I turned to Donegan, who stood genuinely agape at the display. It pleased me immensely to surprise him this way, and I returned to stand beside him. “All this time we were looking for the wrong fortune—a mere chest with a few piles of pound notes that would have run out too quickly. Yet here is an abundance that is all ours.”
He strode in a slow circle about the room, taking in the sight of it. “So this is the fortune that has destroyed relationships and ended lives. Perhaps it truly is a curse, a source of greed and poverty on the deepest levels.”
“Is that all you see in it? What a shame.”
“You can do what you like with it, I suppose, but if you want to keep it . . . well, I’m not sure wealth and I are compatible. I’ve found such freedom in releasing the little I did have that I cannot tie myself again to large sums of money.”
I offered a playful smile. “Mr. Vance, are you judging me by the size of my fortune?”
But he remained sober. “If this were my fortune, I’d be tempted to leave it down here and forget I ever found it.”
“Then perhaps it’s best it isn’t your fortune. No, I will not simply walk away from it. That would be a waste of a perfectly good secret.”
“You plan to spend this money, then?”
“All of it. Why keep it buried? And you realize I’ll need the help of my faithful partner.”
“I’m not interested in managing a fortune, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
After blowing out the leaning candles of the chandelier, I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm and smiled up at him as we walked toward the stairs and again ascended into daylight. Once outside, I blew out the candle and we walked together toward the vineyard. “What I’m suggesting is a lifetime of bad days, for I suddenly find myself with an abundance of bad-day remedy.”
He glanced down at me, his masculine face softened with admiration. As we paused at the top of the vast slope overlooking the rolling acres, his fingertips trailed along my temple, calming the tension of the day and replacing it with pleasant sparks of hope and delight. I leaned my face against his chest and savored the moment.
“I intend to bring home an indentured soldier whose fiancée has waited far too long for her wedding.” I pictured Lucy’s face at the surprise reunion. Then my thoughts turned to poor Ellen and the terrible smiling mask over her tortured heart. “Then I must attend to an enemy or two. I do believe I know of an expectant mother who could use a little help. From there, who knows?” I looked up at him.
Hesitation tugged at his handsome face as he dropped his hand and I stepped back. “You know about the debts I have, the way I lost everything my family owned. I’m not a skilled money manager, Tressa. Especially with so large a fortune. I wouldn’t know how to handle it all.”
“Mr. Vance, do you recall what you told me about the two ships, the Tayleur and the ark? Well, I’d like to amend that.” I took his hand and smiled. “The difference between the ships is that the failed ship was built by a professional, and the successful one by an amateur . . . and his God.”
He folded me into his arms then, his rough chin brushing against my forehead, and he kissed the top of my head like a solemn blessing. “More than anything, I want you beside me. As soon as I’ve paid off the debts and set things to right, I’ll be back for you.”
I pushed back to look up at him. “If that’s all that’s standing between us, then don’t be surprised to find your debts disappearing faster than you can pay them. After all, I intend to repay your money, as well as give you what my father promised you.”
“No, Tressa.” He grasped my hands earnestly, but I interrupted his refusal.
“Don’t take it for yourself. Take it for the people you intended to rescue back home. They will have their lives restored, and you . . .” I looked up at him. “You will have no more excuse to be rid of me.”
He swallowed and studied me, those powerful eyes searching mine as his heart overflowed from their depths. “You should not spend your money that way. I’m no expert, but that’s my firm advice. I’ll pay the debts and return for you when they’re cleared.”
“Suit yourself.” I leaned into him and looked out over the vineyard so alive with color and the sunset streaking soft hues behind it. “But I will warn you, Mr. Vance. I don’t listen well either.”
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
John 15:5
1
I do not truly wish for all my dreams to come true. After all, nightmares are one type of dream.
~Diary of Countess Lovelyn Shaunghess
Spitalfields, London’s East End, 1871
For one blessed moment I was actually beautiful. I rested one smudged hand on the bodice of the luscious gown belonging to Mrs. J. B. Hollingsworth and waltzed like a princess down Church Street in the dark, the little jeweled shoes clicking as I spun on the broken cobblestones. Gowns had a sort of magic hemmed into their yards of cloth, enough to change a girl’s heart and appearance just by the wearing of them.
I paused under the gaslights to glimpse my reflection in a window, gasping at the vision of loveliness framed on the grimy pane of Bryn and Saunders Textiles. I twirled my hair up and gazed with wonder at the whole of me—shapely, trim, and utterly feminine. For the first time in my life, my willowy little body was fitted in a garment with actual shape and form.
Mercy gracious, I looked like a normal woman.
A flash of vanity lighted through my heart, but it was snuffed by chilly fear a moment later. The grim reflection of a fine-suited gentleman lurked behind my image in the window, moving steadily toward me. He must be coming for the gown and shoes.
With a shiver, I dropped my upswept hair and slipped into the shadows of the building, heart thudding with powerful force as I hurried away. The stranger’s shoes clicked on the damp street behind me, splatting over little rivulets of rainwater as they moved toward me with purpose. I had only meant to borrow it and return it before it was missed, but what could I do now—strip down to my dirty chemise and run through the streets?
“You there.” His low voice thudded through my senses, sparking me into action.
I sprinted past my rag cart and down a narrow, unlit street. I never should have touched the thing. The gown had been lying across a chair in the Hollingsworths’ laundry cellar, and the maid had left me alone with it while she’d gone to fetch the castoffs. Once I glimpsed the ivory organza, and the little jeweled slippers cast under a stool, I hadn’t the strength to leave them alone. I’d intended to return them within minutes. An hour at most.
Yet there was no point in stopping for explanations, for I was a rag girl, as much a castoff as the rags I peddled. People called me Ragna, a cruel twist on my real name, Raina. I sprinted with all my might, loose rocks skittering under my feet as I ran awkwardly through the shadows on pointy heels, dodging the yellow glow of streetlights. I stumbled as one of the ridiculous jeweled shoes came loose, and I kicked it off, darting on one shoe and bare toes into the first alley I saw. I slipped into the dark and thunk—my shins collided with something wooden, sending me sprawling over the broken cobblestones in a pile of crinoline and dirt.
Miserable crates.
My pursuer turned the corner into the alley too, and I glanced back to find myself in a dead end with walls surrounding me on three sides, the man blocking my only escape and closing the distance between us. Cornered, I wrenched the other jeweled shoe off and held it aloft. The long, dark shadow of the man approached with steady confidence, and I realized he’d kill me and then drag my dead body to the constable. Gripping the accidentally pilfered shoe, defeat stole over me. I’d survived twenty-two years in this slum, fought off every evil around me like a cornered tiger, only to be hanged for this—a mere moment of weakness.
I gulped in more air and steadied my nerves for a defensive attack. I lay in that spot, rooted by fear, praying to God that the foreb
oding stranger would somehow overlook me in the shadows and disappear.
Yet it seemed God had other plans, for the man strode up to me, the tips of his shiny leather shoes coming to a stop before the muddy hem of the once-white gown. I looked up into the finest face I ever remembered seeing inside of Spitalfields as the lights along the main street highlighted his confident features. I watched him, fear drowning my voice into silence. Then the fine gent knelt there in the street and held out the shoe I’d abandoned.
“Pardon me, have you lost a glass slipper?”
His handsome blond curls caught the moon’s glow as a kind smile warmed across his face and my breath caught in my chest. I forced myself to breathe. He reached toward my dirty bare foot and his nearness sent me scrambling upright. I moved back, leveling a glare at him as I tried to avoid brushing off my dirty bare arm. Men grew uncomfortably brazen as the sun set over this cramped little section of town.
“Thank you kindly, sir, but if you’ll excuse me.” I felt the unnecessary sting of my words, but I’d lived long enough to know that kindness from strangers must be clearly snubbed. Anything less would find a girl helpless and ruined.
“You are excused.” But he merely rose before me and remained in my path with arms crossed over his chest, watching with gentle amusement.
I smoothed the limp dress over my body and attempted to duck around him, but he stepped easily in front of me.
“If you’ll give me but a moment, I have a proposition for you.”
So he hadn’t come about the gown. He was merely some well-dressed loon who’d lost his way and found a girl out alone at night. “You’re blocking my way.”
“Or perhaps just enticing you to take an entirely new one.”
I frowned, breathing hard and poised to exit at the first chance.
“Won’t you give me but a moment of your time? It’s a splendid opportunity.”
“I’m not in need of one.” I shoved past him and limped toward the main street on one shoe, leaving this darkly clad stranger with as much poise as any highbred lady might. Don’t run and they won’t chase—every Spitalfields girl knew this, but this was my first chance to test the old adage.
But even as I walked away, the fleeting word opportunity settled into my mind and ignited a bloom of colorful daydreams and fanciful notions. They came almost unbidden, for I had been born with both a spirited imagination and a life that demanded regular escape into it.
I snuck another glance behind me and decided that the odd stranger appeared both sober and sane. His dark air of mystery fit the mood of the gloomy alley we shared, yet his trim gray tailcoat with perfect black buttons contrasted so sharply with the surrounding grime and decay. This made me both suspicious and terribly interested in whatever had driven him to pursue me.
I strode on with my head up, some wicked part of me willing him to catch up and quench my curiosity. A few paces later, he did at least grant the first part of that wish. His shoes splat-splatted over the rain pooled in the ruts of the cobbled road, and he again stepped before me, halting my progress.
“I noticed you did not say no.” The defined M of his upper lip curled into an enticing smile as he once again held out the little jeweled shoe he’d rescued from the alley.
“Only because I cannot bring myself to take you seriously.”
“No, it’s more than that. Admit it—some little part of you desperately wants to hear what sort of adventure this stranger is attempting to offer you.”
I dropped my gaze to the uneven cobblestone street, for surely my entire personality must be in vivid display upon my face. How else could he have spoken so directly into my secret heart? His smoothly spoken word “adventure” inflamed a desire in me so great, it tempted me to cast aside everything I knew to follow him.
“A girl with such remarkable beauty should have the gowns and life that reflect her lovely face.” He paused when I remained silent, cocking his head at a charming angle. “You seem to doubt the sincerity of my admiration. Shall I tell you more specifically what I find so stunning about you?”
My fickle heart struggled to remain aloof. “I’ll not believe you. You’re either lying or . . . or mad.”
“What a monstrous thing to say to someone who’s just paid you a compliment. Your punishment is that you must endure my company for the duration of your walk home.” He offered his arm with a smile.
Unease sliced through me at these words and I stepped back. The man would not come near the flat I occupied alone. “I bid you good evening, sir.”
Tingling with something—fear, or maybe excitement—I turned, but he laid a hand gently on the wall beside me, as if touching my arm without actually making contact. The effect was surprisingly arresting.
“What if I offered you a fine position at a magnificent estate, among the finest gowns and fields of flowers for your hair, and all you had to do was come with me and step into it?”
His words pulled at me at the heart level, where a love of beauty was buried, yet I resisted with all my might. If only he knew how he tortured me. “I couldn’t simply walk away from—”
“From what, all this?” He lifted his arms to indicate the dank alley that was thick with the odor of trapped moisture. “Come, what would you be leaving behind, truly? Have you a family at home? A respectable man waiting for you?”
In an instant, images of the man I loved engulfed my hurting heart, twisting it in a familiar pain. I saw his precious face as he was years ago, swinging playfully upside down from the rusted stair rail, mock-curtseying with twinkling eyes and a lopsided grin, saluting his farewell from the crew deck of the Maiden Faire as it sailed into the fog. That familiar face and the marvelous personality behind it.
Oh yes, I had a respectable man. A splendid, bighearted, gallant man fueled by music and joy who was no less mine simply because he was dead. The lurid image of Sully’s sinking ship tore across my imagination. I clenched my jaw and fisted my hands, forcing myself to answer over the wave of fresh pain. “I suppose not.”
Now there was only Paul left to me—my poor, sickly, tenderhearted brother who had signed onto a ship’s crew like Sully for lack of other opportunities, yet no one belonged on solid ground more than that boy. If I left, who would work to bring him home? The mere thought of him engulfed my heart in an overwhelming loyalty, a firm resolve to remain for him.
The man’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Nothing cleanses away the dusty taste of everyday life like adventure.” His smile revealed perfect white teeth. Too perfect. “There’s nothing here that you can’t have tenfold at Rothburne Abbey. The position pays forty pounds.”
I coughed. The enormous number nearly choked me, and my brain immediately sifted it into a time frame of how long it would take to pay off Paul’s ship contract and bring him home. I could no longer save Sully, but I still had Paul, and I desperately wished to fill my little hovel with the presence of my sweet-natured brother. Ever since Sully’s ship had gone down, I’d been that determined to rescue Paul. It had always seemed a distant hope to bring him home, but with this amount I could taste the possibility of it. “Paid every month?”
“Every week.” He gazed confidently into my eyes, daring me to turn away from his offer. “The worn path of everyday is safe, but precious little grows there. Come now, little Cinderella, have an adventure.”
My lashes fluttered at the weight of the temptation before me. I could work endlessly and never see reward, or I could step into this opportunity and fill both my pockets and my soul.
“Now that I have you sufficiently intrigued, I’ll leave you to your normal routine and see if you still find it worth holding so tightly. At noon tomorrow I’ll be at the train. I pray the night will not torment your mind to a great degree with indecision.” With a sweeping bow, he handed me the little jeweled shoe and strode back into the darkness from which he had come.
With a powerful shiver, I put on the shoe, hugged the sagging dress to my frame, and paced home. All manner of rationalizat
ions and logic flooded my tired brain, tugging me this way and that. My final decision alternated as often as my sore feet crossing back and forth over the drain gutter running down the center of the rain-drenched street.
Soon I ducked beneath the flapping sheet strung across the alley and stood before the broken shutters and ugly chipped brick that was my home. I was hemmed in by buildings beside and before me in the narrow space, with no evidence of God’s creation around except the starless sky above, but it was my life. My reality. What right had I to hope for more?
With a sigh I lifted my skirt to climb the steps and glimpsed the jeweled shoe he’d left with me, inviting me into a Cinderella story. I somehow found myself surprisingly immune to his charm, having already spent my entire heart on one man with no desire to retrieve it, but the hope of his offered adventure flared through my eager mind with powerful force. I looked up and somehow my building seemed ten times more wretched and grimy than it had when I’d left at dawn. With a whole world of possibilities offered to me outside this cramped district, it suddenly felt impossible to remain here.
When I’d climbed the stairs and settled before the window with a view of the distant train station, I thought about the many hours spent here, watching for Sully. If I left, that meant admitting he wasn’t coming home. Tears trailed down my cheeks as I traced the window frame cradling my face and forced myself to recall the bold notice in the paper about the sinking ships off the east coast in a storm they called the “Great Gale.” My finger had trembled uncontrollably as it skimmed through the names of the lost ships until it slid over the one that had once brought precious sparks of joy—Maiden Faire.
I looked out at the night, smiling sadly at the thought of his bright countenance, always playful and ready to smile. How I missed that dear face, and would forever. He’d be my most treasured memory, captured in my mind like a miniature in a locket. The images of wide smiles and a jaunty blue cap overwhelmed my poor mind. I’d made that cap for him when he’d taught me to read years ago. How much of the world he’d opened to me since our shared childhood.
A Rumored Fortune Page 32
