Jo Goodman (11 page)

"Are you crying?" Grey asked as he dropped down from the wagon.

She shook her head and avoided his hand when he reached her chin. The cat tried to escape as she hugged it protectively.

Grey withdrew his hand and studied her bent head. "You're squeezing the cat," he said. She loosened her grip, and the tabby jumped right at his chest. It wasn't at all what he wanted but the cat didn't seem to realize that. She curled in his arms as soon as they went around her. Stroking the cat's back, Grey turned away from Berkeley. "Sam, get someone else to tend the horses. In fact, this little fellow can do it while you run some errands for me."

Sam finished tying off the reins. "What about the mirrors, Mr. Janeway?"

"Mr. Kincaid will get some of the workers to unload them." He motioned to Donnel Kincaid as the foreman walked out of the building. "The mirrors, Donnel."

"Aye, so I heard. All the way at the back of the third floor, I was, and the news rumbled up like a Frisco shaker." He wiped his ruddy brow with his forearm and looked at the crates approvingly. "All of a piece, too."

"We think so," Grey said. "Sam and I only opened two of the crates at the wharf."

Berkeley, thinking she had been ignored long enough that an escape might be possible, began to slink over the side of the wagon.

Donnel thrust his large hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and indicated her with a forward thrust of his square-cut jaw. "Where'd you find the bairn?" he asked Grey.

At first Berkeley thought he was talking about the cat, then she realized he meant her and that he'd called her a baby. She lifted her face long enough for Grey to see her flash of irritation before she accepted his hand and jumped to the ground.

"Sam will show you what needs to be done with the horses," Grey told her. To Donnel he said, "I wouldn't call him a bairn again. He took on two of the Ducks this morning and came close to coming out ahead."

Donnel whistled softly. A crease appeared between his fiery brows as he watched Berkeley dog Sam's footsteps. There was something... He shook off the thought, turned back to Grey, and was momentarily startled by being on the receiving end of his employer's watchful, flinty gaze. Donnel looked over his shoulder, wondering if he had intercepted a look meant for someone behind him, but there was no one there. "I'll take care of the mirrors, Mr. Janeway," he said. "Is there anything else you'll be wantin'?"

"That's all, Donnel."

The foreman thought he saw a hint of amusement in Grey Janeway's face now. He wiped his brow again, this time with a rag he had in his back pocket. It was the heat, he told himself, that accounted for his imagination.

Grey walked to the post where the lead horse was tethered. Berkeley paid him no attention as she wiped down the mare's damp flanks. Sam was standing over her, watching her work with a critical eye. "Sam," Grey said, "I need you to find Ivory Edwards..." He paused, shaking his head, something like a smile edging his mouth as he remembered what Ivory had told him that morning. "She may be calling herself Ivory DuPree today. She's at Howard's place."

"The Palace," Sam offered. "I know who you mean."

"Good. Tell her that I need a couple of gowns from her. Her smallest ones. Something she's outgrown and couldn't bring herself to part with. And for God's sake, try not to insult her when you ask for them."

Sam's weathered face was deeply creased as he considered his problem. He scratched his brow with his fingertips. "Don't reckon I know how—"

"Well, think about it," Grey said. "Something will occur to you. Tell her I'll pay for them, whatever they cost to replace. That should soothe her a little. If it doesn't... duck."

"Duck," Sam repeated woefully.

"While you're there you may as well ask her where she buys her dresses, and if the seamstress has talent for making suitable gowns for a lady."

Sam frowned. "I don't think I should put it quite that way."

"Not unless you're very good at ducking," Grey said. The tabby stretched in his arms and turned over to have her belly rubbed. His mind otherwise occupied, Grey obliged without thinking. "Shoes. Bonnets. Stockings. Petticoats. Drawers. A nightshift." He stopped as Berkeley tugged on his sleeve. "What is it?"

She stepped between him and Sam and mouthed the words.

One of Grey's brows arched and he looked at her consideringly, his eyes falling to the level of her loosely bound breasts. "And a corset, Sam. Ask Ivory if she has a corset."

Satisfied, Berkeley ducked out of the way again to tend to the horses.

Sam had his hat off now, and he was scratching his bald spot at the back. "You sure I'm the man to send, Mr. Janeway? Seems there's one or two others"—-he looked pointedly at Berkeley's back—"around here that know something about a lady's undergarments. I'm no expert. Let the boy go. Miss Edwards wouldn't throw things at him."

"Miss DuPree. And Ivory wouldn't let him in."

"On account he's so young?" Sam asked.

"On account he smells like fish."

Sam had to give in to this superior reasoning. Sure enough, the boy did smell like fish.

Grey went on. "Before you go, find someone to strike the tent across the square and bring my things here."

"You moving in, Mr. Janeway?" Sam Hartford was clearly surprised. "Beggin' your pardon, but you said you were going to wait until the building was finished."

"And I've changed my mind," Grey said. As owner of the Phoenix, Grey felt it was a sufficient explanation.

"But the furniture's not arrived and there's no—"

Grey almost laughed. "I've lived in a tent these past ten weeks. I think I can manage the hardships of sleeping indoors."

"Yes, sir."

When Sam didn't move, Grey said, "That's all, Sam. You can go. Oh, here, take this." He reached inside his jacket, withdrew some scrip from a silver money clip, and handed it to Sam. "Give this to Ivory. She knows this is good as gold in hand. I'll pay up later. And Sam, send Ivory my regards."

Grey watched Sam Hartford step down from the wooden sidewalk and head out across Portsmouth Square. "Leave the horses," Grey told Berkeley. "One of the workers will finish with them after the mirrors are unloaded."

That was when Berkeley realized that he had only ordered her to tend the animals because it would keep her busy and within his sights. She snapped open the cloth she'd been using and laid it over the hitching post. "I'm not going in there with you," she said.

"Really?" Grey said. He was undisturbed by this announcement, but curious. "I thought your request for a corset was an indication you agreed."

"My request? You thought I was asking for that for myself?"

"Weren't you?"

"I was simply pointing out that your list of clothing was lacking an important item. A lady's wardrobe would be incomplete without one."

"But not
your
wardrobe?"

"I didn't know you were talking about
my
wardrobe."

Grey watched, fascinated, as Berkeley's features became more animated. The green eyes flashed, and her chin came up. Her eyebrows disappeared under the band of her hat, and her mouth puckered in a pretty show of exasperation as she blew away a stray tendril of hair. "Don't you think you need more suitable clothes?"

"More suitable how?" she demanded. "That's what I'm asking myself, Mr. Janeway. I'm comfortable in these, even if they do smell like fish." She sniffed the air. "And horse sweat."

Grey was peripherally aware of two things: Berkeley's rising voice and the odd stares she was eliciting from his workers. Bending his head slightly, and leveling her with his gunmetal glance, he spoke in tones that were both quiet and intense. "If you weren't going to come in, Miss Shaw, then why come at all?"

"I didn't know you meant for me to be your whore, Mr. Janeway."

Grey's head jerked back and he stood up straight. A muscle worked in his cheek. Berkeley Shaw might as well have been the town crier for all the restraint she showed. Grey estimated that fully a third of the traffic on the
other
side of Portsmouth Square stopped to stare. By this evening it would have circulated among his associates, acquaintances, and enemies that Grey Janeway was a sodomite. "You really leave me no choice," he said.

Before Berkeley knew what he was about he had thrust the cat in her hands and was palming the top of her head. Grey wasn't conferring a blessing, though. He yanked off her hat and let a cascade of her poorly pinned hair fall around her shoulders and down her back. It lifted like a banner in the breeze and collected all the brightness of the sunshine in its corn silk length.

Grey simply stood there, stunned. He had hoped to find proof that she was a woman under her battered felt hat, but this silky fall of pale gold and platinum far exceeded his expectations. Crumbling the hat in his fist, Grey wrapped his free hand under her billowing hair and around her neck and herded her off the sidewalk.

Berkeley looked up as she was thrust toward the large red doors that marked the Phoenix's entrance. "What's that?" she asked, halting in her tracks two stories under the scaffold.

Grey nudged her, but she wouldn't be moved, at least not without some injury to herself. He followed her eyes upward and saw that she was looking through a space in the planks. "That's Rhea. Neptune's mother."

"It looks as if it belongs on the bow of a ship."

"It did. It's a figurehead." He gave her a push, and she moved this time. "But it belongs to the Phoenix now."

Berkeley entered the vast hall of the gaming house, heard the doors close behind her, and wriggled out from under Grey's grasp. She let the cat go and watched it dart off in search of prey among the stacked crates, discarded lumber, and furniture draped in yards of muslin. Running almost the entire length of the hall was a beautifully carved mahogany bar. Berkeley realized it had been recently installed because it wasn't covered by the same film of sawdust that lay over the floor. The brass foot rail was polished to a shine that was apparent even in the dimly lighted hall.

The muslin sheets outlined the shape of the protected furniture. Berkeley recognized gaming tables by their recessed tops or their peculiar kidney-bean design which allowed a dealer to stand on one side and pass cards easily to players seated in an arc on the other side. There looked to be enough chairs to accommodate a hundred gamblers and enough space at the open tables to take a crowd of two hundred more. Standing side to sideways, fifty men could put one foot on the rail and one elbow on the bar and comfortably knock back drinks for hours without fear of collapsing in the crush.

Berkeley pointed to the unfinished wall behind the bar. "The mirrors go there?" she asked.

Grey nodded. "Most of them."

"But none of them are going above the beds."

"That's right." He returned Berkeley's hat to her as she considered this.

"You just let people think that."

He shrugged and pointed toward the wide staircase at the back of the hall. "It's good for business. Come on. I'll show you where you can get out of those clothes."

"If it's all the same to you, I'll wash myself in them." When he looked at her oddly she explained, "I've done it before. In the bay. It's not so bad."

Grey glanced at the steps. There were a lot of them. The staircase curved to lend an air of elegance and drama. It had been his idea. Now he regretted it. The thought of carrying Berkeley Shaw up all those steps was not appealing, not when she was bound to squirm and kick and holler and likely to knock them both back to Kingdom Come.

He was working out the problem when two laborers came in hauling a crated mirror between them. "See those men," he said in an aside to Berkeley. "They can lift three times that weight between them. You won't present much of a challenge, and we can always put you in a crate if you do. Now, the stairs are that way. Can you manage them on your own, or do I ask Mike and Shawn to help you?"

Mike Winston and Shawn Kelly were grinning at each other as they gently set down their load. They looked on eagerly, waiting for Grey Janeway's guest to make her decision.

Berkeley jammed her hat on her head and marched off.

"Thanks, fellas," Grey called to them as he followed her. "I appreciate the help." Out of their line of sight one corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile. Mike and Shawn had been eager to do a lot more. He caught up with Berkeley. "Can I anticipate more of these battles?"

"I expect so, Mr. Janeway."

He sighed. The tabby charged up the stairs beside him and wound her way between Berkeley's feet. Grey had to catch her to keep her from tumbling. He felt her stiffen. "Miss Shaw, do you really think I have an interest in making you my whore?"

Berkeley squeezed out of his light grasp. "Don't you?"

"No."

"Someone else's whore, then?"

"No."

Without looking back, Grey took a few more steps. He heard Berkeley's light tread behind him.

"This is a brothel, isn't it?" she asked.

"No, it's a gambling hall and hostelry, not a whorehouse. I'm a businessman, Miss Shaw. Not a pimp. And if that's what you thought, why did you come? I didn't force you into the wagon at the wharf. You and the cat jumped in."