would fall in love with him, but she had done so.