The Lady of Bolton Hill (9 page)

“And here I had been bragging to Clara about what a bright young lady you have grown up to become,” Daniel said. “My apologies, Clara. I was premature in my assessment.”

Kate straightened, bristled, and her gray-eyed gaze locked with Daniel’s dark glower. The air practically crackled with electricity. Finally, Kate backed down. “Just because you are smart doesn’t mean you are
wise
, Daniel!” The exasperation in her tone made Clara certain this was a common phrase Kate rolled out when attempting to compete with her older brother’s unquestionable dominance. Kate flounced into the corner of the kitchen and wadded her jacket into a makeshift pillow. “I’m exhausted and am not going to listen to your lectures, Daniel. I’m getting some sleep,” she said as she turned her back to them.

Darkness had fallen, but the rioters had not dispersed. Bonfires flickered in the park as young hoodlums lit piles of garbage on fire and threw eggs against the sides of buildings. Her father would be out of his mind with worry, but there was nothing Clara could do to assuage his fears. It would be far more dangerous to venture out into the street, where fires set by the rioters were now consuming at least two buildings she could spot from the upper window of the sporting club. Manzetti had been instructed to tell Reverend Endicott about her plans, so surely he knew that Daniel would look out for her. The three of them would be here until morning, and Kate had already fallen asleep, leaning against the corner of the kitchen wall.

The temperature dropped as the moon rose, and Clara wrapped her arms a little tighter around her body. The moment he noticed Clara’s movement, Daniel shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it around her shoulders. “You should have told me you were chilly.”

The silk-lined wool coat still carried Daniel’s scent, and Clara sank into the luxurious warmth. She wasn’t so cold that she needed his coat, but the gesture carried a whiff of gallantry that was oddly touching. The weight and quality of the coat’s fabric were a tangible sign of Daniel’s success, and she smiled a little as she turned her head toward him.

“Is there any truth to what Kate says?”

Daniel and Clara were sitting on the floor of the darkened kitchen, legs stretched out before them, eating a bowl of cherries. Clara whispered the question so as not to awaken the sleeping Kate.

“That I’m a robber baron who doesn’t pay my workers a fair wage? Not much.”

“What part of it is true?”

Daniel sighed. “Ian Carr and I are both self-made men, and most of every dollar we earn gets plowed directly back into the company to fund our expansion. We don’t live like Vanderbilt or Carnegie. We don’t have gold fixtures in our bathrooms or summer homes in the country. And I don’t have a lot of money to splash around on employees. I pay a fair wage.”

“You needn’t be so defensive. I’m not attacking you.”

“It felt like it.” At her pointed look, he continued. “I have read your articles, Clara. I have a subscription to
The Times,
and I’ve read everything you ever wrote. I know what side you are likely to come down on here.”

She gestured to the door leading to the street. “You think I approve of that? Rioting in the street and destroying the work of small business owners?”

“Do you?”

“Of course not.” Although he was right that she generally sided with the workers over the owners. She nibbled on a cherry while choosing her next words very carefully. “I’ve heard things about you, though. That you won’t do business with Alfred Forsythe or any of his companies.”

“That’s right.”

“Doesn’t that hurt your own business? Wouldn’t your profit margins soar if you stopped locking yourself out of thirty percent of the railroad market?”

Daniel pushed himself away from the wall and leaned closer to her. “Unlike some businessmen, there are things I care more about than money.”

“And hurting your own workers is one of those things you care about?”

He looked as though she had blindsided him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

“I mean that if you licensed your inventions to Forsythe Industries, the revenue you earn will be pure profit. With that much extra income, you could afford to pay your workers a better wage.” She was on very thin ice. Never had she seen a look of such antipathy simmering on Daniel’s face directed at her, and she shrank back a few inches.

“If my employees don’t like their wages, they are free to go work for someone else,” he said in a low voice vibrating with anger. “I want revenge, Clara. My mother committed
suicide,
did you know that? Lorna found her hanging in the kitchen and came running to me at the station, sobbing her eyes out. Katie was there and saw everything when I cut my mother down. Do you think I’m going to forget that?”

Clara felt herself blanch at the horrible image. It hurt to look Daniel in the face, and when she did she saw his mouth twisted with bitterness, the expression in his eyes making him unrecognizable. It was the face of vengeance, and it was heartbreaking to see a man as fine as Daniel succumbing to it.

“You’ve held on to this anger for twelve years,” she said gently. “If you wish to nurture this rage in private, it hurts no one but yourself. But the kind of vengeance you are carrying out causes innocent people to suffer. Proverbs says that you should not repay evil, but wait for the Lord, and He will deliver you.”

The look he sent her was withering. “Do
not
quote Scripture to me about this.”

The words sliced through her, but he was entitled to his resentment. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he had endured in those first few years after the accident.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. It isn’t for me to judge you, and I shouldn’t have tried.”

And just like that, the ice thawed in Daniel’s eyes and a sad smile appeared. He sighed and met her eyes. “Do you know what I’m sorry about?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry that the first evening we’ve spent together in over a decade has us stuck on the floor of a horrible old building with me snapping at you.”

The apology was unexpected and it made her want to leap into his arms, stroke the dark hair that curled on his forehead, and assure him that she’d forgive him anything. Instead she held up the bowl of fruit resting in her lap. “At least the cherries are good.”

Daniel snagged one. “I promise to do better next time. Give me another chance?”

She smiled. “As if you even need to ask.”

L
loyd Endicott was sitting at his desk, penning his sermon for next Sunday, when Clara confronted him. Each step weighed more heavily as she approached, knowing that this would be one of the most painful conversations she would ever have with her father. He looked up when he heard her, welcome twinkling in his blue eyes. How many times over the years had she come to him at this very spot, to be greeted by those welcoming eyes? Clara’s mother had died when she was only ten years old, and from that day forward, Lloyd Endicott had made sure Clara had everything she could possibly want. No matter how weary he was, her father had always been willing to set aside his labors and make time for her.

She pulled a Windsor chair close to his desk. Her legs felt a little weak as she sank into the chair and set the stack of musical scores on the corner of his desk.

“What are these?” he asked as he laid a hand over the stack of compositions. “Music you’ve written after all this time?” The hopeful tone in his voice was unmistakable.

“No,” Clara said softly. “These are copies of something I wrote years ago. I sent the originals to Daniel Tremain, but he says he never received them. And I can think of only one reason for Aunt Helen to have intercepted our mail.”

Her father’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I see,” he said in a voice that sounded as though he had aged ten years in the space of a few seconds. Whatever tiny glimmer of hope Clara had harbored that her father was not responsible for what had happened was extinguished.

“But I
don’t
see,” Clara said. “Daniel was the only friend I had in the world. Did you have to cut him out of my life so completely?”

“Clara, you were beginning to feel far more than mere friendship toward Daniel.”

It was pointless for her to deny that, but it did not mitigate the sense of betrayal. “Didn’t you think the space of an ocean was enough to ensure I would be safe from whatever adolescent foolishness I might have been tempted to commit?”

Her father still would not look at her; instead he stared at the musical scores resting on the corner of his desk, the yellowed paper beginning to curl with age. He placed the palm of his hand over the delicate pages, his fingers barely touching them. “It was more than a mere adolescent crush I was concerned about,” he said. “Clara, I believed you were destined to become a person of great influence. At the time, I thought that music would be your avenue for changing the world. Daniel was an adolescent distraction who interfered with that.”

Clara was astonished, but her father continued. “I remember the transformation you went through during those years. You were a bright, curious girl who morphed into someone whose every sentence began with ‘Daniel says’ or ‘Daniel thinks.’ It was far more important for me to know what
you
said or what
you
thought.”

“And you believed that sending me thousands of miles away was the best way to learn what I said or thought?”

“It was certainly the best way to make sure you would continue on your rightful path without becoming diverted by a young man who did not belong in your orbit.”

Clara hadn’t been sure how her father would react, but the last thing she expected was for him to defend his actions. This man was not a father; he was a drillmaster seeking to sculpt her into a magnificent creation that would further illuminate the Endicott name. She picked up the scores and clutched them to her chest.

“Can’t you at least say you are sorry?” she asked in a broken voice.

Her father’s eyes crinkled in sympathy. “No, Clara. I am not sorry I saved you from certain derailment.”

Clara felt a lump swell in her throat. She could never accuse her father of not loving her. From the moment she had been born he had showered her with affection and opportunities, but the price he asked of her was so odd. It wasn’t love he wanted in return; it was accomplishment.

Clara rose to her feet. “I’m all grown up now, Papa. I think I understand my calling in life and I’ve been working toward it as though my soul depends on it.” The gleam that lit her father’s eyes at those words was maddening. Would she ever be anything to him other than another fabulous ornament on the Endicott family tree? “But if I should ever go astray again, can I expect you to be meddling behind my back? I need to know if I can ever trust you again.”

“Clara, you can always trust me to act in your best interest.”

Clara scrutinized her father, but there was no guilt, no embarrassment for what he had done. Even the tiniest bit of regret would have helped smooth the ragged edges of her wound. Clara’s gaze wandered around the spacious study, the comforting sanctuary where she had spent so much of her childhood. She had simply assumed she would go on living here, but her sense of betrayal was too intense to allow her to continue living under the same roof.

“Father, I think I’d better start looking for a different place to stay.”

“Clara! You can’t. . . . You are an unmarried woman. It would be unheard of !”

As though bucking trends was ever something that had discouraged her father in the past. She had some money in her bank account from her work in London, which gave her the freedom to live independently, at least for a little while. “Clyde will help me find a place.”

Her father pushed away from his desk. “This is utter nonsense. All this business happened twelve years ago, and you can’t waltz out of here over something that was done with your best interest at heart.”

Clara met her father’s gaze squarely. “Watch me.”

Walking down a city street in Baltimore’s middle-class shopping district beside her brother Clyde was an experience of epic proportions. The rather pretty young man Clyde had once been was gone, replaced by a grown man who wore buckskins and carried a knife strapped to his leg. His skin had become bronzed beneath the relentless sun of the Southwest, and he wore his light brown hair in a braid. The respectable matrons at her father’s church had nearly fainted when Clyde first swaggered into the chapel. Despite his startling appearance, Clara could not be prouder of her brother. He had spent more than a decade living in some of the wildest corners of the world.

Now Clara was trying to convince the landladies and rental agents that she and her brother were a perfectly respectable pair seeking temporary lodging. Their names were well known among Baltimore society, but until someone saw Dr. Clyde Endicott in person, Clara could never be quite sure how he would be received.

“What about this one,” Clyde said as he gestured to a row house sitting well back from the busy city street. They had spent the better part of two days searching for furnished lodgings that could accommodate the two of them for the duration of Clyde’s visit. “It has the best location of any of the rentals we have seen all day,” he said.

But it was tiny inside. “It doesn’t have any room for a study,” Clara said. Clara needed a full-sized table when she wrote, and a study was especially important now that she had learned Clyde was writing a book about his life on a Navajo reservation.

Clyde shrugged. “It has two bedrooms, which is all I care about. I’m planning on using Lloyd’s library for my research. I suggest you do the same.” Clyde had always enjoyed the affectation of calling their father by his first name, and Clara’s current frosty relationship with her father made her inclined to do the same.

“I think running back home every day to use his library would rather defeat the purpose of my moving out, don’t you?”

“And tell me, sister dearest, where exactly are you planning on getting access to research materials? This isn’t London, with a plethora of magnificent libraries on every corner. You are not likely to find a better library in Baltimore than Lloyd’s. Besides, aren’t you still planning to publish your writing in his newspaper?”

“Of course.” Clara was too pragmatic to cut off her nose to spite her face. Lloyd Endicott was one of the few editors in the entire country who would publish the writings of a female journalist, so she had few options if she wished to salvage her battered pride and begin writing again.

“Then consider making use of Lloyd’s library a professional obligation. Besides, not having to worry about study space would let us rent this townhouse until you are over your snit. I like the view here.”

Clara had to admit that the covered front porch provided an excellent vantage point from which to watch the bustle surrounding the local shopping markets. But her favorite feature of this row house was in the backyard—an actual garden. It had been long neglected, but Clara relished the chance to sink her hands into the soil and try to coax some life into the overgrown vines and shrubbery.

“All right, you win,” Clara said. “Of all people, you ought to be entitled to bask in the luxury of Father’s house for a few weeks, so I am in your debt for chaperoning me.”

Clyde merely shrugged his shoulders. “Consider it a small token of penance for all the years of torture I inflicted on you growing up. Not that I intend to let you run amok with the robber baron. Daniel Tremain has always been a little arrogant for my taste.”

Clara let her gaze wander across to Clyde lounging on the front porch with a knife longer than her forearm strapped to his leg. “Oh, Clyde, coming from you, charging someone with the sin of arrogance is just rich,” she said with a smile. “Besides, you need not worry about Daniel, as I intend to look into this rivalry between him and Alfred Forsythe for my next article. I don’t think he’ll thank me for the attention, but it is an important issue, especially if it has been fueling some of the discontent among the working class.”

Even as she spoke, Clara felt uneasy. Daniel had never been shy about flaunting his hatred of Alfred Forsythe, but that didn’t mean he would relish Clara’s involvement. Every instinct in Clara’s body was screaming that this was a story that needed to be told, but she knew Daniel would resent any attempt on her part to foster a reconciliation between him and Forsythe. Daniel’s reputation for stoking the fires of enmity among his business rivals was well known. She could only hope it would not fan out to burn her, as well.