by Delynn Royer
Then, of course, at the beginning of the summer, when Ross had quit the Gazette to go work for the Herald, Emily had considered his move nothing less than high treason. They’d stopped speaking altogether. That was, until one night in September, the night before Ross left for the war.
Now, as he leaned his head back against the pump shelter behind the Hockstetter’s farmhouse, Ross stared up at the cloudless summer sky and recalled Emily’s heated declaration the night of the chestnutting party: If I want to take Karl as my beau, then I’ll dam well do it! There’s nothing you can do to stop me.
No, there wasn’t anything he could have done to stop her. Not back then and not now. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it if Emily had, in fact, turned to Karl Becker for comfort after Ross left for the army. Simple arithmetic dictated that it was very possible that Karl could have fathered Emily’s child. But there was another possibility Ross was forced to consider, too, a possibility that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to believe until now because—
“She would have told me,” he said aloud, still contemplating the wide, empty sky overhead. They’d never lied to each other before. Never. Damn it, she would have told him.
Wouldn’t she?
Chapter Fifteen
Ross should have seen trouble coming, but he didn’t. It had been a long day at the newspaper, and he was too caught up in his own miseries to think much about the predatory glint in Oberholtzer’s wrinkled, beady eyes as he shuffled past Ross’s desk and disappeared into Malcolm’s office.
Two days had passed since Ross’s Whit Monday confrontation with Emily. Now, it was he who ignored her for a change. If they passed each other in the lobby or met in the corridor, he was the first to brush by and bid her a chilly “Good day, Miss Winters.”
More than once she tried to stop him to say something. He thought for a moment that he saw an apology in her eyes, but he ignored her anyway. He was through with shouldering more than his share of the burden for rebuilding their relationship, through with trying to help her when all he got in return were scathing rebukes and painful reminders of his own guilt.
All I want is for things to be like they used to be between us.
I don’t see how that’s possible.
Ross recalled those words with stinging clarity. An ironic role reversal had taken place. It was she who had finally forced him to face reality. To try to recreate the past was impossible. It seemed that his reckless, adoring childhood friend had been replaced by a proud and willful woman who would never accept him as he was now.
“Gallagher!”
Malcolm’s enraged bellow reverberated throughout the city newsroom, causing heads to jerk up and silence to descend like the abrupt snap of a guillotine. Ross hadn’t heard his name so sharply enunciated since those days when he’d worked here as a fledgling reporter.
Ross had changed since then, though, grown a lot and seen a lot, and so he didn’t rattle as easily. He raised his head very slowly to observe his managing editor’s broad figure framed in the open doorway to his office. Chewing on the remains of a smoldering Corona, Malcolm’s face was mottled pink with anger. His steel gray eyes were hot.
“In my office!” Without waiting for a response, Malcolm vanished in a swirl of cigar smoke back into the recesses of his holy den.
Ross didn’t acknowledge the raised eyebrows or curious stares that followed at his back. When he closed the office door behind him, his attention was drawn to Oberholtzer’s sly, gloating demeanor. The old man sat before Malcolm’s desk, his skinny elbows resting on the arms of his chair, his long, bony fingers steepled before him.
Ross shifted his attention to the furious figure who towered behind the desk. “You called?”
“Damn right I called! What do you know about this?” For the first time, Ross noticed the sheet of paper Malcolm had crumpled in one huge fist. It came at him in a wad, tossed across the desk.
Even before Ross reached down to smooth it out and pick it up, he knew what all this had to be about.
“You recognize it?” Malcolm demanded.
It was a playbill for Fulton Hall. In one corner, Ross noted a whimsical woodcut illustration featuring a cello and a musical note that, to his practiced eye, had “Emily” written all over it. Keeping his expression neutral, Ross looked up. “I see that the Holman Opera Troupe is opening at the Fulton on Monday.”
The expression on Malcolm’s jowly, whiskered face brought to mind a snarling mastiff. “We used to do the playbills for the Fulton. You know who’s printing them now?”
“Not us?”
“Damn right, not us! Your friend, Miss Winters, has been stealing our customers!”
Ross shot a measuring look at Oberholtzer to see that the man was practically preening. Emily’s secret was out, and the old geezer was all too happy to be the bearer of ill tidings.
“That’s absurd,” Ross replied. “Emily works for us.”
“She used to work for us.”
“She quit?”
“No,” Malcolm said, his voice lowering menacingly as he leaned forward over his desk. “You are going to fire her.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who recommended her in the first place.”
“You have any proof of these allegations?”
Oberholtzer interjected in a calm tone. “After this matter was brought to my attention early this afternoon, I took the liberty of investigating further. Miss Winters has been quite busy these past few weeks, severely undercutting our rates in order to lure our patrons away.”
Ross fought to quell his mounting annoyance. Annoyance with Oberholtzer for being such a persistent, nosy bastard and annoyance with Emily for landing him between this particular rock and hard place. “That’s the nature of healthy competition, isn’t it?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have hired a woman,” Malcolm growled, sending up sparks as he stabbed the butt of his cigar into a brass ashtray.
“I doubt her gender has a whole lot to do with this,” Ross reminded him. “She did a good job while she was here.”
“A good job of making fool jackasses out of us! Her daddy must be howling in his grave.”
“All right,” Ross said, wanting to end it. “I’ll talk to her.” He turned to leave.
“Wait.”
His hand on the doorknob, Ross silently cursed Malcolm, Emily, and Oberholtzer.
“I asked you what you knew about this. You didn’t answer me.”
Setting his teeth, Ross turned to face his managing editor. “What do you think? That I knew what she planned to do when I recommended her for the job?”
Malcolm’s gray eyes narrowed. “You’ve known her for a long time. You went to school with her. You worked with her when you were with the old Gazette.”
“Are you questioning my loyalty?”
Malcolm didn’t look away, but Ross noted that his assessing gaze cooled somewhat as he pondered whether or not to call his future son-in-law’s bluff. At this point, even Ross wasn’t sure if he would utter an outright lie to save his job as well as his impending nuptials.
“It wouldn’t be very smart to cross me now, Ross.”
“No one ever accused me of being stupid, Malcolm.”
At this, Oberholtzer moved for the first time, dropping his steepled fingers and shifting his weight in his seat with great dignity. “I am sure, Mr. Gallagher, that if you will see to ending the young lady’s employment, we may return to business as usual, ja?”
When the old man tilted his head to peer up at Ross, the light caught and flashed off his bifocals. The smug curve of his lips told Ross that he was well satisfied with the results of his good works for today, but that Ross should continue to watch his own back in the future.
“Fine,” Ross replied tightly, then looked back at Malcolm. “Is that all?”
Malcolm studied him for another moment before deciding to let the question of Ross’s loyalties drop. “Find out what we owe her for the week. M
r. Oberholtzer will draw up a check. I don’t want her to set foot in this building again, understood?”
“Understood.” Ross yanked open the door.
“She’s too much like her father,” Malcolm added, causing Ross to pause and tense in the archway. “He was so busy building castles in the air, he couldn’t recognize his own defeat until it was too late. He had to learn the hard way. You tell her, Ross. If she wants a fight on competitive pricing, we can teach her the hard way, too. We’ll run her little makeshift business right into the ground.”
*
Emily removed her hat, hung it on a peg on the wall, then slipped a work apron over her head and tied the strings behind her waist. As she moved through the print shop, opening the rear windows to let in some fresh air and light, she couldn’t resist pausing over her desk to admire her own handiwork on the Fulton Hall playbill.
She always retained at least one copy of every print order. It came in handy if a customer returned with requests for similar jobs. This time, though, she was especially proud of the illustration she’d created for the concert announcement. It had taken extra time to do the woodcut, time she didn’t really have to spend on any one job, but she knew it was worth it when she delivered the order yesterday morning and saw the light of approval on her customer’s face. He would be back again.
Moving to the composition desk, she rolled up her sleeves and pulled open a drawer of type. Without missing a beat, she picked up a composing stick and resumed setting a half-finished print order for billheads. After taking a light supper at the Blue Swan, she had a pile of work, enough to keep her here past midnight if she had the freedom to do so. Unfortunately, she’d told her mother that she was visiting with her old friend Melissa Carpenter these evenings. Emily would be hard put to explain what topics of conversation kept them engrossed until after midnight.
A loud knock on the door almost made her drop her stick. The door shade was still drawn, and as far as most of the public was concerned, this was still an empty building.
The doorknob rattled, followed by an insistent tapping on the glass. She’d started to lock the door ever since Ross had walked in on her.
“Emily! Open up. It’s Ross.”
Emily hesitated. Ever since their conversation on her porch, he’d been cool and unapproachable. It seemed that she’d gotten her wish. He’d finally backed off. But instead of being relieved, Emily was left feeling abandoned and unsure of herself. She hadn’t meant to throw those old rumors in his face, and not for the first time, she cursed her impulsive temper.
She had tried to apologize when she saw him at the office, but he cut her off, leaving her standing alone in an empty hallway. The smiling Irish eyes she loved so well had brushed over her and then coldly dismissed her. The effect was as stunning and hurtful as a kick in the teeth.
Emily set down the composing stick and moved toward the door. Her knees were wobbling and her heart pounded crazily in the hope that he’d come to make up. Just like always.
Of course. That was it. He’d been angry with her. Who wouldn’t be after the way she’d acted on Monday? But he’d said a few harsh words, too. If they’d both lost their tempers, that was nothing new. He’d had some time to cool off, and now he’d come bearing his customary olive branch. When she opened that door, he’d be leaning against the door frame with his arms folded. He’d be wearing that crooked, dimpled smile. Those dark eyes would wash over her, warm and familiar and safe, and everything would be all right again.
Emily wiped a sweating palm on her apron, took a deep breath, then unlocked the door and opened it.
Ross was not smiling. And the expression in his eyes wasn’t very warm, familiar, or, least of all, safe. “I need to talk to you.”
Emily tried to ignore a painful wrench of disappointment. She had been foolish to expect things to be the same as they used to be. When would she learn that? “I’m busy right now,” she began.
“That’s what I hear.” He brushed by her to enter the shop. “This won’t take long.”
Emily opened her mouth to protest, but, glancing back to see a curious middle-aged couple passing on the street, she decided against it and hastily closed the door. “Is something wrong?”
In reply, Ross reached inside his coat, pulled out a piece of paper and tossed it down onto the nearest desktop. Even before Emily got close enough to read it, she recognized the musical illustration and stopped. “Where did you get that?”
“Malcolm’s office.”
“Oh.”
An envelope landed next to the crumpled concert bill.
“What’s that?”
“Your pay for the week. You’re fired.”
“I see.” Emily looked up to see no softening in his expression, no signs of sympathy.
“Well, you asked for it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“He’s furious. There’s nothing I can do to smooth things over for you this time.”
“It’s not your responsibility to smooth things over.”
“No. It’s not.”
It was all she could do not to look away from that detached, yet condemning, gaze. The stakes had just risen. Her attempt to resurrect her father’s business would no longer be a secret. Now, her success or failure would be played out in public for all to see. Feeling a little stunned, she turned and went back to the composing desk.
Ross thought she was a fool to try to make a go of this business. Karen thought so, too, and if her mother had any idea of what she was doing, she would try to discourage Emily also. It was only her deceased father’s reaction Emily was suddenly unsure of. What would he say? She didn’t know, and perhaps that was part of what scared her the most. Now, without Ross’s support, grudging though it had been, and what she imagined would have been her father’s tacit approval, she felt as if both legs had just been slashed out from beneath her.
Not knowing what else to do, she took up the composing stick. She still owed Ross an apology. “I’m sorry for how I behaved the other day. Sometimes I say things I don’t mean.”
“Oh, you meant it, and you were right. There’s no way to go back to the way things used to be, and we both know the reason for that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried to hide the trembling in her hands, but she was afraid that he wasn’t talking about the printing business anymore. She set an a instead of an e and cursed silently as she corrected the error.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Ross’s statement hung in the air between them like an overripe apricot, quivering on its stem, ready to burst. Her heart started to pound.
He continued. “Maybe it’s time we get some things out in the open. Like the truth.”
Emily’s fingers stopped their mindless work. She stared blankly at the tiny compartments of Caslon type, suddenly unable to recall which letters were stored where. Her pulse was so rapid it seemed to thunder in her ears. “What truth?”
“Like the truth that you were... what?” He let a paralyzing silence pass before she sensed his slow approach from across the room. “What would you have been, Emily? About four months pregnant when you left town?”
Emily could do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut and shake her head.
“That child was mine, wasn’t it?”
Chapter Sixteen
September 1861
Except for the soft glow of the coal oil street lamps, it was dark. The air was early autumn cool, chilling Emily’s arms and the exposed skin above the dipped neckline of her yellow silk taffeta evening dress. Fumbling nervously, she missed the keyhole on her first try to unlock the door of the print shop.
She was taking an awful chance. Her father would be furious with her when he returned from his three-day meeting with a group of editors from other Republican newspapers. But this was a matter of principle, and wasn’t it Nathaniel himself who had taught her that principles were worth fighting for? This was the premise of the argument Emily planned to use wh
en her father returned home and discovered what she was about to do.
“Blast it,” she muttered as she jiggled the key in the lock. It finally turned, and she slipped inside the darkened shop. It was Saturday night, the only night when the Penn Gazette offices were empty. There was no Sunday edition to put out, so the staff wouldn’t return until Monday morning.
As she groped in the dark for a desk lamp, she thought about the article she’d written two weeks before. Its subject was an out-of-state rally in which Miss Susan Anthony had addressed the issue of women’s rights. This was a cause that Emily identified with, perhaps even more so since she’d discovered that her own father was entrenched in the enemy camp.
“Women’s rights?” he had inquired with amusement when she’d presented him with the article. “Emily Elizabeth, oh beloved, mule-headed daughter of mine, what can I expect from you next? Bloomers?”
How could a man who so passionately advocated abolishing slavery of another race fail to comprehend the societal shackles that just as effectively enslaved an entire gender?
“Is there something wrong with the writing?” she asked, infuriated by the patronizing twinkle in her father’s eyes.
“Not that I can see.”
“Well, then, when will it run?”
“Soon,” he’d said, then set it aside without initialing it to indicate approval for publication.
Soon.
It was the sort of answer one offered to pacify a whining child. After another week had passed, Nathaniel finally initialed the article, but now it still sat on his desk, going nowhere. It wasn’t in the two-day backlog of editorial pieces he’d left for his assistant editor to print in his absence. Emily knew this because she’d checked before leaving the shop earlier today.
Her father’s slight had eaten at her all evening, stirring up a new storm of righteous indignation all through dinner and well into the concert she had attended with Melissa Carpenter and Melissa’s mother at Fulton Hall. Finally, just after intermission, Emily whispered to her friend that she had a dreadful headache and needed to see about catching the horsecar to go home early.