“Where are you taking me?” she said, fighting in vain to free herself.
“To my home, so that I might decide what to do with you next. And if, while we’re there, you happen to eat a bit of poultry and bread, and perhaps a pastry or two...well, I don’t suppose I’ll mind that too much.”
Sephira stopped struggling. The corners of the man’s mouth quirked upward.
“What’s your name?” he asked again, as they neared the top of the hill.
He sounded somewhat winded. Sephira was breathing hard, too, and her legs had started to ache.
“Mary,” she said. “My name is Mary Parker.”
Caleb gave her a sidelong glance that spoke of more than a little skepticism. “Mary, is it?”
She nodded.
“Where are your parents, Mary?”
“I don’t know where my Da is. I don’t remember the last time I saw him. My Ma...she doesn’ live in Boston.”
“Where does she live?”
Sephira shook her head. Aside from her name, she had told Caleb the truth; she wasn’t sure that she could get away with a second lie. “I’m not tellin’ you that.”
Caleb frowned. “Why not?”
“Because she’s a whore. And I won’t go back there.”
He winced at her words, but after a few seconds he nodded. “Very well.” He considered her again over the tops of his glasses. “Where did you get that bruise?”
“I’m not tellin’ you that, either.”
They crested the hill, and Caleb turned onto a curved drive that led to a large brick house. Sephira slowed, her wrist still in the man’s grip. He halted, glancing back at her.
“You live here?” she asked, gazing at the house.
“Yes, I do. Come along; I’ll show you.”
They walked to the portico and entered through a massive oaken door. The first room had a marble floor and a large spiderlike chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. Sephira stared up at it, open-mouthed.
“How do you light those?” Sephira asked, pointing at the candles.
“The men and women who work for me use a stepladder.”
The men and women who work for me... The phrase echoed in her mind. She might have allowed herself to be captured, but even Whittler would have to admit that she had chosen the right cully. Caleb had to be the richest man she’d ever met.
“There’s more to the house than just the foyer,” Caleb said with a grin. “Come in and I’ll show you.”
Whit would have laughed at her: here she was in a house with more treasure than she had ever seen, and all she could do was gawk like a child. Her cheeks burned as she followed Caleb into the next room, an enormous space filled with furniture and art, a dazzling array of colors that made her feel plain and ungainly. Wonderful aromas reached her—savory meat, fresh bread. Her stomach grumbled as if in answer, and her gaze strayed to the next doorway, which appeared to lead to the dining room.
“Are you hungry?” Caleb asked.
Before she could answer, a woman joined them in the grand chamber.
“Good afternoon, Mister Moore. Are you ready to—” Spotting Sephira, she fell silent, her mouth open, her brow creased. She regarded Sephira much as Caleb’s friends had on the street, her expression curdling as she took in the state of Sephira’s garb. “A guest?” she finally asked.
“Yes, Sarah. Please set another place at the table. We’ll dine immediately.”
“Of course.”
She stared at Sephira for another moment before hurrying back into what Sephira took to be the kitchen.
The woman returned soon after, her color still high. But she gestured Caleb and Sephira into the dining room, and even went so far as to pull out Sephira’s chair for her. Sephira couldn’t remember anyone doing that for her before.
“Has Missus Moore already supped?” Caleb asked.
“Aye, sir. But I can tell her you’re here.”
“That won’t be necessary.” A wry smile sprang to his lips. “I daresay she wouldn’t know what to make of our guest any more than you do.”
Sarah didn’t answer.
“I’ll have a cup of Madeira with my meal,” Caleb said. “And for the child as well—generously watered, I think.”
Sarah nodded and left them there.
Sephira surveyed the feast that had been laid before her—roasted fowl, a round of bread, a bowl filled with blackberries and blueberries, a wedge of cheese. She reached for the fowl, but Caleb cleared his throat loudly.
She stopped, her hand hovering over the food, and saw that he had his eyes closed and his hands folded in front of him. He was mumbling something, a prayer no doubt. Sephira waited, watching him. When at last he muttered an “Amen,” she grabbed a piece of fowl from the platter and began to tear at it.
She had eaten just that morning: a piece of stale bread and a morsel of bacon. But she didn’t know when she would have a chance to sup like this ever again, and she resolved to gorge herself.
Sarah emerged from the kitchen once more bearing two cups, one of which she placed in front of Sephira. It held a liquid that was pale pink. Sephira finished chewing another mouthful of meat and swallowed. Then she lifted the cup to her lips and took a small sip.
She nearly spat it out.
“What is that?” she asked, pulling a face and setting her cup down as far from her plate as she could reach.
“Watered wine,” Caleb said. “What do you usually drink?”
Sephira shrugged. “What I can find. Water usually. Sometimes ale or mead. I like ale.”
“Ale isn’t an appropriate beverage for a girl your age.”
“Why not?”
“How is your food?”
She took another bite of fowl, nodding as she chewed. “It’s good.”
Caleb took a bite as well, and washed it down with a sip of his wine. “Did someone send you to steal my purse?”
Sephira gaped back at him, unsure of what to say.
“It’s all right. I’m not going to take you to the sheriff, and I’m not trying to get your friends in trouble. I just want to understand what happened.”
“No one sent me,” she said. “And I wasn’t workin’ with someone either. I work alone. I saw you and your friends, and I figured you was rich.”
“You were right. We’re all men of means. But as for the rest, I’m not sure I believe you. If what I saw today is any indication, you wouldn’t last very long on the streets if you were truly working alone.”
“I do just fine,” Sephira said, her voice rising. “You keep your purse in a different pocket is all. If not for that, I’d have pinched it and been on my way before you knew what happened.”
He frowned again, taking a bite of cheese. Sephira shoved a piece of bread in her mouth, all the while glaring at him.
“You strike me as an intelligent girl. You have some spirit. You’re pretty. You could do far better for yourself.”
“I won’t try whorin’!”
Caleb’s cheeks turned pink, but he held her gaze. “I wasn’t suggesting that you should. I was trying to say that you could do better than to live in the streets, stealing from innocents and running afoul of the law. You’re still young. You don’t have to remain on this path.”
“I do just fine,” she said again, knowing she sounded sullen and childish. She didn’t like the way he was watching her, or the cloying note of kindness she heard in his voice. She bit off one last mouthful of fowl, wiped her hands on the linen napkin beside her plate, and pushed back from the table.
“You were going to show me the rest of your house. You promised.”
Caleb’s smile was thin. “I suppose I did. Come along, then.”
He stood and led her out of the dining room, back through the grand room she had already seen, and down a corridor. They stopped first in a stud
y, its walls lined with bookshelves, its wood floors adorned with a colorful woven rug. A pair of ivory-handled dueling pistols were mounted on the wall near the door, and a portrait of Caleb and a woman Sephira assumed was his wife hung over the hearth.
Next he took her to a small sitting room with maroon satin drapes over the windows, and a pair of matching upholstered chairs facing an empty hearth.
Finally, he showed her a plain room at the back of the house. It was not nearly as ornate as the other chambers had been. Two small beds sat along opposite walls, and a simple wood bureau stood between them.
“This is Sarah’s room,” Caleb said, watching her.
Sephira nodded absently. She liked the other rooms better.
“There was another girl who worked for us, but she left not long ago. We’ve been looking for someone to take her place.”
Sephira turned to look at him. “Are you sayin’ I could live here? Work here?”
“Would you like that?” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “You would earn a small wage at first—a few shillings each week. But your room and board would be free. And as you learned your work, and gained our trust, your wage would rise. Best of all, you would no longer be running wild in the street, stealing, getting beaten; instead, you would be living as a respectable girl should.”
“Why would you want me?”
A faint smile flitted across his homely features. “I told you before: I believe you to be intelligent, and I think that with a bit of prodding, you could do better for yourself. I would like to help in that regard.”
“I tried to pinch your purse.”
“Yes.” The smile returned. “You would need to stop doing that if this arrangement is going to work.”
A vision flashed like lightning in Sephira’s mind. She saw herself wearing a simple black dress with a white lace collar, much like the one Sarah had on. She was serving dinner to Caleb and the woman in the portrait, clearing empty plates and bowls from the table, carrying a bucket of water from the pump on Hull Street to the kitchen. She barely recognized the girl she saw—she looked neat, well-kept, perhaps even happy. Mostly, she looked soft.
Sephira jerked her mind away from the vision, stifling a shudder.
Caleb still watched her, expectant, a self-satisfied smile on his lips.
She threw the punch without thinking, without knowing why she did it. Her fist caught Caleb square in the mouth. He staggered back a step, blood pouring from a split in his lip. Sephira closed the distance between them and hit him a second time, and then a third. With her fourth blow, this one to his temple, he collapsed to the floor.
She kicked him hard in the side. Caleb retched, drawing his knees up to his chest. She aimed a second kick at his forehead, opening up a ragged, bloody gash.
He groaned, but he didn’t seem capable of more than that. Sephira knelt beside him and searched his pockets for the elusive purse. When at last she found it, she grinned at its weight. There was more coin in this pouch than there had been in the one Whittler stole. She stowed the purse in one of her pockets.
Caleb stirred as she climbed back to her feet.
“Why?” he asked, the word thick in his bloodied mouth.
She kicked him again and left him in the back room. On her way to the foyer, she stopped in his study, took the dueling pistols from the wall, and tucked them into her pockets as well. Then she returned to the dining room and piled as much bread, cheese, and fowl into a napkin as she could fit. As an afterthought, she drank what was left in Caleb’s cup of undiluted Madeira. She decided that she liked it much better than the watered wine he had given her.
She strode to the door. Before she reached it, though, she heard a light footfall behind her. She turned just enough to be able to look behind her, all the while taking care to keep the napkin hidden.
“Leaving already?” Sarah asked.
“Aye. Ca— Mister Moore said I should go. It was very nice of him to feed me.”
Sarah glanced toward the dining room. “Where is he?”
“In his study, I think.” Sephira smiled. “Goodbye.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, but let herself out of the house and walked back to the street, trying to appear unhurried. Only when she reached the lane did she break into a run that carried her down the steep slope of Copp’s Hill. The pistols and purse bounced awkwardly in her pockets, and twice she nearly fell. But she kept her balance as she turned onto Salem Street and wound her way to the crowded lanes near the waterfront. Before long, she had crossed back into the South End.
She was breathing hard, grimacing at a stitch in her side. But she kept running, making her way to the small square within a cluster of old warehouses near Woodman’s Wharf, where she and Whittler went when trying to get away from men of the night watch. Whittler was there now, with two of his friends: Bartie and Simon.
Sephira halted at the mouth of the space.
Bartie spotted her first, and hit Whittler’s shoulder lightly with the back of his hand. “Looks like your shadow’s here.”
Simon and Whittler fell silent. Sephira remained where she was, panting, heat rising in her cheeks. Whittler eyed her for a moment and then waved her forward.
“Where you been?” he asked as she approached.
“North End, like you told me.”
He indicated the napkin with a nod. “Wha’s that?”
She grinned. “Supper, if you want any.”
The three boys exchanged looks. She squatted down, placed the napkin on the ground, and opened it, revealing the food she had stolen.
Bartie whistled.
Whittler smiled and nodded again. “That looks fine,” he said. “Where’d it come from?”
“Same place as these.” She pulled the pistols from her pockets and held them out to Whittler. “Cully I found.”
He stared at them, wide-eyed, making no move to take them from her. “Will ya look at those,” he said, breathing the words.
“You’ll get two pounds for them,” Simon said, watching Whittler. “Easy.”
“He’s right,” Whittler said, raising his gaze to hers. “Must have been some cully. That blood on your shirt?”
Sephira looked down. Her shirt was splattered with blood stains. “Aye.”
“Any of it yours?”
“No.”
“What else did you get?” Simon said, eyeing her hungrily.
Sephira glanced back at Whittler and gave a single, tiny shake of her head.
“What difference does it make to you?” Whittler said, rounding on the boy. “She brought supper an’ a couple of pistols. Tha’s more’n I’ve seen from you in the past week.”
“I was just askin’,” Simon said, flinching away. His mouth twisted sourly, but he looked Sephira in the eye as he said, “You done good, Seph. Real good.”
“Let’s have us a feast,” Whittler said. “In fact, I’ve got just the thing.” He walked to the back of their retreat, and pulled a dusty bottle from a small recess.
“What’s that?” Bartie asked.
“Bottle of Madeira. Pinched it a few nights back from a crib on King Street.”
He knelt beside the food-laden napkin, and the others did the same.
“You ever have Madeira, Seph?” Whittler asked.
“Aye. I like it.”
“You should. It’s a rich man’s drink. A rich lady’s, too.”
He took a swig, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and handed the bottle to Sephira. She tipped her head back and drank before handing the bottle on to Simon.
She ate a bit more of the fowl and bread, but mostly she drank, and listened as the boys told stories of cullies they’d fleeced in the lanes. Caleb’s purse remained in her pocket, hidden from Whittler’s friends, its heft balanced on her thigh, reassuring. Maybe later she would tell the tale of how she had come by it, alon
g with the pistols and the food. Whittler would believe her. The others might, too. With the blood on her shirt, and the treasure she carried, they could hardly doubt her.
But for now, she was content to enjoy their feast, and the fact that she was one of them, welcomed, accepted.
The bottle came around once again; it was mostly empty, but a few sips remained. She took it from Whittler, and drank a silent toast to Caleb, her first cully.
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The Big Bad II Page 38