by Gina Conkle
“It was informative, ma’am.”
Anne’s small laugh was the fresh air he needed.
“Good, good.” Aunt Maude bustled off to the kitchen with promises to bring cider for Anne and watered ale for him.
Anne collected her ledgers, her ink, and quill and took a seat at the table. He’d seen her on a horse. He’d seen her navigate Southwark and navigate the countryside, but he’d not witnessed her working. He took a seat at the table for the joy of watching her nibbling her thumbnail, dipping her quill twice in ink, and blotting it once before committing to the page. She was pretty, apple cheeked and wind mussed. He nursed the watered ale Aunt Maude delivered, enjoying this respite. The Iron Bell wasn’t going anywhere. He would go later to ask his questions about men with T-branded thumbs. They were all chattering about the day, the mood easy and relaxed when the front door banged open.
Miss Mary Fletcher flew into the salon, hair disheveled, her eyes wide. Her mouth rounded with all the drama she could muster, which had to be considerable since the woman didn’t strike him as having an ounce of drama in her body.
She charged the table, nearly falling on it. “We are in terrible, terrible trouble.”
He grabbed a chair off the wall and positioned it with an indecorous, “Sit.”
She flopped on the chair and set her elbows on the table.
“I shall get the brandy.” Aunt Flora sped off with speed belying her age.
Miss Fletcher was in a daze. Charcoal smudged her cheeks and acrid smoke clung to her clothes. Red-striped petticoats fanned out, burn holes pocking the fabric. She rested her head in both hands, announcing, “I set fire to my shop.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Collective gasps were followed by a spray of questions.
“Is Margaret hurt?” From Aunt Maude.
“Did everything burn to the ground?” From Anne.
“Was anyone hurt?” Aunt Maude again.
Aunt Flora scurried in, a cup and a bottle of brandy in hand. Will was useless. Inner wisdom told him to take a half step back and let the ministrations take their course. The succoring flurry, the flutters, and cooing reassurances. Aunt Flora poured brandy, and Miss Fletcher upended her cup, gulping it with the skill of a thirsty sailor. He couldn’t stop his gape when she slammed sturdy porcelain on the table and swiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
“More.”
To which Aunt Flora obliged her with a second restorative dose. Miss Fletcher took this portion calmly with steady swallows while everyone watched. They surrounded her, a worried, cosseting circle ready to jump at Miss Fletcher’s slightest twitch. Emotions were bowstring tight. With this second cup half-gone, she was fortified. Almost. Char-stained hands hugged Lambethware like a long-lost friend.
Aunt Maude gave a verbal nudge. “When you’re ready, dear.”
The fraught quality of Miss Fletcher’s face lessened. A tiny nod, and her brow smoothed. Another gulp (air this time) and she began her tale.
“Margaret is well. She is . . . unharmed.” Miss Fletcher’s voice snagged as her face crumpled in pain. “I left her alone in the shop to come here.”
The notion of what could’ve been silenced them. Agonized glances shot between Aunt Flora, Aunt Maude, and Anne. A shared history bolted this league together. Will was a bystander, present but not accounted for, and like any outsider, he took another polite half step back. The women filled the gap.
Aunt Flora rubbed Miss Fletcher’s back. “There, there, dear. These are tears of gratefulness. Let them fall, and when you’re done, we’ll all say a prayer of thanksgiving that you and your sister are unharmed.”
Fat tears rolled down charcoaled cheeks, which Miss Fletcher promptly smeared with her hand.
“I am relieved. And thankful,” she said with a firm nod this time. “Neither my sister nor our neighbors were harmed. The fire was thankfully contained to the back of my shop.” Another sniffle and Anne passed a handkerchief. “The bricks are charred, of course, and the room in ruins.”
“What happened?” Will asked from his place outside their intimate circle.
Miss Fletcher dabbed her eyes, her chin tipping his way. Had she forgotten his presence in Anne’s house? Daylight showed delicate purple skin under her eyes and her mouth, a tight line. An unpleasant admission was coming.
“The hour was late. I was preparing the coal. My forge is no bigger than—” she raised her hands with six inches between them “—this. My work room is about as cramped,” she said dryly. “I must sit on a dairymaid’s stool to work the forge.”
Anne tossed a curt explanation over Miss Fletcher’s head. “Her forge is a tiny pile of bricks low to the ground. Nearly impossible conditions.”
“The forge must be small,” she said defensively. “All the better to build the necessary heat. As to my work room, I can hardly expand it.” Her indignation vented, she slumped in the chair. “Really, it was all a misunderstanding.”
“With a neighbor?” Will asked.
“No. With the metal.” Miss Fletcher folded the handkerchief into the smallest square. “In particular, its melting point.”
“The melting point, I see,” he said, not seeing anything at all except Anne shooting a frown over Miss Fletcher’s head.
Miss Fletcher was more charitable. “I was working by rote, unfortunately. I overheated the forge. Gold requires a greater degree of heat to melt than silver.” She sniffed and dabbed her nose with the newly folded square. “Too much heat and silver melts into unsalvageable drips lost in the fire.”
He hummed his understanding.
“I was already working the silver when I realized my error,” she said flatly. “I grabbed the tongs too quickly and knocked over my worktable. That’s when my hem caught on fire.”
Shifting in her chair, she reached for the back of her petticoat. Part of her hem was missing, as if a fire-fanged beast had taken a bite.
“Oh, Mary. How awful,” Anne gushed.
“Embers landed on my worktable and the thing went up in flames. I yelled for Margaret and started dumping positively everything on the fire. Water, my flux powder, stomping on embers . . .”
Miss Fletcher’s spine wilted again. Aunt Flora cooed encouragement and sloshed more brandy in her cup.
“You are a dear,” Miss Fletcher said. “But I should not have any more. I need my wits about me.”
“You could do without them for a day,” the older woman muttered.
Will smiled against his balled fist while Miss Fletcher’s eyes rounded.
“Surprised, are you?” Aunt Flora was in high spirits, jamming the cork in the bottle. “You canna keep working your fingers tae the bone. Neither of you,” she said in a huff to Anne and Miss Fletcher. “Every woman needs a little fun. It’s good for the soul.”
“Cecelia understands this.” Aunt Maude was a stern rustle of starched skirts. “You could learn from her.”
Glowing respect for Cecelia’s hoyden ways? From Aunt Maude? Now he’d heard it all.
Aunt Flora pointed the brandy bottle at Anne and Miss Fletcher with the skill of a seasoned tutor. “Beware, ladies. If you’re no’ careful, you’ll wake up one day with a head of gray hair and no memories tae speak of.”
“I appreciate your wisdom,” Anne said, wiping biscuit crumbs into a neat pile. “But with the gold in our sights, fun is the least of my concerns. Returning the gold is our promise, our duty to the clan.”
“Duty,” Aunt Flora grumbled under her breath.
“It is the reason for our league,” Anne said.
She was the good shepherdess, herding her flock back to the goal at hand. Murmured agreements and grudging nods came from the aunts’ mob-capped heads. Will, standing in the background, reveled in the small rebellion. Their seasoned words struck an unexpected chord.
Fun! Imagine that!
Anne sat properly tall in her chair, her hands linking a tight knot on the table. Order had been restored. “Is there anything else you need to tell us?�
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“There is one detail.” A line creased above Miss Fletcher’s nose. “With all the smoke, I opened the small window at the back of our shop.”
“Did the neighbors notice?” Anne asked.
“No. But the Night Watch did.”
Will groaned.
“I know,” Miss Fletcher said, her gaze acknowledging him. “He yelled from the back alley. I called out through the window that all was well, but he insisted on coming into the shop. Margaret managed to keep him in the front and assure him the fire was out.”
“That’s good,” Will said.
“I’m not so sure.” Reluctant words rolled off Miss Fletcher’s tongue. “He was suspicious of my claim that I was trying a new method of bending whalebone. It’s done, of course, but you can’t tell a man that. I fear he will come back, with the alderman perhaps, who can insist on inspecting the back of the shop.”
“It’s understandable. Fires in London, dear . . . they put everyone on edge.” Aunt Maude held out her Lambethware dish to her sister. “Some brandy. I fear I need it.”
Aunt Flora uncorked the bottle and poured a few drops.
“Last night it was the Night Watch, this morning the ward beadle.” Miss Fletcher’s face was baleful. “I’ve already hidden my tools, but for the near future, I won’t be able to work metal.”
“What about the wax mold?” Anne asked. “Did it melt?”
“It’s right here. I was able to save it.” Mary fished the wax out of her petticoat pocket and set it on the table.
Smoke and ashes had turned its milky hue a tepid gray. One end—the bow head end thankfully—wilted in the way wax did under transformative heat but mostly kept its form.
“You saved it,” he said.
“A lot of good that will do us. I have no means to make the key.”
Aunt Flora’s fingers wrapped tightly around the brandy bottle’s neck. “Surely, dear, you know a blacksmith? Someone who might let you use his forge? You do still have the silver?”
“The ingot is malformed but I have it.” She combed both hands through unruly hair. “Where am I going to find a blacksmith? One who will let me work his forge and not ask questions while I smith a Wilkes Lock key?”
Her challenge weighed on their small group. Will crossed his arms, an idea forming, though he couldn’t be sure which obstacle was more daunting: A smith lending his forge, no questions asked, or a smith lending his forge to a woman.
“Have you no one in the City you trust?” Anne asked. “Think, Mary. There must be someone.”
“None.”
Aunt Flora’s cheeks puckered. “You could try dressing up like a mon. If you put your hair under a cap, bind your bosom, and keep your face smudged . . . it could work.”
“The imprint of a Wilkes Lock key in wax is too unique. People would ask questions. It would give me—us—away.”
Will stepped up to the table. He was back in the fold. “I know a forge you can use, and keep your skirt on. It will help.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A week gone and he’d already forgotten about the smells, tar on the boil and sea-damp wood. They’d slipped from memory under the heady fragrance of lavender on Anne’s skin, an intoxicating scent. Whale blubber was another story. When it sat in barrels the month of August, it was a whispered scent, harmless as beeswax, as was nature’s way. Getting it was another story.
Grubb Street presses did their best to seduce readers with tales of bold whalers and floating ice vaster than the king’s palace. The men of Howland Great Wet Dock knew the truth. It was written on the gaunt, feral faces of returning sailors. The arctic was a cold, cruel woman. Everyone knew she preferred the Dutch to the English. The English she spit out, killed, or simply denied them her bounty.
London’s criminals weren’t fooled by Grubb Street either. Upon release from prison, whaling couldn’t entice them, though some had worked the Howland Great Wet Dock, a few with T-branded thumbs. None stayed long. The criminals who worked the yard eventually skulked away from West and Sons Shipping, singing a common refrain: “There has to be an easier way to earn my coin.”
If a man wasn’t ready to put his back into a day’s work, West and Sons Shipping was not the place to be. There were barnacles to scrape, tar to spread, damaged hulls to piece back together. If unloading rotting whale parts in barrels didn’t flatten a man, the brute strength needed to careen ships did. Backbreaking labor, it was, because the sea reminded all who crossed it: they were guests, and no more.
If capricious seas didn’t devour the whalers, the Royal Navy might. Press gangs hovered, an ever-present threat, to sailors and dock workers alike. The King’s Yard was downriver where work thrived apace. Storied ships needed hearty sailors. Will’s first summer at West and Sons Shipping showed him that. Pressmen had slinked past Mr. West’s office, sharks on the hunt.
He and Mr. Thomas West had beat the shite out of those turds—the genesis of true friendship.
Five years ago, Mr. West had waited while a prison hulk dumped Jacobite rebels back onto dry land. None accepted his employment offer. A year later, after suffocating in Ancilla’s perfumed prison, Will gathered what remained of his pride and left. With a highlander’s brogue and no letters of reference, he had one chance at honest work. His dignity in scraps, he’d sought the stoic Englishman who had to be either desperate or mad.
To his credit, Mr. West was neither.
West now stood on the selfsame dock. Coatless, hatless, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a large paper held wide in both hands. A ship’s diagram, no doubt.
Will smiled, the familiar jump of friendship running in his veins. Men like Thomas West were rare, their blood two-parts honor and one-part grit, and West was the only Englishman he deeply, deeply respected. He wished his father could know him.
When Mr. Baines scraped his wherry along the dock stairs, the friendship would be tested.
Desertion had its price.
Mr. West squinted over his plans. He hailed no greeting, save slowly rolling up those plans. Mary Fletcher and Anne took the stairs with grace. Will followed. Anne slipped coins into Mr. Baines’s outstretched palm, and the friendly wherryman scurried off to find more custom.
A grim Mr. West tucked rolled-up papers under his arm and waited. The sun on his face couldn’t hide the skeptical glare in his eyes.
Guilt and dread took turns with each footstep. He should’ve sent word the first day in Anne’s house that he was alive and well. While his absence might be overlooked, his request might not. It was a big one.
Will you let us forge a Wilkes Lock key?
He hadn’t figured out how to broach the subject.
Thomas West was a good man. His reputation was golden in a city fat with greed and slim on honesty. Memory of the South Sea Company, a failed merchant partnership and whaling concern, still hung in people’s minds. Stock criers selling shares in the streets followed by families stripped of home and hearth when the bubble burst. A man with ships who courted investors must be scrupulously honest.
The South Sea Company had been rife with money-lust and lies, its lines drawn directly to the crown. Mr. West’s father had labored hard to keep his reputation spotless. His son carried the same banner. Will had been proud to be a part of that for five years.
Now he walked the sun-bleached docks, swallowing his resistance. Introductions were made. Anne and Miss Fletcher curtseyed, while pinching wind-buffeted straw hats to keep them in place. Mr. West, well-bred despite tanned forearms and a crooked scar on his cheek, tipped a fine bow.
“A pleasure to meet you, ladies. It’s a rare day the fair sex steps foot on my docks.” His eyes lifted to Will, sharp as a file. “A rare day indeed.”
A healthy breeze fluttered lace on Miss Fletcher’s gown. Near her heart, she, too, wore a tiny rosette of Clanranald MacDonald tartan pinned to her gown.
Emboldened, Will said, “We’re here because I’ve a favor to ask. A grave one.”
West’s sharp eyes narrowed
a fraction. “Then let us seek the privacy of my office.”
“That is very kind of you, Mr. West.” Miss Fletcher smoothed river-mussed hair as they made their way toward a two-story building.
Faded white letters, West and Sons Shipping, emblazoned the riverside wall. The ground floor housed barrels of hooks and harpoons and the slanted desk of Mr. Anstruther, company clerk. Sun-warped stairs angled outside the building, the entrance to Mr. West’s office.
At the bottom step, Will paused to greet the company clerk through an open window. “Mr. Anstruther. Good day to you, sir.”
A snow-white head lifted from its sums. “Mr. MacDonald. You’re back!”
The old clerk gawked behind his spectacles. Might’ve been Will’s reappearance. Or it might’ve been the petticoats passing by.
“Good to see you, mon.” Will waved and took the stairs two at a time.
In West’s office, the yard’s perfume diminished. Wood and whisky replaced it. Everything was the same. A paper-strewn desk, two plain wood chairs on one side, a heavy four-square leather chair on the other. A small door led to a storage room made into a humble sleeping chamber for the dedicated man of business.
A symbol of West’s ancient profession hung on the wall behind the desk. A legendary harpoon.
The women were certainly fascinated.
Windows on three walls afforded a view of the River Thames and the King’s Yard in the distance. They shot to the windows overlooking Howland Great Wet Docks. Below, men beetled over two careened ships, scratching the vessels’ bellies with iron tools. Four ships were in dry dock, propped up in locks void of water. Over a hundred ships nestled in Howland’s man-made inlet. Low-roofed workhouses lined one side, barrels of whale oil and whale parts hugged within.
The yard was a majestic sight, and West and Sons Shipping was but a small part.
Mr. West dropped the rolled-up plans on his desk and spoke with quiet venom. “Jemmy Brown ran three days all over Wapping, trying to find you. I did the same.” West’s jaw flexed in anger. “Apparently, you fared well despite our worst fears.”