A/N: So here is the second chapter! The chapter title is somewhat self-explanatory. Hope you enjoy (if that is possible in an AU where Margaret and Thornton are not together), and please read and review!
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Chapter Two – How It Came to This
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Elizabeth stepped forward to shake their hands, smiling in welcome. 'I'm so pleased to finally meet you.'
As they led their guests to the drawing room, she fell easily into conversation with Mrs. Lennox, who seemed a very intelligent, sensible woman, not at all like the stylish airhead Elizabeth was expecting when she first met the London lady. Mrs. Lennox was a tall, almost regal-looking woman: something about her bearing and the way she carried herself instantly commanded respect. She was a very beautiful woman, perhaps a year or two older than her. Elizabeth liked her almost at once; she took an avid interest in the cotton industry and Milton in general, which was more than could be said for many a lady Milton-born and bred.
She was so interested in talking to the Lennoxes that she did not notice her husband's uncharacteristic silence when they were discussing the topic closest to his heart, the cotton industry. She was so engrossed in hearing Mr. Lennox's plans to perhaps enter into the cotton trade that she did not notice his wife quietly edge away to the window where Mr. Thornton was standing.
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'It is good to see the mill-yard so busy again,' observed Margaret quietly, finally breaking the silence.
'Yes,' he said stiffly. Then he inwardly shook himself. He would not give her the satisfaction of mistaking his awkwardness and thinking that he was still bitter about what had happened all those years ago. Accordingly, he was able to temper his voice to a more natural tone as he made conversation. 'You might like to know that with Nicholas' help, we've started a medical fund for the workers – every week the workers contribute a small fraction of their pay and then when they are ill, they can all afford a doctor's fee.' Seeing her face light up, he added hastily and rather gruffly, 'It is a good business practice, of course. If they receive treatment, their illness is gone sooner and they can return to work sooner.'
Margaret had the grace to suppress her knowing smile. 'I am glad of it.' For a moment they both stood in a silence less awkward and more companionable than before. Then Margaret roused herself. 'Mr. Lennox and I actually came to discuss a matter of business with you.'
A matter of business… How well he remembered the last time he had heard those words or something like them, more than a dozen years ago now…
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He had been waiting in the drawing room of the Harley Street house, waiting for whatever it was that Margaret and Mr. Lennox wanted to discuss with him. He could not imagine what would require her to meet him in person – what was so important that Mr. Lennox could not send him a letter about it?
He suddenly became aware of the fact that this was probably the last time he would ever see her. After a few months without her, though he had by no means forgotten her, the dreams of terrible yearning, the dreams of her in his arms, the dreams which had haunted him for months after her rejection of him, had gradually slowed and stopped. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he hardly got any prolonged periods of sleep anymore, perhaps because he had been so worried about the mill that he could not think of anything else. But seeing her once at last night's dinner party had been enough to bring them back with a vengeance.
And now this one last meeting and then… nothing. He would spend another few months trying to get rid of the dreams and forget her, all in vain.
He started as the door opened and Mr. Lennox and Margaret entered. He shook hands with Mr. Lennox, who gave him a friendly greeting. Then he turned to Margaret, who was not looking at him, instead staring at her shoes. They shook hands briefly, before she hurriedly drew away her own limp hand. He felt a stab of hurt at this, but shook it away impatiently.
They all sat down and Mr. Lennox began. 'Mr. Thornton, my fiancée and I have talked this over together, and we have decided that we would like to invest some considerable capital which she has at her disposal, in Marlborough Mills. We know that we will never find anyone more capable of handling it, so we hope you will accept our business proposition and continue to run it.'
He would be able to continue running the mill – Lennox was investing! His momentary leap of joy was checked, however, as Lennox's first statement sunk in. My fiancée and I… Slowly, he dragged his eyes over to Margaret. She was still staring at her shoes, her face having grown steadily more pale throughout the interview. His eyes lowered their gaze to her left hand, on the fourth finger of which was a lovely new diamond engagement ring.
'Oh,' he said. He felt strangely disconnected from reality, feeling as though he was watching all this take place from outside of himself. He felt like an actor in a play, forced to continue reciting his lines, unable to deviate from the script. 'I… thank you. That is most generous of you and Miss Hale, Mr. Lennox.' He waited for the contradiction, waited for either Lennox or Margaret to laugh and say that 'oh no, he had misunderstood. They were not engaged, Lennox was engaged to a Miss So-and-So whom he had met at a public assembly a couple of months ago'. It never came.
He hardly attended to what Lennox was saying about him being 'not obliged to them in any way – in fact it would be him who would be doing them the service. After all, he as a financial adviser knew that he (Thornton) could give them a much better rate of interest than any bank'. He was staring at Margaret, his eyes boring a hole in her, willing her to look up at him, to tell him by look or word that what he was hearing was not true, that it was all lies…
All it needed now was for Margaret to look up at him and throw herself into his arms and he would know that it was only one of his mad dreams. That was alright, he thought; it would be alright if her throwing herself into his arms was only a dream, because that would mean that her being engaged to Lennox was also a dream.
She did not look up. That confirmed it. This was no dream – this was real, every bit of it. For a second he brutally considered throwing the offer of money back in that pale, cold face, and it was only the thought of his mother and his responsibility towards her that stayed this impulse. He stared at her for the remainder of the meeting, but she did not look up once.
He stood up to leave at the end, and then said in a forced casual tone, 'Oh, I almost forgot – congratulations to both of you. When is the wedding?'
Mr. Lennox smiled, taking Margaret's hand. 'On the twenty-first of next month. Do come if you can, Thornton.'
He forced a smile. 'If work permits, certainly.' There was no way in hell he would be attending that wedding.
Margaret finally looked up at him, raising up luminous eyes in which he could have sworn he saw the first signs of tears forming. 'Goodbye, Mr. Thornton,' she said softly, speaking for the first time during the interview. He nearly came undone.
Hurriedly turning away, he exited the room as fast as possible. He would never see her again, he thought. Little did he know that they would meet again once more, thirteen years later…
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A/N: There is more to come soon! Please review with any comments, criticisms, thoughts, etc.!
