Louisa Rawlings by Forever Wild

foul boat to come to this land. But I was determined to make it. I wasn’t about to spend my life like my father in Scotland, grubbing a living out of a rocky soil that didn’t give a damn for a man.”
    Willough gazed at him in adoration. She could almost see him as he must have been. Young and reckless. Bold and daring and handsome. “You started with the bloomery forge, didn’t you?”
    He nodded. “Hot as hell it was, working day and night to pound that red-hot mass into good cash. But the ore was there, lying on the ground for the taking.” He made a fist, peering intently at the knotted muscles of his hand. “Seventeen years. Seventeen years ! To bend that land to my will. To show them that MacCurdy was a man to be reckoned with!” He laughed bitterly. “And then I built my house at MacCurdyville and went looking for a wife.”
    “Oh, Daddy,” she said, near tears.
    He waggled his finger at her. “No, lass. The Carruths were a classy lot, and don’t you forget it. I guess it’s what I wanted at the time. I was thirty-one, rich as the devil, and rough as they come. And your mother at eighteen was a beauty. I kept thinking of the old laird back home. Five daughters, he had. And they’d throw mud at me for sport. But they couldn’t hold a candle to your mother for class.”
    “And you didn’t mind changing your name for her?”
    He laughed. “It didn’t change me ! Which fact your mother sometimes regretted, I think.”
    Willough looked down at her hands. “I hate her,” she whispered.
    “No, lass, you mustn’t. Pity her instead. With nothing but her tonic and her laudanum to keep her going.”
    “And Arthur,” she said bitterly.
    He stared at her for a minute, and then began to laugh. “Arthur? You don’t really think…a tumble in the hay with her skirts up…? My God, you do!”
    “Daddy, please.” She put her hands to her burning cheeks.
    “There’s nothing between them, Willough. There never has been. Not with a woman like your mother.” He laughed again. “My God, not with any man!”
    “But…”
    He shrugged his shoulders and reached for another cigar. “Oh, he was infatuated with her for years. I knew that. But it was harmless. I knew that too. And she seemed to enjoy his attentions. All his pretty ideas of romance.” He shook his head. “I never remembered to bring her flowers. Your mother always set great store by little things like that. But I think Arthur’s lost interest in the last few years.”
    “Then why did you leave? I always thought it was because of Arthur.”
    “I left because it just seemed better to move out. I couldn’t make her happy. And Arthur always kept her amused.” He exhaled a puff of blue smoke. “I like Arthur, by the way.”
    Unexpectedly, she felt herself blushing, remembering how Arthur had looked at her, kissed her on the cheek. She plucked at a piece of lint on her skirt. “I do too,” she said softly. How noble of Arthur, she thought. Worshiping her mother from afar. It seemed so courtly and chivalrous—to burn with an unrequited love and ask for nothing more.
    She felt a surge of tenderness for Arthur. For his strength and purity. Perhaps she had misjudged him all these years.
    “Arthur’s been very helpful this last year,” her father said. “Business has been booming. When I needed more woodland for charcoal—that big tract over near New Russia—I showed you on the map—Arthur was able to get a change in legislation up in Albany.”
    “Through Mr. Tweed?”
    Brian laughed. “No, thank God. When Tweed’s indictment came down there were a lot of men who were sorry for the deals they’d made! Arthur was a little more discreet on my behalf. He covered his tracks.” He stood up and looked out the window. “We should be reaching Crown Point soon. You’d better get set.”
    “You…you haven’t forgotten about the clerk position…?”
    Brian buttoned his frock coat. “We’ll see. Don’t you worry. I’ll have something