Silver Tears by Becky Lee Weyrich Page A

here. If he traipsed off with Will Phips, what would become of Alice?
    The thought of joining Will in business intrigued him, but he wasn’t sure he could do it. After all these years in the Maine wilds, Gunn panicked at the mere mention of returning to civilization. Also, there was the baron to be dealt with. Lately he’d proved just how stubborn a Frenchman could be by refusing to negotiate with anyone but his blood brother. Still, the Indians usually remained quiet during the winter. That would give Gunn at least a few months to try out life in Boston as a businessman and to cement his relationship with Alice.
    “You’re sure Mary knows about this invitation, Will?”
    “You know Mary’s always delighted to have you with us, Chris,” Phips insisted. “Besides, the social season is just beginning. How can you even think of passing up such an opportunity?” Will leaned close and whispered suggestively, “Pretty ladies, wine, and song?”
    Most of the night the two men sat in Phips’s quarters discussing the shipbuilding business and the possibilities presented by wintering over in Boston. By dawn Gunn was even more tempted, but still unconvinced.
    “Let me think about it,” he told his eager friend.
    “All right, but don’t take too long considering. That little storm we had was only a mild taste of what we have to look forward to a short while from now. I leave for home in a week. I won’t be back till the spring thaw.”
    “You’re sure Mary agreed to my staying with you?” Gunn asked.
    Phips laughed. “My Mary’s dying to show off her new home. ‘A fair brick house in Green Lane of North Boston,’ just like she told me she wanted. With my cut of the treasure, I’ve built her the finest damn mansion in the whole city.”
    A plan was forming in Gunn’s mind. “Would Mary consider taking in two houseguests for the winter?”
    Phips began to chuckle, then he laughed out loud. “You devil! I should have guessed. But which of your women are you proposing to bring along to keep my Mary company?”
    Gunn frowned. “Alice, I hope. But first I have to figure out what to do with Ishani.”
    By the time Alice awoke the next morning, Christopher Gunn was long gone, probably for good, she supposed. She sighed as she dressed, dreading the day ahead. Last night her resolve had been firm, but as the time drew nearer, she began to lose confidence in her plan. Could she really go to Jonathan Hargrave and tell him that she would marry him? If she did, then could she go through with it?
    She considered the man. He was a good bit older than she, but not nearly as ancient as her first husband had been. Jon’s temples were just beginning to show the slightest hint of silver. He might be forty-five or even fifty, but he was still an active, virile man. He seemed good, steady, reliable. Granted, there was nothing exciting about him, but was marriage, after all, supposed to be one adventure after another?
    “No,” she said aloud. “Marriage is solemn business—the business of surviving together and raising a family.”
    She had to admit that she could see Jon in the role of father and helpmate much more easily than she could visualize Gunn with a child on each buckskin-clad knee. Still, when she thought of her great, red-bearded heathen, a certain warmth crept through her veins and her heart beat a bit faster. That was not the case when she thought about the captain. But love was not everything, she reminded herself. She hadn’t been in love with Lord Geoffrey, yet their marriage had been good.
    Silently she chastised herself for being young and foolish. At least she would have a settled, stable future as Mrs. Jonathan Hargrave. After the events of last night she couldn’t be sure that Christopher Gunn would still marry her, and she couldn’t bring herself to accept an uncertain future with him. She had to face even the possibility that she might never see him again.
    “Pegeen,” she said as the girl came