As she closed her bag and headed in the same direction he was going, her knees wobbled, and she paused, putting out a hand as if to balance herself.
Paolo acted without thought and caught that arm, supporting her. “Are you ill?” he asked.
The woman leaned a bit into his support and turned her face to his. Until then, her hat had shielded his view of her face and hair. Now that he saw her—fair, lovely face, keen dark blue eyes, vivid red hair—he knew her. She was different, paler, with dark smudges under her eyes, but he knew her.
“Miss Barton?” he asked, surprised. They were many, many blocks—a whole city, a whole world—from where this woman belonged.
She frowned lightly, not recognizing him. “Have we—oh, my! Mr. ….”
“Romano. Paolo Romano.”
A soft sound left her lips. Paolo thought it was a scoff, but she smiled sweetly so quickly after that he doubted his first impression. “Mr. Romano. What a surprise.”
“More a surprise for me, I think. You’re quite a long way from where you belong, Miss Barton.”
“Well, I suppose that would depend on whom you might ask, Mr. Romano.”
She’d steadied, so Paolo moved to make proper distance between them, but she held onto his arm. “Are you ill?” he asked again.
“Not ill, precisely. But it’s possible I’ve forgotten to eat again.” Her voice was weak and breathy, a bit unfocused, though she pushed some cheer into her tone.
The tea room was just ahead. Miss Barton still leaned on him as if she might not be able to hold herself steady without his help. It was becoming very clear to Paolo that this woman was sliding headlong down the side of the social mountain, and he felt some sympathy for her. There was scarcely a shadow left of the gleaming bright young woman who’d led him and Mirabella through the maze of living paintings half a year ago.
Was there no one to care for her? Had she fallen so far that she couldn’t afford to eat? If so, there was only one more rung below this one—or, perhaps, two: death or a bordello.
A delicate hothouse flower like Lilith Barton would never survive in a bordello, so truly, there was only one more rung to fall.
“Would you join me for tea?” he asked. It was an impulse, and he didn’t want to examine it, but honestly, what could it hurt to give a woman with whom he was acquainted a meal?
“That would be lovely,” she said, with a fragile smile. “Thank you, Mr. Romano.”
They sat in the tea room for half an hour or so. In that time, Miss Barton drank most of a pot of tea and several small cakes Paolo had ordered, which had arrived on artfully stacked plates. Paolo asked a few questions to understand how she’d come to this part of Manhattan, but she expertly deflected each one, focusing all her comments on unimportant matters—the weather, the quality of the tea, a few polite questions about Mirabella.
Mirabella, Paolo knew, would be livid if she ever found out he was sitting at tea with Lilith Barton, no matter how innocent it was. He loved his woman’s jealous nature, loved to fight with her, loved even more to make up with her, but in this case, he was quite glad there was no reason she would know he’d spent any time with Miss Barton. They were still far from the Five Points. Cosimo was the only one who’d know, and he hardly spoke to Paolo, much less to anyone else—and even less to give up his secrets.
When the tea and cakes were finished and they’d run out of pleasantries and platitudes to replace real conversation, Paolo paid the bill and escorted Miss Barton from the restaurant.
“My carriage is just up the street,” he said, pointing toward the brougham. “Can my driver take you home?”
“Oh, no. Thank you, but it’s not necessary. My home is just there.”
She pointed to the rooming house.
“You’re staying there?”
She squared her shoulders. “Yes. It’s quite comfortable, really.”
That might be, but it was miles below the elegant ballrooms of 5th Avenue. “Miss Barton, what happened to bring you here?”
For a moment, she looked as if she meant to spout another nothing sentence that deflected rather than answered the question. Then something changed in her aspect, like a cloud sailing in front of the sun, and her fixed, vapid smile disappeared.
“There are consequences for not behaving according to the rules of one’s little set, Mr. Romano.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I know something of the rules of your ‘little set,’ as you say.”
“No, Mr. Romano, you don’t. Not for a woman. For a woman, there is only one thing: to make a good marriage. From birth she is groomed for that one thing. It doesn’t matter if she wants that thing, there is nothing else for her but ruin if she doesn’t comply.”
“And you haven’t complied.”
“No. I tried. When I was younger, I had many proposals from men who were called excellent matches. But it seems I am unable to do the one thing I was born to do. I wanted more, something that would be mine, to show that I am more than a prize for a man to claim. But I have no skill to make a life for myself. I was taught only to be a prize. So here I am. Nothing at all.” With a brave smile, she patted his arm. “Thank you for the tea. I feel better now. Give my regards to Miss Montanari, please. I like her.”
Before he could think what to say, Miss Barton headed down the street. As it was the direction he was going anyway, and he was frustrated by her senseless decline, he caught up with her and offered his arm. “I’m going this way anyway, Miss Barton. I’ll see you to the door.”
Her only reply was a vague nod as she took the arm he’d offered.
They were two doors from the rooming house when she fainted.
Because he was holding her arm, she collapsed into him. Paolo caught her and lifted her into his arms; she was out cold. Her little bag dropped and fell open. A small bottle rolled out; he knew what it was at once: laudanum. She must have gotten it from the druggist, where he’d encountered her.
A passerby stopped and scooped up her bag and the bottle, tucking the bottle away before he handed it to Paolo. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Thank you, no. She lives just there.” Paolo gave the good Samaritan a nod and carried Miss Barton to the rooming house.
The matron met him in the entry, scowling at the man invading her feminine domain—but her expression changed to concern when she saw his burden.
“Which room is Miss Barton’s?” he asked.
“Right this way.” The matron led him to the third floor and into a room at the back.
The room was less than half the size of his own bedroom, crowded with a bed, an armoire, and a small writing desk and chair. The armoire was open, with clothes draped over the doors and shoes scattered on the floor. On the desk were several stacks of correspondence. The single window faced the brick wall of the building next door.
Paolo lay the still-unconscious woman on the unmade bed. “Do you have a doctor on call?”
The matron didn’t know him; no reason that she should. Carmela and Mirabella handled the business of the girls in his care. “What? No, of course not. Who can afford that?”
He sighed, wishing he’d taken the brougham all the way back home and avoided all this. “Do you have an errand boy who can go for a doctor?”
“My boy runs errands, for those who can pay.”
He took out his billfold and handed her a dollar. “Send your boy to Dr. Goldman’s office, corner of Prince and Lafayette. Tell him he’s needed here.”
She snatched the bill from his hand as if she expected him to think better of the offer. “I’ll get him now, sir.”
He wanted to leave, but Miss Barton hadn’t woken yet, and he wanted to make sure Dr. Goldman had truly been sent for. So he paced the small room, growing increasingly restless, questioning his various decisions since he’d left the basement and the bodies of Martin Deller and the Pinkerton.
He didn’t know this woman, or especially like her. At most, he felt a sidelong respect for her, or perhaps a kin
d of empathy. He’d had his own taste of elite New Yorkers’ smiling savagery, and he admired Miss Barton for refusing to play their game, even at such great cost.
But clearly, she was not strong enough to be a rebel.
Why did he care?
Because she was a woman, and he hated to see women suffer.
In one of his truncated laps around her tiny room, he paused to examine the stacks of papers on her desk. Most of the correspondence was bills, from dressmakers, milliners, other, grander, rooms to let. Most of those bills were dunning notices, full of threats.
All those gowns and shoes strewn at the armoire like castoffs were of elegant quality and quite expensive. Here were the bills she wasn’t paying for those clothes. He couldn’t quite understand why a woman like her, who obviously wanted a life of wealth and ease, who obviously had no recourse to any other kind of life, would not simply do what that life required of her.
It seemed to him Miss Barton wanted both—to be adorned and adored as a society woman, but to be free from the terms of her side of that deal.
A soft knock on the door, and it swung open. Dr. Goldman stood there. If he was surprised to see Paolo, he didn’t show it.
“Paolo,” he said.
“Dr. Goldman,” Paolo answered. “Thank you for coming.”
For years, he’d told himself he hated the doctor, but that had never been true. In his anger and despair, he’d treated the doctor badly, kicked his kindness back in his face. But it was himself he’d hated.
Loving Mirabella had shone a light on the things he’d pushed into his mind’s shadows.
That thought made him think Dario’s words, about the dark place he had made in Caterina’s mind, and how he’d made it light.
Miss Barton had no one who could bring her such a light. Paolo had believed he never would have anyone who could.
Suddenly, he was desperate to go home to Mirabella. If she heard that he was here, in Lilith Barton’s room, she’d be badly hurt.
“Who is this?” Dr. Goldman was asking.
“Miss Lilith Barton. She fainted nearly half an hour ago and hasn’t woken yet.”
The doctor frowned at him. “You know this woman?”
Paolo swatted away the sudden buzz of defensiveness at the question. “We’re acquainted. We’ve been at a few of the same functions. I saw her on the street today and was polite, and then … this.”
“So you’re not well known to her, or she to you?”
“No.”
“Is there more you can tell me?”
“Only that she seemed weak, and I bought her tea. Then she fainted. Oh—and there’s laudanum in her handbag.”
Goldman nodded. He took off his spectacles, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the lenses. “I’m going to ask you to leave, Paolo. So she can have privacy while I examine her. If you’d like to stay, you can wait in the hall, and I’ll talk with you after.”
“There’s no need for me to stay. Send me the bill for your services.”
“I will.”
With nothing more to say, Paolo went to the door.
“Paolo,” the doctor said as he reached for the knob. Paolo paused and waited for him to say more. “You did a good thing here,” the doctor finally added.
There was a great deal Paolo wanted to say to this man who’d saved his life and shown him the first kindness in America. But there was too much bitterness between them now. So he simply left the room.
The corridor was full of women—the matron and several young women he assumed were fellow boarders. Two of them he recognized as his former charges. They both smiled and dipped their knees in something like a curtsey.
“Don Romano,” the matron said, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who you were.”
Without a word, he walked past her, down the stairs, and out of the building. He wanted to be home.
Damn, he really wished he’d taken the carriage. He hailed Cosimo; he’d ride the rest of the way and hope to stay out of any further drama.
XXIII
By the time Paolo finally made it back home, he’d decided that the best course was to tell Mirabella, outright and immediately, about his encounter with Miss Barton. He was inexperienced in matters of the heart, but he knew his woman. She would be far angrier if he withheld and she learned in some other way. With the rooming house matron and two of his former charges all aware that he’d been there tonight, the chance that Mirabella would hear of it was too great—and if he kept it from her, he’d be hard pressed to convince her it was innocent, especially considering her already demonstrated jealousy where Miss Barton was concerned.
He found it interesting, the ways in which he accommodated Mirabella. With any other person in his life, he’d do as he saw fit and expect them to believe what he told them, or trust that he had good reason not to tell them anything, without worrying about appearances. He’d have no patience for suspicion of him, whether or not suspicion were warranted.
But where Mirabella was concerned, he was honestly worried. He didn’t want to hurt her, that was paramount, but also, he was worried for himself. He didn’t want to lose her.
She had found a crack somewhere in his stone heart and insinuated herself deep inside. She’d let light in, pushed his shadows back. Now she had hold of him entirely.
If he could go back in time, only a year, and tell that Paolo he’d love anyone as much as he loved her, his younger self would have been horrified. So much feeling for someone else was a weakness that could be exploited. Year-ago Paolo would, however, have been deeply skeptical that he was capable of any such love.
Though, yes, she could be a weakness for him, he couldn’t regret loving her. Loving her had made him feel stronger, more complete. She was a strength to him in myriad ways he felt every day. And he could only hope she felt the same for him. He wanted her trust and faith, always.
So he decided to tell her.
But she wasn’t home.
When he found the apartment empty, he checked the library, probably her favorite room of the house. She wasn’t there, so he went to the basement. He’d given her a vacant storefront across the street to use as a classroom of sorts, but sometimes when she was bored she went down to play games with the boys. They were turning her into something of a cardsharp.
He’d been shocked at how gentle and polite those ruffians were with her. He’d wanted her to stay clear of the basement because the thought of her mobbed by half-feral boys and young men made his teeth grind and his fists clench, but of course she’d ignored him. And he’d been wrong—instead of succumbing to a bestial feeding frenzy, she’d strolled into a room full of boys who needed a mother.
Honestly, it had never occurred to him that they might—or that his temperamental woman would be so suited to the role.
But she wasn’t in the basement, either, and the boys hadn’t seen her since early afternoon. They were worried at once, but he quelled their questions and continued his search.
Her buggy was in the carriage house. None of his men had seen her, either, since the day had been bright.
Paolo didn’t like this at all; it was dark, and the Five Points was rough. She was his woman, and his reputation served as a protection for her, but not everyone she might encounter in this part of the city would know who she was—or who he was, for that matter—in the dark.
The thing that really ate at him: earlier in the day, he’d watched as Martin Deller and the Pinkerton detective Deller had hired were killed on his order. It was very likely too early for those men to be missed, much less that they be suspected to have fallen to foul play, but the Pinkertons had a reputation almost as black as his own—and with the shield of legitimacy protecting them. They were vicious mercenaries under the best of circumstances, with no god but the almighty dollar. If that detective had had some kind of fail-safe that had triggered when he was taken, he could have the Pinkertons on Paolo’s heels already.
He’d expected that, planned for it, when
he’d discovered the detective and decided how to handle the situation—but he hadn’t planned for Mirabella to get swept up in it. Would they take her, would they hurt her, to draw him out? An innocent woman?
Pinkertons? Absolutely.
He stood before the full carriage house, fending off panic with reason, trying not to jump to that conclusion too quickly, trying to think methodically about where to look, what innocent errand or interest could have kept her away so long. Her father—that was the first, easiest explanation. She’d gone to Luciano. Sometimes she helped in his shop, though never until so late. Still, that was certainly where she was. Yes?
She didn’t really have friends outside the boys and men with whom he worked; she and other women seemed mainly adversarial, for reasons beyond his masculine comprehension. But she saw Luciano as often as she could. So of course, that was where she was. Of course.
She wasn’t with Luciano.
Now Paolo had her father’s worry feeding his own. His heart thundered in his ears, and it took all his focus and will to stay calm. He called in every one of his men and all the boys, sent the young ones out to be mice, listening, and the older ones to ask questions. His most loyal men, those sworn to him, he sent out to ask questions of specific people, those who knew the movements of the underworld and could be trusted to have the right information.
He himself stayed at the Little Italy Community Society with Luciano and paced, waiting for someone to come with word that they’d found her, that she was safe.
He had felt this weak and helpless once before in his life, and he had lost everything then, too.
None of his people found her.
Past midnight, after hours of fruitless search and frantic worry, Paolo was still pacing, waiting for more reports. Then three strange men walked into the Little Italy Community Society. Right through the front door.
Il Bestione (The Golden Door Duet Book 2) Page 28
