Chapter 23
The Next Morning
Rosalind tried to keep the knife from trembling in her hand as she spread marmalade across her toast, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
A quick glance at her father told her he hadn’t noticed, which was good, because it was all she could do not to spring out of her seat and ask if he’d discovered his secret ledgers were missing.
He hadn’t said a word about her being in the library or even going out last night. He’d still been gone by the time she got back to the house, and she’d hoped the servants wouldn’t say anything about her quick trip down to the harbor, but she could never be sure whether they would talk.
But so far that morning, neither her father nor Leeland had even acknowledged her existence. All they’d done was talk about their meeting last night at the hotel.
“McCrae seems eager to help.” Leeland shook the saltshaker over his eggs, dumping three times the salt Rosalind would have used. “I hope your brother can work something out.”
“He will. McCrae will make the perfect business associate.” Her father took a sip of his coffee.
“His familiarity with Alaska rivals the Amoses’, but he has more ships, and he might even be able to undercut their rates.
If Simon gives him the contracts he just took from them, it could be the beginning of the end for the Amoses. ”
Leeland shoved his toast into his egg with a satisfied grunt, causing the orange yolk to smear across his plate. “It’s a clever strategy. Starve their business slowly enough, and no one can blame you when it dies.”
“It’s one strategy.” Her father took another sip of coffee, a bored look on his face. “Though I’m starting to think ridding Alaska of the Amos family might require a multipronged approach.”
Rosalind’s stomach clenched. Just what did her father have planned now?
She didn’t want to know. She just wanted to leave Sitka and disappear, but she should probably tell Yuri about this McCrae man and the shipping contracts next time she saw him. Then at least his family would know what was coming.
Leeland loosed a dark chuckle. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to see what unfolds next, but I really do need to get back to Seattle.”
Rosalind set down the toast she’d been about to take a bite of. “You’re leaving?”
“The day after tomorrow.” He reached out and settled his hand across the back of her neck. “Don’t be too disappointed, darling. I’ll be back in time for our wedding.”
She stilled beneath his touch, then took a small bite, trying to ignore the way the toast turned to sawdust in her mouth.
He leaned close until his lips were next to her ear. “Will you miss me?”
She nearly choked. “I . . . Of course. Very much.”
He chuckled and sat back, moving his gaze back to her father. “She’s not very good at lying, is she, Caldwell?
Her father sent her a brief glance. “No, but you’ll find that’s to your benefit. It’s impossible for a person who can’t lie to hide anything from you.”
The toast she’d just swallowed churned in her stomach.
Was it impossible for her to lie? Or at the very least, to cover something up?
Did her father know about the ledgers, and this was his way of leading into the conversation?
Her abdominal muscles tightened, as though already anticipating the pain of his fist connecting with them.
“See that?” Her father nodded her direction. “Look how she squirms after being caught in a lie.”
Leeland turned to her again, his gaze heavy as he ran his eyes over her.
If only the floor would open up and swallow her. But it didn’t, so she forced herself to take another bite of her toast.
Her father dabbed his face with his napkin. “I noticed you were going through the bookcases yesterday, Rosalind.”
She froze, her breath suddenly feeling like it scraped over a thousand jagged shards of glass as she sucked it into her lungs.
“I assume the books sitting in a pile on the floor are for the library donation,” he went on. “I trust you weren’t being careless with what you chose to donate. Some of the books in the library are quite valuable.”
“I only took ones that I know neither of us have any interest in.” She tried to keep her voice neutral, tried not to give away any of the fear roiling inside her, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. “Would you like to go through them before I donate them?”
“That won’t be necessary. Just avoid sorting through the books on the bottom rows. I’ve had the servants shelve some of my personal favorites there, and I don’t want those donated. Understood?”
The bottom rows? So he hadn’t noticed she’d removed some of the books, taken the ledgers from behind them, and then put them back? “Yes, sir.”
“Make as large a donation as possible. Perhaps the library can even shelve the books we donated in its own section with our name on it.”
Her fingers clenched beneath the tablecloth.
The library was already getting named after them.
Wasn’t that enough? “I’ll bring it up at the next board meeting.
I’m not sure getting our own section of the library will be possible, but I could probably talk the board into placing a stamp on the inside fold of the book stating who donated it. ”
As long as the library also placed similar stamps on the books that came from donors. But she wasn’t going to tell her father that.
“Books,” Leeland muttered around a mouthful of food. “Not much good unless they’re ledgers or legal records.”
“You think that because you’re a man of business, but my daughter prefers stories. Most of them are nothing but dreams.”
Rosalind took a slow sip of tea. The ledgers she’d touched last night certainly weren’t a dream, even if she’d found them hidden behind a stack of novels.
Avoid sorting through the books on the bottom rows, he’d said. As in, all of the bottom shelves?
She had looked through the books on only one bottom shelf, but the library was filled with wall-to-wall shelves.
What if there were more records hidden behind the other shelves?
What if her father had been falsifying seal-harvest numbers for more than just past year?
Or what if there were records of other illegal activities, like bribing the Marshal?
She needed to search all the lower shelves in the library, and maybe some of the upper ones too. But that shouldn’t be hard. She often sat in the library. With its soaring windows that overlooked the town and the harbor, it was the most peaceful room in the house.
She just needed to make sure her father was distracted and the door was locked before she looked.
She picked up her toast and lifted it to her mouth.
A meaty hand gripped her wrist. “Don’t take another bite.”
She looked up to find Leeland glaring down at her. “I’m sorry?”
“You’ve eaten enough.” He tightened his grip on her wrist until it hurt. “It’s unbecoming for a woman to overindulge.”
Heat crept up her neck. She hadn’t even touched the ham on her plate. Only the slice of toast and half a poached egg.
“Leeland,” her father said mildly, “you’ll have her for a lifetime. Let her enjoy breakfast.”
Leeland gave a slow shake of his head. “She’ll thank me when her corset closes without a struggle. No man such as myself should accept a bride with anything more than a sixteen-inch waist. I’m sure you’d expect the same if you were to remarry.”
“My corset closes just fine,” Rosalind breathed.
“Only because it’s not laced tightly enough.” He glared down at her. “A woman of your station is expected to have an hourglass figure.”
Rosalind shifted. “I have an hourglass figure.”
“Not one with a small enough waist, which is why you need to restrict your food intake.”
Rosalind stared down at her plate, trying to ignore the pangs of hunger in her stomach.
She’d had friends back in Washington, DC, who insisted on having tiny waists, some of them even insisted on getting their waists down to sixteen inches.
It was quite fashionable in the city, but those friends would get the worst stomachaches after eating a fancy meal, and the laces on their corsets were drawn so tight around their ribs, she swore half of them had trouble breathing.
She didn’t need to be a doctor to know that forcing a woman to maintain such a small waist wasn’t healthy.
If she married Leeland, would she be expected to maintain that shape for the rest of her life? Even after bearing children?
“Well?” Leland said.
She looked up and realized he was still watching her with those hard eyes that never expressed anything other than displeasure.
“What do you say? Will you work on trimming down your waist by the time I return?”
“I . . . yes. I’ll make it my top priority.”
“Good.” Leeland took another bite of his eggs and toast, ignoring the yolk from the egg that dribbled down the side of his chin.
She lowered her gaze to her untouched ham and folded her hands in her lap. Two days. That was all she had to endure of the horrid man beside her. Then she planned to never see him again in her life.