By the time she arrived home, she was gasping for air. She peered over the wooden gate, looking for more detailed clues about what had transpired. There were not nearly as many weavers as there had been when she left, but a few remained, sitting on overturned crates or standing just inside the stable. Other men moved to and fro, but their steps were slow, their clothing damp and dirty. Gone was the buoyant energy that had lit everyone’s steps and expressions. What had happened?
Kate inched the gate open. Determined not to draw attention to herself, she stole behind the loom and dye houses to the kitchen entrance. She needed to change her gown before she encountered anyone. But as she strode toward the stairway, Betsy intercepted her steps.
“Where have you been?” Betsy demanded, her eyes wide. “Everyone’s been looking high and low for you.”
Kate turned. “Why? What is it?”
“Your father. He’s been shot.”
“Shot?” Alarm sliced through her, and she clutched the maid’s forearm. “Is he all right? Where is he?”
“He is abed. Resting.”
Kate pushed past Betsy and ran up the stairs. She never went into her papa’s private chamber. Ever. Panic seized her when she thrust open the door. He was in bed, just as Betsy had said, a blanket pulled to his chin. His face was white, his eyes closed, his mouth open. He was still.
Several men, including John, were gathered in the low-ceilinged space. She hurried past them and dropped to her knees next to her father’s bed. His eyelashes fluttered at the motion. Tears flooded Kate’s already burning eyes and she gripped the edge of the blanket. “What has happened?”
He drew a deep breath. Annoyance—not pain or fear—scrunched his face. He surveyed the men in the room. All were silent.
Kate’s breath caught in her throat. He wasn’t going to tell her.
This was no time for games. In a sudden burst, she clutched his arm, as if to demand his attention. “Tell me immediately! What has happened?”
Her mind rushed to every possible garish conclusion as the silence persisted. If he had been shot, who else had? How many?
“It was the mill, wasn’t it?” she blurted out, heat creeping up her neck. Her throat felt almost too thick to speak. “Papa, I begged you not to go. I—”
“Silence!”
She snapped her mouth shut at her father’s blunt order and leaned back from the bed.
He fixed hard, narrow eyes on her. She had been afraid of her father, but the coldness in his eyes caused her to shrink back even farther.
At length, his raspy voice filled the chamber. “Like I told you earlier, what I do does not concern you. Nothing of what any of us does concerns you, especially after what you’ve done.”
The situation came into hard focus. He must know that she had alerted Charles and Mr. Stockton. What else would initiate such coolness?
Her hands began to tremble with trepidation.
“Don’t lie to me, girl.”
Almost by accident she glanced at the other faces in the room. John. The man from Leeds. Thomas Crater. Mr. Wooden. They were all fixed on her. Angry. Unmoving.
“Someone notified the mill of our intentions.”
Kate swallowed. Hard.
He continued. “This was orchestrated from Leeds, organized by the society leader there. And yet someone who knew the Stockton workers well enough let them know. Professional soldiers were there, ready to meet us. Do you think that a coincidence?”
Kate didn’t respond. She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. The situation’s gravity pressed in on her.
“You did it, didn’t you?” The pallor of Papa’s face was replaced by anger’s red fire. “Do not lie to me, lass.”
Kate’s lack of sleep and fear of her father’s response faltered her words. “P-Papa, I—”
He appeared frail in his bed, but his voice rang out strong and forceful. “This is your doing, Kate. We had a mission, a unified front. We were to take back what belongs to me and every other man who makes a living by honest means. To take back dignity and respect. And what did you do, you selfish, ungrateful thing? You informed them! You could have been responsible for the deaths of dozens of people who counted you as family.”
“I didn’t betray you, Papa. I—”
“How is that not a betrayal!” he thundered, the suddenness and intensity of the words making Kate jump. “I have suffered the betrayal of one child, but now two? You could have cost me my life.”
Emotion tightened her throat. He was right. But if she had not done anything, could she have caused the men at the mill their lives?
His face deepened to almost purple. “And for what? Because of feminine whims and female fancies that your brother somehow still cares for you? Bah!”
A tear trailed down Kate’s cheek.
But her father did not stop. “Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Charles at all. Perhaps it was Stockton himself. I have heard rumors, sickening rumors, that burn my tongue even to say. It has been whispered that you have formed an attachment to Stockton. That you find yourself infatuated with him. Is this true?”
She did not respond. Humiliation twisted her stomach.
“I have been wounded, shot like an animal,” he roared. “Would you like to know who pulled the trigger? Would you?”
She stared at him with wide eyes.
“It was your Mr. Stockton. The man you flirted with at the festival. The man who enticed you away from your family. He shot me in cold blood, Kate. How do you feel about him now?”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. He couldn’t be telling the truth.
“You have a choice, and you’ll make it this minute, with these fine men as witnesses. You’ll create a path for your future, marry Whitby, and put an end to these sickening rumors. Then and only then can things go on as they have.”
She flicked her gaze up to John. Her fists clenched at her sides at the obnoxious expression of victory on his face. She looked back to her father and jutted her chin. “And if I don’t?”
“If you fail to prove your loyalty, you can go to your brother then, since you have such a fondness for him. But if you choose to do so, my door will be forevermore closed to you.”
“Papa, you cannot mean that!” she cried, pain shooting through her.
“Have I ever wavered on such things? Over three years have passed since I last had a word with your brother, and it will be fifty-plus more years before I consent to speak with him again. So the choice is yours.”
She shook her head as a frustrated huff escaped her lips. “Papa, you are not well. You’re not thinking clearly. I—”
“Your options are known,” he snapped. “Think carefully and choose wisely. This offer will not be made again.”
She leaned back and stood. Papa looked fragile as he lay in his bed. She narrowed her gaze. “I don’t feel I need to marry anyone to prove my loyalty. I will not consent to marry John. I am your daughter. Either that is good enough, or it isn’t.”
If she had not been staring directly at him, she might have missed the flash of surprise in his pewter eyes before they hardened once again. “Then ’tis done. Go to your brother. You’re the same, the two of you, and I’m glad to be finished with you.”
Tears blurred her vision at the quickness with which he dismissed her.
His pride had always been his greatest downfall, first with Mother, then Charles, and now her. Stunned, she turned and somehow managed to walk from the room.
She was three steps into the corridor when someone grabbed her arm from behind, disrupting her balance and pulling her back in the darkness.
John.
She forced herself to meet his gaze, willing her heart to slow its beat.
A single flickering corridor sconce highlighted his profile. “It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
His gaze had softened. If she did not know him so well, she might think that genuine concern shone from his eyes. But she knew him to be a deceiver. He possessed the gift of bein
g able to earn trust easily. He had found her father’s vulnerability and played to it.
“We could have a good life, you and I.” His hand did not leave her arm. Instead, his rough thumb caressed it, as if to soothe her. “Your father will leave all this to us. To us! Our life can be full and happy.”
“Can you really be so blind?” She laughed incredulously. “I am not even sure I want this life, especially after what occurred last night.”
“So you are aware of what has happened.” His gaze narrowed. “Perhaps your father was right, then. I never thought you capable of turning on your own, and yet see what you caused as a result.”
“I want no part in destroying what another man has worked for, regardless of who that person may be.” She shrugged her arm away. “Good-bye, John.”
CHAPTER 36
Disbelief robbed Kate of breath. Had her father really ousted her from their home?
She half expected him to call to her and say that he had changed his mind, that his temper and pain had gotten the better of him. But the other half of her knew better. He was a hard man. After all, he’d not spoken to his own son for years, and Charles had been the one on whom he had pinned the future of the Dearborne clan.
Through tear-blurred eyes, Katherine assessed her small but beloved bedchamber. Was she really going to leave it and never come back? Was this really the last time she would open her trunk, gaze in the looking glass hanging on the wall, or sit at the little desk and write a missive or read a book?
She moved to her wardrobe and pulled out a satchel. She stuffed every gown, petticoat, stay, and chemise that would fit. She tucked in boots, slippers, and trinkets, her hairbrush and toothbrush. But all the other things that had surrounded her since childhood—the bed, the dresser, the trunk—would remain behind.
Was this how Charles had felt after Papa placed the ultimatum on him?
She could not stop to think about that now.
With every passing second she felt the need to move faster, to be quicker. When she could not fit a single other item into the satchel, she layered her crimson cloak over top of the gray one, donned her straw bonnet, and stole outside.
She tried to be as quiet as possible, but to what end? No one tried to stop her. No one detained her.
And it stung.
Could she be released so easily?
By the time she stepped onto Amberdale’s main road toward her brother’s cottage, the day was clear and bright. The village’s atmosphere was unusually quiet. It was late enough in the morning that the shops should be opening. Millworkers should already be at their stations. Shopkeepers should be selling their wares. But no one was visible.
She paused in front of Charles’s cottage door and looked around. A face peered out of the window from one of the adjacent cottages, but as Kate met the nosy gaze, the spying woman dropped the curtain.
Kate knocked on the door. No response.
She tried the doorknob. Locked.
She tucked her satchel in a large crate next to his door and stepped toward the mill’s gate. As she rounded the corner and the mill’s courtyard came into view, nausea washed over her, for the sight confirmed what she had seen at dawn.
Smoke and mist hovered over the grounds; a fire still glowed in the yard. Dozens of windows were shattered, and the ever-present hum of water and machinery was eerily absent. No millworkers were visible earlier, but now people scurried around the courtyard, sifting through the debris.
Male workers had started the task of cleanup, and the bright-red coats of two soldiers across the yard caught her eye. Two men leaned over a body lying on the ground, and two more were seated by the battered waterwheel at the edge of the courtyard.
As she stepped farther onto Stockton property, she gaped at the splintered wood and discarded weapons littering the ground. She had never been in battle, but was this what the aftermath looked like?
She stepped over a large branch and headed toward the countinghouse. All the windows were shattered. Glass and leading lay at her feet, jumbled with the remaining snow and mud.
As the reality of the situation set in, panic joined it. She frowned as she sought a familiar face. Where was Charles? Henry? After all, Papa had been shot. Who else shared his fate?
Once at the countinghouse door, she knocked before taking the liberty to push it open. She was not sure what to expect inside, but she couldn’t have been more shocked to see Mr. Pennington seated behind the desk.
“Miss Dearborne.” A scowl scrunched his round face, and judgment flashed in his dark eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I am here to see my brother.”
He huffed and stood. “I am surprised you have the audacity to come here.”
Her tired, muddled mind could not formulate a response quickly enough.
When she did not respond, he stepped closer to her. “You and your kind are responsible for this. What makes you think you would be welcome to step foot in this office?”
She wanted to spew a clever retort, but her mouth was so dry no words would form.
“Either you leave now, or I will see that you—”
“Pennington!” shouted a deep male voice, halting Mr. Pennington’s threat.
Her already taut nerves tensed at the harsh tone. She whirled to see Mr. Stockton in the doorway of the back chamber. His brow furrowed, he stomped into the room.
Kate darted her gaze from his soot-smudged cheek to his torn coat to the white bandage on his hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. Dark circles balanced beneath them. His hair hung in damp clumps over his forehead, and a bloodied scratch marred his unshaven cheek.
She resisted the urge to run to him and put as much distance between herself and Mr. Pennington as possible, and instead planted her feet firmly on the wooden floor. The battle-weary man did not look at her. Rather, his attention was fixed firmly on the Pennington patriarch.
The odd interchange confused her. She understood the Penningtons and the Stocktons to be allies. But the hard stare between the men, the silent challenge, was obvious.
Mr. Stockton did not break his gaze. “I must be mistaken at what I am hearing. It seems you are insinuating that Miss Dearborne was responsible, at least in part, for what happened.”
Mr. Pennington laughed sardonically. “Come now, Stockton. You’re a rational man. You cannot think for a moment she is innocent in all of this. We all know who is behind this garish display.”
Stockton stepped farther into the room. “Surely you do not think Miss Dearborne to be one of the men wielding rifles and bearing flames.”
Pennington retrieved his pipe and drew a long breath of tobacco smoke. “Perhaps if you concerned yourself with the needs of the mills and the people in them instead of flirting with the weaver’s daughter, things would have ended differently.”
Mr. Stockton stepped closer to Kate, almost as if to shield her from Pennington’s harsh words. He crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “Mr. Pennington, you and I have enjoyed a friendly relationship since my return, but I do not recall asking for your opinion on how I operate my mill or with whom I choose to speak.”
Mr. Pennington sneered. “Your grandfather never would have been so foolish as to allow an emotion to come between him and the success of his business.”
“That is your opinion.”
Mr. Pennington gave his head a hard shake. “I fear for the future of this establishment. All of your grandfather’s hard work, to what end? A true pity. All could have such a different outcome.”
Still smoking his pipe, Mr. Pennington pivoted toward Kate, gave a mockingly low bow, and glared back at Mr. Stockton before he exited the countinghouse and slammed the rickety door behind him.
Silence, heavy and deafening, once again descended on the chamber. Now was not the time for shyness, but she did not feel strong enough to feign bravery. Hours without sleep and unsettling words and circumstances were eating away at her resolve, making her question every decision she had made over the course
of the past several weeks. And yet in spite of the night’s occurrences, she found strength in his nearness.
“Are you hurt?” Her voice sounded small. She rubbed the cloak over her arm.
“No, and your brother is fine as well.” His dark eyebrows rose. “And my sister? I’ve heard no news.”
It seemed like days had passed since she’d left the Stockton home, when in fact it had been only hours. Kate smiled. “You have a beautiful nephew, a fine, sturdy baby boy, and your sister is as well as can be expected.”
“Thank God.” His posture slumped as he ran his hand down his face and then cupped the back of his neck.
She wanted to go to him, to comfort him in some way, but one question in particular was poised on the tip of her tongue and prevented her from taking a single step. Perhaps she and Henry could be friends one day, perhaps not. But until one matter was clarified, she doubted she would ever have peace. She steeled herself, preparing for an answer either way. “Did you shoot my father?”
Hand still behind his neck, he blinked at her. His eyes, the blue of which was enhanced by the redness around them, transfixed her. But he did not respond.
She said louder, “Did you do it?”
“I did.”
She stared at him, her mind wrestling with the information she had just received.
“I had no choice,” he continued. “He was going to—to—”
Heat rose to her face. “He was going to what?”
He stared at her.
Suddenly, she did not want to know. Instead, she wanted to cry. To scream. Would this nightmare never end?
The door to the back room opened. “Who’s this I hear?” Charles appeared, a good-natured—if not forced—smile on his stubbled face. Besides the dirt on his face and clothes, he seemed relatively unharmed.
She rushed to her brother and flung her arms around him. “I am so glad you are safe!”
He released her. “Are you crying? There is nothing to cry about! All is well, see?”
“You have not heard, then.” She shifted her gaze to Mr. Stockton.
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