Beholden

by Bronwyn Williams

  As it turned out, it was Aster who set into motion the wheels of the future by announcing that she’d hired a new girl. Annie Matlock would be moving aboard to take Sal’s place and Sal’s old bed, which meant that Katy was no longer needed.

  “I told you right from the first the job was yours only until I found someone else,” the older woman reminded her.

  Katy nodded. “Aye, that you did, ma’am, and I’m that grateful to you.”

  Aster harrumphed. She did a lot of that sort of thing when she couldn’t think of a proper set-down. Katy was coming to know her quite well.

  “Then I’ll be packing our bags, and as soon as I’ve found a place in town, we’ll be off.”

  She refused to give in to fear. Instead, she would go to Mrs. Baggot herself and offer to work ten hours a day—twelve hours a day, if needed, doing whatever needed doing, and all for a modest wage to cover the cost of a single room and two meals a day for both Tara and herself. And a fish and a bit of cream for Heather.

  She would simply make herself indispensable, and then, one day when business was slow, she would ask to be allowed to design and stitch a gown from the cheapest materials. Katy knew good clothing, even if she couldn’t afford to wear it. She could still remember the way her mother had looked before she’d grown pale and thin, and her gowns had hung on her.

  It was Katy who had remade every one of those gowns after her mother died. She knew every seam, every dart and gusset, and just what each accomplished. She had her mother’s old fashion journals, long out of date by now, but good taste was good on either side of the Atlantic.

  *

  She might have known it wasn’t to be so simple. Nothing ever was. They weren’t even finished packing before Galen rapped on the door. “Would you mind telling me just where the devil you think you’re going?”

  Hiding her panic with a smile, Katy glanced up from tucking her spare pair of stockings into her valise. Never had she wished so hard to be tall, poised, and elegant, instead of small, plain, and shabby. She managed a smile, but her wits completely failed her.

  “Katy? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I’ve only this to say. You recommended Mrs. Baggot, if you’ll recall. I’ve a mind to see if she’ll have me.”

  “What I said was that I’d introduce you.”

  “I can introduce myself, for I’ve a tongue in my head.”

  “That, at least, I can vouch for,” he retorted, a hint of amusement softening the sharpness of his voice.

  She could tell he wanted to argue. She couldn’t miss the way his gaze took in the sorry condition of her old brown dress, but he had sense enough not to say anything. At least, not about the way she looked.

  “I see. Have you thought about where you’ll stay? Not every landlady welcomes pets. And what about Tara? What do you intend to do with her while you’re at work?”

  She fastened the flap of her valise, her fingers tightening convulsively on the stained and threadbare tapestry. Hadn’t she worried herself sick about those very same questions?

  “Katy, you don’t have to go. At least wait until I can—”

  “It’s time, Galen.”

  For a long time, he stared at her, as if searching for answers to questions neither of them dared voice. Katy told herself she was being fanciful, but she wasn’t. At least, not entirely.

  “Promise me something,” he said finally.

  She nodded. Couldn’t have uttered a word if her life depended on it. She was half convinced it did.

  “If you need help—if you can’t find a decent place to stay—if anything at all happens, and you need me—”

  The smile cost her more than he would ever know. She hung on to it as long as she could, and then turned to smooth the spread she had already smoothed. “Yes, of course. And thank you.”

  He held out his hand. She stared at it, and then at him, and he said, “Oh, hell—Katy, don’t go.”

  Somehow—it didn’t make a bit of sense, but somehow, she was in his arms, and he was holding her, rocking her from side to side, saying her name over and over in a despairing tone of voice.

  She didn’t belong in his arms, but oh, how she wished she did. Just for a moment, because she wasn’t quite as strong as she needed to be, she let herself surrender to all the dizzying needs that swirled inside her. Caught up in the rip, torn away from the shore by a current more powerful than anything she had ever known.

  Never leap into the current, Katy, before you test the river.

  Too late, Da, too late.

  He didn’t kiss her. Later, after he’d gone without a word, Katy fought back the disappointment, willing her common sense to rise to the occasion, but oh, how she missed the strength of those hard arms wrapped around her, holding her close, so close she could feel the throb of two hearts beating as one.

  It was almost a relief when Tara burst into the cabin, her small face avid. “Katy, d’you know what I think?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “I think we’re lucky Miss Aster found somebody else, and you lost your job, and do you know why?”

  Katy didn’t. Again, she was afraid to ask, but Tara needed no prompting. “Because a ladies’ shop will be the perfect place to look for a wife for Captain Galen.”

  Her smile was far too ingenuous to be trusted. “You’ll do no such thing. Tara, I’m warning you—no trouble. No seeing, and no speaking out of turn. It was one thing back home, where everyone knew you and remembered Granny, but people in America don’t believe in such things.”

  “That they do, else why would they blow on dice and close their eyes and whisper before they roll them across the table?”

  “Have you been in those gaming rooms again? No, don’t tell me, I don’t even want to know. Just go find Heather and see if you can borrow a basket. We’ll leave the trunk here until we decide on a place to stay.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Baggot won’t hire you. Maybe we won’t find a place to stay. Then can we come back here?”

  “She will hire us, and we will find another place to stay,” Katy said firmly. She would beg if she had to. She would promise to work twice as hard for half the wages. What businesswoman could turn down such a bargain?

  “Did you see her saying yes? Did you see us moving into a—”

  “That I did not! Go along with you, and don’t cause any more trouble than you must.” She swatted her little sister on her negligible behind, but she was smiling. It was either that or weep, and she’d long since done with weeping.

  *

  Leaving Katy, Galen sent for his rig and drove directly into town. He knew Inez Baggot slightly, the way he knew most of the town’s small business community. He left after twenty minutes of hard bargaining. It was the slack season, when most of the town’s best families were still at the beach. Mrs. Baggot used the time to make up a supply of ready-made garments, some with a particular customer in mind that could be finished in a day’s time.

  She argued that she had all the help she needed until fall.

  Galen argued that this was the perfect time to train a new worker, when there was no great demand on the staff.

  They didn’t discuss salary—that was a matter between employer and employee. All the same, when he asked suggestions as to a respectable, affordable boardinghouse for a woman and a young girl, she thought a moment and gave him a name and an address.

  He drove around and looked the place over. It was roomier than the shared cabins on the Queen, but that was about all it had to recommend it. Given more time, he might have found them something more suitable, but time was the one thing he couldn’t control. A certain tract of land he’d been trying to buy for nearly a year was coming on the market. He would have to move fast to work out the details. Thanks to Judge Henry’s advance warning, he had a good shot at it, but there were three other interested parties. He had to move fast.

  Katy. Damn. His head was still swimming, and it wasn’t on account of being so close to taking the first step in
realizing his dream.

  The woman was half waif, half witch, and entirely too distracting, at a time when he couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  If he was smart, he’d get on with his idea of finding her a husband. The last thing he needed was a wife. Besides, he was too old. She was hardly more than a child.

  She hadn’t felt like a child in his arms. That had been no child looking back at him, her lips so near it was all he could do not to take what she was offering.

  Galen told himself she hadn’t been offering anything. That was only his overheated imagination.

  He told himself that while widows were given more latitude, respectable, unmarried young ladies didn’t live alone in public accommodations, unchaperoned. They didn’t own their own businesses. Even working in a shop was borderline.

  For both their sakes, he was going to have to find her a husband. Quickly, before he did something incredibly foolish.

  Chapter Ten

  He missed her. Found himself thinking about her at the damnedest times, when his mind should’ve been too busy going over plans, options, offers, and the like to have room for anything else.

  Found himself looking up, hoping to catch a glance of her, listening for a snatch of one of those funny, plaintive little songs she sang.

  Gaelic. He thought it must be Gaelic. Whatever it was, he missed it, missed the sound of her footsteps, crisp on the hardwood between carpeted areas.

  You’re daft, man, he told himself, and then grimaced, catching himself using a word Katy used when he’d have said crazy, or nutty.

  Feet propped on the railing of his balcony, he studied the glowing tip of his cigar as his thoughts drifted back over the past twenty-four hours.

  Things had gone surprisingly well, thanks to Judge Henry’s advance warning. He’d managed to ace out the competition by being first in line, with a sizeable amount of cash in hand and three prominent names as security on a note for the balance. He didn’t know if the reputation he’d so carefully cultivated—that of a man whose past was shrouded in mystery, a man who dealt with trouble quietly, and with deadly efficiency—had had anything to do with the speed at which the sale went through, but it probably hadn’t hurt matters.

  Barring unforeseen complications, the property was his, signed, sealed, and delivered. There was easily enough waterfront for his purposes, with plenty of additional acreage for outbuildings. There were even a couple of houses at the far end, one that might even be brought up to standard with a bit of work.

  There was an overgrown flower bed in front, and before he could stop himself he was picturing Katy kneeling, trowel in hand, setting out slips of this and that. She’d be good with flowers.

  He hadn’t bothered to look inside the place. Later, when he wasn’t quite so distracted, he’d look the place over and decide whether to raze it or repair it.

  Now that he had the papers securely locked in his safe he could afford to admit that he’d been nervous as a cat on ice, afraid something would go wrong at the last minute. His first choice had been a tract some half a mile east of Knobbs Creek. New in town, he’d been unable to arrange the financing in time to beat out another buyer and unable to swing the deal on his own, thanks to having sent most of his savings to O’Sullivan’s bereaved family.

  The last thing he’d intended was for Declan’s daughters to use the money to emigrate, much less to show up at his door.

  He had a dream. Now, when it was so close to being realized, he couldn’t afford to let anything interfere.

  Every man, if he had the guts to admit to it, had a dream. Brand had dreamed of taking what was left of their grandfather’s shipbuilding business and bringing it back to life. Galen had gone into the business with him, but it was largely due to Brand’s leadership that the place was now a growing and prosperous concern.

  As for Liam, their youngest brother, whatever brief dreams he had dreamed had ended in a nightmare. He’d had the misfortune to marry the wrong woman, a woman Galen could have—should have—warned him about. A woman who had married a lad who was too young to know better, and proceeded to lead him down a short, straight road to destruction.

  Against all reason, Galen found himself wanting to tell Katy about his dream of starting his own yard, where he could build ships of his own design.

  And how that dream was suddenly within his grasp. And about Liam, dead now for nearly three years. And about the guilt he still felt—would probably always feel—for not having taught him to be wary of treacherous women who would marry a man for his money, strip him of all he possessed, including his pride, and then leave him to die by his own hand.

  Galen belched discreetly and set his empty glass on the rail. He allowed himself one drink a night. Tonight he’d had three, in celebration. He stared at the dead ash on the tip of his cigar. As swiftly as it had arisen, the intoxication of success fled, leaving him feeling tired. Feeling old. Feeling . . .

  Unfinished. Empty. Wanting to talk and having no one interested enough to listen. He blamed it on the whiskey. It always affected him this way, which was why he seldom drank. The quick jolt of euphoria, followed by headache and depression. Their father had been the same way. And Liam. Liam, who was buried in the hills of Connecticut.

  God, what a fake he was. The mysterious Captain McKnight, who was rumored to have killed a man for holding one too many aces. A man who was rumored to have played poker with Bill Hickock and won, to have turned down an offer from Bill Cody to star in his Wild West Circus.

  He could ride as well as the next man—better than most. But hell, one of the reasons he’d left home in the first place instead of following in his father’s footsteps as a horse breeder was because he was no more fond of horses than he was of taking orders.

  Katy would have understood. She’d had the courage to strike out on her own. In her case, it had been a dangerously foolhardy thing to do, especially being solely responsible for a child like Tara. But she’d done it. On her own, he thought lugubriously, with no man to protect her or guide her or tell her how to manage, she’d come all the way from Ireland with some half-baked notion of opening a dress shop.

  A dress shop. It had been all he could do not to laugh when she’d confided in him. Dressed in the most godawful getup imaginable—two shades of muddy brown, topped off by the ugliest hat he’d ever seen—and she was going to open a dress shop?

  Even the red silk Aster had chosen for her girls as flashy, but not too flashy, was an improvement. For Katy, green would’ve been better. With a higher neckline and a longer hemline. Something a lot more modest. Something that wouldn’t encourage men to take liberties. He was going to have to take her in hand, but first he’d have to come up with a way to do it without hurting her feelings.

  And then he remembered that she was no longer his to take in hand. No longer here. And he started missing her all over again, imagining the way her big, nearsighted eyes would look up admiringly while he told her all about lumber sheds and shallow draft hulls and steam engines versus sail, versus the new gasoline-powered engines.

  Without understanding half of what he was saying, Katy would have understood his dreams.

  God, he couldn’t believe how much he missed her.

  *

  It was dark by the time Katy and Tara left the shop to return to their room. They had gone in at seven that morning and worked steadily, with only a brief break at midday. Katy had taken one look at the row of sewing machines and nearly cast up her accounts on the spot.

  “You do sew, don’t you?” Mrs. Baggot had asked.

  “Sure and I’ve been sewing practically all my life,” Katy had assured her, praying the woman wouldn’t set her before one of those contraptions until she’d had time to watch a bit and see how it worked first.

  “I’ll start you on hand basting. It’s easier to pick out when you make a mistake.”

  Katy had whipped out her spectacles and set them on her nose, vowing silently not to make a single mistake. She hadn’t missed the way the
woman had looked her over. It was up to her to prove her worth, and she set out to do it.

  She’d spent the morning on buttonholes after first doing two samples, one bound, the other one stitched. Tara had been set to ironing flatwork—dress parts cut out and ready to be basted, fitted to one of a dozen dress forms, each with a discreet name attached, and then stitched by the three seamstresses bent over the noisy machines.

  After hours of doing buttonholes, Katy had started on hems that had been measured and marked with chalk by Mrs. Baggot. She’d pinned them, pressed them, and stitched them with tiny, invisible stitches, a feat that would have been all but impossible without her spectacles.

  Even with them, her eyes were tired at the end of the day. Before they could leave there were spools and trimmings to sort out and put away, bolts of cloth to roll up and stack on the shelf, the sweeping to do, and the trash to take out.

  “I’m worried about Heather,” Tara confided on the walk home. “What if Mrs. Riggins finds out about her?” As eager as they were to get home in time for supper, their steps dragged wearily.

  “I’m more worried about Mrs. Baggot’s finding that section of skirt you scorched. Count yourself lucky there was enough fabric left on the bolt for me to cut out another to take its place.”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “Sure, and she doesn’t much care for you, either. See that you keep your nose clean.”

  Tara promptly crossed her eyes in an effort to see her short, freckled nose, not that there was enough light to see much at this time of day. “Oscar says that, too. He says I’m more trouble than a peck of weasels, but he doesn’t mean it, he only says it because Captain Galen makes him go with me to carry food, and he’d rather watch Charlie and Pierre. He wants to be a dealer, not a bartender.”

  “I hope we haven’t missed supper tonight,” Katy murmured as they turned the corner onto Martin Street. The house was an old one, not far from Mr. Allen’s Cotton Gin. It was noisy and none too clean, and what’s more, they’d been warned by the old man in the room next door that when it rained, the roof leaked like a sieve.