Questions of Honour (Questions of Honor)

Abby stared after Brendan. He’d championed Joshua the longest, keeping her hope alive until after Daniel’s birth. He’d been the one to encourage that last shameless letter she’d written. Brendan had just grown quiet about the subject when no answer came from Germany. In fact, he’d never spoken a word against his former friend until tonight, and now he was filled with anger and threats. She wondered why the change but shrugged off the thought. Perhaps as with her, Joshua’s return had opened the wounds of betrayal.

Chapter Two

Joshua stopped outside his father’s study. When they’d arrived Harlan had been sleeping, so Josh had decided to unpack. When he’d seen his room redone in an adult—if not an ostentatious—decorating style, he’d let himself hope his father saw him as a man now. But when Henry brought word that Harlan wanted to see him, old feelings brought doubt. He wondered if he’d ever truly be his own man in Wheatonburg. Here he felt like a rich man’s puppet. His father’s puppet.

He forced himself to remember who he was—who he’d become. He was one of the world’s most sought-after mining engineers. He’d answered to no one for years, and had a reputation for being an independent thinker. Straightening to his full six foot one inches of height, Josh opened the study door.

“Son. Come in. Come in,” Harlan called.

Joshua braced himself for the sight of his once robust father confined to a wheelchair. But he wasn’t prepared for how old the man looked after ten years. His blunt Germanic features were now rounded with excess weight. His once muscular chest seemed to have caved in, the rubble falling in an enormous bulge on his lap.

Forcing himself forward, Josh wanted to allow his father as much of his dignity as possible regardless of the bad blood between them. He advanced steadily and shook Harlan’s hand.

“It’s good to have you home, son,” Harlan said. His voice wobbled a bit. It gave Josh hope that the old man really was glad to have him back and willing to accept him as he was.

“It’s good to be home,” Josh answered, though he qualified it in his mind as feeling only a bit better than he’d expected.

“Sit down, Joshua. I asked Franklin to sit in on this meeting for several reasons. First, I thought there should be a witness.” Harlan reached beside him, and picked up a set of keys and a piece of paper. He handed each to Joshua in turn. “Here is the combination to the safe, and these are the keys to this office and all the buildings owned by Wheaton Coal. As I agreed, you’re free to run the mines as you see fit. It’s what I’ve always wanted. A family business. There are only two of us, but I’m sure there’ll be more soon.”

“There is no woman in my life. I thought I’d made that clear,” Joshua countered. “I’m not averse to marriage, as I told you. But I haven’t met anyone in recent years I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“You have to forget what’s past,” Harlan groused, shifting restlessly in his chair. “You can’t go back. There’s too much water gone over that dam. Which brings me to the second reason I asked Franklin to be here. We’d … Franklin and I … uh …”

Gowery chuckled. “What your father is trying so carefully to say is he and I would like you and Helena to make a match of it. As soon as possible.”

Joshua blinked. “Pardon me?”

“I want you to marry my ward.”

“Franklin, don’t take this as an insult, but, no. I scarcely know her.”

“You must admit she’s a lovely young woman.”

From the implacable expression on his father’s face, Joshua knew there would be no diplomatic way to extricate himself from this situation. “Be that as it may, I don’t want to marry her.”

Gowery nodded. His patronizing expression irritated Joshua even before he spoke. “I am given to understand that there was once a girl in your life. Are you still in love with her?”

Joshua sucked a breath through gritted teeth. This came too closely on the heels of that heart-wrenching glimpse of Abby in town. “She’s out of my reach, Franklin, not that it’s any of your affair. My father had no right to speak of my private business.”

“Helena also loved unwisely. Her husband will need to overlook her error, however, if you take my meaning. She isn’t in the family way, fortunately. You needn’t worry about that. The man is completely unsuitable and as Helena is all alone in the world, I am obligated to see to her future. We’ve never been close but her father was a friend. You should know Helena is heiress to a considerable fortune, which will be turned over to you when you two marry.”

“My father should have warned you, Franklin. I can’t be bought.” Joshua’s comment snapped like a whip through the room. He glanced sharply at Harlan then added, “Or threatened. He tried both ten years ago and hasn’t seen me since.”

Gowery laughed. “I would hardly call being made a millionaire for marrying a lovely young woman a threat. Nor is it a bribe. I like you, Joshua. You’re from a good, solid family and I know my friend’s daughter would be well taken care of as your wife. She has to marry. Why not take advantage of a windfall?”

“I should think you’d want more for the daughter of a friend than to be considered a windfall. Love for instance?”

“Love is a much lauded but stupid emotion. It leads people to foolishness, desperation and heartache. You’ve learned that. Helena will accept it, as well. What Harry Conwell wanted for his daughter is the kind of alliance I have with my wife and your father had with your mother. Under the terms of Harry’s will, I must approve of the man or she doesn’t inherit.”

Joshua suppressed a shudder, remembering his parents’ cold union, and the poor German widow forced into an illicit alliance to fill the private needs his father’s wife refused to deal with. Josh would die alone before he’d live the way they had. “I suggest you look elsewhere.”

“At least consider it?” Gowery asked. “Squire Helena about for a day or two. Get to know her. There is another man I’m considering who is from just as good a family. I’ll settle on him if you refuse even though Helena seems to despise him.”

Poor Helena. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to agree to spend time with her. He could give her a reprieve for a little while. She was a pleasant person and certainly not hard on the eyes. Harlan’s chair creaked, drawing Joshua’s attention. He sat back in his own chair and looked toward his father again. “You’ve been surprisingly quiet, Father.”

“I think you would be wise to think about Franklin’s offer. He’s only trying to do his duty by the girl and it isn’t as if arranged marriages among people of our class are unusual. Don’t turn it down out of hand just because I’ve endorsed the girl.”

Joshua smiled. “That would be rather childish. If I remember from our recent communications, we’ve decided I’m a man now. I’ll run the company and escort who I wish and, as it so happens, it suits my purposes to be Helena’s escort while she’s here. If we decide to pursue a relationship, it will be because we choose to for personal reasons—not financial gain or because you two have meddled in our lives. Is that clear?”

Both men nodded, but considering their personalities, Josh was sure it was only a temporary capitulation. “Pressure either of us and even this much of a concession is at an end,” he added.

By the time dinner was over, however, Josh knew he couldn’t marry Helena. She clearly hated him for some unknown reason. After thinking it through, he went downstairs to tell Harlan of his decision but got a nasty earful instead. What he overheard chilled him and placed him in the most difficult position he’d ever been in.

It seemed his father had left out something rather important when he turned the company over to Josh—like having hired Pinkerton agents to act as spies within the mining community. Josh understood both Gowery’s and his father’s desire to eliminate the threat from the thugs who’d taken over the failed American Miners United union. His father had been shot by one of them, after all. Josh’s anger initially came from being left in the dark but then he heard something that made his blood boil.

“I want evidence gathered on one man specifically, Brendan Kane,” Josh heard Gowery say.

“Is this because he seduced Helena then discarded her?” a voice unknown to Josh asked.

“He’s miles below her in station. He had no right to even talk to her let alone have his way with her. I want him to swing—if not for that then for Harry Conwell’s murder,” Gowery demanded.

“We have no proof that Helena’s father was even killed by a miner let alone her lover,” the undercover Pinkerton agent said. The man’s British accent seemed to be tinged with a touch of Irish. “I was there,” he went on. “I held Conwell as he died.”

Newspaper accounts of Harry Conwell’s murder had placed both Gowery and Jamie Reynolds, the Earl of Adair, at the scene. Did that mean that for some reason an earl was working undercover for the Pinkertons? Joshua had to agree with the man’s assessment of Helena’s father’s death. Josh was sure Brendan Kane was innocent of everything except seducing Helena.

Josh wished he could simply warn Brendan but that might not be wise. He was trapped, Josh thought as he made his way to his room upstairs. If he didn’t agree to the marriage, Gowery would just take Helena and leave town.

He had to talk to her.

Since Josh rarely put off unpleasant tasks, he went immediately to her room and tapped on the door.

“Joshua?” she whispered after cracking the door open.

“I need to talk to you. I know it’s late, and that this is irregular, but may I come in?”

Helena’s shadowed figure grew rigid. “I don’t know what Uncle Franklin told you, but I assure you, I will not allow you to sample the merchandise!”

She started to close the door, but Josh pressed his shoulder against it. “I said talk. That’s what I meant. Look, I don’t want to sound melodramatic but this is a matter of life or death.”

Helena considered him, then stepped back and silently motioned him inside. She had a lamp burning low on a table between two chairs at the far end of the room. She walked to one of the chairs and sat, gesturing to the other.

He sat. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but—”

“I was awake.” Her tone was flat and preoccupied. “I don’t sleep well anymore.”

“You’re very resentful of me. Why?”

“You’re a man,” she snapped. “I doubt you have the capacity to understand. What exactly is the plan for tonight? Compromise the little heiress and gain control of her fortune?”

Josh raked a hand through his hair. What if she resented Brendan? “I came here to ask your help,” he explained. “You don’t want to marry me and I don’t want to marry you. My father married my mother for her money. I was merely the second clause in the negotiations. She had little choice, and it seems you don’t, either. Am I right?” She nodded. “If I don’t marry you, Franklin will go looking for another man for you.”

“He has another man all picked out to step in line.” Helena laughed quietly but it was a sad sound. “I can’t marry the man I love, because he’s poor and Uncle Franklin is sure he’s after my money. It’s perfectly acceptable, though, to hand me over to you or some earl who is probably bankrupt and obsessed with me. There’d be no pretense of love in the marriage on my end, but one of you will have my money as a reward. With him I’d be the Countess Adair. What do you have to offer?”

She’d answered the question of why a man of consequence like an earl would be foolhardy enough to become involved with spying on the AMU. He was trying to find the man who killed the father of the woman he loved. So where did all that leave Helena and Brendan? Poor Helena was closer to a slave than the miners. “Do you still love him and does Brendan Kane return your feelings?”

She looked up in surprise at the mention of Brendan’s name and a tear glistened at the corner of her eye. “He loves me so much he won’t see me or talk to me. He thinks he’s not good enough for me but that isn’t true. He’s wonderful. And noble. All he worries about is that he can’t give me what I’ve always had. He’s bitter about losing me but he’s as stubborn as Uncle Franklin. I wanted to run away with him, but he says he won’t rob me of my inheritance. How did you find out his name?”

Joshua leaned forward and took her fisted hands in his. “I just got an earful outside my father’s room. Franklin wants retribution, Helena, and he’s using your earl to get it. Have you ever heard of the American Miners United or the term Workmen?”

“Of course, Uncle Franklin says it was members of the AMU who shot your father and killed mine. And they’ve threatened Uncle Franklin. Workmen are what their members are called.”

“Do you think Brendan Kane could be a Workman?”

Fire shot to her eyes. “He’d no more shoot a man in cold blood than he would his own father! And he wouldn’t belong to an organization that would!”

He’d needed to know what she thought. She thought Workmen had killed her father. She wouldn’t harbor one. “I hadn’t thought so but I haven’t seen or heard from Brendan since I left here.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “You know Brendan.”

“He was my best friend. Your guardian is trying to frame Brendan as a Workman. They have Pinkerton spies all over Schuylkill County. A man named McParlan is close to getting a membership list in his sector. If they bring the men involved with the AMU to trial, many will hang. Your guardian means to see Brendan’s name added to the list.”

“I’ll warn him,” Helena burst out.

Josh shook his head. “No, you can’t. Neither can I. He may know men who’re in the AMU. They could be his good friends. There’s no sense in tempting him to warn a friend. If he did and something happens to one of the Pinkerton agents, and especially the earl, Brendan could be implicated.”

Joshua thought of Brendan as he watched emotions and thoughts race across Helena’s face. He didn’t like the idea of his friend being in the kind of pain he himself had been in for years. He didn’t want him to feel the emptiness that goes with losing love. For long minutes, the only sound in the room came from a clock ticking in the corner.

“According to the terms of your father’s will, will you ever be able to marry as you wish?”

“When I’m twenty-one. In three months time, I inherit, married or not. I’d hoped to put him off but Uncle Franklin is determined to choose for me before then. I can’t let another man touch—” She stopped and shook her head, a blush staining her pale cheeks. “I won’t marry anyone but Brendan.”

Joshua stared at the young woman across from him. Helena seemed strong enough to bear up under the strain of a plan forming in his mind. In a way, it would be less pressure than she was currently under.

“What you need is a diversion. What I need is to keep Franklin here in Wheatonburg where I can watch how his trap for the AMU unfolds and so I can make sure Brendan isn’t caught in it when it’s sprung.”

“How do we accomplish that?” she asked, her eyes wide with excitement and dread at the same time.

“By letting everyone think we’re considering marriage.”

Helena simply stared. “So,” she said slowly, “we pretend you’re courting me and Uncle Franklin takes me off the auction block.”

“Yes, but we have to find a way to keep Franklin here so I can watch him.”

Helena shook her head. “He won’t leave me here. The last time I was here I met and fell in love with Brendan. He’ll want to make sure we stay away from each other. I’m just afraid Brendan will think I’ve given up. He keeps telling me to, but I swore not to.” Her lips turned up in a sudden mischievous grin. “I suppose it would serve him right for his lack of faith.”

Josh found himself grinning, too. “Are we agreed then?”

Helena nodded. “How will I ever be able to thank you?”

“By making plenty of pretty babies with Brendan and naming one after me.”

Helena tilted her head and stared at him for several seconds. “You sound as if you’ll never have a son of your own. Someday you’ll meet the right person.”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t think so. I met her years ago. She was the daughter of a miner.”

“And you lost her?”

“I had better go,” Joshua told her, standing abruptly and hastening from the room. He knew it wasn’t fair but he couldn’t talk about Abby so soon after his first painful glimpse of her.

Chapter Three

Helena grew visibly nervous when the town came into sight the next morning. “How did you meet Brendan?” Josh finally asked, hoping to get her to relax.

Helena smiled. “Uncle Franklin brought me here when he had to go away on business. He thought I’d be well chaperoned, but I was only here a couple days when your father was shot. While the house was in turmoil, I had a groom saddle a mount, and I rode into the mountains. I was quite lost, and enjoying every minute of it, when I came upon Brendan fishing.”

“And that would have been it for Brendan. You’re everything he used to say he wanted in a wife.”

Helena looked confused. “But he sneers at my money. He wants a ranch and I could buy one for him but he won’t hear of it.”

Brendan was clearly the more practical of the two. Which meant he’d changed. Had he changed enough to warn a friend if he learned of the Irish-sounding earl who was undercover for the Pinkertons and hunting his hide?

As they rode through the outskirts of town, Helena said, “It’s so dreary. I’ve wondered why they stay here.”

“They were lured here with a promise of a better life. They stay,” Josh answered, “because men like Gowery and my father promised to be their saviors but keep them enslaved to debt.”

“That angers you, doesn’t it? Imagine how terrible it is to be told where to go, who to see, who to love.” Helena blinked away a mist of tears.

Joshua felt her hopelessness. The life she described was clearly her own. “Helena, this will work. You’ll be safe and we’ll keep Brendan safe. We just need to resist the temptation to warn him about your earl. The man sounded honest if angry over your relationship with Brendan so I doubt he’ll manufacture evidence against him.”

She nodded and glanced away toward the company store. “Look. There goes that boy from the station yesterday.”

Joshua pulled the carriage to a stop. “Ever been in a company store?” Helena shook her head. “Then you need to see how the miners get enslaved to debt. You’ll notice the prices are ten to fifteen percent higher than what you’re used to seeing in the stores near Philadelphia. Mining companies pay in script. That forces employees to buy their equipment, explosives and all their staples from their company store. They run up a bill, and then can’t leave till it’s paid,” he explained as he helped her down from the carriage.

Helena looked around town. “You should have just whisked your girl away from all this. Was she very pretty?” she asked as Joshua opened the door to the store.

He followed Helena inside and found himself looking at that long-remembered face. “Beautiful, in fact,” Joshua whispered, staring at Abby as she spoke with Mr. Prescott.

She looked just as he remembered … a little thinner perhaps but the years had been more than kind. Her long auburn hair was pulled into a tight bun, but just as in her youth it refused to be tamed. Tiny ringlets had pulled loose to softly frame the delicate high cheekbones of her lovely face. Josh felt his heart seize in his chest. How can it still hurt so damned much?

“Are you all right?” Helena whispered.

Josh couldn’t tear his gaze away from Abby.

“Oh, that’s her, isn’t it?” Helena asked. “Your father says she broke your heart by marrying another man.”

“My father talks too much,” Josh growled. He didn’t need reminding that the tormentor of his youth had stolen Abby.

“She is beautiful,” Helena went on, throwing salt in the still open wound. “Her hair is like fire in the sunlight.”

He wasn’t ready for this. He took a step backward, but Helena turned into a proverbial pillar of salt holding him in place. Then in a flash she turned into an iron horse, all but dragging him across the room.

“Come along and introduce me,” she ordered. “Get this out of the way. You’ve come back here to live. You can’t hide in the manor house.”

Joshua cleared his throat when they reached the counter. “It’s been a long time, Abby,” he managed to say in what he hoped was the neutral tone of a man greeting an old acquaintance.

Abby sucked in a deep, shocked breath. Seeing Joshua the day before hadn’t prepared her for the sound of his voice. If she had prior warning, she’d have fled but now she had no choice. She turned to face the man she’d once loved and the woman she’d heard he intended to marry. The meeting was inevitable, but she wasn’t ready, and that wasn’t fair.

Because he obviously was.

He sounded as if they’d been no more than childhood playmates. But they’d been more—much more. They’d created a child together. A child he’d abandoned to grow up in poverty while he traveled the world and found another woman. Righteous anger rescued her pride. “Joshua. I’d heard you’d returned. Planning to suck the miners and laborers even dryer? A little warning—they can’t squeeze their budgets tighter without starving. And if they died, who’d go down into those death traps your father calls tunnels?”

“Things are going to get better now, Abby. I’m back and with enough power to make some real changes. All the changes we’d planned.”

“Well, I beg your pardon but I’ll not be believin’ a Wheaton’ll honor his word. I learned that long ago.”

“Why so hostile, Abby? You should know what I’ve always dreamed of for this town and its people. I do intend to carry on with all those plans and promises I made.”

“You’re ten years too late to keep a good many of them! Nobody trusts the word of a Wheaton, least of all me.”

“My, you two are intense,” Helena drawled before Joshua could respond to Abby’s indictment. “Darling, introduce me to this lovely, dusty creature.”

A perplexed look come across Joshua’s features before they hardened. “Abaigeal Sullivan. Helena Conwell. Helena is my intended.”

Helena Conwell seemed flustered but then the neighbor girl Abby cared for in the mornings skipped up. “Mrs. Sullivan, Daniel said to ask if we could have a candy stick?”

“I’ll try my hand at a bit of candy-making when we get home.”

Two candy sticks suddenly appeared in a large masculine hand. “Hope you like cherry, sweetheart. It’s the only flavor Ethan Prescott ever stocks from what I can remember.” Joshua held the candy out to the children and smiled at little Susan. “If Abby hasn’t improved on her candy-making skills, she’ll likely burn the house down. She nearly did to Mrs. Henry’s kitchen when she was younger.”

“I’d rather take brimstone from the devil,” Daniel snarled, having come upon them. With that said, he kicked over a bucket of dirty water, soaking the skirt of Miss Conwell’s lovely gown, then ran out the door.

Helena gasped in shock and stepped back, holding the sodden material off her limbs. “That boy is a little animal!”

Joshua stared down at Abby, fury burning in his eyes. “He and I had words yesterday at the train station. I forgave his behavior because it was directed at me, but this is too much.”

“I apologize for my son, but you should understand his resentment.”

Josh felt dizzy. The air left his lungs, and he sucked in a strangled breath. Her son. He’d assumed the boy was her brother. The one her mother had been expecting when he left for Germany. Her mother’s condition had been the chief reason Abby had refused to go with him. So the boy was Abby’s son. He should have been theirs but instead he was proof she’d betrayed him within months in the bed of a man Josh despised.