Jackson's Way

New York City Early May, 1838 She studied the big, shiny, block letters on the pebbled glass filling the top half of the massive office door. Lindsay Macphaull. Richard Patterson. If the paint was gold, she could scrape away her name and sell it. Everyone knew it was her office. It didn't need to be so extravagantly labeled. Richard's name would stay, of course. Legally, he was the one in command. "Today could be the day, Miss MacPhaull." She turned to the young man who had spoken and found him standing behind his desk, his eyes bright and his upper lip faintly beaded with perspiration. Lindsay smiled and arched a brow. "Then what are you doing here, Jeb? Shouldn't you be home with your wife?" "I have reports to" "The arrival of one's first child is more important than any report, Jeb," she asserted gently. "Close up your ledgers and go home. Lucy needs you more today than we do." He fingered the corner of the leather-bound book. "Are you sure, Miss MacPhaull?" "Absolutely," she said, taking the young man's hat from the peg on the wall. Handing it to him, she smiled broadly and added, "Please give my best wishes to Lucy. And send word as soon as you have it. We'll be waiting anxiously." He nodded, put the hat on his head, quickly closed the ledger, and stripped away his sleeve protectors. Lindsay watched as he walked sedately to the door of the MacPhaull Company offices, crossed the threshold to the busy sidewalk, and then broke into a dead run. With a quiet chuckle, Lindsay turned and resumed her regular morning course. There might be as much as a half ounce of gold in her name, she decided as she entered the dark paneled office. Every bit would help. "Good morning, Miss Lindsay." Benjamin Tipton, the head bookkeeper, stood across the desk from Richard Patterson in a manner approximating attention. "Good morning, Ben," she answered, nodding to Richard. "Please don't let me interrupt your conversation." He nodded crisply and turned back to the task. Ben was such an interesting blend of contrasts, she thought not for the first time. He was a supremely efficient bookkeeper, with a devotion to order and neatness that bordered on obsession, and yet there was something about him.... Though he'd never said anything, Lindsay couldn't escape the sense that Ben magically transformed into a rakish ladies' man when he left the offices each evening. His clothes were stylish and seemingly chosen to accentuate his blond hair and pale China-blue eyes. Lindsay knew that maintaining his wardrobe had to consume the vast majority of his wages. How he afforded to eat and entertain was beyond her. Of course, she reminded herself as she stripped off her gloves, Ben could well have family resources from which to draw. He was at the age when most men could expect to receive an inheritance from their fathers. Somehow it didn't seem at all odd or the least bit unseemly that Ben would try to parlay a bit of inherited wealth into social connections that might lead to a wife with an inheritance of her own. It was, after all, the way the world worked, and Ben appeared appropriately discreet about it. She just hoped that it never occurred to him that she might be receptive to his advances. Ben was a pleasant, handsome, and intelligent-enough man, but he was simply too much of a dandy to appeal to any of her senses. He reminded her of a porcelain doll. "The news is even worse than we expected, Lindsay," Richard said from his side of the huge mahogany desk,LaFoy, Leslie is the author of 'Jackson's Way' with ISBN 9780553583137 and ISBN 0553583131.