The Vow (35 page)
A summer breeze blew through the open kitchen window, carrying the sound of Georgia’s laughter as she chased Elisabeth across the lawn.
Hannah stared at Reiver. “You think the banks are purposely refusing to do business with you? But why?”
A muscle twitched in his wide jaw. “Think, Hannah. Who has cause to hate me so much?”
“Amos Tuttle. But surely you don’t think he would—”
“Use his influence to keep my company from succeeding? I wouldn’t put anything past him.” He went to the window and stared out, hands on hips.
“Remember Tuttle Senior wrote off my first loan because I didn’t press charges against his son for shooting me, but he didn’t promise to give me another loan, either. And who knows? Perhaps he asked all of his banking cronies not to lend me money.”
“I didn’t think bankers allowed personal feelings to stand in the way of profit.”
“Most of them don’t, but I wouldn’t trust Tuttle.”
Hannah added some molasses cookies, then covered the basket with a clean linen cloth. “It’s too bad Samuel isn’t here. I’m sure he’d lend you the money from the sale of his lithographs, as he used to.”
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Reiver gave her an odd look. “But he’s not, so we’ll have to get the money by some other means.”
Hannah settled the heavy basket into the crook of her arm. “I’m going to bring this over to Bridget’s house. I shall be back shortly.”
On the way to Bridget’s, Hannah thought about Amos Tuttle being the cause of Reiver not getting a loan. On the way back from Bridget’s, she came up with an idea that might make him change his mind.
A week later Hannah stood before the unimposing façade of the National City Bank and fought down the butterflies in her stomach.
When she had told Reiver she intended to go to New York and speak to Amos Tuttle directly, he exploded. What could she possibly hope to accomplish?
And what would Tuttle think if Reiver Slaw sent his wife to fight his battles for him?
Hannah remained adamant. Reiver finally agreed to let her try, but only if he accompanied her.
So here she was, standing in front of Tuttle’s bank on a hot summer’s day, with Reiver waiting in a carriage around the corner.
She went inside, and a clerk escorted her to Amos Tuttle’s upstairs office.
While waiting, she forced herself to remain composed and rehearsed what she planned to say.
“Mrs. Shaw?”
She looked up to see Amos Tuttle standing in the doorway. Gone was the ebullient whey-faced young man Reiver delighted in disparaging. This Amos Tuttle was a gaunt, middle-aged man who looked twenty years older, with meticulously groomed thinning hair and a hard, weary face sculpted by suffering 302
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and disillusionment. He had the look of a man who was cared for solely by servants.
Hannah hesitated. Would he regard her as his enemy’s wife and send her packing? To her relief, a flicker of something akin to sympathy flared deep within his eyes.
Betrayal forged an undeniable bond.
“Mr. Tuttle…thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“Come in.” He stepped aside so she could precede him, then he shut the door to his spacious, elegantly appointed office and offered her a seat in a plush leather chair. “I must confess that I’m surprised to see you here, Mrs. Shaw, and quite curious as to why you would seek me out, under the circumstances.” He sat down behind his wide mahogany desk and leaned back in his chair.
Hannah took a deep breath. “I have come to ask a favor for my husband.”
Tuttle’s hard face turned so red, Hannah feared he would have an apoplectic fit. He jumped to his feet and glared down at her out of narrowed, outraged eyes.
“Have you no pride, Mrs. Shaw? After the way your husband betrayed you, making you the laughingstock of Coldwater, you would lower yourself to come here and ask a favor of me for him?”
Though her cheeks burned at his insult, Hannah remained calm. “Yes, I would, and you’ll understand when I explain why.”
“This should be interesting.’ He sat back down. “Proceed.” Hannah told him what had happened when Reiver went to the Hartford banks for a loan to buy the Bickford farm, and how he had been turned down repeatedly.
She faced Tuttle squarely. “We think that you are behind this ostracism, and that you have asked the other Hartford bankers to refuse to deal with the Shaws.”
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He burst out laughing, a thin, wheezing sound. “I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life.”
Yet Hannah detected a blatant falseness in his tone.
“Besides,” he added, “even if it were true, you’d have a devil of a time proving it.”
She rose. “I agree. But I’m sure you are behind this because it is exactly the sort of thing I would do if I were in your shoes.”
“Would you, now?”
“Without hesitation.” Hannah strolled over to a large window overlooking crowded Wall Street. “Do you know what my husband had to agree to before I would take Cecelia’s daughter?”
“No, Mrs. Shaw, I don’t,” came his strained reply.
“My price was a controlling interest in Shaw Silks.”
Tuttle’s eyes bulged. “He gave it to you? Without a fight?”
“Yes, he did, but not without a fight. For all of Reiver Shaw’s many faults, he loved Cecelia and he loves their daughter.” She looked at him. “He chose his daughter over his silk mill. Now I legally control sixty percent of the company.”
“I don’t believe it. Shaw would never—”
“If you need proof, I’ll give you the name of my lawyer and he will substantiate my claim. Reiver continues to run the mill, of course, and as a sop to his considerable pride, we let the rest of the world think that he still controls it.
But he doesn’t.”
“You do surprise me, Mrs. Shaw. When I first met you at dinner that night, I thought you were a lovely and charming woman, eager to please her husband, but not particularly strong-willed. I never suspected you of being so—so—”
“Devious, Mr. Tuttle?”
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He spread his hands in an apologetic gesture. “Clever is the word I would have used.”
Hannah raised her chin. “You were not the only victim of Reiver’s selfishness. I had to endure being the object of gossip, and my children the taunts of their school friends. I will never forgive my husband for subjecting my sons to that as long as I live.”
She smiled. “But I digress. If you agree to speak to your fellow bankers in Hartford and persuade them not to ostracize Shaw Silks, both of us will benefit.”
“I fail to see how I will benefit at all.”
“If the company should fail, Reiver’s dreams would be destroyed, true. But if Shaw Silks prospers, I will continue to control it.” She raised her brows.
“Wouldn’t that be punishment enough for a proud man, to see his mill prosper and to know that it will never be his again?”
They locked gazes for what seemed like an eternity. Hannah held her breath and prayed.
“How do I know you won’t return control of the company to your husband?”
“If I did that, I’d put myself in Reiver’s power again. He could divorce me or take another mistress. Then where would I be?”
Tuttle nodded. “I take my hat off to you, Mrs. Shaw. You’d do a Borgia proud.”
She was relieved he couldn’t see her knees knocking beneath her long skirts.
“It’s a rather fitting revenge, don’t you agree?”
“Most fitting. Why kill a man quickly when you can make him suffer and kill him slowly?”
“Exactly.” Hannah paused. “So, you will talk to your Hartford banker friends?”
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“I’ll see what I can do.”
She thanked him and turned to leave.
“Mrs. Shaw?”
She turned back. “Yes, Mr. Tuttle?”
His hard face twisted with pain. “How is Cecelia’s daughter?”
“She is a sweet, happy little girl, as beautiful as her mother, and I love her and care for her as if she were my own.”
Having told Tuttle what he yearned to know, Hannah left his office without a backward glance.
“Well, what did he say?”
Hannah seated herself across from Reiver in the carriage and settled her skirts about her. “Nate’s farm is as good as ours.”
Reiver let out a loud whoop of triumph that caused a passerby to stare through the carriage window. “So the bastard was behind it after all.”
“He wouldn’t admit it,” Hannah said, “but I think he was.” Reiver grinned and shook his head as if he was unable to believe his good fortune. “What did you say to him that made him change his mind? I’m surprised he agreed to see you at all.”
“I threw myself on his mercy, that’s all. I told him that if Shaw Silks didn’t get this loan, it would surely fail. And if that happened, my children—including Cecelia’s daughter—and I would be destitute.”
“You mean to tell me that he agreed to talk to the Hartford bankers because he felt sorry for you? That I find hard to swallow.”
“Why? Amos Tuttle is a very compassionate man.”
And a hard and bitter one,
thanks to you.
“He couldn’t bear to hurt a helpless woman and her children.”
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Before Hannah could blink, Reiver was at her side, holding her hand. “Thank you, Hannah. I’ll remember what you did today as long as I live.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Hannah recoiled at his touch. She drew away and fussed with her collar.
“Shouldn’t we be getting back to the train station?”
Reiver nodded and returned to his side of the carriage, signaling the driver to be off.
But he didn’t stop staring at his wife.
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Chapter Sixteen
Hannah thought it fitting that the Bickford farm now belonged to the Shaws, just retribution for all she had suffered at the hands of her own cold, uncaring relatives.
She stood beside the dry-stone wall bordering the tobacco field where she had once toiled, so stooped over that she thought she’d never straighten her spine again. The plants no longer shivered in the warm summer breeze, for they had all withered and died from Nate’s neglect and been cut down to rows of ugly stubble. Someday houses for the Shaw workers would rise in their place.
“Hannah?”
She adjusted her parasol to block out the sun and kept staring out over the field, caught up in her own dreams.
Reiver came to her side. “Are you looking over my latest acquisition?”
“I was reminiscing.”
Reiver placed one foot on the stone wall and leaned on his knee. “This is the place we first met. Do you remember?”
“Of course. I almost collapsed because of the heat, and you insisted on taking me back to the house.”
“Isn’t it amazing how one incident can change a person’s entire life’?”
Hannah absently shooed away a horsefly. “Yes. If my parents’ carriage hadn’t skidded that winter night, I’d be still living in Boston right now, no doubt married to a doctor, like my father.”
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Reiver removed his foot from the wall and sat down facing her. “Do you think your life would have been better if you hadn’t come to Coldwater?”
She refused to spare him. “In many ways, yes.”
He winced. “Candid, as always. Granted, our life together has been far from perfect, but it hasn’t been all bad, has it?”
“No,” she agreed. “You gave me Benjamin and Davey.”
And Samuel, by not
loving me.
Reiver smiled slowly. “They’ve grown into fine young men any parent would be proud of.”
“Yes, but I wish Davey weren’t so envious of Benjamin.”
“A little competition between brothers is to be expected. I wouldn’t have them any other way.”
Hannah frowned. “You’re uncharacteristically sentimental today.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been examining my life, too. I’m forty-three years old.
The best years of my life are almost over. When you’re young, you think you’ll live forever.” He looked out over the field. “Where does the time go?”
She regarded him closely, and for the first time she saw the subtle signs of aging. While Reiver’s stocky physique was still as hard and sleek as it had been in his twenties, new lines scored his face, and his thick light brown hair revealed strands of silver.
She knew she should offer him some reassuring platitude, but she couldn’t.
“It’s too hot out here. I’m going back to the house.” And she turned to go.
“Wait.” Reiver slid off the stone wall and walked over to her, his blue eyes beseeching. “It’s time we put the past behind us, Hannah. I want us to start fresh.” He looked back at the field. “We can pretend it’s the summer of 1840
again and I’ve just rescued you from heat prostration.”
“You ask the impossible of me.”
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“I’ve forgiven you for Samuel. Why can’t you forgive me for Cecelia?”
“Because my affair with Samuel didn’t hurt you as much as your affair with Cecelia hurt me.”
His gaze slid to the ground. “I’m sorry I could never love you as you wanted to be loved, but I loved Cecelia long before I met you. I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that I never did.” He sighed. “Now she’s dead, and no matter how much I want it, she’s never coming back.”
Hannah flinched, surprised at how his love for Cecelia could still wound her.
The most she could offer him in the way of comfort was to say, “You have Elisabeth. Part of Cecelia still lives in your daughter.”
“That is of some comfort to me, but I need more.”
Hannah raised her brows.
Reiver grasped her free hand and stared deeply into her eyes. “I want peace between us, Hannah. I don’t want us to spend what’s left of our lives alone, two strangers living in the same house.”
“By ‘peace’, I’m assuming you wish to avail yourself of your husbandly rights?”