Glittering Promises (38 page)

Indisposed.
I knew what the captain meant, and Will’s look confirmed it. I blanched at the thought of Pierre, dead, regardless of my beliefs about his intentions. “You will call us in Rome if you hear of him, in any way?”

“Si,” he said.

I had persuaded the rest of our group to let Antonio take them on the long-awaited tour of Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii, but I elected not to go—the mere thought of getting anywhere near it sent me into a cold sweat. There were only two days left in Italy before we boarded the
Olympic
, and a hundred things to occupy a tourist’s time. Yet I wanted to do nothing but hole up in our cozy palazzo apartments back in Rome—knowing that we were well under guard—and sleep, preferably with Will just around the corner.

I was so dreadfully weary, but I couldn’t seem to doze more than minutes at a time. As he’d promised, Will had spent all night sleeping in a chair set firmly against the outside of my door. My sisters had insisted on sleeping with me, and we’d all crowded into the bed. And while I thought it endearing, I also listened to Lil snore softly and Viv smack her lips all night, which hadn’t helped my fitful state.

Will and I arrived at the palazzo again that afternoon, and three or four reporters staked out near the front leaped to their feet. They rushed at us, all calling questions at once, but they all spoke in Italian. I didn’t even look up. One word I could easily make out—
Tivoli
.

So word had already spread of this latest chapter in our story. It was sure to ignite additional fires and send others to our door.

“We can only hope,” Will said to me, as he shut the ancient, heavy front door in their faces, “that none of them have passage on the
Olympic
.” Pascal moved into the main hall, away from us, giving us some privacy. Stephen had accompanied the rest of the group with Antonio.

I smiled up at him, new hope surging through me. He was right! We ourselves had done our best to book earlier tickets; perhaps any reporters hoping to ride along with us, once they found out our departure date, would find the
Olympic
equally full. “With luck, their only hope would be as a stowaway,” I said.

“Bite your tongue,” he said, cradling my cheek and tracing my lower lip with his thumb. He quirked a smile. “I want those six days of passage to be nothing but an idyllic pre-honeymoon. Long, languid dinners, good conversation, dancing…”

I kissed his thumb and smiled up at him, wrapping my arm around his waist. “That sounds good to me. Although I don’t know how I’ll fare on the floor with one arm strapped to my chest.”

“We’ll manage,” he said.

I was turning to follow Pascal when Will caught my hand and turned me back around. “Cora…”

“Yes?”

He looked suddenly bashful, all traces of his flirtation a moment ago disappearing. He put his other hand atop mine. “Back in Tivoli, you said…” He paused and broke off, tilting his head as if summoning the nerve to continue speaking.

“I said I was going to marry you,” I said softly, stepping closer and looking up at him.

He stared at me as if he hadn’t heard what I’d just said. Or couldn’t believe it.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I want to marry you, Will. I don’t know when or where. But after all we’ve been through, I know that life is fleeting. That we must take what we know to be true, right, and hold tight to it. And, Will…you are the truest, rightest man I’ve ever met.”

We shared a long smile, each of us trying to say with our eyes all we felt.

“I have so little, Cora. I—”

“Don’t you see, Will? You have everything I’ve ever needed. I would sell Andrew Morgan all my shares in the mine in order to be with you. And I shall, if that’s what it takes for us to be together. But I want more than anything to marry you, Will McCabe,” I said, tapping his broad chest, “even if we were as poor as church mice.” I stepped away from him. “My folks were as poor as church mice, all my growing-up years. Life was a struggle, hard.” I shook my head. “But, Will, oh, how they love each other. It’s a good love. A right, true love. Like ours. And
that
is all I need.”

He smiled and stepped toward me again. He bent to kiss me, softly at first, then deep and searching. When he released me, I felt slightly breathless. “Let’s do marry, then, love,” he whispered. “Soon. Even aboard the
Olympic
. Would you like that?”

My heart skipped a beat at the idea of it, that soon. As soon as next week? But then, why wait? “Perhaps. It’d certainly be romantic…”

“But you want your folks there? Or perhaps a ceremony in your church in Dunnigan?”

I shook my head and looked up at him. “Honestly, Will, I don’t think it matters to me.” I stared into his eyes then, feeling such love and intensity that my eyes began to fill with tears. “As long as I have you…it’s all I need. We can have a tiny ceremony with the captain alone, as far as I’m concerned.”

He laughed in surprise. “Oh, my dear, practical girl. Your sisters would be sorely frustrated with us if we did that.”

He pulled me over to a settee, sat down, and then urged me into his lap. “So we’ve established we want to marry. And soon. But we also want to be together afterward, right? How do you foresee us doing that, given our disparate goals, and that my life is in Minnesota and yours is in Montana?”

“Perhaps we could settle in North Dakota,” I said with a smile.

“That’d be an awfully long train ride to school every day,” he returned, smiling back. But his eyes remained troubled.

“Our goals are not all that different,” I said. “And I’ve been involved in enough of the business of the mine this month to see that I don’t want to fill my
life
with it. I want to be involved, influential, but Will, I don’t want it to claim my life. I think that’s what happened to my father…his business became him, overcame him.
He
loved it.” I shook my head. “What I’ve done so far…I do not love. Endless numbers, tiresome legal documents…”

Will considered my words. “So what, then? You want out?” He sounded guardedly hopeful.

“No, not out,” I said, rising and going to the window.

He waited where he was, for me to continue, and in my mind, I saw myself in Dunnigan again, and even in Butte. “I want to establish sound goals and fair work agreements. Hire a board of directors that won’t let Andrew run roughshod over those goals. Hire an attorney I trust, to speak on my behalf when I am not in Montana, because I want to be free to leave Montana.”

This made him smile.

“I think,” I said, looking back at him, “Father gave me controlling interest because he thought it would keep me in Montana. Close to him.”

Will nodded and rose. “He was…something. Your father.”

“Indeed.” I gave him a little smile as he wrapped his arms around me again. “He was imperfect, for certain. But in an odd way, I find it heartwarming that he wanted me close to him.”

Will kissed the top of my head. “He was still discovering how smart you are. He would have been both confounded that you managed to find your way out of his plans and yet delighted. Perhaps you were more similar than you imagined.”

At first, his words chafed, but then I smiled. The sun was shining on me and Will through the window, making our reflections dimly visible in the glass. And in that reflection, I studied my face; my lips and cheeks and nose so much like my mother’s, but my eyes…my eyes were my father’s alone. From the start, I’d recognized that unmistakable connection with him, with Felix. The deep blue that ran in the Kensington genes.

Was Will right? Did I take after my father in other ways? I’d spent so much of the summer resisting him, resenting him. But I could see what Will meant. There was a part of me that was surprisingly tenacious, that liked to consider all avenues toward a goal, then pick the best and champion it. I figured that if Father had lived, we would have often argued about which avenue that actually was.

“I think,” I said, and then faltered. “I think that I spent too much time being angry with my father and his attempts to control me that I lost sight of God’s grace in the midst of it all.” I put my good hand over Will’s arms, which were wrapped around my waist. “I wish…I wish I’d spent less time standing against him and more time getting to know what was good about him. Because there was good in him.”

“Some,” he said, a smile in his voice, and I smiled too. “He made it…challenging to concentrate on the good, though.”

I sighed. “Yes. But I think part of that was all the years he spent building one business after another, fighting for them, making him into a hard man. My mother,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper, “could’ve never fallen for a tyrant.”

Will said nothing for a moment, only held me tight. But I’d needed to say the words. Not to condone the sin, but to recognize the humanity and fallibility we all shared. Even our parents.

“I’m glad your mother found lasting love with Alan,” Will said.

“Sometimes,” I said, turning toward him and looking up, “it takes a woman a little time to see who is best for her. Thank you for waiting for me, Will. For loving me, even when my heart was fickle.”

“You,” he said, leaning down to touch his forehead to mine, “have never had a fickle day in your entire life. Trust me, I know fickle women. And you are not one of them. You were simply…” He lifted his chin and smiled. “Misguided.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, smiling too. “I see.” But thoughts of Pierre made me sober.

“What is it?” Will must’ve seen the change in my face.

“How can I leave, Will? Leave Italy without at least knowing he is alive?”

I could feel Will stiffen. “You wish to see him again?”

“What? No,” I said right away. “Not see him in
that
manner. Only to make certain he is alive. To put to rest my crazy thoughts about him somehow being tied to our kidnapping in Tivoli…”

Will took a breath and stepped away from me. He cocked his head. “He’d best tell us he had nothing to do with Tivoli, or he won’t be alive for long.”

I laid a gentle hand on his arm. “In any case, we should pray for him.”

“Pray for a man I may very well wish to tear apart limb from limb?”

“Yes, him, most of all, then.”

~William~

When Cora fell asleep at last that afternoon, exhausted from her ordeal. Will quietly covered her with a throw, then slipped from the room and spoke to Pascal. The man agreed to take up watch right outside her door—and Will set two guards downstairs, outside the palazzo. No one would get in or out without them knowing. “And I don’t want anyone save the Morgans and the Kensingtons to enter while I’m gone. Not even anyone you’ve seen enter this palazzo. Understood?” Will asked.

Pascal nodded once.

Will knew the man didn’t need to be told. But he was taking no further chances. He walked down the stairs and cautiously peered out, afraid he’d be accosted by reporters. But they all seemed to have given up on Cora emerging again today and perhaps had elected to make the most of an afternoon’s siesta, as their favorite source of material had elected to do.

Will made his way down the street, moving quickly, anxious to get back, and then turned left. Another block down, he spied the wire office, and his heart began pounding. Was it there? A response to his query?

Inside, it was dark and quiet, except for the bell that rang as he walked in and shut the door. No one was behind the counter. He grimaced, knowing that the man was probably taking a nap, as was customary, but that he was obligated to remain open because of the nature of his business.
“Ciao?”
Will called.
“Mi scusi, chi è qui?” Hello? Pardon me. Is anyone here?

“Si, si,” grumbled a man from the back. Will could hear the telltale sound of squeaks and rustling, confirming his suspicions.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said to the man in Italian, trying to hide his smile at the man’s hair, which was sticking straight up in back. “But I must know if I’ve received any telegrams in the last week.”

“Name?”

“William McCabe.”

The man turned and began looking through his cabinets, which were set up in alphabetical order. “Signore McCabe,” he muttered, moving to the end.

Will’s neck prickled with anticipation, and then he felt his heart sink as the man began to shake his head.
It isn’t here. It hasn’t arrived yet. What—

But then the man perked up. “McCabe!” he said, pointing one finger up in the air as if he’d just thought of something. He went to the corner of his desk and riffed through another file. Then he pulled out the yellow paper.

Will grinned. He’d found it! “I’m so glad,” he said in Italian. “I’ve been waiting weeks on that.”

“Yes, yes,” said the man nonchalantly now that the thrill of the hunt was over. “It came in last week. These,” he said, waving dramatically at the row of cubbyholes, “are all from this week.”

“Ah.” Will gestured to the corner lamp. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” said the man, already sliding on his spectacles and looking at other papers on the counter.

Will swallowed hard and went over to the light. He slid his finger beneath the small seal and opened the telegram and read it. Then he lowered it, grinning like a Cheshire cat at the waning sun that streamed through the window.

Will left the telegraph office, whistling all the way back to Cora.

CHAPTER 36

~Cora~

I awakened disoriented, the room in deep shadow. “Will?”

“I’m right here,” he said from the winged-back chair in the corner.

“Oh! It’s so dark in here I thought I was alone.”

“I wondered if you might be sleeping through the night,” he said, coming over to sit beside me as I pushed myself up.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Well, let’s see now…” Will made a great show of pulling out his pocket watch, which made me smile. It was the one I’d given him—the one that had very nearly broken us apart. It all seemed so long ago. “About three hours,” he said, snapping the lid closed.

“And I have the groggy head to prove it,” I said, blinking, determinedly trying to wake up fully. We had only tonight alone; the others were not due back until late from Pompeii. I didn’t want to miss a minute more of my time with Will.