“Solicitor, bath, then food,” he muttered as the cab rolled along cobblestone-paved streets, lined with lamps and neat brick buildings standing three and four stories high.
Men in top hats strolled along with women dressed in fashions accented by bustles and large straw hats trimmed with frippery, enjoying an afternoon outing in the warmth of the sun.
Since he spent the majority of his time alone or with his hired hands, he possessed limited knowledge about women’s clothes. Furthermore, he held no interest in seeking an education on the matter. As long as his female counterparts appeared pleasing to the eye, he didn’t care about the latest styles.
However, the finely dressed women drew his gaze while the passing scenery captured his admiration.
As cab worked its way down Church Street, he took in a store with a cutlery sign just a few doors down from a café. A hotel sign hung high overhead, welcoming guests. Making note of the location of both the hotel and café, Thane decided he might soon be able to find a filling meal and a comfortable bed.
The cab finally pulled to a stop in front of a red brick building with ornate gold lettering painted on the shiny glass windows.
“’Ere we are, good chap. Mr. Weston’s office is up on the second floor, it ‘tis.” The cabby grinned at Thane as he stepped out of the conveyance and paid him.
He’d made sure to exchange most of his American cash for English currency before he left New York. Glad he had the foresight to take care of that matter, he tipped his hat to the cabby and started toward the door.
“Do ye need me to wait for ye, sir? ‘Appy to wait for ye.” The cabby gave him a hopeful glance, grateful for the tip Thane included with his fare.
“You best move along. I don’t know how long I’ll be here or where I’m going when I leave.” Thane nodded to him again and turned the knob on the door, stepping inside the building and staring at a broad set of wooden stairs.
Resolute, he jogged up the steps and read a large brass sign hanging on the wall, finding Mr. Weston’s name among those listed. A few paces down a corridor he knocked on a door bearing the man’s name and opened it.
A pale, slight young man glanced up from a desk covered in papers and files, pushing a pair of round spectacles up the bridge of his nose.
“May I assist you, sir?”
Thane neither frowned nor smiled, keeping his face impassive as he spoke. “I’m here to see Arthur Weston. He’s expecting me.”
“I see.” The young man rose to his feet and looked up at Thane as he stood with his feet slightly apart, towering above him on the opposite side of his desk. “And your name sir?”
“Thane Jordan. Brother to the late Henry James Jordan.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
The young man quietly walked to a door behind him, tapped lightly and stepped inside before closing it behind him.
He reappeared within a moment and motioned for Thane to have a seat on a straight-backed chair beneath a window.
“Mr. Weston is indisposed at the moment. If you’ll please be seated, he’ll attend to you directly.”
Thane nodded his head and took a seat on the hard chair. The traveling bag dropped at his feet then he crossed a foot over the opposite knee, leaned back, and waited.
The young man picked up a pen, dipping it in a well of ink, and continued writing on a thick piece of stationery.
As the pen scratched across the paper, it grated on Thane’s tightly strung nerves. Mindlessly drumming his fingers on his thigh, he fastened his steely blue gaze on Mr. Weston’s door, willing the man to appear.
Patience had never been his strong suit. Tired and hungry after traveling more than twenty-five hundred miles across America and that far again on the ocean, he just wanted to sign whatever necessary papers Mr. Weston needed and be on his way home. In fact, if they completed business immediately, he could be on a ship headed home by the following afternoon.
The sound of voices carried across the open space as two men exited Mr. Weston’s office. A tall, white-haired man with a tan face and athletic build walked out accompanied by a short, portly man nervously twirling the end of his walrus mustache between his fingers.
The two shook hands at the door then the portly man touched a finger to his top hat and exited.
Thane uncrossed his knee, rising to his feet, pleased Arthur Weston appeared to be of sound mind and body.
“Mr. Jordan, I offer my sincere apologies for the wait. I received your telegram, but held no certainty as to the day of your expected arrival. Welcome to Liverpool, sir. Arthur Weston at your service.”
“Mr. Weston, nice to meet you. I appreciate you meeting with me since I don’t have an appointment.” Thane shook the man’s proffered hand then picked up his bag and followed the solicitor into his private office.
Anxious to settle Henry’s affairs, he took a seat in a leather-upholstered armchair. Thane once again dropped the bag at his feet, waiting for Weston to get the point of why he had to travel thousands of miles to sign a few papers.
“I trust you had an uneventful journey?” Weston asked as he opened a drawer and removed a file stuffed with papers.
“Most people would consider it so,” Thane answered vaguely. “I don’t particularly enjoy the water.”
“Were you seasick on the crossing, sir?” Weston glanced at him as he riffled through papers.
“You could say that.”
“Nasty bit of business, what? I must say, I try to avoid the need to sail myself. These legs much prefer solid ground beneath them.”
Thane nodded his head. “I’m curious, Mr. Weston, why I had to travel all this way to sign a few papers for Henry’s estate. Couldn’t you have mailed them to me?”
“No, sir. I assure you, settling your brother’s estate entails much more than signing a few papers, as you so aptly put it.”
Weston slid a thick stack of papers across his desk to Thane. “These are the legal documents regarding Henry’s business holdings.”
Thane sat up a little straighter and leaned forward as Weston slid another handful of papers toward him.
“These papers detail his personal holdings.”
Thane felt the muscle in his jaw tighten. So much for signing a few papers and heading home tomorrow. “Anything else?”
“Yes, sir. This includes the terms of his will.”
Thane stared at the third stack of papers the solicitor slid his direction.
Weston sat back in his chair and studied Thane Jordan. He’d known Henry since the day he arrived in Liverpool until his death. His mind worked to associate the tough, rugged man in front of him to the jovial, smiling friend he’d known. Henry was a gentleman in every sense of the word, maintaining a meticulous appearance as a successful and prosperous businessman.
The cowboy sitting across the desk from Weston needed an appointment with the barber and a set of respectable clothes. Although he didn’t arrive dressed in buckskins, like Weston rather imagined a man living in the western wilds of America might appear, his woolen jacket and corded front chambray shirt were not of the quality he’d expect someone related to Henry to wear. He absently wondered if Thane Jordan even owned a decent suit.
From what information Henry had shared when he engaged Weston to prepare the details of his will, he knew Thane Jordan disappeared from Henry’s life when the lad turned eighteen and moved from his last known location without sending his brother any forwarding address. Henry engaged any number of men of questionable character over the years to track down Thane, finally locating his whereabouts just before Easter.
Upon finding his residence in Oregon, Henry debated sending Thane a letter. In the meantime, he bequeathed everything he owned to his brother, surprising Weston. He knew it certainly came as a shock to those in Henry’s household when he read the will to them upon the man’s death more than a month ago.
“Do you have any questions, Mr. Jordan?” Weston asked, resting his arms on the top of his desk as Henry’s brother continu
ed to stare at the papers without touching them. Curious if the man could read, he contemplated how best to broach the question. “Would it provide assistance to you if I read the documents aloud?”
Careworn, Thane sat back in the chair with a sigh. “My belly’s as empty as a forgotten post hole and I don’t fancy sitting here for a couple hours listening to you read all that legal mumbo jumbo. I’ll take the papers with me and review them this evening, but why don’t you tell me the important points right now.”
Weston’s eyebrows rose toward his snowy white hairline, but he nodded his head.
“It is my understanding you and your brother have not communicated in a dozen years. Henry was beside himself when he realized you left South Carolina and moved on. He managed to hire someone who located your whereabouts not all that long before his death. At that time, he came to me and changed his will, leaving you everything.”
“What, exactly, does everything include?” Thane leaned forward with his elbows propped on his knees, staring inquiringly at his brother’s lawyer.
“Your brother owns, both outright and as a partner, more than a dozen successful cotton mills in Bolton, where he resided. In addition to his home there, he owned a lovely vacation home in Bath. He also recently engaged in a partnership with several shipping business here in Liverpool.”
“I thought he lived here in Liverpool.”
“No. He moved to Bolton after he became a partner in his first cotton mill. He stayed with me when he had business to attend to here in the city and I hope you’ll do the same.”
Intently gazing at the man across the desk from him, Thane slowly nodded his head. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Weston. It’s very kind of you.”
Weston rose to his feet, gathered up the papers he’d set on the desk and placed them in a file then enclosed it in a leather satchel that reminded Thane of the school bags many children carried. Handing the bag to the Thane, the solicitor motioned toward the door.
“Shall we proceed to my home? I’d like to think my cook might be able to provide a filling meal for that fence post hole you mentioned.”
A smile worked at the corners of Thane’s mouth and he again nodded his head. “Thank you, sir.”
“Please, call me Weston. Now, I’d like to hear all about your life in the west. Is it as untamed and wild as the stories I’ve read, that sort of rot?”
Thane grinned, cocking an eyebrow. “Depends on what you’ve read.”
“Rightly so, my good man.”
After a hot bath and a good meal, Thane spent the evening visiting with Weston and his wife, Margaret, at their well-appointed home. The next morning, Mrs. Weston handed a basket of food to her husband as he climbed into a comfortable coach, taking a seat opposite their guest.
“I must say, I think it best if you spend a few days acquainting yourself with Henry’s holdings in Bolton before you make any decisions,” Weston said when Thane questioned the need for making the day-long trip to the northeast.
“Can’t I read the papers and sign them here?”
“There are matters there that require your personal attention, sir. I’m happy to provide assistance and advisement as needed. You didn’t seem of a mind to speak of matters last evening, but I believe it would behoove us to discuss the details of your brother’s will whilst we journey to his home today.” Weston waved to his wife as the coach pulled onto the street.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather wait. I’m still trying to resign myself to Henry being gone. You say he fell of his horse while he was riding home from his office?” Henry was the one who taught Thane to ride. He had a hard time believing his brother could take a spill off his horse for no reason and break his neck.
“From what I know, Henry left his office, riding fast and hard, as he so often did on his way home. It was raining that night, already dark. No one knows if the horse slipped, stepped in a hole, or spooked, but the end result was the same. The doctor said Henry didn’t suffer, that the end came quickly.”
Thane barely nodded his head in acknowledgement of the statement and focused his gaze out the coach window. He’d suggested riding to Bolton horseback and Weston quickly assured him they needed to travel by coach. At least it was a private coach and Thane had one side all to himself. It gave him the ability to stretch out his long legs. He still felt cramped from the days of confinement to his second-class room on the ship due to his illness. It would have been a nightmare had he been forced to travel in steerage.
The few times he’d felt well enough to venture from his room on the ship, he’d joined in a group of men who conversed about everything from the first electric chair execution that took place a few weeks prior in New York to the admittance of Idaho and Wyoming to the union earlier that summer.
Discussion of a new ship in the popular White Star Line, reputed for its speed and attention to detail, captured his interest. Unfortunately, it wasn’t due to sail out of Liverpool for three weeks. By then, Thane planned to be home at his ranch.
“May I inquire, sir, have you ever met any Indians?” Weston asked from his seat across the coach, hungry for more news from the American West. His guest had offered several stories, appropriate for genteel ears since Margaret sat with them the previous evening, enraptured by the tales Thane shared.
“A few. We don’t have too many in the Baker City area, but there’s a reservation near Pendleton, north of where I live. The Indians are just trying to survive, like a lot of the rest of us.”
“Have you witnessed any of them performing something called the ghost dance? I read in the paper that many of the tribes are engaging in the ritual at the urging of a man named Wovoka.”
“No, I haven’t seen any ghost dancers. While many of the tribes believe it will bring a return of their old ways, the dance mostly has a bunch of white folks in a panic, worried about uprisings.”
“Surely you jest.”
Thane glanced at his traveling companion and shook his head. “Nope. Personally, I think they ought to leave the Indians alone and let them do their dances. It’s bad enough we’ve shoved them off their lands onto reservations, we shouldn’t forbid them from honoring their traditions.”
Weston continued asking questions about life in the west and on a ranch. While working through the basket of food Mrs. Weston provided, the men maintained a lively conversation that stayed far away from discussions of Henry or his passing.
The afternoon moved toward evening as the coach slowed and turned down a lane, rolling to a stop in front of a large stone home resembling a miniature castle with gables, turrets and multiple chimneys gracing the roofline. Ivy and climbing roses trailed over the arch around the doorway while a profusion of blooming flowers and green lawn completed the pastoral scene.
“We made jolly good time,” Weston said, smiling at the coachman as he opened the door to the conveyance. “Welcome to Breckenridge Cottage.”
As he stepped onto the cobblestoned path leading to the front door, Henry’s cottage looked nothing like Thane imagined. It was vastly different from the small, humble cabin he called home.
Curious, he followed Weston down the walk to the door. Thane took a deep breath, inhaling the cloying aroma of the flowers.
Rain began to fall as they stepped beneath the overhang covering the door. Between the dreary skies and perpetual dampness, he couldn’t wait to return to the somewhat arid conditions of eastern Oregon.
Though he expected Weston to produce a key and open the door, Thane hid his surprise when the man knocked and turned to him with a smile.
“I thought this was Henry’s place?” Thane asked, confused.
“Indeed, it is.”
“And someone lives here?”
“They most certainly do. I planned to discuss further those details with you today on our journey, but you made your preference clear on that topic. I rather enjoyed our conversations about your life in the west. Regardless, by deferring to your wishes, you shall meet the occupants without forewarning
.”
“Forewarning? Now, wait just a dang minute, Weston. I’ve got…”
The door opening forced Thane to clamp his mouth shut, although he continued to glare at his traveling companion.
“Weston! How nice to see you.”
The feminine voice floating out to Thane caused him to shift his gaze from the solicitor to the beautiful woman standing in the doorway, smiling in greeting. Light from inside the house highlighted her auburn hair and created a soft glow around her shoulders. Ladylike and elegant in appearance, Thane wondered if she had royal blood pumping through her delicate veins.
“My dear, I do so hope you received my correspondence explaining our arrival.”
“Indeed, I did, kind sir. Please come in.” Jemma Bryan stepped back to allow her guests entry. “You’re just in time for a spot of tea.”
“Wonderful. I’m glad we arrived when we did,” Weston said, removing his hat and coat and hanging them on the mahogany hall tree in the entry.
Thane removed his Stetson and jacket, leaving them beside Weston’s things before turning to the woman.
Weston thumped him on the back as he made introductions. “Thane Jordan, I’d very much like you to meet Jemma Bryan, Henry’s sister-in-law.”
Thane clenched his jaw and curtly tipped his head to the woman. Her smile slowly melted as his annoyance pounded between them with a palpable force. Turning to Weston, Thane pinned him with an angry glare. “Henry was married?”
The Christmas Cowboy (Rodeo Romance, Book 1)- Flying from city to city in her job as a busy corporate trainer for a successful direct sales company, Kenzie Beckett doesn’t have time for a man. And most certainly not for the handsome cowboy she keeps running into at the airport. Burned twice, she doesn’t trust anyone wearing boots and Wranglers, especially someone as charming and handsome as Tate Morgan.
Among the top saddle bronc riders in the rodeo circuit, easy-going Tate Morgan can handle the toughest horse out there, but trying to handle the beautiful Kenzie Beckett is a completely different story. As the holiday season approaches, this Christmas Cowboy is going to need more than a little mistletoe to win her heart.
The Christmas Calamity Page 24
