The Lady of Bolton Hill (17 page)

She hadn’t even finished the thought before she was pulling on a shift and overskirt. She would have to ride her father’s horse in order to get there. She would rather handle a nest of live hornets than mount a horse, but it couldn’t be helped. It was possible this would be a pointless ride that would end in nothing more than a lost night of sleep, but sitting here in this bedroom when there was a possibility that Daniel was in trouble was inconceivable. It took her less than two minutes to dress and be out the door.

Her father kept his horse at a private stable two blocks away. Clara hiked up her skirts and ran, breathless by the time she arrived at the stable. Then came the far more daunting task of saddling Old Soldier. She refused to let this ridiculous dread of horses stop her if Daniel was in trouble. Old Soldier did not like being pulled from sleep and kept drifting to the far side of the stall each time she tried to heft the saddle over his back. Twice the horse tried to push Clara into the side of the stall, nearly knocking the wind from her body, but at last she got him saddled, mounted, and grudgingly moving north.

As she approached Guilford Street and the pungent scent of smoke tinged the air, Old Soldier got skittish and began sidestepping her attempts to move him forward. This was the point when she normally would give up and let the horse win, but Clara shortened the reins and squeezed her knees with every fiber of muscle she possessed, then squeezed again. At last she succeeded in spurring the reluctant horse forward.

No ride had ever taken so long, but she finally arrived within two streets of Daniel’s house. People were pouring onto the street, hauling buckets of water to douse their own homes and shrubbery lest the fire spread. The sound of the bells grew louder and finally Old Soldier refused to move any farther. She leapt from his back and secured him to a fence post before running the final few blocks to the site of the fire. The air got hotter as she rounded the corner and finally saw the source of the fire.

Daniel’s home was completely engulfed in flames.

She stood frozen as she watched men lift heavy canvas tubing from the water truck to shoot water at the houses on either side of the fire in a desperate attempt to stop the blaze from spreading. No effort was being made to salvage Daniel’s house. The fire had already eaten through most of the exterior woodwork, exposing the frame of the building. It was a waste to pour water on Daniel’s home when the neighboring houses might be spared.

Even worse than the heat of the fire were the sounds. The tinkling noise of glass as the windows shattered in their frames, the sound of wood popping and groaning as it twisted under the weight of the roof. The house was going to collapse soon, and firefighters were trying to move the crowd of onlookers farther back to a safe distance from the house.

Clara prayed that Daniel and Kate had escaped. She frantically searched among the crowd, but the glare from the fire made it hard to see any more than darkened silhouettes of people standing before the glare of the fire. Most of the bystanders were standing alone, but one man had his arm around a young woman . . . surely that was Daniel and his sister.

Clara raced toward them and grew dizzy with relief when she recognized Daniel and Kate. Daniel was staring at the fire as though hypnotized. His face was streaked with sweat and soot, but his eyes reflected the eerie flickering orange glow of the fire. “Daniel, thank God you are all right.” She stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm, but he pulled away from her and hugged Kate tighter to his side.

“Get out of here, Clara,” he said blankly. “This is no place for you.” He did not break his gaze from his burning house, just kept staring at it as pieces of timber dropped from the roofline and sent showers of sparks into the air when they hit the ground.

“You’ll need a place to stay,” Clara said gently. “Come to my father’s house. You can stay for as long as needed.”

“So that you and your father can preach to me about wisdom and understanding? Trust me, I understand the message that was sent tonight, so what more do you want, Clara? The sins of my riches are all burning before your eyes.”

She took a step back. “You know I had nothing to do with this.”

“Do I?” His voice lashed out like a whip and he turned to look at her for the first time. “I was never despised by the working people until you came here and started whipping up sentiment against me.”

Now Kate was looking daggers at her, as well. Clara straightened her shoulders. “I can’t leave until I know you have a place to go,” she said.

“Lorna will put us up,” Kate said. “At least we’ve always been able to depend on family.”

Clara did not miss the pointed barb. “You can depend on me,” she said firmly. Daniel had turned his gaze back to the fire, ignoring her, but Clara moved to stand directly in front of him and grabbed his shoulders. His face was steeped in resentment, but at last he met her eyes. “I will never turn my back on you,” she vowed in a fierce voice, loud enough to be heard over the menacing blast of the fire. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had and I won’t abandon you no matter how angry you become. I
understand
you, Daniel. I understand why you hate Forsythe and I understand what this house meant to you.” The glare he sent her at the mention of his house was scalding, but she wouldn’t give up. “I even understand why you are furious with me,” she continued. “No matter what terrible things befall you, I won’t ever abandon you. You can throw me off your property, or you can sue me to kingdom come. You can take out advertisements in every newspaper in the land proclaiming me a muckraking idiot, but I will
always
consider you my greatest friend.”

A tremendous groaning sound came from the house, and she saw Daniel’s eyes widen in disbelief. She swiveled her head just in time to see the entire roof collapse into the house, shooting a blast of sparks into the sky like fireworks. A wall of heat rushed outward and she took a step back. They were well away from danger, but it was an instinctive move as the blistering heat magnified and the blaze consumed the house.

Daniel’s attention had gone back to the house, ignoring her and his sister, as well. She laid a hand on his arm. “It’s going to be all right. It is only
things
that have been lost. Nothing that can’t be bought again.”

Daniel’s face looked to be carved from flint, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he clenched his teeth with anger. “Get out of here, Clara.”

The quiet intensity of his voice made her want to flee. Instead, she stood up and kissed him on his cheek. “I’ll be waiting for you when you are ready to come back to me,” she said.

And then she turned and left him standing before the ruins of his house.

M
aguire would not have done it,” Manzetti said with con- fidence. “Oh, he’ll burn things down, but he provides plenty of notice before he does it.”

Daniel sat at the table in Lorna’s kitchen, an untouched cup of coffee before him. All he cared about was hunting down who was responsible for last night’s fire, and the list was endless. Manzetti had risen through the same rank and file of steel workers as Daniel, and they were both personally acquainted with many of the men who now led the newly resurrected labor movement. If the fire related to labor, Eddie Maguire was the logical suspect. He was the leader of the cannery workers, and they had been known to organize riots in sympathy with other labor unions. Plus, he had a reputation for violence.

“Can I get you another cup of coffee?” Lorna asked softly. He shook his head no, and Lorna withdrew to the far side of the kitchen. His smoldering anger was making her timid, but for once in his life he couldn’t rein it in to give her comfort.

“I still think it was Alfred Forsythe,” Daniel said. “What better time to strike at me than when he can point the finger of blame at labor? The instant I withdrew the company for sale, he knew he would have no chance at licensing our technology. If I were removed from the scene, the deal would have gone through.”

Manzetti shook his head. “But why burn your house? You said three shots were fired before the flames started burning. It sounds like whoever started it was providing a warning . . . making sure you were awake and could get out. If someone was trying to murder you, you’d have been killed before the flames were set. I think this is labor, not Forsythe.”

Daniel shot to his feet and began pacing in the small confines of the kitchen. “That doesn’t make sense,” Daniel said, his voice slashing through the air. “Labor hasn’t had enough time to issue their demands. You do not start burning houses until negotiations break down. We weren’t even close to that point.”

Manzetti kept talking, but it was hard for Daniel to concentrate. It wasn’t just a house that had burned down last night, it was the culmination of his dream. When Clara had stated he could simply buy new things to replace what was ruined, he’d had to fight the impulse to bodily throw her off the property. That house contained every musical score he had ever written. It contained the first rudimentary drawings for his patents and the original prototypes of his inventions. And it had the only photograph left in existence of his parents. The picture of his deliriously happy mother with her crown of daisies was burned and gone.

Perhaps that was for the best. Whenever Daniel looked at that photograph of his mother’s face bathed in joy, he wondered if it would have been better for her to have been struck dead that very day. How much better would it have been for her to die when she was happy, rather than sink into the wrenching despair that caused her to abandon every scrap of responsibility for her children and commit suicide? Did her goodness even count? Did the fact that she was a good Christian who loved her children even matter? From the day of his mother’s suicide, Daniel had never set foot inside a church. To do so would mean confronting those awful questions and abandoning his thirst for revenge. Pursuit of Alfred Forsythe had been the fuel that had motivated him all these years, and he had no desire to set it aside.

His mother’s suicide was just another curse in the long line of events that led back to Alfred Forsythe. His gut was screaming at him that the blame for last night’s fire also lay with Forsythe. At the root of most of the tragedies in his life lay the slithering ambition of Alfred Forsythe, and this had the same stinking air. Forsythe had been on the verge of wrapping his claws around Carr & Tremain, so close he had no doubt been counting the revenue that would soon be flowing into his coffers.

He pierced Manzetti with a hard stare. “We need to find out what Clara Endicott knows. She has been talking with Forsythe, and I would not put it past her to have begun speaking to labor organizers, as well. Bring her to my office so we can talk.” The very thought of Clara being entangled in this made his anger burn brighter. Clara had always represented a sanctuary where he could flee the responsibilities that weighed on him; now she was cavorting in the gritty underbelly of the world with his enemies.

The memory of the foul way he had treated her seared his mind. Last night he had given vent to the anger that festered inside his soul, but despite all that, she had vowed eternal loyalty to him. The sight of her anxious, sweat-stained face as she dared to confront him before the ruins of his house would stay with him the rest of his life. He had made no attempt to rein in his unwieldy temper, lashing out at her with reckless disregard. Somehow, he needed to figure out a way to keep the anger and pollution inside him from damaging the precious, gilded thread that tied him to Clara. If he did not protect that bond, it was in danger of snapping.

At noon the following day Clara heard the sound she had been dreading. The distinctive one-five-one pealing of alarm bells signaling another riot had begun.

It could not have come at a worse time. This morning she had received a message from Daniel requesting a meeting. Mr. Manzetti was slated to arrive within the hour to escort her to Daniel’s downtown office, where she hoped they could begin piecing together the wreckage of their relationship. Whether the meeting was to discuss the breakdown of their friendship or the trouble brewing for his company didn’t matter. It was all bound up in the same tangle of old history that needed to be resolved before Daniel could move forward.

Clara sat on the porch swing, waiting for Mr. Manzetti’s arrival. Clyde whittled a piece of driftwood with an impressive-looking knife. “Are you sure this is really an offer of truce Tremain is planning? He is a master at holding grudges. Not so much for extending an olive branch.”

“Then I’ll bring the olive branch,” Clara said. She swiveled on the porch swing so she could see him better. “Clyde, if you could have seen how proud Daniel was of his house, you wouldn’t be so flippant. He poured himself into every line of the design and filled it with things that can never be replaced.” Like a simple sketch on the back of a napkin that he had framed and displayed in a place of honor, and music he had written for her when he was still just a boy. “And it was more than just the things,” she continued. “I think Daniel was proud of the fact that he had been able to give his family a sense of security they never had. That was what the house represented to him.”

Clyde seemed unimpressed. “I’ve lived in a tent or under the stars for most of the last ten years. Forgive me if I’m not swamped with sympathy because your robber-baron boyfriend will have to buy himself a new mansion.”

She was spared a sharp retort when the distinctive clop of horse hooves signaled Mr. Manzetti’s arrival. She wondered if he would be as hostile as Daniel and his sister, but he sprang down from the carriage and tipped his hat to her as he approached the porch.

“Trouble brewing down by the mills,” he said, “but they won’t dare spill into Calvert Street where Tremain’s office is. Are you still willing to go?”

The newspapers warned civilians to stay safely inside when the riot alarm sounded, and it only made sense to be afraid of a riot, but nothing petrified her as much as the thought of losing Daniel forever. She lifted the hem of her skirt as she marched down the stairs. “Just try to stop me,” she said as he helped her into the carriage.

The carriage was sleek and well-sprung, but the interior smelled of smoke damage. She remembered that Daniel kept a stable a few acres down from his house, so at least his horse and carriage had been salvaged.

The roll of the carriage slowed as they traveled east on Mulberry Street. Clara sent a worried glance out the window, but aside from a snarl of carriages, there didn’t seem to be untoward trouble. The city was growing so rapidly that this type of traffic was becoming increasingly common. The little window at the top of the compartment slid open and Mr. Manzetti called down to her, “I’m heading down Greene Street to bypass this mess.”

Clara had been absent from the city for ten years and trusted Mr. Manzetti to know traffic navigation better than she, but on Greene Street carriages were caught up in something more ominous than an abundance of midday travelers. The riot alarms were sounding closer, and panicked pedestrians were hurrying amid the horses and carriages. Clara thought she heard a thump as something struck the carriage. She was about to lean forward and try to contact Mr. Manzetti when the carriage door was wrenched open.

A young man, or boy really, hurtled into the carriage. “Sorry, ma’am. Can I take cover in here?” He pulled the door shut behind him and slid into the seat opposite her. “The shops are all locking their doors and I’ve got nowhere to go.”

Despite the sheer panic written across his face, the boy was possibly the most beautiful youth she had ever set eyes on. White-blond hair framed a face with Nordic features and crystal blue eyes. It was impossible to tell his age, but she could detect the barest hint of whiskers on his smooth white skin. The boy looked fearfully out the window. “The trouble is headed this way,” he said as he pulled the lock closed on the carriage door. “It’s a good thing your driver turned around, or you’d be headed straight into the thick of it.”

Mr. Manzetti had turned the carriage with alacrity, sliding up onto the sidewalk in order to make quicker progress as they headed back up Greene. Clara tensed her fist in frustration. If she thought she could walk to Daniel’s office, she would do so, but it was several miles away, and it was impossible to know what sort of chaos lay between here and there. Heaven only knew how long Daniel’s conciliatory mood would last, and she had to get through to him today.

“Thank you for taking me in, ma’am,” the boy said. “I’ve never known the rioting to get this far north.”

The barest hint of a tremble shook the boy’s voice, and Clara felt a surprising maternal instinct to comfort him. “You don’t need to be afraid,” she said soothingly. “We may be stuck here for an ungodly amount of time, but we will survive.”

She was trying to remember how Daniel had jimmied those locks with her hairpins. If need be, she’d get out and find a way to seek shelter for herself and the boy in one of the locked buildings. A hint of relief flickered into her companion’s blue eyes as he sent a nervous smile at her. This boy could probably slay girls clear across the Atlantic with that smile. “My name is Clara Endicott,” she said, trying to ignore the increasing chaos outside the carriage window. “And who might you be? I must say you have a rather dramatic way of making an entrance.”

“Sorry again for that,” he said. The Adam’s apple in his thin neck bobbed as he nervously swallowed. “I’m Alex.”

The butt of a rifle smashed through the glass of the window and a thick arm reached through the opening, sliding the bolt and wrenching the door open. The boy hurtled across the carriage and clung to Clara as three men forced themselves inside. The carriage plunged to one side and almost toppled under the weight of the massive intruders.

“Get out of the carriage,” Clara said to the boy. “
Move!
They don’t want us, they want the carriage.” She tried to push the boy toward the door, but a Colt revolver was shoved in her face, freezing her movement.

“You’re not going anywhere, lady,” the man said in a voice that sounded like gravel. The revolver traveled closer to her nose, and she leaned back in her seat, the boy still clutched in her arms.

“Pointing a gun at women and children,” she said, amazed at the calm tone of her voice. “Your mother must be so proud.”

The other two men laughed, but Clara noticed they were armed to the teeth, as well. She didn’t know a simple belt could hold so many knives, clubs, and holstered guns. The carriage continued to careen down the street, and Clara had no idea if Mr. Manzetti was still in charge, or if he had leapt off to safety long ago.

The man pointing the gun found no humor in her comment and narrowed his scowl at her. “You don’t like a gun pointed in your face? Fine. I’ll keep it on the kid. See if that shuts up that smart mouth of yours.” And with that he shifted the gun to point directly between Alex’s terrified blue eyes. The boy’s fingers tightened around her waist, but he bravely met the gravel-voiced man’s eyes.