Alexei lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to manage your shipyard?”
“You’re a naval architect. Seems like it would be a good fit.”
“I’m a year short of having my degree.”
“You could finish it easy enough if you were living here. I have a foreman who’s handy when it comes to swinging a hammer, but he doesn’t understand the newest advances in shipbuilding, or how strong steel is, or how the structure of a large metal ship differs from that of a smaller wooden one. He doesn’t know much about the boilers that power them either. He’s from the era when everything was wood and sails.”
“Those are the kinds of ships I build,” Alexei pointed out.
“Yes, but only because your supplies are limited due to your location. You understand how the bigger ships work, and I have a feeling that you’ll be building one of your own before too long. So, like I said, if you want a job, you can have one. All you need to do is move down here.”
“And marry Laurel? Is that the unspoken part of this offer?”
Farnsworth scowled. “I might be a businessman, but I’m not so shrewd that I consider my daughters assets. While I require them to marry respectable men, I won’t strong-arm them into marrying one of my associates out of convenience.”
Alexei blew out a breath. That was something, at least.
“I’m sure Laurel would enjoy you being closer, for what it’s worth.”
It was a nice offer. Farnsworth didn’t need to start talking about a salary for Alexei to know he’d be paid well. But he wasn’t sure he could leave Alaska. Everyone other than Yuri might be married, but it seemed like his family needed him now more than ever. “I appreciate the offer, truly. But I belong in Alaska.”
Farnsworth exhaled. “Figured you’d say that, but if you ever get tired of all that rain and snow and wind, there will be a place for you here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Alexei stood. “What time is dinner?”
“Seven.”
He turned and headed toward the door, moving quickly through the outer office, where a trio of clerks sat working attheir desks. When he stepped out into the shipyard air, the scent of salt and wood and metal filled his lungs.
All too easily he could picture himself living here, working in this shipyard, attending fancy dinner parties, courting Laurel in earnest, maybe even drafting designs for entirely new ships. Ones that were more efficient. Ones that could carry the same load as a barge but moved through the water with the speed and precision of a wooden cutter.
But with the rest of his family living in Alaska, he couldn’t picture himself enjoying it.
Or at least, he couldn’t envision himself enjoying most of it. But the part where he got to design new ships? He’d wanted to do that since he was a boy.
And really, would it be so hard to have a lovely woman from a wealthy family by his side as he did so?
16
Sitka; the Same Day
Her father had let her leave the house by herself. That’s how good of a mood he was in now that she was marrying a wealthy railroad baron. He hadn’t even blinked when she’d asked him if she could spend the afternoon in the temporary library building, helping to clean out and organize some of the books people from the community had already donated.
Rosalind didn’t care that the building was filled with dust or that cobwebs clung to every corner of the ceiling. It wasn’t her father’s house, and for a few hours, it was just her and the books and the quiet.
Or rather, it would be quiet if not for the wind howling outside and rattling the windows. Rain streaked the dirty glass, obscuring her view of the road and carriage. The weather had only grown worse in the half hour since she’d arrived. But her father was in such a good mood these days, she wasn’t too worried about getting her dress dirty while she worked.
No, the afternoon was nearly perfect, even with the storm. The only thing that would make it better was a fire in the woodstove that stood in the corner.
The only bad thing about her being engaged was that she hadn’t found much time to search for proof of her father bribing the Marshal. She’d been able to slip into his study once when Leeland and her father were meeting with her uncle on Castle Hill, but otherwise she was either with Leeland or Leeland and her father were in his study, making it impossible to conduct her search.
And she still wanted to search for the ledger. She didn’t want to marry Leeland, and the best way out of the marriage would be to find that ledger sooner rather than later.
But when she’d left to come to the library, her father and Leeland had once again been ensconced in the study. There’d literally been nowhere for her to search.
Rosalind hunkered into her thick mink coat and ran her fingertips along the spine of a leather-bound volume of poetry, then slid it onto one of the shelves against the wall. She needed to focus on shelving books, not let herself get distracted by the ledger. At the meeting tomorrow night, she intended to bring up the need for more shelves for the temporary library. Fortunately there was plenty of space for her to sort through the books that had already been dropped off.
Perhaps Mr. McCreedy could donate some lumber, and she could get some of the schoolboys to help build shelves after school. Surely whatever they built for this building could be moved to the new one once it was complete.
