5. The Last Will #2
“He reminds me of someone,” Edward added.
“Not of me. I was never that bold at his age.” He paused to collect his breath.
Kate’s eyes found his. “He reminds me of you. Standing in that office doorway, seventeen years old, telling me you wanted to learn the routes. That you wanted to understand the ledgers. That there was no reason you couldn’t.
” He looked at her with such pride in his eyes that Kate nearly allowed a tear to fall down.
She blinked. “You had that same quality. The willingness to propose the thing no one else would say aloud.”
Kate said nothing for a moment. She just swallowed hard.
Then, “I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment to him or a warning to me.”
Edward closed his eyes again, giggling. “Both, perhaps.”
Kate joined his small laugh.
A soft knock interrupted them in that moment and Dr. Hale entered with his medical bag and his usual professional calm.
Kate rose slowly, setting the reports aside as Edward stirred in his bed, alert despite his pallor.
“Ah, Hale,” Edward said, lifting a hand. “Come to prod me like a prize ox, have you?”
Dr. Hale allowed himself a faint smile. “Only enough to be sure you’ll keep breathing through the week, sir.”
He approached the bed and began his customary examination, listening closely to Edward’s chest, tapping gently along his back, checking the pulse with experienced fingers.
Kate watched from her spot near the desk, arms crossed, holding herself still as the doctor moved efficiently. But as the minutes passed, she saw something shift in Dr. Hale’s demeanor—a hesitation in his movements, a deepening line between his brows.
Edward noticed it too. “Out with it.”
Dr. Hale stepped back, folding his hands loosely before him. His earlier ease had faded. “The congestion in your lungs has worsened. The rattling is deeper, and your breathing more labored than last week. The tinctures no longer seem to be helping.”
Kate’s hand tightened on the back of the chair. Edward, however, remained calm, resigned, even.
“How long?” he asked with the directness that had served him throughout his business career.
Dr. Hale hesitated before saying, “A few weeks. A month at most. I’ll do what I can to make you comfortable, but… it’s time to settle what you must.”
Edward nodded as though unsurprised by the verdict, while Kate remained outwardly stoic despite the way her world tilted around her.
“Thank you for your candor,” Edward said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I need to speak with my daughter.”
After Dr. Hale’s departure, the silence stretched between father and daughter, heavy with unspoken fears and desperate plans.
“Kate, you must send for Mr. Phillips.”
“Your solicitor?” Kate’s voice carried forced lightness. “Surely that can wait until—”
“It cannot.” Edward struggled to sit up straighter against his pillows. “There are matters we must settle. Tonight.”
Kate sat down heavily, exhaustion finally showing in her posture. “Father, you need rest, not legal consultations.”
“What I need is to ensure you’re protected. The company—”
A violent coughing fit interrupted him, and Kate quickly poured water, helping him drink while tears she’d held back threatened to fall again. Her father was actually dying, time slipping through her fingers like sand… and she would be utterly alone once he was gone.
“You know the partners will try to force you out,” Edward said when he could speak again.
“Let them try.” Kate’s defiance carried less conviction than her words suggested.
“Without my name, without a husband’s name—”
“Father, please. Not this again.”
“The will, Kate. The provision isn’t my choice. It’s the only way to ensure—”
Kate stepped back abruptly, gesturing emphatically. “I refuse to sell myself for the sake of Sullivan Shipping!”
“Then you’ll lose everything I’ve built! Everything we’ve built!”
The outburst cost Edward dearly. He fell back against his pillows, breathing heavily while Kate watched with growing alarm at what her resistance was doing to him.
“Father, please,” she said, taking his hand gently while sitting on the bed’s edge. “There must be another way.”
“Send for Mr. Phillips, Kate,” Edward whispered with the last of his strength. “Now.”
Later that evening Kate sat in the corner of the bedchamber watching her father’s fitful sleep, her face set in the particular stillness of a woman holding herself together by force of habit. When the knock came she rose to answer it herself.
Mr. Phillips entered with his portfolio and the careful expression of a man who had delivered difficult news often enough to have made a profession of it.
Edward’s eyes opened at the sound.
“Edward.” Phillips set his papers on the small table by the bed. “Your message said urgent.”
“Sit down, James.” Edward looked at Kate. “You too.”
Kate sat.
“I want the partnership deed amended tonight,” Edward said. “While I’m still able to instruct you directly.”
Phillips opened his portfolio without surprise, which told Kate this was not the first conversation they had on the subject.
“The amendment will establish a condition on Kate’s inherited share,” Edward continued, his eyes on his daughter now rather than his solicitor.
“Her portion passes into a trust upon my death. It transfers to her fully and without encumbrance if she marries within three months. If she does not, the trust dissolves and the shares pass into the hands of her cousin, Thomas.”
“To Thomas,” Kate said flatly.
“Yes.”
She stood. “He knows nothing about shipping! He’d run the company into the ground within a year!”
“Which is why I am asking you to marry.” Edward’s voice was quiet but without apology. “Not a man who will take the company from you. A man who will give you the name the law requires and leave the rest to you.”
“And where exactly am I meant to find—”
“The deed specifies marriage, Miss Sullivan,” Phillips said carefully, not looking up from his papers.
“The partnership’s interest is in the Sullivan name remaining within the firm’s ownership.
The deed specifies nothing beyond the ceremony itself.
” He paused with the precision of a man choosing his words exactly.
“What a marriage is in private is entirely a matter between the parties.”
Edward looked at Kate then. “There is one condition beyond the deed though. Mine.” He paused to collect his breath. “Any man you marry must be willing to take the Sullivan name alongside his own. The company keeps its name. You keep yours.”
Kate looked at him. “You cannot ask a man to give up his name, Father.”
“I am not asking,” Edward said quietly. “You are. And the right man will not hesitate.”
Kate looked at him for a moment. Then she sat back down.
The room was quiet except for the scratch of Phillips’s pen beginning its work and her father’s uneven breathing. Edward watched her from his pillows with eyes that were tired but not without shrewdness.
“I believe,” he said softly, “that you have already met the right man for this.”
Kate said nothing. She turned to look at the dark window, away from his sharp gaze.
But she had no difficulty understanding what her father meant. The image of Mr. Moore’s respectful handshake, his deference to her authority, his soft hands, his careful mannerisms and his handsome smile filled her mind.
The question was no longer whether she could find a suitable husband, but whether she could bring herself to use a man who had shown her nothing but respect, and whether such a use might be the only way to save everything she had ever cared about.