Diamonds in the Rough

by Emmy Waterford

  The Bellamys shared an amazed, impressed moment before Don asked, “What about the ponies?”

  “Let them go,” Hannah said as she climbed into the carriage and taking one look back. “They’re free now, they’re all free.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  New York City was everything Hannah anticipated and much, much more. The city blocks were a maze of laundry lines, scuttling rats, whores and hustlers, carriages and horses. Different neighborhoods blending into one another and rolling her caravan down the street was like traveling the world, miniatures of Italy and China and other distant old world countries, but only the worst and ugliest of those lovely and loving cultures. People screamed at each other in odd accents, not quite English nor any other tongue. Plucked animal carcasses hung in butcher shop windows, fish filled carts and the air around them, heavy with every other scent under the sun, and even under the earth.

  Smoke carried animal fat and bubbling broth in the thickening air, the clacks and snorts of too many horses and too little room suggesting to Hannah what Cutthroat was facing, the reset of the nation along with it.

  Hannah left the Bellamy brothers watching her gear while she took the meeting with the attorney, then stepped out of the brick row house to their curious expressions.

  “Everything all right, Miss A.?”

  “Quite well, Don,” Hannah said, glancing around to take in the busy boulevard. “We’ll need lodgings, and I have a few errands for one of you. Don, think you can handle it?” The chubby brother smiled and nodded, the other two sharing a glance and a shake of the head.

  One of the other brothers asked, “Your property is secured then, Miss?”

  “It is, save a few minor details. Our Mr. Chisholm isn’t likely to be at all pleased, but he knows by now the way the railroad had decided. He won’t have much to say on the matter.” She looked at Jasper and Barney. “You two, find me a good hotel, the best in town, arrange for the carriage and the horses. Two rooms, one for me, one for yourselves. Only the best.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Barney said, “whatever you say.”

  “You’re very generous, Miss A.”

  “You’ve earned it, Don.” Hannah handed her chubby assistant a piece of paper. “Take me here.” To the others, she said, “Be back here by sundown, wait for us if we’re not here when you arrive.”

  With a respectful dip of his head, Barney asked, “Are you sure you wanna head into the city … with only a single guard, Miss A.? Our brother’s more than capable, it’s not that, but … well, this is New York City, Miss A.”

  Hannah looked around. The lines of buildings went on and on, a mesh of crime and ambition and failure and, even worse, success. She could only smile. “Yes, Barney, yes it is.” After a silence, after which no other words needed to follow, the Bellamy brothers rode farther down the street and Hannah climbed back into her carriage, Don taking his place at the helm and shaking the reins.

  *

  Jack Kincaid wasn’t in his office, which almost seemed to be boarded up for the season. Hannah waited patiently in the carriage while Don dodged around the block, looking for a man neither of them could describe. In and out of the shops and bars, Don came and went without escorting any second man. Each trip up or down or across the street brought Hannah a new sense of worry and frustration.

  Where on Earth could this man be? This is the man my lawyer recommended, the best architect in New York? Trust him with his own life, would he? Leave it to a lawyer to stretch the truth just a bit, unless he’s sure to live forever despite even the most foolhardy risks.

  Hannah glanced out the window of the carriage, up and down the busy boulevard at the faces of the men and women carried along on the tide of humanity, whether they wanted to go along or not.

  Their faces seemed gray, aging, already tired, at least those who weren’t peering around on the alert for an unweary victim, the next pigeon waiting to be plucked, gutted, and roasted over a spit.

  Hannah finally pulled two Derringers out of the wooden case near the carriage seat, put one in her brassiere and the other in her left garter belt, and stepped out of the carriage and into the street. She let a carriage pass, horses clopping sloppily, kicking flecks of mud onto her skirt.

  Walking across the street, Hannah made her way past the row of shops and cafes and saloons, hustlers and whores every few feet.

  Hannah hadn’t noticed the brassy redhead until she bumped into her. “Oh,” Hannah said, “excuse me.” She quickly checked her pocketbook and her bra for any sleight of hand.

  The whore looked her over. “Don’t worry none, I didn’t clip nothin’ off ya.”

  “Well, um, thank you … I appreciate that.”

  The whore waved her off, then flicked open a small pen knife. “‘Cause yer just gonna hand it over, see?”

  Hannah glanced at the knife, then into the whore’s eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather earn your money, and not steal it or sell your body for it?”

  “And do what? Slave away in some factory like those mill girls? I ain’t got that much class … or humility.” The other whores were gathering around her to watch Hannah’s altercation, laughing at their friend’s joke. “Now let’s have the pocketbook, sister.”

  Hannah stood her ground, chin out, shoulders back. “In good time,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “My name’s gimme your money ‘fore I cut you!”

  But a flash of Hannah’s arm nearly cracked the whore’s before she knew the better, the pen knife falling and clacking to the wooden sidewalk before anybody even knew what had happened.

  Hannah pulled her arm back and waited, fists clenched and ready, as the shocked, redheaded whore stood there with her friends, flummoxed and flabbergasted.

  “Well I never!”

  Hannah looked her over. “I doubt that!”

  The other whores laughed, one of them saying, “She got you there, Daph!”

  Hannah gave it a little thought. “That your name, Daphne? Daphne what?”

  The brassy redhead straightened her own posture to match Hannah’s. “I haven’t got a last name, don’t need one.”

  Hannah couldn’t help the pity in her curling lip. “Didn’t you ever have a last name?”

  Melancholy took over Daphne’s aging face, mouth downturned, eyes glistening, staring off. “Not that I can recall.”

  Hannah bent down, picked up the pen knife, and returned it to Daphne, handle-first. “I believe this is yours.”

  Daphne stood, a bit stunned, a little confused, and more impressed than she’d been in years. Slowly taking the knife, she squeezed out, “Um, yeah, thank you, I … um … ” Then she turned to the other whores, pushing them back. “All right, you rabbles, give the lady some room!” They took a step back and Hannah nodded her thanks.

  “Miss A., Miss A.!” Hannah saw Don running up to her. “I think I found him, Miss A., the man you’re looking for.”

  Daphne said, “Who’s that?”

  “Jack Kincaid,” Hannah said. “Architect.”

  “I know Jack!” She leaned over to address Don. “Where you say he’s at?”

  “A … um, a place down the street. It’s, um, unbefitting to —”

  “A whore house,” Hannah said for him. “He’s at a whore house down the street. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Yes, Miss A., I’m … I’m sorry.… ” Don flinched as he often did, always seeming to be afraid that Hannah would turn into a huge eagle and carry him off to be devoured by her hatchlings.

  Hannah turned to Daphne. “That sound right to you?”

  Daphne shrugged. “Better not be … can’t count how many times he turned me down!”

  “Me too,” another said, leaning out of the crowd. “Thinks he’s too good for the likes of us.”

  “Then why would he —?”

  But Daphne just stared Hannah down. “Why don’t you go find out fer yerself, honey?”

  Hannah glanced down the raucous roadway behind her. “I do believe I
will.”

  She followed Don down the sidewalk to a place with a sign reading Chez L’amour. But Hannah was grateful not to have to step in as two men came stumbling out, the whores screaming behind them. One of the two men was taller, lean and handsome with piercing blue eyes cutting through falling shards of jet-black hair. The other man could hardly remain on his feet, lean but less well built, spindly and young-looking with light brown hair, already thinning.

  “Bring him back or pay his due,” one of the whores shouted.

  “You’ve already robbed him blind,” the bigger of the two men said. “That’s your due and more in the bargain. Keep it and be grateful!”

  “Maybe you’d like to fatten our coffers a bit!”

  “Next time, perhaps!”

  “T’ain’t likely!”

  The man dragged his friend away from the place, the bent man’s misery as clear as his stench, a mixture of whiskey and vomit. “You sure got a way with the ladies, don’t you?”

  His friend offered an answer, but Hannah couldn’t make it out. Instead, she said to the upright of the two, “Do you know a man who might have been in there just now, a Mr. Kincaid.”

  The black-haired man guessed, “Jack Kincaid?”

  “The same.”

  “You found him.” He looked Hannah over as most men did, all men in fact. “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m Hannah Alexander, a client of Harold Rodney, an attorney here in —”

  “I know Rodney, good man. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing, I … I had a land matter, if you must know.”

  “Land. And that’s why he referred you to me?”

  “Well, of course, why else? I need a capable man, trustworthy —”

  “So you took a lawyer’s opinion as fact?” Jack Kincaid laughed and shook his head, dragging his friend away before the younger man finally collapsed into the mud.

  Hannah followed him, even keeping up alongside him to continue their conversation. “I didn’t have any reason not to. Truth is, I need my house built. And, he’s done well enough with other aspects of my affairs.”

  “Then let him build your house.”

  Hannah paused, but chose to push through the man’s stubborn rudeness, ignoring it for the sake of business as Flannery had taught her to do. “I might say you’re being a bit rude about all this. I’m making you a bona fide offer.”

  Jack stopped to take in once more her fine fashions, the rotund assistant waddling close behind her. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I take that as less than a full verity, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “I wouldn’t if I knew what the hell you were talking about.”

  “I’m talking about a simple offer. I need you to corral some men and oversee the design and construct of a house, in Marion County, Indiana.”

  “I know where Marion County is,” he said, dragging his friend on and not even bothering to glance at Hannah. “I’m sorry, miss, but the answer is no.”

  “If it’s a matter of money —”

  This made him stop and turn, eyes cold blue, stabbing into hers. “Do you mean to insult me?”

  “Well, no, I —”

  “Then my answer is the same. Good day, miss.”

  “But … why? If I may ask.”

  “You can ask all you like, but that doesn’t mean I’m likely to answer.”

  “Why not?” But his cold stare just repeated his position. “Really,” Hannah gasped, “such behavior, it’s inexplicable, much less anything like professional—”

  “It’s purely professional.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  A bit confused but eager not to appear off her feet, Hannah said, “I am not.”

  “Why not have your daddy make your mansion for you? You’re obviously spending his money!”

  Hannah huffed out an insulted guffaw. “I … that’s not so! I earned every dime I have.” Absorbing his skeptical silence, Hannah knew she had to add, “He did procure the land, but we worked and improved it both, my toil every bit as long and hard as his.”

  Jack chuckled as his friend slid to his knees. With a hard wrench of his one arm, Jack pulled the younger man to his feet to drag him further along.

  Jack explained, “And what do you think is going to happen once I’m down on your property, building your little doll’s house, making your childish dreams come true?”

  “I … I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you? I’m a single man, you’re a lovely young woman. You’ll come to see me as a provider, a protector —”

  “How dare you?”

  “Or I’ll fall in love with you. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first.”

  Hannah’s lungs could hardly hold all the air she was gasping in. “Cad! Bounder!”

  “And if I acted on my desires, or yours, what would happen? I’d wind up not getting paid for my labor, that’s what.” As Hannah stammered, Jack went on. “Or if not, you'll find some other man to marry and he’ll chase me off, first thing! Either way, Jack Kincaid gets sent back to New York, or worse … Chicago! No, Miss … what was your name? Alexander?”

  “That’s right. Hannah Alexander.”

  “Well, you should take my advice, Miss Hannah Alexander. Find yourself a husband and let him build your house for you. That’s what the Lord intended.”

  Just then, a carriage drove past down the muddy street, splashing Jack Kincaid’s fine suit. Hannah thrust her chin out and spun on her heels. “Best of luck to you then.” Don Bellamy followed Hannah, headed in the wrong direction.

  But Hannah wasn’t about to be seen turning back, not by that callous scoundrel.

  *

  Hannah stood at the desk of the local telegraph office while the clerk scribbled her dictated message. “To the Honorable Mayor Vernon Flannery, Cutthroat, Illinois.”

  The clerk looked up at her from his desk. “You know you’re paying by the word?”

  But Hannah just stared him down. “Quite right. The Right Honorable Mayor Vernon Flannery, Cutthroat, Illinois.” The clerk nodded and kept scribbling. “I have arrived safely in New York, journeyed without incident. Ignore rumors to the contrary. Slightly delayed here before moving on. Will reach out again from my next point of arrival.”

  The clerk kept scribbling, then read it back to Hannah, collected her money, and turned to send the message in a series of blips and clicks invented by Samuel Morse only a decade or so before.

  *

  It took another day of scouring New York City’s business district to find the only other reputable architect in New York at that time, at least as far as Hannah could obtain a recommendation. After her lawyer’s second recommendation fell apart, Hannah would be reduced to wandering the streets and counting on luck, happenstance and good fortune to introduce her to the right man.

  Hannah knew she couldn't count on that. She never had and she was determined that she never would.

  But after the bartender pointed out the fat man in the waistcoat, Hannah made her way through the crowded saloon to his corner table. But her heart sank to see a familiar man turn to face her, blue eyes behind a falling stalk of his black hair.

  Jack Kincaid asked, “You again? Why are you hounding me?”

  “I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Hannah said, Don quiet and dutiful behind her, eyes darting around the saloon. “I’m here to speak to your friend, in the waistcoat.”

  “He’s no friend of mine.”

  “It means nothing to me,” Hannah said, turning to the man who looked more like a frog than a man. “You’re Sebastian Wiley?”

  “I am.”

  “I have a job for you, if you’re interested.”

  The man, Sebastian Wiley, looked her over, as the Barns boys had, as Jack Kincaid did, as all men did. “By all means —”

  “No, no,” Jack said, “I can’t allow that.”

  “You have nothing to say in the matter,” Hannah said crisply. “Yo
ur allowance holds no sway over me.” To the man, Wiley, she said, “I’ll need men, strong and skilled, and I want to plant an orchard as well —”

  “Whatever you need, Miss —?”

  “Alexander,” Hannah said, “Hannah Alexander.”

  “I’m at your service, Miss Alexander.”

  Jack shook his head, setting his hands on Hannah’s arms to turn her to him. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Get your hands off me!”

  Jack did release his gentle grasp of her upper arms. “He’s a fool and a thief. Two people have died in buildings he designed.”

  Hannah turned to Wiley. “Is that true?”

  “Wild rumor,” Wiley said in a dramatic and exaggerated tone. “Slander, libel! This cutpurse is my rival, he’s trying to destroy my reputation—”

  “And save as many lives along the way as I can,” Jack said, turning back to Hannah. “I’ll do your job for you, but you just keep your head about it.”

  “I’ll do nothing of the kind, and I’ll have nothing of you, my fine cock of the walk! You can chalk it up to my lack of confidence in my own sense of discipline, if you like.”

  “And you’ll wind up in the ditch,” Jack said, “where the blind inevitably lead the blind!”

  “Wiley!” Hannah, Jack, and the man Wiley himself all turned to see yet another man, massive and furious and pointing an angry finger as big as a Springfield. “You lyin’, slitherin’ snake! Your crappy barn fell down, crushed my horses!”

  Jack’s hands were strong on Hannah’s upper arms, unrelenting this time as he pulled her back and out of the way. The rest of the saloon’s crowd did the same.

  “Blake, I told you the ground was too soft!”

  “My head’s what was too soft, to listen to yer lyin’, thievin’ tongue is what! I oughta have at you right here and now!”

  Wiley pulled a dagger out of his belt, and despite his girth and jowly joviality, he was quick to grimace and even quicker to swipe that terrible blade. Hannah, Jack, and Don leaned back even further as the two men launched themselves at one another.

  Jack rasped into Hannah’s ear. “I suggest the rear exit.”