Not that a man like Mr. MacKintosh would be courting her of all people. She knew his reputation well enough and had heard all the gossip. Arrogant and something of a womanizer. The past two years since he’d entered society had made that clear enough.
Oh, Mrs. Preston might put it about that he was on a concerted hunt for a bride, but even if he were, she’d never believe he’d court her with such an intention. He’d been surrounded by the loveliest and wealthiest of suitable young ladies over the past two years and hadn’t yet been compelled to wed.
From under her lashes, she watched him rake his fingers through his deep mahogany hair as he strode down the hall. His evening jacket strained around his broad shoulders and brawny arms. He might have been the brother of an earl, but James MacKintosh wasn’t like the many impoverished noblemen who’d come to New York hunting for an heiress over the past few decades. Rumor had it, he had his own wealth, and that combined with his handsomeness and virility…
Well, if he were truly marriage minded, he could have made a choice long ago. It wouldn’t be someone like her.
“Prim…”
With a blink, Prim looked up at Shane in surprise. She hadn’t heard his approach.Ah, for pity’s sake, she’d wasted away her few precious moments alone ruminating over Mr. MacKintosh. She hadn’t lied about that. After a day filled with children, brothers who couldn’t seem to recall they owned their own homes, and an evening in Mr. Leachman’s dour company, she had truly longed for a few minutes of peace.
Now it was gone.
Not only that, Shane was yet again eyeing her with suspicion.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I hardly uttered a full sentence. I was in no way flirting with him or him with me.”
But was he? To her surprise, he’d sought her company despite her standoffish behavior, though she couldn’t imagine to what end. Granted, she’d heard the rumors about him and certain widows, but surely he could tell she wasn’t one of that sort.
At least she’d never been tempted to be.
CHAPTER 4
Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.
~ George Sandfrom Letters of George Sand
The New York State Capitol Building
Albany, New York
The following week
After hours in the comfort of the state capitol building in Albany and the heated debates that had taken place within its walls, the December wind that buffeted him once he exited the mammoth structure was at once refreshing and bloody frigid. James buttoned his long coat and turned up his collar as he accompanied Jack Astor, tall and lean in his knee-length wool coat, and Goelet, far shorter and more rotund, down the granite stairs. Behind them, a dozen lawyers held tight to fat attachés containing the hundreds of documents they’d presented to the assembly that morning.
“Any thoughts?” Goelet asked.
Astor nodded. “Honestly, I think it went well.”
James couldn’t disagree. Their proposal to buy public lands in Manhattan to the north and west of the Central Park to develop into housing and businesses could only help the depressed economy.
“I can’t see why they wouldn’t approve the sale,” James said. “Even with the usual bureaucracy, we should be able to break ground by spring, I think.”
Astor stopped at the base of the stairs and turned to James with an open hand. James shook it firmly and Goelet’s as well.
Goelet nodded in agreement. “Summer at the latest. Couldn’t have worked it better.”
A recession had seized the American economy just before his arrival in the States two years past. Already, the government and businessmen trying to rebuild it with little more than toothpicks and mortar referred to it as the Panic of 1893.
It had happened in a flash. Some blamed agricultural failure in other parts of the world. Some, the Free Silver movement for falling short of its promise to invigorate the economy. Investors began to try to exchange silver notes for gold until the limits of the federal reserve were breached.
With US bank notes losing their ability to be redeemed for gold, the panic set in. Banks started to call in loans and mortgages in an attempt to build their own gold reserves. By the hundreds, banks failed and closed, and in the process families lost their homes. Men, their jobs. By the end of the following year, unemployment rates had climbed to more than twenty percent as companies laid workers off to save their ready cash. Steel companies faltered, railroads dependent upon them like the Union Pacific, Philadelphia, and the Reading did the same.
The panic turned to depression.
Recently, the US Treasury’s gold reserves had fallen below one hundred million. Fear that the government meant to abandon the gold standard it’d held for so long sent investors into a frenzy trying to sell off their assets and convert them to gold. The government, under President Cleveland, had begun taking loans in gold totaling sixty-five million dollars from the Wall Street syndicates and wealthy bankers like Morgan to support the gold standard.
As foreclosures increased, real estate magnates like Astor and Goelet started buying up land in the city. Already working his own connections, James brought them together with his partners in banking like JP Morgan and Gould. Not only did they have the potential to make millions on their investments, but also to bolster the economy by creating jobs and housing.
