Charity House Courtship. Renee Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ expelled you when they found out about your mother’s profession. Even now, you could get a teaching job in any number of places.”

      Eyes blinking rapidly, Katherine swiped at her wet cheeks. “But Charity House is my home. Where I belong. I’d do anything to keep this orphanage running.”

      “As long as it was ethical.”

      “Well, yes, that goes without saying.” Katherine took Laney’s hand. “All right, enough stalling. Let’s have the rest of it. You went to the hotel, and...”

      Laney bit her bottom lip as she searched for the right words. Katherine might have been forced to return to Denver, but she was still a product of her years back East, educated, moral, raised with Christian values, an example for the others. Would she understand the desperation that had led Laney to withhold information from Dupree?

      She didn’t want to find out. Not tonight. “And...the judge handed over the money. His debt is canceled. Charity House is saved. The end.”

      “So, it’s that simple.”

      Laney drew a quick breath of air. “Yes.”

      “Don’t you think I deserve to hear the rest, the portion you’re hiding from me? Please, I’ve lived with the fear of losing Charity House just as deeply as you have. Maybe more.” A shadow fell over her face. “I have no skills, no real life experiences to speak of.”

      “You have an education. You could teach school, just as you’ve taught me.”

      “Who would hire a woman like me, an infamous madam’s daughter?” Katherine shut her eyes a moment and sighed heavily. “I have nowhere else to go. Now convince me I have nothing to worry about.”

      Taking a deep breath, Laney began her tale, but Katherine cut her off almost before she begun. “The hotel owner witnessed the transaction?”

      “It gets worse.” Laney proceeded to tell her friend the rest.

      When she reached the end, Katherine gaped at her for several long seconds. “He confiscated the money? But why?”

      “He runs a proper hotel, Katherine, something I can’t fault him for.” Dupree, for all his other unsavory characteristics, was clearly a man of integrity. Hard on others, true, but probably just as hard on himself.

      Before she started sympathizing with the cad, she shook her head and continued. “When he saw me speaking with Judge Greene and then witnessed money changing he hands, he thought...well, he thought the worst.”

      “Oh, Laney.”

      “I never admitted to any wrongdoing. Why would I? I’d done nothing improper. But I couldn’t reveal my reason for meeting with Judge Greene, per his adamant request. Nor did I try to dissuade Dupree’s misconception of my character.” And that had been wrong of her, dreadfully wrong. “When he locked me in his office—”

      “He didn’t.”

      “He did.”

      “But I don’t understand.” Katherine shook her head. “How did you get the money back?”

      She touched the reticule, pulled on one of the strings, then the other, toyed with them. The gesture reminded her of the way Dupree had captured her hair around his finger, how he’d stared at it for an endless moment, and how—

      She cut off the rest of her thoughts and focused on answering Katherine’s question. “I had to...um...climb out of his office window, hence the change in attire.”

      “Oh, Laney.”

      She glossed over the part about breaking into his safe, making sure to tone down her use of physical violence to make her final escape from the alleyway.

      “Oh, Laney.”

      “Would you stop saying ‘Oh, Laney’ in that disenchanted tone of yours? You sound like a shocked, elderly aunt instead of a young woman barely twenty years old.”

      “Well, someone needs to think like an adult.” Katherine jumped to her feet and paced through the room. After her second pass, she turned back to face Laney. “Tell me more about this hotel owner.”

      A shudder quickened Laney’s pulse. Dupree had been a formidable foe, far more clever than the banker she’d sparred with this morning. Prescott incited only disdain in her heart. While Dupree called up a mixture of emotions that confused her, and blunted the edge she usually relied on to aid her in sticky situations.

      “I never want to see that man again. He’s judgmental, arrogant and enjoys jumping to conclusions without a shred of evidence.”

      Eyebrows traveling upward, Katherine wrapped her arms across her waist and said, “Not a shred?”

      Laney broke eye contact. “All right, maybe I sent his mind in a few wrong directions.”

      “I read in the Denver Chronicle that he’s impossibly handsome.”

      “You have no idea.”

      Silence fell over them as each considered the events of the evening from their own perspective.

      “Laney?”

      “Hmm?”

      “Do you think Mr. Dupree will leave the situation alone now that you’ve taken the money?”

      “I...” A shudder of apprehension passed through her. “I don’t know.”

      “Will he still try to confront Judge Greene without the evidence in hand?”

      She could lie. She could pretend matters weren’t as dire as they really were. Their long-running friendship deserved better. “He might.”

      Hands trembling, Katherine sank back on the settee. “What are we going to do?”

      “The only thing we can do. We’ll pay off the loan the moment the bank opens in the morning.” The idea swelled within her, creating a sense of peace she hadn’t experienced in days. “That way, no matter what Dupree decides to do next, we’ll already own Charity House. Even if he confronts Judge Greene there won’t be much either man can do at that point.”

      “Other than make trouble for us, in all sorts of awful ways.”

      Laney batted away Katherine’s objection with a flick of her wrist.

      “No. Don’t dismiss my concerns like that. What if Judge Greene teams up with Mr. Dupree, if for no other reason than to save face? What if they try to shut us down for some unknown, yet perfectly legal reason? What if they—”

      “Stop, Katherine. Just stop. We must stay positive, and pray that Dupree will drop the matter now that I’m gone.”

      “You really think he’ll leave us alone?”

      “Yes, as long as he doesn’t find us.”

      Katherine sighed heavily.

      Looking at the clock on the СКАЧАТЬ