The Vow (40 page)
“Just before Cecelia died, she told her husband that the baby was Reiver’s.
Tuttle threatened to send her to a foundling home if Reiver didn’t take her.”
Samuel looked aghast. “He brought his mistress’s child here and expected you to raise it as your own? And you agreed to it? That’s noble and very generous.”
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“Hardly that, because I demanded a high price in return. I wanted controlling shares in his company.” She paused. “And he gave them to me.”
He stared at her in stunned disbelief. “You’ve been running Shaw Silks?”
“Reiver does, but I have the final say. I am not a figurehead.”
Samuel leaned back in his seat, balancing himself with his left hand. “Well done, Hannah.”
“No one else knows about Elisabeth’s true parentage,” she said. “If they’ve guessed, they’ve prudently kept it to themselves.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“I knew it would be.”
“And the mill?”
“To the world, Reiver still runs it.” Hannah’s brow furrowed. “I know it was petty and vengeful, but I had to do it for Benjamin and Davey. I was afraid that Reiver might leave everything to his illegitimate daughter, and I couldn’t have that. Not after the way he treated Abigail.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“Your children always were the guiding force in your life.”
She thought of what Reiver had said last night about nothing keeping her here if she chose to leave with Samuel. “They still are.”
He glanced at her. “You have changed. You’re much stronger than you used to be.”
“Amos Tuttle once called me devious.”
“Devious? You’re the most honest woman I know.”
Then Hannah told him how she had helped Reiver to acquire the Bickford farm.
“So Shaw Silks has become your passion as well.”
“You sound disappointed.”
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“Not disappointed, envious.” He stared at the horizon. “Everyone has a purpose in life except me.” Then he shook his head. “There I go again, feeling sorry for myself.”
“You needn’t. Shaw Silks will become a part of your life as well.”
Hannah would see to that.
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Chapter Eighteen
Monday, September 21, 1857, was the perfect day for James and Georgia’s wedding.
Hannah stood off to the happy bride’s left as her attendant and listened to the half-deaf Reverend Crane shout out the marriage ceremony as if everyone else couldn’t hear.
How different this wedding is from mine so long ago
, she thought.
Today over one hundred friends, relatives, and workers crowded the small church, most filling the pews to overflowing and the rest packed together in the back. Unlike Hannah’s wedding, this bride and groom wanted to marry each other.
Hannah’s eyes filled with sentimental tears when Georgia said her vows so enthusiastically, her words rang like the joyous pealing of wedding bells. She smiled when James brushed his hair out of his eyes before placing the wedding band on his bride’s finger.
May you always be as happy as you are today
, Hannah thought.
Then the groom kissed his bride and they walked down the aisle as husband and wife, out into the late-afternoon sunshine that was pouring its own blessing down on them.
Hannah circulated among the guests on the lawn surrounding the main house, complimenting the women on their finery and being complimented in
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turn on her elegant blue silk gown trimmed with flounces and narrow satin ribbons.
Mostly she kept an eye on Samuel.
From across the lawn she watched him as he sipped a cup of punch and appeared deep in serious conversation with the overseer of the new Hartford ribbon factory.
Samuel avoided women, though one or two cast come-hither looks in his direction. He ignored them.
Hannah drifted over to the group of men gathered around Reiver.
“…and have you been satisfied with Chinese silk?” one of them asked.
Reiver shook his head. “Not at all. The raw silk I’ve been getting has been so inferior that it makes me wish we could breed silkworms in this country.”
Burrows, the paper mill owner, laughed. “We all know what happened when you tried that!”
The rest of the men joined in the laughter.
Reiver continued with, “I’ve heard talk that next year we’ll be signing a commercial treaty with Japan to open their port of Yokohama to foreign trade.”
Another man said, “Why Yokohama?”
“Geographically it’s the nearest Japanese port to the United States,” Reiver replied, “and it’s accessible to their big silk-producing districts. Right now producing silkworm eggs and selling them abroad is most profitable to the Japanese. I think if they turn from egg production to producing raw silk, we will have a whole new source, higher in quality than the Chinese can produce.” He paused. “In fact, I’m considering traveling to Japan to meet with their silk merchants myself.”
Hannah started. Reiver traveling to Japan?
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Burrows glanced at Hannah and noticed her stunned expression. “I think you’d better tell your wife your plans, Shaw.”
“Please do,” Hannah said. “I’d be interested to hear them.”
Reiver just grinned disarmingly. “I’ve put off telling you because you’d try to talk me out of it.” He looked around at his cronies. “Hannah can’t bear to be without me.”
“A devoted wife.”
“Worth her weight in gold.”
“Wish my wife would miss me as much.”
Hannah shut her ivory fan with an annoyed snap. “If my husband’s absence benefited Shaw Silks, he could stay in Japan for as long as he liked.” She turned and glided off in an angry hiss of silk.
So Reiver planned to go to Japan. She wondered if he was going to wait until he booked passage before telling her.
Hannah had scant time to reflect on Reiver’s latest plan. She was in the middle of a wedding reception and her concern for her guests’ enjoyment of the festivities had to take precedence.
As she approached the refreshment table, her worst nightmare came true.
She overheard a woman say, “What a shame that Samuel lost his hand.”
“I was so shocked when I saw him,” said another.
The speaker was none other than Patience Broome, the woman Reiver had once told Hannah Samuel loved. Now a plump matron, Patience piled her plate with sandwiches as heedlessly as she spoke.
“I always thought him so handsome,” Patience said, her voice carrying, “but what good is a handsome man if he’s a cripple?”
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Standing on the other side of the table was none other than Samuel. Judging by his stricken expression, he had heard every word. Drawing his right arm close to his body, he turned and walked away.
Seething, Hannah wanted to pull out every bouncing ringlet on Patience’s golden head. Instead she waited until the tactless bitch had a cup of punch in her hand, then she purposely swung around, her elbow jabbing Patience in the ribs.
“Oh, how clumsy of me!” she exclaimed as punch splashed a wide brown swath down the front of Patience’s dress.
“My dress!” Patience wailed, dropping her plate. “It’s ruined!” She had seen what Hannah had done but dared not accuse her hostess of bumping her purposely.
“I’m so sorry,” Hannah said, trying not to gloat. “I will, of course, pay for a new one. Just have your dressmaker send me the original bill.”
Her satisfaction was worth every penny.
Hannah counted the minutes until the reception would finally end and she could go find Samuel.
She found him in the homestead, sitting alone in the parlor with only shadows and silence for company.
Hannah maneuvered her wide skirts through the door. “It’s so dark in here.
May I light a lamp?”
“If you wish.”
“I brought you a piece of wedding cake since you weren’t there when the happy couple cut it.” She set the plate down so she could light the lamp. Its warm glow revealed Samuel sitting in a chair with his elbows propped on its arms and his long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles.
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Seeing him there with his proud head bowed and his shoulders slumped, Hannah felt a fierce, overpowering urge to protect him. She wanted to build a wall around him and keep the rest of the world at bay, but as she reminded herself, he was most adept at doing that without her help.
He smiled wryly. “You needn’t come hunting me down to soothe my hurts.”
She gathered her skirts and settled herself in the chair across from him. “Not all women are as cruel and thoughtless as Patience Broome, you know.”
“I used to think I knew women.” Samuel rubbed his forehead. “But after the accident I discovered that I didn’t know them at all.”
“How do you mean?”
“As long as I was attentive, whole, and gainfully employed, I was worthy of their attention, but once I lost my hand, they avoided me as if I were a leper.”
“Samuel Shaw, do I detect a faint note of self-pity in your voice?” When he colored, she added, “I thought you told me that you never indulge in it.”
“I am merely offering a more realistic assessment of your fair sex.”
Hannah raised her brows. “And are you including me in that assessment?”
“You’re the exception.” He stared into the cold, empty fireplace. “I’ve always held you in the highest esteem.”
“I should hope so. We were once lovers.”
As always, any mention of their former relationship caused Samuel to withdraw from her, becoming as unreachable as the stars. She wondered why.
“Surely on your travels you met some admirable women.”
Samuel’s shifting moods flitted across his features. “Yes, I did. One was a prospector’s young widow searching for gold. She always wore men’s trousers and her late husband’s shirts. Another was a dance-hall girl offering her favors to as many men as she could to save enough money to return east. They both 352
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offered me comfort when I needed it most. And in Australia, I was going to marry a lady rancher descended from English convicts.”
Hannah’s eyes widened in surprise even as an unexpected knot of jealousy tightened deep inside her. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“After I lost my hand, she called off the wedding. She said she was sorry, but without a hand, I couldn’t help her work the ranch. She gave me enough money to return home and sent me on my way.”
“Of all the cruel, insensitive—”
“You needn’t be indignant on my behalf. She was a practical woman and I don’t blame her for bowing out.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t be as charitable.”
A bittersweet smile touched his mouth. “Ah, but you were very much alike.
You both put duty before personal desire.”
Stung by his mild reproof, Hannah became reflective. Samuel was right. She always had followed the dictates of duty and family obligations, but they had served her well. Benjamin and Davey were fine, upstanding young men, and she now enjoyed the unexpected satisfaction and heady power of controlling Shaw Silks.
Suddenly Samuel’s company weighed her down with melancholy. Hannah rose. “I have to get back to the house to supervise the cleaning up.”
He rose. “You needn’t worry about me, Hannah. It takes more than a cutting remark to defeat me.”
You are still so fragile
, she thought,
no matter what you may think.
She smiled and wished him good night.
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Walking up Mulberry Hill on her way back to the main house, Hannah saw Davey’s heavyset figure hurrying toward her, his round face flushed with indignation.
Hannah groaned inside, for she recognized his determined expression all too well. Davey’s private scales of justice were out of balance again, tilted in Benjamin’s favor, and he was seeking to right them with a vengeance.
“What is it?” she asked.
Huffing and puffing, Davey paused to catch his breath. “Mama, Father has taken Ben into Hartford, and he wouldn’t take me with them.”
“Hartford? At this hour? It’s almost dark.” The sun had set long ago, leaving only the lingering September twilight. “Did he say where they were going, or why?”
“No, Mama, they wouldn’t tell me, and Ben goes around acting like he knows something I don’t. Did Father say anything to you?”
“No, he didn’t. I assumed that your uncle’s wedding and reception would be enough excitement for one day.” Evidently not.
Davey thrust out his lower lip. “Why does Father always leave me out?”
“Don’t sulk. It’s an unattractive trait in a young man.”
“He doesn’t love me as much as he loves Ben, does he?”
“David Shaw, that will be quite enough!”
“Why? I’m his son, too.”
“Your father loves you both equally, and I’ll not hear another word about it.”
Hannah placed her hand on her son’s shoulders “I don’t know where they’ve gone, but I’ll find out once they return.”
Back at the house, Hannah sat in the parlor and waited. And waited. The room grew dark as the hours slipped by, but she didn’t bother to light a lamp.
She dozed fitfully, sitting up in her chair.
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She awoke at the sound of the front door slowly opening.
She listened. She heard soft, deliberate footsteps, followed by lowered voices and an emphatic “Sssh!” Hannah rose, lit a lamp, and walked into the hall.
Reiver and Benjamin froze when they saw her.
Hannah folded her arms. “Where have you two been?”
Reiver exchanged a guilty look with his son. “Hartford.”
“And you couldn’t take Davey with you?”
“Not this time.” Reiver looked pointedly at Benjamin and grinned.
By lamplight, Hannah noticed the disarray in both Reiver’s and Benjamin’s clothing, as if trousers had been hastily pulled on and cravats clumsily tied.