The Engineered Engagement

by Erica Vetsch

  Toni’s hands came off her hips at his softened tone, and she edged forward, reciting once more how Mr. Fox had gone into Josie’s room and looked through the papers on her desk.

  “Josie, is there a problem with Fox’s ship?” Jonathan cocked his head to the side.

  “He took the plans from my room before I figured out the solution to the hatch flaw that had been plaguing Eli from the first. Fox has used the previous design, and it won’t hold in rough seas. It might not give way during the race, but if any water comes over the bow, at best the hatches will leak, at worst they’ll give way altogether.”

  She snatched a piece of paper off the desk and hastily sketched a few lines. “This is the old design. Unless he changed the specifications, they’ll never hold. And here”—she scratched a rough outline—“is the new design. It’s based upon a railroad coupling design, and it’s much stronger. The rubber gasket paired with the new hatch closure will ensure a watertight seal.”

  Abraham, holding Toni’s hand now, shook his head. “That’s Fox’s worry. Serves him right for stealing the plans in the first place.”

  “But Papa’s on that ship.” Giselle spoke up at last. “Is it going to sink?”

  Jonathan knelt beside the little girl. “No, honey. Don’t you worry. They’ll be fine.” He looked over her shoulder to his grandfather. “We’ll see that your papa is safe. Won’t we, Grandfather?”

  Abraham scowled then motioned to the girls. “Why don’t you girls check in the bottom drawer of my desk? There’s a box in there. You can have whatever you like. Your sister and I are going to go out. Jonathan?” Abraham jerked his head toward the door. “Get someone to stay with the little girls then come downstairs.”

  Josie followed Mr. Kennebrae down the hall, his chair making no noise on the carpet. They entered a small elevator, and the old man pulled the lever for the first floor. “The ships are too far from shore to contact and stop. We’ll have to see if we can intercept them while they’re loading at Two Harbors.” He shot out of the elevator across the lobby.

  “By ship? Do you have a launch that can make it there so quickly?” Josie trotted after him.

  “Not by ship. We’ll go by motorcar up the Vermillion Trail.” He snapped his fingers and the watchdog by the door jerked to attention. “Get the car. . .and hurry.”

  Nineteen

  The ride up the North Shore was an adventure Josie would not soon forget. Exponentially more hair-raising than the gondola ride across the Duluth Channel. She bounced and bucked on the seat as scrub trees, rocks, and brief glimpses of the lake flashed by.

  The driver, trench-coated and leather-gloved, took his employer at his word and kept the vehicle—a brand-new Oldsmobile—rocketing along the road. Rain poured down and the wind howled off the water.

  Several times on the journey, Jonathan turned to check on her from the front seat. Each time she tried to raise a smile and nod.

  When the sturdy red brick lighthouse at Two Harbors rose before them and they bumped along the street toward the docks, Josie wanted to cry with relief. Both the Vulpine and the Bethany sat at the docks while two steam cranes loaded their gaping holds.

  The car stopped at the end of the dock and Josie shot out, not waiting for the Kennebraes.

  The Vulpine sat closest to her, a group of men clustered around the crane. Fox strutted between the piles of lumber, pointing and directing traffic. Papa stood to one side, clutching an umbrella and observing the loading.

  As she approached him, she looked over the side, fighting a bit of dizziness as a bundle swung from the end of the crane and into the hold far below. “Papa, I have to speak with you.”

  He gaped at her as if she had appeared out of the air. “What are you doing here, girl? And how’d you get here?”

  “Papa, please, there isn’t time. We need to stop the race and get the Vulpine home safely. Stop the loading. The more she’s loaded, the worse the problem will become. She’ll ride lower in the water and increase the likelihood that waves will break over the deck.”

  “Stop talking nonsense, Josephine. I know you fancy yourself some kind of engineer.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s my fault for letting your grandmother fill your head with nonsense. But you’ve no business butting in here. Fox has things well in hand. He’ll win this race without too much trouble. We were in well ahead of the Bethany, and the loading’s almost finished.”

  “It isn’t nonsense, Papa. Please listen to me.” She tugged at his arm, feeling as young as Giselle. “The ship isn’t sound.”

  Abraham Kennebrae rolled near them, Jonathan right behind. “Listen to her, Radcliffe. We have to stop the race. Where’s Fox?”

  Fox rounded a stack of white pine. “I should’ve known you’d show up here. You’ve all but lost the race, Kennebrae. I’ll be loaded and out of here in less than an hour.”

  “Mr. Fox, I know you stole the plans from my room.” Josie clutched her coat closed at her throat and braced herself against the strong wind. “But you stole them too early. The hatch design you used won’t hold in this weather. Especially when you’re loading her so heavily. She’ll have almost no freeboard if you fill her holds.”

  Fox ignored her words and sneered at Abraham. “Do you think I’m a fool? This is just another effort on your part to get me to lose this race. It won’t work. I’m going to win, and the Bethany will belong to me.”

  No amount of arguing would change his mind, and Josie’s father stood firm no matter how she pled with him.

  “Let’s go see Eli.” Abraham pointed up the dock to the Bethany. “At the very least he should know to watch out.”

  The moment Josie dreaded now stared her in the face. She followed the Kennebraes down the dock, head down into the wind. Rain pounded across the dock and shocked her with its chill.

  “Grandfather?” Eli spun on his heel when Abraham called out to him. “Jonathan? How did you get here?”

  “Never mind that. Let’s get out of this rain. We need to talk.” Abraham rolled his chair toward the gangplank of the Bethany, and Jonathan grabbed the bar along the back to keep him from rolling off the side.

  Eli turned to follow then froze. “Josie?” The incredulity and accusation in his eyes made her wish she’d never come.

  ❧

  Why had she come? To gloat? To see for herself how the Vulpine fared against the Bethany? Eli had every confidence that Noah would best the Vulpine captain with a loaded boat in high seas. If Josie had come to lord it over him, she would be sorely disappointed.

  Wind-whipped rain plastered her uncovered hair. She implored him with her eyes, her look slicing through him.

  He quelled the rush of caring that rose over him. He knew a desire to shelter her from the elements, to take her into his arms. But she had betrayed him. Deceived him. His guard must remain firmly in place. “What do you want?” He kept his voice as cold as the rain.

  “Eli, please, I know you’re angry with me, but I had to come see Fox.”

  He turned away from her, the pain of her betrayal too great. From her own mouth she admitted coming to see Fox? “He’s over there. Why come down here?” He pulled the collar of his oilskin higher. “No doubt he’ll welcome you with open arms.”

  She shoved him hard enough to make him take a step to the side. “Stop being so thickheaded. I came because the Vulpine isn’t seaworthy. It’s the hatches.”

  He looked down into her face, streaked with rain and pinched with cold. A sodden lock of hair lay plastered to her pale cheek.

  She grasped his forearm, her grip fierce. “Please, Eli, won’t you listen? I know you think I betrayed you, and in a way, by lying about being Professor Josephson, I did. I’m sorry.” She shook her head, remorse lining her brow. “But I didn’t give your designs to Fox. He stole them. He got into my room and took the plans.”

  “No more lies, Josie.” He disengaged her hand from his arm. “If you would lie about being an engineering professor, you’d lie about anything.” A bitter taste coated
his tongue and flowed down to flavor his heart.

  Jonathan and Abraham appeared on the deck. A shout went up from a longshoreman near the crane.

  Eli stepped back and pointed to the shore. “We’re loaded. Go back to Duluth with Grandfather. I want to put this entire farce behind me.”

  “But, Eli, please. You have to listen to me. The Vulpine—”

  Her pleading, and the fact that he felt himself weakening against it, irked him. “Don’t talk to me about Fox or his ship. Just go.”

  Her shoulders drooped, and her chin went down. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought a pair of tears mingled with the rain coursing down her cheeks.

  His hands reached for her, but he stopped them in time. No, she wouldn’t sway him with tears.

  Jonathan pushed Grandfather’s chair down the gangplank. Eli’s oldest brother looked at Josie’s defeated frame. His eyebrows shot down, and he glared at Eli. “Josie?”

  She sniffed and shook her head, then turned and walked up the dock toward the shore.

  Jonathan turned to Eli. “What did you do to her?”

  Anger exploded in red bursts on the edge of Eli’s vision. “What did I do to her?” He gestured in a wide arc. “Why is it that no one seems to care about what she did to me? She lied to me. She betrayed me, and she might’ve cost me this race.”

  Grandfather motioned for Jonathan to push his chair on. “Let’s not waste time on this hardheaded goat. Get aboard, Eli, and get out of here. We’ve talked to Noah. He knows what to watch for, and he didn’t doubt a word we said.”

  Eli didn’t wait for them to leave. He stalked up the gangway and stormed into the pilothouse. The deck hands winched the last hatch cover into place and spun the wheels to tighten the gaskets. Josie’s gaskets.

  Noah settled into the tall captain’s chair. The helmsman lounged against the front windows, waiting for the signal to move out. But it didn’t come.

  “What are you waiting for? Cast off the lines.” Eli stuck his head back out the door to where the Vulpine was throwing off lines and preparing to leave the dock. “Hurry up. You’re losing time.”

  Noah frowned at him, puzzlement clouding his eyes. “We’re leaving second. Didn’t you talk to Josie?”

  “I talked to her all right. Not that it did her any good. She lied to me and sold me out. Nothing she can say will alter those facts. But we’re going to win despite her betrayal. Now, cast off.” Eli gripped the doorframe, every muscle tight.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed, appraising Eli. “What about those hatches? If we pull out ahead of them, we won’t be able to keep an eye on them. I promised Grandfather and Jonathan we’d stick close in case Fox’s crew needed help.”

  The Vulpine’s whistle sounded. She steamed by with the help of a tug, Fox’s face grinning triumphantly from the pilothouse window, Radcliffe Zahn at his shoulder.

  Panic seized Eli. “Hurry up! Cast off!” he yelled at the crewmen on the catwalk below the pilothouse. “Shove off!”

  Noah rose and stood nose to nose with Eli. “Belay that order, helm. We’ll wait until they clear the harbor. I’m the captain of this ship. You don’t give orders to my crew.”

  “Then you do it. We’re going to lose this race with your lying about. Don’t you care that we might lose the Bethany? Don’t you care that Fox will gloat and crow, that he and Josie will have duped us from start to finish?” Eli grabbed Noah’s lapels. “She lied to me!” This truth scored him more deeply than anything else. Even losing the race wouldn’t hurt as badly as losing his ability to trust Josie.

  Noah gripped Eli’s wrists. “Get ahold of yourself. Take a good look at that ship. Jonathan says Fox stole the plans for the Bethany from Josie’s room, but he did it before she fixed the hatch problem. She’s not seaworthy.” He ripped Eli’s hands from his coat. “We’re going to follow them to make sure they get to port safely. In these seas and loaded like she is—” He broke off and returned to his seat. “Cast off the bowline.”

  The helmsman signaled to the dock, and the heavy ropes securing the ship fell away.

  Noah dialed the chadburn to quarter speed, the familiar bell jangling through the room.

  Eli pressed his hand against the window, staring after the Vulpine. He lifted the field glasses from the rack on the wall and brought the hatches near in his vision. Righteous indignation clogged his throat.

  He turned the dial to sharpen the focus. The Bethany shuddered under his feet, shouldering away from the dock and thrusting forward through the chop of the bay. Pin hinges. The same pin hinges he’d wrestled with for weeks. The view began to shake, and he realized he was gripping the field glasses so hard his fingers trembled.

  “All ahead full.” Noah dialed the chadburn again.

  The helmsman repeated the order with the obligatory “sir” tacked on the end.

  “Did you see it?” The captain’s question was directed at Eli.

  “Yes, I saw it.”

  “Well?”

  Eli returned the field glasses to the rack. Guilt raced up his arms and across his chest, pressing against him. All the accusations he’d hurled at Josie slammed through his head. “She was telling the truth.”

  “How do you know?” Noah’s voice goaded Eli, taunting him, pushing him to admit things he didn’t want to. “You said she lied to you.”

  Eli whirled around, his hands fisted, legs braced apart. “I know her. She would never put people in danger. She would never have given Fox that hatch closure design. She’s the one who convinced me it was flawed in the first place.”

  “What about the professor bit?” Noah’s eyes drilled Eli.

  Eli made an impatient gesture. “That didn’t bother me as much as the thought of her selling out to Fox. Imagine what it must be like to be a girl with those skills. Would you have taken her seriously if she’d come right out and admitted she wanted to be an engineer?”

  Noah gave a low command to the helmsman then shook his head. “No. It never would’ve occurred to me that a woman could be so gifted. And that’s no credit to me.” He stroked his beard. “Melissa and Annie would have both our hides.”

  A smile quirked Eli’s mouth in response. “I think Josie will fit in quite nicely with the Kennebrae brides, don’t you?”

  Noah quirked his eyebrow. “Little brother,” he drawled out the jibe, “that particular ship has run aground. Your engagement needs a refit. Grandfather said they’d be waiting at Kennebrae House, and he’d make sure Josie was there.”

  ❧

  Eli bounded up the steps of Kennebrae House, shedding his coat and tossing it to McKay, not waiting for Noah or Radcliffe Zahn to climb out of the automobile.

  “They’re in the gallery, sir,” McKay called after him. “Congratulations.”

  Eli waved a hand in acknowledgment and strode down the hall. When he entered the art gallery, he stopped at the sight of so many people in the room. The guests assembled applauded and clapped him on the back, shaking his hand.

  “Well done, my boy.” Grandfather edged forward in his chair.

  “Thank you, sir. The Bethany is docked and unloaded.”

  “The messenger you sent from the dock told us you rescued the crew of the Vulpine before she went down. Heard Fox gave you a rough time. If he keeps it up, we’ll sic Geoffrey on him and sue him for defamation.”

  A long buffet table stretched down the center of the room, with a splashing punch fountain, ice sculptures, and the best of the Kennebrae larder. People smiled and laughed, talking and eating, celebrating the Kennebrae victory.

  Though this should’ve been the happiest moment of Eli’s life, the pinnacle of his hopes and dreams for his design and his place in the Kennebrae family, he felt no joy. The past twenty hours, since Josie had walked away from him on the Two Harbors dock, had been the longest of his life. The rescue, the return trip, the unloading, a thousand-and-one details to see to, but nothing could crowd out the memory of her stricken expression when he’d rebuffed her and refused to listen.

&n
bsp; Octavia Zahn rushed past him to cast herself into her husband’s arms, clinging to him. Zahn bore it stoically, patting her shaking shoulder awkwardly, staring at the pipe organ, as if waiting for her to pull herself together. She did manage to gather herself but continued to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief and to hang on Zahn’s arm. The little Zahn girls clustered around. But Josie wasn’t among them.

  Jonathan pressed a glass of punch into Eli’s hand. “Well done, little brother. I’m proud of you.”

  Eli flicked a glance at his brother, nodding his thanks for the compliment, but continued to scan the room for the face he sought. His eyes rested on Melissa, her arms cradling Matthew, face serene. Noah, standing next to her, had Annie tucked into his side, his arm around her waist. The baby seemed fascinated with Noah’s whiskers, staring round-eyed and somber into his uncle’s face. Grandfather sat near the massive fireplace. Above him, a heavy gilt frame surrounded his favorite painting, an oil of the family yacht, The Lady Genevieve, skimming the waves of Lake Superior on a sun-drenched day.

  “Nice job, Eli.” Geoffrey slid through the crowd to shake Eli’s hand. Clarice joined them, tucking her hand into Geoff’s elbow. Geoff bent a smile down at her.

  Eli’s heart twisted with envy, wanting Josie so bad it made his chest ache. Though Grandfather had assured Noah she would be here waiting for their return, he hadn’t spotted her in the crowd yet.

  Jonathan nudged Eli. “Tell me about the rescue.”

  Eli shrugged. “The Vulpine’s hatches started taking on water, just like Josie said they would, and the bilge pumps couldn’t keep up. About halfway to harbor, the forward hatch hinge pins broke loose. She listed hard, taking on water. Noah launched the lifeboat, and we rescued the crew. The Vulpine went down, and Fox is livid.”

  “He’s got no one to blame but himself. Do you think she’s salvageable?” Jonathan tasted his punch, made a face, and set it on a passing tray.

  “If she didn’t hit too hard on the lake floor, but it’s pretty deep there,” Eli answered absently, his chest churning. Where was she?

  Then he saw her.