“Sounds logical,” she allowed. “Still implausible.”
“Gladstone knows there’s no alternative,” he said. “Income tax is applied at a rate of less than one percent, and most citizens are exempt—it must be increased and expanded, also to include corporate profits.”
She snorted at the absurdity. “A corporate tax?”
“One day,” he said. “You’ll see.”
It struck her then that she had been tricked into a marriage for the purpose of British fiscal reform. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why can’t you buy members of Parliament to do your bidding, like a regular industrialist?” she demanded. “Or form an opposition party? Why must you become one of them?”
He smirked. “Trust me, these strategies aren’t mutually exclusive. But the strongest fortresses don’t fall under siege. They need to be hollowed out from the inside.”
“And once the walls fall, you will give away your excess wealth?” Her tone was sweet.
“No,” he said, grimly.
“Still not?”
“A wealthy man has the ear of powerful men; a poorer one doesn’t. We only hear of a lowly worker if he dies some violent death and is put on his company’s record, or if a journalist cares to make him a headline for a day—either way a poor man is usually heard louder in death than in life.”
“How convenient for you.”
He came to an abrupt stop and glared. “I’ll never go back to the pits,” he said, and pointed at her. “I’ll never again degrade myself for food; I’ll never again be held in the same regard as a sewer rat.”
“All right,” she said soothingly. “All right.”
He glanced away, a little shaken, presumably at having lost his composure, at having revealed some of the shame in his past. Her heart, tired and bruised as it was, went out to him then, because that was what it did: it flung itself toward the hurt of other people, not caring whether it was deserved.
“I was provoking you,” she said. “I know the difference between change and charity well from the suffrage movement. Our leader, Millicent Fawcett, is a socialist.”
He pondered it for a moment. “I suppose there’s much in common,” he then said.
“Injustice is injustice,” she replied. “It occurs to me that it might be inconsistent to acknowledge merely the injustices that suit.”
Their gazes held across the room, and an understanding passed between them that made her defenses rise once more, to shut him out.
“My father sacrificed me for his business interests before,” Harriet said. “What makes you think he’ll support your politics when it begins to hurt his pockets?”
He came to her with heavy steps. He looked at her upturned face with eyes as deep as the dark night outside the window, then he slowly went down on one knee. “Will you ever stop being angry with me, you think?”
She contemplated him, on his knee on the floor. “I cannot say,” she finally said. “It is certainly a bit less ghastly to have been used for good, a greater cause than just for your individual gain.”
Lucian winced.
“But it’s also more tragic,” she continued, trying to match her words exactly to her thoughts for once. “I would have greatly enjoyed joining forces with my husband for a just cause. But the manner in which our betrothal came to pass … your callousness and deceit …” She shook her head. “For all your talk of justice, you have used me badly.”
The corner of his mouth curled in a humorless smile. “Would you have accepted me,” he asked, “had I wooed you the normal way?”
She knew the truth to that. “No,” she muttered. “Nor would my father.”
His expression remained unchanged; he had expected this. “I never planned on forcing your hand in the manner our kiss in the gallery forced it,” he said.
Perhaps unwisely, she believed him. “Your actions still describe a devious man,” she said. “How can I possibly trust you now?” Her pulse sped up again. He had ruined something that could have been a dream come true. “Yes, I am angry,” she said thickly. “And I’m not certain how to make it stop.”
He shifted slightly as though he had noticed the worn floorboards pressing into his knee, but his gaze never left her face. “For what it’s worth, I respect that,” he said. “I respect your anger.”
“Well, I think an annulment would put a swift end to all the angriness.”