The Lady of Bolton Hill (26 page)

She did her best to smile in return. “I’ll be waiting for that diamond.”

D
aniel stared at the paper work before him on his immense walnut desk. Placing his signature at the bottom of that document would represent his complete and total surrender. It meant that Alfred Forsythe would be free to gorge himself on as many of Daniel’s innovations as he could devour. Forsythe’s company would grow fatter and richer. Daniel could feel the eyes of Lou Hammond, his lead attorney, on him, almost gloating as Daniel signed the last of the documents.

“I imagine Ian Carr will be delighted about this,” Hammond said as he waved a document in the air to dry Daniel’s freshly inked signature. At the mention of his partner’s name, Daniel’s face darkened. Ian would not be celebrating anything in the near future. In one of the most difficult conversations of his life, Daniel had told Ian of Jamie’s machinations. When he finally comprehended the magnitude of what his only child had done, Ian had sobbed like a baby.

“Just file the paper work with the county attorney. I’ll have my secretary draft an offer of licensure to be sent to Forsythe Industries on Monday.”

Daniel was surprised at how easily the command had rolled from his tongue. He never thought he would live to see the day when his company offered their technology to Alfred Forsythe. Over the past years, each time Daniel learned that Forsythe had to replace his rails early or had his trains damaged due to the use of inferior equipment, Daniel could imagine his father reaching out from the grave to twist the knife in Forsythe’s gut. That image had sustained Daniel for over a decade.

Now it was time to let his father rest in peace.

Daniel waited for his attorney to leave with the all-important documents, then pushed back from his desk and turned to watch the late afternoon sun from his office window. Clothing was strewn about the office, and a brand-new shaving case rested on a filing cabinet. He’d been living here in the three days since he had left Clara’s house. Lorna was puzzled as to why he would not return to her home. His sister Katie had been there ever since the fire, and it was the logical place for him to go.
“After all, you did pay for the place,”
Lorna had told him.

How could he explain to his sisters that he needed solitude? They believed the sun rose and set on him, that he was some sort of invincible hero who could snap his fingers and all his problems would be magically solved. He would not bring his struggles before his sisters, who would try to cheer him up or dismiss the demons that were eating at him.

For what is a man profited, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

The words came unbidden to his mind. Daniel was not much for scripture and verse, but he’d certainly heard the phrase enough in his life to know it applied directly to him. For years he had lavished wealth and attention on that house, and it had burned to the ground in less than an hour. Was the artwork and crystal worth yelling at Clara over? He had just signed papers that would bring him more wealth than he could possibly spend in a lifetime, and yet it brought him not an ounce of joy. Nothing. What he craved was to feel peace, and that could not be bought with riches or nurtured by living in a fine mansion. Neither could it be obtained by grinding Alfred Forsythe into the dust. Indulging his vengeance had brought him a sense of triumph, but never had it brought him peace. Now all he wanted was to find a way to quench the thirst in his soul.

His gaze was caught by the church on the corner of the street two blocks down. For years Daniel had been looking out this window, yet never once had he been tempted to set a foot inside. To do so would force him to confront raw, open wounds that were easier to ignore. It would have been the height of hypocrisy to sit in a church pew while his heart was roiling with vengeance. But he was surrendering his quest for revenge. He still felt polluted with the stain of bitterness, but the battle was over. He had let Forsythe win. Now that he was no longer plotting acts of aggression, would the bitterness fade and heal with time?

He had always demanded his sisters attend church. He wanted them to know the solace and grounding so many people found through abiding by the principles of Jesus. Daniel had always known his thirst for vengeance disqualified him for a godly life. He hardly needed to step inside a church to find that out.

Memories crowded to the forefront of his mind. It was hard to even remember who his mother had been before she became the hollow-eyed shadow of a woman, but once she had been a vibrant Christian who had taken joy in her family and her faith. Who had failed whom during those final years? It was his mother’s horrific choice to put a rope around her neck and choke the life from her own body while her daughters were in the next room . . . and yet, Daniel could not stop believing that God had failed his mother. Wasn’t the love of Jesus supposed to have saved her? Held her in the palm of His hand through the terrors of the night?

Coming to terms with these awful memories was the price Clara wanted him to pay in order to start a family with her. The outward motions of granting Forsythe access to his inventions had been done—now came the hard part.

The walls of the office were closing in on him. Impulsively Daniel grabbed his jacket and headed outside. He felt drawn to the church, as though the answer to his questions could be found inside the building.

The heavily paneled doors of the church creaked open, and Daniel slipped inside. As he sat in the back pew, a torrent of thoughts crashed through his mind. He would do or say
anything
for Clara, but how could he persuade his soul to accept something he instinctively rejected? He signed the papers that relinquished his vendetta against Forsythe, but the bitterness still smoldered. He had allowed Bane to be treated and walk out of Clara’s house a free man. How much more would Clara need from him? He was sitting in the pew for several minutes before a minister walked down the center aisle toward him.

“Sir? I don’t believe I know you. I’m Reverend Lewis.”

“I don’t attend here,” Daniel said. “I was just passing by and had the impulse to step inside.”

“You are more than welcome for as long as you wish. Or if I can answer any questions for you . . .”

The minister’s offer dangled in the air. He clearly did not recognize Daniel, which is how Daniel wanted it. This minister was a stranger whom he need never see again, so perhaps he could speak frankly. “There is a woman I wish to marry,” he began. He had never spoken of his intentions toward Clara to anyone, and the words echoed in the cavernous church. He drew a ragged breath and began again. “She is a devout woman, one who will insist on a commitment to the church before any kind of marriage would be considered.”

The minister smiled knowingly. “Is there something preventing you from moving forward with your faith?”

His mother’s image floated in his mind, and his hands clenched into fists. “My mother committed suicide,” he said weakly. Even saying the word sounded foul, a repulsive word in this sanctuary of peace.

“I’m very sorry for that.”

Daniel looked at the minister and voiced the thought he had never been able to say to another human being. “She believed in Jesus her entire life, but if I accept the Christian doctrine, it means I will have to believe my mother is burning in hell.”

The minister’s eyes widened, then dimmed in sorrow. “I’m sorry you have been led to believe that,” he said. “I can’t pretend to say I understand the grief that led your mother to reject the gift of life, but Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and that includes the sin of suicide. And nothing, not even your mother’s own destructive actions, can separate her from God’s eternal love. Do not let thoughts of this cause you to turn away from the gift of the Lord’s light.”

And as the minister spoke, sunlight broke through the clouds that had been blanketing the city all day and streamed through the stained-glass windows of the church, bathing the sanctuary in warm amber light. It could have been a freakish coincidence or the Lord sending a message—or it could be that the sunlight was a gift sent from his mother, letting him know that she was home.

Daniel gazed at the light, shades of gold and saffron blazing, and just as quickly as it appeared, it faded away into the twilight of the evening. The glimmering light had lasted no more than a few seconds, but it was enough. It had purified the memories of his mother that had always been stained with despair. He knew his mother now lived in a glow of sunlight. Relief washed through Daniel. If the love of Jesus extended even after those awful final minutes of her life, then his mother was living within the shelter of the Lord at this very moment.

Reverend Lewis did not notice Daniel’s distraction. “The signs of the Lord’s love may not always be obvious,” the minister said, “but throughout your life, the Lord will seed your path with many blessings. If you can learn to spot them, perhaps it will not be so difficult to sit beside your fiancée in good faith when you come into the church on Sundays.”

The minister’s words sparked a chord in Daniel. The Lord
had
blessed him. He had been blessed by being born into a loving family and possessing a sound mind and body. In his gritty world of steel mills and tenements, a sudden burst of inspiration had guided Daniel to Clara Endicott’s doorstep, where he was given the immeasurable gift of her friendship. Throughout all the years and the ocean that had separated him from Clara, the Lord continued to nurture the bond that had woven them together. And surely, even when Clara had been temporarily besotted with a man who was not worthy of her, the Lord had sent her the warning signals which Clara had heeded.

He remembered the sight of Clara racing down the pier, hand in hand with Bane as the docking exploded behind them. Perhaps the Lord had even dropped that horrible, nasty boy into their midst as a lesson to him. If a hardened criminal like Bane had the insight and ability to make a change in his life, surely Daniel should have the fortitude to do the same.

The corner of his mouth turned up in a reluctant grin. Reverend Lewis was sitting in the pew beside him, his face riddled with concern, and it would be horribly inappropriate to laugh. Under no circumstances should he give in to the hilarity that was welling up inside him, but the idea of Bane being a gift from God was too amusing to suppress. He knew he was grinning like an idiot and the minister likely thought he had lost his mind, but Daniel found that he just didn’t care.

Clara’s father returned from New York with successful legislation in his pocket. Lloyd had listened with a combination of horror and pride as Clara recounted what had happened over the past week. There was no point in attempting to keep the incident quiet, as Jamie Carr’s arrest was major news and she had spent an entire morning providing statements to the police.

About Bane, she had said as little as possible, and omitted the episode on
The Albatross
entirely. She had taken Bane’s warning to heart about the danger she and her family would be in should the extent of her involvement with the destroyed opium ever be discovered.

“I think this would make for an interesting story,” her father said as they relaxed in his study. “The downfall of Jamie Carr is a classic example of the dangers that a sense of entitlement can bring to our youth. It could prove to be a most instructive story, should you choose to write about it, Clara.”

Clara sat curled up on the window seat in her father’s study and looked at Lloyd in mild horror. The tragedy of what had befallen Ian Carr was not something she would ever race into print, no matter how instructive it might be. “I couldn’t do that to Daniel,” she said. “He looked physically ill when he realized what this would do to his partner.”

Clara nearly bit her tongue when she saw her father’s sour reaction to Daniel’s name, and she turned away to watch the wrens building their winter nest outside the window. It was true that Daniel had been less than gentlemanly over the last few weeks, and lately he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. It had been almost five days since he had said good-bye to her on the sidewalk, and the only thing they heard from him came in the form of a single letter from his lawyer, noting that Daniel’s lawsuit against them had been rescinded. Other than that, there had been nothing. That her father still harbored doubts about Daniel was obvious, but he was too cautious of treading on their fragile reconciliation to bring it up.