A View Most Glorious

by Regina Scott

  “Unputdownable! Regina Scott has outdone herself with this, the third of the American Wonders stories. With characters as multifaceted as a diamond, vivid descriptions of western Washington’s majestic scenery, and a plot with more twists and turns than the path up Mount Rainier, A View Most Glorious is historical romance at its best. I highly recommend it.”

  Amanda Cabot, bestselling author of Dreams Rekindled

  “A View Most Glorious is, indeed, glorious! I thoroughly enjoyed Regina Scott’s well-researched story that takes you into the troubled city of Tacoma, Washington. It’s 1893, and spunky suffragette Coraline must climb a mountain to strike a blow for suffrage and help gain women the right to vote. But suffrage isn’t the only reason to climb an imposing Mount Rainier. What awaits her if she fails is far more treacherous. Desperate to succeed, she must put her hope in a man who appears as rugged and wild as the mountain she’s to climb. But her guide Nathan Hardee is so much more . . . This adventure-filled tale with its wonderful characters will have you holding your breath as Coraline faces more opposition than what the mountain can throw at her. And with so much at stake, she can’t afford to lose.”

  Kit Morgan, USA Today bestselling author

  Books by Regina Scott

  AMERICAN WONDERS COLLECTION

  A Distance Too Grand

  Nothing Short of Wondrous

  A View Most Glorious

  © 2021 by Regina Lundgren

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3179-3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

  To my team—Emily, Rachel, Kristin M, Kristin K, Brianne, and Karen—thank you for all you did to see this book through. To Glen Storbeck, Pierce County Library historical research librarian extraordinaire, for getting excited about my urgent queries and finding me answers. To my father, who first shared with me the wonders of God’s creation. And to our heavenly Father, who created all the views most glorious for his children to enjoy.

  Contents

  Cover

  Endorsements

  Half Title Page

  Books by Regina Scott

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Letter to Reader

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  ALONG THE WATERFRONT OF TACOMA,

  WASHINGTON, AUGUST 1893

  She was causing a stir.

  Wouldn’t be the first time. Coraline Baxter was used to heads turning, eyes widening when she walked in a room. It happened at the society balls her mother insisted she attend, where she was expected to be the best dressed, the most polished. It had happened at the Puget Sound University, where she had been one of a few women. It happened when she arrived at the bank, where she was the only female accountant.

  So it shouldn’t surprise her that it was happening at Shem’s Dockside Saloon, which likely hadn’t seen many women and certainly not ladies accompanied by a father.

  Stepfather, something corrected her. Beside her, Stephen Winston blinked blue eyes wreathed in wrinkles he’d earned by peering at ledgers all day. His gloved hand gripped the gold head of his ebony walking stick as he glanced around the dimly lit eatery. The occupants likely hadn’t seen many gentlemen of his caliber either. His tailored coat, satin-striped waistcoat, and gold watch hanging by a thick chain proclaimed him a man of means.

  Means seemed hard to come by for most of the men in the room. The rough plank floors, open beams, and unplastered walls spoke of toil, hardship, and the camaraderie of men with pride in their own worth. Still, it was little more than a shanty perched over Puget Sound, and it was hard to smell the brine over the smoke in the air.

  She tried not to wrinkle her nose. Winston didn’t bother to hide his dislike. His lips were slightly curled under his trim white mustache. And he was staring.

  They were staring back.

  Dozens of them. Each cap or hat covered hair that peeked out below as if it were none too sure of its surroundings. Wool sweaters were rolled up at the sleeves to display arms that had labored for long hours. Gazes sized her up, showed interest or suspicion. Her mother had taught her to dress for the part she would play in any situation, but she hadn’t realized the gray taffeta overcoat that was cut to show the lace at her throat and sleeves would look so out of place here. Then again, she’d never visited a saloon before and had no plans to repeat the experience.

  Conversation dwindled, stopped. Someone shoved back a chair with a screech of wood on wood.

  “Do you see him?” Cora hissed.

  Winston started to shake his head no, then stiffened. “There. That table near the wall. That may be young Nathan.”

  Nathan Hardee was no longer the youth her stepfather had remembered. That much was clear. He was facing away from them. Shoulders in a dark wool coat stretched wider than the back of the wood chair on which he sat. Lamplight picked out gold in the wavy brown hair that spilled nearly to those shoulders. Winston hurried forward, and she followed, careful to keep any part of her coat from touching the sawdust-covered floor, scarred tables, or a patron. Still they watched her.

  Let them look. She had more important things to concern her.

  An older man about her stepfather’s age and with hair as white rose from the table as they approached. He was a little taller than Winston, but narrower, and his face was carved in lines and hollows, as if life had worn him thin.

  “Mr. Winston?” he asked, brown eyes darting from her stepfather to her and back again.

  “Yes,” Winston acknowledged. “You must be Waldo Vance.”

  Around them, voices rose, glasses clinked. One of the gang had recognized them. They were accepted.

  For now.

  Vance nodded to her stepfather. “That’s right. This is Nathan Hardee. I believe you knew his father.”

  Hardee showed not the least welcome as he swiveled in his chair just enough to meet her stepfather’s gaze. The son of a prominent family, Winston had said. She’d met dozens over the years. He didn’t resemble any of them.

  Society men strived for the same golden tan on their skin, but his was likely more the result of his work guiding people into the wilderness than the time he’d spent a
t lawn tennis. Society men often wore beards and mustaches, some quite prominent, but his was just thick enough to hide behind. Society men had the same assessing look, but few had so dark a green to their eyes, like the cool shadows of a forest. Society men dressed in plaid coats during the day or deepest black at night, not brown wool and poorly spun cotton. When she approached, society men bowed and flattered. He had to notice her standing at Winston’s side, yet he didn’t rise as propriety demanded.

  “Afraid you’ve wasted your time,” he said in a deep voice that reverberated inside her. “I’m not looking to act as a guide.”

  He hadn’t even given her a chance to explain or make an offer. Frustration pushed the words out of her mouth.

  “A shame. We pay handsomely, and there’s not many who can say that right now.”

  His gaze drifted over her. “I hear you can’t pay either.”

  Winston’s ivory cheeks flushed crimson. “Now, see here,” he blustered. “You have no call to impugn my reputation. I am the director of the Puget Sound Bank of Commerce. We may have been overly generous in these trying times, but we are as secure as the mountain itself.”

  “A mountain I won’t help you climb,” Hardee said, turning to face the wall again as if that would be enough to dismiss them.

  There had to be something she could say to persuade him. Money didn’t seem to matter—oddly enough. Neither did prestige. And forget the need to posture and prove himself a gentleman. Her cause probably wouldn’t sway him either. Too few men in the city could be bothered to support women’s suffrage. How could she get through to a man who apparently needed nothing?

  “This is not what we were promised,” her stepfather fumed. “I wrote you specifically, Mr. Vance. I understood you had the authority to arrange matters.”

  Vance shrugged. “You can lead a horse to water . . .”

  “But apparently you can’t make him drink,” Cora concluded. “Unless it’s the questionable drink of this fine establishment.” She turned to her stepfather. “We might as well go. We have no need to link ourselves with wastrels.”

  Hardee rose. Goodness, how he rose. He dwarfed her stepfather and Vance. He likely dwarfed every man in the room. The top of her head reached only to the broad bone of his chest.

  “Just because I won’t do your bidding,” he said, gazing down at her, “doesn’t make me a wastrel.”

  “But it does make you a fool,” Cora said, grasping any opening he would give her. “Lumber barons are digging ditches to keep a roof over their heads; shipping heiresses are cleaning toilets to make ends meet. We’re offering good money, just to guide us up Mount Rainier.”

  “Why,” he asked, eyes narrowing, “would a woman like you want to climb Mount Rainier? I won’t risk my life on a whim.”

  She raised her chin and met his assessing stare with one of her own. Fear and anger and frustration fought for supremacy. A whim, he called it. Striking a blow for suffrage, returning the right to vote to the women of Washington State—a whim. Refusing the advances of a tyrant—a whim. Securing her future, making herself beholden to no man—a whim.

  “I don’t need to justify my reasons to anyone,” she told him. “I’m offering generous pay for your skills. We need a guide to see me safely to the summit and back to Longmire’s Medical Springs. Are you that man?”

  He didn’t answer, gaze on hers as if he could see inside her for the truth. She’d been in society too long not to know how to hide her secrets. If sweet looks didn’t suffice, bravado generally did.

  “He is,” the older man insisted, head bobbing. “No one knows the mountain better than Nathan Hardee. He’s guided business leaders and government agents up that mountain. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  As if he disagreed, Hardee flexed the fingers of his large hands, hands business leaders and government agents trusted. Did that mean she could trust them? Did that mean she could trust him?

  He didn’t trust her.

  “Not interested,” he said, and he returned to his seat once more.

  He couldn’t state it more baldly. He wasn’t taking a spoiled, high-society sweetheart into the wild. He still couldn’t believe Waldo had suggested it.

  “Just hear them out,” his mentor had urged as they’d ridden into Tacoma with the pack mules for supplies. “This is a good opportunity. Enough to allow us to buy lumber and nails to add another room before winter.”

  The amount of money Stephen Winston had offered was indeed a pretty price, if it was real. The Panic had robbed families of their homes, men and women of their dignity. The financial turmoil could well force him and Waldo back into the society Nathan abhorred if he didn’t accept work.

  But not this work. It smelled of nonsense. How did he know she wouldn’t cry complaint the moment things became difficult—and they would become difficult—then refuse to pay him? He’d had one or two society members attempt to treat him that way. They thought he was still one of them. What did he need with money?

  He hadn’t been one of them for years, and God willing, he would never be one of them again.

  Besides, how did he know the banker and his daughter even had money to pay? The fellow wasn’t the only one in Tacoma with the threat of ruin hanging over his head.

  Men reacted badly to ruin. Look at his father. Look at himself.

  The beauty beside him tugged at her father’s sleeve. “Come, Winston. We are wasting our time. Surely we can do better.”

  Waldo glanced at him and jerked his head toward the pair. That was Nathan’s cue to placate, apologize. Most men probably begged her pardon when they refused her. And they likely refused her rarely. That pale hair piled up on the top of her head with curls teasing her fair cheeks. Those big blue eyes. The figure outlined in the wasp-waist coat. She probably crooked her finger and they all came running.

  Not him. He’d left behind society’s rules for the glory of God’s creation. Playing proper hadn’t changed the fact that his father was gone, along with the bulk of the fortune he’d amassed selling land in the burgeoning city. Nathan knew what it meant to fall from grace.

  “Go out to the carriage, dearest,” the banker told her. “I have a few words I’d like to say to Mr. Hardee, and I’d prefer not to say them in front of a lady.”

  Her brows went up, as if she were surprised by his forcefulness, but she nodded. The banker watched her traipse out of the saloon.

  So did every other man in the room.

  “Save your breath,” Nathan told the fellow. “Nothing you say will change my mind.”

  All the bluster went out of him, and he plopped down in the chair Waldo had vacated. Waldo pulled up another to join them.

  “Forgive the subterfuge, Mr. Hardee,” Winston said, face sagging as if he had wearied himself with all the posturing. “What I said to Coraline is only true. While I have no intention of remonstrating, I simply didn’t want her to hear me beg.”

  Again Waldo glanced Nathan’s way. Nathan ignored him to focus on the banker. “Why would a man like you need to beg? Is there something more at stake in this climb?”

  “Entirely too much,” he admitted with a sigh. “Coraline is a member of the Tacoma Women’s Suffrage Association. The ladies have asked her to climb the mountain to raise awareness and support of their cause.”

  Nathan snorted. “There are far safer ways to gather support and other women more experienced at climbing.”

  “True,” Winston allowed. “I gather the idea was that if Coraline could manage it, then any woman could manage it.”

  “And if any woman can climb the mountain, then why not give them the vote?” Waldo concluded. “Makes sense to me.”

  “I’m all for every person having the vote,” Nathan told them both. “I’m still not convinced Miss Winston must climb the mountain.”

  “Miss Baxter,” the banker corrected him. “I am Coraline’s second stepfather.”

  So her mother was on her third husband? That was a wretched thing to have in common. Nathan’s m
other had been through two other men since his father had died as well.

  “Miss Baxter, then,” Nathan said. “Climbing Mount Rainier is a grueling feat. I won’t subject an untried climber to it.”

  “But you must.” He leaned closer, blue eyes imploring. “I may not have been there at Coraline’s birth, but I am her father in every sense of the word, and I want her to be happy. My wife believes the only way for a woman to be happy is to marry well. If Coraline doesn’t reach the summit, she has promised her mother she will return and marry the man of her mother’s choosing.” He lay his hand on Nathan’s arm. “Please, my boy, help me save my daughter from an unhappy future.”

  He could see the fellow’s point. The men Nathan’s mother had married hadn’t made her particularly happy, from what he’d heard. Other women in society seemed more resigned than pleased with their marriages. Good for Miss Baxter for trying to break the mold.

  But to risk her life?

  He pulled back his arm. “I’ll think on it.”

  The banker beamed. “That’s all I can ask. I will hope for good news soon.” He rose, nodded to Waldo, and headed for the door.

  Nathan raised his empty glass to order another sarsaparilla.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Waldo spat out.

  “I agree,” Nathan said.

  Waldo scowled at him. “I was talking about you.”

  “I warned you not to get your hopes up,” Nathan reminded him. “It’s hard enough climbing the mountain with an experienced group of hikers. She wouldn’t last past Longmire’s.”

  “Seems to me she has more grit than that,” Waldo grumbled as the barkeep brought them two more of the earthy drinks. He nodded to the man. “Sorry for the bother, Shem. You got any stew on?”

  “Soup only,” Shem Holland answered, setting a heavy glass down with a grimace nearly swallowed by his thick brown beard. “Vegetable.”

  “We’ll take two bowls,” Nathan said.

  Shem hitched up trousers that bagged at his waist. “You mind if I see the money first? Whole lot of folks mistake me for the poor farm these days.”

  Nathan pulled out a dollar and tossed it on the table. The metal gleamed on the dark wood. Shem’s eyes gleamed nearly as brightly.