Beholden

by Bronwyn Williams

  Galen had been deeply in love but once in his life. When she’d married someone else, and not even her first choice, he’d got over it. Eventually. But he’d never entirely forgotten what love felt like.

  What he felt for Katy O’Sullivan bore no resemblance to anything he’d ever felt for Margaret Kondrake. The two women were as different as night and day. Black and white. Fire and ice.

  All the same, the sooner he saw Katy settled and on her own, the sooner he could get on with his own plans. Plans that had nothing to do with Aster, and certainly nothing at all to do with either of the O’Sullivans.

  “As you probably know, my dear, I’ve been looking around for a place in town where a respectable young lady and a child might stay until—well, at any rate, the trouble is, there’s nothing really suitable that’s not already filled to capacity.”

  She looked crestfallen. “Nothing at all? We’d not need much, only a single room. We can share a bed if need be, we’re used to sharing.”

  At the thought of sharing a bed with her, Galen clean lost his train of thought. Clearing his throat, he put on a thoughtful expression. “Now then, it seems to me that the best solution all around would be to find you a husband.”

  Warily, he watched for a reaction. Her mouth had lost its pinched look, but he didn’t care much for the look in her eyes. “No, don’t say anything yet. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the situation, my dear.” He’d spent all of twenty minutes thinking about it, waiting for Aster’s train to pull in.

  “But I don’t—” she started to say, but he cut her off.

  “Think about it before you make up your mind, Katy, will you do that much?”

  That pinched look was back. A crease formed between her dark winged brows as she considered his suggestion. He found himself wanting to smooth the twin furrows away.

  Yes, well, he told himself, it still seemed like the best idea. Marriage. The only problem was that he didn’t know of anyone offhand who would appreciate a woman like Katy O’Sullivan.

  Katy was . . . special. It would take a man with sensitivity, one with a lot of patience. From the looks of her hands and what he knew about her father, she hadn’t had an easy time of it. She would need a man who could not only support a wife but one who could manage to keep a young sister-in-law from setting the town on its collective ear.

  He thought about the young men-about-town who sought to prove their manhood by drinking too much, smoking too much, getting sick all over his carpet, and gambling away their allowances. Not a one of them was good enough for someone like Katy.

  Who did he know who was mature, sensitive, patient, and reasonably affluent? The only bachelor he knew who filled all those requirements was Pierre, his head dealer. Pierre was single. Women considered him handsome. The trouble was, he was too worldly by far for a woman like Katy.

  There was also the matter of age. Pierre was even older than Galen.

  Katy needed someone young, decent, steady. Someone who’d be patient with her. Someone who would appreciate her fine qualities. And while Galen would be hard-pressed to name a single qualified candidate at the moment, he was convinced such a man could be found.

  The trouble was, now that Aster was back and on the rampage, he didn’t have much time to look.

  Katy sat there looking as if she were waiting for some words of wisdom. He tried to think of a few, but dammit, his left foot was going to sleep.

  These wretched boots. He’d thought he was being so damned clever, dressing this way to head off trouble before it got started. Wild West shows were all the rage now. Everybody knew how dangerous professional gamblers were.

  It wasn’t working. He might as well wear jeans, jerseys, and house slippers, and arm himself with a boat hook. If worst came to worst, he could swing a hook or a fist without splitting every seam of his custom-tailored coat.

  “So . . . Katy,” he said, and couldn’t think of another thing to say.

  Katy found everything about the man utterly fascinating. She should be furious, or at least apprehensive. Instead, she sat here admiring everything about him, from his intensely blue eyes to his shapely hands, to his even more shapely . . .

  Well. Everything about the man was well formed. Being in his presence seemed to rob a room of its air. She couldn’t afford to be any more indentured to him than she was. She was in far too deep as it was. Over her head. It was a terrible burden to bear, and yet she knew in her heart that she’d sooner be indebted to the man for a lifetime than never to have known him at all.

  Tara said he was troubled. The last thing she wanted to do was cause him even more trouble. With the best of intentions, she seemed to have done it, all the same. For that reason alone, she told herself, she was obliged to hear whatever he had to say. That didn’t mean she had to go along with his plans, not a bit of it.

  “Now, it seems to me that the best course would be to find a place for you and Tara to sleep here aboard the Queen for the next few days, until I can interview a few prospective bridegrooms.”

  “Bridegrooms?” Surely she must have misunderstood.

  “What you need is a husband, Katy. A man to look after you and take Tara in hand.”

  She swallowed the words that first came to mind. “Thank you kindly, but no. I’ve made plans of my own.”

  “Your ladies’ shop.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but I mean to do it, Galen, and I’ll do very well. I’ve made up my mind.”

  She waited to see if he had anything more to offer. From the look on his face, she knew he doubted her. The telling meant little. She could talk about what she intended to do until she was blue in the face, but it was the doing that would tell the tale. And that would take time.

  “I’m grateful to you for all your kindness, Galen. Truly, I never meant to trouble you.” She smiled and tried to put her heart into it, so he’d know she meant what she said.

  “No, I know you didn’t, Katy. You did the right thing, coming to me for help.”

  She wanted with all her heart to deny it, but they both knew she was here only because Galen McKnight had sent her money. They both knew why he had sent the money—because Declan O’Sullivan had jumped overboard and died saving his life.

  All the same, she wished . . .

  Well. Things were the way they were, and there was no wishing the truth away.

  “You’ll make out just fine, Katy, once you settle in. You’ll meet some nice young man— ”

  He went on talking about the nice young man she would meet, but Katy wasn’t listening. She’d already met a nice young man, and he clearly wasn’t interested.

  Which was all very well, for she hadn’t come to America in the first place to find herself a husband. The land was rich enough to grow anything. There were jobs to be had by anyone willing to work. One small setback wasn’t the end of the world. She would simply return the two dollars Captain Bellfort had paid her and ask if he had something else she might try her hand at. If need be she could tell him about Tara, who was small for her age, but was used to hard work, and offer him two workers for the price of one.

  Now, what man in his right mind could refuse an offer like that?

  Chapter Seven

  Grudgingly, Aster apologized.

  Graciously, Katy accepted.

  It was Ila who brought the two women together again. As she explained it, they were short a girl since Sal had gone and got herself in trouble, and now Sal and Charlie were going to have to get married, and hadn’t Aster herself said she refused to have a married girl working for her, husbands being the troublesome creatures they were?

  Aster had. On the subject of husbands, if nothing else, Katy thought, she and this witchery woman agreed. As much as she hated being forced to accept his charity, she refused to allow Galen to hand her over to the first man he could find who wanted a strong, healthy woman to cook and sew and scrub and bear him a slew of sons to fish his nets and tend his fields.

  It had been just such a life that
had killed her mother. Work and grief. For all he’d adored his lovely, city-bred wife, Declan had given her a dearth of comfort and too many babes. Until the day he’d died, he had mourned her, but Katy knew to her sorrow that he had mourned even more having been left with only two scrawny daughters and half a dozen small graves on the hillside.

  Oh, she’d loved him dearly, for Declan O’Sullivan had been a lovely man. A man who could charm the stoniest heart with no more than a song, a smile, and a witty word. But charm never put food on the table, or kept out the wind and rain on a cold winter’s night. It was a lesson she’d learned early and well. Any woman with brains and a strong back would be better served looking after her own needs instead of placing herself in the hands of a man, no matter how charming the scoundrel was.

  The three women were in Ila’s cluttered cabin, where Katy and Tara had slept the night before. Katy stood by the door, her hand on the glass knob. Aster had immediately taken possession of the room’s only chair. In her purple silk and her fine, fancy bonnet, she glared at Katy, who glared right back. Ila, her skirts and apron flipped back, sat on the foot of the bed and rubbed her bothersome knees.

  The room reeked of liniment, lavender, and unaired clothing. Katy longed to throw open the window and let in the rich, musky smell of the river, but none of the others seemed to notice the stuffiness.

  “Like I said,” the housekeeper reasoned, “Sal’s gone, and here’s Katy, needing work, and with Tara to help out we’ll not even have to hire on another cleaning girl to take Maggie’s place.”

  “Tara!” Aster exclaimed. “Who in the world is Tara?”

  There followed a noisy succession of explanations, arguments, charges, and rebuttals. Before it ended, Katy had made up her mind she’d sooner walk barefoot over a bed of barnacles than work for such a creature.

  She ventured a question to the housekeeper. “Didn’t you say Captain Bellfort was in need of workers? If I’m not wanted here, I believe I’ll—”

  “Bellfort! You stay away from Jack Bellfort!” Aster snapped.

  Katy’s head came up. A body could be pushed just so far, and she’d been pushed beyond her limit. Nose in the air, she crossed her arms over her bosom and enjoyed a bracing surge of self-righteousness. “I was told that this is a free land. If the captain has work to be done, and I’m of a mind to do it, then that’s no concern of yours, madam.”

  “Why, you little—!”

  “There now, Miss Aster, you been riding that dirty old train all day long. What you need is a drink and a nice warm bath.”

  “What I need is to come home just once in my life without having to sort out a week’s worth of problems,” the woman snarled without once unclenching her teeth. “Why is it that I can’t turn my back for a single minute without everything falling apart?”

  Ila made soothing noises while Aster grumbled out her spleen. For all her fine and fancy trappings, she looked tired to the bone. The housekeeper winked at Katy as if to say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

  Katy thought of the two dollars burning a hole in her shabby purse. Money she would have to return. She thought of Willy’s heaping table, and the way he had taken Tara under his wing. She thought of the row of ragged, but friendly old men dozing in the sun outside the warehouse, and the ragged children who whooped and hollered up and down the wharf, and the prostitutes who worked the waterfront in hope of earning a meager living.

  Oh, yes, she was not as naive as some might think.

  And then she thought about Aster Tyler, the woman who, according to Tara, owned nearly half of this lovely boat and had every man, woman and child on board dancing to her tune.

  Not Galen McKnight, to be sure, but then, Galen was no ordinary man. There was far more to him than fine clothes and a handsome face, Katy had sensed that right off. But for all his manly strength, he was no match for Aster Tyler. The poor man could use a bit of help.

  Which was how Katy found herself reluctantly agreeing not long after that to taking Sally’s place until another girl could be found. As the meager pay included room and board for two, plus whatever tips she could glean, she didn’t dare refuse until she found something more to her liking. It was a wise woman who knew the value of a bird in hand, as old Maddie Gillikin back in Skerrie Head was fond of saying.

  “That’s that, then.” Ila rolled up her black cotton stockings, corked the liniment bottle and set it aside. “Sal’s dresses can be took in to fit. The girl can do it herself,” she said to Aster. “She’s handy with a needle.”

  “Gawd, that stuff reeks.” Aster waved a handkerchief in front of her elegant nose.

  Ignoring her, the housekeeper rubbed what was left on her hands into the knotted joints of her fingers. “She’ll have to have shoes, though. Them boots of hers looks awful.”

  They discussed her—the girl—as if she weren’t even present. Self-consciously, Katy drew her feet in their worn, round-toed, flat-heeled boots under her skirt. To be sure, they weren’t as fine and fashionable as some, she thought, eyeing Aster’s stylish kid shoes with their pointed toes and tiny spooled heels, but they’d served well enough all these years. There was nothing really wrong with them that new soles and a bit of blacking wouldn’t cure.

  “Oh, all right,” Aster said grudgingly. “Shoes, then, but cheap ones. First see if Ava or Ermaline has a pair she can borrow.” Pinning her sharp eyes on Katy, she issued a warning. “Just remember, I’ll be advertising for another girl right away, so don’t go getting too comfortable. You stay away from Captain Bellfort, and see that you don’t go bothering Captain McKnight, either. You’ll answer to Ila, and she answers to me, is that clear?”

  It was more than clear. Any guilt Katy might have felt over accepting one job while looking for another promptly fled, as did her momentary admiration for another woman’s independence. Aster stood to go, pretty as a picture in her fancy bonnet, her corseted waist, and her leg o’mutton sleeves.

  One of these days when she owned her own shop, Katy would dress every bit as fine, if not quite so fancy. It would never do to compete with her customers. She’d never set foot in a fancy shop in her life, but she knew exactly what she wanted to do, and had a very good notion of how to do it. Many an hour while her hands had been working, her mind had been free to roam. Wearing her oldest clothes, mended and stained, she would picture the way her mother had looked when she’d been young and strong, and the gowns she’d brought with her from Dublin had been bright and lovely.

  Fortunes were as fickle as the wind, her mother had said more than once. Never put all your eggs in a single basket.

  “Now that that’s settled,” Aster told the housekeeper, as if Katy weren’t even present, “she might as well get on with taking up Sally’s red dress, but just the one, mind you. She won’t be here long enough to need any more than that.”

  That I won’t, you saw-tongued harpy.

  “Oh, and while she’s at it, tell her to see about my new blue watered silk, will you? Some clumsy old fool stepped on the flounce at a dance the other night and ripped it half off. She might as well turn up the hem half a length all around, too. Skirts are going to be shorter next season.”

  *

  Katy dressed carefully, pinning the lace collar onto her second-best gown, a gray muslin that wasn’t terribly faded, for she’d worn it only a few years. She re-anchored her fat braid in a crown on top of her head and pinned her best bonnet—her only bonnet—on top. Inspecting her reflection in the full-length mirror Ila used for fitting the girls’ gowns, she nodded approval. “You’ll do just fine, Kathleen Margaret Sheehan O’Sullivan, that you will. I’ll spit in the eye of anyone who says you’ll not!”

  She located Tara on the side deck outside the galley, dealing herself a hand of cards. “I’m only practicing, Katy, truly. Captain Galen said Johnny the Knife was to give them to the old men down the dock, and Johnny said he’d teach me to play a game with them first if I showed him how to tell how many spots a card had without looking at t
he front.”

  Katy rolled her eyes. “Give the cards back. You know better than that, Tara.”

  The child was gifted, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t crafty as a fox. “I will, Katy. I only wanted to play.”

  “I know, love, but please try to stay out of trouble until I get back.”

  Katy considered taking her along, and thought better of it. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the child, but there were times when responsibility sat so heavily on her shoulders, she wasn’t sure she could bear up under it. Then the guilt would come over her, and she’d remind herself that she was all that stood between Tara and the workhouse.

  Besides, she loved her more than anything else in the world. All they had was each other now. Once Katy got her bearings, things wouldn’t seem quite so overwhelming. It simply took a few days to get used to new people, new places, new ways.

  But first she had to return Captain Bellfort’s two dollars. To think she’d woken up this morning with such a fine lilting feeling in her heart. Not a note had passed her lips, for singing before breakfast tempted fate, but fate must have heard what was in her heart.

  “Good morning, girlie,” called out one of the old men who spent his days resting on a bench outside a tavern—one of those places Ila referred to as three-cent houses.

  At least she was young and strong. She had her health. “Top of the morning to you, sir,” she caroled, and felt better for seeing his bony old shoulders lift and square. There were worse things in life than having to give back money a body hadn’t earned.

  Things such as despising another woman, even while she admired her gumption.

  Things such as being an ocean away from home and knowing she’d never see it again but in her dreams.

  One of the old men called out something that sounded almost like a warning, not that she could understand a word of it. She glanced back, then turned to continue on her way and tripped over something that darted between her feet. At the same moment two little boys lunged at her knees.