Aunt Martha looked at the ship with a hint of appalled nostalgia. “Somehow I don’t think things are ever going to be the same.”
Gwen beamed. Oh yes, change was certainly coming to the Black Rose, and Gwen couldn’t be prouder of Liam, who stood at the top of the gangway, waving her aboard. Wearing a simple white shirt with an open collar, he looked happier than she’d ever seen him.
“You’re late!” he called down. He looked completely at home on the Black Rose, and she impulsively hiked up her skirts to run up the gangway. She was out of breath but delighted as she flung herself into his arms.
“Congratulations.” She laughed as he hoisted her off her toes. This was what she had missed all these years. She finally had a real brother, even though he wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Liam could be crass, rude, and perfectly awful, but perhaps that wasn’t very different from most older brothers.
“We’re still waiting on Natalia, but then we’re off,” he said.
She gazed over the deck of the yacht, crammed with family members and guests. Oscar and Frederick were here, along with plenty of businessmen she didn’t know but suspected were major players in the new company that had just been formed.
“So the Black Rose is now yours,” she said to Liam in amazement, and he nodded in satisfaction.
“I’m planning on living aboard. I’ve always been happiest on a ship, and it’s plenty big enough. It will save on rent.”
“Will you dock it here or in Philadelphia?”
“Here,” Liam said. “This is where U.S. Steel is going to be headquartered, so it’s where I need to be.”
Living aboard a ship sounded horrible to Gwen, but Bertie had finally lumbered up the gangway and interjected himself into the conversation.
“Liam, my lad!” he said, giving her brother a jovial clap on the back. “Where’s the caviar? I’m famished.”
Liam grinned and shook his head. “None of that fancy food tonight. We’ve got biscuits, pulled pork, and spareribs coming up as soon as we set sail.”
Bertie seemed to approve of the changes, as his eyes grew wide. “Excellent choice,” he said, then hollered across the deck to the other side of the yacht. “Edwin! Liam says we’re having spareribs as soon as we sail.”
Her cousin Edwin limped over, a cane in one hand and an empty martini glass in the other. “Sounds good,” he said to Liam. “I like the changes you’re making. I never could stand caviar, but Poppy isn’t happy about losing it. She thinks pork is lowbrow.”
Poppy sat at the stern of the ship, swathed in robes and accepting congratulations on the birth of her son, who was safely ensconced in his grim nursery back home. She was surrounded by the elderly aunts and boasting of little Alexander’s astonishing accomplishments in communicating when he was hungry.
“Next thing you know, Poppy will say he is fluent in Greek,” Bertie said and turned back to Edwin. “Say, did you bring that antique vase you owe me?”
Edwin looked momentarily annoyed, but it vanished quickly. “Sorry, old man, I forgot it back at my place. Next week, I promise.” He turned his attention to Liam with a huge smile. “I must congratulate you on the U.S. Steel appointment. You’ve taken us all by surprise.”
“A good one, I hope,” Liam said.
“Good, indeed!” Edwin threw a friendly arm around Liam’s shoulder. “Say, how about we put together a group of people to go bet on the horse races? There’s a fine little racetrack nearby, and I can show you the ropes.”
A hint of irritation flashed across Liam’s face, but it came and went so quickly that Gwen thought she might have imagined it.
A waiter emerged onto the deck with flutes of champagne, drawing Bertie and Edwin to him like a lodestone. Liam watched them leave with a pensive look on his face.
“You were right,” he said once they stood alone at the railing.
“Right about what?”
“The way people treat me is different since I got rich. The wife of the guy who runs the marina keeps throwing herself at me. A married woman, and she never misses a chance to lob a proposition at me. The girls at the diner where I get lunch come after me too. Everyone wants to be my friend now. Edwin wants me to join his racing club, but he’s all full of fake smiles and backslapping. It kind of makes me appreciate Poppy. She’s a horror on wheels, but at least she’s honest.”
Gwen’s heart softened with a tangle of bittersweet sympathy. While it was far better to be rich than poor, money brought a unique set of challenges. Liam would never again be able to automatically trust anyone who tried to befriend him. Every person he met for the rest of his life would know he possessed a fortune, and it would change things. She witnessed it even now as she stood at the railing with him. Cousins came over to congratulate him, far warmer than they’d been on the island. Some wanted details of the meeting this afternoon, while others wanted to know when to expect their first infusion of dividend payments.
A pair of tough-looking strangers loitered near the catering area.
“Who are those men?” she asked.
Liam followed her gaze. “I hired a couple of bodyguards. I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
She had to agree, especially since they had never figured out who was trying to kill him. How ironic that just as she was feeling ready to step outside of her safe, protected bubble, Liam was being forced into one of his own. She glanced at the bodyguards again just in time to see Patrick emerging from the lower deck.
Her heart caught at the sight of his tall form and the way the light highlighted the planes in his kind, friendly face. His eyes found hers across the crowded deck, and his smile was wistful.
She would handle this with cool dignity. The anguish blooming in her heart could be ignored, and she crossed the deck to meet him beneath the awning of the portside door.
“Hello, Patrick,” she said, managing a smile.
“Gwen.” He looked like he was trying to be as civilized and dignified as possible.
“I suppose congratulations are in order,” she said.
He nodded with a little laugh. “It was a bigger job than I could have imagined. Liam and I were holed up in my office until ten o’clock every night going over all the details. It was hard, but we had a grand time of it.”
A hint of jealousy gnawed at her. She’d never expected that Patrick would become closer to Liam than to her. His help spiffing Liam up was supposed to have been a business arrangement, not a real friendship.
“What will you do now?” she asked.
“I’ll go back to the Five Points,” he said. “That’s the sort of law I was meant to do. All this corporate law and rubbing shoulders with the rich was a bit of a stretch for me. I’m glad it’s over.”
He shifted in discomfort, scanning the assembled guests. Only about half the people here were Blackstones. The others were leaders from the smaller steel companies and financiers from J.P. Morgan’s bank. The one thing they had in common was that they were all rich. None of them were salt of the earth like Patrick.
“Do you still look down your nose at us?”
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, almost as if she’d hurt him. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I can see the good in some of you.” He swallowed and continued. “I’m sorry about the way things worked out. I don’t want to fight with you.”