The Lady of Bolton Hill (12 page)

After her tour of the workroom, they returned to the privacy of his office, where she set her notepad on his worktable and he took the chair opposite her. She flipped open her notepad and asked a series of brisk, intelligent questions with ease.

They were straightforward questions, about the nature of his inventions and how they advanced railroad operations. He explained how five years ago they had begun buying railroad lines, investing a fortune to diversify their company so as to ensure their long-term viability. “Railroads are expensive,” Daniel said. “Most of my available capital has been plowed directly back into the company, but we’ve got to have them. Unless we have railroads, our company could be wiped out tomorrow should someone else patent an invention that is better than ours.”

It wasn’t until half an hour into the conversation that Clara started poking around the sensitive areas.

“And as you sink more capital into railroad lines, surely you encounter more difficulty with your laborers?”

He gave a slight nod of his head. “Naturally.”

“Have your railroad workers formed a union?”

“They tried during the strikes of 1877,” he said. “It was not successful.”

“Why wouldn’t you permit them to unionize?”

He didn’t want to discuss this with her. Clara was the person who had always helped him escape the troubles of the world. He wasn’t about to allow their afternoon to be spoiled by a labor uprising over which he had no responsibility.

“I had nothing to do with what happened back in 1877,” he said. “The strike covered the entire eastern half of the country and didn’t end until federal troops went in city by city to crush it. You can’t blame it on me, Clara.”

“No one would have stopped you if you permitted your own workers to form a union.”

Daniel folded his arms across his chest and wished she would drop the topic. “That’s a business question. My partner, Ian Carr, handles business operations and employment.”

“And yet the decision not to license your technology to Forsythe was your doing.”

“The sole exception.”

“How does Ian feel about this?”

That wasn’t exactly a secret. “He doesn’t like it. Ian knows it would be easy money to let Forsythe use our technology, but he respects my reasons for refusing. We would not be business partners were it otherwise.”

The scratching of Clara’s pencil as she took notes was the only sound in the room. Ever since she began this interview she had displayed the utmost professional competence, asking probing questions in that flawlessly polite, precise way of hers. He was fiercely proud of her, but that didn’t make being the subject of this interview any easier to tolerate. Daniel felt like a specimen under a microscope and wondered how much longer this would last.

“When Carr & Tremain becomes a publicly owned company, will you be able to continue denying your technology to Forsythe?” she asked.

“We are not going public. I won’t relent on my position regarding Forsythe, so the deal is over.”

Clara set her pencil down, her eyes troubled. “I see,” she said quietly. She took a deep breath and leaned her head back, studying the ceiling of his office as though some terrific secret was hidden up there.

He reached across the table to close her notebook. “What’s bothering you? It’s not labor union troubles.”

She smiled a bit. “You always could read me.”

That’s because you’re the other half of my soul.
“I’m not doing such a good job now. What’s troubling you?”

She met his gaze frankly. “Will you go to church with me on Sunday?”

It was the last thing he expected to hear, but he could see by the anticipation on her face how important this was to her. Clara was a believer, and it had always bothered her that he did not share the same level of commitment.

He would have to handle this carefully. “Why is it important that I should attend services with you?”

She pushed away from the table and strolled to the window, looking down into the streets of Baltimore four stories below. “Because you are one of the finest men I know, but there’s a deep, wide hole inside of you, and I want to help you fix it.”

He clenched his fist, but kept his face expressionless. If it was
anyone
but Clara who dared to lecture him, he would have shut them down as quickly as snuffing out a candle. Instead he forced himself to look her in the eye and try to help her understand. “If you’re referring to my quirk about doing business with Forsythe, this isn’t a shortcoming that you can fix. It is a deeply held principle that means something to me. I’m honoring the memory of my mother and father, and I hardly consider that to be a hole that needs mending.”

When she turned to face him there was hope shining in her eyes. “I wish you would become a Christian,” she said. “If you could learn about and accept the principles of Jesus, so many things would change for you.”

“And you believe these magic principles of Jesus are going to cause me to forgive Forsythe and live happily ever after?”

She had that hurt look in her blue eyes that always tugged at his gut, but there was only so much he could tolerate, even from Clara. “You’re mocking me, but yes, I believe they can,” she said.

“It will never happen.”

She whirled away from him and strode to the other side of the room, her voice angry. “In all these years of snubbing Forsythe and denying him your technology, has any of that really made you feel better? Has any of it worked to calm the roiling pit of anger inside you?”

How innocent she was. How simplistic and naive she was if she thought saying a few prayers to Jesus could solve the tragedy of what had torn his family to pieces.

“Actually, yes . . . denying my technology to Forsythe has made me quite happy,” he said. “Every time I read that Forsythe needs to prematurely replace his rails, it makes me happy. Every time I read that he has to pay a fortune to stationmen along his line because he can’t buy my timing switches,
it feels good
. It’s worked like a charm, Clara.”

“But would you try, Daniel? You’ve never had a chance to learn about God or Jesus and you can’t dismiss it out of ignorance.” She softened her voice. “Would you try for me?”

When she looked at him with her eyes shining in appeal, he wanted to go to the moon for her, but he couldn’t grant her this request. It wasn’t ignorance of religion that caused him to reject it. His mother had done an extraordinary job of sharing her faith with her children, and look at all the good it did for her. When he was growing up he had read some of the Bible but never found it particularly moving or helpful. Same thing for her father’s sermons. Going through the motions of attending services with Clara and allowing her to believe she could transform him into a wholesome Christian would simply raise her hopes and, ultimately, be more cruel.

He tried to sound lighthearted. “Clara, you are obviously too good-hearted to recognize an unrepentant sinner like me.”

“Please, Daniel. Please have a little bit of confidence that I know what I’m talking about. I want to help you.”

He knew she did. From the first time she had let him use her piano to the time she rushed into the middle of a riot to rescue his sister, Clara had been the epitome of selfless loyalty.

“Clara, I adore you,” he said simply but truthfully. “Back when I was a dirty-faced kid, you were like a ray of light in a very grim world. You were so fine that I never dared hope I could be worthy of a girl like you. I dreaded getting older, knowing that each day I was one step closer to losing you. One step closer to the day when you would look around and meet some man of your own class who would marry you and shut me out of your life forever. And then I would go back to the steel mill, to the boilers and coal wagons.”

Daniel moved across the office to stand near her shoulder, so close he could smell the scent of her perfume. “And then a miracle occurred. I figured a way to earn lots of money and buy a fancy house with a grand piano and suddenly that blue-eyed girl with the golden hair was no longer so far out of reach. And when I saw her again, after all those years . . .” Did he imagine it, or were tears welling in her eyes? It was impossible to tell because she turned and faced the window.

“When I saw you again that day at the Opera House, you were so beautiful you took my breath away.” Those words seemed so inadequate for the longing that raged inside him. In every hour of each day since he had seen her again, Clara had been a constant in his thoughts, a dream he fell asleep to at night and the inspiration he strove to be worthy of by day. “But now I find that another bar has been set for me,” Daniel said. “Earning money and building a fine house was easy. Now she wants me to go out and transform my entire soul.”

She turned to face him. “Yes, that’s what I want.”

He folded his arms across his chest and locked eyes with her. “I adore you, Clara. I always have, and if I live another hundred years, on my deathbed it will be you who fills my thoughts in my last hour. But I won’t be your lapdog. I’ve worked and slaved and suffered to get to this point, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.” His gaze flicked over his office. His immaculate, freshly cleaned and tidied office. Not that it had mattered to her one bit. “If you can’t accept that, I need to know it now. There is no point in prolonging this misery if you can’t take me as I am.”

He could see the play of emotions flickering across her face, disappointment warring with the determination to keep fighting. He held his breath, fearing that he pushed too hard and she would turn around and walk out of his life forever. His dearest friend, his brightest dream. He clenched his fists, fearing if she left him, the scar on his soul would never heal.

She lowered her head so all he could see was the top of her glossy blond hair parted neatly in the middle and pinned in an elegant twist. So wonderfully prim, but typically Clara. How desperately he wanted to run his fingers through those silky strands, bury his nose in the softly scented hair.

“I can’t force you to change,” she finally murmured softly. “Only God can do that.” When she raised her head to look at him, her eyes were hopeful. “But will you at least listen to me? This is a huge part of my life, and if you dismiss it like it is an annoying bother, I don’t know that there is much hope for us.”

“I’ve always listened to you, Clara.” From the moment he met her, her opinion was the one that mattered most in the world to him.

At last, the creases on her forehead eased; she straightened her shoulders and looked back at him. Her voice was nonchalant when she finally spoke. “Then what time shall I meet you for your sister’s tennis match this weekend?”

And Daniel smiled. He knew he had won.

B
ane tucked away his research on Daniel Tremain and the Baltimore harbor before going downstairs for the Professor’s meeting. The more he learned about Baltimore, the more Bane was convinced it would be a fine city to serve as a base for criminal operations. When he went to carry out the Professor’s errand against Tremain, he really ought to capitalize on the opportunity by laying some groundwork for future endeavors.

“Well, well, the little prince has decided to join us.”

Bane ignored Rick Collier’s taunt as he strolled into the Professor’s spacious library. Everyone in the room knew the Professor considered Bane the heir apparent to the criminal empire, and Bane was fiercely resented by the men who had far more experience in the murky world of the illegal opium trade.

“And how are you this morning, Mr. Collier?” Bane asked pleasantly. How easy it was to irk the man simply by using the word
mister
, since it emphasized that Bane was still only a teenaged boy. The fact that he was also the most trusted of all the Professor’s criminal lieutenants was doubly insulting. Rick Collier, Sammy Bennington, and Michael Green were all jealous of him, but these men had had plenty of opportunity to impress the Professor. They simply had been no match for the child who had been kidnapped at the age of six, yet managed to figure out a way to survive and then thrive in the Professor’s strange world. Eleven years after the Professor had snatched Bane out of his mother’s arms on the streets of San Francisco, he still treated Bane like a son. Now the teenaged, golden boy’s power was gathering momentum as the Professor turned ever-increasing responsibilities over to him, and his fellow partners in crime did not like it.

“Just shut your pretty mouth,” Collier growled. “The Professor isn’t here to appreciate you kissing up to us, so stow it.”

Bane made eye contact with Michael Green, the smartest of the three other men in the room, and smiled as he shrugged his shoulders helplessly. For months he had been courting Green’s loyalty, and Green was smart enough to play along. Collier and Bennington still stupidly thought the way to win the Professor’s admiration was in proving how tough they were. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Bane’s eyes scanned the walls of the library, lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of rare books, treasures collected from all over the world. The key to the Professor’s esteem was right here before them, wrapped in leather-bound casings and oiled with care. Professor Van Bracken
respected
power and ruthlessness, but he
loved
his books. Only people who shared his passion had any hope of earning the Professor’s trust. The mansion was kept perpetually chilly, the optimal temperature for preserving old books. So much did the Professor love being surrounded by his cherished books that he insisted on all his important meetings taking place in this room.

And today’s meeting was of the utmost importance. Only the Professor’s top lieutenants were allowed to know the location of his Vermont mansion. The hundreds of henchmen and small-time smugglers who were foot soldiers in this criminal empire did not even know the Professor’s name. Instead, the Professor had a small group of trusted lieutenants who had been assigned control of the opium trade in specific regions of the country. Bane controlled New England, Sammy Bennington was responsible for the port of Halifax, and Michael Green controlled the entire West Coast. For the past year, Rick Collier had been managing the smuggling from the coasts into the heartland. And at the center of the complex web of operations sat the Professor, spinning his master plan with flawless precision. Every few years the Professor orchestrated a shift in his entire smuggling business in order to stay ahead of the authorities. He called in lieutenants from all corners of the country to strategize how the new procedures would work. Although opium was a legal substance in the United States, taxes on the drug were more than three times the actual value of the raw opium. The high taxes and portable nature of opium made it an irresistible target for smugglers.

The door to the library opened, and every man stood at attention as the Professor entered the room. As always, Professor Edward Van Bracken was meticulously groomed, his salt-and-pepper hair smoothed back with Macassar oil, his beard neatly trimmed, and wearing a custom-tailored suit with a silk vest and starched white collar. But Bane noticed something alarming almost immediately. As the Professor strode into the room, he looked each man in the eye as he greeted them, took his seat, set a stack of papers on the table, and adjusted his jacket. But during the entire exchange, he had failed to blink even once.

It was an odd habit, and one Bane had noticed when he was still a child. Whenever the Professor was in a seething rage, the only indication was that lidless stare in which he rarely blinked. None of the other men in the room seemed to be aware of it, and Bane was not the sort of person to share these little tidbits of insight.

“Well, now,” the Professor said in a smooth voice, “let’s square things away quickly so we can move on to more important matters. We have already agreed to shift our West Coast operations out of San Francisco and into Vancouver. I have not yet decided on the best new port to use on the East Coast. I would like to hear all of your thoughts on the matter.”

Bane was determined for it to be Baltimore. Ever since the Professor had tasked him with extracting Daniel Tremain from Carr & Tremain Polytechnic, Bane had made a great study of the city. It was essential to have a thorough understanding of any city in which he did business, and he was impressed with the infrastructure of the port of Baltimore. He had already been to Baltimore on other business ventures and knew it would be an ideal base for smuggling.

The Professor was waiting for each man’s input as to the new port, and Collier had a firm opinion. “Easy,” Collier said. “If we can’t use New York anymore, we go to Boston. The railroad system in Massachusetts is perfect for what we need, and big enough for us to get lost in.” Others in the room nodded their heads. The Professor turned toward Bane.

“Bane? What are your thoughts?”

For the Professor’s benefit, Bane cast an apologetic nod toward Collier. “I’m sorry, Mr. Collier, sir, but I think Boston would be suicide.”

“And why is that, golden boy?” Collier said.

“The port of Boston has a major naval base,” Bane explained. “A new admiral has just been appointed to the Navy Yard. Five men were arrested last month for accepting bribes, and he isn’t finished cleaning house yet. I don’t think Boston is a good bet until we know more about the new admiral.”

The Professor nodded. “Excellent observation. Where do you suggest, Bane?”

“Baltimore,” Bane said without hesitation. There were howls of disapproval from the men for the unconventional choice, far south of anywhere they had ever operated, but Bane maintained his composure. “Baltimore has an excellent deep-water port, and it will allow ready access not only to New England but the Caribbean, as well.” He looked to the Professor. “We haven’t done as much as we could with Cuba and the West Indies. Baltimore will let us ramp up our operations. Most importantly, Baltimore does not have a reputation for smuggling. No one will be on the lookout for us if we move our East Coast operations there.”

The Professor said nothing, just turned that lidless stare on Collier and raised his brow. Collier seemed to shrink in his chair. “Crazy,” Collier said. “Baltimore is too far south.”

“Is that the best argument you can summon to counter Bane’s proposal?” When Collier said nothing, the Professor merely sighed. “When a boy of Bane’s tender years shows more insight and strategic analysis than a man twenty years in the business, it gives me cause for concern.”

Collier was under pressure, but this sort of exquisitely mannered questioning was standard for the Professor. It was the fact that the man was barely blinking that had Bane concerned. There was no telling
who
had set the Professor into a simmering rage, and Bane could not rest easy until he knew.

Green and Bennington both weighed in with their opinions, and ultimately Bane’s recommendation was adopted. Collier relaxed as soon as the decision was made, but Bane kept his guard up. Whatever was bothering the Professor was bound to rise to the surface soon.

The Professor reached inside his tailored frock coat and retrieved a small card. “I received a telegraph message this morning from Halifax.” Sammy Bennington immediately went on the alert, as Halifax was his territory. “It appears that the kidnapping of young Timothy Snyder was not all that it could have been. In short, the attempt to snatch the boy from his private school was thwarted.”

The Professor swiveled his lidless gaze to Bennington. “Now I ask you, Mr. Bennington, how am I to have open access to the port of Halifax if the harbor master continues to accept bribes from my rivals while failing to show me similar consideration?”

Bennington’s face had gone pure white. “We’ll get the boy. We can try again. Immediately.”

“My contact tells me the boy now has a bodyguard.”

“I’ll double up the men on the job. Triple them,” Bennington stammered. “The bodyguard won’t be a problem.”

“Hmm,” the Professor said, clearly unimpressed. A smile that wasn’t a smile curled the corners of his mouth. “We are all part of a team here, Mr. Bennington. If one part of the team fails to perform, it hurts the entire team. And it doesn’t seem fair for all of us to be let down because one team member did not know how to manage a job. I’m not interested in
why
someone failed, or
how
he plans to do better. He simply can’t be part of the team anymore.”

The door to the library opened, and four of the Professor’s henchmen walked in, their sleeves rolled up for business. One of them was carrying a sledgehammer.

“I can’t have that sort of carelessness among my top officials. It sets a bad example,” the Professor said reasonably. “You know what this means, Bennington.”

“Please! Please, Professor, no!” Bennington made to bolt for the door, but the henchmen restrained him. Bennington was a huge man, and there was a good deal of scuffling as bodies struggled against one another, but eventually he was hauled back into his chair.

“Please, Professor, just don’t hurt my family,” he said in a voice shaking with fear.

“Now, Bennington,” the Professor said coolly. “Have I said anything about little Polly and the way she takes her puppy for a walk every afternoon right when she gets home from school? Although I must tell you that a loving father would have forbid his children to fall into such predictable patterns. It makes them so much more vulnerable, doesn’t it?”

Bennington swallowed hard. “I’ll do whatever you want. Polly is a good girl and doesn’t deserve any of this.”

“But I am sure little Timothy Snyder is a good boy, and you had no qualms about arranging for his kidnapping, correct?”

Sweat was pouring off Bennington, soaking his shirt and filling the room with the pungent odor of fear. Bane remained motionless in his chair, but closed his eyes in disgust. This was the game the Professor used to keep his men living in terror of him. Sometimes he might lash out at a man’s family, while other times he would simply laugh and deliver a vase of flowers to a man’s wife. It all depended on whatever fickle mood the Professor was in. Bane’s fingernails bit into the palms of his hands, hoping his revulsion was not showing on his face. One of the things the Professor respected him for was his coolness under pressure. Long ago, Bane had perfected the art of appearing utterly serene, no matter how revolting the provocation.

The Professor sighed. “I’m sorry to see this pattern of careless behavior, Bennington. First with failing to secure Timothy Snyder, but especially with leaving your own child so vulnerable to whatever sort of riffraff that might have it out for you. Really, if anything bad should happen to poor Polly, the fault lies solely with you, don’t you think? So I’m going to ask my men to take you out in the yard and teach you a bit of a lesson. Then I’ll make my decision about poor Polly. What do you say? Is it a deal?”

A hint of relief crept into Bennington’s face. If he accepted his punishment without a fuss, perhaps the Professor would have mercy on Polly. “Yes, sir,” Bennington said. “Yes, sir, I think it is a good plan. A very good plan.”

A moment later Bennington was escorted from the room by the four guards. In all likelihood, the girl would be fine. Otherwise the Professor would already be planning her demise behind those lidless eyes, but Bane was relieved to see that he was finally blinking again at the same rate as a normal human.

Not that there was anything normal about Professor Van Bracken. There was something wildly off-kilter about the Professor, but the man held the keys to the kingdom, and Bane wanted access to those keys. The Professor
owed
him those keys. Because of the Professor’s actions, the only life Bane was suited for was operating within this shadowy criminal racket. And he was good at it. Actually, his skills for managing operations, commanding obedience, and using trickery were nothing short of impressive. The Professor had told him so often enough, and it was why Bane would be entrusted with the Vancouver operation as soon as he could prove his mettle by carrying out the Tremain affair.