Fortune's Flames Read Free

cargoes to be replaced. I sold everything I could get my hands on, Maren, but it wasn’tenough. At that time, I didn’t know about Redford’s death, so I didn’t realize you would need the house, the jewels, and money. If I had known about your bad luck, I would have bankrupted this office and saved whatever I could for you.”
    He smiled wryly. “Truthfully, I expected to find you happily married and rich enough to make me a loan. I’ve sunk nearly all I have into the New Orleans office to keep it alive until this war ends. I’ve worked hard to find men who’ll slip a few cargoes through the British blockade; that’s how I’ve managed to stay afloat.”
    She reasoned, “If you’ve made it through the blockade several times before, why haven’t you fetched me sooner? And why couldn’t Papa have gotten at least one message to me? I’ve been frantic.”
    “It was too risky, Maren. My schedules were tight, and my voyages were vital to America. We had to stay clear of Britain to avoid capture. I knew you were safe there. My crews and cargoes had to come first. Your parents wrote to you, but the letters didn’t get through.”
    Maren knew her parents had loved her and had tried to contact her, but the war and distance had prevented them from succeeding, just as distance and slow means of communication between New Orleans and Washington had kept news of the outbreak of the war from reaching her before she had sailed so long ago.
    Eric was saying, “You can study the books when we reach New Orleans, but you’ll see that only mypersonal investment remains in James Shipping. I would turn it over to you, Maren, but it’s all I have. Besides, a man needs work more than a woman. How else can he marry and support a family?”
    “But why did you sell the plantation? It was my home. And why didn’t its sale bring in enough money to settle father’s debts?” Maren inquired.
    “The blockade, little cousin. Goods are of little value if you can’t export them. By the time your father learned about the war, he had already speculated on several owners’ crops. He would have made a fortune if the Royal Navy hadn’t prevented him from shipping them to foreign ports. Whole cargoes rotted on the wharf because we couldn’t ship them anywhere. We tried to sell as much as we could locally, but everyone was in the same predicament. Running a plantation requires lots of money, and your parents ran out of it for they had little or no income for nearly a year. Things were so bad during that first winter that your father sold whatever he could part with to feed his workers and servants. You can talk with the people in town; they’ll tell you how bad it was for him. Maybe death was a blessing, Maren. He was a proud man, and it would have destroyed him to lose everything.”
    “Even if things were that terrible, Eric, Papa was not a quitter. He would have found some way to survive, to begin anew. A man isn’t to blame for a failure he cannot prevent.”
    “Maren, Maren,” he chided softly. “You don’t know what it’s been like during your absence. Thinkabout it, a blockade of our entire Atlantic coast. War, little cousin. Lives lost in bloody battles. You’ve been spared the demands of the conflict. I saw Uncle Cam every day. I watched this war take its toll on him. He was helpless. Do you know what that does to a man?”
    As she sipped the second sherry Eric had poured for her, her cheeks began to glow and she felt warm and tingly. It seemed that they were discussing strangers and another land. “If things are so bad, why didn’t you ask Grandfather for a loan?” she asked.
    “The same James pride and stubbornness that our fathers had. I want to survive this mess by my own wits and skills. I want to prove myself to Grandfather and Murray and to our customers and competitors. This is the first big matter I’ve been allowed to handle; I can’t fail. If I told him why I needed the money, I would have to tell him