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She flushed, but held her ground, refusing to back down. “Possibly. But taunting me with my absurd high spirits doesn’t in the least tell me how deep you’re in!”
“For you, Mrs. Gracedew?” He paused, looking at his shoes again, letting the silence stretch, enjoying her discomfort. “I’m in to the tune of fifty thousand pounds.”
The number hung in the air, huge and immovable, a sum that would buy a dozen houses like Covering End. Mrs. Gracedew was silent for so long he turned to face her again, and when she spoke, her voice was small, overwhelmed by the weight of it. “That’s a great deal of money, Mr. Prodmore.”
He liked the sound of that, the admission of his power, his leverage. “So I’ve often had occasion to say to myself!”
“If it’s a large sum for you, then, it’s a still larger one for me.” She sank into a high-backed chair, like a soldier surrendering before a besieged city, the weight of the number pressing down on her. “We women have more modest ideas, when it comes to sums like that.”
He sneered, not buying it for a second. “Is it as a ‘modest idea’ that you describe your extraordinary intrusion into my private affairs, your meddling in my daughter’s life?”
“I mean I think we measure things often rather more exactly, when it comes to what people really want,” she said, lost in thought for a second.
“Then you measured this thing exactly half an hour ago!” he snapped, referring to her over-the-top sales pitch for the house that morning, the way she’d fawned over every detail to try to sell it to the buyers he’d lined up.
She looked up, almost sheepish, a small, wobbly smile on her face. “Was I very grotesque? Banging the desk? Raving? Shrieking?”
“You overdid it,” he said, his tone sharp, but there was a flicker of something else in his eyes, amusement maybe, or surprise. “You wanted to please me, didn’t you?”
She flushed, meeting his eyes, not denying it. “Yes—for you. And for those good people you brought round this morning.”
He scoffed, waving a hand. “Oh! Should I like me to call them back?”
“No.” She was still steady, very decided. “I took them in. I told them what they wanted to hear.”
“And now you want to take me?” He rounded on her, his voice rising, sharp with anger. “Why the devil do you want us, if we’re not what you said we were? Why the devil did you say you’d offer fifty, if that’s not what you meant?”
She was speechless for a second, stung by his harshness, her eyes glistening. Before she could answer, Chivers the old butler appeared in the doorway, and Mr. Prodmore rounded on him, his temper exploding. “Call my carriage, you ass! Have you seen Miss Prodmore? If you haven’t, find her!”
Mrs. Gracedew spoke gently to the confused butler, reassuring him he wouldn’t find her, before turning back to Mr. Prodmore, her voice steady, no trace of the hurt he’d caused. “Cora has gone for a walk. Not alone—with Mr. Pegg.”
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