BEHOLDEN
The orphaned O'Sullivan sisters, lovely Kathleen and young Tara, journey from Ireland to a small southern town to meet the man their father had died trying to save. The man who had sent them a large sum of money, never intending it for an invitation. Galen McKnight, stern-faced captain of a riverside gambling ship, is totally unprepared for the arrival of Kate and the pride that, aside from a box of encyclopedias, is all she has left, and Tara with her unreliable gift of second sight. These three, plus a wonderfully diverse cast of characters, bring this story alive with comedy, mystery and romance.
Sisters Dixie Browning and Mary Williams, aka Bronwyn Williams, are steeped in the history of the area. Their family goes back on Cape Hatteras and surrounding area for more than three centuries.
Beholden
By
Bronwyn Williams
Beholden
Originally published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, NY,
as a Topaz romance, an imprint of Dutton, NAL.
Copyright © Dixie Browning and Mary Williams, 1998
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners/publishers of this book.
Writing as Bronwyn Williams, sisters Dixie Browning and Mary Williams draw deeply on their personal heritage for their award-winning historical romances. Their roots go back more than 300 years on Hatteras Island and the surrounding area. Williams is the wife of a career Coast Guardsman and Browning is a well known artist, with work in numerous private and permanent collections. Her work is available from several Island galleries. You may contact them at [email protected] and Post Office Box 1389, Buxton. NC 27920.
Browning Studios
Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation
Hatteras Doves
Chapter One
Galen tipped his deck chair, propped his feet on the railing, crossed his arms behind his head, and concluded that life, on the whole, was good. Not a single cloud marred the sky. Going to be a scorcher, all right. He liked it hot. The hotter, the better.
Out on the street a mule clopped past, pulling an ice wagon. “Fre-esh ice, nickel a block, git it while it’s cold.”
Three ragged, yelping boys raced along the wharf, chasing a dog. The dog paused to sniff at a drunk sleeping off the night’s revelry. The boys dutifully waited to see if the mutt would cock a leg. When he didn’t, the parade continued along the waterfront, ignoring a whore who sat morosely on a bench sipping coffee from a chipped enamelware mug. Ignoring the two gambling boats moored bow to bow, their decks largely empty at this early hour.
From the vantage point of his private balcony on the top deck of the Pasquotank Queen, Galen surveyed his world with a degree of satisfaction. Growing up in Connecticut, he’d never expected to end up owning a gambling boat in a small southern town.
But then, he’d never expected to end up drifting for two days with a hole in his head and a broken leg in the icy waters off the west coast of Ireland a couple of years ago, either. If it hadn’t been for Declan O’Sullivan, a fisherman with more pluck than luck, he might still be there, six fathoms under.
Yes indeed, life was good. Not perfect, but pretty damned good, considering the alternatives.
Two decks below, he could hear the sounds of another day getting under way. The dry rattle of dice. The clatter of the roulette wheel. A gasp and giggle from one of the girls.
The girls were a compromise, one of several he’d made since he’d parlayed a small stake into fifty-one percent ownership of the Pasquotank Queen. He still wasn’t certain Elsworth Tyler hadn’t lost that hand deliberately as an excuse to ease out from under his daughter’s thumb. Ever since then, that gentleman had traveled from one resort to another, reveling in his newfound freedom and spending his cut of the profits as fast as he received his quarterly checks.
And profits were up. It riled the devil out of Tyler’s daughter, Aster, who had her own notions of how to run a successful operation. But Galen’s fifty-one percent beat Tyler’s forty-nine percent hands down. The lady might be holding queens over jacks, but he was holding aces over kings.
And this time, he intended to parlay his winnings into something bigger, something better. Something more to his liking than a damned gambling boat.
Shifting position in the folding oak deck chair to ease the perennial ache of his left leg, Galen heard the crinkle of paper in his coat pocket, reminding him of the letter that had come earlier that morning. Up to his ears in bookkeeping, trying to make sense of one of Aster’s scrawled entries, he’d shoved it into his pocket and forgotten all about it.
The letter was from Brandon, his older brother. Probably three lines from Brand, who’d never been much of a correspondent, a few newspaper clippings, and a note from his sister-in-law, all about the new baby.
Galen had yet to see his new niece. Wasn’t quite sure how he felt about being an uncle. For one thing, it made him feel old. As if life were an outgoing tide that had left him stranded alone on a barren reef. Brand had the shipyard they’d started together. He had a wife now, and a new daughter.
All Galen had to show for his thirty-three years on earth was a leg that seized up on him in damp weather, a streak of white hair that hadn’t been there a couple of years ago, half-interest in a leaky old tub that looked more like a high-class whorehouse than a respectable gambling boat, and a handful of plans that were taking longer than he’d expected to realize.
Hell of a thing. A minute ago he’d been sitting on top of the world, now here he was, wallowing in the bilge. Impatiently, he slit open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of McKnight Shipping stationery with a few scrawled lines in his brother’s illegible hand. No clippings, nothing about the baby, nothing at all from Ana.
“Gale,” he read. He could make out that much. He managed to make out the next few words. “You’ll be sus—suspended? No, surprised to learn that you’ve inherited two—two—” Galen squinted, trying to decipher the next line. Ladders? Letters? Ladies?
“The hell I have,” he muttered. Scowling, he continued to read. Ladies couldn’t be right. Probably lackeys. Last February Brand had sent him a cabin boy who’d lost an eye. The kid was smart as a whip, a favorite with all the dealers. Galen had got him fixed up with a glass eye and now he was helping tend bar in the small salon.
But what the devil was an Os—obs—osculation? Whatever it was, it was going to be arriving by rail on the fourteenth. “The fourteenth? Hell, that’s only three days from now!”
Galen raked his fingers through his hair. Here he’d managed to get rid of Aster for a few days and now his brother was sending him—
What? A pair of old ladies to take under his wing? What the devil was he supposed to do with them, dress them up in red silk and bangles and let them hobble around serving drinks and cigars?
Damned if he wasn’t tempted to do it, just to see what Aster would say when she got back from visiting her old man.
And what the devil did Brand mean, he’d inherited them? You didn’t inherit people.
“We’ll just see about that, brother. I’ll feed your old ladies and put them up overnight, but then your little surprise package is going right back where it came from, with my fondest regards.”
Brand had Ana to help him deal with life’s unexpected twists and turns. Ana was both beautiful and sensible. Let her take on Brand’s latest derelicts.
All Galen had was Aster Tyler, a sharp-tongued harridan who wasn’t above fighting dirty to get what she wanted.
Right now, what she wanted was to compete with the town’s other gambling boat, the Albemarle Belle, by laying on dinner cruises, dancing, stage players, and three-day jaunts on the weekends. It was all Galen could do to stay one step ahead of her shenanigans, without having a couple of old ladies dumped into the mixture.
Judas priest, and he’d thought life was good?
It was full of surprises, that much he’d admit, but that was all he’d admit until he saw what showed up on the four-oh-five southbound.
*
Kathleen stood alone in the midst of a seething crowd of travelers, waiting for Mr. McKnight to return with their tickets. Tara had skipped off with him, still spouting questions quicker than a body could answer. Not that she waited for answers. Bright as a brass button, she was. It was a good thing they were leaving, else she’d wear the poor man down.
Standing stiffly on the siding, Katy diligently guarded their single piece of luggage, trying hard not to be intimidated by the blur of sound, form, and color all around her. It helped if she focused her gaze on a distant steeple that stood out sharply against the deep blue sky.
She wasn’t frightened, truly she wasn’t. She had brought them this far, hadn’t she? The worst was surely over.
“The worst is over, the worst is behind you.” She whispered the words, as if hearing them spoken would fend off the uneasy feeling that leaving Ireland had been a grave mistake.
To Tara, it was all part of a grand adventure. Life itself was a grand adventure, which was both a trial and a blessing, for to be sure, they’d seen more than their share of sadness.
Nine years ago when their mother had died, Tara had been barely four years old. Katy wasn’t quite sure how much she remembered, and how much was only her fanciful imagination.
Katy herself had been thirteen. She remembered her mother as clear as if it had been only yesterday, but with a small child and a grieving father to look after, there’d been no time to mourn. Not outwardly, at least.
Fortunately, she was both frugal and sensible. There’d been much to learn, but she’d learned it quickly.
But then they’d lost Da, too.
Fishing had been dreadful all season, the men forced to go farther and farther up the coast to fill their nets. They’d been staying in a rough camp along a barren stretch of coast some distance away when the storm had blown up. For five days it had blown as if all the banshees in the world had been loosed. They’d waited it out, knowing that fishing was often better after a hard blow. On the sixth day they had set out again, filled their nets, and were on their way in when Declan O’Sullivan had spied a man tangled in a bit of flotsam. Before anyone could stop him, he’d gone overboard, and drowned himself saving the life of an American sailor.
They’d brought his body home, leaving two men behind to care for the American, who’d lost his wits and might still lose his life. Katy remembered having bitter thoughts at the time, about how unfair it was for her father to lose his life for a stranger who would probably die in the end.
No one even knew the man’s name, for he’d been nearly dead when they’d fished him out of Blacksod Bay, but the entire village had been devastated by the loss of one of their own. Neighbors who could ill afford another mouth to feed had offered to take them in, but Katy had declined. To keep from starving, she had cut and cured peat, trading it for food, hoed the barren scrap of land that was her garden, and fished.
And all the while, her dream had grown. Somewhere there was work to be done. Work that would pay enough so that Tara could go to school and learn to be a lady. So that she would never have to cut and cure peat to make ends meet.
The American had healed and her father’s mates had carted him to Galway and put him aboard a ship. It was six months later when the letter arrived. Addressed to the family of Declan O’Sullivan, it had offered condolences, and made some reference to being forever in their debt. All that, plus a monstrous sum of money for the dependents of the man who had saved his life.
Katy had been sorely tempted to return the money with a letter of her own, telling the man that no amount of money could make up for the loss of a life. It had been Tara who’d stayed her hand. Tara, who was growing out of her clothes faster than Katy could cut down her mother’s old gowns to make more. Tara, who wore out shoes even faster than she outgrew them.
“Oh, Katy, don’t send it back. I want to go to Amerikey, I do.” The child had scrunched her eyes shut and commenced swaying, the way she did when the sight was on her. “I see a ship. Oh, she’s a lovely thing, she is, with pretty tables all covered in green, and money like golden rain! Oh, let’s do it, Katy, let’s go to Amerikey like Mr. McKnight says!”
“Well, to be sure, he doesn’t come right out and say—”
“He says if ever he can be of service, we have only to ask. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“That it’s not.”
“But it’s what he meant to say.” Tara had grabbed the letter, held it tightly to her flat chest and shut her eyes again. “He wants us to go to him. Why else would he have sent us the fare? Sure and I can hear his voice clear as a bell, that I can.”
Pride had urged her to return the money, but Katy, ever the sensible O’Sullivan, knew pride alone would never put flesh on Tara’s frail bones, nor shoes on her growing feet. Declan O’Sullivan had jumped overboard to save the life of a stranger and lost his own. There were those in the village who thought that stranger owed Declan’s daughters something in return.
He’d been such a charmer, their da. A good man, a comely man, if never a good provider. They’d been left with no more than a moldy thatch over their heads, and that leaking and fit to fall down. But to be fair, it wasn’t the first time Declan O’Sullivan had leaped without first looking. Feckless, some said, and that she couldn’t deny, and himself with a heart that had never been strong.
She’d prayed over it. Tara had never said another word. With her gift, even as unreliable as it was, she must have known all along that given the choice of emigrating to America or being dependent on the charity of a poor village, they would go.
And so Katy had made her decision. Timmy O’Neill, one of her father’s mates, had toted them all the way to Galway in his pony cart, and arranged passage that very day. The ship had been old and ugly, not beautiful. There’d been no tables at all, much less pretty green cloths. They’d eaten ship’s fare from tin plates balanced on their knees.
At least Tara had. The very thought of food had made her own belly start to heave.
And gold? The only gold she’d seen or was ever like to see was the sun glinting off Tara’s head, and that more copper than gold.
And now here she was, in a town called Mystic in America, still reeling from one endless journey, and about to set forth on yet another. And for all her sister’s assurances, she was wishing they’d never left home.
Casting a suspicious glance over her shoulder at the puffing, snorting monstrous machine behind her, she thought longingly of all the friends she’d left behind, people who’d known her all her life. Their village was small, no more than a dozen or so cottages scattered in the crooks and crannies of the rugged coast.
America was big. Big and noisy and full of people who spoke with a funny accent and looked down their noses at the likes of the O’Sullivan sisters.
Not Mr. McKnight nor his lovely wife, never a bit of it. They were kindness itself. Unfortunately, Mr. McKnight was the wrong Mr. McKnight. When they’d finally located the offices of McKnight Shipping, only to be told that Mr. Galen McKnight, the man their da had rescued—the man who’d sent money for their fare—was no longer there, she’d felt as if the world had suddenly tilted under her feet.
But then, ever since they’d left Galway Bay she’d been struggling to come a-right, more often on her knees than her feet, with a bucket clasped in her arms.
It was not Mr. Galen, but his brother, Mr. Brandon McKnight, who took them in charge, gave them tea and biscuits in his office and explained that Gal
en now lived in a town four days’ journey to the south.
Katy could have wept. Only pride had kept her despair from showing through. The gentleman had taken them to his home, where his wife had made them welcome. Tara had fallen in love with their new baby daughter, and Katy had fallen in bed and slept the clock around and then some.
She heard them before she saw them. Tara was still spouting questions. “Here we are,” said the wrong Mr. McKnight, handing her two strips of cardboard.
Katy held them at arm’s length, pretended to study them, then tucked them into her purse. “I thank you kindly, sir. I’ll be repaying you as soon as—”
“Hush now, don’t give it another thought. Are you sure you won’t change your mind and stay on here for a few more days? My wife would be glad to have you.”
Brandon McKnight felt compelled to make the offer. The poor child looked so forlorn. Not the young one. Frisky as a colt, she could talk the hind legs off a donkey. But the other one looked as if she still hadn’t got her land legs under her.
Ana had opened her arms, her heart, and her home, as he’d known she would when he’d showed up with two strange young females in tow.
And strange they were. He’d never seen a more bedraggled pair in his life, nor a prouder pair. At least the older one. The little redhead was sharp as a tack and lively as a cricket. After they’d been fed and settled for the night, Ana had joined him in his study. “Brand, did you know that shabby trunk of theirs was filled with books? Between them they don’t have enough to dress a decent scarecrow. First thing tomorrow I’m taking them both shopping.”
“You do that, my dear. But first find a way to keep from hurting their pride.”
“Oh, Lord, you would have to mention pride. Well, I’ll work on it. What in the world is Galen going to do with them?”
“I’d give a pretty penny to be a fly on the wall when they step off that train. I dashed off a note to warn him, but they might get there before it does. Probably should have telephoned, but then he’d have talked me out of it. I figured it was best not to give him too much warning, else he might skip town.”
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