The next morning, a sealed letter arrived at the ranch. It came from the bride's workshop manager, who had been handling operations during her absence. A wholesale customer had received an anonymous warning suggesting the designer's financial affairs were unstable. Another had been told that her recent marriage proved she was abandoning the business. The manager dismissed the accusations but advised her to address them promptly before rumors reached important clients.
The bride read the letter twice. She knew reputational attacks could damage a workshop as surely as an unpaid invoice. Orders depended on trust, and employees depended on those orders. She wrote immediately to the manager, authorizing a clear business update that confirmed the company's ongoing operations, financial reserves, and contractual commitments without discussing private family matters. Then she arranged to visit the city after the floodwaters receded.
Her husband watched her prepare the letters. "Will you go alone?"
"I have colleagues in the city. But I'd like you to come if the ranch can spare you."
"It can. The foreman and the widow have more sense between them than I do on a good day."
She laughed. "Don't let them hear you say that."
He kissed her cheek. "They already know."
He remained quiet for a moment, then asked whether the bank director's reach might extend into her business. She did not know. Rumors could originate with anyone, including people who resented her success long before the marriage. She refused to accuse without evidence, but the timing concerned her. The director was increasingly willing to pressure both spouses through whatever vulnerabilities he believed they possessed.
She closed her writing case and looked toward her husband. "This is the part I dislike most. If he cannot own the land, he wants us to feel unsafe everywhere else."
"Then we'll keep the doors open where we can, and lock them where we must."
She smiled. "That sounds like a good rancher's plan."
"I learned from a good dressmaker. You reinforce a seam before it tears."
She laughed, and for a few moments they allowed themselves the comfort of being simply husband and wife, planning a journey together instead of preparing for another argument with a banker.
They left for the city in early June, after the river subsided and the lower bridge was repaired. The rancher had traveled with cattle shipments before, but he had never entered his wife's business as her husband. She warned him that the workshop could be noisy, crowded, and stubbornly indifferent to the romantic reputation of mountain men. He promised to try not to frighten anyone with his face. She replied that the employees were far more likely to frighten him with deadlines.