As Lee pulled into the gate area of the Empress Mine, he did his best to act nonchalant and exchange banter with the guards. No one checked him and he drove to the far end of the camp to let the man hide in the trees until Lee could go from house to house to start getting a meeting together. Only three men would meet with the organizer at a time. The young man would stay there all day and into the night, risking his life every minute. And Lee would go from house to house looking at the children and telling the men where to meet the organizer and, with each telling, he was putting his life in peril, because he already knew that one of these men was an informer.
Chapter 13
Blair woke on Sunday morning feeling wonderful. She stretched long and hard, listened to the birds outside her window and thought that it must be the best of days. Her mind was full of all the things that she and Lee had done the day before. She remembered the way he’d repaired the man’s intestines, his long fingers expert, knowing what he was supposed to do.
She wished Alan could have seen him operating.
Suddenly, she sat upright. Alan! She’d completely forgotten that she was to meet him at four o’clock yesterday. She’d been so worried about Houston, about how her sister had made a fool of herself over those rings, and then the call from Lee had come, and she’d sensed he was just asking her to go with him out of a sense of duty. She had never dreamed that she’d be away all night.
Susan came to tell her that the family would be leaving for church soon after breakfast and that Mr. Gates had requested that she go with them. Blair hopped out of bed and hurriedly dressed. Perhaps Alan would be at church and she could explain that she’d been away working.
Alan was there, three pews ahead of them, and no matter what Blair did, he wouldn’t look around after his initial glance. To make her feel worse, he was sitting next to Mr. Westfield and Nina. After church, Blair managed to get near him for a few minutes in the little yard outside the building.
“So, you were out with Westfield,” Alan began the moment they were alone. His eyes were angry.
Blair stiffened in spite of her good intentions to be humble. “I believe you were the one to agree to a competition, not me, and part of the arrangement was that I not refuse Leander’s invitations.”
“All night?” He managed to look down his nose at her even though they were nearly the same height.
Blair at once felt defensive. “We were working, and we got caught in the midst of a range war and Leander says that—.”
“Spare me his words of wisdom. I have to go now. I have other plans.”
“Other plans? But I thought maybe this afternoon—.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. That is, if you think you’ll be home.” With that, he turned on his heel and left her standing there.
Nina Westfield came by to tell her that Lee had to work at the hospital the rest of the day. Blair climbed into the carriage with her mother and stepfather and was only vaguely aware that Houston wasn’t with them.
At home, Opal was fussing about the dining room, arranging flowers on the table, setting it with the best tall silver candelabra.
“Are you expecting company?” Blair asked idly.
“Yes, dear, he’s coming.”
“Who is?”
“Houston’s Kane. Oh, Blair, he is such a lovely man. I just know you’re going to love him.”
Minutes later, the door opened and Houston came in leading her big millionaire by the arm, as if he were a prize piece of game that she’d just bagged. Blair had first seen him earlier in church, and she admitted that he was good-looking —not as handsome as Leander, or even Alan—but more than presentable, if you liked that overly muscular type.
“If you’ll sit here, Mr. Taggert, next to Houston and across from Blair,” Opal was saying.
For a moment, everyone just sat there looking at their plates or about the room, no one saying anything.
“I hope that you like roast beef,” Mr. Gates said as he began to carve the big piece of meat.
“I’m sure to like it better’n what I usually get, that is, until Houston here hired me a cook.”
“And who did you hire, Houston?” Opal said, with a bit of ice in her voice, reminding her daughter that lately she’d been leaving the house, and been gone for hours, with no one knowing where she was.
“Mrs. Murchison, while the Conrads are in Europe. Sir, Mr. Taggert might have some suggestions for investments,” she said to Mr. Gates.
From then on, Blair thought, there was no stopping the man. He was like an elephant in the midst of a flock of chickens. When Mr. Gates asked him about railroad stock, Taggert raised his fist and bellowed that railroads were dying, that the whole country was covered with railroads and there was no more decent money to be made in them—“only a few hundred thousand or so.” His fist came down on the table and everything—including the people—jumped.
Compared to Taggert’s temper and loudness, Gates was a kitten. Taggert brooked no disagreement whatever; he was right about everything, and he talked in terms of millions of dollars as if they were grains of sand.
And if his bellowing and arrogance weren’t enough, his manners were appalling. He cut his slice of roast with the side of his fork, and when it went sliding across the table toward Blair, he didn’t even pause in telling Gates how to run the brewery as he pulled the meat back onto his plate and kept on eating. Ignoring the three vegetables that were served, he piled about two pounds of mashed potatoes onto his plate and emptied the gravy boat on top of the white mountain. Before he was finished, he’d eaten one half of the ten-pound roast. He knocked over Houston’s teacup, but she just smiled at him and motioned for the maid to bring a cloth. He drank six glasses of iced tea before Blair saw Susan secretly pouring his glass from a separate pitcher. Blair then realized that Houston had arranged for Taggert to drink dark beer with ice in it. He talked with his mouth full and twice had food on his chin. Houston, as if he were a child, touched his hand, then his napkin, which was still folded beside his plate.