Carved in Stone, page 29
“You’ve got all the cards in your hand,” he said as they mounted the flight of marble steps. “Appointing you to the board of directors is a huge concession, but Oscar knows you have the unions in your back pocket. We won’t settle for anything less.”
Patrick’s biggest fear about the meeting was Liam himself. Dealing with him was like trying to tame a whirlwind because Liam still couldn’t control his impulses.
Patrick stopped directly in front of Liam and looked him in the eye. “Don’t you dare go off on a tangent. Stick to the script.”
“I’ll follow your lead,” Liam assured him, but Patrick still worried.
A butler answered the door and led them through several corridors lined with gilt-framed paintings and Roman busts on pedestals before they arrived in Oscar’s private office.
Oscar stood as they entered. Unlike the rest of the showpiece mansion, this was a working office filled with dark wood paneling and practical equipment like a telephone, file cabinets, and reference manuals. A separate table held a ticker-tape machine that tracked movement on the New York Stock Exchange.
Patrick reached across Oscar’s desk to shake his hand. “I trust Poppy and the little one are doing well?”
“Alexander is thriving,” Oscar said with pride. “He arrived in the world three weeks early, but the doctor reports he is as strong as any full-term child.”
They got down to business, and Patrick laid out their plans as concisely as possible. “Your father has had a change of heart about the creation of U.S. Steel. He fears sinking too much of the bank’s capital into a single entity and intends to vote against it.”
Oscar’s lips thinned. “My father may vote his thirty-percent share however he chooses, but he can’t scuttle the deal.”
Patrick kept up the pressure. “If Liam uses his ten percent to vote against the merger, it will be a black eye for the bank. A vote that close is guaranteed to fire up the labor unions.”
Oscar leaned back in his chair, his eyes hard. “You still don’t have a majority, and you don’t want to make an enemy of me.”
“That’s right, I don’t,” Liam agreed. “But I want a little something for my ten-percent vote.”
Oscar raised a single brow. “Proceed.”
“I want a seat on the board of directors of the new company. I know the steel business from the ground up, and I can make the mills a better place for every man toiling on the line.”
Patrick watched Oscar carefully while Liam spoke. A hint of a smile hovered on Oscar’s face.
“I could be persuaded,” Oscar said. “But it would come at a cost. My father has the power to award you that ten-percent share in perpetuity, but you aren’t ready to take them over. Not yet, and maybe not ever. If you sign a legally binding agreement to surrender those votes back to me, I’ll see that you have a seat on the board of U.S. Steel.”
Patrick and Liam had already discussed this. It was exactly what they expected of Oscar, and they were prepared to settle for it. Liam didn’t have the perspective to understand other aspects of the bank’s business, and all he truly wanted was control in the new steel company. All Patrick wanted was to save Gwen’s college. The college cost the bank three million dollars a year. U.S. Steel would make that much in a day.
Patrick met Oscar’s gaze across the desk and laid down his terms. “We want Liam on the board of directors and a clause guaranteeing the annual funding of Blackstone College in perpetuity. If you give us those two things, Liam will surrender his shares back to you.”
“We have a deal,” Oscar said, standing to extend his hand.
Patrick grinned and shook Oscar’s hand. This was exactly what they had hoped. Oscar had probably known what they would be asking, because he had given in too easily for this to be a surprise.
Patrick was ready to proceed to signing on the deal when Liam threw a wrench into the works.
“There’s one more thing I want,” Liam said.
A stone landed in the pit of Patrick’s belly. Why, why, why couldn’t Liam ever control himself? All Patrick’s senses went on alert, and he shot a warning glare at Liam, praying he wasn’t going to ruin this entire deal with an irrational demand.
Oscar looked just as guarded. “Well?” he asked, a hint of menace in that single word.
“I want the Black Rose.”
Oscar stiffened. “Out of the question.”
“Gwen said it belonged to my father and that she inherited it from him,” Liam said. “She gave it to you for nothing. I want it back.”
Oscar didn’t budge. “That yacht is important to me. I take my family out every weekend. I intend to do the same with my son as he comes of age.”
“Don’t ask me to cry over your poor deprived kids,” Liam said. “I had a miserable childhood without any doting fathers or weekend yacht rides. Crocket Malone pounded me into a man with his fists. I grew up in a freezing cold tenement because he was too cheap to buy coal, and when most kids were in school, I sweltered in a steel mill tending the furnaces. I only have one happy memory from my childhood.” He leaned forward in his chair as he locked eyes with Oscar. “I remember being on a boat with my real father. I remember facing into the wind and laughing with him as we threw crusts of bread up to the sea gulls wheeling above us. That boat was the Black Rose, and I want it back.”
Uncomfortable seconds ticked by, and Oscar narrowed his eyes in a glare. “I think you’re bluffing.”
“Try me,” Liam said. “If the U.S. Steel deal flies without opposition, you will be rich beyond all imagination. You can buy another yacht, but there’s only one Black Rose. I can’t get my childhood or my father back, but I can get the Black Rose back.”
The challenge hung in the air, and Patrick wanted to strangle Liam. This was precisely the sort of tangent he’d warned Liam against because it endangered the real prize, but the gamble paid off. Oscar caved, and Liam signed over his ten percent of the vote in exchange for a seat on the board of directors for U.S. Steel. The agreement would make Liam one of the most powerful men in the steel industry.
As they walked out of the mansion, Liam carried the title to the Black Rose in his back pocket.
38
Gwen arrived at the college’s greenhouse on Wednesday morning with a couple of students to add an extra layer of insulation to the north side of the structure. Little Mimi sat inside the greenhouse, charged with potting the goldenseal roots they’d prepared the other day. Mimi stared dully at a bowl of potting soil sitting in front of her. It was early, and she was probably sleepy, given the way she stared with limp interest at the bowl.
Gwen helped Hiram and Jake lay a roll of foil into the trench they’d dug around the north end of the building. It took almost an hour, and when they returned inside, Mimi still sat slumped before the bowl of potting soil. She hadn’t touched it yet.
“You’re not going to let us down by neglecting those plants, are you, Mimi?” Gwen teased.
To her horror, Mimi’s expression crumpled, and she curled over, hiding her face.
Gwen gasped, racing to hunker down beside the girl. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asked, but Mimi just shook her head and didn’t speak.
Hiram and Jake both dropped what they were doing to stand nearby, looking on in concern.
“You can tell me anything,” Gwen whispered. Mimi was always so cheerful and optimistic. It was awful to see her battling tears. Gwen rubbed Mimi’s back. “Please tell me how I can make it better.”
Mimi lifted her head. Her lower lip trembled furiously, but she was finally able to stammer out a reply. “My walker got broken.”
Gwen glanced at the metal frame with wheels that Mimi depended on to walk. It looked all right from here, but Jake was inspecting it.
“Yup, Miss Mimi, it looks like the bracket on this wheel got bent. How did that happen?”
Mimi’s lip started wobbling again, and tears spilled over. “Some boys on my street took it away from me. They put it up in a tree, and I couldn’t stop them because I couldn’t walk. They left it up there, and when my mama came to get it down, it fell, and the wheel broke.”
Gwen stared, aghast.
“What are their names?” Hiram demanded.
“I don’t know who they were, but they were mean,” Mimi said. “They laughed at how I got stuck on the ground and couldn’t even stand up without my walker.”
“Okay, so what did they look like?” Hiram pressed.
Gwen pulled Mimi tighter in her arms. “Don’t make her relive it,” she murmured to him, but Hiram was just as adamant.
“I’m going to find out who they are,” he whispered fiercely. “No bratty kids are going to gang up on Mimi and get away with it.”
But they would get away with it. Even if Hiram figured out who those boys were and scared the daylights out of them, children could be cruel, and there would be more who would find an easy target in Mimi’s thick glasses and malformed legs. Mimi was only just beginning to understand that she was different, and the coming years were going to be hard for her.
Jake was more pragmatic as he examined the damaged wheel. He cautiously rolled the walker forward. It still worked, but the wheel made a knocking sound as it rotated. “I’ll bet Professor Jenkins can fix this in short order. He’s an engineer and can probably have it repaired before lunchtime.”
“I don’t think it will ever be the same again,” Mimi whispered, and Gwen’s heart split wide open because it wasn’t the walker Mimi spoke about. She scrambled for a way to make the girl feel better.
“Why don’t we go over to my house for a snack?” she suggested. “I have a pan of brownies, and I can’t eat them all myself. I think the three of you deserve a treat.”
Hiram carried Mimi piggyback-style on the short walk to Gwen’s house. Jake dropped off the walker with Professor Jenkins and joined them for brownies with milk in the garden. Word about what had happened spread quickly on campus, and soon the students who worked in the library came over to help cheer up Mimi.
The girl ate part of a brownie, then became engrossed by the fish swimming in the pond. She asked permission to feed them, and Gwen fetched her a slice of bread. Within an hour, Professor Jenkins showed up, wheeling the repaired walker, which had been decked out with ribbons and a bouquet of carnations tied to the handle.
Mimi beamed when she saw it. Even more professors and a couple of graduate students accompanied Professor Jenkins. The garden was full, and Gwen raced inside to assemble a platter of fruit and cheese for the impromptu party.
It was bittersweet. She loved this garden and the parties that had been held here over the years. She loved that Mimi felt safe here, and that the people of the college came out in support of this much-loved little girl. There would come a time when the staff and students of Blackstone College could no longer protect Mimi from the cruelty of others, but it would be better for the girl to have a few more years to grow strong and confident before facing the harsh realities of the world.
Gwen pulled Hiram aside. “Can you stay with Mimi for a few minutes? I have an errand I need to do.”
He looked a little befuddled but readily agreed. “Sure thing, Mrs. Kellerman.”
Tears blurred her vision as she closed the door of her house and began walking toward the heart of campus. Each block was laden with memories. She passed the president’s house, where she had been born and raised. She passed the biology building, where she earned her degree, and the quadrangle, where endless summer days had been spent learning, growing, and making lifelong friendships. She walked beneath the elm trees and silver maples that shaded campus. They were tall now, but she remembered when they were newly planted saplings during the early years of the college.
It had been a wonderful place to grow up. She had been surrounded by adults who were as protective of her as they were of Mimi. This college was a cocoon of learning and a celebration of the world around them. Gwen would be forever grateful for her years here, but she didn’t need the safety of a cocoon anymore.
Mimi did.
It was cool inside the administration building as she headed toward the accounting office. Vivian sat at the front counter, her fingers clicking on an adding machine. Her face cooled when she saw Gwen, but she didn’t move.
“The house is yours,” Gwen said. “You and Mimi can move in at the end of the month.”
It was time to say good-bye to Jasper and the life they once shared. She was ready to move out into the real world and discover who she could become if she had never hidden herself away in an ivory tower.
It was the morning of the vote to buy Carnegie Steel and merge it with ten other mills to form the United States Steel Corporation. Patrick expected it to be a stressful day, but he hadn’t realized he’d spend the final hour before the meeting in the men’s washroom of Blackstone Bank, helping Liam battle the nerves that were getting the better of him. Liam was sweating so badly he’d had to wash his face, and he was now leaning over the green marble washbasin with gold-plated taps.
“Don’t be so nervous,” Patrick counseled Liam. “The vote is a foregone conclusion.”
Liam closed the taps and blotted his face with a towel handed to him by a uniformed attendant. What sort of place had staff in the washrooms to hand out towels? Whenever Patrick thought he’d gotten used to the foibles of the Blackstones, something like this rose up to smack him in the face.
“Yeah, but I’m not used to double-crossing people,” Liam said. “I’m scared to death about what Frederick is going to say when he finds out I’ve flipped to Oscar’s side. I feel sick to my guts about it. Andrew Carnegie is going to be here. J.P. Morgan too.”
For the past hour Patrick had been using kind, priestly counsel to gently build Liam’s confidence, but none of it had worked. Perhaps it was time to change tactics. He grabbed Liam’s shoulders to jerk him upright and toughened his voice.
“If you want to serve on the board of directors, these are the kind of men you’ll be working with every day. Stand up straight, look them in the eye, and treat them like equals.”
Liam glared. “They’re not equals; they’re the enemy.”
“Knock it off,” Patrick ordered, his voice loud enough to echo off the tile. “As of today, they are your business partners. Start acting like it.”
Liam took a bracing breath, then blew it out and stood up straight. “You’re right.” He adjusted his collar and tugged down the vest of his insanely expensive suit.
Just before leaving, he tipped the washroom attendant. “You didn’t hear anything, right?” Liam said to the man.
“Of course not.” The attendant flashed Liam a wink. “Good luck, sir.”
They rode in an elevator with turquoise and jade inlaid on the marble floor. Patrick watched the brass dial above the door rotate with each floor they climbed until they arrived at the top level and the attendant cranked the doors open.
A dozen men mingled in the lobby outside the boardroom. Patrick immediately homed in on the only woman in the group. Natalia stood beside her father, wearing a sharply tailored emerald-green ensemble with a vest, tie, and jacket that still managed to look remarkably feminine. It was good to see a familiar face.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Patrick said, reaching out to shake her hand.
“I’ve got Count Sokolov’s shares to vote,” she said. “I’ll never have a vote of my own, but Father lets me sit in on the meetings and vote the count’s shares. Hello, Liam.”
“Natalia,” Liam acknowledged, but he was staring across the lobby toward where Andrew Carnegie stood alongside J.P. Morgan. “I didn’t realize he was so short,” he whispered. Andrew Carnegie was a colossus in the business world but only stood a few inches over five feet.
Before Patrick could reply, the doors to the boardroom were opened, and everyone began funneling inside.
The longest table Patrick had ever seen dominated the center of the room. It was so glossy it could be used as a mirror, and each seat had a nameplate before it. The owners of ten steel companies were here today. Frederick Blackstone took the seat at one end of the table, and J.P. Morgan sat at the opposite end. Between the two men, they were about to finance the creation of U.S. Steel.
“Gentlemen, please have a seat,” Frederick said.
Introductions were made, for these steel magnates had come from across the nation and some had never met before. Frederick went out of his way to welcome “my grandson William” to the table.
J.P. Morgan had complete control over his bank, and recording his shares was a simple matter. The Blackstone shares were a little more complicated, with Oscar representing most of the votes that had been submitted to him via proxy, and Natalia voting the count’s shares. Then it came to Liam, who stood.
“I expected to vote alongside my grandfather, but after careful consideration of the operating agreement, I believe the unions can get a fair shake from this company. I want to acknowledge my support of that agreement by voting in favor of it.”
Frederick looked stunned as he gaped at Liam, but Liam kept his gaze on Andrew Carnegie.
“I will make it my mission in life to ensure this new company thrives, both for the workers and the health of the company as a whole. Neither side can prosper without the other, and I hope to be a trusted go-between for both sides.” Liam swallowed hard and looked directly at Frederick. “I hope this doesn’t disappoint you.”
Liam sat, looking a little less confident.
Frederick leaned back in his chair, an inscrutable expression on his face as he spoke. “Since the moment you walked back into our lives, I wondered if you would take after Oscar or your father. Now I know. You are split straight down the middle. You are a man ruled by his heart but who uses cold, hard logic to get there. I won’t underestimate you again.”
