Читать книгу Questions of Honour - Kate Welsh - Страница 6

Joshua stopped outside his father’s study. When they’d arrived Harlan had been sleeping, so Josh had decided to unpack. When he’d seen his room redone in an adult—if not an ostentatious—decorating style, he’d let himself hope his father saw him as a man now. But when Henry brought word that Harlan wanted to see him, old feelings brought doubt. He wondered if he’d ever truly be his own man in Wheatonburg. Here he felt like a rich man’s puppet. His father’s puppet.

He forced himself to remember who he was—who he’d become. He was one of the world’s most sought-after mining engineers. He’d answered to no one for years, and had a reputation for being an independent thinker. Straightening to his full six foot one inches of height, Josh opened the study door.

“Son. Come in. Come in,” Harlan called.

Joshua braced himself for the sight of his once robust father confined to a wheelchair. But he wasn’t prepared for how old the man looked after ten years. His blunt Germanic features were now rounded with excess weight. His once muscular chest seemed to have caved in, the rubble falling in an enormous bulge on his lap.

Forcing himself forward, Josh wanted to allow his father as much of his dignity as possible regardless of the bad blood between them. He advanced steadily and shook Harlan’s hand.

“It’s good to have you home, son,” Harlan said. His voice wobbled a bit. It gave Josh hope that the old man really was glad to have him back and willing to accept him as he was.

“It’s good to be home,” Josh answered, though he qualified it in his mind as feeling only a bit better than he’d expected.

“Sit down, Joshua. I asked Franklin to sit in on this meeting for several reasons. First, I thought there should be a witness.” Harlan reached beside him, and picked up a set of keys and a piece of paper. He handed each to Joshua in turn. “Here is the combination to the safe, and these are the keys to this office and all the buildings owned by Wheaton Coal. As I agreed, you’re free to run the mines as you see fit. It’s what I’ve always wanted. A family business. There are only two of us, but I’m sure there’ll be more soon.”

“There is no woman in my life. I thought I’d made that clear,” Joshua countered. “I’m not averse to marriage, as I told you. But I haven’t met anyone in recent years I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“You have to forget what’s past,” Harlan groused, shifting restlessly in his chair. “You can’t go back. There’s too much water gone over that dam. Which brings me to the second reason I asked Franklin to be here. We’d … Franklin and I … uh …”

Gowery chuckled. “What your father is trying so carefully to say is he and I would like you and Helena to make a match of it. As soon as possible.”

Joshua blinked. “Pardon me?”

“I want you to marry my ward.”

“Franklin, don’t take this as an insult, but, no. I scarcely know her.”

“You must admit she’s a lovely young woman.”

From the implacable expression on his father’s face, Joshua knew there would be no diplomatic way to extricate himself from this situation. “Be that as it may, I don’t want to marry her.”

Gowery nodded. His patronizing expression irritated Joshua even before he spoke. “I am given to understand that there was once a girl in your life. Are you still in love with her?”

Joshua sucked a breath through gritted teeth. This came too closely on the heels of that heart-wrenching glimpse of Abby in town. “She’s out of my reach, Franklin, not that it’s any of your affair. My father had no right to speak of my private business.”

“Helena also loved unwisely. Her husband will need to overlook her error, however, if you take my meaning. She isn’t in the family way, fortunately. You needn’t worry about that. The man is completely unsuitable and as Helena is all alone in the world, I am obligated to see to her future. We’ve never been close but her father was a friend. You should know Helena is heiress to a considerable fortune, which will be turned over to you when you two marry.”

“My father should have warned you, Franklin. I can’t be bought.” Joshua’s comment snapped like a whip through the room. He glanced sharply at Harlan then added, “Or threatened. He tried both ten years ago and hasn’t seen me since.”

Gowery laughed. “I would hardly call being made a millionaire for marrying a lovely young woman a threat. Nor is it a bribe. I like you, Joshua. You’re from a good, solid family and I know my friend’s daughter would be well taken care of as your wife. She has to marry. Why not take advantage of a windfall?”

“I should think you’d want more for the daughter of a friend than to be considered a windfall. Love for instance?”

“Love is a much lauded but stupid emotion. It leads people to foolishness, desperation and heartache. You’ve learned that. Helena will accept it, as well. What Harry Conwell wanted for his daughter is the kind of alliance I have with my wife and your father had with your mother. Under the terms of Harry’s will, I must approve of the man or she doesn’t inherit.”

Joshua suppressed a shudder, remembering his parents’ cold union, and the poor German widow forced into an illicit alliance to fill the private needs his father’s wife refused to deal with. Josh would die alone before he’d live the way they had. “I suggest you look elsewhere.”

“At least consider it?” Gowery asked. “Squire Helena about for a day or two. Get to know her. There is another man I’m considering who is from just as good a family. I’ll settle on him if you refuse even though Helena seems to despise him.”

Poor Helena. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to agree to spend time with her. He could give her a reprieve for a little while. She was a pleasant person and certainly not hard on the eyes. Harlan’s chair creaked, drawing Joshua’s attention. He sat back in his own chair and looked toward his father again. “You’ve been surprisingly quiet, Father.”

“I think you would be wise to think about Franklin’s offer. He’s only trying to do his duty by the girl and it isn’t as if arranged marriages among people of our class are unusual. Don’t turn it down out of hand just because I’ve endorsed the girl.”

Joshua smiled. “That would be rather childish. If I remember from our recent communications, we’ve decided I’m a man now. I’ll run the company and escort who I wish and, as it so happens, it suits my purposes to be Helena’s escort while she’s here. If we decide to pursue a relationship, it will be because we choose to for personal reasons—not financial gain or because you two have meddled in our lives. Is that clear?”

Both men nodded, but considering their personalities, Josh was sure it was only a temporary capitulation. “Pressure either of us and even this much of a concession is at an end,” he added.

By the time dinner was over, however, Josh knew he couldn’t marry Helena. She clearly hated him for some unknown reason. After thinking it through, he went downstairs to tell Harlan of his decision but got a nasty earful instead. What he overheard chilled him and placed him in the most difficult position he’d ever been in.

It seemed his father had left out something rather important when he turned the company over to Josh—like having hired Pinkerton agents to act as spies within the mining community. Josh understood both Gowery’s and his father’s desire to eliminate the threat from the thugs who’d taken over the failed American Miners United union. His father had been shot by one of them, after all. Josh’s anger initially came from being left in the dark but then he heard something that made his blood boil.

“I want evidence gathered on one man specifically, Brendan Kane,” Josh heard Gowery say.

“Is this because he seduced Helena then discarded her?” a voice unknown to Josh asked.

“He’s miles below her in station. He had no right to even talk to her let alone have his way with her. I want him to swing—if not for that then for Harry Conwell’s murder,” Gowery demanded.

“We have no proof that Helena’s father was even killed by a miner let alone her lover,” the undercover Pinkerton agent said. The man’s British accent seemed to be tinged with a touch of Irish. “I was there,” he went on. “I held Conwell as he died.”

Newspaper accounts of Harry Conwell’s murder had placed both Gowery and Jamie Reynolds, the Earl of Adair, at the scene. Did that mean that for some reason an earl was working undercover for the Pinkertons? Joshua had to agree with the man’s assessment of Helena’s father’s death. Josh was sure Brendan Kane was innocent of everything except seducing Helena.

Josh wished he could simply warn Brendan but that might not be wise. He was trapped, Josh thought as he made his way to his room upstairs. If he didn’t agree to the marriage, Gowery would just take Helena and leave town.

He had to talk to her.

Since Josh rarely put off unpleasant tasks, he went immediately to her room and tapped on the door.

“Joshua?” she whispered after cracking the door open.

“I need to talk to you. I know it’s late, and that this is irregular, but may I come in?”

Helena’s shadowed figure grew rigid. “I don’t know what Uncle Franklin told you, but I assure you, I will not allow you to sample the merchandise!”

She started to close the door, but Josh pressed his shoulder against it. “I said talk. That’s what I meant. Look, I don’t want to sound melodramatic but this is a matter of life or death.”

Helena considered him, then stepped back and silently motioned him inside. She had a lamp burning low on a table between two chairs at the far end of the room. She walked to one of the chairs and sat, gesturing to the other.

He sat. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but—”

“I was awake.” Her tone was flat and preoccupied. “I don’t sleep well anymore.”

“You’re very resentful of me. Why?”

“You’re a man,” she snapped. “I doubt you have the capacity to understand. What exactly is the plan for tonight? Compromise the little heiress and gain control of her fortune?”

Josh raked a hand through his hair. What if she resented Brendan? “I came here to ask your help,” he explained. “You don’t want to marry me and I don’t want to marry you. My father married my mother for her money. I was merely the second clause in the negotiations. She had little choice, and it seems you don’t, either. Am I right?” She nodded. “If I don’t marry you, Franklin will go looking for another man for you.”

“He has another man all picked out to step in line.” Helena laughed quietly but it was a sad sound. “I can’t marry the man I love, because he’s poor and Uncle Franklin is sure he’s after my money. It’s perfectly acceptable, though, to hand me over to you or some earl who is probably bankrupt and obsessed with me. There’d be no pretense of love in the marriage on my end, but one of you will have my money as a reward. With him I’d be the Countess Adair. What do you have to offer?”

She’d answered the question of why a man of consequence like an earl would be foolhardy enough to become involved with spying on the AMU. He was trying to find the man who killed the father of the woman he loved. So where did all that leave Helena and Brendan? Poor Helena was closer to a slave than the miners. “Do you still love him and does Brendan Kane return your feelings?”

She looked up in surprise at the mention of Brendan’s name and a tear glistened at the corner of her eye. “He loves me so much he won’t see me or talk to me. He thinks he’s not good enough for me but that isn’t true. He’s wonderful. And noble. All he worries about is that he can’t give me what I’ve always had. He’s bitter about losing me but he’s as stubborn as Uncle Franklin. I wanted to run away with him, but he says he won’t rob me of my inheritance. How did you find out his name?”

Joshua leaned forward and took her fisted hands in his. “I just got an earful outside my father’s room. Franklin wants retribution, Helena, and he’s using your earl to get it. Have you ever heard of the American Miners United or the term Workmen?”

“Of course, Uncle Franklin says it was members of the AMU who shot your father and killed mine. And they’ve threatened Uncle Franklin. Workmen are what their members are called.”

“Do you think Brendan Kane could be a Workman?”

Fire shot to her eyes. “He’d no more shoot a man in cold blood than he would his own father! And he wouldn’t belong to an organization that would!”

He’d needed to know what she thought. She thought Workmen had killed her father. She wouldn’t harbor one. “I hadn’t thought so but I haven’t seen or heard from Brendan since I left here.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “You know Brendan.”

“He was my best friend. Your guardian is trying to frame Brendan as a Workman. They have Pinkerton spies all over Schuylkill County. A man named McParlan is close to getting a membership list in his sector. If they bring the men involved with the AMU to trial, many will hang. Your guardian means to see Brendan’s name added to the list.”

“I’ll warn him,” Helena burst out.

Josh shook his head. “No, you can’t. Neither can I. He may know men who’re in the AMU. They could be his good friends. There’s no sense in tempting him to warn a friend. If he did and something happens to one of the Pinkerton agents, and especially the earl, Brendan could be implicated.”

Joshua thought of Brendan as he watched emotions and thoughts race across Helena’s face. He didn’t like the idea of his friend being in the kind of pain he himself had been in for years. He didn’t want him to feel the emptiness that goes with losing love. For long minutes, the only sound in the room came from a clock ticking in the corner.

“According to the terms of your father’s will, will you ever be able to marry as you wish?”

“When I’m twenty-one. In three months time, I inherit, married or not. I’d hoped to put him off but Uncle Franklin is determined to choose for me before then. I can’t let another man touch—” She stopped and shook her head, a blush staining her pale cheeks. “I won’t marry anyone but Brendan.”

Joshua stared at the young woman across from him. Helena seemed strong enough to bear up under the strain of a plan forming in his mind. In a way, it would be less pressure than she was currently under.

“What you need is a diversion. What I need is to keep Franklin here in Wheatonburg where I can watch how his trap for the AMU unfolds and so I can make sure Brendan isn’t caught in it when it’s sprung.”

“How do we accomplish that?” she asked, her eyes wide with excitement and dread at the same time.

“By letting everyone think we’re considering marriage.”

Helena simply stared. “So,” she said slowly, “we pretend you’re courting me and Uncle Franklin takes me off the auction block.”

“Yes, but we have to find a way to keep Franklin here so I can watch him.”

Helena shook her head. “He won’t leave me here. The last time I was here I met and fell in love with Brendan. He’ll want to make sure we stay away from each other. I’m just afraid Brendan will think I’ve given up. He keeps telling me to, but I swore not to.” Her lips turned up in a sudden mischievous grin. “I suppose it would serve him right for his lack of faith.”

Josh found himself grinning, too. “Are we agreed then?”

Helena nodded. “How will I ever be able to thank you?”

“By making plenty of pretty babies with Brendan and naming one after me.”

Helena tilted her head and stared at him for several seconds. “You sound as if you’ll never have a son of your own. Someday you’ll meet the right person.”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t think so. I met her years ago. She was the daughter of a miner.”

“And you lost her?”

“I had better go,” Joshua told her, standing abruptly and hastening from the room. He knew it wasn’t fair but he couldn’t talk about Abby so soon after his first painful glimpse of her.