by Baird Wells
Of uncertain origin and nebulous destination, they passed into the crowd, and almost as soon as he’d found them, the investigator lost them again.
Phillips made his way through the port’s bustle, his twenty-seven-year-old frame stooped in defeat. He’d been sent specifically to wait for Doctor Grimshaw, a black-haired man in his thirties, traveling with a similarly aged, dark-haired woman. He had read the notes carefully; it wasn’t in his nature to make such a blunder.
He communicated all of this from the telegraph office; the absence of ‘doctor’ from a man who was a bit too young, and like his escort, too fair to be the correct target. He described sandy hair and a long face, brown eyes and a rather thin figure. And the woman, petite and well made. Freckled and, by his guess, though he had been denied evidence by a wide-brimmed winter bonnet, red-haired.
It was an accounting received minutes later by his employer on the far side of the Atlantic, details so unbelievable that Simon Webster had abandoned his yellow telegraph paper in the middle of the street and flown enraged to Tad Hamilton’s modest townhouse, only to find it shut up and unoccupied.
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CHAPTER THIRTY
Chelsea Piers, New York Harbor
New York City - January 12th, 1883
James watched the gates of the pier terminal, set into the frame of its black iron face, and searched a crowd flowing out into the stream of passengers, dock workers, and carts that moved like a human tide along the buildings. He pulled out his watch and checked the time again, and then rubbed his hands together. He could just spy City of Rome’s three fat smoke stacks jutting up like fingers from above the piers, and had could see them steaming and now dormant for nearly forty-five minutes. He was frozen right at his bones, but he kept vigil and hardly noticed.
“I don’t suppose a man so handsome could be waiting for me…”
Her voice spun him around, and if he hadn’t taken her in his arms, he would have collapsed. “Hannah.”
She warmed him, through his coat and into his soul. “I love you,” she whispered under the noisy clank and slosh of the harbor.
“I thought today would never come.” He squeezed until she wriggled and groaned, and even then, he was slow to let her go. She was softer, more than just the rosy velvet of her hat and coat, matching her cheeks. He realized, as he looked down at her, what it was. She was free. No guarded shadows clouded behind her eyes, and she moved with a gentleness that had been absent when she was hunted. “I should have waited and come behind you.”
“No,” she shook her head and took his arm. “We were smart to wait. If I had left by someplace other than Liverpool, he might have looked. It would have been too hasty.”
He pulled her to him again, not caring about the crowd around them. He closed his eyes and breathed the scent of her hair, warm and soft against his cheek. They’d had only minutes to say their goodbyes at the crossroads outside of London, and he’d held her just the same way then, but only for a moment. They had tarried too long in town as it was, penning off a quick note to Millicent, rushing a last exchange with Tad, and taking Hannah to make one last arrangement. The key he’d yet to return to Lofton & Dooney had come in handy for procuring the body. There was only one in the slab that could be mistaken for Hannah, and he’d been frustrated by a bawdy tattoo on her chest. In the end, he guessed it had fooled their pursuers for long enough to sow confusion. If the ruse had bought them even half a day’s head start, it had accomplished all that he’d hoped.
He let her go reluctantly, so that he could look her over one more time, assure himself again that she was really there and they were finally together.
“I trust our message has been delivered by now,” she said while they walked, as though reading his mind.
“Someone in Meadowcroft is bound to have found her by now.” Hannah had forbidden his removing the tattoo when he buried the prostitute. He could see by a glow in her blue eyes that even now she was taking pleasure in her denouement, when everyone looked closely enough to discover that the body wasn’t hers and had not a clue in the world where she’d gone. Simon would know the truth, but how could he tell it to anyone and spare himself? James hoped he couldn’t, not without choking.
“There are still a few things I haven’t reckoned out,” he began, glancing up and down the avenue, confused by New York’s rush in a way he’d never been by London traffic, in a city that moved more like an elaborate cuckoo clock than a water wheel. He raised an arm to a passing brown brougham while Hannah cut off his musing with whatever she rifled from her purse.
“Here, she said,” holding out a small scrap of paper as an explanation. “We’re supposed to meet here.”
The coach lumbered in, spattering slush up onto the walk under a frenzy of wheels and hooves. He handed the paper up to their driver and lifted Hannah in. He nestled in beside her on the narrow leather seat, wrapped her, and pulled her to his side. “You’re free now,” he said, afraid of the words. “And in New York.”
Hannah pulled away enough to crane her neck and looked up at him. “Meaning what?”
He shrugged. “Jack is here.”
“Oh.” She sunk against him. “He’s been married at least a year now, perhaps longer. A pretty young thing from one of those Fifth Avenue families everyone talks about. Van der something.”
It wasn’t the sort of reassurance he’d hoped for, and he bit his lip.
“I don’t know her a bit, and I doubt he and I have anything to talk about anymore. It would be strange to pay them a call.”
She hadn’t understood his meaning at all. He laughed at them both and squeezed her tight. “Perfect. I have no desire to see him, not a bit.”
“Oof!” She chuckled and wrenched away. “My hands are full already.”
Her words were a gentle threat, preparing him for a brush of her fingers up his thigh, in his hair, caressing his lips down onto hers. He pressed her back in the seat until her poor hat dislodged and tumbled in defeat somewhere between his shoes, her soft moans catching in his mouth. He was in a painful state of agitation, and they were both a few buttons shy of being compromised when the coach drew to a stop.
They sat up patting and panting, brushing and tugging at their clothes like misbehaving adolescents. “Why didn’t we find a closer hotel?” he demanded, fumbling his watch back into his pocket.
“It was your responsibility.” She raised both arms and re-pinned her hat, and frowned at the low angle of his gaze. “It seems you’d have paid better attention.”
“You’re a whole other madness,” he reminded, drawing her out behind him into the daylight. “I’m never in my right mind.”
* * *
Hannah inhaled the smells of the hotel lobby, amused that coffee, lilies, and vinegar wash were the scents of emancipation. There was a whole ocean between her and what had been, but standing in the brass and marble beauty of the Rosemont Hotel, with James at her side, it all felt much, much further away. Their future stretched out ahead, waiting, and she could hardly wait to fill it.
The maître d’hôtel met them at the restaurant doors just off the first-floor lobby, all efficient lines in his tailored, black waistcoat and crisp, white waist apron. He asked for their names, and Hannah thought he seemed pleased when they knew them, as though they had passed a test concealed inside his reservation book.
He showed them through the restaurant beneath chandeliers, their wealth of diamonds sparkling overhead and showering prisms onto round, white-clothed tables which seemed solely intended for the bouquets of roses, lilies, and greenery stuffed into the vases at their centers.
He left them in front of double oak doors at the back, an entrance to the restaurant’s private banquet room, abandoning them with a smile and a ‘Good day’. James twisted the handle’s brass lever and they went in.
Tad rose from their table, already littered with coffee cups, silver pots, and a picked-over fruit basket, and came around to hug her and shake James's hand. James, however, stiffened beside her. “What is
she doing here?”
Margaret stayed seated and winced, ducking her head. Tad pressed James's shoulder, and Hannah took his hand. “Come and sit. I think once we’ve explained those few things you’ve been puzzling over, you’ll understand.”
She pulled twice before he moved, and, even then, his gait was anything but eager. They took one side of the table together, and Tad resumed his place beside Margaret, tired bruises beneath her green eyes speaking volumes about her time since they’d last seen her.
While Tad poured their coffee, Hannah studied James, who was glancing between her and Margaret, and caught the twitch of his jaw. She rested her hand on his sleeve and squeezed. “You’ll see.”
“First things first,” announced Tad, looking impervious to the room’s tension. He slipped an envelope from his coat and slid it across the table to James. “I am a man of my word.”
Hannah leaned against James and craned her neck to see what on earth the envelope might hold.
He slipped the paper out; she gasped and he coughed.
“I can’t accept this,” he said, stuffing the check back into its envelope.
“It isn’t a gift.” Tad waved him back. “That’s your share of the tunnel money; your first return on your two-hundred pounds’ loan. By next time, you’ll have a million.”
Hannah patted her chest to keep a shocked heart beating, still staring at the envelope shaking between James's fingers.
“And then what will I do with myself?” he joked.
“Invest! You’ve made savvy decisions so far,” declared Tad, passing out their cups. Heat through the white porcelain felt so good against her hands that for a moment Hannah forgot all conversation and shuddered.
“I’m headed west. I have a man out there by the name of Strauss making a dead fortune on pants. He’s looking to expand; we could help him.”
“I’m not in any state to make decisions just yet,” said James, turning the envelope over again and then pressing it between his hand and hers. Then he tucked it into his pocket, claimed his cup, and stared down at the table. “I am in a state for explanations.”
Hannah rubbed her forehead and glanced at Margaret for help in untangling it all. “I’m not certain where to even begin.”
“I recall an account of Miss Maddox assuring Simon that you’d murdered your husband.”
“No!” Margaret jerked in her chair, eyes wide. “That wasn’t the conversation at all. He said it so many times...maybe he believed it. That is just what Simon told people, to bolster his claims against Hannah.”
“But you did go to him that afternoon, when Gregory died,” James retorted.
“I did.” Margaret fished inside her sleeve and produced a handkerchief, while Tad pulled his from a pocket and pressed it on her.
Hannah shifted and looked away, not used to the sight of a Margaret with emotions beyond disregard and disdain.
Margaret balled Tad’s handkerchief with her own, and folded slender hands. “I went to tell him that I wished to be settled.”
James shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“A woman who has had an open affair with a man, particularly an unmarried woman, either must find someone else or go away quietly,” Hannah explained, wondering that it felt she was discussing someone else’s life entirely, and not a part of her own.
“I would never have asked it from Hannah.” Margaret ducked her face and dabbed a moment. “I was young, and I really did love him, but I knew I’d hurt her. We all pretended to tolerate our arrangement, but it was never a happy one. She was his wife, but I loved him, too. I really did love him. I didn’t want anyone else; just enough money for Paris, maybe.”
She felt for Margaret in that moment, as much as she had on the woman’s first telling that terrible night in her room, as much as she had for herself, being sent home to Gregory by her parents.
Margaret opened her mouth, then crumpled to the table top. She buried her face in her arms and sobbed in earnest.
Tears pricked pinpoints in Hannah’s eyes. “Tad, why don’t you see her up to her room?” she ordered gently. “James and I can finish this alone.”
He nodded and circled Margaret with his long arms, helping her limp and weeping up onto his shoulder. “Mister Hilton will be here for you in the morning,” he murmured. “Come and get some rest.”
Hannah waited until the door closed and then pushed back her chair and turned it until she was facing James. “She must live this every day for the rest of her life; I can’t bear making her tell it all again.”
James matched her with his chair and took her hands. She knew him, his mind that was never satisfied until it had fit a puzzle together. It must have been a real struggle, his waiting so many days for an explanation.
“I’m so tangled up. Simon calling me to his house and what I found later at your house…”
She waved her hand to stop his train of thought. “First we have to go back to the day Gregory died, and Margaret went and asked to be settled,” Hannah said. “She was certain I would turn her out at once, which I would have. She hoped Simon would buy her off with his own money, pay to be rid of the shame of his brother’s mistress. But when she arrived at Simon’s, he was demanding from the very start. She finally said she would leave empty-handed, but he told her no, that she would do as he bid her.”
“And why did she? Margaret has never impressed me as weak.”
“Because she wasn’t allowed to be.” The words tasted strange on her lips, now that she tasted their honesty. “When she tried to go, Simon told her the truth about the ‘tea’ his physician had recommended, the one he had suggested to Gregory to ease my pregnancies.”
“Oh, my God!” James was on his feet quickly enough that he jarred her before she could release his hands. “You mean she didn’t know?” He shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; he tried pressing his ‘suggestion’ on me, too.”
“Gregory took his brother’s suggestion, which hadn’t come from a doctor at all, as Margaret learned much later. She carried out Gregory’s wishes, thinking she was only making him happy.”
“Oh, my God,” he muttered again and paced the room, pulling a fistful of hair at the back of his head. He came back to his chair and fell into its tiny frame. “He did it on purpose, the bastard.”
“Margaret claims so. He wanted to be the sole heir of Gregory’s will. But my husband never got around to rewriting the documents after we failed to have children. Did Simon ever believe I’d killed Gregory?” She shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I think some part of him did and felt I’d cheated him by doing it before he could get his hand in matters.” She chewed on the age-old question a moment, and realized she would never fully settle it. “Or perhaps he never did, but he needed others to believe it, needed enough proof to have me removed.”
James looked ill. “And he blackmailed Margaret with what she’d done.”
“He did. He had a recipe against her; a dash of evidence, a bit of suspicion, and her own battered reputation as Gregory’s mistress. If he told the police she had intentionally harmed her lover’s wife, Margaret might not hang, but she’d wish she had when it was all over.”
“Simon imprisoned you both together. What a monster.”
“He found a roundabout way of settling Margaret, keeping me under his thumb, and working for his own ends all the while. And he succeeded because I was determined to pay him back at every step, and because Margaret was too terrified and ashamed to resist him.” She gathered his hands and rested her face against his knuckles. “He didn’t foresee your interference, or the interference of Mister Hilton.”
When she looked up, a hint of a smile bent his lips. “You both wanted out, and we both longed to take you away,” he said of himself and Hilton. “What unfortunate timing.”
“Positively cursed. That last night, he sent his toughs to drag me to him, with my parents. He told his men to feed me laudanum, which he’d blame on Margaret if anything went wrong. He knew she had done it
in the past.”
“Your mother and father,” he spat.
“Whatever you think of them, and most of our thoughts are probably in sympathy, Simon had them so convinced of my madness that I think they were desperate. In their terrible, backward way, they wanted to help. I disdain my mother and father, but I think Simon is the clear villain, using their worry to his own ends. He kept his motives, his efforts from them, only showing his fruits in order to sway them.” She swallowed down a mouthful of bile and wondered when it would temper, when the thought of Simon, or just his name, would no longer stir the rage pounding at her temples.
“Anyhow, I don’t recall much beyond Simon’s men that night. My father raging across the drawing room and my mother being disgusted, but little else.” She gripped his fingers. “But I know that you were there.”
“I was.” He leaned down and pecked her forehead.
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Margaret came to my room and confessed, after they carted us home. Everything, each horrible detail.”
“Wait.” James’s face scrunched, and he thought for a moment. “The policeman? I tried to come to you, but there was a policeman on the step.”
She dredged up the slightest mischievous smile. “Who do you think ran to fetch Simon, when Margaret began screaming that something had gone wrong?”
“Mm.” He cradled her head and rocked her gently. “You must have been devastated, when she told you the truth. We’d already puzzled some of it out, but to hear in her own words...” He held her a moment. “You’re so strong, but it must have gutted you.”
“There was no time. Margaret admitted you’d dropped the medicine. At first she’d thought of killing herself with it, but she was so in love with Hilton, so then she thought of using it somehow to stage her death, recalling that she’d seen the bottle on Simon’s desk. That’s what gave me the idea to set it out with the cups. We made certain it was visible on the tea tray, so that he would see it. I tossed back the liquor and some laudanum, so that nothing could wake me, and then she wrapped me in the sheet.”