Love's First Bloom (4 page)

He drew in a long breath and picked up his tools and travel bag, but waited for a carriage to pass by before crossing the street. As he descended the cellar steps, he noted that the sign over the cellar door was exactly the same. The name of the newspaper had not changed, and he was pleasantly surprised to see that his name, as co-owner and co-editor, had not been removed but remained just below his older brother’s.

For as long as he could remember, Tripp had walked willingly in his older brother’s shadow. Still, he had never been as driven or as focused as his brother, especially after their father’s death and their mother’s remarriage, which prompted their move to New York City.

Now both his mother and his stepfather were gone. Clifford was the only family he had left. Clifford was also one of the very few people here in the city who had known him long enough and well enough to call him Jake, the middle name he preferred to Asher, the given name his brother insisted be used professionally.

Jake took a deep breath and prayed that the bonds of brotherhood they shared were still strong enough to allow his brother to forgive him and welcome him back into his life. If not, he had no hope his brother would allow him to try, yet again, to be the man he wanted to be.

Pausing at the bottom of the steps, he set his travel bag down just long enough to open the door. Assaulted by the smell of ink and paper that inspired even more bittersweet memories, he had both his bag and his tools on the floor and the door closed again before the echo of the bell over the door had stopped ringing.

Straight ahead, two large wooden desks littered with papers, pens, and inkwells, as well as stacks of newspapers, stood side by side. Behind them, a partition separated the front office from the printing area that was now silent, waiting only for the afternoon when the day’s news would be written and then put to press overnight.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

Jake stiffened as his brother’s hurried footsteps drew nearer. When a door in the partition opened, he clenched and unclenched his fists, anticipating the moment when he would come face-to-face with his brother for the first time in two very long, very difficult years.

Without looking up, Clifford walked into the room to greet his caller, wiping his ink-stained hands with a gray cloth. He was still quite a bit shorter in stature than Jake, but the auburn hair they had in common was now tinged with just a hint of gray and his face was lined and shadowed by overwork.

“I was hoping to get more of this ink off before I—”

Looking up, he stopped abruptly and stared at Jake, while the cloth lay motionless in one of his hands.

For several heavy heartbeats, Jake met his brother’s gaze and held it. “They say you can judge a man quickly by looking at his hands, in which case I would venture to say that you’re still a man completely dedicated to his work.” He felt oddly embarrassed by how rough his own hands had become over the past two years.

Clifford walked forward, but stopped behind the desk he had claimed as his own when they first opened their newspaper four years ago with nothing more than belief in themselves— and a line of credit from the bank to augment their mutual investment of funds they had inherited from their stepfather. He tossed the cloth to the top of his desk. “They also say you can judge a man by his actions, in which case I would venture to say that you are—”

“A coward? An incompetent, irresponsible cad?” Jake offered quickly before his brother could utter the words.

Clifford nodded. “At the very least, although I could add a few more negatives, if you’ve a mind to listen,” he countered as he walked around the desk and stopped directly in front of him.

Jake braced himself by locking his knees and straightening his shoulders. “I’ll listen. I deserve anything and everything you have to say to me.”

“Probably more, if truth be told, although I must admit that I’m quite at a loss to simplify into a few words what you did to me and to the business we started together when you walked away, leaving nothing more than a note for me to read.”

“I know,” Jake offered. “I’m sorry—”

“Unfortunately,” his brother continued, without allowing Jake time to completely apologize, “I had no choice but to stay here and try to clean up the mess you left behind if I had any hope of recouping the losses we suffered.” His voice reflected a deep hurt that tugged at Jake’s conscience.

Glancing down at the tools on the floor, Clifford shook his head. “Did you ever once think about me while you were traipsing anywhere and everywhere, earning your keep as a common handyman with our father’s old tools? Or were you too busy feeling sorry for yourself to give me a single thought?”

“Of course I thought about you,” Jake said.

“And just how would I know that? You never wrote. Not even once. If it hadn’t been for Capt. Grant, I wouldn’t have even known you were still alive, though I suspect you might have been back sooner if it hadn’t been for him.”

“Under the circumstances, I wasn’t certain you’d even care or be willing to read a letter from me,” Jake replied, without defending the man who had given Jake free passage on his ship whenever he needed to move on from one town to another along the eastern seaboard.

Clifford sighed. “Circumstances? I didn’t create those circumstances. You did, the moment you took up the cause for that woman and stirred up public interest in her, even though I warned you to investigate more thoroughly. And when the reporters for the
Herald
and the
Transcript
and the
Sun
uncovered the fact she was a swindler, you didn’t even have the courage to stay and face the truth: Because of your incompetence, that woman and her accomplices disappeared with thousands of dollars. All because you assured the public that rescuing an elderly woman who had allegedly been the victim of her own vulnerability was a worthy cause.”

Clifford paused and shook his head. “The
Galaxy
became a laughingstock. I couldn’t even give copies of it away for months,” he admitted, his voice crackling with anger. He braced both hands on his desk and leaned forward. “You didn’t even have the courage to stay and help me to rebuild what was left of the newspaper. Did you know I had to move a cot into this cellar because I didn’t have enough money to live anywhere else? Of course not. You didn’t even stay long enough to face me, not even once, did you?”

Jake swallowed the lump in his throat. “No. I-I couldn’t. I never meant for you to carry the burden of what I’d done. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry, Clifford.”

His brother stood up straight. “I’ll never be able to forget what you did, Jake, and I’d be less than honest if I said that I’d ever be able to forgive you, either. So if that’s why you’re here, I’m afraid you’ll just have to be as disappointed in me as I am in you.”

Stung, Jake nodded stiffly. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, he struggled to choose the right words to say so that his brother would not refuse his request to return to work, in spite of how unforgiving he claimed to be. “You have every right to be angry with me—”

“How good of you to admit it to my face,” his brother snapped. “Not that you care, but I’ve worked long and hard for the past two years without your help. The
Galaxy
is second only to the
Sun
at the moment, thanks to the Livingstone trial, and I’m determined to top their circulation by year’s end. If it’s money you want, I’m willing to return your initial investment, but frankly, I don’t think you deserve any of the profits I’ve managed to accumulate.”

Jake cleared his throat. “All I want is to come back and work with you.”

“Work here again? Are you daft?”

“You just admitted that I still own an interest in the business,” Jake insisted. “I don’t want money or any of the profits you’ve earned over the past two years. I just want a chance to prove myself, to you and to the readers I disappointed.”

“I’ve worked very hard to regain the people’s trust,” his brother countered. “Readers have a long memory, especially when they’ve been hoodwinked out of their hard-earned money. And just in case they’ve forgotten how you led them down that ill-fated path, there are reporters for the other penny dailies who will be more than happy to remind them, even if I decided to take a risk and let you return to work here.”

“Then don’t tell anyone I’m back here working again,” Jake argued. “Give me an assignment outside of the city. Anything. I’ll travel anywhere, for any length of time, to investigate the background of any story you choose. Just let me prove to you that I can pursue a story and investigate it until I’ve uncovered the whole truth of the matter and not just the truth I hope or want to see.”

“And if you fail?” Clifford asked.

Jake stiffened. “I won’t fail.”

“But what if you do? What then? Where will you run off to this time?”

“I won’t fail. No matter how long it takes or how hard I have to work, I won’t let you down again. Please, Clifford. I just want one more chance.”

Clifford’s gaze hardened. “If you fail this time, you’ll sign over your interest in the newspaper to me, leaving me free to find a more suitable partner. That’s the best I can do.”

Jake extended his hand. “Agreed.”

Instead of shaking his brother’s hand, Clifford walked over to the desk Jake once used and sorted through a bunch of newspapers lying on top. “Are you familiar with the Livingstone trial, or have you been living in total oblivion for the past few weeks?”

“Actually, I’ve been living for the past few months in a very small town in New Hampshire, helping to rebuild a church that was destroyed by fire. They have absolutely no interest in anything beyond county lines and barely support their local newspaper.”

Clifford snorted. “What about the Jewett case two years ago, right after you left?”

Jake nodded. Headlines up and down the East Coast had roared with the Jewett case for a good year after the trial ended. “That I remember.”

Clifford paused for a moment and looked at his brother.

Jake shrugged. “I was living in Philadelphia at the time, and the papers carried the story there, too. As I recall, despite overwhelming evidence, the young man was obviously guilty of killing Helen Jewett, but he was acquitted—a case of where the victim’s ill-fated life as a prostitute mattered less to the jurors than the status of the man who killed her.”

“Exactly as the
Galaxy
predicted long before any of the other newspapers, which helped reestablish the paper’s credibility,” Clifford noted with pride. “The Livingstone trial, which shouldn’t reach the jury for at least another two weeks or so, is generating even more interest than the Jewett case did, because the man charged with killing this particular prostitute just happens to be a minister. I’m sure you remember him and his organization, Prodigal Daughters, which was designed to bring the city’s ‘fallen angels’ back to the faith. He was rather controversial even before this poor woman was found murdered only hours after he left her.”

“He’s the minister who confronted those women on the street and tried to convert them,” Jake offered.

“And visited the brothels regularly at night to see them, which did not endear him to the owners of the brothels or the city elites who frequented them,” Clifford added. “Here. Read these,” he ordered as he shoved a handful of papers into Jake’s hands. “Learn everything there is to know about the case.”

“If the trial is right here in the city, it’s going to be hard to hide the fact that I’m back working here, assuming that’s what you have in mind,” Jake stated.

“But you won’t be here. Not for very long, although I expect you to keep a very low profile while you’re here,” his brother said. “There’s no doubt that Reverend Livingstone is guilty, and the city will not accept his acquittal like they did for Jewett’s murderer, which means his fate is sealed. But right now, the big question that’s fueling public interest isn’t about the trial itself. It’s the mystery surrounding Livingstone’s daughter, Ruth. She’s gone missing, and no one, including two of my best reporters, has been able to find her.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Jake asked as he began skimming the headlines on the four-page newspapers.

“Speculation seems to favor the idea that she didn’t go into hiding to avoid the scandal of the trial, but that her father may have killed her, too.”

Jake abruptly stopped reading and met his brother’s determined gaze. “You actually think he killed her?”

“I don’t know, although in all truth I suspect he didn’t. He doesn’t seem to have many supporters left, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that one of them is giving her a place to hide from the press as well as the officials who would dearly love to speak to her. If you’re serious about redeeming yourself, then that’s your assignment. Find her.”

“Find her,” Jake repeated, envisioning days, if not weeks, spent traveling again, risking all that he owned to meet his brother’s challenge.

“If she’s dead, you need to find her body and have it positively identified,” Clifford demanded. “If she’s alive, you need to find out why she went into hiding and whether or not she has evidence that would help to convict her father. Either way will suit both our needs. Just find Ruth Livingstone before anyone else does. Otherwise you’re finished here. Permanently.”

Jake swallowed hard. His brother had given him a challenge almost impossible to meet, but it was a challenge he could ill-afford to turn down. “Is there anywhere I can stay while I’m in the city?”

“I still have that cot in the back storage room. You can sleep there. Just be discreet. I want as few people as possible knowing you’re back in the city again,” Clifford snapped.

“I’ve slept on worse more than once during the past two years,” Jake replied. He knew he would never again find a good night’s sleep if he failed his brother professionally again. But he was determined to earn even more—his brother’s forgiveness.

Five