The Founding Father. Diana Palmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ John recognized her. She was the mud puddle swimmer from the hotel entrance.

      He must not laugh, he must not…! But a faint grin split his chiseled lips and his green eyes danced on her indignant features. Here was his excuse, so unexpected!

      “I came to inquire about your health,” he said, his voice deep and lazy. “The weather is cold, and the mud puddle was very large….”

      “I am…” She was blushing, now apparently flattered by his visit. “I am very well. Thank you!”

      “What mud puddle?” came a crisp voice from the doorway. A man, shorter than John, with balding hair and dark blue eyes, dressed in an expensive suit, came into the room. “I’m Terrance Colby. Who are you?”

      “John Jacobs,” he introduced himself. He wasn’t certain how to go on. “I own a ranch outside town…” he began.

      “Oh, you’re here about quail hunting,” Colby said immediately. He smiled, to John’s astonishment, and went forward to shake hands. “But I’m afraid you’re a few minutes too late. I’ve already procured an invitation to the Four Aces Ranch to hunt antelope and quail. You know it, I expect?”

      “Certainly I do, sir,” John replied. And he did. That ranch was the sort John wanted desperately to own one day, a huge property with purebred cattle and horses, known all over the country—in fact, all over the world! “I’m sure you’ll find the accommodations superior.”

      The older man eyed him curiously. “Thank you for the offer.”

      John nodded. “My pleasure, sir. But I had another purpose in coming. A passerby mentioned that the young lady here was staying at this hotel. She, uh, had a bad fall on her way inside. I assisted her. I only wanted to assure myself that she was uninjured. Her companion was less than helpful,” he added with honest irritation.

      “Sir Sydney drove off and left me there,” the woman said angrily with flashing eyes.

      Colby gave her an unsympathetic glance. “If you will be clumsy and throw yourself into mud puddles, Ellen, you can expect to be ignored by any normal man.”

      Ellen! This unfortunate little hen was the very heiress John had come to town to woo, and he was having more good fortune than he’d dreamed! Lady Luck was tossing offerings into his path with every word he spoke.

      He smiled at Ellen Colby with deliberate interest. “On the contrary, sir, I find her enchanting,” he murmured.

      Colby looked at him as if he expected men with nets to storm the room.

      Ellen gave him a harsh glare. She might have been flattered by the visit, but she knew a line when she heard one. Too many men had sought access to her father through her. Here was another, when she’d hoped he might like her for herself. But when had that ever happened? Disappointed, she drew herself up to her full height. “Please excuse me. I am in the middle of important work.” She lifted her chin and added deliberately, “My father’s dog is having her bath.”

      She turned and stalked toward a door between rooms, while John threw back his head and laughed with genuine glee.

      Colby had to chuckle, himself, at his daughter’s audacity. She never raised her voice, as a rule, and he’d long since come to think of her as a doormat. But this man pricked her temper and made her eyes flash.

      “An interesting reaction,” he told John. “She is never rude, and I cannot remember a time when she raised her voice.”

      John grinned. “A gentleman likes to think that he has made an impression, sir,” he said respectfully. “Your daughter is far more interesting with a temper than without one. To me, at least.”

      “You have a ranch, you said?” Colby asked.

      John nodded. “A small one, but growing. I have begun to cross breeds to good effect. I have a longhorn seed bull and a small herd of Hereford cattle. I hope to raise a better sort of beef to suit Eastern tastes and ship it to market in Chicago.”

      The older man sized up his guest, from the worn, but still useful, shoes and suit and the well-worn gunbelt and pistol worn unobtrusively under the open jacket.

      “You have a Southern accent,” Colby said.

      John nodded again. “I am a Georgian, by birth.”

      Colby actually winced.

      John laughed without humor. “You know, then, what Sherman and his men did to my state.”

      “Slavery is against everything I believe in,” Colby said. His face grew hard. “Sherman’s conduct was justified.”

      John had to bite his tongue to keep back a sharp reply. He could feel the heat of the fire, hear his mother and sister screaming as they fell in the maelstrom of crackling flames….

      “You owned slaves?” Colby persisted curtly.

      John gritted his teeth. “Sir, my mother and sisters and I worked on a farm outside Atlanta,” he said, almost choking on memories despite the years between himself and the memory. “Only rich planters could afford slaves. My people were Irish immigrants. You might recall the signs placed at the front gates of estates in the North, which read, No Colored Or Irish Need Apply.”

      Colby swallowed hard. He had, indeed, seen those signs.

      John seemed to grow another inch. “To answer your question, had I been a rich planter, I would have hired my labor, not bought it, for I do not feel that one man of any color has the right to own another.” His green eyes flashed. “There were many other small landowners and sharecroppers like my family who paid the price for the greed and luxury of plantation owners. Sherman’s army did not discriminate between the two.”

      “Excuse me,” Colby said at once. “One of my laundresses back home had been a slave. Her arms were livid with scars from a mistress who cut her when she burned a dress she was told to iron.”

      “I have seen similar scars,” John replied, without adding that one of the co-owners of his ranch had such unsightly scars, as well as his wife and even their eldest daughter.

      “Your mother and sisters live with you?” Colby asked.

      John didn’t reply for a few seconds. “No, sir. Except for a married sister in North Carolina, my people are all dead.”

      Colby nodded, his eyes narrow and assessing. “But, then, you have done well for yourself in Texas, have you not?” He smiled.

      John forced himself to return the smile and forget the insults. “I will do better, sir,” he said with unshakeable confidence. “Far better.”

      Colby chuckled. “You remind me of myself, when I was a young man. I left home to make my fortune, and had the good sense to look toward trains as the means.”

      John twirled his hat in his big hands. He wanted to approach Colby about his spur, which would give him the opportunity to ship his cattle without having to take the risk of driving them north to railheads in Kansas. But that would be pushing his luck. Colby might feel that John was overstepping his place in society and being “uppity.” He couldn’t risk alienating Colby.

      He СКАЧАТЬ