Unfinished (Historical Fiction)

by Harper Alibeck

  “Are you afraid you will not be able to protect me should harm come my way? If so, you must not value your job.” His implication set off an angry tirade inside that threatened to spill over into the night air.

  “No Ma'am,” he answered tightly. “I am from that part of town, in fact, and I know it well. That's why I advise – ”

  “I need no advice from you. I need your driving skills. Which is it?”

  The horses began to pull away, the steady, unsyncopated beat of their hooves on the cobblestones gave way, after a few minutes, to the softer pounding on the caked dirt of South Boston’s roads. New automobiles puttered by on their way to finer neighborhoods. Perhaps going to James' home was a mistake, but it was also a test. He'd hidden her from his real life. Including Maria Escola.

  Now it was time to face him as he was, without social trappings or avoidance.

  But could she do the same?

  “James! Mr. Hillman!” The voice was familiar; his mind had been fogged by thoughts of Lilith Stone, and now he seemed to have conjured her, right here in his own neighborhood as he walked home from his cousin's house. One of his younger relatives, a boy of thirteen known for his pinching, had sold him a pair of shining shoes with thick soles for a few hours' pay. The shoes were ill-fitting and too tight, but James would adjust. He always did. Wasn't much choice, was there?

  The night was a damp one, a stark contrast to the crisp air a month ago when he'd kissed Lilith in Cambridge. And now he was hearing her voice as he walked. Uneven horse steps made him turn to the right and there he saw Lilith Stone's carriage.

  What in the hell was she doing on this side of Beacon Hill at this hour?

  And what self-respecting coachman would take a billionaire's daughter here? He glared at the driver, not recognizing the ruddy-faced man. Too many servants came from this neighborhood; James was a rarity among them, an office worker with, as his Ma said constantly, “aspirations.”

  “Lilith?” A squeak formed in the new leather of his shoes, each step more painful than the last, the sound more excruciating than the pain. A relief map of the chasm between them, the leather and stitches called to attention her opulence and his need. A few hours pay for James was wasted by one turned bottle of wine in her home. Stale French pastries uneaten on a tray. A torn silk scarf. All just cast aside or ignored, like everyone on James' street.

  The foot pain distilled into a hot anger that he struggled to keep from Lilith. Her wide, chiseled face was guarded yet hopeful. Ah, woman. How you make so many emotions in me rise.

  Among other things.

  The carriage slowed and she hitched herself to standing, then carefully climbed out before James could even think to offer her his hand. With ruthless efficiency she stood before him, crisp and tidy, and looked at him with an air of calm expectation. “Yes, it's me. May we talk? I was on my way to your home to visit with you.” Her head turned left and right, taking in the dark street. It was lit dimly here and there by candles and gas lights in windows and the occasional headlight on a side street, a rare horseless carriage having got lost on its way to tonier sections of Boston.

  “My home?” James could feel his voice crack, caught by surprise, quickly swallowing the wave of shame and the feeling of a near-miss with fate. “Why would you go to my home?”

  “To talk.”

  “About what?”

  Now it was her turn to squirm. She lowered her gaze and furrowed her brow, one hand buzzing about her collarbone, fingers banging against a set of pearls that cost more than his entire apartment building.

  “I...well...I'm not normally...” Her stammer was quite adorable, a word he'd never associated with her, and as the layers of class and money and shame and filth wore away he could see he was just a man, and she just a woman, standing outside on the street under a thin sliver of moon that served as a witness.

  Along with the carriage driver.

  James glanced at him and nodded toward Tinker's, a local tavern. The coachman cocked one eye and then looked at Lilith, who joined James' look and nodded.

  “You sure, Miss Stone? I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Lilith smiled tightly. “Mr. Hillman is my father's lawyer's clerk. I'll be fine.” The coachman guided the carriage to a post and tied it off, then walked toward Tinker's.

  He turned back and said loudly, “D'ye know when we'll be leaving?” More of his Irish accent came out, as if the neighborhood infused him. “It's late, and your Da will be wondering.”

  James locked eyes with Lilith and said, “Give us an hour.”

  The coachman snorted and shook his head, then ambled off into the dark.

  He hadn’t been their only observer, however, and James could still feel eyes on them, like cockroaches flooding a pitch-black space. Safe and curious, ready to scurry and spread the germ of gossip – most infectious of all – to anyone they touched. This would not do.

  “Lilith, we can talk more freely in the carriage.” He gestured toward it. His pants tightened along with his chest, heart pounding and blood flowing freely from groin to breastbone, a loop of want and desire creating a pulse he thought she could surely feel from 10 feet away.

  With sweet smile he swore contained a few sprinkles of a leer, Lilith climbed in, her dress hugging the tight curves of those boyish hips, making him close his eyes to stop from taking her on the street, right in front of what were surely the eyes of fifty people related to him by blood or marriage. Living in tight quarters was what people in his neighborhood did; truth be told, the sanctuary of a closed carriage was a luxury. Hell, an open hay wagon with a strategically-placed horse blanket would have afforded them more privacy than James could access most of the time.

  Privacy, he'd learned long ago, was yet another privilege for the wealthy.

  One he would soon taste.

  Why did I come here? Lilith regretted it the second she called for him. Shock and wariness poured into his features, changing the free and open face she craved and making it angry, hidden, obscured. Awkward pauses between them added to the mess she'd created, and if she could take Mr. Wells' time machine and rewind time right now, she would.

  But even a billionaire's daughter couldn't buy that.

  The carriage felt like a coffin; James ate up more than his fair share of the small cabin, leaving Lilith to squeeze into a corner, both excited by any touch and repelled by his obvious intolerance. Even climbing into the carriage with him, open and on the street, had felt like fulfilling a dare. The eyes of James' neighbors bore down on them, she knew. Some of those same eyes might work in her home, or in the homes of her neighbors on Beacon Hill. Not that she would recognize a single pair; learning to ignore the help was a long-acquired skill she'd mastered. But this? The coachman knew James, had left them alone, and might add fuel to the fire of gossip about her virtue. What virtue, Lilith? That had been taken long ago, at McLean.

  No use trying to protect what wasn't there.

  Had he kissed her in Cambridge out of a sense of duty? Was he acting so odd now because she was too forward? Or, worse, had the kiss been some sort of wager, a challenge, a conquest for fun?

  And here came the fluttering bird in her chest, the flush of heat that filled her cheeks and neck, but that now permeated her core, down into a woman's source of sex and ruin. Yet it felt like an altar, a warm Earth mother preparing for her sun. James filled the small space with heat and light and it banished the cold abyss that lingered within her, always.

  The change was not entirely welcome.

  Deep breaths sometimes helped with the fluttering, but James' alarmed glance told her that she was breathing oddly and she toned it down, finally breaking the unbearable silence. “You are wondering why I am here.”

  He shifted and nodded, eyes jumping from her hands to her feet to the carriage walls. Everywhere but her face.

  So she would have to say it. Fine. Her ribcage relaxed, as if weighted suddenly by a sinking heart. “I am here because I wanted to speak with yo
u alone. In your neighborhood. Without the trappings of – ” She waved wildly in the direction of Beacon Hill.

  He looked pointedly at the leather seat, the upholstery, her fine kidskin shoes and the silk parasol in the corner. A half-grin pulled his face into an inscrutable snarl. “Without the trappings.” He shifted again, and her eyes caught a flash of light on the floor. His new shoes, polished to a high shine.

  “Lilith.” James' tight voice made her shoulders drop. “Why are you really here?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. No pretense mattered now. She felt the rejection in his voice. With nothing to lose, she turned and faced him in full. “I am here because you are the only person I have ever met who makes me feel real.” Her voice hitched on the last word and she couldn't look away, her eyes pulled to his, tears coalescing into opals in the half-light, tipping over her lids and rolling down her cheeks, spotting the silk front of her shirt and leaving a calling card of despair.

  Eyes the color of warm brandy met hers. A compassion she knew men could possess, but had never seen, sprang forth, and his hand reached for hers, engulfing it. “Oh, Lilith.” Now she heard it – the same tone she'd felt that night in Cambridge.

  Reality.

  The craving drew her to him without thought, her face seeking his, lips assertive and bold. One quick, dry kiss of “hello.” Then his arms slid behind her back and the kiss deepened, acknowledging so much more than acquaintance, connecting portions of their souls that Lilith had feared were not, well, real.

  Hands roamed across the expanse of her back, a single fully-splayed palm nearly covering the span, pulling her into the hot-breathed embrace and eager lips of this man she'd stumbled across under the worst of indecent circumstances. Kissing Jack Reed had been nothing like this, and the comparison was beyond laughable. That night in the garden had been about removing obstacles.

  James was about overcoming them.

  He pulled back, breathless, eyes wild with a purity of need that made her wet and swollen. “What is this?”

  Her head was filled with a buzzing and a moist, slick feeling that made her caress his open skin, his wrist, his face, his neck – any part she could. “What is what?” she asked.

  “This. What are we doing? I'm certainly not courting you.” He laughed ruefully, and she could feel the moment slip away.

  “No!” she cried out, pulling him to her again, moving his hand to her breast, nipping at his lower lip, wrestling his tongue into a deeper connection, willing him to be entwined with her once more. He returned the kiss and groaned, shifting so that their hips met. Now she truly felt his want, and her own swelled to infinity at the knowing.

  Warm flesh cupped her breast and pulled it from her shirt, his hot mouth on her now, her hands plunged into his hair as she arched her back and felt the cold air invade as his mouth retreated. Skin tightened and her body seemed to center on that one spot, fire in her pelvis and ice on her breast, all crying out for more.

  One tiny hand reached for him and found his swollen bulge, her inexperience evident as she hesitated, unable to decide how to proceed. He reached down and fumbled with his buttons and then she felt him, slid her hand down his enormous shaft, her mind moving to the fascination of this. How foreign – the soft skin that slid down like a sock over a calf. The wet, warm tip that the sliding revealed. James' complete and utter emotional abandon at her touch, how she held all the control in the world in one palm.

  And then he pulled her into his lap, spreading her legs so that she straddled him, and she let go.

  More kisses that made her squirm, made her wriggle and want to ride him, made her damn the undergarments that bound her and made this so difficult. Convention was torture. Indecency was noble. How everything went topsy-turvy when he had fistfuls of her golden curls in his hands, his tongue possessed her mouth, and her hands kneaded the muscles on his back, as strong as a big game cat and as passionate as she'd always imagined herself.

  In male form.

  A distant whistle broke the cold night air and they both jumped, startled from their fog of lust. James held up his hand, a gesture of silence. Her body went cold with fear and irritation, a frustration that settled into her pores rather than her mind.

  “Now that's a fancy carriage!” James knew the voice instantly. Goddammit, Bobby – do you have to ruin everything? Having nine siblings was bad enough; he had to share everything. Sharing this moment was cruel, though, and if he'd have believed in God beyond the Catholic ritual he'd have cursed Him.

  Furiously quick, James moved Lilith off his lap and did up his buttons. Unfocused and drunk on lust, Lilith was dazed. He paused, his heart aching with the sweetness of this moment. That. He wanted that look on her face, every day, every morning and night, in his bed, legs wrapped around him, mouth open and hungry for more, sated yet insatiable, inelegant and primal.

  But right now he had to deal with his brother.

  “Bobby, back off!” he shouted, sticking his head out a small window.

  “James?” Thirteen years old and shaped like a string bean, Bobby was the antithesis of James. He looked more like Da than Ma, and James had taken after the men on his mother's side, thick and huge, with a side of sarcasm.

  “Yes, James. Don't be getting any ideas,” he growled, the threat clear.

  “You in there with someone?” Bobby asked, the leer loud and clear in his voice.

  “Go away before I beat you,” James warned. “I won't tell you again.”

  “I'll go tell Ma what you're up to. You got some expensive whore in there? How'd you get the money?”

  Lilith clapped one hand over her mouth at the word “whore,” he eyes going wide with mirth. Glad someone is amused by all this, he thought.

  “You're right, Bobby. You figured it out. I'm sleeping with a whore in a fancy carriage outside Tinker's. How smart you are, for a boy who left school in fifth grade. Now get!”

  Bobby ran off and shouted, “Hey, Pat! You won't believe this! Come see!” A few curtains in dimly-lit windows pulled back and James knew he'd just provided more stories for the gossips than any racing paper.

  The coachman chose that moment to stagger out of the door to Tinker's. “What's going on?” he asked Bobby with a slurred roll to his words.

  Lilith grabbed James' hands and pulled them to her chest. Her heart beat like a big bass drum. “He'll be here any moment and then I need to go. My father is leaving town on Thursday – can we meet again then?”

  He opened one hand and placed his palm inside the “v” of her shirt, the hot flesh a balm for his nerves. “Yes. But there's something I have to tell you – ”

  “Tell me Thursday,” she whispered, eyes going hard as the coachman appeared. Her entire being changed, back straightening and eyes hooded with a sheen of frost that belied the heated scene he could feel, still trapped in his trousers, the ache tempered only by decent social expectations and the coachman's appearance.

  “Yes, Ms. Stone. I'll follow your instructions carefully, and let Mr. Reed know how you'd like your business conducted,” James said loudly, his stage voice just enough to catch the ear of the coachman. He climbed out of the carriage.

  Lilith moved to sit in the center of the padded seat and nodded politely, as if his hand hadn't just seared her breast, as if hers hadn't just given him an exquisite caress that he'd carry home with him. Her closing off pained him, a piercing of his consciousness that tasted like turned communion wine.

  The coachman muttered, “I think Jack Reed's been in quite enough of her business already,” then winked at James.

  It took every ounce of control not to knock him out. That would be his only victory over his emotions that night.

  As the carriage pulled away he took a few steps toward home and winced. The shoes, like his pants, were too tight, a painful reminder that nothing about him fit quite right anywhere.

  Chapter Five

  DEAR LILITH,

  BEFORE WE MEET on Thursday, I must tell you something that could change your
mind. I am leaving for the country of Chile in two months. For the past two years I have spent considerable time on a business venture dealing with the sodium nitrate trade, and have brokered a business deal in which I will have my own mine there. I realize this is an unusual story and, very well, may be one that you find preposterous, but I assure you it is true. You may ask my business associate, Maria Escola, about the venture; her father has provided the capital for the mine.

  The other night I asked you what this is. I no longer need a name for it or a label, but as a gentleman I felt it necessary to tell you that my long-term prospects are in South America and not here in Boston. Should you wish to no longer see me, I fully understand.

  Yours,

  James

  Lilith read the letter four times consecutively, snorting each time she read “Maria Escola” and “business associate.” The pieces of the puzzle fit, then; a poor boy from Southie with aspirations slept his way to capital money from Maria's father.

  Ouch.

  Was Lilith a conquest, too? With a father with deeper pockets?

  Two could play this game. But she didn't want to. It wasn't a game when she had feelings for him; then it was just masochism.

  So she wrote back:

  Dear James,

  I am sorry to hear of your pending departure. I am certain you will enjoy your time in Chile. I've heard Maria Escola talk fondly of her family's home in Santiago.

  Sincerely,

  Lilith

  “Oh, Jaaaayyyyy-meeeee. You got yourself a fancy letter here!” Bobby crowed, trying to taunt James with a fine watermarked envelope. Lilith. He was expecting some sort of response and tore it open eagerly, leaving Bobby breathlessly jumping up and down behind him, trying to read over James' mountain of a shoulder.