He Chose the Girl Who Tried to Kill Him novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: A Certificate and Two Attendants

Adaline's POV

Tobias came back at two in the morning.

I was sitting up on the bed in my cloak with the tin box on my knees.

He told me what he had seen in the study.

When he got to the settlement, I stood up.

"My father would not do that."

"Your father's bank lent the Haldane yards four hundred thousand dollars in August," he said. "Against the day you married Langston. A copyist hears about these things. If you do not marry him, the loan is called, and your father is ruined."

"Then the marriage was never about me."

"No."

I sat down again.

I wanted to scream.

I held the lid of the tin box shut with both hands instead.

"Who is the man who asked him to drive her?" I said. "The one he would rather be shot than name."

Tobias looked at me for a long moment.

"I don't know," he said. "But I think you have a guess."

I did.

I would not say it aloud, in that room, at that hour.

"I need to see Nan," I said.

"You need to sleep."

I slept an hour.

The knock woke me at seven, and it was not a policeman's knock.

It was soft and patient.

"Miss Severance," said a voice through the door. "I am a physician. Your father has asked me to call. I have a certificate that says you are in need of rest."

There were three sets of boots on the landing.

I could hear the third man breathing.

Tobias was across the room in two strides, with his shoulder to the door.

"Back stairs," he said, low.

"There are no back stairs."

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