by Regina Scott
“Kincaid’s workers are in revolt,” her father announced, chest heaving so much the silver buttons on his paisley waistcoat glittered. “Protests have broken out all over the city, and the suffragettes are marching in front of his largest mill. Stories will appear in special editions of the newspapers by tomorrow.”
Cora’s smile must have been glowing, for her mother frowned at her. “Coraline, did you have something to do with this?”
“Mr. Kincaid had already made a bad name for himself with his employees,” Cora said. “I merely gave them the information they needed to make a case for themselves. And the Tacoma Women’s Suffrage Association was glad to help, especially after they learned how this bruise came to be.”
Her mother’s mouth tightened, but her father rubbed his hands together. “Excellent work, dearest. Those men deserve fair pay.” His smile took in Nathan. “Oh, hello, my boy. Come to call on Cora?”
Nathan’s gaze was all for her. “As often as I can.”
Cora took his hand and gave it a squeeze before facing her parents. “And I have news as well. Nathan and I are going to be wed.”
Her father clapped his hands. “Marvelous news! All my congratulations! Then you’ll be taking the position at the bank, my boy?”
“Not exactly,” Nathan said. “Cora and I have big plans.”
“If you’d both sit down,” Cora said, “we’ll explain them to you.”
It took some time. Her mother had doubts, and her father had questions, but by the time Darcy poked her head in to ask if Mr. Hardee was staying for dinner, everything had been settled.
“Give us a quarter hour,” her mother instructed the maid, “and then you may serve.” She turned to her husband. “Mr. Winston, you will want to change.”
He popped to his feet. “Excellent thought. I’ll just be a moment.” He paused to peck Cora on the cheek. “Congratulations again, dearest. I think you’ve made a very good choice.”
As he trotted from the room, her mother looked to Cora. “I must apologize, to you both.”
Cora blinked. As usual, her mother continued without her response.
“I was certain, Mr. Hardee, that you were not the man for my daughter. I will concede that my view may have been too narrow. Coraline has always known her own mind, and I concur with Mr. Winston. She has made a good choice this time.”
Cora laced her fingers with Nathan’s. “The only choice for me.”
“Indeed.” Her mother rose to come offer her hands. Cora released Nathan to take them, and her mother drew her to her feet as well. “I hope you know I only ever wanted the best for you.”
Cora pulled her into a hug. “I know, Mother. However much we disagreed, I always knew you loved me.” She disengaged and looked to Nathan, who stood to join them.
“I hope you can understand my decision now,” Cora continued to her mother. “This life was too constraining. With Nathan, I feel as if I can finally fly.”
Tears gathered in her mother’s eyes. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
“I will do everything I can to see your daughter happy, always,” Nathan promised, deep voice rough with emotion.
Her mother suffered his hug, then sniffed. “Now, that is entirely enough of such sentimentality. You must tell me more about this retreat, Mr. Hardee. I can advise you on the sort of assembly rooms you will require.” She sailed for the dining room as if expecting them to follow.
Nathan shook his head. “Do you think she will ever call me Nathan?”
“Doubtful,” Cora said. “She still calls my father Mr. Winston. Just don’t let her bully you into building assembly rooms.”
“I don’t bully easily,” he said, standing taller.
Cora laughed. “That’s true enough.” She sobered. “Speaking of bullies, do you think this workers’ rebellion will be enough to quell Cash Kincaid?”
They didn’t learn the answer until they attended services on Sunday.
In between, her life became a flurry of activity. She and Nathan rode out to Shem’s Dockside Saloon to tell Waldo. The old pioneer hugged her, then pulled back, eyes shining with his tears. “Always wanted a daughter.”
Then she made sure her mother sent a correct announcement to the paper about who Cora was going to marry. It ran in the Thursday edition, along with the story of her climb, but it was still the talk of the town when she went to the bank that day.
“Never liked the fellow,” one of the businessmen who was requesting a loan told Cora when he came to discuss changes in the proposal with her. “Good for you for finding a better groom.”
Mimi said the same when she stopped by the bank on Friday morning.
“These banker’s hours are entirely inconvenient,” she declared before plopping down on the chair in front of Cora’s desk in a flurry of linen and lace. “I wanted to rush right over and congratulate you and your mountain man the moment I saw the announcement, then I realized you’d be working. You’ve no idea how hard I had to work to convince Mother to let me visit you here. She seems to think you’re doing something more subversive than supporting suffrage.” She wiggled her black brows.
Cora nodded toward the lobby. “I see she insisted you bring your brother as escort.”
Mimi twisted, and they both looked out the open door at the young man conversing with Cora’s father.
“It appears Peter is growing into his long legs,” Cora commented.
“Like a thoroughbred,” Mimi agreed, and they both giggled.
As Mimi’s gaze came back to her, she frowned. “That bruise still shows, I see.”
Cora touched the spot, which was already greening. Lily had insisted on covering it with face powder, which had only turned it yellow. “A little, but it’s fading.”
“Unlike the zeal of our suffragette sisters,” Mimi told her. “Between your climb and the revolt against Kincaid Industries, each one of our ladies is thoroughly revived. I’m planning a march on Olympia to catch the attention of the state government.”
“Well done,” Cora said, lowering her hand. “There’s something else you might want to factor into your plans. I’d like you to be my wedding attendant.”
Mimi squealed, hopped to her feet, and rushed around the desk to hug her. Over her shoulder, Cora saw several people glance their way with upraised brows.
“That’s what we like to see at the Puget Sound Bank of Commerce,” her father told them all, beaming. “Happy patrons.”
Her mother wasn’t nearly so happy about the arrangement.
“Really, Coraline,” she said Friday evening over dinner, “you cannot simply marry and ride off. It will take me at least a month to make all the arrangements—the proper flowers for the church, invitations printed and mailed, and your gown chosen, created, and fitted.”
“I don’t need any of that, Mother,” Cora told her. “You and Father, Nathan’s mother, Waldo, the Thackerys, the ladies of the Tacoma Women’s Suffrage Association and their husbands, and Mimi and her family are all I planned to invite, and we can simply let them know the time and place to arrive. Mimi can wear any of her ball gowns, and so can I. It isn’t as if I’ll be needing them in the wilderness.”
Her mother sniffed. “Nonsense. My daughter must be married in style.”
But Cora held her ground. So did Nathan.
“I leave for the mountain tomorrow after services,” he explained to her mother and father over dinner on Saturday. “I’ll be back with Waldo in two weeks for more supplies. We’ll be married then.”
Her mother’s mouth was a tight line, but she nodded.
Cora had also met Nathan’s mother. She hadn’t been sure how to react knowing his mother had refused to see him all those years, but the society hostess’s welcome was warmer than her mother’s and she obviously regretted past mistakes. Cora could only hope for better times ahead.
Once more, whispers blew through the church when they entered for services on Sunday, and any number of people stopped them afterward to congratulate them on their upcoming
wedding. While Cora’s mother and father talked with the minister, Mimi took her arm and drew her and Nathan aside.
“If you’re done basking in the adulation, I have other news you’ll want to hear.” She peered up at both of them. “Mr. Kincaid has left town. Permanently.”
Cora started. “You mean he ran away!”
“Crawled away, more like,” her friend said, shaking out her lavender skirts as if she would shake him off as well. “Rumor has it he hopped a boxcar East to escape his creditors.”
“And his businesses?” Nathan asked, frown evident.
“Will be sold for pennies on the dollar, most likely,” Cora said. “He implied only a loan would save them. I hope the new owners will negotiate with the worker organizations for fair wages.”
“Yes, yes,” Mimi said with a wave of her hand. “But I must know, Cora. When is the wedding? What will you wear? What do you want me to wear?”
Cora smiled at her. “Wear whatever makes you happy, and I will do the same.”
Nathan caught her arm close. “And to answer your other question, Miss Carruthers, the wedding is in two weeks.”
Mimi’s cry of delight turned all heads in their direction, and it was some time before Cora and Nathan could extricate themselves from another round of well-wishes.
Leaving her parents to take the carriage, they walked home down C Street, past the tall, elegant homes and the gardens that helped proclaim their status. Carriages rattled by, carrying their occupants to and from church services. Other gentlemen and ladies strolled the wooden sidewalk.
“Sure you won’t miss all this?” he asked her.
The wail of the train horn seemed to fade when she looked in his eyes. Green, like the forest where she’d be living. Warm, like the glow inside her.
“I’m sure,” Cora said. “This was never home. You are home, Nathan. With you, I can be who I was meant to be.”
He cradled her hand. “When I’m with you, I’m on the summit again, and the view is glorious.”
“A view of forever,” Cora agreed. “Let’s see where it takes us next.”
Letter to Reader
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing Cora and Nathan’s story. When I visited Mount Rainier National Park a few years ago, I purchased a postcard showing Fay Fuller as she was depicted after her historic climb, and I knew I had to write about a lady like her.
Mount Rainier is very special to me. I grew up near it and live in its shadow today. My father loved that mountain. He took us camping or hiking up on it nearly every weekend. He always helped me find the perfect alpenstock, though we always left it on the mountain so as not to take away from nature. I’ve been to Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground, the area of the mountain Henry favored for hunting mountain goat and picking berries. I’ve hiked Rampart Ridge, visited Narada Falls (Cushman Falls in Cora’s day), and wandered through fields of wildflowers. My father liked to brag that I hiked all the way to the ice caves (now gone) above Paradise when I was only six! There are pictures of me up on his shoulders during the hike, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it all the way on my own.
Cora did, though. So did Fay Fuller, Edith Corbett, and Susan Longmire in the early 1890s. Like the Longmires and the Ashfords, they are historical figures, as is Henry So-To-Lick. Today, he is known as Indian Henry, but the first guidebook to Mount Tacoma, published in August 1893, around the time that Cora makes her climb, notes him as Henry, so that’s what I called him in the story. I also could not verify that Fay Fuller was in Tacoma in August 1893. She left to cover the Chicago World’s Fair in July, but it appears she was home in September, when she was elected poet of the Washington State Press Association. All the attitudes and descriptions of these historical figures are as accurate as I could make them, but their words are my own. I also tried to use place names in vogue at the time. I grew up knowing Longmire and Paradise. Cora and Nathan would have known Longmire’s Hot Springs, Medical Springs, or Soda Springs, and Paradise Park.
I could not identify a Tacoma-based suffragette group in my research, but the movement in Washington State was demoralized in 1893 after three attempts (two successful) to give women the vote. Small wonder Mimi and Cora hoped to reignite interest with a historic climb. Washington State granted women the right to vote in 1910, ten years before the nation.
When it comes to climbing, I have nothing but respect for those who scale the mountain to the summit. Today, it takes months of training, sophisticated equipment, and knowledgeable guides to reach the heights. But historical records show that many climbers summited Rainier with none of those things. Even the ropes that link climbers safely together were rarely used, being deemed a danger to the other climbers. Len Longmire, mentioned in the book, once reached the crater in his shirtsleeves and suffered no ill effects!
When I first proposed this book to my editor, the incomparable Rachel McRae, I couldn’t wait to research all the history that surrounds me. The Tacoma Public Library has the Northwest Room, with copies of original materials. More materials beckon from the Washington State History Research Center. Because of the pandemic, I wasn’t able to visit either of those places, so I am indebted to Google Books and the many historical tomes I was able to purchase to flesh out Cora’s life and times. It was from those books that I learned about the controversy over Rainier’s name, a controversy that even resulted in public fisticuffs on occasion.
From the shadow of the mountain,
Regina Scott
Regina Scott started writing novels in the third grade. Thankfully for literature as we know it, she didn’t sell her first novel until she learned a bit more about writing. Since her first book was published, her stories have traveled the globe, with translations in many languages including Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese. She now has more than fifty published works of warm, witty romance.
She credits her late father with instilling in her a love for the wilderness and our national parks. She has toured the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Yosemite, the Olympics, and the Redwoods and currently lives forty-five minutes from the gates of Mount Rainier with her husband of thirty years.
Regina Scott has dressed as a Regency dandy, driven four-in-hand, learned to fence, and sailed on a tall ship, all in the name of research, of course. Learn more about her at www.reginascott.com.
www.reginascott.com
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Table of Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title Page
Books by Regina Scott
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Letter to Reader
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
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