Love Finds You in Mackinac Island, Michigan (31 page)

“How does that work?” Nelson scooted the chair closer to the desk, and Richard sat in a chair beside him.

His assistant was even more anxious for the company to invest in this telescope, but Chase wished he would stop tapping his foot on the carpet. It wouldn’t pay for any of them to be nervous.

Chase shuffled through another stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a contract that he and Richard had written with their attorney. Nelson took it from him.

“You patent this telescope and we will find a manufacturer to make it,” Chase explained. “Then we sell them to department stores and put advertisements in the major newspapers across the country so people can see the wonders of the heavens for themselves.”

Richard cleared his throat. “The wonders of the heavens?”

Andy would have said something much more eloquent than that, but it was the best he could do. “What’s wrong with wonders?”

“Nothing, I suppose.” Richard glanced at Nelson and then looked back at Chase. “It just doesn’t sound a bit like you.”

Chase nodded at the papers. “Can we focus on the business at hand?”

Richard scooted to the edge of his chair, looking over Nelson’s shoulder at the contract. “After the cost of making and distributing the telescopes, this says that you and S. P. Darrington & Company will split the profits in half.”

Nelson pushed the spectacles up his nose. “Half the profits?”

Chase shifted on his chair. He’d been through this conversation many times with inventors. They often wanted more than half of the profits, but they didn’t take into account the risk S. P. Darrington & Company was taking. Chase wanted to invest in the telescope, but his father would never allow them less than a 50 percent partnership.

He reached for the contract. “I’m sorry it’s not satisfactory.”

“Oh, no.” Nelson tugged the papers closer to him. “So if you sold, say, a thousand of these, what would our profits be?”

Richard reached across the desk for another paper outlining the potential profit margin. He slid the paper toward Nelson.

“Here’s what you would make if we sell a thousand.” Richard pointed down the column. “And here is the amount if we sell ten thousand.”

Nelson gasped. “Do you think we can sell ten thousand?”

Chase nodded. “If we do our job right by pricing and advertising it well. And then we hope people start telling their friends how amazing your telescope is.”

Nelson held out his hand. “I’d like to sign.”

Chase handed him the pen. “Do you have a plan on how you would use this money?”

Nelson studied him for a moment, as if Chase should know the answer. “I’ll build a stronger telescope.”

Chase leaned back, pleased with his words. “Of course.”

He and Richard shook Nelson’s hand, exchanging the satchel with the telescope for a signed contract to make many more. After he left, Chase swiveled in his chair and watched the man and his worn bag climb onto a streetcar along Dearborn Street. He was almost sad to say good-bye to it.

“Andy would be pleased,” he said, so quietly he didn’t think anyone heard him.

“Who’s Andy?” Richard asked.

He glanced back at his assistant in surprise. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t talk about Andy or Elena, not with Richard or anyone else, yet her name flowed naturally from his lips…even as she haunted his thoughts.

He picked up the stack of messages on his desk and began thumbing through them. “Don’t you have something to do?”

Richard watched him for another moment. “Nothing pressing.”

“Surely you can find something of moderate importance to occupy your time.”

Before Richard could respond, someone knocked on the door. Chase expected the messenger boy again, but instead the doorman stood in front of him, a panicked look on his face.

“Your father is on the telephone, Mr. Darrington. He said it’s an urgent matter.”

Chase dropped the stack of messages. His father never used the telephone.

The doorman led him quickly to the booth in the lobby.

* * * * *

The afternoon sun warmed the bedroom, but even with the sunshine Elena shivered under her covers. No matter how many wool blankets her mother piled on top of her, the coldness still clung to her skin. She closed her eyes in the light, the rays warming her face.

God had been there in the woods. She felt Him just as strongly as she’d felt His presence in the lighthouse. He had protected her from the hands of a man who wanted to hurt her.

God had been there, and He’d listened to her. Now she prayed a new prayer. She prayed that God would protect Chase, as He had protected her, from the man who wanted to ruin him. According to the Scriptures, the enemy meant to steal, kill, and destroy, but if they followed God’s voice, He could use this situation for good. If only Chase would let Him.

She rolled away from the sunlight, Edward’s words playing over and over again in her mind. Did Chase always run when a woman began to love him? Perhaps his leaving her had nothing to do with either her father or her mother. Perhaps he’d been planning to run even before they saw each other at the Grand.

She could pray for Chase, but she never should have allowed her heart to get entangled with a man she didn’t know.

Mama walked quietly into her room and sat down on the bed, holding out a cup of tea to her. Elena could smell the gentle aroma of chamomile. “Nell made it for you.”

Elena took a long sip. Perhaps it would ward off this chill that plagued her.

Her mother took the cup from her and cradled it in her hands. “Are you all right?”

Elena leaned back against the pillows as the tea began to warm her from the inside. She didn’t quite know how she was, nor could she find the words to express it. “I’ll recover.”

“Of course you will.” Mama placed the cup on the nightstand and then tucked the blankets around Elena, like she had when Elena was a child.

Elena’s smile flickered, and then she swallowed hard. “The women will talk, won’t they?”

“Probably.”

Her stomach plummeted again. “I’m so sorry.”

She heard footsteps and turned her head as her father slipped into the room.

Mama patted her hand. “There is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about, Elena. It wasn’t your fault.”

She shook her head. “If I hadn’t been there alone…”

Papa sat down on the other side of the bed. “You should be able to go anywhere on this island you like, Elena, without worrying.”

She swallowed, wishing she could believe his words. “What are the soldiers going to do with Mr. Powell?”

Papa glanced down at his folded hands before he looked back at her. “They’ll have to let him go tonight.”

“Let him go!” Mama exclaimed. “But the lieutenant—he saw what the man did.”

“What he tried to do,” he corrected her. “Thank God he didn’t hurt her.”

Mama glanced at Elena. “He hurt her plenty.”

The room felt as though it were swimming around her, the walls closing in tight. It was true; he hadn’t committed a crime—but he’d intended to hurt her.

She wiggled herself up on her elbows. “I want to go to my lighthouse.”

“Your what?” Mama exclaimed.

“My lighthouse, over on the eastern bluff.”

“Lightho—” Mama stammered. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Papa stood up. “Claude can go with you.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

Mama trailed him out the door. “What lighthouse?” she asked him again before she shut the door.

After the fort’s cannon saluted the sunset and the world melded into black, Elena and Claude walked together out the back door. No one would see her in the darkness, and with Claude at her side, she wasn’t afraid of Edward or any other man. She didn’t comment about the pistol Claude carried on his waist. At one time she might have been afraid of the gun, but tonight she was glad of it.

There was no reason for her and Claude to hurry as they walked down the alley or the wider lane that led to the trail. Both her parents knew where she was going tonight.

Years ago Claude had told her about the lighthouse he’d found when he was a boy, but he’d never told her how he’d come to find it. After that day he’d led her to it, she’d rarely spoken of it to him, afraid someone else might hear.

As she stepped onto the trail a few steps behind Claude, she spoke. “When you were a boy…how did you find the lighthouse?”

“My granddaddy told me all about it.”

She took a deep breath. “Was Jonah Seymour your grandfather?”

He lifted a branch along their path, and she ducked under it. “Mr. Seymour wasn’t my granddaddy.”

“What were the names of your grandfathers?”

“Nickolas Westmount and—”

She interrupted him. “We—I found a journal written by Magdelaine Seymour. It talked about Nickolas.”

He stopped walking. “What did it say?”

On the bluff in front of them was the lighthouse. She nodded toward it. “If it’s still here, I can show it to you.”

As they stepped into the lightkeeper’s home, a scurry of mice feet rushed into the shadows. Claude hung the lantern on a hook and surveyed the room.

“How long has it been since you were here?” she asked.

“Since I showed it to you in ’87.”

“But how long before then?”

He paused. “A good thirty years.”

She sat down at the chair beside the desk. “Why haven’t you come back?”

“This place brings joy to you, Miss Elena, but it brings nothing but sorrow to me. My granddaddy died in 1818 a broken man.”

She hesitated by the dresser. This beautiful tower had been a place of sadness for Magdelaine as well. Perhaps reading the journal would also bring Claude nothing but sorrow.

She opened the trunk and searched through the clothes, but the journal wasn’t there.

“He didn’t bring it back,” she muttered.

He watched the trunk like it might share its secrets with him. “What did Magdelaine say?”

“She talked about missing her husband,” Elena said. “And how your granddaddy brought her and her children food.”

Claude leaned against the stone wall. “He wanted to help them, and I suppose he did at first. But then he did something terrible.”

A shiver chilled her. “What did he do?”

Claude heaved deeply, in and out. “He reported to the British that Mrs. Seymour was living at the lighthouse.”

“How could—why would he do that?” Especially to someone like Magdelaine Seymour, who needed him.

Claude took his watch out of his pocket and twisted the timepiece in his hands. “He got scared, I think, about what would happen to his family if they found out he was keeping this secret. And the British offered rewards to those who turned in people who hadn’t pledged their allegiance to the king.”

“So he took their money—”

“I’m not proud of it, Miss Elena.”

She tried to smile, to reassure him. What a terrible thing it must be, to carry the weight of what an ancestor had done.

“What happened to Jonah?” she asked.

“I’m not certain,” he said with a shake of his head. “I was told Magdelaine went to the fort to search for Jonah. The fort was struck by lightning and there was a fire. Magdelaine was killed.”

Her voice caught. “And her children?”

“Legend has it that they disappeared, killed in the fire maybe, but I sure wish I knew what happened to them.”

Tears stung Elena’s eyes. She was silent for a moment, her heart grieving for Thomas and Molly. “We’re both carrying a heavy burden for bad choices that others made.”

He smiled at her. “I guess I need to listen to my own advice and ask Him for freedom.”

Freedom.

Elena raced across the room, to the desk in the parlor, and rolled back the top. She sighed with relief when she saw her sketchbook. Not that she thought Chase would take it too…

She opened to the last page in the book, her drawing of him with the horse. She should rip it out, throw it away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Thumbing through the rest of the sketches, she stopped. Someone—Chase—had torn out the picture she’d drawn of the woman standing barefoot on the beach. The picture of her.

She wanted to be angry with him for stealing her picture, but she was just confused. Did he want to keep her picture, or did he want to burn it?

She pushed the sketches away and closed the roll top. If only they had met a different way, even at one of the parties or balls, perhaps it would be different now.

Claude stepped up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Miss Elena?” he said softly. “Who else has been up here with you?”

She sighed. “Chase—Chester Darrington.”

Claude sat down on the chair. “Do your parents know?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know it was Mr. Darrington, but he—he was nothing but honorable to me.”

“You must tell your father.”

“One day.”

“Though you might not want to tell your mother.”

A smile edged up her lips. “Mama would hunt him down.”

“It sure is good to see you smile again.”

“I’m sorry about the journal, Claude.”

He checked the timepiece and then slid it back into his pocket. “I’m sure it will turn up.”

She wasn’t so certain.