“Not to my knowledge. But once the will passes through probate, its exact terms will become public knowledge, and the existence of a necklace containing a flawless, thirty-two carat pink sapphire is the sort of sensational news the papers will jump on.”
“Can’t we leave the jewels where they are until I return?”
The lawyer frowned, seeming affronted. “As executor, I have a legal obligation to fulfill the will’s exact terms. And even if the law did not require it, my ethics would.”
Jonathan was tempted to offer a witticism about the mention of lawyers and ethics in the same sentence, but he doubted Mr. Jessop would appreciate the joke. “Still, why would she want them? Mourning doesn’t allow her to wear jewels until April.”
“Not publicly, no, but do you think she’ll be content to leave a priceless necklace of pink sapphires and white diamonds in a vault untouched and unworn until next April?”
“Probably not,” he conceded with a sigh. “She’ll want it close by, I suppose, so she can try it on and show it off to her friends.”
“Exactly. We can protect her inheritance far more easily than we can her jewels. They are insured, of course, but it would be a shame if they were stolen.”
“I take it,” Jonathan said, studying the lawyer’s urbane countenance, “you have a suggestion to make?”
“Her jewels remain part of the trust until August thirteenth, and we can safeguard them however we wish. If they were moved to London now, perhaps placed in your brother-in-law’s ducal vault...”
He paused again, and Jonathan gave an unamused laugh. “So, in addition to deciding how to manage the life of a beautiful young heiress, I now have to cart a half a million dollars’ worth of her jewels across the Atlantic on a moment’s notice?”
“You could have a Pinkerton man do it for you.”
He could, but he’d never been the trusting sort, and since he and Billy had held off dozens of claim jumpers and the henchmen of four mining conglomerates to maintain control of their mine, he doubted any Pinkerton man could safeguard the girl’s jewels any better than he could himself.
“Tiffany’s will allow me to remove the jewels if I present the trust documents and my power of attorney, I assume?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Satisfied, Jonathan gathered the documents from the table and stood up, bringing the other man to his feet as well. “Well, if I’m going to Tiffany’s before my ship sails, I really must be on my way.”
“You’ll cable me the moment the gems are safely stored in London? And you’ll confirm whatever arrangements you’ll be making for the girl?”
“I will. And I shall see you this winter when I return for her.” He held out his hand. “Until then, I leave Miss McGann in your safekeeping.”
“Mrs. Forsyte and I will continue to keep close watch over her, as we have always done,” the lawyer assured him as they shook hands.
“It isn’t just the British fortune hunters we need to worry about,” Jonathan reminded as they walked together toward the door of Mr. Jessop’s office.
“Mrs. Forsyte is perfectly capable of dealing with anything ofthatkind. Men won’t get anywhere near her. And I doubt the unsavory ones will want to, given that I shall make sure her guardian’s determination to have an ironclad prenuptial agreement is made known to the press immediately.” Mr. Jessop smiled. “I assure you, no scoundrel will scrape up an acquaintance and elope with her to Niagara while you are away.”
TheNeptunewas a new steamship, the very best the Cunard line could offer, with every amenity a man of wealth could expect. His stateroom was a parlor suite with windows giving onto the promenade, crisp, clean sheets, and a mattress and pillows of the softest down. But the best thing about it was the private bath, and as Jonathan eased back in the tub filled with steaming water, he couldn’t help a groan of appreciation. A hot bath was a luxury that his life the past ten years had given him little opportunity to enjoy.
He did it now, though, savoring the piping hot water and castile soap provided by Cunard. After rinsing off, he stood up and started to reach for one of the thick Turkish towels that hung from hooks in the wall, but then he changed his mind.
Miss McGann’s jewels were safely stowed in theNeptune’s vault, and the coming week stretched before him with nothing more crucial to do than explore the ship, shoot clay pigeons off the stern, read books, and sip vintage port in the smoking room. Right now, he was in a luxurious bathtub and the water was still hot. Why waste it?
He once again sank back down. His muscles, tense from days aboard crowded train cars, slowly relaxed, his eyes closed, and his mind drifted into oblivion.
Something roused him, and he woke with a jump, reflexively reaching for his Colt, realizing only after his hand emerged from the water that he didn’t need it. He wasn’t in a frigid mountain stream where some claim jumper might take a potshot at him, or in a chipped iron tub above a saloon where some drunken miner might fire a bullet through the ceiling. He was in a luxurious bathroom on a steamship bound for home.
Home.
It seemed an alien concept to him now, for when he’d left England a decade ago, he’d also left behind the shattered pieces of his dreams, his heart, and his future. Since then, the closest thing he’d had to a home was one of the two shacks he and Billy had built in northern Idaho’s Silver Valley, crude affairs of pine timber and tar paper that had sheltered them while they’d pulled silver ore out of their mine at a frantic pace.
The shacks were gone now, sold along with most of their shares in the mine when Billy had developed that cough two and a half years ago, a hacking, phlegm-laced cough that just wouldn’t go away. His suspicions awakened, Jonathan had wanted his friend to see a doctor, but Billy had shrugged off that suggestion, not confirming Jonathan’s fears about his illness until nearly a year later, when he’d started coughing up blood.
At that point, Jonathan had dragged his friend to one of Colorado’s famous sanitoriums for treatment, but there was little the doctors could do. Consumption was always fatal.
Jonathan leaned forward in the bathtub, plunking his elbows on his bent knees and resting his head in his hands, the pain of Billy’s death squeezing his chest like a vise.
