The contract existed.
That was the bad news.
The worse news was Elias had signed it six years earlier.
He explained the next morning.
Before he became powerful enough to finance projects independently, he had borrowed heavily from an investment consortium.
Colorado Pacific Consortium.
Pembroke’s company.
C.P.C.
The agreement contained a clause.
If Elias failed to meet a specific debt obligation by the final day of February, control of several Mercer properties transferred to the consortium.
Including the new rail line.
Including the Imperial Hotel.
Pembroke had not merely been stealing.
He had been engineering default.
“How much do you owe?” I asked.
“After recovering what they stole? Approximately eighty-six thousand dollars.”
The number made my stomach turn.
“And how long?”
“Seventeen days.”
“Can you raise it?”
Elias did not answer.
That was answer enough.
He could sell properties.
But forced sales would bring poor prices.
The consortium had already spread rumors of Mercer insolvency.
Banks hesitated.
Investors waited.
Everyone wanted to see whether the famous Elias Mercer would fall.
I became angry.
Not frightened.
Angry.
“How much revenue can the hotel generate in seventeen days?”
He almost smiled.
“Not eighty-six thousand dollars.”
“I know that.”
“Nellie—”
“Answer.”
We calculated.
Then recalculated.
The hotel could contribute several thousand.
The timber operation more.
Rail freight deposits could help if customers prepaid.
Still short.
Papa listened to us argue.
Finally he said, “You’re thinking like rich people.”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“How do rich people think?”
“That money comes only from other rich people.”
I looked at him.
“What do you suggest?”
“Your railroad helps miners, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Elias explained.
The Mercer line, once completed, would lower freight charges dramatically.
Small mines and ranches throughout the region stood to benefit.
Papa tapped his crutch.
“Then stop asking banks.”
I understood.
“Ask customers.”
Elias stared at us.
It was unconventional.
Potentially embarrassing.
Possibly brilliant.
We offered advance freight contracts.
Businesses could pay now for future transportation at discounted rates.
Miners signed first.
Then ranchers.
Then lumber companies.
News spread.
The campaign became personal.
Elias traveled.
I traveled with him.
Not because he needed protection.
Because I could explain the numbers to ordinary people without sounding like a banker.
At one meeting in Silver Pass, an old miner stood.
“Why should we trust Mercer?”
I answered.
“You shouldn’t.”
Elias looked at me.
The miner frowned.
I continued.
“You should read the contract. You should calculate what you currently pay. You should compare it to what this line will charge. Then decide whether the numbers deserve your trust.”
The miner sat down.
He signed afterward.
So did thirty-two others.
Returning to Silver Pass meant returning to the Copper Lantern.
Mr. Barlow saw me through the window.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then he came outside.
“Nellie.”
“Mr. Barlow.”
He looked older.
Business had declined.
Mrs. Dalloway’s influence vanished after her husband’s arrest.
People who once crowded around her now avoided mentioning her name.
“I heard what happened in Denver.”
“Most people did.”
He rubbed his hands.
“I treated you poorly.”
That surprised me.
“Yes.”
“I should’ve paid your wages that day.”
“Yes.”
“I have them.”
He went inside and returned with an envelope.
Four years earlier—no, it only felt like years—those wages would have meant survival.
Now the amount seemed small.
But I took it.
Not because I needed it.
Because he owed it.
“I’m sorry,” Barlow said.
I believed he meant it.
“I accept your apology.”
His relief was obvious.
Then he glanced through the window.
“Ada ever come back?”
“Sometimes.”
He nodded.
“Tell her tea is free.”
I smiled.
“She’ll refuse.”
“Probably.”
As we walked away, Elias said, “You were kinder than I would have been.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I just learned that humiliating him wouldn’t return anything I lost.”
He studied me.
“What did you lose?”
I thought about it.
“Fear.”
That night we stayed at Silver Pass’s small hotel.
I visited our old house.
Empty now.
Cold.
I stood in the room where Papa had suffered and where I had counted coins by lamplight.
Elias found me there.
“I wondered where you went.”
“I wanted to see it again.”
He looked around.
“This is where you lived?”
“Yes.”
I touched the kitchen table.
“I used to sit here and calculate how many meals we could stretch from a sack of flour.”
He remained silent.
“I hated being poor,” I admitted. “Not because I wanted jewels. Because everything became a decision. Medicine or coal. Meat or lamp oil. New boots or rent.”
Elias understood.
“I remember.”
I looked at him.
“Does the fear go away when you become rich?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“It changes clothing.”
I smiled sadly.
He stepped closer.
“Nellie, if we lose the hotel—”
“We won’t.”
“If we do.”
He corrected himself.
“If I do, I don’t want you believing you owe me loyalty because I hired you.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
“I owe you loyalty because I love you.”
The room became perfectly still.
I had not intended to say it.
Perhaps that was why it was true.
Elias’s face changed.
I wanted to retract the words.
Then he touched my cheek.
“I have spent months trying not to say the same thing.”
“Why?”
“Because my timing is apparently terrible.”
I laughed through sudden tears.
“You could improve it now.”
“I love you, Nellie Ward.”
I closed my eyes.
No orchestra played.
No ballroom glittered.
Just an empty poor house in Silver Pass.
And it was perfect.
He kissed me.
Later, we sat on the front step.
“I should warn you,” I said.
“About?”
“I have no intention of becoming a decorative rich woman.”
“I would be disappointed if you tried.”
“I intend to work.”
“I assumed.”
“And your mother is moving nowhere near us.”
From behind the door came Ada’s voice.
“I heard that.”
I jumped.
Ada emerged laughing.
Apparently she and Papa had followed us.
My father looked unbearably pleased.
“This family has no respect for privacy,” I said.
“Correct,” Papa answered.
Those were good hours.
We needed them.
Because when we returned to Denver, the situation worsened.
The bank holding one of Elias’s largest deposits froze the funds pending investigation into Pembroke’s accounts.
Twenty-three thousand dollars became inaccessible.
We were eight days from the deadline.
Still short nearly forty thousand.
Then disaster struck again.
Papa collapsed.
I found him beside his bed.
For one terrible second, I thought he was dead.
Doctor Harris came immediately.
“His heart is weak,” he told me outside.
“How weak?”
He hesitated.
“Years underground. Pain. Laudanum. His body has carried a great deal.”
“Will he recover?”
“I don’t know.”
The world shrank.
Hotel.
Railroad.
Money.
Contracts.
None of it mattered.
I sat beside Papa for two nights.
Elias handled everything else.
On the third morning, Papa opened his eyes.
“You look terrible,” he whispered.
I laughed and cried simultaneously.
“You’re not allowed to die.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes.”
He smiled faintly.
“Good.”
His hand found mine.
“You happy, Nell?”
I looked toward the doorway.
Elias stood there.
“Yes.”
“Then I did something right.”
“You did many things right.”
Papa closed his eyes.
“Not enough.”
“Enough for me.”
He survived.
But Doctor Harris warned us his recovery would be slow.
I stayed beside him.
I intended to abandon the fundraising trip.
Papa became furious.
“Go.”
“No.”
“Nellie.”
“No.”
He opened one eye.
“Wonder where you inherited stubbornness.”
“Go back to sleep.”
He caught my wrist.
“If you sit here because you love me, fine.”
His voice trembled.
“But if you sit here because you’re afraid I’ll die while you’re living your own life, then you’re wasting both our time.”
I cried after leaving the room.
Then I returned to work.
Four days before the deadline, we remained fifteen thousand dollars short.
Three days.
Twelve thousand.
Two days.
Nine thousand.
The final morning arrived.
February 28.
At noon, C.P.C.’s attorneys entered the Imperial Hotel carrying legal papers.
We had until five o’clock.
At four thirty, Elias and I stood in his office.
Short $6,840.
After everything.
After miners.
Ranchers.
Hotel revenue.
Timber payments.
We were six thousand eight hundred and forty dollars away from losing control.
Elias looked out the window.
“We fought well.”
I hated the sound of surrender.
Then noise rose from the lobby.
Dozens of voices.
We went downstairs.
Workers crowded the entrance.
Hotel employees.
Rail laborers.
Miners.
Cooks.
Maids.
Carpenters.
At the front stood Mr. Barlow from Silver Pass.
Beside him—
Mrs. Dalloway.
I nearly stumbled.
She looked different.
No silk.
No arrogance.
Just a plain dark dress.
She carried a bank draft.
“I sold my Denver jewelry.”
The lobby went silent.
I stared at her.
“Why?”
Her chin trembled.
“Because my husband humiliated me long before you ever did.”
Nobody spoke.
“He stole. He lied. And I knew enough to suspect it.”
She looked at Ada.
“I spent years hurting people because it made me feel powerful inside a marriage where I had none.”
It was not an excuse.
She knew that.
“I cannot repair everything.”
She held out the draft.
“But perhaps I can stop helping destroy more.”
The amount was four thousand dollars.
Still short.
Then Barlow placed an envelope beside it.
“Silver Pass collection.”
Two thousand.
Workers began adding money.
Coins.
Bills.
A miner emptied a leather pouch.
A maid contributed seventy cents.
The hotel dishwasher added fourteen.
“Stop,” Elias said.
Nobody did.
At 4:52, I counted.
$6,903.14.
Sixty-three dollars and fourteen cents more than we needed.
I began laughing.
Then crying.
Ada hugged me.
At 4:57, Elias’s attorney delivered payment.
The debt was satisfied.
The hotel remained ours.
The rail line remained Elias’s.
And Charles Pembroke lost the empire he had tried to steal.
That evening I stood alone in the lobby after everyone left.
Elias came beside me.
“We did it.”
“No.”
I looked at the coins still lying on the table.
“They did.”
He nodded.
Then he took something from his pocket.
A small velvet box.
I stared.
“Elias.”
“This has been in my desk for three weeks.”
“You bought a ring while nearly bankrupt?”
“I planned poorly.”
I laughed.
He opened it.
The ring was simple.
Gold.
A single diamond.
Beautiful.
“Nellie Ward.”
My heart stopped.
He did not kneel.
Later I loved that.
He stood directly in front of me, eye to eye.
Equal.
“Will you marry me?”
I looked at the man who had offered me work when I owned thirty-seven cents.
The man who respected my mind before asking for my heart.
“Yes.”
His shoulders dropped with visible relief.
I laughed.
“Were you uncertain?”
“Terrified.”
“Good.”
He slid the ring onto my finger.
From somewhere behind the desk, Ada shouted, “I knew it!”
I closed my eyes.
“We really need a new rule about your mother.”
Elias kissed me.
“We can try.”
We both knew it would fail.