Josiah's Treasure (8 page)

She sounded bothered by the fact. Maybe she was worried that if the space had failed the milliner, it might fail her too. Not totally naive.

“I hope you won’t be unsuccessful like she was, Miss Whittier,” he said before he could put two thoughts together as to why he felt the need to reassure her.

An amused look crossed her face. “You can’t suddenly be on my side, Mr. Cady.”

Daniel crushed his hat brim before he admitted that as well. Miss Whittier was intelligent and determined, strong willed and pretty enough . . . commendable attributes, but ones he couldn’t afford to admire. He had to remember that she was not to be trusted until his lawyer had finished reviewing the particulars of Josiah’s estate. Not if he wanted to keep a cool head around her.

Not if he wanted to keep himself from caring.

“I came here to fetch what Josiah owed me and my sisters,” he said plainly, truthfully, “not to ruin a young woman’s future.”

“You might succeed in doing both.”

He slapped his hat against his thigh, fanning an eddy of dust across the floor. “Listen, I’m not out to hurt you. But I can’t go back on the promises I’ve made, any more than you can go back on yours. You believe your girls need you. My sisters need me.”

“Do you honestly think we can fulfill both our promises, Mr. Cady?”

“You have your backers,” he pointed out.

“Anxious men whose charitable impulses read well in the newspaper but don’t always hold up under pressure.” She wasn’t naive in the least.

Daniel stilled the nervous motion of his hands. Pretty young women like Sarah shouldn’t be so cynical or worldly-wise. They should be sheltered and supported, what he’d spent half a lifetime doing for his sisters, trying to keep them from suffering the worst of the damage Josiah had caused. He didn’t have to learn much about Sarah Whittier to realize that, even though she’d worked for Josiah in that comfortable house, she’d had to scrape and claw to be where she was today. Just like he had, making them two of a kind. An uncomfortable recognition.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“I didn’t bring you here to impress you with my empty shop and its filthy floors.” She pulled in a long breath. “I brought you here because, if you succeed in gaining Josiah’s estate, I want you to invest in the studio. I would pay you back, with interest.”

“I can’t do that.” Even if he wanted to help Sarah Whittier, for the sake of Lily’s and Marguerite’s futures, he couldn’t.

Sarah gave him a withering look and retrieved her reticule from the countertop where she’d left it. Apparently she had let herself hope for more from him.

“You were right.” Her eyes were deep brown, the color of cocoa or polished walnut. Lovely even when dull with disillusionment. “I did waste my time.”

Soon, me boy, soon you’ll be rich.

The tip of his cigar flared orange as he inhaled. A curl of blue smoke writhed above his head, dashed away on the wind, and he shifted his foot to let the ashes fall to the plank sidewalk. Frank thought, with an upward contortion of his lips—which no one who knew him would ever call a smile—that it would be funny if the wood caught fire and burned down the entire block. All these rich folks in their fancy houses, the glass of their bay windows blinking like diamonds in the setting sun, the fancy flowers, bright as rubies and sapphires, in their gardens scrabbling to take root in the sand, showing off like they’re better than everyone. Pretending, just because they were lucky and struck gold—or figured out how to swindle the ones who’d struck gold—that the twirls of their carved wood doorways and banisters made them superior. Made them forget that they’d been grubbing in dirt once, sprouting blisters on blisters, patching old clothes and stuffing newspapers inside their shirts to stay warm when the fog clung like soot on a chimney stack.

Well, he’d be lucky too. And then he’d build himself a house
right next to theirs on Nob Hill. Show them all what it meant to be rich. Just like he’d always planned.

Frank watched through the window as the light in the kitchen flared and held. The cook was at work starting a late dinner, for her and that Whittier woman who owned that house too big for just the two of them. How preciously sweet that old man Cady had left her everything, according to what his woman had found out. Frank chuckled. He knew men like Cady. When it came time to meet their Maker, they suddenly turned as generous as a saint.

Well, she could keep the house. He just wanted the gold, thank you very much. And he wasn’t alone. When that reporter had come around the saloon that evening, asking questions about Cady, he’d set off a frenzy of speculation. Frank had supplied a few answers to the fellow—wasn’t a problem at all, not when the reporter was handing out silver coins like they were going out of fashion—told him about Cady’s mine in the Black Hills, but Frank wasn’t going to tell the reporter more. Not if the stories were true. He was here for the main chance, because if there was gold for the getting, he was the man to get it.

Shifting his hips on the stone steps of the unfinished house across the way, he dragged on the cigar, a final puff that filled his lungs, and felt satisfaction in his bones. It’d been worth roughing up Manuel for one of these Havanas. When he was rich, he’d buy himself as many as he wanted. Dozens. By the box. By the case. He felt so good, he grinned at the Chinese boy hurrying along the street with a sack of cleaned laundry slung over his shoulder. The boy, slitted black eyes judging pretty fast, wisely trotted to the other side of the road, steering clear. Maybe he’d get himself a Chinese servant boy when he was rich. And an Irish girl to do the cleaning. Yep, that sounded good.

Soon. The next time the Whittier woman was outta the house along with the servant, he’d find that gold. The nuggets old Josiah Cady had stored away in a hidey-hole. If it took more than
one visit . . . Frank chuckled again. Visit. Like he was an invited guest. If it took more than one visit to find the gold, he didn’t care. And if he had to rough up the Whittier woman because she wouldn’t oblige him, he didn’t care about that, either.

He dropped the cigar on the planks and stood.

Soon, me boy, soon you’ll be rich.

“I
t did not go well yesterday afternoon, did it?” Lottie’s polished ivory leather boots stepped into Sarah’s view, peeping beyond the ruffled hem of her draped rose-pink skirts. Only Lottie could wear light-colored shoes in San Francisco and keep them pristine. “Sarah?”

Sarah looked up from the worktable. Her friend’s pale eyes, the sort of startlingly clear blue that appeared bottomless, fathomless, hooked Sarah’s with the tenacity of a fishing barb.

“Emma is waiting for further instruction, Lottie,” Sarah said, pointing her pencil at the young German woman seated at the corner desk. Hearing her name, she lifted her head. Her full, smooth face masked a fierce pride that permitted no one to get close, no one to learn the details of her hardscrabble childhood. It didn’t conceal her keen mind.

“Emma is working the balance sheet examples I gave her,” Lottie responded. “She will be busy for the next few minutes, at least. Please tell me exactly what happened yesterday.”

“During lessons is not the time to discuss this.” Sarah returned her attention to the girl at her side. “Remember, Anne, when you draw the master for a chromolithograph, keep the lines distinct so that when we make our transfer copies for each color, you won’t get confused.”

The girl, her tall back bent over the table set beneath the window of the second-floor study Sarah had converted into a
workroom, frowned with concentration. Beneath her pen, the outlines of a palm tree and oaks near a pond came to life, filling in with her imagination the details the photograph Sarah had provided did not contain. Anne had a natural gift for sketching landscapes. Her talent would go to waste plying a needle as a seamstress, which was how she earned a scant living.

Sarah’s gaze flitted over the girl’s profile. The bright sunlight streaming through the window lit Anne’s face. A fresh bruise bloomed on her chin. She had tried to turn away from the blow, this time. Sarah wondered how many other bruises were hidden beneath her high collars and long sleeves. Emma’s life might be hardscrabble, but at least she didn’t arrive at lessons with her face purpling from a man’s fist.

Sarah’s fingers wavered, wanting to brush away the strand of chestnut hair fallen across the bruise. She had touched Anne only once, when the girl had first come to work for her. A quick hug that had caused her to flinch like she’d been doused with scalding water. Sarah had never touched Anne again.

She returned her gaze to Anne’s careful sketching. “That’s it. Lovely.”

“Sarah, you need to tell me.” Lottie leaned over as far as her corset and her heavy bustle permitted. She stared Sarah in the face. “What did Mr. Cady say?”

Anne’s thin, dark eyebrows scrunched. “Mr. Cady?”

Sarah shot an admonishing glance at Lottie before responding. She hadn’t planned on telling the girls about Daniel until absolutely necessary. If he turned out to be a swindler—an unlikely possibility, but she had to hope—they would never learn of him at all. “A man who claims he’s a relative of Mr. Josiah recently arrived in town. He came all the way from Chicago.”

“What does he want, Miss Sarah?” Emma asked from across the room.

This house, my inheritance . . .
“He simply wanted to visit Josiah, Emma. He was unaware he had passed away. That’s all.”

Emma exchanged a look with Anne. “A man does not make a long train ride from Chicago, Miss Sarah, simply for a visit,” said Emma. “He looks for something else, I think.”

Setting down her pencil, Sarah regarded the girls in turn. “I will handle Mr. Cady, girls. Please don’t speak to the others about this. You need to concentrate on your studies and our preparations for the studio, that’s all. Don’t worry.”

“Why might we worry?” Anne asked.

Sarah frowned; she’d made a poor choice of words. “Anne, you can begin coloring the master sketch. You’ve drawn enough detail to give a good sense of the landscape. Lottie, I need to speak with you in the garden.”

Sarah removed her apron and swept out of the room, frightening Rufus from his favorite chair on the landing.

“So it did go badly,” Lottie stated, pulling her skirts upward to keep from stumbling as she dashed down the stairs behind Sarah.

Sarah strode through the dining room, Rufus trotting behind, straight out the rear door past the kitchen and down into the garden. She breathed in the sweetness of the roses, enjoyed the sunlight warming her face, listened to the burble of the fountain.
For just a moment, let there be peace . . .

Any peace she would feel would be an illusion, though. An illusion she could ill afford to lose herself in.

“He didn’t accept the bribe. He threw the money back at me, in fact.” Sarah hugged her arms around her waist and watched Rufus weave between the legs of the wicker garden chairs, his bent tail slapping against the stretchers. “He boldly proclaimed he would definitely prove he was Josiah’s son. And then, foolish me, I thought to take him to the shop. I wanted to show him what we intend to do. Maybe even convince him to invest in our business. As if my plans could melt that glacial heart of his.”

“I do not believe you have known him long enough to assess the condition of his heart, Sarah,” Lottie replied with a small, sly smile.

“Oh, Lottie, don’t tease. Not at a time like this.” Scooping up Rufus, Sarah took to pacing along the tiny gravel path. After Josiah’s passing, she had paced endlessly, wearing a track in the parlor carpet, which Mrs. McGinnis had spent hours repairing with a hot iron and a coarse coconut-fiber brush. “What am I to do now?”

“I will not suggest you plead or beg him to be generous. I know that is not like you.”

“We’ll have to find more donors. It’s obvious.” But if she lost the house and the Placerville property, would anyone be willing to provide enough money to cover all her expenses? The question made her brain churn like a paddlewheel on a riverboat. “And I’ll have to sell more paintings. Beyond that, I can’t think of what else to do. And before you say ‘pray’—”

“Sarah,” Lottie interrupted, her tone chastising but her expression kind. “We simply must trust in God’s mercy.”

Trust in the God who had let her father die and then her mother and siblings perish in a summer storm, blown away on the wind? The God who had deposited her in the home of a bitter aunt who didn’t know what it meant to love? The same God who had brought Edouard Marchand into her life, the man who had nearly led her to ruin?

Sarah curled her fingers through Rufus’s fur and looked away, stared at the roses basking in the sunshine, let the tabby’s purr rumble through her arms. And she said the words burning in her heart that would make Lottie cross. “God sent Daniel Cady here. If He intended to be merciful, the man never would have found me.”

“You cannot know what His plans are for you. But I believe you are not meant to fail now, so near to realizing your dream. Our dream.”

“Let’s hope Daniel Cady pays attention to God’s merciful plans.”
Because I do not trust them.