His Very Own Girl (32 page)

chapter one

Glasgow

March 1881

Polly Gowan had never heard the sound of a cannon shell ripping open, but the blast that rocked the rear of the textile mill must have been a small taste of combat. The south wall caved inward under the explosion. A blinding plume of smoke and debris slammed toward the looms below. Three giant machines disappeared in the wake of that chaos of powdered brick. Shocked, screaming workers stumbled and ran in all directions, as flames licked their heels.

Eyes wide, taking in every horrifying detail, Polly didn’t move. Her hands were still poised above the warp and weft of her own loom, the threads tangling from her lack of attention. She should move. Her thundering heart demanded flight. But she was consumed by one nauseating thought—one thought that meant the end of peace and safety for her people. And her family.

Tommy had gone through with his threat.

She held her aching stomach. The lightning-quick slam of that hideous realization gripped her hard, but not for long.

She kicked off the firing mechanism that powered the loom’s arms and pulleys. It was instinct; if the place didn’t burn to the ground, she might at least be able to salvage her work. Then she grabbed the hands of the nearest two little sweepers, Ellen and Kitty. They were sisters of only eight and ten, both as redheaded as Polly. At the next loom, Agnes Doward did the same with nearby apprentices. Together they gathered the children who worked the mill, most of whom had been scared into paralysis or equally useless screams.

“Come on now, lassies,” Polly shouted over the din. The harried calls of the other workers competed with the burn and crash. “Out we go. Out into the street. The fire brigade will be here in a wink.”

She doubted her own words. The fire brigade might eventually hurry to the scene, but only once they learned which building blazed. The chiefs knew how furious the mill masters would be if the factories were destroyed. The rest of Calton was simply not a priority.

“Polly,” Agnes called.

Looking back to where Agnes had nodded, Polly saw that a hole the size of a horse had opened in the south wall. Its near-circular shape was visible now that some of the dust had settled. Flames still crawled over the wool stores. Male workers did their best with water from an outside pump, working a chain of buckets and swatting the fires with overcoats.

What in the bloody hell had Tommy been thinking?

She tugged the girls’ hands a little too roughly. She’d sort out the culprit later, feeding him to the families of whoever came away from this sabotage with injuries. There were bound to be some. The explosion had been too large to leave everyone unscathed.

The crush toward the front and side exits was sizable and frenzied. Polly handed Ellen and Kitty to another worker, Constance Nells, and elbowed her way past a half-dozen people. She hoisted her skirts and climbed atop two crates, an advantage of height made her feel as brave as she needed to be. The panic wanting to break free would just have to wait. She needed to keep calm and set an example for the others.

If the factory burned . . .

Cupping her hands over her mouth, she shouted at the top of her lungs—which her ma had always said were the equal of a booming dockworker’s twice her size. That was not exactly flattering, but her strong voice was most useful today.

“Everyone, listen up!” For emphasis, she shouted it again in the Lowland Scots dialect they all shared. “Keep panicking if you want to burn alive. Whoever did this will win the day. They’ll be glad for it, knowing we reacted like animals. I, for one, would rather breathe clean air again. Now, you’ll bloody well calm down, keep care of the young ones, and behave like the Calton survivors you are!” She hooked a thumb back toward those who worked to quench the flames. “And men, if you have any meat between your legs, you’ll help save our livelihoods!”

For the span of a breath, there was no human sound. She had silenced them all. Nods and strong words of agreement followed. And, to her astonished pride, the seventy workers at Christie Textiles found their civilized minds. The men hurried back to help the efforts against the fire. The women hoisted children onto their shoulders and gripped their small fingers. Doors parted under the push of unseen hands, letting in a stream of misty spring sunshine. The smoke sucked out into the street, and Polly could taste the coming rain.

Two hands reached up to help her down from the crates. It was Les MacNider, a tall, skinny firebrand who talked as well as any professor—but only on the topic of workers’ rights and the oppression of their people. Otherwise he was just as likely as any man to grunt vague replies and talk sport, gambling, and women. He was a loyal friend.

Polly accepted his aid in descending. “It was Tommy,” she whispered.

Les shook his head. Although he was only in his late thirties, he was mostly bald. “I won’t believe it. Not of Tommy.”

“There’s no time. Go help the other men. I’ll make sense of whatever awaits us out in the street.”

Les nodded again and added a grunt of agreement. He worked his lanky frame back through the factory to take up a position in the line of buckets. In the distance, the clang of the fire brigade’s bells offered some relief, bringing with it a familiar flare of indignation. Polly wondered how quickly they responded to emergencies in Blythswood Hill. But she didn’t indulge in bitterness. That way lay melancholy and a dependence on strong drink.

Or, in Tommy’s case, a yearning for violence.

She rushed out after the last of the escaping workers. The streets were full of people, from both the Christie mill and across the street. Her fellow workers wore soot and ash like an actor’s face paint, while those from Winchester’s appeared curious and concerned. Every building on the street was vulnerable if the winds shifted.

Already the scent of hot water and wet ashes permeated the air. Maybe they had a chance. The fire brigade had taken position in the alley, back near the stables and where deliveries of wool were stored. Whoever had planned the attack knew the establishment’s weakest place, right where the equivalent of dry tinder waited to erupt with the smallest spark—let alone actual explosives.

Rough hands grabbed Polly from behind. She yelped. Reflex helped her fight, but the hands were strong, implacable.

“You think you’re unstoppable, don’t you, Polly?”

A shudder ripped across her upper back. She stopped fighting, if only to process her shock. Although his sneak attack had been a surprise, Rand Livingstone never failed to single her out as a scapegoat. Winchester’s overseer held a grudge against her as deep as the River Clyde. That she’d nearly made him a falsetto for the rest of his life had something to do with it.

The shock passed, and she fought. Tooth and claw had nothing on a Calton girl in the grips of unspeakable anger. He was a reptile. Positively inhuman. A factory could burn to the ground, and he would rather enforce baseless accusations or grab at her breasts.

“Let me go, you pile of vomit.” She grunted and twisted in vain. Something in her shoulder gave way with a little pop. She cried out at the sharp pain. “Bloody let go!”

Livingstone held fast, and with all the men indoors, Polly could not rely on the scared, stunned women, who huddled to keep the children safe—especially the older lads who wanted a closer look at the blaze.

“You were warned,” he growled, giving her arm another painful jerk. “You and your lot. You know any hint of violence would mean no mercy.”

“As if
any
member of the Gowan family has ever advocated violence! Now, let me go. You’re not a pig in a uniform—just an overseer! You just want to maul me like a doxy.”

Leaning close, he breathed against her temple. “You’re little better, you uppity bitch.”

Polly had used the moment of stillness to recover her breath and to lull the dullard into slacking his grip. She twisted away, turned, and landed a hard punch to the underside of his chin. His head snapped back with a sick grunt. Her satisfaction didn’t last long. Livingstone brought up his knee and slammed it into her stomach.

Polly dropped to the ground, gasping. “Evil son of a bitch,” she whispered.

By now other men had gathered, including two constables. They looked brutish and wan in the thin sunlight. Distantly she heard Connie shouting for help, calling men from inside the factory to come to Polly’s aid. She feared they wouldn’t be fast enough.

“Get the others we want,” Livingstone told his cohorts. “The usual: MacNider, Larnach, Nyman. Even that old woman. What’s her name?”

“Agnes Doward,” came a firm voice. Agnes stood just behind Livingstone. Polly, looking up from the pavement, wanted to wave her off. But her friend’s posture was resolute. She wore a shawl around her thin shoulders, and her disheveled hair flipped and twisted in the breeze. “That’s me.”

“At least one of you scum has good sense. Not eager for a beating, old woman?”

“Not exactly. Which is why I’ll refrain from saying anything more to you.”

Agnes’s age was completely indeterminate, a contradiction of smooth skin and gray hair. All Polly knew was that she had four grown children and had lost her only grandchild, a wee baby girl, to cholera during the previous autumn. Like many of the most active union members, she had little to lose.

Polly fought to her feet, supporting her stiff shoulder. She glared at Livingstone. “You won’t have this unjust right much longer,” she ground out, for him alone. “Look around. One day they’ll realize how powerful they are. Nothing you do will hold back that tide.”

He sneered. “They’re sheep, and you know it.”

His activities had attracted some attention, but as Polly glanced up and down the street, she silently admitted the truth. Most people didn’t want to get involved, especially against those two looming constables and their fierce truncheons. Fear created the inertia she had fought for years, and her father before her. Not that she blamed her fellow workers. There was pain to be found in fighting the way of things. Pain and danger.

But most days she just wanted to shake them all, to rile them to action, to prove what they could accomplish if they held together. Wasn’t fighting worth making sure a gutless rat like Rand Livingstone no longer had the unchecked power to bully?

His hard-faced accomplices dragged two men out from the mill. Les, with his angular, spindly body, was easy enough to spot, as was Hamish Nyman’s flaming red hair and full beard.

“Where’s the other one?” Livingstone asked. “That young nuisance, Larnach.”

“Nowhere to be found, sir.” The nameless enforcer shoved Les along. “Even a few punches got nothing out of nobody. He didn’t show up for work.”

Polly’s heart sank. Tommy Larnach had been one of her father’s most loyal and trusted young allies, practically as much a son as were Heath and Wallace. Tommy’s limp was a testament to that day when, a decade earlier, at the mere age of fifteen, he’d taken a terrible beating so her father would be spared an unjust punishment.

Yes, Polly had more than one reason to hate Rand Livingstone.

And Tommy had been Polly’s first and only lover. To think him capable of this destruction added an extra layer of agony to the place where Livingstone had kicked. Had Tommy been in the mill, he would’ve had at least something of an alibi.

One brute crossed his bulky forearms. “To the police station, boss?”

“Oh, no. We got special orders from Winchester. He wants the new mill master to know their faces. It’s Christie’s property. His charges to press. But he needs to meet them first.” Livingstone glanced at the men in uniform. “Either of you got a problem with that?”

Neither objected. Hatred curled in Polly’s gut. Once again, she and her kind were on their own. But she needed to stay calm despite the abuse of power—at least for now. Being the eldest child of Graham Gowan meant notoriety. His peaceful dedication to workers’ rights spanned three decades. Polly’s youth and gender would not protect her forever, especially if the masters discovered that she now served as her father’s right hand.

“Come on, then.” Livingstone prodded her in the lower back, always touching her more than was necessary. Little pinches and grabs reinforced what more humiliating damage he could do if the moment appeared.

Polly kept her eyes forward, her jaw fixed. “You remember that time I connected the toe of my boot with your bollocks?”

He growled and twisted her sore arm. The pain was worth it for his infuriated expression. “You pompous whore.”

She kept her voice pleasant. A real smile shaped her mouth. “Next time I won’t make that mistake. I’ll rip them clean off.”

“Shut up.”

He shoved her into the back of a police wagon. She was joined by five more suspects. Her tartan shawl offered little protection against the slinking late-winter cold. Once inside the wagon, seated on a hard, shallow bench, she huddled closer to Agnes. The older woman’s closed eyes silently proclaimed her boredom with this routine, even as ash still colored her hair.

“It gets a little tedious, being so popular,” said big, gruff Hamish.

“You just wish you got as much attention from one of the MacMaster sisters.”

“No, that’s the wish of a spindly know-it-all like you.” Hamish stroked his full beard. “I get my hands plenty full of the pretty lassies.”

Polly grinned. They could be unruly, thickheaded, bitter people, but they were her people. Even in the midst of this crisis, they found ways of holding the fear at bay. And they were loyal. Les, in particular, would lie down in front of a team of galloping draft horses if it meant protecting union secrets.

Holding her aching arm, she squinted through the bars of the wagon’s lone window, assessing the pewter sky. The temperature had dropped. Calton was hardly a pretty area on the most brilliant of days. In fact, the eventual sunshine of late spring and summer would only accentuate every crack in the tenement sandstone. But when licked by March’s drizzle and cold, the buildings stood as dark, hulking shadows amid the ghostly gray. No color.

Their only hope was what they made for themselves.