by Maureen Lang
Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies
For two days, Meg went nowhere and saw no one. Ian checked in only as warden over Kate, Meg’s prison guard. She knew something else demanded his attention, perhaps whatever job she’d heard he was planning. She wished someone would tell her about it but didn’t dare ask for fear their refusal to answer would be yet another example of how little they’d welcomed her into their midst.
On the morning of the third day, Meg left her room to find Kate not only up but dressed as well, including a small hat and a short cape. She was dressed entirely in black but for the startlingly red gloves she was just pulling on.
Meg hurried closer, ready to turn in an instant to retrieve her own outerwear. “Are we going somewhere?”
“You’ll be staying here, my dear,” Kate said as she tugged at the second glove. “I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour. Feel free to continue reading the book I began last evening.”
Meg sighed. “I’d really rather come with you than stay behind, Kate. Here I am living in the city, and the only thing I’ve seen is this flat.”
“But we’re in mourning, darling. It isn’t as if we should be going all about town.”
Meg was well aware of the rules of mourning, from the assigned time period for her as the daughter of the deceased to which clothing she ought to wear for each segment of time, including jewelry or lack thereof.
It was Kate who seemed to need a reminder of the rules: even now, the gloves were all wrong, and another red handkerchief stuck out of her sleeve. Everyone knew burgundy didn’t come until much later in the process—but these items on Kate weren’t even that sedate shade. They were stark, vibrant red. The handkerchief was probably not even made of cambric, though Meg couldn’t be sure without a closer look.
“Your rebellious nature is showing, Kate,” Meg said, gesturing toward the gloves.
“It’s all right to break some of the rules, darling Meg,” she said softly. “Besides, I have my reasons. I wear red to remind me of what my Savior did for my forgiveness. The rules you seem intent on breaking, however, shouldn’t be broken.”
Finished with her gloves, Kate left her apartment without further consideration of taking Meg along.
Upon entering the white hotel’s basement café, Ian removed his hat and scanned the tables. Dressed in his black suit, complete with an armband to indicate his mourning, Ian was neither under- nor overdressed for the Lower Fifth Avenue address. Keys had chosen the spot well.
He found Keys at a corner table. The long-faced, thin man was easy to spot even in plain clothing. He’d already been served coffee. As Ian took a seat opposite, he accepted a cup of his own from an eager waiter but leaned forward without taking a sip.
“Well? Have you had a change of heart?”
Keys had a perpetually crooked mouth that gave the impression he was either smirking or smiling. Only the look in his eyes offered a hint at defining which was which. But at this moment he appeared, at least, not to be smirking.
“Not even a how-do-you-do?”
Ian was without patience, even though he needed Keys. “Consider it said. You can’t really prefer working with Brewster instead of with me. I’ve never wanted us to be a gang, one with rules all its own—of Brewster’s making.”
“I see you’re wearing Skipjack’s pocket watch. What time is it, anyway?”
Ian sat back, exasperated. Without touching the timepiece, he said, “A little after ten o’clock.”
Keys rubbed his chin, then caught Ian’s glance. “You know, none of us would’ve chosen Brewster over John. But you’re just a mite young to be calling orders.”
“That’s just it! I won’t. I intend doing things the way John always did. You mind your business; I’ll mind my own. I only want you to work with me on this one job, Keys. After that you’re free to do whatever you like. You think Brewster won’t be expecting more from you than just one job? He wouldn’t have to know until it’s finished.”
At Ian’s last words Keys’s face took on a definite smirk, not a smile at all. Once the job was done, everybody in New York—at least on their side of the law—would know who did it.
Keys shrugged, taking a long sip of his coffee. “So you’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on John’s daughter, I hear. Even tolerating Kate for it.”
Ian tasted his own coffee without answering.
“Meggie seems eager to join our little gang. Why not let her?”
Ian stared at the other man. “Didn’t you know John at all? It’s the last thing he wanted.”
“Yeah, well, John’s gone, isn’t he? And she appears old enough to make decisions for herself. Old enough,” he added, his expression changing to a smile, “for a lot of things.”
Keys’s attention to the ladies was notorious. Unlike Ian, Keys didn’t seem to care how many vices he let get the best of him. If the man weren’t such a reliable, standard fixture on the police force—reliable for the wrong side of the law—Ian doubted they would be friends at all.
“Listen, Keys, I’m glad you contacted me. I have a revised proposition about the job coming up.” He lowered his voice further, passing his hand over the edge of his mouth as he continued to speak. “You come in with me on this deal and we’ll switch shares. I’ll take yours; you take mine.”
Keys leaned back, studying Ian for what felt far too long a moment. Then he bent forward again, resting his forearms on the table between them. “What time is it now?”
Distracted, slightly annoyed, Ian took out the pocket watch, vaguely wondering if Keys had his eye on that as well. Something Ian wouldn’t be willing to part with.
“Ten twenty.”
“Then I’d say you better not lose any time getting over to Kate’s.”
“Why?”
“Because Kate’s not there, leaving little Miss Meg all alone. Brewster was going to walk in a few minutes after Kate left.”
Ian stood so quickly that the table between them rattled their cups. “We’ll settle details later, Keys, but thanks.”
Then he ran to the nearest trolley, realizing only after he’d jumped aboard that he’d failed to shake hands with Keys to seal the deal.
Never mind. The information Keys had imparted was seal enough.
Meg poured the tea Ada had just delivered to the parlor, feeling very much in control even though this was the first time in her life she’d hosted anyone other than classmates or school staff. Here she was, almost entirely independent, entertaining a man all by herself with only Ada somewhere nearby, just in case she was needed to take the dishes away.
“You’ll allow me to be frank, Mr. Brewster?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“You’ve come here stating your concern over my welfare because of your affection for my father. Yet when I saw you in the company of both Kate and Ian, who also profess great affection for my father, it was as if there were some barely hidden animosity between the three of you. Can you tell me why?”
He reached into a pocket of his vest and withdrew, then replaced a fat cigar as if changing his mind about smoking. “I can tell you my version of it, if you like. But my guess is Kate and Ian would each have their own—equally mismatched.”
“Let’s start with you, then.”
“It’s Kate. When she demanded so much of your father’s attention, we naturally began to resent her. For a time it wasn’t so bad—not bad at all, in fact. We largely ignored her influence on John because her ideas rarely included the rest of us. We missed his company for the time she demanded, but who can blame a man for wanting to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman who loved him? The Jack Frost started when she reformed. There’s nothing worse than a reformer in the family, Miss Meg. It would be fine if people kept newfound beliefs to themselves, but they so rarely do. Abandoning her talent for our games was one thing. But trying to reform the rest of us was the final, cutting stroke.”
“If it were only what you just described, I would think you a
nd Ian would be allies of a sort. Why aren’t you?”
Brewster set his teacup on the low table between them, a look on his face hinting relief to have put aside any pretense of wanting to drink from it. “Now let me be perfectly frank. Ian wants to take your father’s place in our little family, but he’s just a whelp. Your father wasn’t even in the grave before Ian told the rest of us what he wanted to do. That’s why I came to you.”
Meg’s heartbeat picked up a notch. Neither Kate nor Ian would take her seriously, but obviously Brewster did.
“For all practical purposes,” Brewster continued, “Kate is out of the picture now. She wants nothing to do with our ways anymore, and I say good riddance to her—so long as she keeps her mouth shut about anything she knows, I’ll leave her be. From what you said the other day, I have a feeling you’d like some connection to your father, a sort of posthumous relationship now that you know the truth about him. Well, Kate can’t be that connection. I can be.”
“What about Ian?”
His face screwed up with annoyance. “What about him? How sincere was his grief over your father if he was making plans to sway men to his side even as your dear departed was lying neglected in the other room? Ian Maguire is for himself and himself only. If you want to know anything about your father and how he lived, I’m the one who not only has the knowledge but is willing to share it. To Ian, I’m afraid you’re nothing more than an inconvenience, someone in the way of his next job.”
He reached into his vest again, but instead of withdrawing a cigar, he took out a small card Meg had seen before.
“This is the card from the gentleman I told you about, from the hotel over on Eleventh Street. The St. Denis, do you remember? If you truly want to be your father’s daughter, you’ll leave Kate to herself and Ian to his own selfish interests and strike out on your own. Here is the means for you to do so.”
She eyed the card. “I am my father’s daughter already, Mr. Brewster. Exactly what that means, I’m not yet sure. But I would be no more independent should I turn to you instead of to either Ian or Kate.”
“You would be if you were my partner, just as your father was. You promise to do your share, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t accept a small token of help from me in advance, with the expectation that your help in the future will more than earn whatever pittance you cost me now.”
She ignored Ian’s words ringing in her head, warnings that this man didn’t care if he avoided violence or not. Brewster looked to be on the gentle side, by all Meg could see. And with his obvious affection for her father, surely he was no danger to Meg.
“I assume you’d like me to give you whatever information I could about the Pemberton gold?”
He sighed and puffed as if he’d drawn in smoke from one of his cigars. “That’s appealing to be sure, and of course I’d be open to whatever information you could share. What I think would be of more immediate help would be establishing an understanding between the two of us.”
“What kind of understanding?”
He laughed with such delight that she realized he loved his work, if she could call it that. “Simply for us to trust one another. You have a trusted position among the rich, my dear. I might devise any number of ways to gain a fortune from your invitation and introduction to those you know.”
“Aren’t you forgetting that I’m in mourning? If I’m welcomed by the Pembertons, I could hope to be enfolded into the family to some extent and listen for clues about the whereabouts of their gold, but any parties they attend, or even host, would not be something I’d be allowed to enjoy.”
He eyed her closely, a small smile on his slightly rounded face. “Mourning is largely self-imposed, and as you’ve stated yourself, you hardly knew your father. Who would be the wiser if you decided not to follow some rather useless customs anyway?” He winked, then raised a chubby palm as if to erase what was obviously a scandalous suggestion. “In any case, surely a visit from someone like an uncle to you wouldn’t be out of the question? You provide the invitation, my dear, and I’ll do the rest.”
She might have asked what that would entail exactly, but the door to the apartment burst open so suddenly that blood shot through her veins to propel her to her feet, ready to flee.
There stood Ian. Out of breath, a look of such distress on his face Meg was certain he’d been chased by the law.
“Ian! What is it? What’s the matter?” She looked beyond him, fully expecting a helmeted, club-wielding, blue-uniformed officer in his wake.
He closed the door, then let his gaze settle on Brewster. “This is the matter. What did he ask you to do, Meggie?”
Somehow the name wasn’t bothering her as much as it once did, knowing it only slipped out when he was distracted by something else.
“Why, nothing . . . specifically. We were only discussing possibilities. Whatever is the matter with that?”
Ian took Brewster’s hat from the table where it had been left, handing it to him. Brewster stood with far less suddenness than Meg had done, in no apparent hurry to accept his hat.
“This is no concern of yours, Maguire,” he said. “Meg is free to direct her own life, in any way she chooses.”
“Not if she wants to respect her father’s wishes. Get out, Brewster.”
“Ian! How could you be so rude? This isn’t even your home.”
Just then the door broke open again, causing Ian to buck out of the way. There stood Kate, a look of similar alarm on her face. Meg would have thought it funny if she weren’t so irritated with their obvious displays of overprotection. The last thing she needed was a pair of eager guardians to replace the school staff who had hounded her for the last fifteen years.
Brewster accepted his hat before Kate said a word. But not before sending Meg another wink and a glance at the card he’d left on the table between them.
Meg offered an embarrassed smile. “Thank you for your visit, Mr. Brewster. And my apologies for how it has ended.”
He bowed and tipped his hat. “No apology from you is necessary. If you want his confidence, lass, you might offer to help him with the bank job he’s planning. Good day to you all.”
The moment he left and closed the door behind him, Meg turned to Ian, wide-eyed. “Is it true? About the job you’re doing? It’s a bank? Can I help?”
He looked at her as if she’d taken leave of every shred of sense she’d been born with. “Forget everything he said to you, Meg. I mean everything.”
She glared at the two standing before her. “I don’t care what you think of Mr. Brewster. He was right about one thing: I’m free to direct my own life.”
They both made such instantaneously loud protests that she couldn’t understand either one of them. Ian put a hand to Kate’s elbow, and for the moment her objections quieted, letting Ian continue with his.
“Alwinus Brewster is anything except generous. If he offered you something, you can be assured it’s because he expected something in return.”
“He admitted that much. All he wants is access to the kind of people I’ve known all my life. Something I’ve been offering all along.”
“Yes, and he’ll swindle them or cheat them or use them without a single thought for where it leaves you in the end. Think, Meg! Do you really want all of New York society shunning you for the blight you could bring them? Or to go to jail as an accessory?”
“Why should anyone go to jail? You’ve lived your way of life for quite some time, and Mr. Brewster that much longer. I’d say he’s been at least as successful at evading the law as you’ve been. As my father was.”
“That’s only because New York is as corrupt as it is rich.”
Kate, who’d taken off her gloves, looked between the two of them. “Brewster may be able to keep you from jail if it suits his purpose, but it wouldn’t protect you from loss of any place in decent society.” She set aside her hat. “I’m going to the kitchen to see about lunch. Ian, I will give you exactly fifteen minutes to talk to Meg, and after that
I’ll take my turn at it. Maybe together we can make some progress.”
“I’m honored to be a project worthy of your time,” Meg called after Kate.
Meg was glad Kate had left her alone with Ian. As much as she’d once been jealous over the time he’d spent with her father, she now saw Ian Maguire altogether differently. As exciting as it would be to work with Brewster, she had to admit she would much prefer cooperating with Ian.
And she’d decided just how she would convince him.
Smiling, she took her seat again on the sofa. “Mr. Brewster didn’t even take a sip of the tea, Ian, so if you’d like his cup . . .”
He plopped on the seat opposite her, shaking his head. “No. What I want is for you to agree that it’s a crazy idea for you to even consider working with that guy.”
“All right. I won’t work with him.”
The look on Ian’s face froze, until a grin started to form on his handsome mouth. He sat up straighter, leaning slightly forward. Then one skeptically dipped brow ruined the look. “Just like that?”
Meg sipped her own tea but, finding it cool, set it aside. She smiled again at Ian, having been around enough flirtatious girls to know the kind of smile that was most effective. “Not if I can work with you. As little as I knew about my father, I do know you were closer to him than Mr. Brewster could have been. I think my father would have been pleased if we worked together.”
“Oh no, he wouldn’t have. Not at all.”
“Well, he no longer has a say. In fact, even if he were alive, he wouldn’t have a say. He would know he never earned the right to think I’d listen to any of his advice. So. What do you say? Whatever plans Brewster might have had for the prime pickings of New York society can be had by you instead of him. Surely you’re as clever as he?”
He rubbed his palms on his knees, then stood, turning his back on her. Meg stood as well, surprised at how easy it was to play this game. She rounded the table, breaking every rule of etiquette by coming up behind Ian, standing far closer than she’d ever stood to a man, and putting a gentle hand on the back of his shoulder.