May Bolen never allowed nerves to interfere with anything she wished to accomplish. Nor did she fidget.
As she waited for Samuel Austin III’s arrival, however, she did both. Finally, she settled her attention on Mr. Breaux.
“Remind me, sir,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “The man who walks through that door is the man who will determine whom I marry and whether I am to remain within reach of my father’s accounts or out on the street.”
The attorney had the good sense to look away. “Much as I dislike it, Miss Bolen, the answer is yes. That is exactly what Mr. Austin will be deciding.”
“I met his brother, as you know.” She waited until Mr. Breaux was looking at her again. “He’s a very nice man. A professor of mathematics at Tulane. I do hope the elder brother is as pleasant as the younger one.”
“I have been told I am not,” a decidedly masculine voice said. “Although it was quite kind of Joe to see that you believed him enough to call on Mr. Breaux and agree to this meeting.”
May turned to see a familiar face at the door. “You again.” She looked over at Mr. Breaux. “I do apologize. Apparently this man has decided to once again interject himself into my life. I suggest you call for assistance in removing him.”
“I cannot do that, Miss Bolen, but I can make proper introductions,” the attorney said. “May Bolen, may I present Samuel Austin III. Mr. Austin, it appears you have already met Miss Bolen.”
“I have,” he said as he fixed a smile on her.
“What?” she managed. “But you cannot be …” She paused to shake her head and then gave up speaking in favor of merely staring.
The pirate was the man who would decide her fate? Surely not.
In contrast to yesterday’s workingman’s clothing, Samuel Austin III wore a gentleman’s suit of decent but slightly worn construction and had replaced his boots with a pair of proper men’s shoes. He’d also shaved since their encounters on the dock and aboard the Vengeance, though his hair was still overlong and in need of a trim.
And somehow, he still looked like a pirate.
“You are Joseph’s brother?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“My dear departed mother often voiced the same thought,” he said. “It is a source of pride that my brother has made better of himself and is now associated with a university. However, it is also a source of pride that I have made my own way in the world. I’ll not apologize for the calluses on my hands or the fact that I did not inherit the money that pays my bills.”
“Well said”—she snapped as her anger rose—“although I doubt you’ll also apologize for whatever influence you used over my father to cause him to put you in charge of such an important decision in my life. Was it blackmail, sir, or did you use those callused hands to threaten bodily harm?”
Ignoring her question, Samuel Austin III returned his attention to Mr. Breaux. “Thank you for facilitating our meeting,” he told him as he crossed the room.
The attorney greeted Mr. Austin with a formal shake of hands and then spared May a quick glance before hurrying out and shutting the door behind him. Suddenly the air seemed to go out of the room. May rose and went to the window, turning her back on Mr. Austin.
What an arrogant man. And yet she must somehow find a way to charm him into doing her bidding. Until she could secure his permission to accept one of her offers of marriage, she was at the wrong end of a situation that could end in disaster.
A lady is pleasant, even to the unpleasant. She mustered a smile, though it took several attempts. When May turned around, fully prepared to offer that smile to the ruffian, she found him sitting behind Mr. Breaux’s desk watching her.
“Please sit.” He indicated the chair she’d just left. “I do not believe in wasting time or words, so I would like to get on with this.”
“Yes, of course,” she said sweetly. “Though I do wonder if you’ll enlighten me as to how you came to have the upper hand over me in my father’s will. Perhaps we can begin our meeting with the answer to that question.”
“The answer is, I have no idea.”
She sat back and gave up on trying to charm him. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you. This whole thing sounds preposterous.”
“Might I interrupt?” Mr. Breaux peered around the partially open door. “You see, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and, well, I may be able to shed some light on the subject.”
“Please do,” May said.
“With the understanding that I am legally obliged to keep Mr. Bolen’s secrets unless he has expressly allowed me to speak of them, I can tell you, Miss Bolen, that your father was of sound mind when he chose Mr. Austin. And, Mr. Austin, you should know that he was specific in his choices and that he had very good reasons for them, even to choosing the first anniversary of his death to reveal the terms of his will.”
May looked away. She knew the reasons, and they all amounted to the fact that she’d been a terrible daughter and was now reaping what she had sown. While she may deserve this, however, Mama did not.
“Just one more thing,” Mr. Breaux said, his voice rising. “For better or worse, the two of you are inextricably tied together for the time being. As you’ve both been told, on the thirty-first day, the company begins to be dismantled and your time to work together for a mutually beneficial outcome will be gone. Considering you have less than three weeks until the deadline, I suggest the two of you put aside your suspicions and differences and figure out a way to solve the problem that Mr. Bolen has saddled you with.”
“I had a perfectly good solution,” May said. “In fact, had I not been accosted on this man’s boat and lost my reticule and its contents to the river, I would have proof of three excellent offers of marriage to discuss with Mr. Austin.”
“Without proof there are no offers, Miss Bolen,” Mr. Austin said.
“I assure you I can obtain proof. I will just need time.”
“Time is something neither of us has,” he said.
The attorney exchanged an odd look with Mr. Austin. “That is regretful,” he said when he returned his attention to May. “However I am certain you and Mr. Austin will come to some sort of agreement. Now if you don’t mind, I did allow for an introduction at my office, but I am afraid my time is also short. I have another appointment waiting, so perhaps you will take this conversation elsewhere?”
“I was under the assumption we could use your office. I do not know this man. How can I be seen alone with him?”
Mr. Austin rose abruptly to walk around the desk. “Miss Bolen, at the moment your reputation is the least of your concerns. Let’s give the man his office back.”
Sam wasn’t sure the Bolen woman would cooperate, so when she did, he didn’t waste any time getting her out of the building. They’d reached the street before she did as he expected and stalled.
He placed his palm at the small of her back and urged her gently forward. “Miss Bolen, I do not care if you decline or accept my invitation to relocate our meeting. It’s not me who stands to lose everything.”
“Point taken,” she said in a voice that made him regret his harsh tone. “Where do you propose we go?”
Waving away the liveried driver with the Bolen Shipping crest on his lapel, Sam offered Miss Bolen his arm. “Not far.”
After a short walk, he halted in front of the Bolen Shipping offices. “After you,” he said as he held open one of the ornate double doors with the company emblem carved into them.
This time she seemed more frozen in place than reluctant.
“You’ll have to lead the way,” he told her. “I’ve never been here.”
She looked up at him, tears shimmering. “Neither have I.”
The pain in her voice threatened to stall him right there in the fancy lobby. Instead, he took hold of her elbow and led her across the marble floor to an ornate staircase trimmed in gold. Though he’d spent his life in much less grand circumstances, it didn’t take a rich man to figure out the boss’s office was most likely on the topmost floor.
So he kept walking up those stairs, his grip on the Bolen woman’s elbow just firm enough to keep her moving, until he ran out of stairs. From there, he followed the fancy carpet all the way to the end of the hall where it stopped at a pair of double doors that were a scaled-down version of the ones they’d come through to enter the building.
The Bolen woman shrugged out of his grip to step closer to the doors. Reaching up to rest her palm on the doorknob, she closed her eyes.
“Miss Bolen,” he said. “I rarely ask this question of a woman, but I wonder what you’re thinking.”
“I’m trying not to,” was her whispered reply.
Sam gently moved her aside and opened the double doors. Though he had few memories of the mansion on Royal Street where he’d been born, he could recollect his father’s office at the shipping company. In comparison, this room—which took up fully half of the upper floor of the building—looked as if it belonged to European royalty rather than a man of commerce.
Anything that could be covered in gold or intricately carved had been, from the chairs scattered around the room to the chandeliers overhead. The walls were so crowded with framed paintings that appeared to be Old Masters that the gilded wallpaper beneath could barely be seen. Swags of crimson velvet drapes trimmed with golden fringe blocked out the sunshine and cast the room in a gloomy light.
Without a word, Miss Bolen walked over to that window and pulled the drapes back to flood the office with sunlight. After turning to face him, she gasped.
“What?” he demanded.
Rather than respond, she continued to look at something behind him. Turning slowly, Sam let out a low whistle.
Filling the wall was a larger-than-life portrait, predictably framed in the same gold-painted wood as the others in the room. Unlike the Old Masters paintings elsewhere in the office, judging from the subject matter, this one was painted recently.
“It’s me,” Miss Bolen whispered.
And it was, although Miss Bolen was only one of the dozen figures that appeared to be frozen in time while attending some sort of fancy ball. However, while everyone else was captured from a distance and appearing to be in motion, the Bolen woman stood perfectly still, her smiling face peering around her dancing partner to look directly at the artist.
Her hair was elaborately done up with what looked like pearl combs, and she wore strands of pearls around her neck and encircling the arm that reached around to grasp her escort’s shoulder. Very little of her dress was visible, but what could be seen was white.
The subject of the painting brushed past him to stand before her image. Slowly she reached out to press her palm against the canvas.
“I don’t understand,” she said to Sam when he moved to stand beside her. “I haven’t seen my father since I was a child. How could he …?” Her voice faded away as her hand dropped to her side.
Sam shrugged. “Perhaps a gift from your mother?”
Her laugh held no humor. “I doubt that. There was little love left between them when they parted. I doubt she would consider doing this or, for that matter, allow it to be done.”
“So you did not pose for this?”
Miss Bolen looked up at him, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. “I’ve never seen that ballroom in my life nor worn those pearls or that dress, so no, I can safely say I did not.”
Just as he’d done at the attorney’s office, Sam grasped her elbow and led her away from the painting and toward a pair of chairs situated in front of her father’s desk. Once she’d settled there, Sam considered the chair behind the desk but chose the place across from Miss Bolen instead.
“So here we are,” he said.
“Yes,” she responded, her voice shaky. “Here we are.”
“I know you have questions about the situation we’re in, and so do I,” Sam said. “But I don’t think either of us—”
The door flew open and an older woman, willowy thin and nearly as tall as Sam, stepped inside. “Who are you?” she demanded as she crossed the room at a surprisingly swift pace. “Oh,” came out as a soft cry when she stopped in front of Miss Bolen. “It’s you.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said as he stood. “Who are you?”
“I’m Roselyn Gallier, Miss Bolen, your father’s business partner.”
Sam’s surprise must have shown, because the older woman turned to him. “I am left to assume you are Mr. Austin.”
“I am,” he said as he shook her hand. “Breaux did not mention he had a business partner.”
“Well, no, I don’t suppose he would have. Thomas bought out my part of the business a few months before he died with the request that I stay on until the transition was complete.”
“Transition,” Miss Bolen said. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“An accurate one, I do believe; but in any case, I’m going to be your new best friend,” she said with a chuckle, “because I know where all his important papers are as well as where he kept the key to the safe and the home on Chartres Street. But if you’re here, well, you probably already know all of these things.”
“I know none of these,” Miss Bolen admitted. “I’ve been staying at a hotel. I wasn’t certain what the arrangements would be so …”
She reached over to pat Miss Bolen on the shoulder. “You let those tears out now,” she said. “Losing a papa, it doesn’t ever come easy no matter the situation. Just know that he loved you very much.”
“I don’t know that at all,” she snapped. “In fact, I am appalled at his treatment of me in his will and completely confused as to why he has a portrait of me that I never posed for. I am also appalled that you would think you knew how he felt about someone with whom he never made the attempt to know.”
“Your father was a complicated man. Stubborn as a man could be and yet the Lord got hold of him anyway. He told me before he died that his greatest wish was to go back in time and fix what he’d broken in his life.”
“A convenient response considering,” Miss Bolen said.
Her eyes narrowed. “I’d say it was most inconvenient, what with the two biggest regrets in his life being how he conducted his business and how little time he spent with his only child.”
“Yes, well, I have your word to take for it because I certainly heard nothing of the kind from him. However, I will have that key to my father’s home. As I am apparently going to be destitute soon, staying at the Hotel Monteleone seems like an unnecessary expense.”
“Yes, of course. You’ll find the staff is paid through next month, so there shouldn’t be any inconveniences for you staying there. I’ll see that a key is delivered to the Monteleone for you within the hour.”
“Wasn’t that nice of him?” she said in a most sarcastic tone before turning her attention to Sam. “I think our attempt at conversation is over for today.”
To punctuate her statement, Miss Bolen turned her back on them both and walked toward the door.
“Then I will call on you tomorrow,” Sam said. “At your father’s home.”
She stopped short and whirled around, likely unaware that the expression on her face mirrored the one on her image in the painting. “Mr. Austin, my father may have appointed you guardian of my future, but you are not guardian of my present. I shall meet you when and where I wish and if I wish. Do you understand that?”
“You have less than three weeks left before any arrangement between us means nothing. Are you sure you want to be so difficult?”
She looked away. “All right, then. Half past ten tomorrow. I’m sure Miss Gallier can provide the address.”
“That’s Mrs. Gallier, and yes, I can do that.” When the door shut behind Miss Bolen, the older woman reached over to touch his sleeve. “Now don’t you mind her. From what I know about all this, she’s not had an easy go of things despite the fact she was born in luxury. Having more money than love is not good for anyone.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that,” he told her. “My father was a lousy businessman, but we never had to wonder how he felt about us or our mother, rest her soul.”
Mrs. Gallier gave him an appraising look. “Yes, you’re Samuel’s son. How is he?”
“You knew him?” At her nod, Sam shrugged. “Determined to outlive us all but failing miserably.”
Her smile was broad and quick. “Well, I do like to hear that he has lived a good life. I wondered given, well …” She paused. “Water under the bridge, all that. Look, I do not know the particulars of whatever it is that will requires you to do, but I do know one thing. That painting over there, Thomas commissioned it exactly as you see it. He gave that poor artist such grief until every detail was just right.”
Sam walked over to the painting as he listened to Mrs. Gallier. Up close the brushstrokes and colors showed the artist was possessed of a unique talent.
“Do you know what the title of this painting is, Mr. Austin?” When he shook his head, she continued. “May’s Wedding.”
He let that thought settle as he said his goodbyes.