Chapter 28 #2
Seeing Henry Clay Frick before her eyes was like seeing a mirage in the desert after many years of wandering in circles.
Was Mr. Colt correct in recognizing the man?
He looked like Mr. Frick’s picture in the paper.
Why was he talking to Monty? Had Monty recognized him and confronted him for her? For the town?
Questions raced through her mind in the quick seconds it took her to cross the street to them.
Mr. Frick’s lip curled at her approach.
Monty didn’t appear incensed with the man wearing a perfectly tailored suit and silk tie. In fact, he looked … sick. Had Mr. Frick threatened him? Or her?
She swallowed her fear and plowed ahead. “Monty.”
Monty’s fingers grazed her elbow. “Annamae, now’s not a good—”
“Are you Mr. Henry Clay Frick?” She stared at the man before her, observing his thin hair slicked to the side and the way the tops of his ears pointed away from his head.
“I am. Lovely to make your acquaintance, Miss Annamae Worthington.”
Shock stole her next words. Had Monty told him her name?
“As I was saying before you crossed the street,” Mr. Frick continued, “I came to thank you for leaking such tantalizing details to the Pittsburgh Post. How unfortunate your scheme didn’t result in the ending you’d hoped for.”
The viper refused to look her in the eyes, as if she wasn’t worthy of the gesture.
Her hands shook with animosity. “How fortunate for you to get away with murder yet again.”
Monty gripped her arm and attempted to steer her away from the man. “Careful, Annamae.”
She wrenched her arm from his grip and swung around. “Does the name Abraham Worthington sound familiar?”
Monty lowered his head into his hand.
Mr. Frick acknowledged her then. “Should it?”
Tears pricked the back of her eyes at his callous tone. “He was a puddler at the Edgar Thomson steel mill. He died falling into a vat of molten iron after you refused to improve working conditions, citing that unions have no business in your factories.”
Cold, uncaring eyes calculated her. “The name is of no significance to me. Accidents happen in places that employ thousands of workers. Surely a Red Cross nurse understands that.”
Her fingers curled into fists against her thighs. She’d never wanted to inflict harm on another human being the way she did right now. “How convenient for you that the deaths of two thousand people living below your precious lake were also deemed as ‘accidents.’ ”
The sardonic twist of Mr. Frick’s mouth sent a chill down her spine. Monty angled his body in front of hers.
“Well done, Montgomery. Every time I sent you the most beautiful women in the country only for you to refuse them, I thought you were mad. You were simply waiting on a filly with spirit.”
Lasciviousness snaked around his statement.
Monty … Mr. Frick sending him the most beautiful women in the country? How well did he know Mr. Frick?
“I see I’ve taken you completely by surprise, Miss Worthington.” Mr. Frick chuckled then turned to Monty. “Have you not shared with your intended that you were once the most eligible bachelor in Pittsburgh?”
A chill shot down her spine. She studied Monty. The blue eyes she’d dreamed of waking up to every morning narrowed in regretful apology.
She faced Mr. Frick. “What do you mean?”
The tip of Mr. Frick’s cane sparkled in the sunlight as he rotated it in his fingers. “Only that my nephew is quite taken with you.”
She sucked in a breath.
Monty turned away.
The world around her grew fuzzy at the edges.
Her legs went weak. Why wasn’t Monty correcting this horrible man? Shouting that he was a liar?
Why did she know her life was about to change in a horrible way she didn’t want it to?
Mr. Frick’s chagrin looked anything but genuine.
“I apologize, my dear. I see I’ve surprised you once again by revealing that Montgomery is my nephew.
Sad tale, really. He is the only child of my wife’s brother, Thaddeus Childs.
His parents and siblings were killed in a storm crossing the Atlantic.
We raised Montgomery as our own. We gave him the best of everything, including a position running the family business, but, unfortunately, he thinks his purpose is here. ”
He spat the last word as if it were rotten food.
Monty’s reluctant gaze found hers. It was true, all of it.
She was going to be sick.
Covering her mouth with a shaky hand, she spun and walked as fast as she could away from the man who’d killed her father and the man who’d shattered her heart.
Sounds ricocheted in her ears, bouncing from loud to soft and back again. Her cotton blouse stuck to her clammy skin, offering no relief from the heat. Bile worked up her throat, but she swallowed it down, determined not to make a spectacle of herself in front of the whole town.
She thought she heard someone calling her name, but she kept walking as fast as she could to the edge of town. Without a clue where she was going, she kept moving, kept attempting to flee the reality that had upended everything she’d thought was real.
When she went until she couldn’t take another step, she covered her face and let the tears fall. Monty was Henry Clay Frick’s nephew. He’d listened to her story about her father, held her, and encouraged her to forgive that wicked man, all the while concealing that he was one of them.
Of course he wanted her to forgive. Her vendetta was against his family, and blood was thicker than water, as the saying went.
She startled at the shuffle beside her. Monty reached out.
“Don’t touch me.”
He stepped back. “I didn’t mean for you to find out that way.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.” Tears blocked her vision of him. “You didn’t intend for me to find out at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why? Why didn’t you tell me? When were you going to tell me?”
He faced the stone bridge below them and the repairs nearing an end.
“Everything I’ve told you is the truth. I walked away from my family when it became clear that men like my uncle were their own gods.
I didn’t want any part of it. I wanted to follow a God who was infallible.
One who wasn’t limited to a finite mind.
One who couldn’t make mistakes like the flesh can.
God called me here, and I haven’t seen or spoken to my uncle since.
He banished me from Clayton and the family the day I announced I’d chosen God over what he offered.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m just Monty. ”
Her chest heaved. “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me. Especially after knowing that evil man killed my father.”
He inhaled and exhaled loudly. “When I came here and saw the state of this town, the success and the detriment, I realized right away that no one would listen to what I had to say if they knew where I came from. A starving man won’t listen to the message of one who’s never experienced the pangs of hunger. ”
“That’s as ridiculous as saying a wounded patient won’t listen to my counsel if I’m not bleeding as well. The fact is, you took the coward’s way out, afraid no one would accept you if they knew who you were. You didn’t want to be rejected, because you’d already lost everything.”
She threw daggers as fast as she could and didn’t care where they landed. “In your quest to spread the truth, you hid it. You stole our chance to judge you for ourselves. You’re no different from your uncle, parading around like you’re one person when you’re really another.”
Monty tipped his face to the sky. “I suppose I deserve that.”
Annamae dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief. “Now I know why you didn’t want me to expose the club member list. You wanted to protect your uncle and your reputation.”
“No, I did it to protect you.” He gripped her elbows, eyes intense.
“Do you remember what I looked like the day Jim found me in the church? I was half-dead, Annamae. My uncle sent his henchman to silence me after I wrote to him and threatened to expose his involvement. He did that to his own nephew. I know what my uncle is capable of, and I didn’t want his corruption to taint you. ”
Flashes of him lying on the bed with oozing cuts and a broken nose flashed through her memory. So did her agony over the possibility of internal wounds that might take his life. “You’ve encouraged me to forgive that man.”
Her voice broke.
“I only encouraged you to do what I had to learn to do myself. Believe me, I understand how hard it is to forgive that man.”
The ice in Mr. Frick’s tone when he’d informed her that Abraham Worthington’s life was of no value to him was something she didn’t think she could ever forgive.
A pastor’s wife must be capable of forgiveness, which made her unworthy of Monty.
His omission made him unworthy of her. Which meant they had no future together.
She pressed her fingertips to her swollen eyes, and her next steps became clear. She dried her cheeks with her sleeve and smoothed her hair and blouse. She placed careful steps on the uneven path to leave in search of Clara.
“Now I’m going to ask you to forgive me,” Monty called from behind her.
She halted and closed her eyes. Words pressed against her lips, but she clamped them together.
“We’re both guilty of sin. We’re both guilty of poor choices.” Agony carried his voice. “Please don’t abandon us. We can spend our future overcoming and striving to be better people, together.”
Or she could return to Washington to her quiet, solitary life where she could protect her heart.
“The beauty of being set free from bondage is that we don’t have to let the anger and bitterness of our pasts hold us back anymore. We can drop the chains and walk away.”
She let his statement penetrate her mind. Then she dropped the chains of hope she’d carried for so long—hope that she would someday find companionship—and walked away.