Kate Welsh - Questions of Honour (Questions of Honor)

“When I’m twenty-one. In three months time, I inherit, married or not. I’d hoped to put him off but Uncle Franklin is determined to choose for me before then. I can’t let another man touch—” She stopped and shook her head, a blush staining her pale cheeks. “I won’t marry anyone but Brendan.”

Joshua stared at the young woman across from him. Helena seemed strong enough to bear up under the strain of a plan forming in his mind. In a way, it would be less pressure than she was currently under.

“What you need is a diversion. What I need is to keep Franklin here in Wheatonburg where I can watch how his trap for the AMU unfolds and so I can make sure Brendan isn’t caught in it when it’s sprung.”

“How do we accomplish that?” she asked, her eyes wide with excitement and dread at the same time.

“By letting everyone think we’re considering marriage.”

Helena simply stared. “So,” she said slowly, “we pretend you’re courting me and Uncle Franklin takes me off the auction block.”

“Yes, but we have to find a way to keep Franklin here so I can watch him.”

Helena shook her head. “He won’t leave me here. The last time I was here I met and fell in love with Brendan. He’ll want to make sure we stay away from each other. I’m just afraid Brendan will think I’ve given up. He keeps telling me to, but I swore not to.” Her lips turned up in a sudden mischievous grin. “I suppose it would serve him right for his lack of faith.”

Josh found himself grinning, too. “Are we agreed then?”

Helena nodded. “How will I ever be able to thank you?”

“By making plenty of pretty babies with Brendan and naming one after me.”

Helena tilted her head and stared at him for several seconds. “You sound as if you’ll never have a son of your own. Someday you’ll meet the right person.”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t think so. I met her years ago. She was the daughter of a miner.”

“And you lost her?”

“I had better go,” Joshua told her, standing abruptly and hastening from the room. He knew it wasn’t fair but he couldn’t talk about Abby so soon after his first painful glimpse of her.

Helena grew visibly nervous when the town came into sight the next morning. “How did you meet Brendan?” Josh finally asked, hoping to get her to relax.

Helena smiled. “Uncle Franklin brought me here when he had to go away on business. He thought I’d be well chaperoned, but I was only here a couple days when your father was shot. While the house was in turmoil, I had a groom saddle a mount, and I rode into the mountains. I was quite lost, and enjoying every minute of it, when I came upon Brendan fishing.”

“And that would have been it for Brendan. You’re everything he used to say he wanted in a wife.”

Helena looked confused. “But he sneers at my money. He wants a ranch and I could buy one for him but he won’t hear of it.”

Brendan was clearly the more practical of the two. Which meant he’d changed. Had he changed enough to warn a friend if he learned of the Irish-sounding earl who was undercover for the Pinkertons and hunting his hide?

As they rode through the outskirts of town, Helena said, “It’s so dreary. I’ve wondered why they stay here.”

“They were lured here with a promise of a better life. They stay,” Josh answered, “because men like Gowery and my father promised to be their saviors but keep them enslaved to debt.”

“That angers you, doesn’t it? Imagine how terrible it is to be told where to go, who to see, who to love.” Helena blinked away a mist of tears.

Joshua felt her hopelessness. The life she described was clearly her own. “Helena, this will work. You’ll be safe and we’ll keep Brendan safe. We just need to resist the temptation to warn him about your earl. The man sounded honest if angry over your relationship with Brendan so I doubt he’ll manufacture evidence against him.”

She nodded and glanced away toward the company store. “Look. There goes that boy from the station yesterday.”

Joshua pulled the carriage to a stop. “Ever been in a company store?” Helena shook her head. “Then you need to see how the miners get enslaved to debt. You’ll notice the prices are ten to fifteen percent higher than what you’re used to seeing in the stores near Philadelphia. Mining companies pay in script. That forces employees to buy their equipment, explosives and all their staples from their company store. They run up a bill, and then can’t leave till it’s paid,” he explained as he helped her down from the carriage.

Helena looked around town. “You should have just whisked your girl away from all this. Was she very pretty?” she asked as Joshua opened the door to the store.

He followed Helena inside and found himself looking at that long-remembered face. “Beautiful, in fact,” Joshua whispered, staring at Abby as she spoke with Mr. Prescott.

She looked just as he remembered … a little thinner perhaps but the years had been more than kind. Her long auburn hair was pulled into a tight bun, but just as in her youth it refused to be tamed. Tiny ringlets had pulled loose to softly frame the delicate high cheekbones of her lovely face. Josh felt his heart seize in his chest. How can it still hurt so damned much?

“Are you all right?” Helena whispered.

Josh couldn’t tear his gaze away from Abby.

“Oh, that’s her, isn’t it?” Helena asked. “Your father says she broke your heart by marrying another man.”

“My father talks too much,” Josh growled. He didn’t need reminding that the tormentor of his youth had stolen Abby.

“She is beautiful,” Helena went on, throwing salt in the still open wound. “Her hair is like fire in the sunlight.”

He wasn’t ready for this. He took a step backward, but Helena turned into a proverbial pillar of salt holding him in place. Then in a flash she turned into an iron horse, all but dragging him across the room.

“Come along and introduce me,” she ordered. “Get this out of the way. You’ve come back here to live. You can’t hide in the manor house.”

Joshua cleared his throat when they reached the counter. “It’s been a long time, Abby,” he managed to say in what he hoped was the neutral tone of a man greeting an old acquaintance.

Abby sucked in a deep, shocked breath. Seeing Joshua the day before hadn’t prepared her for the sound of his voice. If she had prior warning, she’d have fled but now she had no choice. She turned to face the man she’d once loved and the woman she’d heard he intended to marry. The meeting was inevitable, but she wasn’t ready, and that wasn’t fair.

Because he obviously was.

He sounded as if they’d been no more than childhood playmates. But they’d been more— much more. They’d created a child together. A child he’d abandoned to grow up in poverty while he traveled the world and found another woman. Righteous anger rescued her pride. “Joshua. I’d heard you’d returned. Planning to suck the miners and laborers even dryer? A little warning—they can’t squeeze their budgets tighter without starving. And if they died, who’d go down into those death traps your father calls tunnels?”

“Things are going to get better now, Abby. I’m back and with enough power to make some real changes. All the changes we’d planned.”

“Well, I beg your pardon but I’ll not be believin’ a Wheaton’ll honor his word. I learned that long ago.”