A Secret Ambition

XIII

Callan watched as Lily departed for the day at the same time she always did. He drifted to the window, as he had been doing for a few weeks, and watched as she walked down the street and around the corner.

It would be sixteen hours until she returned, and he got to see her again.

Because he liked hard workers, even if they had begun like an eejit, and that was why he looked forward to seeing her again.

She had been wearing a rather beautiful shade of green today. Was she wearing it for his benefit? Did she know that St Patrick's Day was approaching on the seventeenth of the month? It looked beautiful against the contrast of her dark hair and pale skin, and he had firmed in his opinion that green was his favourite colour on her.

Because he was Irish, and he enjoyed being a bleeding stereotype.

Not because he was remarkably attracted to his secretary.

Fionn abandoned him for the tavern not long after Lily had departed, which left Callan to his list of named for his new ship that he was brainstorming. He did not know why he was pretending to consider anything else other than what he had settled on.

It would not be Muddy Brown Eyes or Mammy's Eyes. Callan suddenly regretted not asking Lily's opinion. What might she have suggested? Would it have changed his mind?

Despite never having laid eyes on the vessel in person, Callan was firm in his belief that 'Ocean Eyes' she would be.

Because he liked the ocean, and not because the eyes of someone in his employ were as blue as the Irish Sea.

Callan's thoughts were interrupted by a brief, but firm, knock on his door. He left his desk and went to answer the door, where he was greeted but a messenger holding out an express addressed to him. Callan anxiously turned it over. The receipt of an express made him worry about his mother back home, but he was relieved when he saw that the letter was not from her, but from Francis Oliver, the owner of Norwood Mills.

What need would he have to send an express to Callan?

Callan shut the door and immediately broke the seal, imagining in hope that Mr Oliver was writing to request another shipment of Callan's cotton just as soon as it had arrived from the West Indies. That could be the only explanation.

But that was not the case.

What Callan read brought him to his knees, and he was promptly sick on the floor. His heart raced as he read and re-read the lines of the letter to make them change. His eyes had to be deceiving him.

Spoiled goods.

Fraudulent terms.

Legal action.

Immediate return of moneys paid.

Contract termination.

Callan read these words over and over. How? How was this possible? How was his cotton shipment spoiled? How was it possible that he was being accused of establishing a contact on fraudulent terms?

Return of the moneys paid.

Were Callan in front of a mirror, he was certain that he would have appeared as white as a ghost. His heart had begun to beat so erratically that it might have stopped altogether, and Callan was certain he was about to die of shock. And if he did not die of shock, then he would die for the shame.

Return the money? How could he? They money was gone! It was paying for a new voyage to the West Indies, his new ship, his loan repayments, everything!