Surrender the Dawn (5 page)

“I was detained, Mother. It could not be helped.”

Her thoughts shifted to Mr. Heaton, and the odd warmth washed through her again. Plucking out her fan, she waved it over Hannah’s face. “Detained by what, dear?” Her mother came alert. “Did something happen? You do look flushed.”

Cassandra reached over and touched her mother’s hand. “No. I am quite all right, Mother.”

“Well, I haven’t been quite all right.” Her mother dabbed the stiff, perfectly shaped curls framing her face. Her voice emerged as sour as her expression. “While you were out traipsing around town, doing—oh my heavens, I cannot imagine what any proper lady could be doing out at this hour—your sisters have been very naughty.”

Cassandra’s gaze flashed to Darlene, who slouched into the cushions. Hannah stuck her thumb back into her mouth.

Her mother continued, “Darlene caught a frog. A frog! And she put it in Miss Thain’s soup. Of all the things to put into soup! Can you imagine?”

Setting her fan down on the table, Cassandra bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her wayward sisters needed no further encouragement in their mischievous pranks. What they needed was a firm hand, which had disappeared from this house when their father ran off to fight the British in Canada two years ago.

“Needless to say, upon finding the frog, Miss Thain ran screaming from the kitchen and knocked over the meat pies she had prepared for supper. Which that filthy mutt proceeded to eat.” Her mother grabbed her ever-ready handkerchief from the table and fluttered it about her face. “Most horrible. Most horrible. All we had to eat were scraps of cold chicken left over from yesterday’s meal.”

“And some fresh biscuits, Mama,” Hannah piped in.

“Yes, dear, but hardly enough for a proper supper.”

Darlene lowered her chin. “I’m sorry, Mama.” Her loose hair fell in a tangle around her face. “I thought the frog was hungry.”

The slight edge of humor in her voice—barely perceptible to most—told Cassandra that her sister was not sorry at all.

Her mother tightened her lips. “Hungry indeed.” Her voice sounded
so much like the creatures in question that Cassandra once again had to force down a laugh.

“Oh, where is my tea? My poor head.” Lifting jeweled fingers to rub her temple, her mother studied Cassandra. “She takes after you, my dear.”

Cassandra kissed the top of Hannah’s head and tried to shove aside the rebuke. Mainly because it was true. She had always been the difficult child—the rebellious one. Always questioning, investigating, wanting to figure things out on her own, do things on her own. Now, as she looked at Darlene, she saw the same free spirit.

“Perhaps if you punished her more often, Mother?”

“Punish? She doesn’t listen to me. She never has. She only listened to her father and he is …”

Mrs. Northrop entered with a tray of tea.

“Oh, thank goodness, my tea.”

The housekeeper set the tray down on the walnut table that stretched between the sofas and chairs. Brown strands sprang from beneath the servant’s white mobcap, which seemed barely able to restrain her thick hair. With her small head, pointed nose, long neck, and round figure, the woman reminded Cassandra of an ostrich she’d once seen in a painting. After she poured tea for Cassandra and her mother, she swung the pot toward the girls’ cups.

“No.” Cassandra’s mother touched the housekeeper’s arm, staying her. “Please put the girls to bed, Mrs. Northrop.”

“Aye, mum.” The woman’s smile slipped slightly, but she quickly brought it back into position. Turning, she gestured for the girls to follow her.

After a bout of complaints, Darlene trudged from the room while Hannah scrambled from Cassandra’s lap to follow her.

“I’ll be up later to kiss you good night,” Cassandra said. “Oh, Mrs. Northrop, have the girls clean up the mess they made in the library, if you please.”

The housekeeper nodded in reply.

After the girls left, Cassandra leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea.

Her mother pressed down the folds of her silk gown then shot worried blues eyes her way. “Please tell me, Cassandra, that you did not throw away the rest of our money on a privateer?”

“No, I did not, Mother.”

“Thank goodness.”

“They wouldn’t accept a woman investor.” Cassandra chafed at the memory.

Her mother dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief. “At least there’s some sense left in the world.”

Setting down her cup, Cassandra rose and held out her hands to the flames crackling in the fireplace. “Sense? This kind of sense, Mother, will put us in the poorhouse.”

“Oh, please do not speak of such gloomy things, dear.”

Cassandra spun around. She wanted to be angry at her mother for her nonchalant attitude toward their financial woes, but the look of pain on her aged face stopped her. “I must speak of them, Mother. For I have to find a way to make a living for us.”

“No doubt this war will end soon, and your brothers will return.” Her mother’s forlorn gaze drifted to the window as if searching for her missing offspring.

Outside, darkness gripped the city, much like England gripped America. Cassandra released a heavy sigh. “As much as I’d love for our country to defeat Britain and send those pompous redcoats home in shame, we cannot count on that happening anytime soon.”

“But your brothers said they’d return in a year.”

“And it’s been a year, Mother. We have no idea where they are.” An ache formed in Cassandra’s heart. Or
if
they are. Yet she wouldn’t voice her deepest fears to her mother, knowing how the possibility tormented her.

“Then you must get married, Cassandra. It is our only hope. It’s the only way to ensure our survival.” The quiver in her mother’s voice brought Cassandra around to face her.

“I don’t want to get married.”

“What about Mr. Crane?” Her mother’s cultured brows rose in excitement as if she hadn’t heard Cassandra. “He’s made his interest known for many months. It’s fine time you gave him a little encouragement.”

Cassandra shuddered at the thought of the overbearing man.

“And he owns that successful newspaper, the
Baltimore Register.
Why, I imagine he makes over five hundred dollars a year.”

“So, I’m to throw my life and my happiness out the door for five hundred dollars a year?”

Tears glistened in her mother’s eyes, and she fell back into her chair. “Oh, why did Phillip leave us? And then my boys. Oh, what will befall us?”

Cassandra eased beside her mother on the settee. “Never fear, Mother. We must plan for the worst and expect the best.”

“How much money do we have left?”

“One thousand.”

“Is that all?” Sitting up straight, her mother waved her handkerchief over her face. “What of the money your brothers got from the sale of our merchant ship?”

“We squandered it this past year, Mother.”
You squandered it.
“We can no longer afford luxuries: oriental rugs, the latest hats and gowns from Paris, expensive perfumes. We cannot attend theater each week. We are no longer successful merchants.”

A look of confusion, or perhaps shock, claimed her mother’s features, though Cassandra had told her mother this same thing a dozen times.

“I fear if I do not find a way to invest our money,” Cassandra continued, “it will be gone in just a few years.”

“Oh dear, my head.” Her mother fell back onto the couch. “You know I cannot bear such burdens.”

Cassandra clasped her mother’s trembling hands. “Don’t overset yourself, Mother. I’ll find a way.”

“How? We are only women.”

“I’ve a mind equal to any man’s.”

She flashed Cassandra an incredulous look. “Surely you see that you must get married soon. In fact, I insist on it, Cassandra. Do you want to send us all to the poorhouse?”

Tearing her gaze from the lack of confidence in her mother’s eyes, Cassandra turned instead to the portrait of her great-grandfather, Edward Milford Channing, hanging above the fireplace. The man had come to Baltimore in 1747 with barely a coin in his pocket. With nothing but his wit, persistence, and hard work, he’d started his own merchant business, which he had passed on to Cassandra’s father. The Channings were survivors. They were strong, independent, and hardworking. And Cassandra was as much a Channing as the men in the family. She rose from her chair and lifted her chin. “It will not come to that, Mother. Mark my words, whatever it takes, I will find a way for this family to survive.”

  CHAPTER 4  

C
rossing the rickety bridge that spanned Jones Falls River, Luke continued down Pratt Street. An odd lightness feathered his steps. Why, he could not fathom. It certainly couldn’t be Miss Channing. She’d done nothing but turn her pert little nose up at him. And after he’d saved her life! Luke smiled. What a treasure. What a spitfire! If he’d known it was Miss Channing he was rescuing he would have dispatched the villains sooner—if only to have more time alone with her.

A sea breeze frosted around him as he turned down High Street. Tightening his grip on his overcoat, he hunched against the cold as laughter blared from a cluster of men under the porch overhang of Spears Tavern. Through the windows, an undulating sea of patrons made the small building seem like a living, ghoulish specter. Fiddle music accompanied by strident singing floated with the lantern light onto the street.

“Is that you, Heaton? Come join us!” a man Luke recognized as Ackers, a local merchantman, shouted from the porch.

Jake, a chandler, who stood beside him, lifted his mug toward Luke. “There’s a game of Gleek awaiting you, my friend.”

“Not tonight, gentlemen,” Luke shouted in passing. No. Tonight he had a desire to get home early.

Though he didn’t quite know why.

The few coins in his pocket jingled their plea for a chance to reproduce upon the gambling table. But somehow he felt it would taint the lingering memory of his brief time with Miss Channing. Ever since Noah’s fateful engagement party two years ago, Luke’s eye had oft found its way to the charming red-haired lady. But his gaze was all he would risk offering her. She was far too much a lady to be seen with the likes of him. Too much of a lady to entertain his advances. Luke knew his place. The only women who tolerated his company were tavern wenches, and they only did so for the coin he tossed their way. Up until tonight, Miss Channing had not spoken two words to him. But what a voice she possessed. Like an angel’s.

An angel’s voice wrapped around a fiery dart!

Lud, such bravery! Where other women would have swooned, she fought against her attackers like a tigress. And when she could have run, she’d chosen to stay and help him. He’d never seen such valor in a woman.

But why had she risked being accosted by strolling about town unescorted? Didn’t she have brothers? Two older ones, if he recalled. Another reason why Luke had stayed away.

Besides the fact that she would outright reject any attention on his part.

Which she had definitely done tonight. Then why did his heart feel as full as a sail in high wind instead of as heavy as an anchor? It made no sense at all. But what did it matter? If the lady possessed an astute mind—which it appeared she did—she would no doubt avoid him henceforth and with even more determination.

By the time Luke reached home, his feet dragged as much as his quickly sinking spirits. He still had no money, a rotten bucket of a ship, and his brief time with Miss Cassandra Channing had come to an end.

No sooner had he shut the front door of his small house, however, than a
thump thump thump
sounded, and John hobbled into the room. “You’re home early!” The boy, who reached just above Luke’s waist, gazed up at him with so much affection, all Luke’s problems retreated out the door behind him—at least for the moment.

Luke tousled the lad’s hair and returned his embrace as the smells of broiled fish and fresh biscuits enticed his nose. “Nothing can keep me from my favorite brother.”

Mrs. Barnes entered the foyer, wiping her hands on her apron. “Apparently many things can. This is the first night this week you’ve
made it home for supper.”

John released Luke, a flippant grin on his lips. “And I’m your
only
brother.”