“Colonel Moody?”
Hilary nodded as the room began to quiet down. Alfred closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. Julius Runge had been right: he’d only just started his part in all of this and he’d already dragged his name through the mud with the owner of the largest bank in Galveston. His mind flashed to his ride with Mrs. Poplar after church services a few months before—she had warned him then to be careful of the men on the committee. They were powerful and good at what they did. Now he was sitting at the back of their meeting as the voice of opposition, and his future bounced between the stained-glass windows. He needed a loan to make a proposal, and the man who ran the island’s wealth had just marked him as a disturbance.
The meeting started with a quick reminder
