by BJ Hoff
Michael waited, but said nothing.
The big attorney laid one hand on Michael’s shoulder. Despite himself, Michael stiffened. “The party is looking for a certain kind of man, Captain. A man of intelligence and integrity—a man who can’t be compromised. Because certain leaders in the party know your reputation and think you’re just the kind of fellow we’re looking for, the decision was made to bypass some of the usual routes and put you directly in place for alderman.”
Dabney stopped, leveling a meaningful look on Michael as he added, “I don’t think I’d be presumptuous in suggesting that Congress might be next.”
Michael found himself irritated by the man’s assumption that he would be so eager to jump into the political arena, even more by the hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate the interest, Mr. Dabney, but as I said, this isn’t the time for me.”
As if he sensed Michael’s annoyance, the lawyer dropped his hand away. “May I ask why, Captain?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Michael could see Patrick Walsh, standing off to one side as if he were surveying the ballroom. His stomach knotted as he turned his attention back to Simon Dabney, but he kept his tone carefully noncommittal. “Let us just say that I have some things I want to accomplish before I leave the force.”
The lawyer studied him for another moment, then inclined his head and shrugged, smiling. “Very well, Captain. But I have to say that I hope you’re not making a grave mistake, passing up this opportunity. It would be only the beginning of what I foresee as an extraordinary career for you.”
Michael heard the edge in his own voice when he replied. “Sometimes a man has to finish what he started before he can think about new beginnings.”
Simon Dabney broke into one of his most charming smiles. “I understand, Captain,” he said agreeably. “And I must say, you’re to be admired for your dedication to the police department. But we’ll talk again, you can be sure of it.”
As Michael threaded his way through the couples on the dance floor, he hoped he wasn’t being as rash as Dabney had hinted. It was true that he was passing up a fine opportunity; it wasn’t every day that a police captain was solicited to run for alderman. It was also true that he’d had vague political ambitions for a number of years.
But he was convinced that only in the police department would he find the power to topple Patrick Walsh from his evil empire. That being the case, he was prepared to stay right where he was for however long it might take.
With a familiar sense of longing, Sara watched the grandly dressed couples whirl around the ballroom floor. It seemed that everyone was dancing except her and Michael. Winifred had even managed to talk Father into a waltz.
She caught herself tapping her foot to the beat of the music, stopped, then almost at once began tapping her fingers on the table. The orchestra was particularly fine tonight, she thought, strong and lively and inviting. The ballroom was awash with flowing colors, the women radiant in their ball gowns of summer hues as their partners swept them over the dance floor at a dizzying pace. It was obvious that Simon Dabney’s guests were enjoying themselves immensely.
Sara had never danced. Never. She had come out as a debutante, as was expected of Lewis Farmington’s only daughter, had attended endless balls when she was younger, both as a guest and as her father’s hostess—again, because it was expected of her. But because of her lameness, she had never danced.
Occasionally, a young fortune hunter brash enough to call attention to her handicap had offered to slow his steps to match hers, as if doing her a great favor. Sara most often responded by leveling a withering look and an acid remark on the witless suitor, making it clear that she would not be in the least flattered by the favors of a fool.
What she had never admitted to anyone—not even to her father—was that she had more than once daydreamed about what it might be like to have at least one dance, despite her hateful limp.
Especially appealing to her was the waltz. Apparently tonight’s orchestra shared her enthusiasm for the popular dance form, which was literally sweeping Europe and the United States, for they seemed to be playing more waltzes than anything else.
Some were scandalized, of course, by this new ballroom craze, appalled at the idea of partners touching as they glided across the floor. Sara thought such censorship a bit absurd, considering the voluminous gowns and chaste distance between the dancers.
Besides, before now she wouldn’t have been much interested in dancing with anyone other than her brother or father—neither of whom ever suggested it, out of respect, she was sure, for her handicap. Most of the fellows who trailed the debutantes about the city were far too clumsy on the dance floor to make it look very appealing.
But she would so love to dance with Michael.…
She had imagined countless times what it would be like to glide over a ballroom floor in his arms to the tune of a stirring waltz. She wondered if it might not be a little like flying.
Of course, she would never know. Years ago, alone in her room, she had attempted to whirl around the floor, to the beat of music that sounded only in her head, pretending. Pretending that she was feather-light, with movements as fluid and graceful as those of a French ballerina. But then she would catch sight of herself in the mirror and, feeling hopelessly awkward and ugly, she would fall across the bed and close her eyes against her own foolishness.
For a moment…only a moment…she would give in to a wave of self-pity. Then, feeling altogether miserable that she had compounded the sin of her wasteful daydreams with the wickedness of regret for the way God had made her, she would jump up from the bed and go storming through the house in search of a more useful—and wholesome—pastime.
Naturally, those occasions had all been before her marriage to Michael. It would be folly indeed for a woman as fortunate as she to continue indulging in idle daydreams. She was married to one of the finest, noblest, handsomest men in New York—surely he was—a man who made no secret of the fact that he adored her.
Why should she care about something as frivolous as dancing, for goodness’ sake?
“Dance with me, Sara.”
Sara whipped around to find Michael rising from his chair, his hand on her arm.
She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. “Dance with you? Good heavens, Michael, you know I can’t dance!”
He studied her for a moment, then straightened, pulling her up with him. “You’ve never danced, Sara?” he asked quietly.
Sara felt herself flush. “Certainly not,” she said tightly, avoiding his gaze.
“Sara?” Her name was little more than a whisper on his lips, but his hands on her forearms were unyielding. “You will dance with me, then.”
In spite of the way her heart leaped at his words, Sara was still unable to meet his eyes. “I can’t, Michael! I can’t manage—”
“You needn’t,” he interrupted, his voice infinitely gentle. “I will manage for the both of us. Come along, now. A man wants to dance with his wife, after all.” With that, he began to lead her around the table.
“I’ll embarrass you,” Sara mumbled, looking wildly around for an escape route somewhere among the sea of dancers.
Michael stopped, turning toward her. For an instant something flared in his eyes. Then, very deliberately, he gathered her into his arms, placing one of her hands on his shoulder as he clasped the other in his. “Never, Sara a gra,” he said, trapping her in the force of his dark-eyed gaze. “You could never embarrass me. You may mystify me every now and then, even astonish me. Certainly, you delight me. But you could never, ever, embarrass me! And now, sweetheart—you will dance with me. Don’t mind the others. Just follow my lead. It will be as if I’m carrying you, you’ll see. I’ll not go any faster than you can follow.”
Suddenly, Sara felt herself swung out into the midst of the other dancers, felt Michael half-lift her from her feet, buoying her along with his strength. For one fleeting instant, her lame leg locked. But, feeling her hesitate, Michael increa
sed the pressure of his hand at her waist and whirled her out still farther onto the floor.
Sara knew an instant of panic, but pushed it aside as the orchestra swung into yet another lilting waltz. The room swayed, her head spun, and now she realized that Michael was sweeping her toward the glass doors opening onto the garden patio.
Outside, the night was nothing but moonlight and the scent of summer flowers, heady and sweet on the warm July breeze. Michael pulled her along with him, and the star-sprinkled sky began to spin as they whirled across the patio.
“I’m doing it! I am, Michael!”
He held her tighter. “Of course, you are. Didn’t I tell you all you had to do was follow my lead?”
“Well…the truth is, you’re very nearly carrying me.…”
He searched her eyes for a moment. “And do you mind, sweetheart?”
“No,” Sara said softly. “I don’t mind at all, Michael.”
Sara’s feet scarcely touched the smooth flagstone. She was aware of nothing but dancing stars overhead, the strength of Michael’s embrace, the white flash of his smile as he carried her smoothly beyond remembrance of her lame leg and her fear of clumsiness.
Tonight, for the first time, Sara danced. She danced with her husband, bathed in the magic of moonlight and the fragrance of flowers. Unable to contain herself as she floated in Michael’s arms, she laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it all. He laughed with her, laughed at her delight and, Sara thought, with a delight all his own, to be dancing in a summer garden in the moonlight with his wife.
Seeing Sara and Michael disappear through the patio doors, Lewis Farmington guided Winnie in the same direction. He stopped just inside the ballroom, riveted by the sight of his daughter dancing.
He had never seen Sara quite like this, certainly had never seen her look so lovely or so happy. And, of course, he had never seen her dance, although he had sensed her longing, seen the yearning in her eyes more than once as she stood on the sidelines, watching others.
Michael was virtually carrying the girl over the patio, and her face was brighter than the halo of moonlight and stardust that framed the two of them. They looked so incredibly young, so infinitely happy—and so thoroughly in love—that Lewis had to wipe his eyes at the sight of them.
Beside him, Winnie put a hand to his arm. “Aren’t they splendid, Lewis? Aren’t they just splendut!”
He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the couple on the patio. “They are, indeed,” he choked out.
“It must make you feel very happy, Lewis, seeing them like this.”
Lewis turned to study his own dancing partner. Winnie was a vision tonight, she truly was! All pink lace and diamond fire, with that magnificent silver-blond hair piled high—why, she looked like something right out of a fairy tale!
Suddenly, before he could stop himself, he blurted out what had been on his mind for most of the evening—and for most of the week preceding the evening.
“Only one thing could make me happier, and that’s a fact.”
Winnie looked at him with an ingenuous smile. “Whatever would that be, Lewis?”
Fumbling to reach his inside coat pocket, he withdrew the small velvet box he had tucked there earlier. “Seeing this on your finger!” he said bluntly, flipping the ring box open so abruptly it almost went flying out of his hand.
For a moment, Winnie continued to stare at him with that odd little wondering smile of hers. Finally, her eyes went to the diamond and sapphire ring glittering on the velvet cushion.
When she finally looked back to Lewis, still smiling, her eyes were twinkling like diamonds themselves.
“Well, then,” she said, extending her dainty left hand, “do put it on for me, darling. Please, do.”
Feeling twenty-five again—well, thirty at the most—Lewis put the ring on Winnie’s finger and spun her back onto the dance floor for the next waltz.
15
On the Golden Streets of New York
My heart’s oppress’d, I can find no rest,
I will try the land of liberty.
ANONYMOUS (IRISH STREET BALLAD C. 1847)
Quinn O’Shea stood staring out across the river to the island known as Brooklyn. It had been another miserably hot day. The river had a stench that made her think of garbage and death. The sun was going down, but its heat remained cloying and oppressive.
Workers had begun to spill out from the warehouses onto the docks, wiping their faces with large kerchiefs as they grumbled about the ongoing heat wave. Heavy iron gates and shutters clanged shut behind them, and soon the wharves grew quiet with the anticipation of approaching nightfall.
Quinn shuddered at the thought of another night on the docks, without shelter. She had been living on the riverfront for days. Like a harbor rat, she thought to herself, though not near so adept at sniffing out food.
After bolting from the quarantine hospital, she had spent the first two days wandering aimlessly about the city with Bobby Dempsey and the others. At first, she had been too dumbfounded by the sights and sounds of New York to fret much about her empty belly. Before long, though, she had been forced to face the reality of their situation: they had no food, no jobs—not even a place to sleep, other than in the alleys, among others as impoverished as themselves.
Finally, at the coaxing of some other Irishmen on the docks, Roche and Boyle decided to take their women off to a place called Five Points. According to the weaselly characters that talked them into the idea, there were decent boardinghouses and the prospects of jobs to be had in this Five Points place.
Quinn already knew she didn’t want to attach herself to the others. They were a rough, dirty bunch, as coarse as they came. When Bobby made known his intention of staying on the docks to find work, she decided, at least for the time being, to stay with him.
So far, though, he hadn’t found even the hopes of a job, and Quinn was beginning to think she should get away, on her own—as much for Bobby’s sake as for her own. He was too concerned for her by far. He spent more time looking after her than he did looking for work.
What she could not seem to make the slow-thinking Bobby understand was that she did not need looking after. Indeed, his continual hovering was beginning to annoy her. This afternoon, for example, Quinn had practically had to get cross with him just to get him out of her shadow for a spell.
Bobby could not know, of course, that Quinn had resolved before ever leaving Ireland to never again be beholden to a man—not even to a kindly intentioned man like Bobby Dempsey. Once had been enough. She would not be paying the piper twice for the same tune.
She was seventeen, a woman grown, and from now on, she was on her own keeping entirely. She had decided that tomorrow, while Bobby was off searching for work, she would simply disappear.
At the moment, however, she was feeling a bit uneasy about the man. He should have been here long before now. Added to her concern was a growing weakness and light-headedness. Her legs would scarcely hold her up, so wobbly were they from the lack of food.
She was beginning to think she had merely exchanged the Hunger at home in Ireland for yet another hunger here in the United States.
The land of golden streets…
Quinn uttered a brief sound of disgust. Perhaps somewhere out there in the city, those golden streets did, indeed, exist. Somewhere far and away from this place, where the starving and the ill huddled like rats just to stay alive, where men fought like animals for a bite of food from the rubbish barrels…perhaps there truly were streets paved with gold and opportunity.
But so far, the only thing Quinn O’Shea had seen on the streets of New York were drunken sailors, Irish immigrants, and wild pigs.
And only the pigs, Quinn had noticed, appeared to be well-fed.
Sergeant Denny Price was deep into the Bowery, a ways off his beat.
He had come down to meet a nervous informant who refused to budge from the bar of the Blue India saloon. Although this particular pigeon had proved valuable in the past,
Denny was feeling just irritable enough from the heat that he begrudged the time and the effort he was expending for what might turn out to be nothing.
He curled his lip as he neared the bar, disgusted by the ripe smell of garbage rising off the streets. The steady high temperatures of the past few days had only made the stench worse. Nights brought no relief, either from the foul odors or the oppressive heat. Nights like these made Denny remember with a great fondness the sweet, clean air of Donegal.
It was just past ten when he rounded the corner of Chatham and started toward the saloon. He stopped dead at an outcry just ahead. Seeing nothing, he waited. Again came a shriek, a cry that sounded like that of a young girl.
Pulling his pistol, Denny moved, quickly but cautiously. There was no lack of people in the streets. The Bowery was a blaze of light, pouring out from the gin palaces and the free-and-easys. Street vendors, men and boys on their way in and out of the saloons, prostitutes, youths out on the town—this was the East Side’s center of night life.
But the crowded streets didn’t necessarily mean safety, Denny knew. As with anywhere else in the city, the Bowery was no place in which a policeman dare let down his guard.
Nevertheless, when the next scream shrilled through the streets, he threw caution aside and took off at a run.
Quinn had intended to keep her distance from the gambling den. She had gone in search of Bobby, but after futile hours of looking, wandering farther and farther from the riverfront, she’d given up.
She told herself that Bobby was all right. With his hulking size and his heavy fists, why wouldn’t he be? Deciding that this was as good a time as any to go off on her own, she had set about making her way deeper into the city.
She hoped to find a respectable area, a place with nice homes and families who would be looking for healthy girls to do housework and the like. When she’d first heard the loud music and seen the men going in and out of the public houses, she hadn’t meant to come this close. But the tempting food odors had gathered her in like a net.
