Ship of Dreams (8 page)

"That's all to the good, of course, but now that gold's not so thick on the ground, so to speak, investors aren't so free with it. They want assurances—especially when there's any sort of financial scandal in the background." Sharpe emphasized his point with a wave of his fork.

Kenton frowned. "What sort of assurances?"

"That their money will go where they've been told it will go, to build profits. That this isn't just another scam."

"I'll give my personal word of honor, of course." He still wasn't sure what the man was driving at. "As for building profits, I suppose only time will give the definitive proof. Is there something else you feel I should be doing to ensure their trust and goodwill?"

Sharpe shrugged, then wiped his mouth with his napkin and rose. "It's more a matter of what you shouldn't do. Even a hint that all is not completely on the up and up, and your investors will run for cover." His gaze swept from Kenton to Della and back. "I simply wanted to put you on your guard."

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CHAPTER 6

But tell me, tell me! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing—

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Della stared at Mr. Sharpe's retreating back, then turned wide eyes to Kent. "It sounds like he suspects something," she whispered. "What have you been telling him?"

But he looked as startled as she felt—perhaps more so. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Of course, he may mean nothing about our marriage at all." But his expression showed he didn't believe that.

Neither did Della. "No, he made it clear that he thinks we're hiding something—we, not you. He must have some reason to mistrust us, or your motives."
 
Or perhaps he'd heard something about her—from the man with the walking stick? She refused to consider that possiblity. "What was that about your brother?" she asked, as much to distract herself as because she was curious.

Though he'd scarcely touched his breakfast, he rose abruptly. "Not here. I'm going out onto the deck. You may join me when you've finished."

"I'm done now." Hastily, she rose to accompany him. Not for the world would she miss whatever he was about to reveal.

He remained silent as they paced along the promenade deck, up one side of the ship, then back along the other. Already the day was becoming warm and fine, as sparkling as yesterday had been. Irrelevantly, Della found herself comparing this exquisite weather with the incessant fogs and rains of San Francisco, which was but one day behind them.

"Well?" she prompted, as they began their second circuit of the deck without a word spoken. At any moment someone might intercept them and the chance would be lost.

With a sigh, he nodded, slowing his pace somewhat. Daringly, she took his arm, realizing belatedly that it might look odd if she did not. He frowned down at her hands, then gave an almost imperceptible shrug. "Very well. I suppose it's better that you hear it from me than from someone else."

Della remained silent, waiting, matching his pace.

"I told you that my brother, Charles, was only one year my junior." She nodded. "After our father died, it was generally assumed that we would run the business together, as partners, with the help of our advisors, sharing the responsibilities equally. That's not exactly how it turned out."

He guided her to a relatively deserted section of the railing before continuing, staring out at the sea as he spoke. "Charles showed himself to be less than responsible. Within a few months, our advisers didn't even bother to seek him out, as he so frequently forgot or ignored their counsel. Within a year, he had abdicated his role as partner, leaving virtually all of the business decisions to me."

"And you were but eighteen." Della knew, all too well, what it was like to have responsibility thrust upon one so early.

He shrugged. "I was old for my age, even then. And I did have my advisors. Over the next few years, Charles grew progressively wilder, less willing to take advice from me or anyone else. I saw less and less of him, though he attended a university within a few miles of home. When he did confide in me, it was only to speak of his dreams of adventure, and his resentment of his heritage—of Bradford Shipping—which he saw as robbing him of those dreams."

"He was still very young," Della pointed out.
 
"Most young men yearn for more freedom than they have, I would think. "

"You needn't defend him," snapped Kent. "Charles came to chafe at
any
restrictions, was never able to accept a bit of responsibility, for himself or for others." His bitterness came through clearly.

He fell silent, staring moodily into the distance. Following his gaze, Della saw a set of sails near the horizon—another ship. The whiteness of the sails against the deep blue of ocean and sky was startlingly beautiful, but she turned her eyes back to the man at her side.

"And then he left?" she prompted.

He started slightly, as though he'd forgotten her presence, then nodded. "When the rumors of gold in California reached New York, he saw it as his call to adventure—a chance to finally realize his dreams. Within a month he had taken ship for the gold fields, along with all the other wastrels. I never saw him again." Though he was doubtless trying to hide it, resentment was plain upon his face.

Remembering her own father and countless other prospectors she had counted as friends, Della felt obliged to say, "Your brother was but one of thousands. The lure of gold led a great many men, good men, to abandon home and career in hopes of returning with wealth and influence—and many were able to do just that."

"I doubt he ever intended to return," said Kent dryly, "considering that he all but ruined the firm to finance his trip."

"Ruined—? Oh, my." Now Della began to understand the depth of Kenton's resentment—and his investors' wariness. "Did he embezzle the funds? That must have been terrible for you."

"It was not—quite—embezzlement, though he knew that by cashing out his share of the company so precipitously it would push us to the brink of disaster. It took me several years to rebuild Bradford Shipping's capital and reputation. It's no wonder that savvy businessmen would want some assurance that such a disaster will not occur again."

Della shook her head. "Not so savvy, if they do not realize that's absurd. Your character is vastly different, one might even say opposite, from your brother's, and a gold rush is a unique event—something unlikely to happen again for decades, if ever."

For the first time since leaving the breakfast table, Kent smiled, leaving her oddly warmed. "I'm pleased that you are so ready to vouch for my character after only a day's acquaintance."

"I've generally been held to be a good judge of character," she explained. "It's a skill that has stood me in good stead on numerous occasions."

 
He nodded, unsurprised. "I'm sure it has. And yes, if anything, I have striven to be as unlike my brother as possible. But serious investors can hardly be blamed for wanting more tangible proof of my good intentions and business acumen—or for withdrawing their support should they have reason to believe I might follow in my brother's footsteps."

"Where is he now? Have you heard from him since he left?"

His expression again became grim. "From him? No. But
of
him? Far too often. It would seem that he made just enough in the gold fields to finance one get-rich-quick scheme after another. Tales of fortunes gained and lost, debts dodged, and excesses of every kind made their way back to me, most eagerly related by those with an interest in seeing me fail."

Suddenly, Della understood his insistence on maintaining the charade of their marriage. If these investors felt he had fooled them, even about something as harmless as this, they would take it as proof of his instability—something they were half-prepared to believe already, because of his brother's exploits. It would be all the excuse they needed to invest their money elsewhere. She had trapped both of them far more thoroughly than she'd realized when she'd opened her mouth yesterday.

Though she'd already apologized, she felt obliged to do so yet again. "I ... I didn't realize. If I had, of course, I would never have—that is, I'm terribly sorry that—"

"Never mind." He cut her off abruptly, but not as angrily as she'd expected. "That damage is done now. If we play our parts well, perhaps no more will occur. Shall we walk some more? 'Tis the only exercise we're likely to have for the next few weeks."

Della assented and took his arm again, her mind busy with everything she had just learned.

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Kenton breathed deeply of the fresh salt breeze, trying to dispell the old feelings of betrayal his story had revived. He thought he'd managed to put all of that behind him, forgiving Charles as a Christian should forgive his brother, but clearly he had not. As he recounted the events to Della, his emotions had rushed to the surface, every bit as fresh and painful as they'd been seven years earlier.

Seeking to distract himself, he turned to Della again. "I've paraded my family skeletons and given a hint of how they shaped me. Now it's your turn." He was careful to keep his voice low. "What was it like, growing up among the mining camps, and how did it affect your outlook on life? And ... why were you accused of murder?"

She raised startled eyes, wide and green, to his. Irrelevantly, he was struck by the depth and beauty of that gaze, before she hid it with her long lashes, then faced forward again.

"Life in the mining camps was ... challenging," she said softly, choosing the lesser question first. "I'm sure it forced me, and my sister, to grow up more quickly than we would have had we stayed in Ohio. Rather as you were forced to do, by your father's death and your brother's abandonment."

Abandonment
. An interesting word choice, he thought, with a double meaning—both appropriate. "You sold things, you said, to help support your family," he prompted, unwilling to dwell on his own story.

"Yes." Her lips curved in a slight smile. Clearly her memories were less painful than his own. "We became quite resourceful, in fact, though had our mother suspected half of what we were doing, I'm certain she'd have put a stop to it. In retrospect, I suppose we did take some foolish risks."

"But your Irish luck saw you through?"

She shot him one of her quick, breathtaking grins. "It must have. Maire and I explored abandoned diggings and panning sites, salvaging broken picks, pans, combs, whatever we could find. Many things were too damaged to repair with our limited tools, of course, but what we did manage to sell brought pure profit, as we'd paid out nothing."

He tried to imagine two young girls wandering alone in the wild countryside, at the mercy of wandering outlaws or drunken, disappointed prospectors. "You were what, twelve or thirteen? And your sister even younger?"

"Thirteen. We weren't really settled anywhere until the spring of '50. Maire turned twelve late that summer."

Unwillingly, he thought of his own sisters at that age. Both had still been very much children, sheltered from birth, with no knowledge of the world. They'd have been easy prey. He shuddered. Somehow, though, he knew that Della had never been that innocent—or foolish.

She adjusted her white straw bonnet to better shield her face from the sun—and his gaze. "By the following year, some of the miners were beginning to notice us, in a way I didn't care for. Particularly Maire, who was already becoming quite a beauty. I cut off our hair—over her protests, and my mother's—so we could disguise ourselves as boys. Maire agreed, once I explained things to her."

"And your mother allowed this?" Kenton began to doubt the fitness of her parents to have had the raising of children.

"Oh, I told her it was because of the heat. She never had any idea of how far afield we went in our scavenging. And of course we took care to transform ourselves back into girls before returning home."

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "So you lied to her."

Della looked slightly uncomfortable. "We—I—didn't always tell the entire truth, I suppose. I told Maire it was for Mama's own good, so that she would not worry. She had enough to worry about with Papa already, you see."

"No, I'm not sure I do see. Tell me about him."

She frowned up at him for a long moment, but he simply waited. He'd told her more than he'd intended about his own past, and now it was her turn.

"Before we left Ohio, I remember him as very merry, always with a song or a jest on his lips," she said at last. "But then he changed. I suspect he never forgave himself for Tommy's death."

This was new. "Tommy?"

"My little brother. He was but two when we headed west, and didn't survive the trail. I cared for him as best I could, as did my mother, but he just ... wasted away." Her chin trembled, and though her eyes were shielded by the wide brim of her bonnet, he suspected she was on the verge of tears.