Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  Jamie chuckled. “I’ll protect you, love,” he promised.

  Peony only shook her head and walked out, closing the door behind her.

  “The woman ’as no faith in me manly vigor,” Jamie complained to the empty room. Then he got up, turned out the light, and opened the window again. He stood in the fresh air, smoking another cheroot and gazing out at the night, wondering where in blazes Bliss had gotten herself off to. He’d wager the little idiot hadn’t even given a thought to all the dangers a city had to offer.

  The dog was at it again; he let out a series of mournful yips, then began to bay once more, giving voice to his singular miseries.

  “Me, too, mate,” Jamie agreed in a raspy whisper as he closed the window. “Me, too.”

  Chapter 11

  THE FIRST GRAY LIGHT OF A CRISPLY CHILLY DAWN WAS SHOWING at the windows as Bliss made ready to travel to the docks in search of work. Calandra, too, was up and about, brewing tea, toasting bread in the oven, poaching eggs.

  All the same, the older woman had her doubts about the wisdom of Bliss’s plans. “Perhaps it would be better, my dear,” she ventured to say as the two sat together at a small table in the kitchen, having breakfast, “if you simply went back to your husband.”

  Bliss had been awake half the night, grappling with that same idea. The prospect of returning to Jamie was not without appeal, but she had to bear in mind that he hadn’t wanted to marry her in the first place. Despite all his misgivings about her plans to travel to America, he was probably relieved that she was gone.

  She shook her head in a wordless and belated reply to her aunt’s suggestion. She’d brought nothing but trouble to Jamie, after all, and he couldn’t be expected to welcome her.

  The wooden clock on the kitchen mantelpiece made a whirring sound and then gave six ponderous bongs. “Well,” Calandra chimed, “in any case, dear, you’re certainly getting a timely start. One must remember that the early bird gathers no moss.”

  Bliss smiled into her teacup at this bit of convoluted wisdom, but made no comment.

  Calandra’s sweet expression changed to one of disquiet. “I did so hope that Mr. Wilson would be able to do something about your—predicament.”

  What little good cheer Bliss had been able to summon up deserted her. The fact that she was legally bound to Jamie was sure to cause problems at some later date. “I can’t go back, Aunt Calandra,” she said softly, “and there’s no money for a divorce.”

  Calandra sighed. “The magistrate would want a reason, anyway.”

  That was another thing. Divorces were frowned upon by society and generally hard to come by. It seemed that Bliss was doomed to spend the rest of her life tied to a man who didn’t want her. “I suppose he’ll divorce me,” she reflected after a few moments had passed, her voice small and sad. The knowledge should have comforted Bliss, but it didn’t.

  In the distance, she heard the clanging of the tram’s bell. The distraction was a welcome one; Bliss bounded out of her chair, carried her empty plate to the sink, and put on her coat.

  “Hurry, now,” Calandra said, making a shooing motion with her hands when Bliss would have gone on clearing away the breakfast dishes. “Leave that to Bertha and me.”

  Bliss nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Don’t go near the docks, now,” the older woman warned, following Bliss on her dash through the small house to the front door. “There’s really no need. The people in the passage agencies will know who’s looking for a governess or a companion—”

  “I’ll remember,” Bliss promised, hurrying down the front steps as the clamor of the tram bell grew louder and more insistent. The air was cold enough that it turned her breath to fog.

  She barely reached the tram in time, and she was breathing hard as she dropped her ha’penny fare into the metal coin box.

  “Important business today, miss?” the driver asked. He was a young man who would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for the deep pockmarks on his face.

  Bliss nodded and found her way to a seat, and excitement filled her at the prospect of a bright new day. There might just be an adventure ahead.

  People got on and off the tram at the dozens of stops it made along the way, and Bliss watched them, curious to know what business they were about, what their lives were like, what their hopes and dreams were.

  In the heart of Auckland, where the tram made its turnabout to start on the return leg of its route, Bliss got off, admiring the tall buildings that rose along the sidewalks and taking care not to step in front of a buggy or coach as she crossed the road.

  Heeding her aunt’s advice, Bliss did not approach the docks as she’d originally planned, but sought out a shipping agency instead. The first one she came to had a wide front window with a title painted on the glass: RYAN FREIGHT AND PASSAGE COMPANY. Beneath this, in smaller script, were the words “P. Ryan, Prop.”

  After drawing a deep breath, Bliss opened the door and walked into the establishment. A clerk came forward from the rear, weaving between half a dozen desks crowded close together, and smiled. “May I help you, miss?”

  Bliss felt shy, but she overcame that quickly enough. A person couldn’t afford to hesitate, not if they wanted their dreams to come true. She introduced herself and related her desire to earn her passage to the United States.

  The clerk seemed very understanding. “Well, we do get passengers in sometimes who are looking for help.” He paused and assessed Bliss’s hair, which was held back from her face with two small tortoiseshell combs and falling free down her back. “How old are you?”

  Bliss was a bit shaken by that question, even though she was certainly of an age that permitted her to do as she wished. She did regret, however, not taking the trouble to put up her hair. That always made her look older.

  “I’m nineteen,” she answered.

  The young man nodded and, taking up a pencil and a pad of paper, began to write. “What is your name and where can you be reached, please?” he asked, in tones that were carefully businesslike.

  Bliss related the necessary information, then asked, “Do you think someone will want me?”

  There was a look of kind indulgence in the clerk’s eyes. “I don’t believe there’s any question of that, Miss Stafford,” he said.

  She smiled. “I suppose I should leave my name with the other shipping agents, too,” she mused. “Are their offices nearby?”

  Accommodatingly, the gentleman wrote out a list. “Stay away from this one,” he said, putting a prominent check beside one company name. “There are rumors about some of the business they conduct in the Orient.”

  Bliss nodded, grateful for the warning, and took the list. After thanking the clerk for everything, she stepped out of the warm agency into the biting cold of a late-winter day.

  The sidewalks were thick with people, and carriages, buggies, and saddle horses filled the cobbled street. Bliss felt uplifted by the hustle and bustle. In the very next instant, however, her heart was wedged into her throat.

  An expensive carriage, drawn by four beautiful grays, drew to a stop directly in front of her. There would have been nothing remarkable about this if Jamie himself hadn’t opened the door and stepped down from the rig, turning to lift a stunningly attractive woman after him.

  Although Bliss couldn’t hear what was said for the clatter of hooves and wheels on cobblestones and the thudding of her own heart, what she saw devastated her. Jamie laughed at something the woman said, his hands lingering on her tender waist, and then bent his head to give her a brief but tender kiss on the mouth.

  The woman gently touched his face with a small gloved hand, and Bliss was abruptly and painfully reminded of her shabby coat, her scuffed shoes, her secondhand skirt and shirtwaist. Next to this vision, she was nothing but an unsophisticated bumpkin.

  She retreated into the crowd praying that Jamie wouldn’t see her, and God must have had sympathy for her situation. Her estranged husband said a few more words to his lady fr
iend and turned to stride off in the direction of the harbor. Something drew the woman’s attention, however, for after a few moments of utter paralysis, Bliss sensed a hard stare.

  She forced herself to meet the bright green gaze of Jamie’s mistress for a second or so and, then, horrified, she turned and began making her way, as rapidly as she could, toward the tram stop.

  “Wait, please!” she heard a feminine voice call, and Bliss knew somehow that it was herself being summoned, but she didn’t stop. Not many things had the power to frighten her into flight, but the prospect of an encounter with her husband’s paramour did.

  Mercifully, there was a tram to be boarded, and Bliss got on, not caring where the vehicle might take her. Only one desire pulsed in her mind: to get away.

  The tram jerked and rattled into motion, and then it was making its way between the wagons and buggies that shared the street, its bell issuing a shrill warning for all and sundry to step aside.

  “Damnation!” Peony fumed, slamming the door behind her and pulling at her bonnet as she approached the counter.

  Her favorite clerk, Michael Potter, smiled at her. “Good morning, Mrs. Ryan,” he said, used to her fiery moods.

  Peony was still sputtering. “I don’t know why I should bother my head about that little redheaded snippet, anyway,” she fussed. “She’s Jamie’s problem, not mine, and I don’t care if she catches the first ship to Shanghai—”

  “Actually,” interceded Michael, “she’s off to the States, if we’re talking about the same ’redheaded snippet.’ I just spoke to her.”

  Peony’s mouth rounded into an O, and it was a moment before she could absorb the implications. “Of course,” she said, on a long breath. “I presume the young lady left an address.”

  Michael held up a slip of paper. “Number nineteen Macomber Street,” he replied. “Her name is Bliss Stafford.”

  “Her name is Bliss Stafford McKenna,” Peony corrected, perhaps a bit petulantly. She wanted more than anything to see Jamie happy—he deserved it, after all he’d been through—but she had her reservations, too. He’d been besotted with another woman—Eleanor Kilgore, her name was—and look where that had gotten him.

  “Is something wrong, Mrs. Ryan?” Michael asked presently.

  Peony shook her head and then pulled off her bonnet, hanging it on a coat tree behind the counter. “There is an errand I’d like you to run, though. You don’t mind venturing down near the docks, do you?”

  Michael swallowed visibly. “No, ma’am,” he lied.

  Peony gave him her most dazzling smile. “Wonderful,” she replied. And then she told him who to find and what to say to them.

  The end of the tram route was a dismal-looking place consisting of dim little shops, shoddy pubs, and old frame houses leaning against one another for support.

  “You’ll have to pay again if you ain’t gettin’ off, lady,” the conductor said.

  Bliss reached into her pocket for a ha’penny and paid the fare. It was very cold, and the tram was open to the frigid weather. “When will we be going back?” she asked.

  “In an hour,” was the desultory reply.

  Bliss shivered. “An hour?”

  The conductor sighed. “Yes, miss,” he replied. “Must keep to the schedules, you know. There’s a tearoom over there, if you want to warm up and get a bite to eat.”

  Mentally, Bliss counted what remained of the small amount of money she’d taken—borrowed—from Jamie. There wasn’t much, but she was hungry and, if she was any judge, far from Macomber Street.

  She stood up and left the trolley. Following the conductor’s directions, Bliss found the tearoom and stepped gratefully in from the cold.

  The small establishment was utterly plain in decor, but it looked clean. Bliss was relieved, having deduced from the condition of the neighborhood that this was not one of the better parts of the city.

  Other customers crowded the place, and Bliss had to take an unladylike place at the end of the counter. A heavy woman huffed out of the kitchen and barked, “Name your poison, sweetie, I ain’t got all day.”

  Bliss blinked. Apparently, she wasn’t going to get a chance to look at a menu. “H-how much is the soup?” she asked, after risking a sidelong glance at the bowl steaming in front of the man beside her. If it wasn’t too dear, she would have tea as well.

  The woman named what Bliss thought was a reasonable price, and a bargain was struck. The soup, along with a cup of hot tea, appeared on the counter before her.

  While Bliss ate, she listened in amazement to the good-natured abuse being exchanged by the cook and her customers. They called her Flossy, and beneath their barbs and her own was an undercurrent of coarse affection. Unprepossessing as that place was, Bliss felt strangely at home there.

  The soup was good—spicy and brimming with fresh vegetables and bits of stewed chicken—and Bliss hardly noticed when the crowd began to thin out.

  “That’s some appetite you got there,” Flossy commented, startling Bliss, who had not seen the woman approach the counter. “Little down on your luck, are you, lamb?”

  Bliss swallowed, thinking of Jamie and his elegant mistress. No doubt he’d told her about the wife he’d accidentally acquired and they’d laughed together over all her shortcomings. Color surged into her cheeks as she realized that Flossy had struck very close to the truth. “A little,” she admitted.

  Flossy smiled. “Well, you’ve come to the right place if it be work you need. I could sure use a girl to wash dishes and wait tables.”

  Bliss was about to decline by explaining that she meant to leave the country when she realized how handy it would be if she could earn a bit of money before the fact. It might be a long while, after all, before she found a position with a traveler or travelers, and her Aunt Calandra couldn’t be expected to support her without some kind of compensation.

  Besides, Bliss needed something to distract her from Jamie McKenna and the ruin he’d made of her life. She returned Flossy’s smile, albeit somewhat sadly, and after only the briefest discussion, they reached an agreement.

  Bliss was given an apron and set to peeling potatoes in preparation for the supper trade. For the next few hours, she forgot all about her problems, she was so busy.

  “You’d best go, missy,” Flossy said when full darkness had settled down around the tearoom. “The tram’ll stop runnin’ soon, and then where will you be?”

  Realizing how far she had to travel and how worried her aunt would be over her late appearance, Bliss shed her apron and pulled on her coat. “The dishes—”

  “They’ll be here waiting for you in the mornin’,” Flossy said easily. “Hear that bell? Hurry up now, or the tram will go without you.”

  Bliss ran to the corner, where the noisy conveyance was about to pull away, and scrambled aboard just in time.

  “I was wondering where you got off to,” the conductor complained. He remembered that Bliss had already paid her return fare and didn’t expect another ha’penny.

  Bliss smiled and shrugged. A few customers had left coins on their tables, and Flossy had said she was welcome to them. Not only that, but at the end of the week she could count on wages—the first she’d ever earned in her life.

  Satisfaction kept the cold winter wind at bay until Bliss reached the center of Auckland and found that she’d missed the connecting tram. It would be a long walk to Macomber Street, she knew, and a cold one, and she wasn’t even sure of the way.

  A family, a man and a woman and two little girls, passed Bliss as she stood helplessly at the tram stop. They were laughing and talking among themselves, and a lonely feeling washed over Bliss, making her feel homeless. Abandoned.

  She squared her shoulders. She was tired, that was all, and waxing sentimental would do her no earthly good. She drew a deep breath and set out in the direction she hoped would eventually take her to the warmth and safety of her aunt’s house.

  He was a big man, Calandra Pennyhope thought. Yes, indeed, he was entirel
y too big for her cramped little parlor.

  Watching Bliss’s husband out of the corner of one eye, Calandra continued to rock in her chair, her hands busy with the bright blue scarf she was knitting. He stood in front of the fireplace, his arms braced against the mantelpiece, glaring at the clock as though willing the hands to stop turning.

  It was late, and Calandra was heartily worried herself, but Mr. McKenna was no comfort to her and she was clearly no comfort to him.

  “Perhaps Miss Stafford knows you’re here and is avoiding you,” the spinster suggested sweetly. He was handsome enough, this Jamie man, but in Calandra’s limited experience, the good-looking ones were often shameless rogues.

  “Perhaps,” he agreed dryly. He showed no sign of leaving, however—he didn’t move or look away from the clock. He’d been standing where he was for nearly an hour, muttering the occasional oath under his breath.

  Beast, Calandra thought, flushing angrily and setting her jaw. Why, for two pins she’d stab him with one of her knitting needles. She was just about to suggest that he vacate the premises, for the dozenth time since he’d arrived early in the afternoon, when the bell knob beside the front door was turned.

  Calandra prayed fervently that Bliss had come home, and followed this with just as earnest an appeal that she had not. Mr. McKenna had strode into the entry hall and pulled open the door before either she or Bertha had had a chance to react.

  “Oh, no,” she heard Bliss say, in a weary voice.

  “Oh, yes,” responded that reprehensible husband of hers.

  Calandra flinched as the door slammed with a reverberating crash. She and Bertha just weren’t used to this kind of thing anymore. In fact, they never had been.

  Jamie looked terrible. There were shadows under his eyes, his face was stubbly with a new beard, and Bliss would have been willing to bet that he hadn’t had a decent meal or a good night’s sleep in two days.

  “Where have you been?” he rasped.

  Bliss steeled herself against a tendency to sympathize with him. After all, if Jamie truly hadn’t slept or eaten properly, it was only because he’d been too busy dancing attendance on that beautiful blond friend of his. Besides that, Bliss had just walked a long, long way in the cold, and she wasn’t feeling too chipper herself. “That’s a long story,” she said, starting to go around him.