“It’s not real,” Patrick said.
“What’s not real?”
“Her supposed friendship with Count Sokolov. It’s just rich people wasting money on expensive telegrams.”
Her whimsical musing about Natalia and her lonely Russian count evaporated. Just because Natalia’s friendship was unlikely didn’t mean it wasn’t real. Sometimes love and friendship blossomed despite barriers of time and distance and class. Patrick might refuse to believe it, but that was his shortcoming, not hers. Frustrated annoyance with him boiled over.
“Patrick, you are the biggest snob on this yacht, and considering Poppy is aboard, that’s saying a lot.”
She walked away before she said something even more unkind.
Patrick watched in astonishment as Gwen stormed away. He was a man of the people! He didn’t have an ounce of snobbery or entitlement and had dedicated his life to serving the poor. Temptation to follow Gwen and demand an explanation clawed at him, but Liam foiled his chance.
“Yo, Patrick!” Liam called from the stern of the ship, where he was clustered with some of Gwen’s pretentious cousins. “We need your saintly wisdom to settle a legal argument.”
Patrick shoved his frustrations aside to join Liam and several of the Blackstone cousins from the third generation. Joshua, whose face had fully healed from his brush with the wild gunshots, seemed much friendlier today than he’d been before.
“Three percent of the bank’s shares are owned by a bunch of monks in Spain,” Joshua said. “How do priestly vows of poverty reconcile with the riches they’re likely to start earning from U.S. Steel?”
“I’ve got no insight for you,” Patrick admitted. Aside from the fact that they had been tightfisted about the seeds Gwen wanted, he didn’t know a single thing about those Spanish monks. “Monastic finance isn’t something I have experience with.”
“Really?” Joshua asked. “I thought you were an expert on church finances. That you holed up with Father Murry’s church in Pittsburgh every night to set up a special accounting system.”
It took a moment for Patrick to digest that statement. Everything Joshua said was true, but the details of those long afternoons with Father Murry weren’t something he’d shared with anyone aside from Liam. Patrick’s heart rate picked up a notch, but he kept the tension from his voice as he spoke directly to Joshua.
“How do you know about my work with that church in Pittsburgh?”
Joshua looked uneasy, shifting his weight while struggling for a laugh. “Well, you know . . . there was that newspaper article about it. About how you helped yourself to the till. Not that we believe it, of course! You remember, Poppy was talking about it at the lobster bake. She had a newspaper from Pittsburgh that she was showing everybody.”
Patrick tried to remember exactly what was in the article Poppy had been showing around, but Liam cut straight to the chase.
“That article was from the Pittsburgh police blotter,” Liam said. “It never mentioned the priest’s name or what Patrick was working on for him, so how do you know it?”
“Poppy told me,” Joshua said simply.
Poppy was only ten yards away, holding court with the elderly aunts. Patrick needed to pin this down, because Father Murry’s name hadn’t been printed in that article, which meant someone knew a lot more about the incident than had appeared in the newspaper.
He strode toward Poppy, and the others followed. Liam snapped his fingers, summoning his bodyguards, who had been posted near the stern of the ship. Soon all of them were standing next to Poppy, who sat enthroned on a wicker chair with a huge rounded back.
“Poppy, what do you know about the crime I was accused of in Pittsburgh?” Patrick asked bluntly.
All five aunts swiveled to gape at him, while Poppy looked offended. “Excuse me, I was having a civilized conversation with my husband’s aunts about the birth of my child.”
“And I need to know how you got your hands on that newspaper from Pittsburgh.” Figuring out how that newspaper got to the island might reveal who was behind the trumped-up charges at Father Murry’s church.
Aunt Martha pushed herself to her feet to soothe the troubled waters. “I hope you know that none of us believe that nonsense,” she said, but Patrick wouldn’t let the subject drop.
He leaned in closer to Poppy. “I want to know how you got your hands on that newspaper.”
By now, plenty of others had gathered around, all of them awaiting Poppy’s answer.
“Edwin gave it to me,” she said. “He subscribes to all the major newspapers on the East Coast so he can buy antiques that get listed for sale.”
“Edwin doesn’t have two dimes to rub together,” Liam said. “Just last week he asked me for a loan. He ought to get a real job instead of trying to make a go of it buying old junk.”
“Junk?” Bertie asked. “I paid him six hundred dollars for an antique flask, and I still haven’t seen it yet.”
Patrick spoke directly to Liam. “Being broke isn’t a crime, but it’s awfully convenient that Edwin was reading the Pittsburgh police blotter. Someone tried to frame us in Pittsburgh and probably pulled some strings to get it reported in the paper. I wonder if Edwin was in Pittsburgh this summer.”
