The Acquisition

by Louisa Trent

  Had the pot suddenly sprouted wings?

  The only way for the tea caddy to arrive was if Harry, herself, delivered it. But Lydia required her attention first...

  Her brother's indulged wife had been brought up with an army of domestic staff at her beck and call. Upon marriage, her financial situation had been greatly reduced, a fall in social circumstance everyone, especially her husband, was reminded of at least twice a day--why was it that Beth believed everyone suffered from absent-mindedness? Though no longer able to afford live-in staff, a vast contingent of day help still waited upon Beth hand and foot.

  That is, until Harry's return home from Boston in disgrace.

  Then, as a cost-saving measure, the washwoman had been promptly dismissed, along with the cook and three maids. Now all the work fell to Harry. "As a way to help defray your room and board," Beth had said.

  Fine with Harry; the last thing she wanted was to be a financial burden to her brother and his frugal wife. And goodness knows, all those new bonnets purchased with the defrayment looked perfectly charming on Beth.

  "Finished your hot chocolate so soon?" Harry asked with a sideward glance at the breakfast tray. Only the scant crumbs of the hot-buttered scones and marmalade breakfast she had prepared for Beth, remained on the plate.

  "Yes. And next time a little more cocoa, if you please. It is imperative I regain my strength after this last birth."

  That the youngest, Lydia, was almost three years of age, was a point Harry refrained from mentioning.

  "I am of a delicate constitution you know, and must constantly, unflinchingly, look to my health," Beth repeated for the umpteenth time, lest Harry forget. "You may have entertained half the male population of Boston in your bed, but as you have never given birth, you would know naught of the horrible indignity motherhood imposes upon one's constitution. As Captain Joshua Kane's musicale soiree is at week's end, I must remain ever vigilant in that regard. The evening is bound to tax my diminished strength, but one must not shirk one's social obligation."

  Harry pinched her arm, hoping the slight twinge might prevent an unseemly outburst of laughter. Beth was as strong as a bull, and with the maternal instincts to match. This sad truth was borne out a moment later, when her sister-in-law asked, "Which child is that, and why, pray tell, is he or she still mewling?"

  "It is Lydia, and I suspect she is in need of a hug." Since her fall from grace, Harry had taken over the role of official hug-giver. Helping out in the household was backbreaking work, but cuddling her little niece and nephews was all pleasure. The opportunity to hug the little ones was the only good part of her disgraced homecoming.

  "A hug?" Beth asked, floundering in unfamiliar territory.

  "Gooey-hands. Sticky-lips. Pudgy arms in a strangulation hold," Harry described that little bit of heaven that was a hug, feeling just so incredibly sorry for her self-absorbed sister-in-law for not understanding the bliss she was missing out on, by having taken to an invalid's bed when there was no need. Apart from her spoiled upbringing, Harry knew what ailed Beth, and it was naught that a good boot to Ben's lazy arse wouldn't cure. Beth's husband, Harry's brother, drank far too much, and it was her marital duty towards him that Beth sought to avoid in her invalidism. Such a pity!

  "Well ... I suppose ... you may see to Lydia before delivering my tea."

  Thinking her sister-in-law was showing an unusual degree of unselfishness this morning, Harry started for the nursery again.

  "But first," Beth called after her, less than two steps later, "before you go..."

  Harry's escaping feet ground to a disappointed halt. "Yes?" she asked, backing up.

  "Speaking of Captain Kane..."

  Which they most decidedly were not...

  "I have made you an appointment to see him today."

  With a sigh for the delayed hug, Harry entered her sister-in-law's bedchamber and retrieved the breakfast tray. "See Joshua Kane? Why would I wish to see him?"

  Her brother's infrequent letters provided some New Bedford news, and from those sporadic reports, Harry knew Josh had successfully completed his four-year whaling tour to Alaska. That was the sum and substance of her knowledge about the seaman lost to her seven years earlier.

  Beth launched into her gossip with relish. "The waterfront district isn't good enough for the likes of the good Captain Kane any more. Since he has moved up in the world, gone from mastering ships to owning his own fleet of whalers, he hobnobs with the filthy rich up on the hill. It's my understanding his splendid new mansion on County Street requires a housekeeper."

  "If you are suggesting I work for him, I cannot possibly! The man detests me. And I ... and I ... have no wish a' tall to see him!"

  Despite the vehemence of her protestations, a long-banked cinder suddenly flamed, its unexpected heat burning her cheeks and sending a prickly flash of awareness to her bosom, a wayward flush of arousal she simply could not help.

  "Be that as it may, you must find a position," Beth said, not noticing Harry's flaring color--like neglected children, impoverished relatives who act as servants are rarely seen or heard. "You are another mouth to feed, after all. Besides which, I fear your unsavory reputation will besmirch us. If it were only a question of myself and your brother..."

  Beth shrugged, letting the rest go unstated, though still clearly understood. "As this is a live-in position, I will no longer need fear your presence will blight innocent minds." As an afterthought, she added, "On your day off, to repay your indebtedness to us for your keep, you will return to perform the heavier household tasks."

  No slacker or moocher either, Harry had always paid her own way, while sending money home to help her brother care for his growing family and support Beth's yen for new bonnets. But because she'd been sacked, that contribution had now stopped.

  "Does Captain Kane know about me?" Harry asked.

  "Everyone in New Bedford knows my sister-in-law is little better than a common trollop, a strumpet."

  "Please, Beth, do not mince your words in fear of offending me," Harry interjected. "Feel free to call me what I am--a whore. Trollops and strumpets fornicate for the sheer pleasure of it; whores receive payment and very little pleasure. What I meant is, does Captain Kane know the reason why I am home?"

  Beth's smile was coy. "Do you refer to your thievery?"

  Harry's mouth remained a crisp straight line through which she pushed out a tight: "Yes."

  "Unlike some people related to me only through marriage, I am of honest character. I should have had no choice but to relay to him the sordid details of your transgressions, as I have had to relate those same sordid details to anyone and everyone inquiring over you. As I did not see Captain Kane in person, I was not asked." Beth plucked at her night rail. "Alas, I leave the incriminating specifics entirely to you."

  "Thank you!" She had not wanted Joshua Kane to learn of her itchy fingers through Beth, an unrepentant scandalmonger.

  "No need to thank me! Captain Kane is both a prudent and charitable man; he may hire you in charity, but once he knows the facts, I do anticipate him prudently locking the silverware up at night. Was it one or two place settings you stole, dear?"

  How cruel her brother's wife was at times!

  Harry's shoulders slumped in abject humiliation. "Three."

  Which was two more than she ordinarily lifted. Done, because there had been a great need for balancing the scales of social injustice in the home where she had toiled long hours for a paltry salary. She would do it again too! Only this time, she would not befriend the scullery maid, who had snitched on her to the lecherous master of the Beacon Hill brownstone. This time, she would let the lecherous master have his way with the scullery maid in the dark pantry corner, and see how the snitch liked having her mouth stuffed with limp sausage.

  Harry's mouth twisted. No, she wouldn't either. That was only spite talking. Even knowing the outcome, she would do exactly what she had done, which was to knee Mr. Burton, the master of the Beacon Hill brownstone, i
n his Boston Brahmin balls, so that the scullery maid could make her escape. The ungrateful twit! As Harry saw it, for the aggravation alone, she had more than deserved those three sets of silverware. Her knee had been badly bruised in that testicular encounter--her past employer having possessed a lamentably flaccid cock, but exceedingly hard balls, no doubt pickled from his alcohol consumption.

  But that was then, and she had another problem now. She loathed the idea of begging Joshua Kane for a position, bonnet in hand. But no one would hire her, not without references! And her sister-in-law was right, the house, a wedding present from Beth's father, was small, already bulging at the timbers; Harry's presence toppled it from cramped to crowded. And she very well might inflict her salacious reputation on the children if she remained. She hated to be a burden! Pride would most certainly have prompted her to leave sooner, had she someplace else to go other than a jail cell.

  Harry's already twisted mouth tightened. There was more to the story of her dismissal than she had let on to her brother and sister-in-law: She stood accused of pilfering more than silverware from the Beacon Hill address where she was employed as housekeeper for the last three years. Jewelry had gone missing, too.

  When the snitch scullery maid reported the silverware missing, Mr. Burton, already angered over the kneeing incident in the pantry, had ordered Harry's bedchamber searched first. An incriminating salad fork was found buried under the cot's thin mattress, its discovery witnessed by two members of the staff, as well as the butler. Harry had wondered where that fork had gone! She regretted the oversight too, not only because the salad fork incriminated her, but also because three intact settings of silverware would have fetched her more cash at the Newbury Street back door, where she had sold her ill-gotten goods. The incomplete booty had brought her considerably less, without the damn missing salad fork.

  Anyway, as Harry expected, she was promptly dismissed without a letter of recommendation.

  Catching her on the way out the door, Mr. Burton informed her that a valuable set of diamond cufflinks had also gone missing. Who did she think would get the blame if he went to the authorities?

  Already caught red-handed with the salad fork, Harry knew the answer.

  She was given two choices: pay for the worth of the diamond cufflinks before summer's end, or sleep with Mr. Burton in recompense. Fail to follow through, and he would go to the authorities over the silverware. After all, she was guilty of stealing.

  Not the cufflinks, though. She hadn't taken those. Harry had little interest in jewelry; for some perverse reason, it was always silverware that attracted her, particularly cutlery.

  At any rate, the despicable philanderer was toying with her. Mr. Burton, a widower unable to stay within his inherited means, had probably sold the cufflinks himself to pay off his gambling debts. Not that it mattered, for he knew he had her beat; a dismissed housekeeper without references would have difficulty finding any new position, never mind finding a new position that paid well enough to come up with extortion money. Plain and simple, Mr. Burton wanted to stuff his limp sausage in her drawers and he was using the cufflinks as leverage. Goodness knows, the man needed something to get his meat up.

  Always the optimist, Harry had immediately pounded doors seeking honest employment.

  And failed. Worse still, she had spent much of her meager nest egg on lodgings in a woman's boarding house, and the one meal a day she had allowed herself. No choice left to her, it was either starve on the streets of Boston, or return home to New Bedford in disgrace.

  Harry returned, an impoverished relative living off her brother and sister-in-law's questionable goodwill. In a fortnight, summer officially ended, and she faced jail time or Mr. Burton's limp Brahmin sausage.

  She could always go into the whoring trade, Harry supposed with an extended sigh. In New Bedford, prostitution was a business second only to whaling in financial success. And where was the difference? If she didn't come up with the extortion money, she would be on her knees before Mr. Burton anyway. And after she got off the hook with him, without references, the only way to support herself was a brothel.

  Unless she threw herself on Captain Joshua Kane's mercy.

  Would the wealthy sea captain she had once scorned, hire her without references?

  More of a stretch--if in the eventuality that Captain Kane did agree to hire her without references after scorning him, would he make her an advance on her salary so she could pay off her extortionist?

  Highly unlikely. And it would take balls harder than even Mr. Burton's to ask.

  Harry twirled a lock of hair around a finger. "What time is the appointment?"

  "I left my card with the parlor maid, requesting that Captain Kane expect Mrs. Smith promptly at seven o'clock this evening, thus giving you sufficient time to bathe the children, and put them down for the night prior to your leaving, as well as allowing you ample time for dinner preparations."

  "Most considerate," Harry murmured under her breath, as she hurried away to give Lydia a belated hug while Beth's tea steeped, just the way she liked.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Joshua Kane stared bleakly out the window into the rain-swept darkness, unable to concentrate on the leather-bound ship ledgers spread out before him on his captain's desk. When his study door received a knuckle rap, he called out a prompt, "Enter," thankful for the interruption in duties, and ennui and speculation about what might have been.

  Peggy, his housekeeper, stuck her head between door and jamb. "A Mrs. Smith to see you, sir," she announced, with enough pomp and circumstance for Buckingham Palace.

  Conscious that his visitor must be standing directly outside in the entry, well within earshot, he mouthed, "Did she happened to mention why she is here?"

  "No," Peggy hollered back at him. "Shall I ask, or is that cheeky?"

  Brought up catch-as-catch-can in a whorehouse, gone to sea from age twelve, Josh had never before had to deal with the complexities of servants. And as Peggy had always worked as a barmaid, not a parlor maid, she was equally confused. He suspected, however, that asking the visitor to state her business before making the announcement, rather than after, would have been the way to go.

  Too late now. For a lot of things.

  Smiling encouragingly at the uncertain Peggy, Josh said in a normal speaking tone, "Just show Mrs. Smith in." He would find out the reason for the visit soon enough.

  More than likely, his caller was another society matron, here to plead whatever the cause in vogue this season--piano lessons for the musically deprived Eskimo children was his personal favorite. It didn't matter a sparrow's fart what the cause was, Josh would contribute. Go along to get along was his motto. To maintain his new position in society, he could not afford to make waves.

  Pushing back his captain's chair, Joshua gained his feet in anticipation of Mrs. Smith's entrance.

  Mahogany paneling makes for an oppressive room, particularly on a dark and dreary night. At first, his visitor's slight figure, encased entirely in unrelieved blacks, the hue somber enough to match both his melancholy mood and the foul weather, blended into the walls. The disappearing act lasted just for a moment, just until he saw the flash of red hair under the extremely ugly bonnet. This was a female who would never fade into the background for long.

  Harry.

  No one else on this earth possessed hair that flamed as bright. Raw energy, as well as unbridled beauty, enlivened that hair. And carnality. He mustn't forget carnality.

  Black garments. White skin. Red hair. Stark contrasts, each emphasizing the differences and yet somehow enhancing the other. How did she do it? How did she embody so many opposing forces and yet make them seem so uniquely irresistible?

  "Your horrified expression informs me my sister-in-law neglected to include my first name on her calling card, Captain Kane. An oversight, I am sure."

  Josh was not quite as sure. Ben's wife was a bitch of the first water, and his best friend deserved no less. "No harm done," he replied amicably.<
br />
  "Your graciousness is commendable, but I can see you are clearly taken aback," she contradicted, reminding him of the young willful Harry. "I do sincerely apologize," she continued, reminding him not at all of the unapologetic Harry of old. "If my presence causes you discomfort, I shall certainly leave."

  "I am not at all discomforted." At least, not in the polite way she'd meant.

  Stepping away from the barrier of his desk, he came around to meet her. "May I take your cloak?" Her ugly, ugly, wretchedly ugly, cloak.

  A downward glance at a wet sweep of black skirts. "Oh, dear. I fear I am dripping all over your carpet."

  "Think nothing of it. My concern is only for your health. Pleurisy abounds this season," he said, with a solicitous formality.

  "How very kind of you to concern yourself with my health. It is rather a beastly evening," she replied, equally as formal and telling him naught. What the hell was she doing here?

  She shrugged. He lifted--careful not to touch any part of her--and the saturated wrap came away.

  "Don't tell me you walked here, Har ... uh ... Mrs. Smith."

  "Then, I shan't." She laughed merrily.

  At first, Josh tried to fortify himself against the sound of that lilting laugh, but some forces are just not possible to guard oneself against. Tidal waves ... hurricanes ... freak forces of nature ... many a time he had strapped himself to his ship's wheel to circumvent, to navigate, to ride out a storm. But Harry's lilting laugh rolled right over him, a force unto itself, drowning him in memories.

  "I understand you are staying with Ben and his family." Useless to deny the knowledge. "The distance between the wharves and here is at least..."

  She laughed again. "Seven years of successful whaling."

  "Yes, well," he stammered, taking both pride and discomfort from his recent wealth. "Why not take a horse and buggy on such a nasty day?" he asked, installing her hideous outer garment on the coat rack in the far corner of his study. The time spent doing so, which he drew out as long as possible, gave him chance to brace up.