by Jane Porter
The other women stopped talking. They all looked at McKenna without expression. For a moment there was just silence, and then one of the babies fussed and the mother shifted the baby to her shoulder, and the women looked the other away.
McKenna’s heart did a painful one-two and she dipped her head, holding her smile. “Apologies for intruding.” She kept smiling even as she turned away.
Her lips curved as she stared blindly across the room, unable to focus on anything, the rejection so swift it made her head spin and her stomach rise and fall in a nauseating whoosh of sensation.
She shouldn’t have come.
She wasn’t wanted here.
And, yet, now that she was here, what could she do? Cower in a corner? Run down Bramble in tears? Look for Dr. Parker and beg the veterinarian and her husband to drive her home… a good hour and ten-minute drive?
No, she couldn’t do any of those things, and so McKenna kept her chin high, her gaze on the peak of the big mountain rising in the distance. She’d been told once the mountain had just been known as Marietta Mountain, but in the last few years it had been renamed Copper Mountain, after the valuable ore had been discovered.
She focused on the snowcapped peak, her lips tilted, as if enjoying the splendid view in this splendid room.
She smiled as if she was having the most wonderful time, and she’d keep smiling until she returned home tonight, because she’d rather die than let these women know they’d hurt her.
Gracefully, she crossed the room, chin up, head high, until she reached the opposite corner and, once there, sipped her punch and tapped her toe to the music, as if shame didn’t threaten to drown her. It was bad enough being shunned by the scions of New York, but to be scorned in Marietta made her doubt her sanity. If she wasn’t wanted in frontier Montana, where could she go?
Her emotions rolled, matching her thoughts.
She was beginning to understand. She was finally seeing what she’d missed before.
She hadn’t had visitors because she lived so remotely in the valley. Her lack of callers was not due not to the distance, but to her.
McKenna’s hand shook ever so slightly as she lifted the punch cup to her mouth, pretending to sip, barely wetting her lips as she focused on a group of children bobbing for apples on the far side of the room, needing the distraction to keep tears from welling.
She had not cried since arriving in Montana early August. She would not cry now. And it was foolish to let these people hurt her.
They were strangers. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know the truth. And she was not about to begin defending herself. Her father might have disowned her, but she was still a Frasier. She knew her value. She had worth. Society—and her father—be damned.
But just thinking of her father put a lump in her throat.
Patrick Frasier had a reputation in New York and Butte for being fierce and driven—overly ambitious—but the criticism was also something of a compliment, as he was a self-made man, a true industrialist and, even more importantly, a doting father. He’d loved his girls, giving them every opportunity, from trips abroad to the best education, including the four years he’d paid for her to attend Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She’d loved Vassar, and had made lifelong friends there, but her father regretted sending her to college, blaming the liberal education for ruining her.
Education hadn’t ruined her. She’d ruined herself trusting the wrong man. Vassar wasn’t to blame. She was to blame for thinking all men were men like her father. Or Sinclair.
McKenna swallowed hard again, the lump growing in her throat.
Sinclair Douglas had loved her. He’d wanted her. He’d waited for her.
But she’d thrown him away, along with every advantage she’d been given. And now she was starting over as a teacher in Paradise Valley’s first school, living in the simple log cabin that had been built on the corner of the school property, giving her a place to work and stay. Giving her survival. If not meaning.
At least the worst of the shock was over. She might not yet be comfortable in her new skin, but she’d finally stopped writing her father, begging for his forgiveness, pleading for a chance at reconciliation. She’d stopped writing her younger sister, asking for help. She’d stopped writing her Vassar sisters heartbroken letters. Instead, she sought to amuse them with her adventures on the “frontier”. She told them about living in a split log house and cooking over an open fire and trying to wield an ax, and she’d continue turning the struggles into an adventure.
Her friends loved her letters and it felt so much better making them laugh then making them cry. She didn’t want or need pity. Her life wasn’t over. She refused to be a burden for anyone else.
Mrs. Bramble suddenly appeared at McKenna’s side. “Are you not playing games, Miss Frasier?” she asked, gesturing to the game of kissing the Blarney Stone which was now under way in the adjacent library.
McKenna glanced to where the young people were taking turns being blindfolded to try to kiss the white stone in the middle of the library table, and blushing, shook her head. “I’m enjoying watching everyone else,” she said.
“Games are a good way to meet people.”
McKenna forced a smile. “An excellent point.”
Mrs. Bramble smiled back. “The ghost stories will begin soon. Do find a comfortable seat because the curtains will be drawn and the children insist I extinguish all candlelight. They claim they like it spooky. We’ll see how they react once it’s truly dark.”
The hostess moved on and McKenna held her smile, her gaze skimming the room to see if there might be a suitable chair somewhere, when she spotted a tall man in the opposite doorway. He was dressed much as the other gentlemen in a narrow tailored sack suit, with a wingtip collar and a four in hand tie, except he looked nothing like the others filling the parlor and library, and not just because of his height. The breadth of his shoulders set him apart, no padding needed in his jacket to accent his frame. He was muscular through the shoulders and chest, and yet slim through the waist and hip.
She dropped her gaze when she realized he was also looking at her. She’d expected he’d turn away then, but he didn’t. She could feel his attention, and she grew warm beneath his intimate scrutiny. He had no manners. Did he think to take advantage of her fallen state?
Finally, she glanced up, straight into his face, thinking she’d give him a measure of her displeasure, but when her eyes met his, her lips parted with shock.
Sinclair.
The room seemed to tilt and shift. Her legs were no longer steady. She put a hand to her middle to try to catch her breath.
She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t…
What was he doing here?
She stared at him, astonished. It’d been years since she last saw him, four and a half at least. He’d been a frequent visitor during her mother’s illness and then again, after the funeral. But once she’d returned to Vassar, after the end of that awful January, she hadn’t seen Sinclair again even though she’d promised him she’d return as soon as she graduated in June.
But she hadn’t.
Instead, she wrote him that she’d been invited to travel with friends, and the invitations kept coming. Six months became a year, and then another year, and another.
Heart pounding, McKenna continued to drink him in, noting yet again the fashionable fit of the suit and the crisp white points of his shirt against his skin. He had more color than the last time she saw him. Clearly he wasn’t spending all his days underground anymore. His blond hair looked almost brown with the pomade to slick it back.
He was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. This afternoon, he wore the suit of a gentleman, but he’d never been a gentleman. He was a miner, one of her father’s men. And before her father’s man, he’d been her friend.
She sucked in a breath and turned away, looking blindly for a place to go, somewhere she could hide and recover from the shock.
It was too much, seei
ng him here. It was too much after everything that had happened.
The scrape of curtains across windows announced the start of the ghost stories. Candles began to be snuffed out.
McKenna slipped from the room, out into the hall, heading for the room upstairs where guests could leave their cloaks and coats. McKenna went there now, not knowing where else to go.
She paced the spacious bedroom twice, a knuckle pressed to her mouth to keep her from making a sound.
Once upon a time Sinclair Douglas had been her world.
Once upon a time, he’d been her sun and her moon and all her dreams wrapped up in one man.
But then she left Montana and discovered the world. And she fell in love with the whole world, realizing it was so much bigger than Butte. Realizing she had so much more that she could want and be, more than just marriage and motherhood. And so she reached for it all, forgetting what happened to Daedalus when he soared too high, flying too close to the sun.
She shouldn’t have jumped so high, wanting so much. She should have been content with quiet domestic comforts.
She should have been more like her sister, happy with the hearth, and home.
But she wasn’t.
Chapter Two
The door to the Bramble’s upstairs guest bedroom was open. Sinclair could see McKenna inside. She was pacing, her quick steps carrying her back and forth, heavy skirts swishing, her gown the color of glowing pumpkin with lavish cream lace.
“You look lovely,” he said from the doorway.
She stopped short, head lifting, her dark hair curled and pinned high at the back of her head. Rich chocolate wisps delicately framed her face. Her brown eyes met his, and held.
He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t come to compliment her. And yet it was impossible to deny her beauty. She’d been a pretty girl, and she’d grown into a stunning woman. Some women needed fashionable costumes and elaborate hairstyles to appeal, but McKenna just needed her eyes and smile.
“I’m afraid I’m overdressed,” she said, a small catch in her voice. Her fingers flexed before knotting. “I realize now I should have worn something plainer, but it was an autumn afternoon dress, and I thought the spice color would be appropriate.” Her husky voice faded and she looked away, her teeth catching at her lower lip.
It was a handsome gown, the color a perfect foil for her gleaming hair. Maybe too perfect. The other women here wouldn’t like it. They’d feel plain and insignificant in comparison.
“It would have been,” he said bluntly, “in New York, or London.”
“So, I have been too conspicuous. I was afraid of that.”
“Were you really that concerned?” He walked towards her, a surge of anger rolling through him, making him impatient and harsh. “You’ve never cared what people thought of you. Why start now?”
She stiffened, pressing her knuckled fists into her skirts. “I’ve always cared.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t be here in your current… situation.”
That of a fallen woman.
He didn’t say the words, but they hung there, unspoken, in the room between them. Both knew what had happened and what it meant and how it had changed their lives forever.
She surprised him by lifting her chin, a fierce bright light in her eyes. “Alas, I can not change my gown now. What’s done is done. Next time I shall wear something with less ornamentation.”
She wasn’t referencing her gown. She was talking of her fall from grace. He could almost admire her bravado. Almost.
If she’d been a man, none of this would have mattered. There would have been no fuss. No one would have cared. But she was a woman and her virtue—and innocence—mattered.
Her wealth and her innocence were her greatest gifts. And she’d lost both.
“Perhaps next time you might choose to wear something ready made,” he said, “something that isn’t couture from the House of Worth?” He saw her surprise and shrugged. “Yes, I’m familiar with Charles Worth and, yes, I know the costume is several years old. But perhaps that works to your favor. No one will think it’s an original Worth that way. Instead, they’ll think you’ve copied the design, just as most of America does.”
“How is it you’ve become so knowledgeable of ladies’ fashion? Have you left mining to be a tailor?”
“My sister subscribes to Harper’s Bazaar. She and my mother pour over each issue. I know far more about wool, silk, and horsehair then I ever wanted to learn.”
McKenna didn’t know how to respond, uncertain if he was jesting.
In Butte, his family had been painfully poor. They were typical of the Irish working class. His father, an immigrant, had died in her father’s mine. Sinclair was not yet sixteen when he replaced his father in the same mine, as it was now his responsibility to provide for his family. “How is your mother?” she asked.
“Very well.”
“She always was an excellent seamstress.”
“My sister is even better.”
“Is she?”
He nodded. “Johanna is a dressmaker here, and very good, should you ever need a modiste.”
“Johanna is in Marietta?”
“With my mother. I brought them to Crawford County as soon as I could.”
McKenna blinked, thoughts racing. “How long have you been here?”
“Since early February ’85.”
“That would have been right after my mother’s death.”
“Indeed.” He paused, studying her, expression inscrutable. “You seem surprised, and yet I wrote and told you.” He waited, but she said nothing, and he continued. “I wrote you twice a month for years. Did you even read the letters?”
“Of course I did.”
“And yet you didn’t know I was in the Marietta copper mine?”
She didn’t want to tell him that in his early letters his handwriting had been at times nearly impossible to decipher. The sentences sloped and words inevitably ran together, vowels and consonants so misshapen she’d had to guess at what he was sharing. But she’d taken apart every line and paragraph and then put them back together, creating meaning from context. The latter letters… that was different. “I understood that you’d visited, inspecting the operations. I didn’t realize you’d stayed.”
“You didn’t read my letters.”
“I read everything I could.”
“Was it such a chore?” he asked, brow lifting sardonically.
“No. Absolutely not. But mail isn’t always reliable. There were gaps between letters. Correspondence that didn’t come.” She didn’t add that in the past two years she stopped reading every one, instead opening some, skimming those, before slipping the sheets of paper away. His letters made her feel guilty. She didn’t want to be the one to end it, hoping instead he would do it, when he was ready.
“Let me fill you in then. I’ll give you the short version. Your father offered me a significant promotion, overseeing the new mine here. I knew then that he thought he was getting rid of me. Imagine his shock when our little mine begins to out perform his in Anaconda. Overnight, I became an invaluable part of his mining enterprise.”
She swallowed. “You don’t like him.”
“He doesn’t like me. We are both good with that.”
“What has happened?”
“What hasn’t happened?” he retorted coldly.
Her pulse jumped and she drew a quick breath, increasingly unease. He was so different. He was harder, sharper, filled with mockery and impatience.
“Did he fire you?”
Sinclair laughed. “No. He’d never do that. I made him too much money.”
“You still work for him then?”
“I quit this past summer after an accident killed eleven men and he was more concerned with the loss of equipment then the loss of life.” Sinclair paused, broad shoulders shifting. “I wasn’t surprised, of course. I knew who your father was, but I’d had enough. I didn’t need his money, or his daughter.” His voice was hard i
n the small bedroom. “Even though he dangled both before me, trying to woo me back.”
For a split-second she couldn’t breathe. Had she heard right? “What is that supposed to mean?” she whispered.
“He offered me a partnership in his company if I’d marry you—”
“Not true.”
“Oh, all true. He also put the Marietta mine on the table if I’d save you from your folly.” His lips curved. “Such an interesting word for shame, don’t you think?”
She stood very still, veins filling with ice.
“All I had to do was take you off his hands,” he added. “Did you know?”
She shook her head, feeling faint, too shocked for words.
His lips thinned. “I wasn’t flattered by the offer, nor was I impressed with his decision to dump you in Marietta, burying you in a remote corner of the Northwest Territory. And yet here you are. You managed to find your way to Crawford County on your own.”
She took a step back, and then another, until she was pressed against the bed. She leaned against the tall mattress, needing the support. This was so much worse than she’d known. This was… hell.
Sinclair’s expression suddenly changed, his brow lowering. “Or did he send you here, to try to win me over?”
McKenna’s stomach rose and fell. A lump filled her throat. “No.”
“There is no deed for one of the Butte or Great Falls mines in your traveling trunks? No lucrative offer if I marry you and salvage your reputation, protecting the precious Frasier family name?”
McKenna suppressed a shudder as his deep voice scraped her senses. Everything inside of her felt shivery and sensitive, her skin and emotions too bright and alive. From the beginning, he’d brought out the best in her. As well as the worst.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things?”
“I thought perhaps you were ready to deal with reality. It seems I was wrong.”
“You’re being needlessly cruel.”
“I am? What about your father? Is it acceptable for him to dangle you like a treat or a prize—”