A Dangerous Legacy

by Elizabeth Camden

  Two weeks ago, he’d learned she had succeeded in lowering the price of the valve. There had been a series of newspaper stories about Thomas Drake’s new pricing structure, in which he magnanimously announced his intention to improve the lives of the poor. Most people assumed it was a desperate attempt to buy public goodwill as his son’s trial approached, but Colin knew otherwise.

  A boom sounded outside, startling everyone in the gallery.

  “Fireworks!” someone called, and most of the crowd rushed for the windows on the far side of the gallery. Colin remained motionless, a queasy feeling in his stomach roaring to life, a sheen of perspiration prickling across his skin. It was only fireworks. He’d known about the fireworks this evening, but still the racket took him by surprise. He concentrated on drawing in regular lungfuls of air and willing his heart to slow.

  He grabbed a copy of the museum program, fanning himself. It was hot in here. Airless. At least he hadn’t bolted for cover like he would have done a few months earlier. Maybe he would always be plagued by these awful, mortifying spells, but he was getting better.

  He sensed someone staring at him. Across the gallery, beside a mammoth statue of an Egyptian pharaoh, Frank Wooten met his gaze. Colin shrugged a little helplessly, then went back to fanning himself. Frank gave a nod of understanding, then turned to watch the fireworks with the others.

  How odd that Colin had always gotten along better with Frank Wooten than with his daughter. Amelia was here this evening, still hanging on the arm of Count Ostrowski and pretending that Colin didn’t exist.

  With most of the crowd clustered near the windows, a waiter bearing a tray of delicacies headed Colin’s way. He eyed the blackened bits of meat with curiosity. “What are they?”

  “Duck skewers with a date and tahini paste. The other is spiced cauliflower with lime yogurt sauce.”

  Colin politely declined and kept fanning himself. More than anything, he wished for a good cup of tea, the kind brewed in the Whitefriars kitchen. There was nothing quite like it available in America. Big, loosely chopped tea leaves infused with oil from bergamot oranges. It tasted like home and comfort, and he’d trade every Middle Eastern delicacy served here for a cup of that tea right now.

  Ten minutes later, the fireworks were over, and the crowd moved back to mingle throughout the gallery. Colin gathered his wits, ready to try a flirtation with Melanie Allenton in hope of finding a bit of common ground or hint of attraction. Even though it would never be like when he met Lucy. Magnetism had flared within five seconds and only burned brighter the longer he knew her.

  But Lucy had moved on. He was still mired in the same spot he’d been a year ago, searching for an heiress and wondering how to save Whitefriars.

  Think like an American.

  It was what Frank had urged him to do when he was still courting Amelia. The idea Frank had outlined was daring . . . and just because the potential marriage had collapsed, did that mean the business plan needed to as well?

  Another waiter approached, this time presenting a tray of miniature cakes. “Lemon basbousa cake,” the waiter said. “A favorite in Egypt.”

  “How exotic,” Melanie purred as she helped herself to one.

  Colin did as well. Now this was more to his liking. Sweet, its lemony flavor mixed with a hint of coconut and almonds. It paled in comparison with Nanny Teresa’s lemon cream shortbread, but it was still good. Serving it amidst the Egyptian exhibit made it taste even better. Frank would probably say it was all in the packaging and presentation. That was what Frank had been obsessing over back when they were contemplating a business alliance.

  Except Frank was thinking about how to upgrade his canned fruit business. What if . . .

  The idea hit Colin like a bolt of lightning. It was an audacious idea, but maybe he was finally learning to think like an American.

  “The music will be starting in the first-floor gallery,” Melanie said, her sentence dangling, clearly waiting for him to offer to escort her downstairs.

  “Excellent,” he said. “But I’m afraid I must get home immediately.”

  It wasn’t the most delicate way to excuse himself, but he needed to wake up Nanny Teresa and get her to make as much lemon cream shortbread as their tiny kitchen could produce.

  He’d just had an idea for how to save Whitefriars, and it would begin tonight.

  After a telephone call to Frank Wooten’s secretary, Colin had an appointment with the man he once hoped would become his father-in-law. Now he wanted Frank as a business partner. The proposal he was about to make was a gamble, but the only thing he risked losing was a pan of lemon cream shortbread, and with luck he could be saving both his dignity and Whitefriars.

  At four o’clock, he was shown into Mr. Wooten’s office with its view of the Manhattan skyline. The self-made millionaire sat at a desk weighed down with neatly organized stacks of files and financial statements. Colin came armed with a basket of lemon cream shortbread and a tin of tea he’d brought from Whitefriars. Frank’s welcoming smile turned confused, then appalled as Colin began outlining his proposal. Mr. Wooten’s famously impatient demeanor got the better of him, and he cut Colin off before he could finish explaining his plan.

  “You want me to drop everything, sail across the ocean, and invest a fortune in a floundering estate? The crumbling fortunes of European aristocrats are everywhere. Why should I invest in Whitefriars?”

  “Because it is a once-in-a-lifetime investment you won’t find anywhere else,” Colin said, determined to start thinking and sounding like an American. “You need the prestige of the Whitefriars name, and we need your experience. You and I think alike. We don’t need to resort to the antiquated custom of a marriage alliance to solidify the deal. I have a property, a name, and an estate that can add instant prestige to your company. And I’m not talking only about jars of fancy fruit or jam. I’m proposing an entire line of delicacies inspired by the English countryside. You know how to can and bottle fruit, but you’re competing with dozens of other companies who want to do everything faster and cheaper. Go high-end. I’ll sell you the rights to use the Whitefriars name and image, but it will have to happen quickly.” The repairs to the music room could not wait.

  Nor could Lucy. If this deal worked, he would be free to pursue her, to cut free of his past just as she had done and embark on a new life of his own choosing.

  “How quickly?” Frank demanded.

  “I want it done before the end of September. By Christmastime, your company can reinvent itself with an aristocratic lineage behind it.”

  Frank leaned back in his chair, the friendliness gone. “I’m not interested in licensing the Whitefriars name. I want the house. The land. Everything.”

  Colin blanched. That hadn’t been part of the deal they were negotiating earlier this summer, but when he said as much, Frank’s reply was brusque.

  “Back then I was considering you as a potential son-in-law. That’s off the table now, so we’re discussing a straightforward business deal. I have no interest in paying a fortune for nothing more than a name and an image. I want the house. I want this deal locked down so it’s watertight, and that means I have to be in complete control. This is an all-or-nothing deal, Sir Beckwith.”

  This would never work. It would mean he had to walk away from his heritage, his sister’s sense of security. His home. Whitefriars was an albatross around his neck, but he still loved every stone, every squeaky floorboard, the view from every window. If he signed a deal with Frank, it would all be gone. He could already hear his ancestors howling in dismay as he proposed linking their name to an American fruit canning company, but pride wasn’t going to pay for a new roof on his house. The fortunes of his family had been sinking for generations. He wasn’t so arrogant as to think that only someone with a Beckwith lineage could do right by Whitefriars, but he didn’t want to sell it out of the family.

  He affected an indifferent tone. “Why would you want a drafty old house? It’s in the middle of nowhere. It
doesn’t even have running water or telephone lines. Someone like you could never live there.”

  “I won’t invest a fortune in a line of products based on something I don’t own.” Frank opened a leather-bound calendar and began flipping through the pages. “I need to see the property again. We can sail at the end of the week. I’ll have an agent assess the estate’s value and set a fair price. Those are my terms. Do we have a deal or not?”

  Colin clenched his fists. This was going to hurt. It was going to break his sister’s heart and cut the foundation of his world out from beneath him. But it was also going to save ninety tenants. It would restore Whitefriars to the magnificent home it once had been. It would secure his future without having to sell his soul or hand in marriage. It would set him free.

  “When do we sail?” he said.

  There were still dozens of hurdles to clear and his sister to persuade, but with luck and hard work, he could save Whitefriars.

  Chapter

  Twenty-seven

  To her profound embarrassment, Lucy found herself irresistibly drawn to tracking the movements of Colin Beckwith as his star rose in Manhattan. He was the city’s newest luminary. His role in bringing Tom Jr. down had completely overshadowed earlier rumors about his erratic behavior. Each day she turned straight to the society pages, which often featured Colin’s attendance at various high-society gatherings, probably on the hunt for another heiress. This daily ritual of stalking his activities was a unique form of torture she was helpless to resist. Her better half wished him well and hoped he found happiness; the other half was tempted to mound these newspapers into a dramatic pyre and set them aflame whenever she read about him in the company of another lady.

  Then, in early September, as if someone had turned off the spigot, the stories about Colin evaporated. At first she was grateful not to be subjected to the mental images of him flirting in perfume-scented ballrooms, but that was soon replaced by concern. He wasn’t coming to the office anymore, either. Twice she had gone up to Reuters to do repairs on the pneumatic tubes, and she’d risked a peek through the window in his office door. The room had been empty, and the stack of mail on his desk had grown alarmingly high.

  Her curiosity regarding his whereabouts tormented her like an itch she couldn’t scratch. Three weeks after he disappeared, she couldn’t take it any longer. As she entered the elevator at the end of a long day, she spotted one of the few female telegraph operators who worked at Reuters. Lucy nudged through the others in the elevator until she was alongside the operator.

  “Was Sir Beckwith in today?” she asked.

  “Heavens, no. He’s gone back to England.”

  She sucked in a little breath. “He did? Why?”

  The operator shrugged. “It’s all been very hush-hush. He said it was ‘family business’ before he left, but most people think it’s because he’s getting married to some fine lady back home.”

  A physical weight landed on Lucy’s chest, making it hard to breathe in the tight, confined elevator. When the doors opened, she strode as fast as her legs could carry her until she reached the blissfully cool air outside the building.

  Her brief but exhilarating fling with Colin would probably hurt until her dying day, but she wasn’t going to wallow in it. No more! Now that her life had been liberated from the court case, she had the time to turn herself into a better, more interesting person. She had already begun broadening her horizons by signing up for a class on how to operate a radio. She wasn’t even sure what a radio was, but the AP was about to get one for sending wireless telegraph messages, and she wanted to learn about it.

  Just as she’d already started learning how to cook. Ever since Nick moved to Albany, it seemed pointless to cook for only one person, but life was too precious to waste doing nothing. Each day for the rest of her life, she was going to learn something new, do something charitable, or simply try something different.

  Even if all she wanted to do on this awful evening was curl up in the safety of her apartment and weep over the fact that Colin might be getting married. But moping would never do. Stagnating was forbidden. If she wasn’t moving forward, she was slipping into the bad habits of her past.

  She bought some vegetables and a pound of potatoes on the way home from work. She would drag out a recipe book and make a pot of homemade soup instead of opening a can for dinner. After cutting up the vegetables and putting them on the stove to simmer, she grabbed the book about bird-watching she’d checked out from the public library. She had already begun attending weekly bird-watching talks given by an ornithologist in Central Park each Saturday morning. Anything to get her out of her lonely apartment and meeting new people.

  So hard was she concentrating on trying to master the migration patterns of northern birds that she completely forgot about the soup until the scent of burning potatoes demanded her attention. She leapt off the sofa and ran to the kitchen, scorching her hand as she lifted the lid from the pot. Who knew it was possible to burn soup? The pot was heavy as she lifted it off the flame, then began scraping it with a wooden spoon to dislodge the layer of potatoes and onions that had fused to the bottom.

  The reek of burnt vegetables stank up the apartment, and she was waving a towel to diffuse the stench when a loud knock sounded on the door. She startled but relaxed at the sound of Nick’s familiar voice.

  “It’s just me, Luce.”

  She opened the door and gasped. “You cut your hair!”

  “I figured it was time.” He nudged his way inside their apartment, lugging a valise and an oversized box under one arm. Nick’s hair wasn’t the only thing that was different. She was used to seeing him in a plain white shirt and suspenders, but today he wore a tailored wool coat and a shirt collar that looked uncomfortable.

  “I brought you a telephone,” he said as he set the box on their kitchen table with a thud. “I’m afraid that one of these days I’ll be tempted to strangle Jacob Drake. I’ll need you to talk me down, so I want a telephone in this apartment. I’ll pay the monthly bill.”

  “Are you that miserable in Albany?” she asked.

  It was worrisome that Nick didn’t answer right away. He just hauled his valise back to his old room and hefted it onto the bed, the mattress springs squeaking as the bag bounced. He came back and plopped down at the kitchen table.

  “It’s pretty bad,” he said. “Jacob may be a brilliant businessman, but he’s a mean piece of work. I needed to get away for a week or two. And we need to talk about the money. Jacob says he’s ready to start transferring lump sums to me, and I want to split it with you. Have you got a bank account set up for it?”

  She tried to reiterate that she didn’t need any of Jacob’s money, especially if sharing it with her was going to further antagonize their great-uncle, but Nick cut her off.

  “Shut up, Luce,” he said in a worn-out voice. “Money has caused a rift in our family for generations, and I want that to end now. Everything I get is going to be shared fifty-fifty with you. I won’t let money drive a wedge between us, too.”

  Like it had driven a wedge between her and Colin. What would he do if he learned that the Drake fortune was finally starting to find its way to her? Would it have made a difference? It was too late to worry about it, for he could be standing at the altar in England at this very moment.

  She turned away so Nick wouldn’t notice the despair on her face. “Did Jacob make you cut your hair?”

  “Jacob can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do. I’m just trying to learn how to operate in this new line of work and . . .” He glanced out the window, his face a mask of exhaustion. “And I’ve got enough real battles ahead without asking for more with a stupid thing like hair that’s too long.”

  The frustration in Nick’s voice was another blow. He was supposed to be the strong one, the one who was never afraid of anything and could power through whatever obstacle stood in his way. The gloom in his voice got to her.

  “Oh, Nick,” she sighed. “We’re both a
mess.”

  His laugh came from deep in his chest. “Why do you think I bought us a telephone?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh in return, even if it was mixed with a few sniffles. Nothing had been the same since Nick had left. Now that they had no money worries, they were supposed to be deliriously happy, right? It looked like they would just have to keep reminding themselves of that.

  A week later, Lucy accompanied Nick to the train station for his return trip to Albany, then headed off to Central Park for her bird-watching class. An ornithologist from Cornell led the group of bird watchers on a tromp through the park each Saturday morning, and they always met here at the Ladies’ Pavilion. Lucy had attended for the past four weeks and liked to arrive early to enjoy the fresh air and some time to sink into the pages of a novel.

  After settling into a spot in the corner of the Ladies’ Pavilion, she opened her novel and braced herself for the best of times and the worst of times in A Tale of Two Cities. Would she ever see London or Paris? Maybe not, but at least the pages of a book could transport her there for a few hours. The nattering of the women on the other side of the pavilion faded away, as did the brisk autumn breeze that tugged a strand of hair free. All of it vanished as she sank into the drama of Paris gripped in the throes of revolution.

  Only the pigeon bothered her. It was too close, pecking away at the pavilion railing a few feet away. Without looking up from her book, she slid farther down the bench, but the pigeon kept scattering seed and distracting her. Before she’d met Colin, she’d thought pigeons were dirty, lazy creatures. Now she knew differently. Casting a wistful smile at the pigeon, she wondered—