Rescuing the Heiress

by Valerie Hansen

  Michael felt as stuck as a loaded freight wagon bogged down and sinking in quicksand. Slowly shaking his head, he nevertheless capitulated. “All right. I’m not scheduled to work tonight. If there are no fire alarms between now and then, I’ll take you. What time do you want to leave?”

  “The meeting commences at eight,” Tess said. “I assume that’s so wives and mothers will not have to neglect their families in order to attend. You may call for us at half past seven. I’ll have the carriage ready.”

  With that she grabbed Annie’s hand and quickly led her out of the room, their long, plaited skirts swishing around their ankles as they went.

  Michael sank back onto the stool. When he glanced at his mother he noted that she was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Well, well, if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes I’d not have believed it,” Mary drawled. “My full-grown son was just steamrolled by a slip of a girl. ’Twas quite a sight.”

  “That it was,” Michael said. “I can hardly believe it myself. What’s happened to Tess? She used to be so levelheaded and obedient.”

  “You think she’s not being sensible? Ha! If you ask me, she and others like her are going to come to the rescue of this wicked world. Imagine how those crooked politicians will squirm when they can’t rely only on the good old boys who’ve been keeping them in office in spite of their evil shenanigans.”

  “Ma! Watch yourself. If Mr. Clark was to overhear you, he might think you were responsible for Tess’s crazy notions.”

  “More likely that girl’s responsible for waking me up,” his mother replied. “If I didn’t have so many chores tonight, I might just be tempted to go listen to Miss Younger, too.”

  Tess had raided the attic with Annie and they had both come away with elaborately decorated dark hats and veils.

  Annie’s was silk with the brim rolled to one side and the crown bedecked with silk and muslin cup roses and a taffeta bow.

  Tess chose the one she had always loved seeing her mother wear. It had two sweeping ostrich plumes anchored in a rosette of shiny black taffeta centered with a large jet ornament. That pin had been a gift from her father to her mother and Mama had always adored it.

  Their shirtwaist blouses and lightweight, plaited skirts were their own but they had covered them with heavy wool coats. Tess’s reached below her ankles. Annie’s brushed the floor.

  “I’m too short,” the girl complained, lifting the hem. “I’ll get it all dusty.”

  “Better dust than mud,” Tess countered. “Just be thankful it isn’t as wet out there as it usually is in the spring.”

  She glanced from the second-floor window of her bedroom where they were finishing their preparations. The garden below was bathed in a light mist, and beyond toward the Pacific, clouds lay low, obscuring the moon and much of the landscape, including the lights of the parts of the city nearest the shore.

  “Hopefully it won’t rain later tonight,” Tess said. “Looks like the fog is going to be bad though.”

  “I know. Maybe we shouldn’t go out.”

  “Nonsense. Did you order my mare harnessed to the buggy and tell them when to bring it around, as we’d planned?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know that we’ll have a driver. The last I saw of Michael he was still with Mary. I thought surely he’d want to go home and change if he truly intended to take us.”

  “I suspect he was wishing he’d be called back to work so he wouldn’t have to keep that promise,” Tess said. “I sincerely hope he doesn’t spend the entire evening lecturing us on the proper place of women in the home.”

  Annie grinned. “He can’t really do that unless he goes inside and listens to Miss Younger.”

  “Which is highly unlikely,” Tess added. “Wasn’t he funny when he got so uppity? Imagine thinking he can tell us what to do.”

  “He sounded like your father may when he finds out what we’ve been up to tonight.” Annie was shivering in spite of the warmth of her wool coat. “I’m not looking forward to that.”

  “Nor am I,” Tess replied with a slight nod, “but I truly feel that this is a cause worth investigating. It’s not as if you and I were planning to officially join the movement or anything like that. We’re just curious. Think of it as a lark.”

  “Michael surely doesn’t see it that way.”

  “No.” Tess sobered. “But his opinion isn’t our concern. As long as he lives up to his promise we’ll have no trouble.”

  “I wish we’d asked someone else to escort us.”

  “I don’t,” Tess replied candidly. Truth to tell, she was looking forward to being driven into the heart of the city by the handsome fireman almost as much as she was looking forward to hearing the suffragette lecture.

  She began to smile, then grin. There weren’t many socially acceptable ways she could spend time with the cook’s son. Not that she’d ever admit she was looking for any. Perish the thought. But this adventure would be fun. And perhaps in the long run, one more man would begin to understand why so many women were banding together to demand emancipation.

  Annie’s squeal startled her from her reverie. “The buggy’s here!” She grabbed her hat to help hold it in place as she added another long pin. “It’s time to go.”

  “All right, all right. Keep your voice down or Father will hear.”

  “Sorry.” Annie pressed the fingertips of one hand to her lips while continuing to steady the large hat with her other. “Did you leave a note?”

  “Yes,” Tess whispered. “And I sincerely hope Father doesn’t find reason to miss us and read it.” She reached for the other young woman’s gloved hand. “Come on. Our carriage awaits.”

  Chapter Two

  Here they come, Michael thought. Or do they? He shook his head in disbelief. Except for the lightness of their steps, the approaching pair resembled stodgy matrons rather than the lithe, lovely young women he had expected. If this was their idea of a joke he was not amused.

  While a groom steadied the horse, Michael circled the cabriolet to assist them. Frowning, he offered his hand.

  “Good evening, Mr. Mahoney,” Tess said, placing her small, gloved fingers in his and raising her hem just enough to place her dainty foot on the step leading to the rear seat.

  “It’ll be good only if your father doesn’t find out what you’re up to,” Michael countered. “I can’t believe you convinced me to be a party to this.”

  Stepping aboard, she laughed softly, her eyes twinkling behind the thin veil that she’d arranged to cover her face. “Neither can I.”

  “You two look like you’re going to a funeral,” he said with disdain. “I just hope it isn’t mine.”

  Tess merely laughed. Michael was too troubled to comment further. Instead, he helped Annie up the same step, then vaulted easily into the driver’s seat. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” they said in unison, sounding like two happy children headed for a romp in Golden Gate Park on a sunny afternoon.

  Their carefree attitude irritated Michael. He’d spent enough time in the seamier parts of San Francisco to know that his chore of protecting these foolish young women might prove harder than either of them imagined. Yes, the city was more civilized than it had been right after the gold rush, but there were still plenty of ne’er do-wells, drunks and just plain crooks out and about, especially after dark.

  His fondest hope was that the crowd of women at Mechanics’ Pavilion would act as an adequate buffer to help safeguard his charges. He couldn’t hold off a mob single-handed, not even if he were armed, which he was not.

  An aroma of salt water and rotting refuse from down by the wharves was borne on the fog, although it didn’t seem quite as offensive as usual, probably because the evening was quite cool and there was no onshore wind to carry as much of the odor inland.

  Michael flicked the reins lightly to encourage the horse to trot after he turned onto Powell Street. Driving over the cobblestones with the metal-rimmed carriage wheels gave their passage a rough, staccat
o cadence, although there was so much other traffic on the wide boulevard the sounds melded into a clatter that made it hard to differentiate one noise from the others.

  Teamsters yelled at their teams, whipping the poor beasts to force them to haul overfilled wagons up the steep streets from the wharves. A herd of cattle was evidently being driven up Market Street because their combined bellowing and shouts of the drovers working them could be heard blocks away.

  Add to that the occasional echoing pistol shot, probably coming from the seamier areas of the city, and Michael was decidedly uneasy. The sooner they reached the pavilion and he got these two innocents settled inside the hall, the happier he’d be.

  A giggle came from behind him, tickling the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. It was Tess. Of course it was. Annie might be accompanying her but this so-called adventure had most certainly originated in Tess’s active mind.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Tess replied, her voice still tinged with humor. “I was just thinking of how much more enjoyable this jaunt would be if we’d taken Papa’s new motorcar.”

  “You’d need a different driver if you had,” Michael told her flatly. “I’ve plenty of experience handling the lines but never an automobile.”

  “You drive them with a wheel or a steering lever, not reins,” Tess teased. “Everybody knows that. Papa says the time will come when horses are unnecessary.”

  “I doubt that. Those machines will never catch on. Too noisy and complicated. Besides, you’d spend all your spare time stopping at pharmacies to buy jugs of fuel. Imagine the inconvenience.”

  “No more so than having to feed and water horses,” she countered. “You should know all about that. Those fire horses you care for are beautiful animals. When they race through the streets as a team it’s a thrilling sight.”

  “How would you know?”

  She tittered behind her gloved hand. “I have seen them in action many times. And you driving them, if you must know.”

  “Have you, now? That’s a bit of a surprise.” When he turned slightly farther and smiled at her, he saw her gather herself and raise her chin.

  “I can’t understand why it should be. Station #4 is not too far from Father’s bank and it is impossible to ignore that noisy, clanging bell and that steaming engine racing through the streets at such reckless speeds.”

  “It’s only reckless if unheeding pedestrians step in front of us. The bell is meant to be enough warning for any sensible person.”

  To Michael’s surprise, she agreed with him. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. I think your profession is most honorable.”

  One more quick glance showed him that she was smiling behind the veil and it was all he could do to keep from breaking into a face-splitting grin at her praise. There was something impish yet charming about the banker’s daughter. Always had been, if he were totally honest with himself.

  Someday, Michael vowed silently, he would find a suitable woman with a spirit like Tess’s and give her a proper courting. He had no chance with Tess herself, of course. That went without saying. Still, she couldn’t be the only appealing lass in San Francisco. When he was good and ready he’d begin to look around. There was plenty of time. Most men waited to wed until they could properly look after a wife and family.

  If he’d been a rich man’s son instead of the offspring of a lowly sailor, however, perhaps he’d have shown a personal interest in Miss Clark or one of her socialite friends already.

  Would he really have? he asked himself. He doubted it. There was a part of Michael that was repelled by the affectations of the wealthy, by the way they lorded it over the likes of him and his widowed mother. He knew Tess couldn’t help that she’d been born into a life of luxury, yet he still found her background off-putting.

  Which is just as well, he reminded himself. It was bad enough that they were likely to be seen out and about on this particular evening. If the maid Annie Dugan hadn’t been along for the ride, he knew he’d have had a lot more questions to answer; answers that could, if misinterpreted, lead to his ruination. His career with the fire department depended upon a sterling reputation as well as a Spartan lifestyle and strong work ethic.

  Michael had labored too long and hard to let anything spoil his pending promotion to captain. He set his jaw and grasped the reins more tightly. Not even the prettiest, smartest, most persuasive girl in San Francisco was going to get away with doing that.

  He sighed, realizing that Miss Tess Clark fit that flowery description to a T.

  Tess settled back on the velvet tufted upholstery in the rear seat of the cabriolet and watched as they finally turned south on Van Ness and approached the center of the city. The streets in this district were well lit and broad enough to accommodate plenty of traffic, yet still seemed terribly crowded.

  Parallel sets of trolley tracks with a power line buried between them ran down the center of the thoroughfare. These lines sliced their way through the cobblestones in much the same way the cable for the cable cars did, except for the fact that the trolleys were driven by electric power. Traffic increased rapidly and included quite a few of the infernal motorcars that Michael had spoken so strongly against.

  Tess leaned forward and placed one gloved hand on the low back of the seat near his elbow while pointing with her other. “There’s an automobile. And two more. See? They seem to be much easier to maneuver, particularly over the ruts of the streetcar tracks, no matter how the driver approaches them.”

  “That’s only because most buggy wheels are narrower,” he argued, carefully maneuvering the cabriolet between a parked dray and one of the modern streetcars as it passed. “I can’t believe how some people drive with no concern for anyone else. It’s little wonder there are so many accidents these days.”

  “Father says the motorcars will put an end to that because there won’t be any horses to get frightened and bolt.” She noted how hard Michael was working to control her spirited mare in the presence of the unusual, sputtering vehicles. Some of the other teamsters were having similar difficulties. “See what I mean?”

  “All I see is that there’s probably not going to be a good place to leave this rig near the pavilion,” he replied. “Would it be all right if I let you ladies off near the door and then looked for a spot around the corner? There should be more room on Market Street, as long as the drovers have their cattle rounded up and moved on by now.”

  “Of course,” Tess said, hoping her inflection wouldn’t inadvertently reveal a desire to remain near the handsome fireman. “You can stop anywhere. I see the banner. This is where we belong.”

  “In your opinion.” Michael huffed. “I don’t believe I have ever seen so many women gathered in one place before. There must be thousands.”

  Tess tensed. “Wait. How will you find us again if we go inside without you?”

  “I don’t know. If you weren’t wearing that enormous hat I could probably spot you in the crowd by your pr— By your hair.”

  “You were going to say pretty, weren’t you?” She smiled, amused by the way his cheeks grew more ruddy in the light from the streetlamps surrounding the enormous meeting hall.

  “It would be wrong of me to mention such things, Miss Clark.”

  That made her laugh softly. “But I would find it delightful if you did. Does that embarrass you, Michael?”

  “Of course not.”

  He brought the buggy to a halt as close to the curb as possible, then quickly helped both young women alight and saw them to the curb before once again climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “Take off your hat after you get inside,” he called over the din of the crowd. “I’ll find you.”

  She knew that her eyes must be twinkling because she was keenly amused when she shouted back, “And how will you do that, sir?”

  Michael paused just long enough to lean down from his perch and say more privately, “By your beautiful, dark r
ed hair.” Then he flicked the reins and the horse took off.

  Beside her, Tess heard Annie sigh. “Oh, my. That man’s smile could melt butter in the middle of winter.” The shorter girl had clasped her hands over her heart and was clearly mooning.

  For some reason Annie’s overt interest in Michael needled Tess. She knew it was foolish to allow herself to be bothered, since the maid was a far more likely social choice for him to make than she was.

  Nevertheless, Tess was surprised and a little saddened by a twinge of jealousy. What was wrong with her? Was she daft? Just because a man was stalwart and handsome and so glib-tongued that his very words sent shivers up her spine, it didn’t mean that she should take his supposed interest seriously. After all, she was a Clark, a member of the San Francisco upper crust. And as such she did have a family reputation to uphold whether she thought it a silly pretense or not.

  Standing tall and leading the way, Tess gathered a handful of skirt for ease of walking and crossed the lawn to the wide entry doors of the meeting hall. There were ladies from all walks of life proceeding with her in a flowing tide of gracious yet clearly animated womanhood, she noted, pleased and energized by the atmosphere.

  Perhaps this suffragette movement would remove some of the social stigmas that had always set her apart from many of her good sister Christians like Annie, she mused. If it did nothing else, she would be forever grateful.

  Michael worked his way slowly south on Van Ness Avenue and turned onto Market Street. As he had hoped, there was plenty of room there for the Clark buggy. He tipped a small boy in tattered knee britches and a slouchy cap to watch the rig for him while he was gone, then headed back for Mechanics’ Pavilion at a trot.

  He hadn’t gone a hundred yards when a man grabbed his arm and stopped him. It was one of his fellow firemen.

  “Hey, Michael, me boy. Where’re you bound in such a hurry?”

  Before thinking, he answered, “The pavilion.”

  That young man, and those with him, guffawed. “No wonder you’re wearin’ your uniform. If you’re lookin’ to use that badge to impress a good woman, you surely won’t find one there. Where are you really goin’?”