“You can’t be here,” she whispered, sitting directly across from me with a worried expression knitted into her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “This thing you and Daniel are going through will pass, but until then, we can’t be caught up in the firestorm.”
“It won’t pass. He sent me to an inn in the darkest corner in Boston,” I rushed in desperation. “Please, I don’t want to ever put your reputation up to question, but I’ve been mistreated and all of my valuable possessions lifted from me.”
She frowned at my temple. “You poor thing. Is that what’s happened to your face?”
I lifted my fingers to my head, but only dried, crackled flakes of crimson came back. “I have nowhere to go.”
She shook her head slowly. “You married an evil man, Mrs. Delaney.”
“Don’t call me that. It’ll be Ms. McGregor again now.”
Her silk robe billowed behind her as she disappeared into the library, only to return moments later with a small wad of money in her hand. “Swear to me you won’t tell anyone of my help, least of all the Count. He’s forbidden me to become involved in the scandal.”
“I swear.”
The money crinkled into the palm of my hand and I pressed it firmly into my coin purse. Begging for money like some commoner put a sadness on my heart I couldn’t quite swallow. “Look how far I’ve fallen in one night.” Even I could hear the devastation in my voice.
Pity pooled in her hazel eyes. “I daresay it’s going to get much worse, Lorelei.”
“Where will I go? I can’t go back to Hell’s Tavern. I’ll be killed or worse there.”
She inhaled deeply and adopted a faraway look. “One of my servants stays at a small hostel not far from here. It’s mostly women and children and terribly simple, but the rent is cheap and men leave it alone for the most part. I’ll send her with you so she can show you the way. You must go before my husband returns from the ale house.”
Nothing in me wanted to get her in trouble. I knew the risk she’d already taken by giving me money and advising on shelter. I squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Countess.”
“I wish I could do more. Take your bag to the back entrance near the servant’s quarters and I’ll send for Analise. She’s the one who’ll make sure you get safely into a room.”
Analise was a small and frightened looking sort of girl. Her eyes were overly big and it gave the impression that she found everything with suspicion. “Evenin’ Ms,” she said with a small curtsey before she opened the back door for me to follow her out. “It’s a bit of a walk from here. Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“No choice for it, I’m afraid.” I had no choices at all in my life at the moment. What a horribly depressing situation I’d found myself in.
“You can’t go the whole way dragging that bag noisily down the street like that. Heft it up, will you?”
I grimaced and tried, but failed. I’d been toting it all night and my arms shook as if they were branches in the wind.
“Here let me,” she said. She boosted it up onto her tiny hip and hobbled toward a back alleyway at a fast clip. It was amazing how her tiny body could shoulder that kind of weight. “Hurry up, then,” she snapped.
I bustled after her. “Pardon me but I don’t appreciate you talking to me in such a manner.”
“I can talk to you however I please now. You’re just like me.”
Shocked, my legs locked into place and I skidded to an ungraceful stop. So the horrid truth of my scandal had already reached some of the help. I wasn’t just like her though. High breeding laced my veins with noble blood. I was a McGregor with family and lineage and money. Well, my family had money at least.
“Hurry up before all the rooms are taken,” Analise called over her shoulder.
Familiar streets passed into streets I’d never paid attention to from the cab of a fine carriage. Blistered and dismayed after what felt like hours of hobbling across the entirety of the city, exhaustion was my closest companion by the time I talked to the mistress at the hostel and secured a room. Room was a subjective term when referring to the closet I was renting. Analise grunted as she threw the bag onto the screeching, miniature bed.
“There’s a poultry house two doors down. You’ll be pluckin’ chickens all day, but by the end of the month you’ll have enough to rent your room.” She shrugged. “It’s better than doing nothing at all with yourself.”
“Thank you,” I breathed as she tried to shut the door. It was cut at an odd angle and creaked back open. Perfect.
I pressed my body weight against the wooden structure to no avail. It wouldn’t be shoved into its frame tonight. Half the room was taken up with the tiny bed, and the other with a small writing table and waiting lantern. A fractured mirror hung on a cracked plaster wall that had been painted an atrocious shade of pink at some time in the building’s history. Now, long strips of the stuff hung down like the walls were shedding their skins. At least it didn’t smell of dirty men and cigar smoke though, so there was the upside. A washbasin sat atop the table beside the lantern and semi clean water graced the crude stone dish.
I dared a glance in the spider web mirror. Blood had trickled down the side of my face and dried. It looked like some winding river eking out an escape through canyon country. Lovely. I must have looked a fool showing up to the Countess’s manor in such a state. My dark hair had come out of its pins and instead of looking perfectly coifed like it had earlier this evening, it looked like the nest of some wild animal. My amber eyes looked sunken, tired, and scared and I turned away from my reflection before shame could overwhelm me. Who was that weak woman who’d stared hollowly back at me?
I dressed for sleep behind the door where passersby in the hallway wouldn’t be able to see me. If my husband hadn’t been able to bear the sight of my body, I sure wasn’t sharing it with complete strangers. The walls were thin, and the sounds of crying children and harried mothers could be heard through the night, but somewhere in the darkest hours, I found sleep.
****
“Do you know how difficult it was for us to track you down, Mrs. Delaney?”
“Ahh!” I screamed at the man whose face was much too close to mine for comfort. I threw the covers over my night dressed body and sat up. “Who are you and what do you want?” My quaking voice didn’t sound quite as brave as it had last night.
“We are Mr. Delaney’s lawyers. I’m Michael Fitz and this here,” he said gesturing to a stout, balding man by the door, “Is Mr. Gerald Herbert.”
“Why are you in my room at such an early hour, sirs?”
“Why, Mrs. Delaney, it’s nearly nine.” He pulled a stack of papers out of a leather handled folder and tossed them upon my lap. “You were supposed to be at Hell’s Tavern where your husband had arranged,” he said in a tone that rivaled Father’s when he was disappointed.
“That place was dreadful,” I said as I lifted the top page. “No honorable man would send his wife to such a dangerous place.”
“An honorable man wouldn’t be charging you with divorce either, my dear. Honor has nothing to do with any of this, I’m afraid.”
“Then why are you representing him?”
“Because he’s paying us handsomely,” he said with an air that suggested the answer should’ve been obvious. Indeed honor did not play a part in my downfall. “You’ll need to sign all the places I’ve marked and then you’ll be done with this trying matter.”
“I won’t be done, sir. I’ll be ruined.”
His slack face didn’t seem too impressed with my claim to destitution. “As it stands, it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. You left his bed cold and without a way to provide an heir.”
“But that wasn’t my choice,” I argued. “I want to give him a child but he won’t come to my chambers.”
His thin lip pouted out. “Maybe so, but that’s not what it’ll look like to the masses. You’re the talk of the town this morning, dear—the butt of many a joke. Now sign this and be done with it. Mr
. Herbert and I have more appointments to make today and you’ve already put us far behind schedule.”
My glaring at Mr. Fitz wouldn’t save me from the scandal. It only drew out the time these horrible men cluttered up my room. I snatched the pen from his outstretched hand and signed the papers as fast as I could.
I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry. That horrible man I thought I’d loved didn’t deserve my tears. He didn’t deserve for me to mourn the decimation of a marriage that consumed every important corner of my life. Remorselessly, I prayed one of his many mistresses would give him the pox.
I tried to slam my door after those horrible lawyers left, but it only bounced back and almost struck me in the face.
Last night, I’d somehow managed to undo all of the pearl buttons that fastened the back of my prim gray dress, but putting it back together was a different matter. A soft knock on the door stopped my grunting and growling, and I faced it so my visitor wouldn’t see my half done up outfit.
Analise peeked her head in. “The Countess has sent me.”
“Oh. Well, come in and shut the door. I’m changing.”
She stood awkwardly in the tiny space of the room not taken up by me and the furniture and watched my undulations with an arched eyebrow. “You need to be wearing simpler dresses now, Ms. No one’s going to be helping you dress anymore.”
“Yes, well I wasn’t thinking about that when I was fleeing my house in the dead of night.” My arms were tired and I flung them to my sides.
Analise sighed heavily. “Let me, but just this once and just because I can’t stand to watch you flounder around when I have a message to deliver.” She started buttoning up the top half of my exposed back. “I have a dinner party to prepare tonight and you’re wasting both of our time. Best you get to a dressmaker and trade these fine garments in right away before you get robbed.”
Too late. Analise didn’t need to hear any more embarrassing tales of my woes though. Her head was likely plenty full already.
When the high neck was adjusted to hide all of the creamy skin beneath it, I asked, “What news do you bring?”
“I told the Countess something absent-mindedly this morning while I was dressing her and she seemed to think it relevant to your situation. She’s asked me to come right away and tell you what I told her.” She handed me a cream colored piece of folded paper.
“What’s this?” I asked, unfolding the fragile newsprint.
“You know old widow Flemming? Before she died, did you know of her?”
I nodded slowly. Everyone knew of that old bat. She was awful to converse with and if it hadn’t been for her profound wealth, no one in society would’ve ever given her another blink. If I was a betting woman, which I wasn’t, I’d bet that was one sparse funeral.
“Well she had a ward, her niece, do you remember her?”
“Yes I think I met her once. She had red hair and was very pretty. Funny too, if I’m thinking of the same girl. The widow Flemming kept her locked up in her mansion because she was a bastard child and shamed their family. Had the same name as her aunt too. Margaret Flemming.”
“That’s the one, except she don’t go by Margaret Flemming anymore. She goes by Maggie Shaw. She ran off to Texas and married a man she barely knew.”
“That’s awful,” I interrupted. “How did she know his worth if she didn’t know him before she married him?”
Analise gripped her hips and canted her head. “Did you know the worth of that rat Mr. Delaney before you married him?”
Touché, little hand maiden.
“Now Maggie, she blossomed after she left the city. She’s happily married, her man’s devoted to her, and she’s expecting her first child this June.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I’m friends with one of the servants who used to serve the Flemmings. Berta keeps me updated because it’s a terribly romantic story, if you ask me.”
“What does this story have to do with me, Analise?”
She jabbed a finger at the advertisement. “There’s your Texas, Mrs. Delaney.”
“McGregor,” I corrected. “And this isn’t from Texas. It’s from a man in Colorado Springs, Colorado.”
Analise rolled her giant eyes heavenward. “Just read the danged thing already.”
Honorable man seeks wife with good breeding and manners. Must be accomplished. Must like dogs. In return will provide shelter, provisions, and safety. Whores need not apply. Contact Jeremiah Dawson of Colorado Springs.
Whores need not apply? How very country. “So the Countess thinks I should answer an advertisement for a mail order wife and move to the wilderness to marry a man I’ve never met?”
“She does, and if you ask my opinion, I think you should too.”
“Well, I didn’t ask your opinion.”
“Suit yourself.” Analise opened the door. “I’ve done my duty, now good luck in your endeavors, Ms. McGregor.” A whoosh of tepid air blasted against my face as she slammed the door.
A mail order wife? Was that what the Countess really thought my life had come to? I’d only been scandalized last night. Surely everything would calm down and I’d move on with my life. I wasn’t getting pushed out of my city that easily.
Determined, I stomped down the street to the poultry house. The smell assaulted me long before I saw it, and a sign on the door had a picture of a chicken with x’s for eyes. Even if the smell wasn’t nausea inducing, I supposed the illiterate could guess what it was. My knuckles wrapped against the thin wood of the door but no one answered. Just as well, I wouldn’t be easily deterred. “Hello?” I called as I swung it open.
The building seemed to be one giant room with rows of women seated and plucking white feathers from deceased chickens. Up in a loft, a group of freely sweating ladies pulled a line of poultry from a giant, steaming pot. Rows of hooks held featherless birds hung upside down and crates of clucking chickens donned the back wall. The only light in the musty room was the rays of brave sun that burst through the waves of cheap paned glass, and tiny down feathers dusted the air like swirling snowflakes.
“You’re late for a job today,” a sneering man said through a discolored smile. Tresses of greasy hair hung down the sides of his face and the short man was filthy from head to toe. Even the whites of his eyes were more of a yellow color.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as he approached, dragging a bad leg behind. “Please, Sir. I’ll do any job you have. I need the money.”
Tilting his chin, bottomless gray eyes raked across the length of my body. The breath froze in my throat, like it simply refused to inhale the odor this man no doubt emanated. “Maybe I have something for a lady pretty as you. You’ll only get paid for half the day for being so late. Follow me.”
He led me to a row of plucking women and stopped in front of a portly lass whose nose was too big for her face but whose eyes were kind enough. “You, up to the steamer.”
She froze with a fingerful of feathers. “I’m sorry sir? Have I done something wrong?”
“Off with you, you little gobshite! I said I wanted you steaming those damned birds and I meant it. If you have questions, you can leave.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered and dropped her chicken into a bucket.
I watched her hustle up the stairs with wide eyes. “I didn’t mean to steal her spot.”
“You want the job or not?” he asked.
“Yes, but I—”
“Sit down!” he roared.
My hands flew to my ears like it could protect them from the man’s angry bellow. I sank into the woman’s seat and absorbed the looks of disdain from the ladies around me. Each downturned mouth smirked its own practiced flavor of bitter, and each wave of the women’s animosity hurt in a different way.
The foreman stomped away and I picked up the half-plucked chicken by the stiffened foot.
“Not like that,” the dark haired woman next to me said. “Like this.” She gestured a quick ripping motion
and feathers flew from the bird into the bucket in front of her.
Wiping an already moist forehead with the back of my sleeve, I leveled that poor bird with a look of rampant determination.
I, Lorelei McGregor, was going to prove I could make my own way in the world.
Chapter Three
Boston had defeated me in two days. It had to be some sort of record. My fingers were clawed and stiff and didn’t want to move after two almost full days of backbreaking chicken plucking. I stank of dead animal and I’d never get all of the white feathers out of my hair. The pidley amount I’d been paid for all those tedious hours of work had turned my stomach. At this rate, I’d be able to pay rent but only if I never ate again for the rest of my life.
For the tenth time I unfolded the advertisement kept safely in my pocket. Jeremiah Dawson did sound like a fine name. It rolled off the tongue in an attractive way. Even if he was some horrid looking man, or dwarf, or cripple, who was I to be picky? I’d married a beautiful man with a heart of black. Maybe the other way would work in my favor this time around. And more importantly, I would be far away from all of the horrid things people whispered as I walked by.
I’d made the decision today, as it became apparent the foreman was more interested in me than the other girls who sat around me. He’d whispered foul things into my ear as his rank breath brushed my face and lifted the dark tendrils of hair that had fallen in front of my eyes. The man gave me chills and not just because of his odor. It was because behind his emotionless gaze was something that terrified me. He was a man who’d do anything to get what he wanted. My rebuffs were only proving a delightful challenge for him—a piece of red meat added to the hunt.