Pearl narrowed her eyes at her boarder. “Silas, is there something you need, or are you just trying to irritate me?”
He held one hand over his heart, and his disbelieving expression mocked her. “Why Pearl, I’m hurt. Here I come to check on your safety and well-being, and you accuse me of an ulterior motive.”
If her emotions weren’t already so ragged, she might have snorted at his ridiculous statement. The only part of her in danger in Hubert’s presence was her heart, but she had no intention of discussing Hubert with Silas.
She pulled her shoulders back and picked up her dish towel. “As you can see, I’m just fine. Now please excuse me so I can finish up my chores. I’d like to turn in early.”
“Pearl…” Silas closed the space between them and took the towel out of her hands. “May we talk?”
Was he trying to provoke her? “Can’t it wait? I still have much to do to finish my work.”
He laid the dish towel on the worktable. “I apologize, Pearl, but I truly cannot wait another minute. I must speak with you.”
She tried unsuccessfully to stifle a sigh. “All right. What is so important that it can’t wait until morning?”
Silas gestured toward one of the kitchen chairs. If weariness wasn’t climbing her frame she might have chosen to stand just to be contrary. Immediately she chided herself. Whatever was on his mind was important to him, and God didn’t want her behaving in such a petulant manner. Besides, the sooner he spoke his piece, the sooner he would leave her alone with her thoughts. She crossed to the chair and sat, clasping her hands in her lap. Raising a questioning look, she waited for him to speak.
He cleared his throat. “Pearl, as you know, I am a successful entrepreneur, working with an investment company out of St. Louis and Chicago.”
He’d already told her as much the day he showed up on her doorstep. She supposed his point in repeating the declaration was to impress her. But she wasn’t impressed. “I believe you’ve mentioned that.”
Silas tugged at his brocade vest. “I am in the process of acquiring certain properties that, once in my hands, will become growing enterprises with the potential to…well, let’s just say I will have the ability to live very comfortably.”
She frankly didn’t care a fig about Silas’s investments and couldn’t understand why he felt the need to share the information with her. If all he wanted was to brag to her about his soon-coming wealth, she wasn’t waiting to hear any more. She started to rise.
“Silas, I—”
“Wait Pearl, please.” He took a long stride, his polished boots stopping inches from her own scuffed but sturdy button shoes. She plopped back onto the chair. Before she could draw another breath, he lowered himself to one knee and enfolded her hands between his.
“Pearl, it grieves me to see you work yourself into exhaustion day after day. I can see to it that you won’t ever have to work another day in your life. Marry me, Pearl.”
Pearl picked up the silver music box and sat on the edge of her bed. As promised, Hubert had come by each evening, patiently but persistently trying to persuade her to tell him the reason she’d broken their engagement and assuring her of his love. With each visit, she felt her resolve weaken. She’d forced the words, telling him not to come back, but he’d just kept repeating that her eyes didn’t agree with what she was saying. How could she continue to send him away when her heart throbbed in anticipation of seeing him?
She gently turned the key on the side of the music box two full revolutions, and she lifted the lid. The sweet, plaintive notes of Strauss’s haunting melody engraved their print on her soul. Last night she thought if she returned the music box to Hubert he would accept that as her final word. But he refused to take it, and now relief pushed anxiety out of the way. Only God knew how much she treasured Hubert’s engagement gift. She closed her eyes and invited the memory of Hubert’s proposal—a foolish use of her time since it only intensified her anguish. But instead of Hubert’s face, the unexpected recollection of Silas getting down on one knee imposed itself in her mind. She frowned and shook her head.
For the past three days, Silas had watched her expectantly. She could feel his eyes following her as she moved about the dining room serving meals or clearing the table. Every time he poked his head into the kitchen she’d made certain her hands were busy. Thankfully, he left the boardinghouse each morning after breakfast to conduct his business—whatever it was. She closed the lid on the music box and returned the treasure to her bedside table, unwilling to allow the memory of Silas’s proposal to be accompanied by Hubert’s music.
She’d tried to tell him her answer while he was still on his knee, but he’d laid his finger over her lips and told her to think about it. She could still picture the way his eyebrows dipped, as though he were admonishing a child, when he told her not to keep him waiting too long for her answer.
“Think about it! Pfft. There’s nothing to think about. I tried to tell him, and he wouldn’t let me.”
She stood and straightened her shoulders, determination pressing her lips together. She had work to do. Gathering her mop and dustcloth, she headed upstairs to clean the boarders’ rooms.
A prick on her conscience snagged her attention. After Everett had come to the boardinghouse to see her, she’d spent nearly the entire night in prayer. She’d begged God to direct her. But she had to admit, to herself and to God, that she’d not had peace about her decision to end her engagement to Hubert. She’d reached the conclusion on her own and did not wait for assurance from God. “What other choice did I have? How could I be content with Hubert knowing I’d contributed to his unhappiness, coming between him and his son?”
She reached the first bedroom at the top of the stairs and began running her dust cloth over the furniture. Her tasks were so routine she could perform them without thought. She pushed her mop back and forth across the floor, straightening items as she went. Moving to the next room—Silas’s room—she blew out a stiff breath of annoyance and plunged into her chore.
A messy array of papers cluttered the top of the bureau. She picked them up to dust and one fell to the floor. She put the rest into a tidy stack and bent to retrieve the one that had fallen. As she laid it with the others, however, her eye caught her own name written toward the bottom. She hesitated a moment. Reading the paper would be an invasion of Silas’s privacy, wouldn’t it? But if her name was on this paper, didn’t she have the right to know why?
Her gaze scanned the paper. It was a letter to a man named Wendall. Judging by the tone of the letter, Pearl assumed he was one of the business associates Silas was always talking about. As she read further, she gasped.
As far as Pearl Dunnigan goes, I’m wearing her down. She has been rather stubborn, but it shouldn’t take too much longer until her property is in my possession. I will employ whatever means are necessary in order to…
She heard the front door open and close.
“Pearl?”
Silas. What was he doing here in the middle of the day? She folded the paper and jammed it into her apron pocket, clenched her teeth, and exited the room. With each footfall on the stairs her indignation grew, but she mustn’t allow Silas to know she had read the letter. Not yet.
“Silas, I’m surprised to see you in the middle of the day. I thought your business kept you occupied.”
A glib smile creased his face. “There you are.” He met her at the bottom of the stairs with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand, but she ignored him and the flowers and immediately turned toward the kitchen. As she assumed he would, Silas followed her. She took a wooden bowl from the shelf, then walked purposefully to the pantry to fetch a crock of lard and an assortment of spices. “What are you doing here, Silas?” She set the items on the worktable and returned to the pantry for a basket of apples.
“Well Pearl, that’s rather insensitive…” He stepped out of her way as she pushed the basket onto the table. “Seeing as how I’ve given you three whole days…”
; She reached in a drawer and drew out a large knife. Silas backed up and moved to the other side of the table.
“Pearl, I simply cannot wait any longer. You’ve kept me in suspense long enough. I must know your answer.”
Pearl picked up an apple, quartered it, and began peeling the sections without looking at him. The oversize blade made the chore a bit awkward, but she didn’t bother trading the knife for a smaller, less intimidating one. “Silas, if you recall, I tried to give you my answer the other night, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“W–well, I know that…ladies…need time to think things over.”
She selected another apple from the basket and paused, her knife poised. “I didn’t need time to think it over at all.” She pushed the blade through the fruit and split it into halves and then into quarters. “But now I am actually glad I had time to consider the whole matter, because a new issue has come to light.” Slivers of red peelings dropped into the wooden bowl. “My answer to your proposal shouldn’t surprise you. It was no seven years ago, it was no three nights ago, and it’s still no.” She sliced the apple into thin pieces.
“But Pearl, how can you cast aside such an opportunity? Think of what it would mean for us, for you. This house—”
Pearl jerked her head up and shot a pointed look at him. “You were saying something about my house?”
He blinked and hesitated, as though rearranging his words. “Well yes, of course it’s your house. That’s beside the point.” He came around the side of the table, eyeing her knife as he did so. “You can’t continue to operate this house, this business, alone. Just think of how hard you work every day, the arduous duties, the drudgery. You shouldn’t have to do this. Marry me, Pearl.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Silas, I’ve already given you my answer, and I don’t plan to change it. But there is still one other matter to address.” Before he could argue further, she pulled the letter from her apron pocket.
Silas’s face turned purple and the veins popped out on his neck. He reached for the paper, but Pearl yanked it back out of his reach.
“That’s my personal business. You have no right to—”
“I was cleaning your room and this fell on the floor. You should really be more careful what you leave lying around, Silas.”
His icy glare and twitching jaw defined his anger, but Pearl refused to be intimidated.
“It appears the only reason you wanted me to marry you was so you could”—she unfolded the letter and glanced at it—“‘take possession of my property.’”
A sound akin to a growl emanated from Silas’s throat. “It’s against the law to read other people’s mail.”
“It’s also against the law to defraud someone of their property.” She tucked the letter back into her pocket. “And this wasn’t in the mail yet. It was a paper in a room in my house that I was cleaning.”
She picked up another apple and sliced it in half. “You have five minutes to pack your things and leave this house. Otherwise, I’m going to the sheriff.”
It felt good to state emphatically what she felt, but judging by the thunderclouds forming in his eyes and the sneer on his lips, Silas wasn’t finished. “You’ll be sorry you did this, Pearl. I’m used to getting what I want.”
Chapter 13
Streaks of pink and gold painted the eastern sky, but Hubert had been up for hours. Sipping his third cup of coffee, he stood at his front window and watched the morning yawn and stretch its arms over the treetops that hugged the outline of the boardinghouse. He’d not told Pearl about Everett’s decision to go back East. If their relationship was to be renewed, it had to be because Pearl loved him, not because Everett was leaving, if that was the reason she’d broken the engagement in the first place. He shrugged. She’d learn about Everett’s departure eventually. Besides, if the news Silas Cain had told him yesterday in the store was true, she might not care anyway.
“Lord, I’ve made so many wrong decisions over the years, but I still feel Pearl is the woman You have chosen for me. If that’s true, won’t You please change her mind?”
He heard Everett stirring in his room. Probably packing his bag before coming out for breakfast. How Hubert wished he could convince his son to stay in Willow Creek. Having spent the predawn hours in prayer, Hubert rested in the assurance that God would work out every detail according to His pleasure. A smile lifted one corner of his lips. There was comfort in knowing the outcome wasn’t up to him.
“Lord, You are worthy of my trust. You’ve proven Yourself faithful so many times, even when I didn’t deserve Your mercy. Instead of telling You what I want, I’d rather just remain close to You and see what Your will has in store for me and Pearl…and Everett.”
The door to Everett’s room opened. Hubert turned with his coffee mug in hand. Everett was dressed in his traveling clothes, and a valise of fine, tooled leather dangled from his hand. Disappointment pierced Hubert’s heart once more, and he sent a quick prayer heavenward, asking for the fortitude to bid his son good-bye.
“Good morning, son. Would you like eggs for breakfast?”
Everett set the bag down and crossed to the kitchen. “No thank you. Just coffee.”
“Let me make a fresh pot.” Hubert wrapped a kitchen towel around the handle of the coffeepot and dumped the grounds into the bucket by the dry sink.
“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.” Resignation replaced the haughtiness that had laced Everett’s voice a few weeks ago.
How could he make Everett understand that doing little things for him was a pleasure, not an imposition? “It’s no trouble, son.” Hubert rinsed out the pot and then pumped fresh water into it, adding the freshly ground coffee. There was plenty of time. The stage wasn’t due for another three hours.
While the coffee’s aroma wafted through the room, Everett withdrew his watch and checked it, then tucked it back into his vest pocket.
Hubert studied his son “You know it’s not too late to change your mind.”
Everett pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “I spent the night listening to you pace out here.” He shifted in his chair. “I couldn’t sleep either.”
“I’m sorry if I kept you awake.”
Everett shook his head. “You didn’t. I had so many things on my mind, it was hard to close my eyes.” He looked at Hubert. “It doesn’t seem that we’ve been able to resolve our differences, but perhaps it’s not as much your fault as I once thought.”
If Everett was willing to initiate further discussion on the matter, Hubert was ready to listen. “Did you come to any conclusions?”
His son rose and walked to the front window where Hubert had stood watching the sunrise a few minutes earlier. “I’m not sure.” Hubert heard him sigh. “But I wasn’t sure when I came to Willow Creek either. I thought I knew what my purpose in coming was, but now…”
Hubert checked the coffeepot and returned to sit at the table. “You know I want you to stay, but it’s your choice. Do you have plans?”
Everett blew out a breath and turned away from the window. He extracted an envelope from his inside coat pocket. “I received this letter from Grandfather’s attorney last week.” He stared at the envelope, a scowl marring his features. “I was unaware of the unpaid debts and liens against Grandfather’s business.”
Surprise at Everett’s statement raised Hubert’s eyebrows. Everett had told him he stood to inherit a great deal of money and planned to take over his grandfather’s business, but it sounded as though bad news from the attorney might change his son’s future.
Everett unfolded the missive and studied it silently. Judging from his son’s slumped shoulders, Hubert suspected he’d already read it several times.
Everett held the letter up, waving it slightly. “At first I didn’t plan to share this information with you. I didn’t want you to know.”
Hubert frowned, not in anger but in puzzlement.
Everett shuffled over and sat at the table again, laying the letter in front o
f him. “But there is something here you should know.”
Hubert cut his gaze to the letter. Several pages lay on the table, so whatever explanation it contained was lengthy.
“This lawyer, Mr. Goss, was originally my grandmother’s attorney. She hired him to handle some legal affairs involving my mother. After Grandmother died, Mr. Goss contacted my grandfather, who retained him at that point. He says that he was under obligation to my grandfather to keep this information confidential until now.” Everett stared at the letter with doleful eyes. “It seems we were wrong about not knowing where my mother went.”
Hubert blinked and raised his eyebrows. “But we didn’t know.”
“Grandmother did.” He looked across the table at his father. “And on more than one occasion, she wired money to my mother—large amounts of money.” He turned the pages over. “By the time we got word of Mother’s death, Grandmother had sent almost a hundred thousand dollars to her. Mr. Goss says the bank drafts were sent to various places and cashed at different banks, and he suspects the man with whom Mother ran away may have been blackmailing her.” His fingers curled up the corners of the pages and his eyes remained riveted to the paper.
Hubert tried to digest the staggering information. “You mean…”
“Mother’s leaving wasn’t entirely your fault.” Everett leaned his head back and blew out his breath through pursed lips. “I wanted to keep on blaming you. Grandmother always told me you weren’t a good man; you weren’t good enough for my mother.” He thumped his open palm down onto the letter. “But I blamed you based on her word, without knowing the facts.”
Hubert shook his head. “It sounds like none of us knew the facts.”
A grim line defined Everett’s lips. “Except Grandmother. After she died, Mr. Goss had to tell Grandfather about the missing money as well as several large bills my grandmother ran up without his knowledge. At some point, and the letter isn’t completely clear on this, Grandfather signed over 51 percent ownership of the business to Grandmother. She apparently used Grandfather’s business as collateral for loans, sending the money to my mother. Mr. Goss is in the process of sorting out the details of settling the estate, but the house and furnishings may have to be sold to pay off the creditors. Grandfather’s business is in receivership.”
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