“How can you be so sure?” Aunt Helen asked.
“Because I’m the one who got stabbed in the gut, and I’d already be dead if Patrick hadn’t saved my life.”
Edwin rose, leaning heavily on his cane. “I’d like to head back to the city too. Liam will need someone who knows Manhattan to get him to a safe place.”
“Absolutely not,” Frederick said. “We don’t know who fired those shots, and until we do, I want Liam protected. Bertie was with me when the shots rang out, so we know it wasn’t him. Bertie will accompany Liam home.”
Edwin looked appalled. “It wasn’t me either. I am an excellent shot and wouldn’t have missed an easy target six times.”
“Sit down, Edwin,” Uncle Oscar ordered. “Natalia, I need you to ride into town and send a telegram to Poppy’s doctor so he can be waiting at the port when the Black Rose arrives. Promise him a fortune if he gets here before Poppy delivers.”
Natalia stood. “Of course.”
Liam looked grim as he shrugged into a jacket, preparing to board the Black Rose. None of the crew had been on land when the shots were fired, so it was safe to send Liam on the yacht.
Before he left, Liam crossed the room to Gwen, and she stood. Regret covered his face.
“Stand by Patrick,” he said. “No matter what, don’t let these harpies bring him down. He’s my brother in every way a man can be.” He leaned down to hug her, and she squeezed him tightly. He’d been annoying from the moment she met him, but everything was different now, and how intensely she regretted parting from him on this terrible night.
“Take care,” she whispered. “Please don’t let yourself get killed. It would bother me.”
“It would?” Liam looked partly amused, partly touched.
“It appears miracles really do happen,” she said fondly. “Yes, it would bother me a great deal.”
A blister formed on the back of Patrick’s heel before he arrived at Mr. Smitty’s general store on the other side of the island. He’d been furious when he left the estate, but the long walk had cooled him down. He still had no intention of going back. He would rent one of the rooms above the store and take the ferry back to the city in the morning. His work here was done. He would help Liam during the July board meeting, after which he would cut ties with the entire Blackstone family. A clean break would be best. There was a squeezing in his chest at the thought of never seeing Gwen again, but he would get over it.
Eventually.
A bell dinged when he entered the store. Mr. Smitty was jawboning with a customer up at the soda fountain. The customer turned at the sound of the bell, and Patrick was surprised to see old Milton Abernathy, Aunt Martha’s husband.
“I thought you’d gone fishing,” Patrick said as he took the stool beside Milton.
The older man nodded to a bucket on the floor, where several dead sea bass were covered in ice. “I caught those a few hours ago, then headed over here to relax.”
That was a surprise. Gwen had given him the impression that the annual lobster bake was a tradition the entire family looked forward to each summer.
“You weren’t enjoying the lobster bake?” Patrick asked.
“Did you?” Milton asked with a hint of amusement.
“Not particularly.”
Milton clapped him on the back. “Not a surprise, lad! I always escape to town whenever I’m on the island. Martha thinks I’m fishing, but I’m just looking for a little fresh air.”
“It seems you’ve been looking for a little fresh air for the past forty-five years,” Mr. Smitty said, and Milton nodded in concession.
Over the next hour, Patrick got a lesson in Blackstone family dynamics, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Martha warned me about them, but I didn’t take it seriously,” Milton said. “I figured I would be accepted because I’m a self-made man like Frederick. A shoelace factory isn’t as glamorous as banking, but I made a good living and didn’t need Blackstone money to support my wife. Plenty of them look down their noses at me anyway.”
Milton went on to say that he once had grand plans for expanding his business beyond shoelaces. The cording machines in his factory could easily produce corsets and undergarments, but the Blackstones discouraged it. Shoelaces were bad enough, but they certainly didn’t want to be associated with underwear, so he set his plans aside.
After his son was born, Martha persuaded Milton to accept her family’s money to buy a nicer house and send Bertie to private schools. Milton never felt good about accepting Blackstone money, but Bertie took to it like a duck to water.
“Bertie likes the finer things in life, and we don’t see any harm in it. He sings in a barbershop quartet and is very talented. Dedicating his life to that quartet isn’t what I’d have wanted for a child of mine, but Bertie enjoys it. I suppose that’s the main thing.”
Patrick refrained from comment. Bertie was fun at a party and he seemed like an intelligent man, but unlimited access to money was a corrupting force. It could blot out the drive and ambition necessary to realize a man’s God-given potential.
The hours dragged by, interrupted only by the arrival of the ferry and mail from the mainland. An envelope was addressed to Gwen, and Uncle Milton promised to deliver it to her. By the time the sun went down, they had switched from drinking soda to bottles of cold beer. Milton seemed delighted to have found a comrade to join him in playing hooky from the Blackstone festivities. They’d been sitting at this counter for six hours, and it was a typical day for Milton. He put in a few hours fishing, then hid at the soda fountain for the rest of the day to avoid Martha’s relatives.
Milton clapped Patrick on the back and tried to persuade him not to leave on the ferry when it would return to the mainland tomorrow. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “I could use a partner in crime. Tomorrow I’ll take you fishing in the morning, then we can come back here and do it again.”
The prospect of following in Milton’s footsteps was unthinkable. Patrick didn’t want to spend his days at a soda fountain to hide from Gwen’s family. She had been so convinced he would adore them, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Like Uncle Milton, he didn’t belong here.
The bell dinged over the door, and Natalia came racing into the store, her normally pristine hair a scraggly mess.
“Smitty, I need to send a telegram,” she panted.
Patrick stood, alarmed by the panic in her voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Somebody shot Poppy. She’s gone into labor, and we need a doctor right away.”
Mr. Smitty pulled the cover off the telegraph machine, but Patrick could barely absorb what she’d just said. “Poppy?” he asked in disbelief. “What about Gwen. Is she all right?”
Natalia gave an impatient nod, then turned her back on him to dictate a message to the mainland. Her father’s yacht had already left for New York, and she wanted a doctor to be waiting at the port for a return trip to Cormorant Island tonight.
After the telegram had been sent, Natalia relayed the entire story of an unknown assailant who unloaded a six-shooter at Liam but hit Poppy instead while Gwen cowered in the underbrush.
Patrick’s mind reeled. While he’d been drinking with Milton, Gwen had been dodging bullets. “I’ve got to get back right away,” he said.