He left her on the porch and started doing just that. The door to the house was closed, and without his permission, she wasn’t going to open it. She sat on one of the two rough chairs on the porch, hoping her brocade skirt wouldn’t get splinters from it. She wondered why there were two of them when he’d implied no one else ever came up here, but she supposed her father must have visited him from time to time. It was difficult to picture her debonair father, who socialized at Philadelphia’s finest homes and gentlemen’s clubs, sitting on the porch of this cabin in the middle of nowhere. She found it hard to believe she was there herself.
The day was still so hot, which made her appreciate the shade on the porch as she watched Morgan. He was leaving everything he took off the mules right there on the ground, his goal apparently to unburden them and set them loose before he put anything away. The unencumbered mules gravitated to the stream, which meandered inside and outside the fence.
He was close enough to talk to her. After his flat refusal to show her her father’s mine, she decided to ask him about his cabin, and then steer the conversation to the topic she was most interested in. Aunt Elizabeth had told her she was an adroit conversationalist.
“Why did you build this cabin several feet off the ground?”
“I got up here last summer, long after the spring thaw. So I didn’t know if the runoff from the icecaps would come pouring down here this spring.”
She thought he might be grinning, but it was so hard to tell with that bushy mustache of his, so she merely asked, “Did it?”
“No, not this year at least, but water did erode this gorge at some point in the history of this range. And the stream did flood this spring about four feet on this side, more on the other side. But last year I didn’t know how bad it would be and pictured my cabin being washed down the hill, so I decided to take the precaution of elevating it when I got tired of sleeping in a tent.”
“It must have taken you months to build.”
“No, just a few days.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not with friends helping.”
She would have said that was also impossible, his having any friends, but it would have been quite an insult; she wanted to disarm him with harmless talk before she mentioned Charles’s mine again, so she asked, “Friends from Butte?”
“No, I sent for some friends I grew up with in Nashart, men I knew I could trust not to reveal the location of my mine. I ordered all the lumber, pipes, flues, bricks, and everything else needed and stored it in town before I asked them to ride over. By then I would have been followed if I’d been seen leaving town with building materials, but they weren’t.”
“By then?”
“Most of the miners in town work for a few big mine owners. And they’re a greedy bunch. But most of their mines started pulling more copper than silver or gold, so they concentrate on copper now—all except for your friend Sullivan. His silver hasn’t run out yet.”
“He’s not my friend. And besides, why would Shawn Sullivan or anyone go to so much trouble to find out where your mine is located? From what I’ve heard, there’s lots of gold and silver in these hills and mountains.”
“Sure there is, but Sullivan doesn’t want anyone else selling silver. He was getting high prices for his when he was the last supplier in this area. He didn’t like it when those prices dropped and his buyers told him to find another market if he wasn’t satisfied with what they were paying him. He couldn’t figure out where all the other silver was coming from and sent spies all around the area to find out. And came up with nothing. Then one of his men got curious about me. No one had paid me any mind before those prices dropped. They thought I came in, sold a few hides, then left again.”
His tone remained calm but had turned a little derogatory when he’d mentioned Shawn Sullivan. Now she understood a bit better why he might be suspicious of her and jump to the wrong conclusion that she was colluding with his worst enemy. But she wanted to know more.
“How did Mr. Sullivan find out you were the mysterious silver miner?”
“Because he was still demanding answers from his men, and they broke into my crates at the station before they were loaded on the train. Sullivan approached me after that and offered a fair price for my mine. He wasn’t expecting me to tell him to go to hell. After that, he had his men follow me when I left town. It was beyond annoying. Took me twice as long to get back here since I had to throw them off the scent. The second time his men followed me, I jumped them and left them hog-tied in the middle of the road with Go to hell notes pinned to their chests.”
Quite an aggressive response, Violet thought; but wanting him to think she was on his side, she remarked mildly, “I don’t imagine that went over too well.”
“No, the townsfolk didn’t like me after that—well, they never did, but they started giving me a wide berth. And Sheriff Gibson gave me a scolding the next time I went to town. He wasn’t serious about it. He’s had to investigate countless complaints from small mine owners about threats, beatings, even some killings after they refused to sell their operations to rich owners like Sullivan.”
He had to be exaggerating or was simply mistaken. But she didn’t want to antagonize him by defending Shawn Sullivan, which might reinforce his suspicions that she was working for his enemy, so she only said, “Well, you certainly made your feelings clear to Mr. Sullivan.”
“He doesn’t take no for an answer. I even changed markets and made a deal directly with a pair of silversmith brothers in New York. And I started leaving Butte by different routes after that, but Sullivan still tracked me down each time I came to town and made a higher offer for my mine. So I stopped going so often, even started sneaking into town in the dead of night, and I stopped picking up the notes he leaves for me at the hotel. He still wants my mine, but that’s not all. He wants to know where both mines are, mine and Charley’s. He’d be happy with either one to start, because he knows he’ll wind up with both in the end.”
Sullivan wanted her father’s mine, too? That would solve everything! As soon as she located it, she could sell it to him for a lot of money, then return to London and slip back into the social whirl and win Lord Elliott before some other debutante did. Thrilled to have such a perfect solution to her problems, she had to cover her mouth so Morgan wouldn’t see that she was smiling. But would a sale provide enough money for her and her brothers? Or might it be more profitable for them to hire men to work the mine? She wouldn’t know until she actually saw it, but at least she had two good options now.
Done with his task, Morgan slapped the rump of the last mule, then started shoving crates and baskets onto the porch under the railing.
“But you already knew all that about Shawn Sullivan, didn’t you?” He paused after setting a crate on the porch and looked up at her.
She sighed in irritation. “I barely said two words to the man the night I met him. His daughter, Katie, invited me to join them for dinner. He was there to meet his future son-in-law for the first time, not me.”
“Sure.”
His skepticism lit the flame. It might be ingrained in her to keep unpleasant emotions under wraps and put on a good face for all occasions, but she’d never been tested like this! She was tired, hungry, dirty, and totally exasperated with this man.
With a smoldering glare, she pointed out, “You snatched me out of a perfectly comfortable hotel room, accused me of being a liar, made me ride a horse in the hot sun for a day and a half, tried to feed me snake meat! And you made me sleep on the bloody ground! The least you can do now is take me to my father’s mine!”
“You’re not going to like your stay here if you keep asking for something that’s not going to happen.”
His tone was quite sharp, but she was beyond caring or caution. She leapt to her feet, her hands gripping the porch railing. “You aren’t going to like my stay here if you don’t answer me! It’s my bloody mine you are refusing to tell me about. It belongs to me and my brothers now. I demand you take me to it right this instant!”
“Make-believe daughters don’t get to demand anything.”