by Carrie Lofty
“No, sir.”
Heath leaned nearer, his voice hushed. “It’s not that sort of hospital, Mr. Christie. It’s more for . . . well, for women of a certain profession.”
Plimshaw nodded, as if relieved of the necessity of revealing that particular detail. “As mandated by the comprehensive Glasgow System for the Repression of Vice.” He recited the words as if from a manual on city policy. Maybe it was.
That didn’t mollify the rage gathering like molten rock beneath Alex’s low ribs. “I sent a woman in my employ home in a hackney cab in an attempt to safeguard her well-being, and she was arrested for prostitution? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“And assault on a police officer.” Plimshaw consulted his notes. “Her shawl was found at a pub by the docks. There were witnesses. The constables who arrested her were only doing their duty to protect the city.”
Choice curses bounced around Alex’s brain. “Let me see her. And someone find Constable Andrews. I don’t care if you have to kick down his door and wake his children.”
The thin, officious constable led the way through the station. Alex truncated his strides lest he overtake the shorter man. Another officer behind a desk found the logbook. More fastidious attention to detail, without producing any answers.
“There’s no record of her, sir,” the man said. “Perhaps she gave a false name?”
“She was likely arrested because she is Polly Gowan. Why would she give a false name?”
“I cannot find the paperwork, sir.”
Alex slammed his fist on the desk. Pencils scattered. Even Heath looked taken aback.
“I don’t give a good goddamn about your paperwork,” Alex growled. “I’ve journeyed to this stink-hole to prevent an innocent woman from being locked up as a prostitute. Find me Polly Gowan. Now.”
“Sir,” Plimshaw began. “If you would—”
Keeping his temper was no longer an option. All Alex managed was not to use his walking stick as he’d imagined in the coach. Instead he pounded the tip against the wooden floor and stalked toward the holding cells. Heath followed with an equally determined stride, while Plimshaw sputtered without effect.
The women’s cell stank of urine and enough cheap perfume to make his eyes water. The hairs on his nape and along his wrists stood on end. Woman after woman stared at him from behind the iron bars. Most were filthy, with brassy hair over dead eyes, and some wore the remnants of lip paint or rouge.
One buxom young chit presented her assets. “You can have your pick of us, master, but why not me?”
Alex ignored her words, as well as the implication that he was there to shop for flesh. The idea was reprehensible. More searching. More vacant stares. None of them revealed the lustrous red hair he would know from across a crowded room.
“This is worse than holding them in a latrine,” Heath said, hand over his mouth.
Rage gave strength to Alex’s voice. “Polly! Polly Gowan, show yourself!”
A muffled struggle from the far corner of a cell caught his attention. He grabbed Plimshaw’s lapels and dragged the man with him to investigate. Polly was pinned by two larger, older women, both in the process of stripping her lace-up boots.
Alex smacked the head of his walking stick across the bars, back and forth, until he had the attention of every inmate and constable.
Polly’s expression had frozen around a mask of terror. She breathed his name.
“Unhand her. Now. Or I’ll be forced to learn whether the bones in your hands are as sturdy as these bars.”
The pair of prisoners backed away from Polly, who scrambled to her stocking-clad feet and met Alex at the bars. He saw only a woman who needed him. Over the years he had come to expect such a stripped, beseeching look from Mamie. Seeing it from Polly put an end to the logical foundation of his life. He felt it go. And he didn’t fight to get it back.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he whispered.
“Someone found my shawl at Old Peter’s.”
“I heard. But say nothing more. Understand?”
She nodded. “Heath, dear God. What are you doing here?”
“Aiding your avenging warrior.” He shrugged. “Not that he needs much by way of aid.”
“And what of Edmund?”
Alex clasped her fingers where they gripped the cell bars. “Mrs. Doward has him. Griggs is waiting for us outside to take us home.” He straightened to his full height, channeling every measure of his father’s arrogance and authority. “Constable?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Listen closely and pray to God you get it right.” Polly watched him with expectation, Heath with awe, and Plimshaw with fear. Alex’s voice never wavered as he issued the command that would change everything. “I want you to procure whatever paperwork, keys, and officials you require to set my fiancée free.”
Eighteen
Are you mad?”
Polly kept her voice low as they fled the hideous police station. She had been brought in for questioning before, and had always walked away without charges. She’d never been there without the protection of the union men. Tommy, Hamish, Les, and especially Da when he was well—they had intervened when the law thought to offer a little harassment. But to be attacked by desperate female strangers was more upsetting than Polly could comprehend. The shock was enough to render her momentarily dumb.
She had always done her best to lighten the burdens of others. This night was proof that some people didn’t want to be helped. Why was she so surprised? She even felt somewhat . . . betrayed, as if her good works might not amount to much.
To be accused of prostitution was even harder to face.
The line of Alex’s proud jaw bunched. “I got you out of there.”
“And now this ends, Alex. Enough of your bullying. I’m not a constable to be ordered about.”
Heath had already departed for home, to relieve the worry Ma and Wallace must have suffered all night. Polly walked with Alex toward his carriage as the pastel light of dawn began its gradual rebirth. He grabbed her upper arms and hauled her close.
“Do you still work for me, Miss Gowan?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“Then you’ll step just as quickly as those corrupt bastards.”
“You’re the one acting like a bastard.”
“So you’d like to return? To see how the judicial system here treats poor, unmarried women?”
She sneered. “Blackmail, is it?”
“No, this is intimidation. Blackmail is when I say that I’ll inform your parents of our dalliances if you continue to protest. Shall we learn your father’s opinion about our marriage?”
“Do I get no say in this?”
Grim lines cupped either side of his mouth. “None at all.”
No emotion. No acknowledgment that they had tempted the potential for more—a deeper connection. He seemed unable to consider the options he’d stolen when he barged into that jail.
“I knew you were a master,” she said with a sniff. “All along, I knew. But I let myself be fooled by your differences. You actually seemed ready to listen and help and . . . ”
Care.
But she held that word back. Barely. It had no place in between them now.
He yanked open the carriage door. Griggs already sat atop his bench, with the horses hitched, their necks bowed low. Polly could relate. She was exhausted. No thought stayed in place long enough for her to catch hold.
Alex practically shoved her in with a hand on her rear, and then climbed in to follow. “You insist on behaving as if survival in such a world is the same as thriving. When, Jesus, Polly—you could be so much more.”
“That’s what you think. Fine. Your opinion. But thank you very much, I’m what I want to be.” She exhaled, hoping to banish her outrage and speak rationally. Alex was so cool, so calm about what felt to her like a catastrophe. “I appreciate what you did. I can’t imagine the gossip to follow, but we can salvage most of the situation. Maybe I can co
nvince everyone this was just what is was—a sham, to get me out of a bind.”
“It wasn’t a sham, Polly. I am going to marry you.”
A secret place inside her went very quiet and very still. Then it burst to life, fluttering like a bird frantic for flight. She backed into the bench, as far from Alex as she could. But she couldn’t escape the finality in his unyielding expression.
Clear of the stink and the wretched eyes of the jail, she welcomed back the quick return of ordered thoughts. “That’s absurd.”
“We’ll marry. That will be the end of all this confusion.”
Her jaw opened but no sound emerged. The fluttering sensation intensified, becoming the fast, hard whip of a thunderstorm’s first winds. Marry Alex Christie. It was too strange to even imagine.
But that secret place whispered, What would it be like to have this man as my husband?
“Confusion?” she croaked.
Alex waved his hand. “This disorder. I’ll give you a safe place. I’ll ensure that your family is cared for. And in return, Edmund will have a stepmother and I’ll have a marital partner.”
He didn’t even blush at the latter. No heat in his eyes. The man she’d made love to was nowhere to be found. He was capable of a great deal of passion and even honor. He obviously loved his son, too.
But his words held no promise of affection for her.
She’d always hoped, quietly yet fervently, that she would be lucky enough to marry for love, as had Da and Ma. Alex made it sound like nothing more than a business transaction. They were pawns to their respective causes. The totality of his loyalty was to Edmund, which would never be enough for her. Wasn’t it the role of a husband to be loyal to his wife, too? Did he not see how this would steal the respect she’d earned? It would be more than a loss to her pride; it would mean the loss of herself.
And she was still hiding Tommy’s whereabouts. A marriage built on intimidation and lies? No hope in that.
Yet if he insisted on talking logic, she could, too.
“Do you have any idea what this will do to your reputation when the masters learn of your proposal to a factory girl? It’s wasteful and foolish.”
“What business is it to them?”
“Are you really so naïve? The influence you’ve earned as a newcomer would become suspect, if not wiped out entirely. As for me, I’ll be labeled all manner of turncoat, with my motives suddenly suspect. ‘Has she always been a social climber?’ they’ll ask. ‘Was her plan to entrap the first gullible master?’ ”
“Won’t they see the benefits, just as you have, in associating with me in the first place? Union and mill masters working together will be advantageous to everyone.”
He kept his posture distant and strict. Apparently the walls disguising his deeper self could be rebuilt in an instant. Polly wondered briefly if he taught his astronomy classes so formally, or if he would show more passion for the subject than he did toward her.
“Those on both sides who harbor more resentment than sense will see no such thing,” she said.
“They cannot be that stubborn.”
Polly laughed, but it wasn’t an expression of joy. “Good Lord, Alex. You’re not a dumb man. Look at this with your damned logic! Da could never convince everyone to see the bigger picture. Sometimes food in their bellies and medicine for their children took precedence over pay decreases in hard times. With prodding, they rarely see that sticking together means the advancement of all. As their equal, I have a trustworthy voice—one they might heed now. Hamish or Les will take my place, and they haven’t the patience or temperament to keep that optimism alive. I’ll be relegated to the edges of all I’ve helped build.”
Alex’s expression hardened. Flashes from each gaslamp they passed made his features more intimidating. With staunch, sharp cheekbones, he frowned with the severity of a stern parent. And he was behaving as one.
“You expect to continue with the union after we’re wed?”
Her heart stopped cold. “You expect me to stop?”
His shrug made her want to scream. The one hint of humanity he’d shown during their carriage ride was one of condescension. “You’ll be my wife. I’ll support your politics to the best of my ability, but I will not abide by the dangers you court. And I will not see my business fail.”
“I courted plenty of danger in that alleyway with you, but I didn’t hear you protest.” Anger burned her face and chilled her limbs. “Did you plan all of this?”
“Plan what?”
The accusation took on more strength in her mind. “Tonight. You didn’t want me to return to my family. So you set the constables on me with little hints about our relationship. Suddenly they pounced on me with ready-made charges of prostitution. Now you think I’ll be your wife. Just like that!”
“You’re courting madness, woman.” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his thighs. “I saved you from that infernal place, and this is the thanks I get? You live in a city where hundreds of people die of cholera because of poor living conditions. Girls with access to free elementary education work instead as piecers and apprentice weavers before they can tie their own boots. And you refuse the opportunity to get free? I cannot believe you would be so stubborn. Not even you.”
Polly crossed her arms to hide her fists. “Did you thrust this sort of decree on Mamie, too?”
His hand tightened on the head of that intimidating walking stick. “What did you say?”
She realized that she’d stepped over some invisible line. But she was too spitting angry to back down now. “You told me you’d made plans for years to get her away from her father. I wonder if she had any hand in that decision, or if you simply barged in and whisked her away.”
“You know nothing about what we endured.”
“Only what you’ve told me. That’s more than enough to suspect history repeating itself.”
He slid across the carriage’s small space and dragged her close. Violently. His deeply expressive eyes—eyes that had reveled in the colors of the aurora, and had revealed so much emotion during their joining—were as lifeless as marble. The warmth of his breath against her cheek only made her shiver. She turned her face, but he cupped her jaw and brought her back to his unrelenting gaze.
“Feel whatever you want, Polly. But know this. I answered my door this morning only to learn that you’d been arrested. It was difficult enough to let you go last night. You cannot assume I’d be fool enough to do that twice.”
The kiss he claimed was fast. Deep. Aggressive. It pushed past her defenses just as surely as his tongue forced open her lips. He pushed inside with the confidence of a man who always got his way. For just a moment, she permitted herself the enjoyment he gave, and the memories of how much more they could conjure.
But only for a moment.
She pushed against his chest to edge a scant few inches of space between their mouths. “This isn’t gallantry or even some decision made of logic. This is you being selfish. You’ve finally let yourself indulge in something more than duty. Not even the most pigheaded man would want to give that up.”
“I have never been so insulted.” A lock of gleaming blond hair traipsed onto his forehead. Although a gentleman, his skewed ascot and that single lock of hair revealed what she’d always known: his power and potential for rough, almost brutal impatience. He looked like the villain she needed to believe he was. “I’m giving you a future you never could’ve achieved on your own.”
“And now who’s been insulted? Shut your mouth, girl, and be grateful?”
A grimace twisted his lips. “You make it sound as if gratefulness is so terribly demanding. You won’t have to worry about any of it now. You’ll be free to live above it all.”
Maybe her shudder finally put him off. He let go of her shoulders, where his hands had been clamped like vises. “When you think to force me into this so-called marriage, consider how unkindly your future wife will respond to your methods.” She looked him up and down with raised
brows. “Do you ever expect a repeat of what we did last night? Not from me.”
Alex turned away. Silence claimed the vehicle as they rattled through the night. She wanted to keep railing, to argue until he saw sense and released her from the temptation to simply . . . go along with his plan. He was the master of Christie Textiles and could, by right of fortune and influence, marry whomever he chose. Few new-money industrialists cared much about class or proper station. It would be an easy thing to turn her back to the deprivation—the crushing responsibilities—and live as a rich man’s wife.
Easy, if she were a different person altogether.
That would mean thinking herself better than her family and her upbringing. How could she contemplate such an offense to those she loved? She would live and die in Calton, although the renewed thought of that hardship tightened her stomach into a fierce little ball. When compared to the soft, enveloping luxury of Alex’s bed, her meager pallet seemed a punishment on top of her sacrifices.
The carriage stopped, jostling their knees together. Polly sucked in a shallow breath. Alex didn’t even blink. His face remained in profile, half shaded in orange and gold. She found herself tracing the line of his jaw where it angled back toward his earlobe. That light growth of evening stubble against her skin had been a revelation. Beneath his rumpled ascot waited his prominent Adam’s apple and the firm tendons of his throat. She’d sunk her teeth into his strength.
“It’s your decision to make, Polly,” he said quietly. “Outside that door is your family’s tenement. I’m coming in with you. You decide what we say to them.”
“I won’t do it.”
She scowled, trying to break the blunt spell he cast. Alex Christie had the entire world figured out. She hated that he was stealing her choices, one by one.
“If you want to go through with this,” she said, “you’ll do the talking. Will you barge into my family’s home like you did that police station? Go, then. Tell Da how it will be.”
He only offered a barely-there ghost of a smile. “I won’t be deterred in this. And one day, you’ll see that I’m right.”
