CHAPTER TWELVE

The following morning dawned gray and cloudy, and cooler than usual for late summer. Waiting in the entrance hall of the mansion with two suitcases at her side, Cornelia Thompson paced back and forth anxiously. Her mind was preoccupied.

"Father will be down in a few minutes," Michael told her, coming down the main staircase and spotting her near the door. "Are you sure you don't need me to come? This sort of trip is getting harder for him."

She shook her head. "I'm sure he'll be fine. The staff will be able to help him if he needs something beyond my abilities." She raised her eyebrows, looking at her brother meaningfully. "And besides, if you're certain Miss Farrell isn't coming with us, then I think you would probably be better served staying here."

"That's what she told me last night on the way home from the theater," he said with a shrug. "She said that she's feeling guilty about how much they've been working, and that the children need her here at home. But it sounded as if she hadn't told Oliver yet, so I don't know if he'll approve her staying behind."

"Well, if she does stay here rather than coming with us to New England, you had better take advantage of the opportunity," Cornelia said in a low voice, with a quick glance around them to ensure no one was in earshot.

Michael scowled immediately, and she went on before he could interrupt her.

"Donatelli's man from the newspaper has been stationed outside the house every day for a week, and he hasn't had anything to do. The story of you taking Oliver's place and going with them to the theater is nice, but it's hardly enough to have anyone clutching their pearls."

"You're asking the impossible," Michael hissed quietly. "None of the newsmen can get past the security around the gates, and I haven't had any other opportunities to be alone with her. And just to be clear, I still don't like this idea of yours. Even if it helps us stop the merger, it feels needlessly cruel."

Cornelia cast him a withering look.

"Well, if you need additional inspiration to follow through with it, just think of this," she said. "Oliver is still leaning hard on Father to close the Indianapolis factory. If Indianapolis closes, Louisville and Cincinnati will be next on the chopping block. Between those three factories, that's nearly two thousand workers. I leave it to you to decide which scenario is more cruel: two thousand of our employees who have given years of loyalty and hard work to the Thompson Corporation suddenly thrown onto the unemployment line in the middle of the worst depression in history …" She raised her eyebrows. "or a few distasteful news articles."

Michael glared at her, incensed, but had no further words to say.

"Anyway, as it is, we've already missed our chance to run some kind of story before the merger agreement was sent to the shareholders," she said. "We're running out of time. If you're going to do something to derail things before the final vote next week, it has to be soon."

"What do you mean, you don't want to come to New England?"

Grace fiddled nervously with the engagement ring on her left ring finger. She was already regretting that she had not talked about this with him the previous evening.

"Oliver, please don't be angry," she said. "You know I wouldn't ask this lightly. But don't you think it would be best for me to stay here with the children? Emmeline is leaving after breakfast, and they need someone to look after them."

He still looked uncomprehending as he laid a handful of books on top of his suitcase and snapped it shut. "Why can't one of the maids look after them while we're gone? Isn't that what we were planning to do after Emmeline left? You said you were going to tell Annette or Cecille to watch them until we hire their teachers."

Grace bit her lip. After seeing Annie and Molly's dejected faces on their way to the theater last night without Oliver, she had made up her mind that she would ask to stay behind from the short trip he and Edward Thompson were planning to tour several of Oliver's largest steel production plants. She still couldn't shake the feeling of guilt that had weighed on her the last few weeks regarding Annie and Molly's care. She and Oliver had deferred so much of the responsibility for the girls to Emmeline in the last few weeks, and the thought of leaving them alone with only the household staff for several days while they were both away traveling through upstate New York, New England, and Boston just wasn't sitting well with her.

"It's not only a matter of who will watch over them, Oliver," she said. "Annette and Cecille are fine enough caregivers, but I don't like the idea of both of us leaving them for days. I feel terribly about how much we've been working recently. The girls have hardly seen us in the last few weeks. If one of us isn't here to spend some quality time with them, I worry they'll start to feel as if they're just a burden to us. As if we don't want to make time to spend with them."

Oliver was silent as a frown grew on his face.

"And besides," she offered helpfully as an afterthought, "when I mentioned to Michael last night that I was thinking of staying home from the trip, he said he also wasn't up for more travel and was going to ask if Cornelia could handle Edward alone. The two of us could make some good progress on the plans for merging the investment portfolios while the rest of you are away."

An odd expression flitted ever so briefly across his face.

"Grace," he said eventually, and with a sinking heart she heard the tightness return to his voice that had so troubled her the night before. "I can't deny the children would want you here. But what am I supposed to do without you? I need a secretary with me. This is an important trip."

"I've already taken care of that," she said quickly. "Henry Bush is bringing his assistant with him, and she's agreed to keep track of the due-outs from the visits and pass your correspondence while en route. I'll keep in good contact with you from back here, just like I always do when you're away from home. You've traveled without me many times before, Oliver. This time won't be any different."

She could tell from his bearing that he was deeply unhappy with her, and judging from the look on his face he was trying hard to restrain himself from saying something in anger that he would later regret. When she had merely been his secretary, there never would have been a question of her disobeying or pushing back on a direct order from him. Perhaps he was wishing he could go back to that simpler time.

But with a grimace and a sigh, he lifted his suitcase off the bed and set it down on the floor.

"Well, it seems you've thought of everything," he said tersely. "I'll suppose I'll see you when I get home, then."

Grace felt a pang of anxiety shoot through her and took a step toward him. "Oh, Oliver, you know I'm not asking to stay behind because I don't want to go with you! I'll miss you terribly while you're—"

"It's fine," he said gruffly. "You're right that the children will benefit from having you here. And I'll make do."

Before she could interject further, he had crossed toward the door of his suite and opened it to leave.

"Oliver—"

"It's fine, Grace."

The tone of his voice made clear that it was not in fact fine, but also that he didn't wish to discuss the matter anymore. She fell silent.

"And by the way, while I'm gone," he commented almost offhandedly as he stepped out into the hall, "if you're going to stay here, in addition to drawing up the advertisement for the children's tutors, you might as well start putting together a list of candidates that I should interview for your own position."

It took several full seconds before her mind processed his comment, and when it did, he was already halfway down the hall.

"What?"

He turned back, looking surprised by the sharp tone of her voice. "What?"

"Candidates for my own position? What do you mean?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I meant, candidates for the role of my private secretary. Someone who could replace you after our wedding. Perhaps spend some time observing some of the Warbucks Industries secretaries who work downstairs, see which one has the right temperament and skill at multitasking."

Grace only heard about half of the words he had said. Even if she had known he was going to make such a proposition—and she certainly had not seen it coming at all—she couldn't have predicted the feeling that immediately took hold of her with a vice grip. Her heart suddenly raced, and she felt a cold knot of stress building in her chest.

"You want to replace me?" she asked in shock, her voice a degree higher than she would have liked as she followed him down the hall. "Oliver, I'm only asking to stay home from this one trip, not to give up all of my duties entirely!"

Oliver looked back at her with a completely bewildered expression on his face, as if he found her reaction quite preposterous.

"Good heavens, Grace, what's come over you? This has nothing to do with your wanting to stay home from the trip, although admittedly your request confirms what I had already begun to think regarding how we should arrange things after the wedding."

"Why?" she demanded. "You don't want me to continue working with you after we get married? You don't think that wives should work, is that it?"

"That isn't what I'm saying at all, my dear," he said brusquely. "There's no need to overreact. I suppose I just assumed you wouldn't want to keep working. You certainly won't need to, financially speaking, and I thought you would want to spend more time with the children."

"I do want to spend more time with them," she said, still struggling to convey the jumbled thoughts running through her mind. "But I can do that and still work, Oliver."

"Can you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Weren't you just saying you don't want to come with me on this trip with the Thompsons—a trip which, by the way, you played the primary role in organizing—exactly because you don't feel right leaving them home without one of us here?"

"Yes, but—"

He held up his hands as if to rest his case. "It just doesn't seem very realistic to expect that you can do both, Grace. I need a full-time secretary, and the children will want more of your attention than I can spare if you stay in your current role."

Grace shook her head, trying to tamp down the rising tide of alarm within her.

"But Oliver, the girls will be with their tutors for most of the day. What will I do all day if I'm not working with you? Sit around the house and host champagne brunches for the wives of your business associates?"

Unfortunately for him, Drake rounded the corner and skidded to a halt in front of them just in time to hear their risen voices and take the full brunt of two angry glares.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, sir, ma'am—the Thompsons are all ready to go, and, er—"

"Thank you, Drake," Oliver said curtly, and the butler removed himself from the scene with haste. His voice filled with exasperation, Oliver turned away from her and began to follow Drake down the hall. "Look, just forget I said anything. We'll talk about this later after I get home."

If Annie, Molly, and Emmeline sensed that anything was off between Grace and Oliver that morning, they didn't indicate it. Annie was too excited by the prospect of what gifts Oliver might bring them back from New England—"Mrs. Pugh said that's where they make maple syrup, is that true? Does it just spurt out of a tree if you chop it down? Can you bring us some to have with our flapjacks? Is it true they make candy out of maple syrup too?"—and Molly, wiping tears out of her eyes, was too preoccupied by Emmeline's forthcoming departure later that morning to notice anything amiss.

But Grace felt awful. Her heart was still racing after their argument, and as frustrated as she was with him she couldn't help but feel slighted when he dropped an all-too-brief kiss on her lips that felt almost perfunctory before he walked out the door to follow the Thompsons to the waiting line of cars in the driveway.

Author's Note: Just another quick note here at the end to say a heartfelt thank you once again to everyone who has read and reviewed the story so far! It means the world to me!