A Lady of Hidden Intent

by Tracie Peterson

  Catherine looked up, letting the letter drop to her lap, “But surely there would be no reason to offer pretense on such a matter.”

  “I cannot think it would serve any good purpose,” Selma replied. “But you know how people can be. Someone might very well have mentioned it simply to feel important.” She handed Catherine a cup of tea. “Help yourself to the bread.”

  Catherine sipped the tea thoughtfully and glanced again at the letter. “Thank you. The tea is quite good.”

  “Something to warm your bones. The chill of autumn is upon us,” Selma offered with a smile.

  “I feel so helpless. I feel I have failed Father.” Catherine reread the letter, hoping a second glance might offer something more. She shook her head and folded the pages. “I wish we could do something. I’ve saved as much money as I could these last years, but it is so little. It wouldn’t even buy us passage home, much less buy adequate legal help or hire an investigator to hunt down Mr. Baker.”

  “You cannot blame yourself for that, child.” Dugan reached for his pipe. “You and your father are innocent of the wrong in this matter.”

  “Yes, but we are the ones who suffer. Of course, Father suffers more than I, but Finley Baker goes about his business without retribution or consternation.”

  “I doubt that the man is free from worry,” Selma declared.

  She took up a ball of yarn and plopped down in a rocking chair beside the fire. “He has had to remove himself from society and relocate whenever he is found out and questioned. We know that much to be true, for when the authorities first went in search of him, he moved no less than five times in six months.”

  “Yes, but I am certain that search has been forsaken long ago,” Catherine said, reaching for a piece of bread.

  “I’m surprised that he hasn’t made his way to America,”

  Dugan put in. “Seems it would be far easier to put himself out of reach by putting an ocean between him and England.”

  “America might offer the ocean, but the Continent allows easier and quicker transportation. The variety of transport, accommodations, and locations cannot be easily dismissed. Besides, you can be certain that he has friends there. Friends who have allowed him to escape while my father suffers and languishes in prison for five long years.”

  Catherine thought back to when they had traveled to America with the sympathetic Captain Marlowe, then been deposited at a boardinghouse run by the man’s cousin. Shortly thereafter, the man’s wife had helped them make the acquaintance of Mrs. Clarkson. A few short weeks later, the trio had moved to Philadelphia and settled into the sewing house.

  Selma’s knitting needles began clicking away as she rocked. “The good Lord will guide us, Catherine. He knows the injustice done and He will set things right.”

  “I only hope He doesn’t wait too long,” Catherine replied bitterly. “My father was a healthy man when I left, but no doubt prison has taken its toll—despite your nephew’s report of him.”

  “And surely God cannot keep a man from ill health in prison,” Dugan said with a smile.

  Catherine realized he meant well. “Of course God can, but the question is, will He? He could have kept this from happening in the first place, but He chose not to.”

  “A hard thing to accept.” Dugan puffed on his pipe and nodded thoughtfully.

  One of her father’s most trusted servants, Dugan had been injured in a carriage accident when he was young and bore a crippled leg that left him with a limp. Where other employers might have sent the man packing, Catherine’s father had always seen to it that Dugan had work.

  Father had been good about things like that. He noted the condition and abilities of the people around him. He sought to best fit them into service rather than merely dismiss them as beneath his concern.

  “Oh, I miss him so much,” Catherine whispered as she gazed into the fire.

  “Aye, the master is a good man,” Selma replied. “He would be proud of the way you’ve held up your head and put your hands to good work. He might never have wished for his daughter to do common labor, but I know he would delight in your choices.”

  “Situations thrust upon one are hardly choices,” Catherine answered rather bitterly. “Nanny Bryce saw to it that I mastered sewing. I’m good for little else. And had it not been at Father’s pleading, I would not be in this country at all.”

  “But America seems a good place,” Selma countered. “I realize all we know of it is New York City and Philadelphia, but this land has been good to us.”

  “True, true,” Dugan offered. “We cannot be rejecting the goodness offered us. We would not have found it so in England.”

  Catherine nodded, knowing it was true enough. Work would have been impossible, friends would have turned in fear of association, and relatives would have avoided her at all costs. Not that there were many to be had, save some distant cousins. England’s hierarchy of society would have commiserated over her position but offered her little else.

  “Of course you’re right. America has been good to us. I do not mean to speak against her. There is, however, a longing for the life I once knew. I cannot help but miss my friends and our dear little home in Bath.” She looked up and met Selma’s sympathetic gaze. “Your exile has been hard as well. I know you miss your families there. I feel awful that you should be without them on my account.”

  “Nonsense. We chose to come,” Selma said as she continued knitting. “Your father didn’t force us. He very kindly asked.”

  “It was our desire to see you through these times,” Dugan admitted.

  “I know.” Catherine put aside her tea. “And you’ve both been so very dear. I don’t mind at all the pretense that you are my mother and father, because in truth you have become so to me in these years.”

  “We always wished for children,” Selma said sadly. “Had we ever had a daughter, we would have desired her to be just as you are.”

  Catherine smiled. “Tired, dirty, and longing for what she had been denied?”

  Selma laughed and Dugan offered a beaming smile. “Just so long as she was willing to sleep, bathe, and hope for what might yet be,” the older man replied.

  “That I am, Dugan. It’s all that gets me through each day.”

  She got to her feet and stretched. “I suppose I should go now. I have a few things to wash—besides myself.”

  “Take another piece of bread. You’re far too skinny.”

  Catherine laughed but did as Selma instructed. “At least it keeps me from needing new clothes.”

  In the solitude of her room, Catherine tried to force despair from her heart. The image of her father wasting away in a hideous prison was a picture that would not leave her mind. It was the first thing she thought of when she awakened each morning and the last thing on her mind at night.

  It mattered little that their fortune was gone—the ships, their home, and all of the furnishings that her mother had tenderly overseen. Catherine realized those things meant very little in light of losing her father to a punishment he did not deserve.

  “Were I a man, I would have stayed and fought to see him free,” she murmured.

  But had she been a man, she would most likely have found herself imprisoned along with her father. Even now, she knew there were those who looked for her. Some even believed her to have run away with Finley Baker.

  “Bah!” The man’s name stirred rage in her as nothing else might. She had found herself expanding on the Lord’s Prayer each night, praying that God might deliver her from evil and deliver Finley Baker to the proper authorities. She didn’t believe God minded her personalized addition.

  “Why is it that decent men may suffer such heinous injustice, while evil men go about their business wreaking havoc and pain?”

  She went to the window and pulled back the drapery she’d helped to make. It was a privilege, she knew, to be in a private room. She was here because she now managed the sewing floor for Mrs. Clarkson. Having worked her way up after proving her abi
lity with a needle, Catherine enjoyed many such privileges.

  Turning from the window, she surveyed the room. It was only a fourth of the size of her room in Bath, but it was cozy and tidy. She hugged her arms to her body and felt the worn velvet of her housecoat. It was a little tight in the bodice but otherwise still served her needs faithfully.

  Once again she thought of her mother’s loving care in choosing it for her and embroidering the panels that ran down the front. The dark green material had been inset with black and embroidered with gold and silver, red, and lighter greens. The floral pattern her mother had created had come from her own design, and it was to her mother that Catherine credited her own creativity.

  Designing had been easy enough for Catherine. Having worn glorious ball gowns and equally lavish day dresses, Catherine knew a thing or two about regal wear. She also knew, as a woman, what things she would like to see changed in fashionable garments. Catherine had instituted some of those ideas in the creations she made for Philadelphia’s elite.

  Taking a seat by the fire, she sighed and wondered where her life might take her next. How long before someone came to America and recognized her? Better yet, how long could she stay away from her father? Yet she knew there was nothing she could do. Even if she went to the prison, she would no doubt be turned away without ever being allowed to see him. Worse still, she might be taken into custody and given a similar fate—and then who would fight for her father?

  “Lord, I do not pretend to understand that which has been thrust upon us. I can only pray for deliverance. As you freed your people from Egypt, I beg you to free my father from prison.”

  A knock sounded at her door and Catherine stiffened. It was not Selma’s light knock or even Mrs. Clarkson’s gentle hand.

  “Who is it?” she asked as she went to the door.

  “Felicia. Open the door, it’s drafty out here.”

  Catherine did as the young woman requested, but she dreaded it. Felicia carried the title of Second Hand in the sewing house.

  That put her subservient only to Mrs. Clarkson and Catherine—a position Felicia greatly detested.

  She swept into the room with queenly airs, letting her gaze quickly survey Catherine’s possessions as if assessing for anything new. Appearing satisfied that all remained the same, she turned to Catherine.

  “I saw your light was still on. I wondered what you could possibly be up to at this hour.”

  Catherine looked at her hard. “If it’s such a strange hour to be awake, I might ask the same of you.”

  Felicia laughed and pushed back her long, loose blond hair. “I just finished my work for the day. I felt it important to complete the blouse I’d been given. So there is no foul on my part.”

  “I am glad to know it. Now that we have that clear, perhaps you will retire and allow me to do the same.”

  Felicia frowned. “You needn’t be uppity with me. You have always taken on airs of superiority, and I resent it very much.

  Your English background does not give you any kind of preference here. The English have often been considered traitors and enemies of this country.”

  “I may well be English, but I am neither traitor nor enemy.

  I’m merely a dressmaker,” Catherine stated, trying to sound indifferent. In truth, her anger was building by the second. Felicia had been nothing but trouble to her since coming to Mrs.

  Clarkson’s.

  “Well, as long as you know your place,” Felicia said, moving to the open door. “It would appear that thought often escapes you.

  You might think yourself above the rest of us, but you aren’t.”

  Catherine began to shut the door as Felicia passed through the portal. “I have never pretended to be other than I am.” She closed the door and leaned against it, knowing her words were as far from the truth as anything she might have fabricated.

  “Oh, what a liar you are,” Catherine chided herself in a barely audible voice.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lee, you’ll never guess my good fortune,” Carter Danby announced as he strode into his best friend’s law office. He shed his wet coat and hat. “Even the rain cannot dampen my spirits.”

  At thirty years of age, the two might have been mistaken for brothers, sharing not only a long-standing camaraderie but also physically mirroring each other in height and mannerisms. But where Carter’s brown hair bordered on ebony, Leander Arlington’s hair was honeyed brown. And while Carter’s eyes matched the same deep hue as his hair, Lee’s were twinkling blue.

  “So what is it you’ve come to tell me, since I’ll never guess,”

  Lee replied with a grin.

  “I have concluded the terms of the contract with Montgomery. He has approved the initial designs and now desires I draw up the detail prints for his new estate.” Carter pulled off his gloves and placed them aside.

  “Wonderful! Well done,” Lee said, standing to reach his arm across the desk as Carter took a seat.

  Carter shook Lee’s hand, then leaned back into the chair. “It has been a trial, to be sure. The man and his wife have changed their minds on the details four times. I do believe I could have made better money elsewhere for all the time it’s taken for this one estate.”

  “Still, the Montgomery name will bring you high regard. And that, along with your other designs, will surely send you on your way. I do wish you would reconsider your plans on leaving the area, however. Philadelphia needs good architects as well as Boston or New York City.”

  “True, but my family does not reside in either of those dear towns,” Carter fired back with a smile.

  “So things are as bad as ever?” Leander asked.

  Carter put his hands behind his head and stretched back a bit. “It is certain to never change. At least my father and brother have accepted my desire to focus on a career outside of the family mills. Father has even offered to finance another trip abroad. I figure he means to get me out of his hair.”

  “Is this because of his mistress?” Lee settled back and eyed

  Carter.

  “That, amongst other issues. The fact that he and my brother both have their wives and mistresses does little to help matters, but the fact that the men in my family are also given to cheat- ing their customers and making profits on the backs of the less fortunate are also issues that divide us.”

  “Well, as your legal confidant, I, of course, will say nothing to anyone. But should they be caught, it will not bode well for the family—for your mother and sister.”

  “And don’t I know that. Poor Winnie . . . she tries hard to keep the peace between our parents, but she’s seldom successful. Father wants only to see her married off to a wealthy man, but the poor girl is so shy she is seldom seen in public. My mother doesn’t make matters any better. She nags and pleads, constantly haranguing my father with accusations—granted, most of them true—and other nonsensical issues until not only does he want to be out of the house, but I want to be absent as well. Even now I’m steadying myself for the journey home.”

  “You could come home with me,” Lee offered. “Share supper with us. At least delay your journey as long as possible.”

  “I do enjoy a good meal with such fine company,” Carter said with a sigh, “but I promised my mother I would take supper with the family tonight. She wishes to discuss her Christmas preparations.”

  “Ah, the annual Danby Christmas masquerade ball.” Lee chuckled. “I had nearly forgotten.”

  “I wish I could.” Carter lowered his arms and leaned forward. “However, it does keep my mother much occupied for the latter half of the year, and that alone is well worth enduring the rest.”

  “You know, if it becomes too much, you have an open invitation at our house. My mother already considers you an extension of the family. Had I any sisters, you would have no doubt found an engagement imposed upon you.”

  Carter laughed. “Had you any sisters and were they of the same quality as your mother, an engagement would have been no imposition. I am
wont to find a good wife, but I despair of there being any unattached woman of my requirements within one hundred miles of this place.”

  “True,” Lee said with a sigh. “I have often thought the same. Mother suggested that I would find such a young lady at our church, but I see no one there to interest me.”

  “And my parents only consider attending any type of religious service to be for social purposes and financial gain. If others are of their mind, I frankly have no desire to look for a wife at church.”

  “Still,” Lee said, moving a stack of books to one side, “there must be women of worth in this town.”

  “Perhaps, but I am certain they are either over fifty, under twelve, or already happily situated,” Carter said with a laugh.

  “I suppose we must trust that in time our hearts will show us where true love lies,” Lee stated as Carter went to the window and pulled back the drape. “Have you come in your carriage today?”

  “Yes. Do you want a ride home?” Carter let go the drape and turned. “I would be happy to have your company.”

  “I would appreciate that. It’s still raining, and I have a stack of books to take with me. Father lent them to me a month ago, and I have been negligent in getting them back.”

  “The Judge won’t like that—nor would he like it if they got wet,” Carter teased. Leander’s father was a retired judge, but he still commanded great influence in the community. People respected and loved him, unlike Carter’s father, Elger Danby. People feared him, despised him, and mistrusted him, but still he managed to succeed. The contradiction of men left Carter somewhat confused. Where Lee’s father was a good man who reverenced God and looked out for the oppressions of mankind, Carter’s father was simply an oppressor.

  The confusion was in why God allowed both men to do well—to profit and accomplish great things. Carter constantly worried that his father would bring ruin not only upon his own head but upon the entire family. He prayed that it might not be so, but at the same time he truly desired that his father leave off his illegal practices and illicit affairs and conduct himself more along the lines of Judge Kendrick Arlington.