The Escort

by Gina Robinson

  He fell back from her and the mood was broken. "My calling! You misunderstand. I told you, she was an act of rebellion. My father was the one that sent me to the seminary. He paid the priests a donation to take me off his hands. He paraded around with his pious arrogance, happily bragging about giving a son to the Church, all the while setting up mistresses throughout the city. If the good fathers had known of his carnal life they most certainly would have refused his money, and taken me on just to save my soul.

  "He drank too much and spent too much money. He taught my older brother his same whoring ways, of which my poor brother has never repented. Poor Pia. My brother's wife. He's led her a merry chase. And yet, she continues to love him, my despot of a brother. Sometimes the evil don't get their just reward, it seems.

  "No, you needn't worry about me giving up a calling. It was my father's form of punishment, that's all. There he was making bastards throughout the city and yet he blamed me for my—" He cut himself short.

  "Your mother didn't stop him?"

  He looked at her oddly, as if she'd missed something important he'd already told her. "She was dead. She died when I was ten, of cholera. Just like the king, the same year. Don't feel sorry for her. It was an escape.

  "He would never have taken a mistress while she was alive. He enjoyed imprisoning her far too much. He kept her locked in the palazzo, all to himself, as if he were afraid that someone would get to her."

  He mumbled something beneath his breath in English, as if he were taking an extra precaution against her understanding. She thought he said, "But then, can you ever really trust a woman?"

  He continued aloud in Italian. "She was an obsession with him."

  Angelina sighed. It sounded very romantic. "How very lucky for your mother to have someone adore her like that."

  "She hated him," he said flatly. He'd been staring at the ceiling. He turned to look at her. "I've dispelled your girlish views. You'd like to believe that I grew up in some kind of fairytale." He looked back to the ceiling. "I suppose by your standards I did. Home was a palazzo with a porte-cochere and a large courtyard. The house had a plain facade, but inside it was magnificent."

  He didn't elaborate and it seemed to Angelina that he didn't like remembering. "Because I was so much younger than my brother and sister, I had the nursery all to myself. My mother spent hours there with me. It only infuriated him further. It all belongs to my brother now. Oldest takes all."

  Angelina was trying hard to put the puzzled pieces of his life together. But the pieces were oddly shaped and hard to fit. "Where did you go when you left the seminary? Your father sent you away?"

  "To Ethiopia, to war. Because I'd been raised since the age of ten by pacifist priests my father thought that would be the perfect place for me. And he was right. I learned many useful skills there, none of which he counted on. I learned how to use a knife and a gun. How to blow things up. And most of all how to survive.

  "That was the greatest surprise of all; that I, a pampered candidate for the priesthood, would have such a strong will to live. It was the bane of his later years. I came back a well-decorated hero. He would have preferred a dead son sent home on a medic's stretcher. Then he could have bragged about my heroism to his friends, buried me, and been done with me. Too bad for him that I valued life too much."

  He sat up and turned the back of his head toward her, lifting his hair to reveal the jagged scar she'd noticed before. Beneath his hairline it was wider and raised. "I got this when the enemy sneaked up behind me and tried to decapitate me. Maybe scalping was all he had on his mind. The army doctor did a bang up job of sewing it back on. Since that time, I don't sleep heavily, and I always carry my own knife." He let his hair down.

  She felt nauseated.

  "We'll be in Chicago tomorrow. We've got a day's layover there. We'll be staying with old friends of mine. We'd better get some sleep." He lay down and rolled over.

  "Tonio?"

  He didn't respond, but she knew he was listening.

  "I'm sorry." She curled up behind him and listened until his breathing stilled and she was certain he was asleep. Then she gently lifted his hair and ran her finger along the scar, finally kissing it softly. That he was awake and well aware of her gesture, she never knew. Nor that he kept his hands tightly clenched in front of him, fighting desire that he hadn't felt in years.

  She lay her head back down and drifted lazily to sleep. Tomorrow they'd be in Chicago. The West.

  Chapter 5

  They arrived in Chicago with a haughty burst of steam as the sleek, black engine pulled to a stop before the crowded platform. Angelina descended the stairs in a dissipating cloud of steam in front of Tonio, disappointed by the sprawling, populated city. The city with the reputation as the nation's most wicked seemed tame and ordinary as she'd ridden along the rail lines, scanning the sights for some remnant of the frontier town she'd dreamed of. But the city of nearly two million seemed little different than New York.

  The depot was no better. She saw no wild cowboys, child thieves, crime bosses, or painted ladies strutting about. The crowd that thronged against the arriving passengers was like any other, a varied mix of the ordinary. Any vestiges that might have remained from the city's wild founding days were not evident from anything Angelina could view.

  "Salvo! Sal!" Tonio yelled across her, as he waved at someone in the crowd. A short dark man waved back. Tonio moved in front of her and grabbed her hand, pulling her along as he swam through the crowd toward his friend.

  "Tonio!" The two men clapped each other on the back.

  "This is your friend?" Salvo said. "You didn't say anything about a girl."

  Tonio grabbed Angelina by the shoulders and pulled her forward in front of him. "Salvo, meet Angelina Allessandro. Angelina, Salvo."

  "Tonio, what? You getting shy in your old age? Why didn't you tell me that your friend was a woman? Thought I wouldn't approve?"

  "You pay by the word in a telegram."

  Salvo wasn't listening. He focused on Angelina.

  "Pleased to meet you. I admit I was surprised when Tonio telegraphed that he was bringing a friend. I've known this man for nearly ten years now and not once has he brought someone with him when he comes to visit. But I can see why he would make an exception in the case of such a beautiful woman." Salvo's gentle southern Italian fell on Angelina's ears like sweet summer dew. She liked him immediately. He reminded her of the men back home.

  "I'm escorting Angelina to her anxious groom in Idaho. She's a mail-order bride."

  She flinched at the term. "I have an arranged marriage."

  "Your husband must be a confident man to choose Tonio as your escort." Sal leaned close to her, as if he were about to reveal a great secret. "Our Tonio is a famed ladies' man. Don't let him seduce you."

  "You insult the lady, Sal. She's made a vow of honor." His words would have been noble if not for the light mocking tone in which they were spoken.

  "The groom is a friend of yours?"

  "Never met him." Tonio nodded toward Angelina. "Neither has she."

  The confused look on Sal's face amused him. "Then how—"

  "His brother was bringing her over, but got sent back. Nonna Gia asked me to take her."

  "Nonna Gia." Sal shook his head knowingly, as if there were no resisting Nonna Gia. "Nonna Gia. Well?" He held open his hands in front of him in a variation of the Italian's favorite gesture, the shoulder shrug meaning What can you do?

  "She is up to her old tricks, Tonio. Perhaps this time you don't escape." He nodded toward Angelina. The corners of his mouth twitched in sudden amusement. "Stranger things have happened than falling in—"

  "Let's get out of this crowded depot." Tonio grabbed Angelina's elbow to propel her forward. She didn't understand what Salvo found so amusing.

  "The old woman won't rest, Tonio." He wagged his finger at Tonio and left to bring the carriage round.

  A short woman with an ample bosom greeted the threesome at Salvo's apartment
in Little Hell. Tonio looked like he was hugging a child as he reached out to greet her.

  "Maria, it's so good to see you. You look beautiful, as usual." Tonio gestured toward Angelina. "I would like to introduce you to my traveling companion, Angelina Allessandro. Angelina, this is Salvo's lovely wife, Maria."

  "Pleased to meet you." Angelina stepped up to greet Maria, who barely came to her shoulders. It annoyed her that Tonio's voice held such open affection as he complimented the plain woman.

  "Here. Come on in everybody and have a seat. Dinner will be ready in just a minute. I have a few last minute preparations to make. I would have had it on the table, but you can't depend on the trains running on schedule. I ought to know! I've waited on Salvo enough times. It's good enough that your train arrived on the date it was scheduled. I half expected Sal to return empty handed. With the bad snows this winter, the trains have been off-schedule by days. The weather has only just cleared."

  Maria scurried off to her kitchen before Angelina could offer her help. Dinner was served minutes later. Tonio shot Angelina a look warning her not to wrinkle her nose at Maria's mediocre cooking, all the while praising the woman too profusely. The three old friends talked and caught up as they ate. The conversation was lively. Angelina felt as if she were an invisible intruder attending their meal. As soon as it was over, the two men excused themselves and were off out the door, leaving the women alone with the dishes.

  Maria seemed to have expected their departure. She immediately busied herself with the dishes. "So how long have you known Tonio?" Maria asked as soon as the door had closed behind the men. She seemed as curious as her husband had been.

  "A little over a week." Angelina explained the situation. "Tonio was heading back and offered to escort me."

  "He offered?" Maria asked, an amused tone to her voice. "He must have been quite smitten with you. Tonio travels alone."

  "Smitten? I'm a married woman."

  "Bah! No matter. You are mail-order. Nothing is final until the bride and groom have met. You don't know; your groom could send you back. I don't suspect a man would reject a woman with your looks, but one never knows."

  Angelina wondered at the woman's dismissive attitude. Angelina seemed to be the only person who held her vows in any regard. "He was persuaded by a mutual friend," Angelina continued.

  "Nonna? She's the only person in New York that I know of capable of persuading Tonio to do anything. Someday I'd like to meet that woman. She must be quite remarkable. Both Salvo and Tonio have a deep affection for her."

  Maria set the last dish in the drainer and wiped the table. "I'd like to learn her secret. How does she convince two such proud, stubborn men to do the things she wants them to do? If I knew how to move Salvo, my life would be easy!" She gestured with her hands for emphasis. "Her, and that May woman from Idaho that Tonio is always talking about. How is it that some women have such pull over men?"

  May? A warning shock pulsed through Angelina. Tonio had never mentioned her.

  "How did you come? Through the port at Naples?"

  Angelina hadn't been listening. Her mind had been occupied with the idea of May. Angelina didn't like her already. She was brought back to reality by Maria's question. But she found herself at a disadvantage. In her musings, she'd missed a vital part of what Maria had been saying. Maria moved to the living area. Angelina followed. Maria sat on a small couch and motioned Angelina into the worn chair across from her.

  "Would you like something to drink? Some tea? Coffee perhaps?" Maria offered.

  "No, thank you."

  "I was asking about your trip to the States."

  Angelina was grateful for the change of topic. She was certain that Maria had noticed her preoccupation after she'd mentioned May. "I came through Naples. I'm from a small village about fifty miles away—Santa Croce del Sannio."

  "It's good to talk to someone from home, a fellow Neapolitan. I'm from Campo Basso. I, too, came through the port as a young bride."

  "We're practically neighbors then. Campo Basso is just to the north of us. I don't think I'd know your people but Papa might. He travels, farming the large estates in the area."

  Maria shook her head. "I have no people left there." She didn't explain further.

  "How long have you and Salvo been here?"

  "Sal, ten years. Me, eight."

  "You didn't come together?"

  "No. Salvo was supposed to work in the United States just long enough to earn enough money to support us in Italy and then come home for good. We dreamed of buying enough land to farm and support ourselves. We kept hoping that the years of famine and oppression would end, and that Salvo would strike it rich. But neither one came to pass. After two years, I could take it no more. I begged Sal to send for me.

  "So you came? Through Naples?"

  Maria looked at her solemnly, as if weighing a decision to speak further. "Things at the Naples port have not changed much in eight years. This I know from neighbors here that have come to join their husbands. The port officials are just as corrupt?"

  "You know Italian officials. They take what they can get. I suppose that hasn't changed. Human nature remains the same." Angelina's words sounded cryptic, but she spoke of the infamous bribes it took to cut through the paperwork and get permission to sail, to bribe one's way out.

  "You were single when you went through the port?" Maria asked.

  "No. I was married by proxy in Naples before I left. Signor Allessandro sent the money to bribe an Italian judge to give us the proper marriage license, even though Signor Allessandro was still in Idaho. It was cheaper than what would have been required by a port official and safer for me. That's what he said. And it would speed me through American immigration. So you see, I am married." She didn't know why she felt she must defend her marital status.

  "Aye, no!" Maria exclaimed. She was pale as a communion veil and her hands shook as she stared at Angelina. "Then you were a virgin when you went to the port! You poor, poor child!" She leaned forward to put her hand on Angelina's arm in sympathy. "The marriage, it is not legal. That can be voided easily enough if you don't like your groom, the foolish man! Doesn't he know what happens to young, attractive married women at the port?"

  "Now sit here with me." Maria pointed to the empty space next to her on the couch. "What I must say, I wish no one to hear." Angelina moved to the proffered spot.

  "Salvo and I were married very young, when we were both still in Italy. As you know, times were terrible in the Mezzogiorno, even ten years ago. We were so poor and there was no work for Salvo. He had heard about the land of opportunity, La Merica, and so we decided that he should go there and find work. When he had made his fortune, he would come home to me. But life doesn't always work out as planned. Salvo got a job building the railroads West, which is where he met Tonio. But the pay was meager. He did not make a fortune. I was so lonely without my Salvo that I cried every day, and after nearly two years he had saved enough money to send for me."

  "With the naiveté of a wholesome bride I was ecstatic when my parents dropped me off in Naples to begin my journey. I walked into the government immigration offices full of hope and optimism. I was taken to the office of a junior official. All I can remember of him today is that he was very ugly, and he smelled of sweat. So pure was I that I did not smell the danger that awaited me. He pulled the blinds and informed me that there was a problem with my paperwork. There was only one way to fix it." She paused, hate and sorrow brimmed in the tears in her eyes. "'You are a married woman,' he said. 'You know how to please a man. Your husband will never know. You have a choice.'

  "He had a couch in his office. He pushed me down onto it and shoved my skirts up before I could even answer. I tried to scream, but he covered my mouth and laughed. 'I can fix it so that you'll never leave the country,' he told me. 'Or…'

  "Then he raped me. I say he raped me, though I did not fight back. As soon as he was finished, he went straight to his desk and stamped my paperwork. Then he pushed me
out the door."

  Maria watched her closely as she spoke.

  "He smiled as I left, and told me that it had been a perfect interview. Then he wished me a pleasant trip. I nearly died with shame. I thought that I was the only one, until I boarded the ship and made friends with other young married women. Almost every one of them…" She choked on her words.

  "I worried for weeks that I would be pregnant with that awful man's baby. I didn't know then that I was a barren woman. But after a few weeks at sea, the curse came and I was never so happy as that day to see the bright red flow.

  "Others were not so lucky. One friend of mine got pregnant. We plied her with castor oil until the child of that evil man slid out far before its time. She nearly bled to death with the miscarriage, but she was a survivor and she lived. We all cried because the baby was lost, but it couldn't have lived."

  Maria came back to the present. "I can see by the look of horror on your face that you know what I am talking about." Maria nodded her head, verifying her own assumption. When Angelina didn't answer, she continued, certain that Angelina had suffered far worse than she, because some unknown man had surely taken her virtue, her maidenhood. She patted Angelina's hand reassuringly.

  "Don't worry, I will tell you what you must do. For your groom or any other man." She looked Angelina directly in the eye. "After only one time, you will still be tight. Nearly as much as a virgin. No man can tell the difference there. You must act frightened and nervous. And, this is important, in pain. Distract the man so that he will not notice that the maidenhead is broken. I don't think most men can tell anyway, but if he is distracted he surely won't notice.

  "But there must be blood. It's the only sign a man really needs. He won't question further once he sees blood. This is what my mama told my sister before her wedding night. My poor sister had fallen straddling a fence and broken her maidenhead as a little girl." She lowered her voice. "You must cut yourself. The area between your legs bleeds readily. Use whatever you must, but do it quickly when he isn't watching, just after the act." She held her hand up and extended a finger. "A long sharp nail works best for this. You understand?"