Always (22 page)

“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 when 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.

But she hadn’t gone home. She’d come here to take a stand for what she believed in. She intended to take her article from her father’s desk and place it with the other editorial pieces to be printed. It was bold and maybe a tad underhanded, but he
had
cleared it for publication. What was the harm in nudging it along? Ironically enough, maybe her father would be proud of her.

After he had about a year to cool off.

Taking a lit desk lamp in hand, Emily crossed the room toward her father’s office.

*

Ross had to squint, then blink twice to assure himself that it wasn’t the liquor playing tricks with his eyes. From his position across the street, he had a clear view of the
Penn Gazette
building. Except for the frilly dress, the young woman who had just slipped inside the deserted shop looked like Emily.

What was she doing sneaking around at this hour?

Ross had no idea exactly how long he’d been sitting on the curb, sullenly nursing a pint of Scotch whiskey in the shadows. He’d started out headed for the south side of town, determined to get drunk and find a girl at one of the roadside taverns with whom to spend his last night in town. Instead, he took a roundabout route and ended up here to brood. He couldn’t wait to get this lousy town far behind him, but there was still one regret on his conscience.

He hated that Emily was still angry with him for leaving the
Gazette
to go work for the
Herald
. He didn’t necessarily regret that decision; it had been logical at the time. Even Nathaniel seemed to understand that Ross couldn’t afford to stay with the
Gazette
when his chances of advancement were so slim. If he were to ever make a successful career of newspapering, he would need the experience of working for a larger paper. The fact that Ross had every intention of marrying the publisher’s daughter didn’t even enter into it. No, that wasn’t part of the logic, but it had been part of Ross’s long-standing dream. Now, though, that dream was crushed, ground into the dirt by Malcolm Davenport himself.

“We can’t see each other anymore.”
Johanna had appeared sincerely distressed as she’d made this tearful declaration two nights ago. “It’s my father. Now that I’m done with school, he says it’s time to choose a suitable husband.”

That neat and tidy word, “suitable,” had sliced into Ross’s pride with the cold, impersonal efficiency of a surgeon’s scalpel. “What’s wrong with me?” he demanded. “I’m as suitable as anybody. Damn more suitable than John Butler.”

“Oh, Ross, Papa likes you, he really does. He says you’re smart and that you’re a hard worker and that you’ll do well, but you’re not...”

Johanna hadn’t finished the sentence. What was the point? Ross didn’t have any family clout or money behind him, and he was Irish besides. How unsuitable could a fella get?

A muted glow of lamplight spilled through the closed window blinds of the print shop, then abruptly dimmed, as if moving toward the back of the shop. What the hell was Emily doing?

Ross took one last scorching swig from his bottle, then corked it and rose to unsteady feet. Perhaps it was fate that had brought him here tonight, fate that had brought Emily to cross his path. Perhaps this was his last chance to make things right between them. Slipping the pint bottle into his coat pocket, he started across the street.

*

“Oh! My lights and stars!”

Spinning around, Emily nearly knocked the lamp from her father’s desk. There, leaning in the open doorway to her father’s office was the last person on earth she expected to be confronted with this night. “Ross!”

“Working late?” he inquired calmly, too calmly. There was something different about him, something about his oddly subdued tone, something about the brooding, unfamiliar cast in his eyes that was wrong. Or maybe her powers of observation were skewed by the low light as well as the effects of near heart failure.

“You scared the living daylights out of me. What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that question. It has to be at least ten o’clock.”