“Unless I see you, I don’t think of you,” Alex replied with deliberate calm. “I have been away in the Orient for quite a while, Green. When would I have had time for all these machinations?”
Green laughed cynically. “You have your ways. I know you’re also behind this latest attempt to smear my good name. I can’t get a loan, suppliers think nothing of canceling on me at the last moment, my peers have stopped sharing vital information with me—all because of you.”
“It’s all in your mind.”
Green narrowed his eyes. “I say, I know what I know. You want to sabotage my campaign for the common council. You want to destroy my political career before it can even start. But I warn you now, when I have some iron-clad proof, I shall demand satisfaction of you.”
Alex suppressed a chuckle. Green’s insecurity and worrisome state made him pathetic. He wasn’t worth the strain it would cause on a man’s hands to snap his neck. And if he wasn’t such a pitiful excuse for a man, he’d have the reasoning to know that Alex sure as the devil would never reveal the shameful secret that tied their pasts together.
“Get out of my sight, Green.”
But Green was no longer paying attention. He grasped at his pocket watch, his eyes wide. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly and he paled, licking his lips with quick flickers. The knuckles on the hand that gripped his watch went completely white.
“Another little cutpurse looking for new game.”
Green’s sniveling tone grated on Alex’s ears and Alex turned in the direction of his fixed, anxious gaze. In the front window, a petite girl was staring through the glass, her eyes huge, looking as lost as a stray kitten.
What the devil was she doing here?
She wasn’t a beauty. She didn’t even possess the promise of a late blossoming. Her face was too thin, her chin too pointed, her nose too long and her mouth too full and too wide. But Alex knew trouble when he saw it and that was definitely trouble.
* * * *
Wind gusted and howled, blowing brown leaves about in the gutters and cutting right through Emily’s woolen cloak. The squeak of rusty hinges drew her glance upwards. A swinging wooden sign bore a surprisingly well-executed painting of a bewigged, frockcoat-wearing blue duck.
Behind its monocle, his blue eye seemed to leer mockingly at her. As if he knew what she was here for. The breeze grew stiffer and the sign began to rock faster. Dizziness swept over her and her breathing became short and fast. Heavens. Employment at the Blue Duck Tavern—with all that implied.
Her stomach lurched, threatening, it seemed, to float away.
She chewed her lip and paused with her hand upon the door handle. Could she really do this? Could she really go in there and let a man approach her and take her upstairs and—and—
Metallic blood seeped onto her tongue and she eased off chewing her lip with a grimace. Oh God… Still, it wasn’t too late to run home, crawl into bed and forget about all this.
But if she did run now, there would soon be no home or bed to run to.
How dreadful could it really be? Women let men take them to bed every day. She took a deep breath, tightened her grasp on the handle and pushed the door open. Warm air rushed over her, carrying odors of stale rum, onions, rancid grease and unwashed male bodies, making her want to gag.
On either side of the public room, fires blazed in the two large, stone hearths. Seated at the tables, men bent over their tankards, holding on to them for dear life, as if the spirits they contained could ward off evil. Like everywhere else in Philadelphia this autumn, fear still vibrated on the air.
The yellow death.
It had come on so suddenly. Thousands had died in a matter of weeks.
Countless families had fled. Anyone who could afford to, had escaped to the country.
Emily and her grandmother had been stuck in the city. Just as the fever appeared to be winding down, she and Grandmother had fallen ill.
Emily could still remember the endless vomiting of black, coffee-grounds-like matter. The high fever that made her head spin with delirium.
But Emily had cheated death. Grandmother hadn’t been so lucky. When Emily had come to her senses, weak and her body wasted to boniness, her skin dry like rain-starved earth: they had told her that Grandmother was gone.
It had been such a short period of time since then. So short a time that the ghastly yellow cast had not completely faded from Emily’s skin. She still woke in the middle of the night, feeling that gnawing, aching sense of something being dreadfully and irrevocably wrong. Then she would remember about Grandmother. The last person she’d had left to love in the world, was gone. She would hope so desperately that it was simply the recollection of a nightmare. She would strain her ears trying to catch the sound of Grandmother’s soft snores.
But there was nothing. Only silence.
Silence after midnight seemed the most heart-wrenching quiet of all.
Well, nothing could be changed now. Self-pity would get her nowhere.
On a deep sigh, she took one tentative step, then another, and another. Several men looked up and cast curious glances at her. Her heart began beating very fast. She ought to smile at them and play her part. But her facial muscles froze into a painful mask. She was going to have to entice one of them to pay to take her upstairs and—
Her throat seized up and she couldn’t finish the thought. She swallowed hard and scanned through the smoky haze. The tavern was filled tonight. There would always be sailors coming and going from Philadelphia’s busy harbor. And Congress was at last returning in a show of bravery that was said to be Washington’s attempt to inspire confidence in the general populace.
What a pity that wives and children were not so quick to return. Emily might have been able to find a suitable position of employment as a governess. She was really quite educated.
She spied Dr. John Abbott alone at a corner table and she caught her breath. Yes, she had known she would have to face him. She could have selected a different establishment and avoided him knowing. However, she was a little afraid of being in an establishment like this, of what the men would be capable of doing to her to impose their will on her. Yet she knew from speaking with her friend, Anna, that the proprietor of the Blue Duck was a fair and kind man who had always been protective of the girls who worked for him.
Still, she wished John had not come here this night.
His clothes were wrinkled, his dark brown hair unkempt. Dark purple circles beneath his eyes told of many sleepless nights. Her heart gave a pang.
Well, she certainly could spare a moment or two to chat with him. In fact, she should. It was her Christian duty to buoy a friend’s spirits. After all, she owed her very life to him. And he was sure to find out sooner or later, anyway. Better that she be forthright with John than allow him to hear about her later from some talebearer about the tavern.
Grateful for the excuse to postpone the commencement of her career as a disorderly house wench, she approached him.
Over the rim of his tankard, his dull, brown gaze widened, then narrowed as it lingered on her low-cut, stocking-stuffed bodice. As she approached, he slowly lowered the tankard to the dingy, cloth-covered table. “My God, I don’t believe my eyes,” he said.
Self-consciously, she drew the edges of her cloak together. She’d fashioned the claret-colored gown from one of Grandmother’s old ones but she had lowered the bodice quite a bit and used some black lace to make it fancier. She’d given it just a touch of the tawdry to advertise her intentions.
But perhaps she wasn’t yet ready to display herself so. She could take a few moments to adjust to being here, surely. With the decision made, relief weakened her and she sank into the chair opposite him. She looked at him and raised her brows. “What about you? Anna would not have liked to see you this way.”
At the name, John paled and looked down at his hands. “It isn’t easy.”
“I know. I miss her, too.”
“There’s not another girl li
ke her in the whole world.”
“You did everything you could. There’s no call for you to try to kill yourself with rum.”
“I could have married her and made an honest woman of her.”
Yes, he could have. But she knew he never would have. John had been a frequent caller of Anna’s at the boarding house where Emily had lived with her grandmother. Unfortunately, Anna had been a harlot. A quiet, discreet harlot, but a harlot nonetheless. Emily had liked her, but had not been able to talk to her often under Grandmother’s watchful eye.
After Anna and Grandmother’s deaths, during Emily’s convalescence, John had taken to checking on her regularly.
“You’re not going to work here,” he stated firmly.
Young women didn’t come to a disorderly house like the Blue Duck merely to serve drinks. They both knew it.
“I have to pay my landlord.”
He pulled his dark blue physician’s jacket aside and reached into his pocket. Then he slapped a dollar onto the table. “Will that cover it?”
She knew his own pockets were nearly to let. He had been nothing but kind to her, had helped her in every way possible. John had bankrupted himself treating the victims of the yellow death, many of whom had been unable to afford the medications. Now dead, they never would be able to pay him back. With his mentor also taken by the fever, John was living and working in his offices on borrowed time, unable to pay his rent either. She couldn’t take what was likely his last dollar.
And if she took his money, he might think it gave him the right to dictate her actions and decisions. During those terrible days right after Grandmother’s death, he’d hinted around the subject of marriage with her. She couldn’t bear it if she were forced to break their friendship under such pressure. He was her only friend now.
“I couldn’t possibly take your money. I didn’t come to you for that.”
“I know you didn’t, but I’ll help you in any way I can.” With a thin smile, he pushed the money across the table. “I wish I could spare more, but you know how it is. I am at a low ebb.”
She pushed the money back at him. “That’s why I can’t take it.”
He half rose out of his chair and leaned over the table as he shoved the dollar at her. “Take the Goddamned money.”
He gritted the words out. That he would use such language with her told how overset he was with her.
“I won’t take your last funds.”
It wasn’t enough to help her in any case.
His face hardened. “Suit yourself then, damn you.” He sat back down and brought his tankard to his lips again. Then, before he’d taken a drink, he slammed it down on the table so hard that it made her startle.
“John!”
“Now I’ll have to find a new place to perch.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I am not willing to watch you demean yourself.”
“Demean myself? Did Anna demean herself when you visited her?”
He made a wry expression. “You’re not like Anna and we both know that.”
“I can learn.”
He laughed and the low, cynical sound sent shivers down her spine. “Well, make certain to collect his money before he sheds his clothes.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Why?”
“Because as soon the gent lowers his breeches, you’re going to rabbit right back downstairs and out the door.”
She blushed furiously at his blunt words and looked away, chewing her lip. Likely he was correct. Being alone with some strange man… Her nerves jangled and she clutched her reticule, trying to keep the trembling in her hands at bay.
She’d never be able to go through with this.
But how else could she pay her rent? The landlord was demanding the full six months owed to him. At the time Grandmother died, Emily had had no idea their financial affairs were so ill-favored. Too many people were still gone from the city and many who remained were financially strained. There was no honest work to be found for a young woman like herself.
If she lost her rooms, she’d lose a lot more than mere shelter. Vagrants were sent to the almshouse—or worse yet, the workhouse. If she were incarcerated there, she’d lose her very right to control her own movements and decisions.
She’d spent years chafing under Grandmother’s thumb and sharp, watchful eyes. The old woman had been absolute with regard to what kind of girl she thought Emily should be.
Had she merely been a stern disciplinarian, then perhaps Emily might have simply rebelled and resisted. But Grandmother had used all manner of emotional manipulation to keep control over her. Yet, Emily had loved her. The old woman had been the only person she’d had left in the world to love.
And Emily had been the only person in the world who had loved Grandmother. The elderly woman had been so intractable in her dealings with others that people hadn’t liked her at all. She’d had no friends. No family to lean on. And she had been so frail! She had needed Emily. Needed her so badly. Emily’s heart ached with love, and with remorse that perhaps she had not always been able to meet Grandmother’s high expectations of her. It was all too confusing, it made Emily’s head spin and her heart ache harder to even try to sort out all her feelings.
You’re not an easy girl to love.
Grandmother’s slightly winded, lamenting voice echoed in Emily’s mind. She could see Grandmother, lying on the settee in the parlor, clutching a wet rag to her head. Oh, I have the headache something fierce. Child, you shall be the death of me, the very death of me!
So Emily had suppressed and hidden her insatiable curiosity for all things scholarly, and for all the other things that Grandmother found so unsuitable in a girl. She had worked hard trying to make up for their not being able to afford servants any longer. Playing the proper lady, doing needlepoint until her eyes ached and working on insipid watercolor paintings until her back throbbed.
Yet Grandmother’s headaches and palpitations only seemed to worsen. Emily worked harder and harder, polishing silver, sweeping floors, beating rugs, making everything sparkle and shine, and pouring the tea and playing cards for endless hours and singing hymns with Grandmother until her voice cracked and—
Emily’s chest tightened, the sensation spreading up her windpipe to her throat. She put her hand to her collarbone. She couldn’t breathe—
Grandmother had manipulated and controlled Emily until she had felt suffocated!
Emily would never allow that to happen again.
Never.
Not even in wedlock.
In a way, losing her virginity in the name of keeping her liberty was fitting. It was a pledge that she would never give herself unto the authority of a man in marriage. For a girl could be ruined only once, and it could never be undone. Pride alone would keep her from marrying any man who might look upon her as damaged goods.
You’re not an easy girl to love.
Wasn’t Emily really saving some man from having to spend his life locked in marriage to a girl who was hard to love?
Perhaps she was.
She’d never been able to perform as the proper young lady that Grandmother had expected her to be. No matter how hard she had tried.
It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing did. Love. Marriage. All of it simply allowed someone else to control a woman. She didn’t need anyone. Not really. Only her newfound freedom mattered now. Freedom that she needed to use her artistic talents to draw attention to the Barbary captives’ situation, to fulfill her life’s mission.
Having been saved from the fever, surely by only God’s own hand, convinced her more than ever that she’d been born to make a difference in the world.
Still, selling her virtue was a weighty matter, nothing to be taken lightly.
Suddenly it was as if unseen hands gripped and constricted upon her rib cage—she couldn’t draw a complete breath.
She forced a deeper breath and exhaled with equal measure, as if she could purge herself of her panic—because panic wouldn’t hel
p her. She had twenty-five cents left to her name. If she gave in to fear now, she’d be lost. “I can’t tarry much longer, I need to speak with Mr. Porter. But first I wanted to tell you my good news.”
“Good news, eh? Does anyone ever have any good news anymore?”
“Well, I have some. I got a message today from Mr. Jefferson.”
“Mr. Jefferson? Anyone I would know?”
“Thomas Jefferson—the Secretary of State.”
He lifted his brows. “You know the Secretary of State?”
“I have corresponded with him for the past two and a half years.”
“Does he have a job for you?”
“No, but he’s found me an investor.”
“An investor?”
“For my book.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Investor is the wrong word, isn’t it? I mean a benefactor. He is going to finance the printing of my book.”
“Why should he do that?”
“Because he believes in the cause. I am to meet with him in a week at his house on the Schuylkill. ”
He quirked his mouth up. “Wonderful. You can pay your landlord with a copy.”
Unable to bear looking at his ironic expression, she made a great study of tracing the frayed trim on her reticule with her fingertip. “It’s very important work to me, John.”
“Ah, yes, you’re going to change the world with that book.” He chuckled, the sound hollow and cynical.
Stung, she looked up, lifted her chin and met his sardonic gaze evenly. “I don’t think my book will change the world—I know it will.”
“You’re just like my second eldest sister. She was always taking up some cause or another. A real bluestocking. All it took to change her mind was for a handsome cavalry captain to wink and tip his hat to her. Now she’s neck-deep in soppy napkins and snotty noses.”
Tightness seized her chest again, spreading upwards. Choking her.
Inwardly, she shook herself. She took a deep breath. John’s tale about how his once self-possessed, independent-minded sister had become a pile of submissive mush over her love of a man always rocked Emily to her foundations. A frightful tale.
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