Kathleen tried to inject a note of calm. “Sit down, Amanda. We understand your disbelief. I found it incredible myself, that Mortimer could make so many bad decisions, one on top of another.”
“Then you should have known better than to accept this rubbish without—”
“Proof?” Kathleen interrupted, still trying for calm. “You’re holding the proof. A full accounting was included, or did you neglect to read it?”
Amanda snorted. “You mean this forged account? You aren’t listening, Aunt Kathleen. I’m not here because I refuse to believe what this letter implies. I’m here because I know this isn’t true. My God, do you think Papa never talked to me? I’m the one he shared all of his successes with, whether I cared to hear them or not.”
“Perhaps, but did he ever share his failures?” Kathleen replied. “Or did he keep those to himself, too ashamed of them to let anyone know?”
“You still aren’t listening,” Amanda insisted. “His businesses were booming. They paid for themselves. There were no hidden costs to drain his wealth.”
“Too many improvements can overextend anyone. He did too much in too short a time.”
“No—he—didn’t!” Amanda exclaimed. “That’s where your misconception lies. If you knew him like you think you do, you’d know he was too satisfied with his profits to waste them on improving the working conditions of his employees. But of course you hadn’t seen him in years, so how would you know?” Amanda ended with a sneer.
“I was making reference to the facts given,” Kathleen replied stiffly.
“I’m giving you the facts. If his employees didn’t like where they worked, they could go work somewhere else. I’ve heard him say that hundreds of times. Even Marian has heard him say that. And why not, when he had people lined up to work for him because he paid so well, not because he supplied ideal working conditions. He opened only one new shoe store in the last several years, and that was only because a new cobbler had moved in on the other side of town, and Papa wasn’t about to let him steal any of his longtime customers. And even that store was thriving.”
Kathleen must have finally experienced some doubt, because she turned to Marian for confirmation. Marian hated agreeing with her sister about anything, but in this case she was forced to nod.
“Its true he said that a lot,” she remarked. “He did pay his employees extremely well, and because of that, he really didn’t care if they complained that his stores were old and drafty. His philosophy was that people would always need new shoes, no matter where they had to go to buy them. I don’t recall him improving any of his existing stores either, not that I would have noticed, since I didn’t get to that part of town often.”
“I did,” Amanda added. “And they were just the same as always.”
“There were still new property purchases that didn’t turn out as he expected,” Kathleen pointed out. “And he borrowed heavily to compensate.”
“Why would he have borrowed money? He had more than seven hundred thousand dollars sitting in the bank. But if you are referring to the property listed in this accounting”—Amanda raised the letter in her fist for emphasis—”I happen to know at least one of these, the Owl Roost Hotel, Papa didn’t buy at all. He was going to. And Albert would have known that. He was his lawyer after all. But someone else put in a higher offer on that hotel, and Papa wasn’t willing to top it. It was in a town that didn’t get a lot of visitors, and while it was a good deal at the original price, it wasn’t at the higher price. Papa didn’t buy property to speculate—”
“She’s right,” Marian cut in with a gasp as the memory stirred. “I remember that incident now. Papa laughed about it at the dinner table, that someone was trying to ride on his coattails to success, but they were only cutting their own throat by overpaying instead of finding good deals. It apparently wasn’t the first time an anonymous buyer went after one of the properties he was interested in. A few months later he was patting himself on the back because the foolish buyer was still at it, and Papa had started showing interest in properties he knew weren’t good deals, just to help the person dig his own grave. Papa could be vindictive like that, as long as it didn’t put a dent in his own pocket.”
Kathleen was staring at her incredulously. She was rather incredulous herself as all the implications sank in. Amanda gave them both a triumphant look.
Of course, that wasn’t enough for Amanda. She just had to say, “I told you so,” too.
Chapter 47
EVERYONE WAS FULL OF suggestions that night at dinner—everyone who wasn’t directly involved. Even Stuart got into the discussion and was heard to remark on the side to his son that he hadn’t had so much fun in years.
The cattle baron was all for rounding up a posse and lynching the shyster lawyer, as he was already referring to Albert Bridges. Of course, with Albert living on the East Coast, that would be a bit far to drag a posse. And besides, though there was no doubt in any of their minds now that Albert had stolen the inheritance from the girls, it had to be proven to the authorities before anything could be done about it.
The forged accounting wouldn’t do it. Albert could claim he hadn’t sent it or the letter. And the properties might not even have been sold. He could be taking his time about that to get the best prices.
Obviously, he must have hoped his letter would be the end of it. He’d made sure the girls were far from home first, using the excuse that he hadn’t had the guts to tell them in person. And with them both thinking they were now destitute, he probably figured they wouldn’t be able to return to Haverhill to find out what he’d done. Or he could have sold everything and run off with the money. He could be out of the country already for all they knew.
And that was the bottom line. They wouldn’t know, not without hiring detectives—or investigating themselves. And Amanda wasn’t about to leave her inheritance in the hands of detectives.
“How soon can we leave?” Amanda asked her aunt.
“We?” Kathleen replied. “Shouldn’t you be asking your husband that?”
Amanda waved a hand dismissively. “He’s not going, has no interest at all in helping me.”
Several pairs of eyes turned toward Spencer, but he just shrugged indifferently, and said, “I keep telling her that she doesn’t need that money now. But she thinks it will give her the means to get rid of me.”
Amanda actually blushed. Marian found that more interesting than Spencer’s lack of desire to travel back East. Did Amanda just not want everyone to know that she still wanted out of her marriage? That didn’t sound like something that would make Amanda blush, unless it wasn’t really true. If it was true, she wouldn’t care who knew. But if it was something she’d only said to Spencer, and hadn’t really meant it, she wouldn’t have wanted it brought to light.
Amanda said a lot of things without really meaning them. It was one of her tools for manipulating people. There could be more than a few reasons why she’d want Spencer to think she wasn’t pleased with their marriage. The obvious one being that she wasn’t pleased with it. The less obvious one could be because he wasn’t showing signs of liking it. She could also be trying to force him to make a firm declaration of his feelings. His apparent indifference toward her was probably annoying the hell out of Amanda.
Surprisingly, it was Stuart who spoke up, reminding them, “Whether she needs her inheritance or not, the shyster shouldn’t be allowed to get away with the theft. That’s no different than handing over your reins to a horse thief and telling him, I didn’t like that horse anyway, so you’re welcome to him.”
“I’m in agreement with that,” Kathleen put in next. “It’s not so much the money involved as it is the audacity of this lawyer fellow. He pulled his deception on me, and I admit I fell for it. He was probably thinking the girls wouldn’t make head nor tails of that accounting he sent, young as they are. The entire thing was for me, to fool me into believing it. And it infuriates me that it worked so easily. I had no doubts at all.”
“It ain’t your fault, Red,” Stuart mumbled. “It looked all legal-like, and you haven’t seen your brother in years, to know any better.”
“Then you’ll come with us, Aunt Kathleen?” Amanda asked again.
“Oh, yes, I wouldn’t miss it,”
“But what about your responsibilities here?” Marian questioned, not wanting her aunt to suffer another setback on their account.
“Lonny’s capable of running the ranch for me for a few months, thanks to Chad’s teaching him,” Kathleen replied, then she chuckled at Chad. “No, I wasn’t going to ask you to take over here again till I get back.”
“I can even pay for the trip,” Amanda added, bringing all eyes back to her. “Well, don’t look so surprised. I will be getting my inheritance back.”
“I thought you lost all your travel money in a train robbery on the way here,” Stuart remarked, then chuckled. “Stage lines don’t sell tickets on promises, they want cash up front.”
“I know that,” Amanda huffed. “I got all my money back when that Leroy fellow brought those train robbers in. They hadn’t spent any of their loot yet. They’d just been lying low, as the sheriff put it, and Leroy brought the money in with the robbers rather than keeping it for himself.”
“Leroy might be a mean old cuss, but he’s honest,” Stuart put in.
“He got a nice little reward for his efforts, and I got my money returned to me,” Amanda continued. “All because of one of my sister’s silly paintings—well, this one wasn’t so silly, actually.”
Every eye turned toward Marian, which accounted for the bright color rushing up her cheeks. “It was Aunt Kathleen’s idea,” she explained.
“And a good one.” Kathleen nodded with a grin. “But then Marian has an amazing talent for painting, and just from memory. Absolutely remarkable.”
The blush got worse, especially when Chad said, “Anything on hand we can see?”
“No,” Marian mumbled, causing him to frown.
But Amanda had lost her audience and wanted it back. “So it’s settled then?” she said to Kathleen. “You’ll accompany us so I don’t need my husband along?”
Kathleen coughed over the slur intended for Spencer, but she replied, “Yes, I’ll start packing tonight. We can head back to town in the morning with you.”
Apparently, Spencer wasn’t going to ignore the slur, and decided to be ornery in pointing out, “I believe you need my permission before you go anywhere, wife.”
“Like hell—!” Amanda started to snarl.
“Now, now,” Stuart cut in to prevent the rant. “There are still some things about this whole mess that bother me, with everything that’s been mentioned.”
“Like what?” Kathleen asked.
“This whole scheme was a really bold thing for a lawyer to do.”
“Or desperate,” Chad suggested.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Stuart said. “Makes me wonder if Bridges wasn’t the anonymous buyer their pa kept running into. If he was, and he’d have the information firsthand, of which properties their pa was after, Bridges could have ended up going broke in his scheme to get rich quick. So I have to ask, was your pa’s death merely convenient for him? How did he die?”
He was looking at Marian for an answer, and she was afraid she knew what he was getting at. “He fell off a train on his way home.”
“Fell? Or maybe he was pushed ...”
With Amanda blanching upon hearing that speculation, Spencer lost his indifference, and said quickly, “All right, we’ll leave tomorrow, Mandy.”
“Now hold on,” Stuart said, having gained the response he’d prodded for. “The stage doesn’t leave for another two days, unless you plan to ride your carriage out of town, so you all might as well travel with me. I keep a private train car in Kansas for my trips north. Unless you think going by ship would be quicker.”
“Sea travel doesn’t agree with me,” Spencer replied. “As I found to my misery when my pa sent me back East. So we’ll be glad to take you up on that offer.” That quickly it was decided they’d all be traveling to
Haverhill together. Well, Stuart would probably go no farther than Chicago . And Chad wasn’t going at all. He had no reason to, no reason at all.
Marian was already feeling his absence.
Chapter 48
IT WAS BARELY DAYLIGHT when they rode out the next morning. The luggage would follow in the wagon. The sisters and their maid rode with Spencer in his carriage. Kathleen elected to ride her horse alongside it, even though the carriage did have room for her.
Marian was a bit melancholy at leaving the Twisting Barb. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever see it again. Her aunt was still her guardian. She hoped to return with her after they recovered her inheritance—if ‘they could recover it. But she was going back East, back to Haverhill to be exact, and who knew what might happen, now that she no longer was hiding herself behind fake spectacles nor making any attempts to push men away with contrived insults.
Stuart offered them his house in town while they awaited the stagecoach, though he didn’t join them there. He rode back to his ranch that morning to do his own packing, and Chad rode with him. It would be months, if ever, before she saw Chad again. And he hadn’t even said good-bye.
He spoke to Kathleen. He even spoke to Spencer, whom he didn’t like. Although she was standing there in the stable watching the luggage being piled in the wagon as he saddled up his horse, he didn’t say one word to her, didn’t even glance her way.
That infuriated her. It was as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, now that she looked just like Amanda. No doubt, it was too much of a reminder of what he’d lost. And she couldn’t deny that she’d expected him to show at least some interest in her, if only just to test the waters, so to speak. She’d been waiting for an opportunity to brush him off with a “no thanks, you had your chance and picked the wrong sister.”
Which was being unfair. Deep down she knew that. After all, she’d tried to make herself as ugly as she could. So of course he’d pick Amanda over her. That had been the whole point of her disguise. But even after Amanda had shown him her worst side he’d still picked Amanda. That was what Marian couldn’t forget or forgive, that men, Chad included, could be so blinded by a pretty face to the exclusion of all else.
But he wasn’t going to give her a chance to rail at him for all that, to get the hurt out of the way so maybe, just maybe, she could stop experiencing so much regret. Another thing that infuriated her was that regret. She shouldn’t be having any if she didn’t want him anymore, should be relieved that she’d escaped from her brush with temptation unscathed.
The seamstress in Trenton worked all day and night to complete the two dresses Marian had ordered before she’d left town. Not that she’d find much use for them during the trip, when sturdier clothes were needed to deal with the sweat and dust associated with crossing the country. She wasn’t looking forward to more bumpy coach rides, but her one train ride had been rather exciting and offered interesting views, so she was looking forward to more of those.
Chad showed up with Stuart the morning they were to depart, probably just to see his father off. But his presence, when she thought she wouldn’t see him again, so flustered her, she found herself being as clumsy as she used to pretend being. She dropped the small bag with her few changes of traveling clothes in it, then tripped over it. When she recovered from that, she turned around and bumped into the fellow who was loading the larger trunks on top of the stagecoach, causing him to lose his hold on one. It fell to the ground, popped open, and spilled half its contents.
The trunk happened to be one of hers, and she gasped as she saw her rolled-up canvases rolling out into the middle of the street. She immediately ran after them, and almost got run down by a cowboy who was racing down the street.
It was Chad who yanked her back, with a snarled, “Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten rid of the spectacles.”
She would have been blushing if she didn’t h
ave to stand there and watch him pick up her canvases. She was holding her breath instead, and praying the tied strings holding the paintings rolled up wouldn’t break. And heaven forbid he should ask what they were ...
He asked, “What are these?”
She reached for them without answering and stuffed them back in her trunk. The fellow who had dropped the trunk was apologizing, so she spent a moment assuring him that no harm had been done, then gathered up the rest of the scattered contents. Chad tried to help. She slapped his hands away, then glared at him when he persisted. He finally chuckled and sauntered back to his horse.
She started to breathe normally again—until Chad returned with a bag of his own that he tossed up to the man arranging the luggage on top of the coach. Marian stared, openmouthed at the conclusion she was forced to draw.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Now that Red doesn’t need me at the ranch anymore, it’s back to business as usual for me,” he told her.
“Are you saying going to Chicago with your father is normal for you?”
“Sure is.”
“Oh.”
She tried to keep the disappointment out of her tone, but she heard it anyway. He didn’t. He sauntered off again to help unload the rest of their luggage from the wagon to the coach. And she castigated herself for thinking, even for a moment, that he wanted to come along to help, or, even more unlikely, that he couldn’t bear to be parted from her....
How vain could she get? If he couldn’t bear to be parted from anyone, it was Amanda.
She supposed he could be hoping that Amanda would get a divorce as soon as she got her inheritance back. After all, Amanda wasn’t showing signs of being happy with Spencer, and vice versa for that matter. Chad might think he still had a chance with her, and in that case, he wouldn’t want to let her get too far away from him. All excellent reasons to tamp down any disappointment she’d felt.
The small stage that regularly passed through town would never have accommodated all their luggage, and it would definitely have been a tight squeeze for seven people. But apparently Stuart only traveled in comfort and once a year, a Concord Coach with its own driver came to town for his annual trip to Chicago, to take him all the way to the railroad lines up north. It was a standing arrangement he had with that company. And of course a Concord sat eight very comfortably.