by Maureen Lang
But even as he walked from the room at last, Meg watched him. All these years she’d been made to follow every rule in existence, while Maguire—at her father’s side—had been allowed to break any one he chose.
The fourteen-year-old girl still inside suddenly wished she’d been able to switch places with him, if only for a day.
Ian finished his whiskey, this time undiluted. He shouldn’t have poured another, but it was too late now. He stared at John’s profile, half-expecting him to sit up and tell Ian the same thing he always said when anyone around him was tempted to drink too much. No cheating. Life is what you make of it, so don’t miss it by getting drunk.
Surely he’d understand this time, though, and condone the escape Ian needed, if only temporarily. Having Meggie here wasn’t helping him with his grief at all; if anything, she made it worse. He’d thought they could mourn John’s loss together, but she didn’t even miss him! That much had been clear when Ian had looked into her eyes, the same eyes she’d inherited from her father. Ian swore they’d turned as gray as a winter sky when he’d tried coaxing a bit of mourning from her.
He shouldn’t be wasting time thinking of her. Instead, he would do as John had always done, at least before Kate and her new faith got to him. Ian would focus on the job at hand.
Dickson, specially employed at the bank for over a month now, fed Ian the information he needed on a regular basis. Floor plan, schedules, security measures, average number of banknotes, and—most importantly—the kind of safe the bank used. An exact replica of which Ian kept in the locked room upstairs right now. The unholy thing had been hard enough to get up there! Ian already knew where Dickson should drill the preliminary holes and was surer than ever he could be in and out in less than seven minutes.
Losing Keys could delay the date of the heist. The targeted bank was on Keys’s beat, and the last thing they needed was a real cop looking out for predawn activity along that stretch of city block. It would take months to get a replacement.
But the job meant more than ever now; Ian couldn’t fool himself into thinking otherwise. Nothing less than a quick success would set him free of the threat Brewster posed—not only to claim a portion of any job Ian cared to do, but to call on Ian’s talent wherever Brewster thought necessary. Ian couldn’t wait months for that freedom.
“Supper, sir.”
The pronouncement came from Ian’s most trusted servant, standing at the door closest to the dining room. Tupp, who acted as butler, valet, right-hand man, and trusted message runner.
Since Ian didn’t employ a single female servant, he took it on himself to go upstairs to let Meggie know dinner would be served.
He knocked softly on her door, wishing he wasn’t quite so eager for her to answer. Nothing had changed that boyhood secret hidden in his heart ever since setting eyes on Meggie nearly a decade ago. She hadn’t changed either, except to grow lovelier. She was still the image of perfection John had so lovingly placed on a pedestal, right from the start. It had proved impossible not to love her simply because John had.
But the Meggie on that pedestal had been little more than a figment of John’s imagination—worse, she’d become a figment of Ian’s. Today proved he knew nothing of her and that he would do well not to try knowing her any better.
He tapped again but received no answer. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep. He should go downstairs, instruct the cook to hold dinner until later. But his own stomach—empty but for the whiskey sloshing about—demanded some kind of sustenance. He’d been mostly ignoring food since finding John in this very room.
Ian tried the doorknob, and it twisted easily at his touch. He’d never had a sister, hadn’t lived with a woman since the day his mother died on the boat from Ireland more than a dozen years ago. Even so, Ian knew the last thing he ought to do was open this door.
He pushed it out of the way—only to find the room empty.
Quiet voices through the bathroom joining this room to the next drew Ian’s attention. Instantly his heart bludgeoned the walls of his chest. Why had he left her alone with Kate, of all people?
In three long strides he was at the bathroom threshold, but there he stopped, thankful that he’d somehow managed to make no noise despite his panic. If by some miracle Kate had kept silent about Skipjack, there was no need for Ian to blurt the truth in a groundless accusation.
Without a trace of compunction, he leaned in to hear what they said.
“Did that man—Brewster—know my mother, too?”
“Oh yes. John told me it was Brewster who rescued her from homelessness after her first husband died. I think she must have been quite something to turn her back on everything she knew—her family, her homeland, every friend in the world—for the man she loved. And he was just a footman. She could have married a man of high standing.”
“But he died, this footman she ran off with to marry?”
“Your father said after your mother’s first husband was killed in a carriage accident, she intended to return to England and beg her family’s forgiveness. But she met Brewster, and he offered to help her—without reciprocation, if you know what I mean. Of course, Brewster was married back then, but he never did anything without expecting something in return. From what I learned, Brewster’s wife and your mother became great friends. After they both died—Brewster’s wife in childbirth—it was one more thing that Brewster and John shared. Their grief.”
Ian knew that much was true. He leaned comfortably against the doorjamb.
“So my father and Brewster have been friends for a long time, and my parents met because of him.”
“Yes, that’s right. Speaking from personal experience, once your father fell in love with your mother, it was only a matter of time before she returned the feeling. He’s impossible to resist.”
“Do you think they loved each other truly, Kate?”
“Of course! It’s entirely possible to fall in love more than once. Your father proved that when he fell in love with me.”
“Then perhaps you’ll fall in love again too.”
Ian couldn’t see them from where he stood behind the door; he only heard a light laugh, and it twisted him inside. That they could sit and talk so amiably, even laugh, when John was downstairs waiting to be buried—it made him sick.
He might have turned, found his way quietly back out to the hall to tap on Kate’s door, but Meggie was talking again and he couldn’t help listening.
“I know so little of either of my parents. I might at least know my father through you, Kate.”
Ian knew Kate would be all too eager to answer that entreaty. This conversation had gone on long enough. Too long, in fact. He burst through the bathroom, every sensible thought, any hope of caution or calm, banished by hot, whiskey-enhanced anger.
“I think you know enough about your father, Meggie. That he took care of you all these years because he loved you.”
Both women sprang to their feet, and some small, rational part of him was glad to see they hadn’t adjusted any uncomfortable clothing for an intended nap but had been sitting on the two chairs in front of the window overlooking the river. They might summon enough anger over the interruption to match his, but at least embarrassment over a loosened corset wouldn’t add more fuel on their side.
“How dare you!” Meggie scolded, her cheeks flushed, blue eyes glaring. “No gentleman would listen at the door. You, sir, are most certainly no gentleman.”
To his private disgrace, he had to struggle to remain standing stiff and tall after his sudden entrance. His head was spinning. “I never claimed to be one.”
She stood not two feet from him, her face less lovely while looking at him with such contempt. “You smell of alcohol.”
“What of it? If you possessed the shadow of a daughter’s heart, you, too, might turn to comfort where it could be found.”
“He was more a father to you than he ever was to me! Why shouldn’t you mourn him more than I? I’ll only miss his pocketbook because tha
t’s all I ever knew of him!”
How he wanted to shake her for renouncing John, but he’d never touched a woman in anger in all his life and wasn’t about to start now. And then his anger suddenly deflated. She was right. How could she have loved him, when all John had allowed between them was a figment of both their imaginations? The real tragedy was that the figment she’d created of John hadn’t been nearly as appealing as the one John had created of her.
Anger dissipated, Ian turned away. “I came to announce dinner.”
“You might have knocked on the door instead of sneaking in,” Meggie said to his back.
If she was still hoping to continue their fight, he wanted none of it. He did not turn to face her as he said, “I tried.” Then he moved out of the room, leading the way down the stairs.
9
The true colors of ladies and gentlemen are revealed at every meal.
Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies
Dinner was served on the veranda that stood atop a freshly mown hill sided by trees outlining a path to the Hudson River below. The wide expanse instantly brought Meg visions of gardens. If this house needed anything, it certainly needed that.
Maguire sulked through most of the meal. Meg wanted to gloat, but when she saw his gaze travel to the door that led to the ballroom, where her father’s body awaited burial, she felt chastised. He wasn’t sulking; he mourned her father. That dog was in there too; she saw him through the glass. Lying at the foot of the table upon which her father’s body lay.
Halfway through the meal, another gentleman joined them, although the manner in which he plopped a bottle of something near his plate, then sat down without so much as a greeting, made her wonder if she’d used the term gentleman too generously. He’d half filled his plate before she realized no one, not even Kate, was going to make a proper introduction.
“My name is Meg Davenport, sir.” She offered the traditional bow of her head, waiting for him to introduce himself in return.
He grunted with the slightest of nods.
Meg looked from Kate to Maguire. Neither said a word, just continued eating.
She looked again at the man. “And you are . . . ?”
“Pubjug’s the name.” He took a bit of meat dangling from his fork and added, “Sorry about your father, miss. He was my best friend.”
She looked away from the sight of the man’s full and working mouth. “Thank you, Mr. . . . Pubjug.”
“Just Pubjug. It’s a nickname. We all have them, you know.”
“Like a . . .” Maguire seemed to search for a word, though it was clear he wished this man, Pubjug, hadn’t shown up at all. “A club.”
Pubjug laughed. “A club! I like that, Pinch! I earned my name at a little bar in the Bowery when I was just a boy. The place were run by a coupl’a John Bulls, so we called it the Pub as if it was in England. And I once drank an entire jug of—”
“Pubjug knew your father longer than any of us did,” Maguire interrupted. “They were childhood friends.”
Pubjug nodded, unfazed over the interruption. “Your pa and I grew up in the same neighborhood, over on Fifth Street in the Bowery. I still live there, mostly.”
Meg’s heart skipped. “So you knew my father’s family? His parents . . . my grandparents? Brothers and sisters?”
“He ain’t got no brothers or sisters, least not’ny more. Had a sister once, but she died in a fire. ’Bout killed John’s ma. She never could dance after that. Always got winded and short for breath, on account of the smoke she took in trying to save her little girl. Shame, too. My pa said she was the finest dancer at the hall.” He offered a brief laugh that was altogether amused. “’Course she’d have had to give up the dancing anyway, after John’s pa quit tendin’ bar in the dance hall.”
The food in Meg’s mouth went tasteless. Her grandmother a dancer—someone who danced, in public! Visions of a half-clad woman pirouetting in front of a bunch of gawking men filled her mind. And with the full approval of a husband who poured liquor!
“Your father came from humble means,” Maguire told her, though the statement ended a bit more gently than it had begun.
Meg had countless other questions but for a long moment could only stare straight ahead, oblivious to anything in front of her. She came from a long line of those who cared little for any of the rules she’d been fed from the earliest days of her life.
“You said my grandfather left the dance hall. Why? For other work?”
“Went to work at the mission hall till the day he died,” Pubjug said.
“From the dance hall to the mission hall?”
Kate nodded and took a sip of the water in front of her. “That’s part of the reason your father was so interested in what I learned at a revival meeting that changed my own life.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Maguire, who swiped at his mouth with a napkin, then stood with a shove to the chair beneath him. “I trust you’ll limit the conversation to happy memories, Kate.”
He fairly stomped to the door of the ballroom but opened it only long enough to call to his dog. Then the pair walked away.
Never, not at school and not even in the homes of any fellow students, had Meg sat at a table where people came and went without the slightest consideration of etiquette.
“He don’t like to listen to the things Kate likes to talk about,” Pubjug said before taking a long drink directly from the bottle he’d brought. “’Specially when she brings up the revival meetin’.”
“Unfortunately it’s true.” Kate watched Maguire walk off.
Meg spared a glance at Maguire as well. “Perhaps he has a guilty conscience.” Providing he had one, of course.
“Guilt? Perhaps a little. But it’s more than that. He’s like a spurned lover when it comes to God.” Kate smiled at Meg. “Only I wonder why Ian believes God did the spurning, when it must have been the other way around.”
Ian threw a stick and Roscoe shot after it, trotting back proudly but not letting go when Ian reached to reclaim it. He didn’t have the energy for a tug-of-war. In times like this he contemplated training the animal, but such notions were usually short lived. More than one encounter with a guard dog had left Ian with an understandable fear of trained dogs. He guessed turning Roscoe into a soldier—even for protection—wouldn’t be easy on either end.
Ian lifted one foot to rest it on an old tree stump by the water’s edge, staring at the river flowing by while petting the dog’s sizable head. Roscoe played his part well enough. He was a faithful, affectionate companion, and that was all Ian expected of him.
“Well, boy, it’s back to the city after tomorrow. If I can’t convince Keys to flip back to me, we’ll have to work on someone else to take his place.”
Police training took three months. Even if Ian found someone tomorrow to put on the job for his purposes, it would take too long. If he didn’t go through with this break-in quickly, Brewster could easily call himself John’s replacement and everyone but Ian would likely accept it.
But if Ian went through with this heist, and if it went as well as he expected, even Brewster would have to admit Ian didn’t need him. Working side by side with Brewster—each with their own men—was fine with Ian. It was submitting to him, running every idea by him the way Ian had done with John, that Ian hoped to avoid. There was only one John Davenport, and Brewster was no equal.
Ian walked along the river, picking up more sticks and throwing them rather than wrestling away the ones Roscoe retrieved. Other images invaded his mind—some he wished to throw away as easily as he did the sticks. But Meggie’s face was like a boomerang, returning between every thought of John’s death or the coming burglary.
The sun had sunk low on the horizon before Ian tracked back to the house. Tomorrow afternoon would be here soon enough, and before then he needed to come up with some way to persuade Keys back to his side. A bigger share might work; Keys’s greed was as famous as his caution, something Ian could understand. Money was s
ecurity, status, the blood of life. If Ian could buy Keys’s loyalty, it would be worth it.
By the time he reached the veranda, all trace of dinner had been cleared away. He let himself in through the ballroom door and paused by John’s side, knowing by tomorrow at this time his friend and mentor would be buried, forever beyond Ian’s sight. Roscoe plopped at his feet.
“Good-bye, my friend,” Ian whispered. “And thank you.”
At last he turned, following the spill of light he spotted coming from the parlor. His first thought was to hope Meggie might be there. And even as he reined in that hope, his footsteps hastened when Kate’s familiarly stern voice was met with laughter. Though Ian had never heard it before, he instantly recognized that laugh as belonging to Meggie.
“I’ll have no part in such a thing! It’s not a game,” he heard Kate say.
Another laugh from Meggie met Kate’s words. “Why not? Where else could I ever learn such a talent?”
Ian stopped at the threshold. “What kind of game?”
Kate stepped in front of him. “Ian, I’m glad you’ve returned! Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”
“Now I know something’s wrong. You’re never glad to see me, Kate, and I didn’t think you believed I possessed enough sense to spare for anyone else. What’s going on?”
“I’s showin’ her how to lift a purse, Pinch. Same as I showed you.”
Ian looked past Kate, past Pubjug, then on to Meggie with growing horror. In that moment he knew he had no hope, not a trace, that she was still ignorant of her father’s occupation. Desperate to deny it, he kept his voice calm and his hands at his sides. “That’s an old game, Pubjug. Something Meggie’s father wouldn’t approve of her learning.”
He looked at her again, seeing her gloat in all-knowing confidence. By contrast, in the corner of Ian’s vision, stood Kate. Looking as guilty as she no doubt was. Why had he left Meggie alone with them?