“Callum,” James grunted. “It’s his idea to go work in a jungle.”
The antipathy in James’s tone brought him up short. “Nay, the business is yers—”
“It doesn’t have to be—”
“Right,” Archie interrupted, and Callum almost protested to counter James’s comment, but the solicitor was too fast. “I’ll just speak to the empty space between the two of you and listen for an answer? A’right?”
Archie’s posh accent had dropped, but Callum pushed aside the burst of curiosity around the man’s background to focus on the matter at hand.
If we finish quickly, I could be back in time for a dance with Violet—
“The French failed in their attempt to build the canal because Ferdinand de Lesseps didnae stop to consider the volume of rain in the region.” The facts fell off Callum’s tongue like drops of water, soothing him with their practiced repetition. “Without the means to remove water efficiently, the work slowed to a crawl. Too many men died in the challenging conditions.”
“Aye, Callum,” James muttered from his seat. “People died.”
“And nearly a million investors lost their funds.” Archie leaned back and appeared to have forgotten that he was sitting on a boxand not a chair, waving his substantial arms for a moment before regaining his balance. “Why is your proposal different?”
A satisfied smile pushed at Callum’s mouth. “Because we’re not building the canal itself. We’re building the machine that will dig it for us.”
“Fantastic work, as usual, Cal.”
Callum nodded at his cousin’s praise, but the tight sensation in his chest hadn’t dissipated when they left Mr. Grant’s office, the contracts for the investors in hand. There would be more rounds of negotiations, more meetings and revisions, but he had little doubt that the funding would be secured. They could be in Panama before midsummer.
Well,Callumwould be. He’d never allow James to join him, nor did the man show any desire to travel across the Atlantic. The risk of the venture must be causing the residual tension that made his fingers flex and his foot tap.
“I hope that isn’t your celebratory expression, because you look like you’re about to put your fist through the window.”
Callum scowled, then turned to face James. “I ken ye dinnae support this.”
“I do, in a sense. The world needs to widen and deepen its shipping channels if we’re going to continue to advance commerce, so this machine is important.” He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “But Panama? Why this, why not the Suez?”
“The Suez is almost complete already. There is more money to be made in the Americas.”
James scoffed and leaned against the seat. “We have more money than we need.”
His gut lurched. “There’s no such thing as too much money.”
They took a sharp turn onto a deeply rutted road, and the carriage jostled. “Can I assume you plan to stay in Panama to oversee operations?”
Callum didn’t miss the deep lines bracketing his cousin’s mouth. “Aye. I need to be there to adjust the design—”
“And you’ll stay longer than you need to, just like you did in the Shetlands? And at Kiel? You nearly froze to death in Skaggerak—”
“The job needed to be done,” he ground out. And the payment Taggart Maritime had received for those risky ventures had kept the company afloat a little longer, kept the creditors at bay for another few months.
“But not by you.” James rubbed his hand over his face. “You’ve hired the best engineers in the world to work for us. You could sit in your office in Edinburgh and do everything you do now—”
“That’s no’ true—”
“And behome.” James’ words landed like lead between them.
Callum’s jaw ticked as he tore his attention from his cousin and looked out the window. The skies had cleared, and if he twisted his neck, he could see the edge of stars as they peeked through the clouds.
“Mam misses you,” James continued.
“She’s not my mam.”
James snorted. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She’ll have your ears.”
