As she rode northwest, toward the bay with all its piers, her mind was fixed on the problem of Ethan. She wondered how he would react to her appearance, given the events last evening. No doubt, she was the first person on the peninsula to thwart one of his whims, the one where he decided he would marry a half-Irish artist simply because she refused to sleep with him. He couldn’t be happy about her interference with his plans.
She stopped for a horse-drawn streetcar before crossing Commerce Street, where her father’s business stood among so many others. One day, Ethan would spend most of his time here as well, in an efficient office dedicated to increasing his family’s fortune, but for now she suspected she would find him on a pier not far away.
The briny, fishy smells of the wharf filled her nostrils as Shae turned her mount onto Dock Street. Past the Mosquito Fleet she rode, where several captains already hawked their early catches of fresh shrimp. Shae lifted a hand in greeting and rode beyond it toward a more exclusive pier, used by the major stockholders of the Port Providence Wharf Company. Here, dilapidated fishing boats gave way to grander vessels, the playthings of the wealthy. Though money was powerless to completely mask the odors of the docks, it had arranged to have the piers washed frequently, and most of the yachts’ hulls shone with the rich colors of burnished mahogany and teak.
From his throne atop a weathered post, a laughing gull called Shae a raucous welcome. A half-dozen others, perhaps imagining the cry meant food, skimmed the water’s surface and flew closer to investigate. Finding nothing of interest, their chaotic phalanx rose above an elegant, teak deck and splattered it with droppings.
Shae heard Ethan curse the eggs from which the birds were hatched. He glanced up from the fittings he’d dismantled. For as long as she had known him, he’d taken solace from whatever pressures beset an heir-in-waiting in the simple acts of polishing and staining his teak yacht. Though in every other setting, he appeared to relish ordering others about, here, Shae thought, he was at his best. Here, where he allowed no hands but his to toil. Shae knew him well enough to guess he’d come here, to tinker with the elegant craft he had wanted to rename after her. She noted with relief that he hadn’t yet sanded off the current name, El Dorado. Just as well. The yacht’s patrician lines spoke more of dreams of wealth than passion.
After walking Delilah along the pier, Shae tied her securely to a gate. She stepped out on the narrow dock, then stepped gingerly onto the yacht’s deck. Ethan sat near the helm, with brass bits all around him. Though something on the craft always needed adjusting, Shae wondered if today Ethan needed El Dorado far more than the yacht required him. He avoided looking at her as she stepped around the seagulls’ handiwork.
Yet he realized she was there. Something in the stiffness of his neck informed her just before he spoke.
“I knew you would come.” He turned to her then, a man with sandy hair streaked gold by the sun. Though he was not yet thirty, the long Gulf Coast summers had started crinkles near the corners of his eyes. Ethan might be next in line to a maritime fortune, but he spent as little time as possible indoors behind a desk.
His eyes, as silvery as fog, held none of the accusations she expected, none of the fury she deserved. Instead, they looked baffled, as if he couldn’t comprehend what she had done.
“I couldn’t go through with it last night,” Shae offered. The words felt empty, like chaff fed to starving birds. “I couldn’t face the whispers. Later, I realized I couldn’t face the whole idea. I couldn’t marry you.”
Ethan wiped his greasy hands on a nearby rag and stood. Shae noticed some unseen person, a servant, no doubt, had starched and ironed creases in his frayed work shirt. Despite its wear, his attire looked crisp and well made.
“I won’t believe you ever wanted me for money, no matter what my friends say.” A powerfully built man, he towered over Shae. “I know why you agreed to marry me.”
Shae’s heart beat faster. She could feel the pulse thrumming in her throat, far quicker than the water lapping at the boat’s hull. Surely, he didn’t know her well enough to guess. Surely
“ You want out. You were afraid to keep living with your father. Six years is too long at the mercy of a man who’s lost his soul.”
She shook her head, denying painful truth. She felt transparent as a jellyfish, with her reality exposed. If she might only have a shell to close around her, instead of weak denial!
“Cynthia explained it,” Ethan continued. “And who can blame you? I’ve heard he doesn’t even pay you for your work. And the old man’s got the temper of a dog shark. The entire city knows it. He was bad enough before your mother ran away.”
Angry tears obscured her vision with a threat to overflow. Aunt Alberta had been right about her friend. “Those are filthy lies!” She balled her hands into tight fists by her sides. “Cynthia only wants to step into my place. Don’t you understand? She’d say anything to get you!”
Ethan shook his head. “She only confirmed what I knew all along. Before the start, I’m afraid. I’d heard it all before I met you.”
“Then why? Why on earth would you bother with me?” By now, nothing Shae could do would stem her tears.
“Because you make things I admire. And then, when I saw you, when I realized you were even more stunning than the things you craft, I wanted you. I still intend to have you.”
“Ethan, I don’t love you.”
“Don’t you see. That’s never mattered.” He stepped closer to her, so close that she instinctively moved back.
Either in his words or gaze, Shae sensed something shift between the two of them. She glanced about, feeling inexplicably anxious. Nearby, a trio of yachts bobbed complacently on rope tethers, their movement witnessed only by the laughing gulls.
Slipping the ring off her finger, she reached out to place it in his hand. Slowly, deliberately, she closed his fingers over it. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I can’t marry you.”
He grabbed her wrist, then yanked her close to him. “You’re right. It would be unthinkable, of course. It probably always has been. My family, my friends they’d make it impossible for us. But, Shae, you don’t know what you do to me”
She tried in vain to free herself. “You’re hurting me, Ethan.”
He eased his grip, but his fingers formed a manacle around her wrist. “I own apartments. Why not live in one of them and do your painting there? I could be your patron, and we could still see each other sometimes.”
Something inside Shae leapt at the promise in his offer. A place of her own! A place where she could paint and be alone! Then she felt his free hand come to rest along her side, next to her breast, and travel slowly, meaningfully, along her flank down to her hip. His touch sent pinpricks of heat sparking through her body, quickly followed by a wave of nausea.
Dear God! What was she thinking? Shame flooded through her. He didn’t care about her love; he didn’t wish to wed her. He’d offered her a desperate option to escape her father’s home. He meant her for a mistress. As if in desperation, she would become a rich man’s harlot! What kind of man was Ethan, to tempt her in this way?
And what kind of woman was she to consider it, even for a moment?
You’re just like Her. An echo of her father’s voice accused Shae bitterly. Yet wasn’t King, with his unending fury, driving her to this? If he would only offer her a fraction, a crumb of what he’d given before her mother left . . . But wishing hadn’t helped her in these past six years, not any more than prayers. His sporadic gifts were the only signs her father ever gave her of a time when he had loved.
She jerked away from Ethan and strode toward the gangplank.
“I came to say goodbye,” Shae said, her voice gathering strength as she continued, “not to be pawed and insulted. I can’t live with your conditions, no matter what he’s done.”
“Wait what has he done? What now?”
“He killed my birds last night. He threw the whole cage off the balcony.”
A sure
smile spread across Ethan’s handsome features as he reached for her. “Then you have nowhere else to go.”
She stepped backward, out of range. “I’ve half a mind to dump a box of termites below decks. Goodbye, Ethan. I’m sorry our engagement had to end this way. If I’d guessed what kind of man you were, it never would have started.”
As she turned to walk away, he called out, “I’ll be gone for a bit, but I’ll expect you back here . . . later.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Despite the hat she’d pinned on, fingers of wind unraveled Shae’s long hair as Delilah’s hooves clopped toward the shop. Medusa locks, she thought, for the red-gold tresses were unruly as a nest of hissing snakes.
Her problems, at present, appeared no more manageable. Ethan, with his business sense, smelled a bargain in her situation. He still wanted her physically, but never, now, as wife. His offer had been meant to punish her for last night; there hadn’t been a crumb of kindness in it.
Even so, she wondered if she might be forced to make that choice. Could she yet live with Father, after what he’d done? For so many years, she had excused his temper as a product of her mother’s betrayal. She’d tried so hard to soothe him, to restore the father she’d once loved. But how long could she keep trying to make up for another woman’s crime? And how long could she hold onto the memories of the times before, the times when he had smiled, times when he had laughed.
She tried to recall how it sounded, how it felt when King was laughing. Not mockingly or cruelly, but with joy. The memory eluded her, and she wondered if he’d stopped with Mother’s leaving, or before. Was it possible the change in him had driven her away, instead of being caused by Glennis’s departure?
Or had she somehow done it? Why else would her mother leave her? That suspicion, more than anything, drove Shae to pay endlessly, in case she was at fault.
She wondered why it even mattered anymore. Her mother was long gone and no less likely to return than Father’s humor. And Shae, wearing her mother’s face like a last vestige of betrayal, had no hope of escape except for Ethan’s offer. Not without some money of her own.
Taking a deep breath, she guided Delilah down an alleyway behind Commerce Street. She would have to try a little longer, would have to force herself to live at home, with King. But could he live with her? Or had her disobedience finally driven him beyond whatever self-control he once possessed?
She dismounted just behind S. Rowan Jewelers and tied the mare next to a dozing, harnessed Samson. Her father’s employees either walked to work or used the streetcar system.
Staring at the unmarked rear entry, Shae bit her lip in renewed determination. She might have to return home out of desperation, but that was not the force that brought her here. Nor had she returned because King demanded it. Instead, she came to the shop for the images, the ones she cast in precious metals. There were things here she had to finish. Shapes she could not bear to leave unformed. She would try again for their sake and her own, for making jewelry, like painting or a long walk on the beach, would help her set her thoughts to rights. And no one would disturb her as she worked.
She entered through the back door, using her own key. She thought by going that way she could not only avoid any customers, but King as well, for he liked to wait upon them personally whenever possible. A former Yankee captain, he was still suspect in this bastion of Confederate veterans. But after only eight years in Port Providence, he’d managed to charm enough citizens to build up a healthy business. Sometimes when Shae watched him chatting with their wealthy clientele, she felt as if she were spying. Surely, her father no longer willingly allowed her to look upon the thin veneer of his pleasant, public face.
As she’d hoped, King was occupied in the display area. However, his bookkeeper, Lucius Oliver, caught her eye as he left her father’s office. He moved toward her with one arm outstretched. The other balanced a tall stack of account ledgers, bound in leather. His eyes sagged as if he hadn’t slept, and his spaniel smile looked more sorrowful than ever.
“Mary Shae, are you all right? I heard. . .”
At least something had penetrated his realm of pain. Only a month ago, he’d lost his Claire, the focus of his life for forty-seven years.
Shae gazed into his deep brown eyes and remembered all the afternoons she’d taken tea with the old couple. Though Claire had lived in Port Providence for more than fifty years, she held to the four o’clock teas of her native England. With her delicate scones and polished silver, Claire had managed to recreate her home on this peninsula. Her refuge stood apart from the pressures Lucius and Shae both knew, built on years of dodging Father’s moods. The teas had served Claire, too, for within that sacred hour, she brooked no discussion of the cancer that was slowly killing her.
Shae dropped her gaze, not wanting to speak of her problems here. “I’ll be fine. I just need to work. Are you well, Lucius?”
He rubbed at his left arm, which supported her father’s ledgers. “Aches and pains. Laments of the old.”The moment she recognized his footsteps, Shae stiffened at the sounds of King’s approach. A chill shot up her spine, and she felt herself bristle like a cat.
“About time you found your way here.” His voice betrayed no note of welcome. “I have a custom job for you. The client, a Miss Tisdale, wants to meet with you about an idea she has for a brooch. She wants quality diamonds, and she insists on having you.”
Shae took a deep breath to steel herself. Then, deliberately, defiantly, she forced her eyes to lock with his. “First, we should discuss my commission.”
King removed the pipe from his mouth and blinked in surprise. “Of all the . . . After last night, you want to?”
“ After last night, it’s clear I need to.”
“I will not tolerate this disrespect, Mary.”
“I’m Shae, and I’m an artist, not a slave.”
King puffed on his pipe and filled the air with fragrant smoke. “A damned well-kept slave, I’d say. You know how much that dress you ruined ran me? Check the figure, Lucius. You’ve got the household books there, too.”
Lucius looked from Shae to King and muttered, “I don’t think”
“ Damned right you don’t think. That’s why you spend you life counting other people’s pennies, not your own. Now look up the price of that dress, and tell me what I paid for the hat, the shoes and stockings, and let’s not forget that gig.” King turned his glare back on his daughter. “You’re well-provided, Mary Shae. I buy you everything you need, most everything you want”
“ Oh, you’re very generous. I remember when you bought that easel. I remember when you bought my birds.” She paused long enough to give them both time to recall how he had smashed those gifts. “Maybe I should buy those things myself from now on. Maybe then I’ll become responsible, the way you want me to. And I know I bring the money in.” Gently, she laid her hand on Lucius’s shoulder to stop him from frantically flipping through the ledger he’d set down on a workbench. “Look that up instead. How much do I bring in for Father?”
Lucius stopped turning pages and slowly lifted his brown eyes toward King. Beneath Shae’s hand, she felt the old man’s shoulder. It was shaking.
“I know that figure, for this year. I brought it up this morning at our meeting, I believe.” The bookkeeper’s sentence, too, seemed to tremble in the humid air.
“That’s privileged information,” King warned. “One more word and you’re fired.”
Lucius drew himself up to his full height, which still fell half a foot short of the top of Rowan’s head.
“Considering the amount,” Lucius continued, “a commission would be equitable. Then Mary Shae could pay her own expenses. Amply.”
And she could save money to leave to start a new life on her own. Shae thought about New Orleans and the offer she’d had there.
King pulled the pipe out of his mouth, which had curled into an ugly pucker. He bent down until his bulldog glare was inches from the old man’s face.
“Get out! You’re finished here.”
“I’ve worked with you for thirty years, King. I followed you from Philadelphia. Do you mean to tell me, after all the two of us have been through, you would fire me over the suggestion that you loosen the reins a tiny bit? Do you remember the last time I gave you that advice? Do you recall what happened when you”
“ Say another word, and I’ll thrash you! So help me God, I will!” King’s fists rose as if in anticipation.
Lucius opened his mouth as if to argue, and Shae grabbed him by the arm.
“Don’t, please! He will hurt you. You don’t know . . .” Gazing at her father, Shae was too frightened to say more. It was as if last evening King had crossed some line. God help them all if they couldn’t coax him back onto the other side. “Just get your things out of the office and go now.”
Still quivering, Lucius left the ledgers on the workbench. Then, after a nod toward Shae, he turned and scurried into the office. In less than a minute, she heard the back door slam.
King scowled at the old man’s hat, which he’d left beside the account books. “He was getting forgetful anyway. Too old.”
“I doubt he’s ever forgotten a nickel he recorded. You just upset him.” Anxiously, Shae bit her lip and wondered if anything she might say could change her father’s mind.
“He ought to be upset. He’s through.”
“At least let me take back his hat after I’m finished here,” Shae implored.
King shrugged and thrust it at her. “Here. Give the old man the makings of his new profession. Every beggar needs a good hat to hold out.”
Shae decided, for the moment, to keep her peace. Her father had already fired Lucius. If she continued challenging King now, in front of the other employees, heaven only knew what he might do. After last night’s disaster, she didn’t wish to chance it. Besides, she still had time. She would break around him the way the surf broke on a rock, fluid but relentless. She would wear him down.
Her jewelry earned too much money for King to run her off. Besides, she was his daughter, wasn’t she? She deserved a living wage, and eventually, she’d have it. With persistence, maybe she could intercede for Lucius as well. Soon, she promised herself, she’d make the attempt.
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