City of Glory (22 page)

“Agnes tells me you brought my winnings.”

“Right here.” He offered the moneybag. Delight took it.

Eugenie would have colored prettily and looked away, letting him see that his nearness disturbed her. Delight stared straight at him. “If what I’m told concerning the day’s events is accurate, Mr. Blakeman, you’ll hardly miss these few coins. I believe your sale was very successful.”

“It was, I’m pleased to say.”

“And I’m pleased to hear it. Particularly since I believe you have incurred a further debt.”

“And what might that be?”

“I returned home less than an hour ago and discovered that I’ve lost my chucker-out. I understand Vinegar Clifford has removed himself and his bullwhip to your employ for double the wage I paid him. Forty dollars a month, Mr. Blakeman. You might be thought to have the crown jewels hidden away in your countinghouse.”

Blakeman had turned back to the Malmsey and was pouring himself a second tot. He missed the wide mouth of the glass and a few ruby drops spilled on the table’s painted surface. “Nothing so dramatic,” he said, glad to hear that his voice didn’t show how she’d startled him. “The times are restive. I found myself in need of Mr. Clifford’s skills. However, I apologize for pinching him from under your nose. Is there some way I can make it up to you?”

“I’ll set my mind to thinking of one, Mr. Blakeman. I can usually—” A ripple of laughter from somewhere downstairs interrupted her. “My ladies,” Delight said. “I sent Agnes to your auction and she came home with a box of ribbons and fans. The ladies are having a fine time deciding who is to get what.”

Blakeman turned to face her. “But you will not participate in the division of the spoils?”

Delight shook her head. “I have other ways to amuse myself.”

“About that debt…” He was close now, near enough to smell her perfumed skin.

She did not move away. “What about it, Mr. Blakeman?”

“I am a man who pays what he owes, Miss Higgins. In coins or in kind. I have a suggestion for you. Might you be interested in hearing it?”

“I might be.” His face was inches from her own, but Delight didn’t yield. A long, hot bath had gone some ways to removing the stink of Slyly Silas rutting over her, but nothing would erase the memory. Over the years, during the countless times when she was on her back because she had to be, she had one sustaining fantasy. She thought of her sex as a bear trap, a thing of iron with savage teeth, destroying the invader even as he entered. If Gornt Blakeman wanted to risk his manhood to her death grip, why should she stop him? “I am prepared to listen to most suggestions. If they are profitable.”

She expected him to touch her, but he did not. Instead he retreated to one of the room’s elegant little chairs, still clutching his glass of Malmsey. “What if I were to offer you the control of every whore in the city, Delight Higgins? Would you be able to manage them?”

She laughed out loud, unable to suppress her reaction even as she saw his face darken with anger. “Every whore in the city, Mr. Blakeman? The Corlear hookers, the Canvastown hot-pockets, and the Five Points Molly O’Hannigans?
All
of them?”

“All of them.” He’d suppressed his anger, sounded cool, and charming with it. “And, not to imply that any house in New York is on a par with the Dancing Knave, the ladies of the other parlor houses as well.”

“What a remarkable notion. Taken all together, have you any idea how many there might be? Has anyone?”

“Not now, no. But soon I will have. In the interests of good order and general health and well-being, it might be better to have the entire trade confined to one area of the town. And of course registration will be required.”

“Required by whom?”

Blakeman shrugged. “That’s not important just now. You still haven’t answered my question. Can you manage what will be a very large and thriving business, Miss Higgins? As well as you see to this smaller enterprise?” He nodded his head toward the burble of laughter still coming from somewhere beyond the little parlor. “I admire your understanding of the notion of the carrot and the stick.”

“Many more carrots than sticks, Mr. Blakeman. It makes life considerably simpler.”

“But when necessary, Miss Higgins…?”

“When the stick is necessary, yes, it is used.”

“And on a wider scale?”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Entirely serious. Never more so.”

Good God. “Then I will tell you that I can do whatever I need to do, Mr. Blakeman. Whatever is in my best interests, and those of”—she hesitated, unsure how to characterize the relationship that seemed to be on offer—“of my colleagues.”

“Excellent,” he said softly. “I believe we have an understanding, Miss Higgins.”

“I believe we do, Mr. Blakeman.”

“In that case I’ll be bold enough to go a bit further. Now that Mr. Clifford is in my employ, he confirmed some information I only suspected. About what I’m told you call the hawk’s nest.”

“It can’t have come as a great surprise,” she said with a small shrug. “Such arrangements are useful in places like the Knave.”

“Indeed. But the identity of the hawk? Mr. Clifford mentioned a name. I found it…unexpected.”

Delight waited. So did he. After a few seconds she took a step closer and removed the now empty glass from his grip. “More wine, Mr. Blakeman?”

“Thank you.”

Her stomach was churning and her hands shook as she poured the Malmsey. Fortunately, her back was to him and he couldn’t see. When she could trust her voice, she asked, “Unexpected in what way, Mr. Blakeman?”

“Heroes,” Blakeman said softly, “up-standing men of medicine…In the public mind such things are not associated with whoremongering.”

“In that case the public must be made up entirely of fools.” She knew she had confirmed Joyful’s identity as plainly as if she had spelled out his name. Delight turned and lifted the glass of wine she had poured for her guest. “I am suddenly struck by a great thirst, Mr. Blakeman. You’ll forgive me if I drink some of this.”

“I will find the remainder all the sweeter for that fact, Miss Higgins.” Blakeman rose and went to where she stood.

Delight took a few sips of the wine, then held what was left to his lips. When the glass was empty, she put it down and began undoing the ties of her dressing gown one by one. When she got to the last, she paused. A recklessness and a fury were rising in her, unlike all that had gone before.
You keep yourself cooler than that icicle hanging from that tree, little miss Laniah. Listen to Cuf, because he knows. Cool as ice, that’s how you win.
But some coals could not be extinguished. Some rage was beyond suppression. Some betrayals demanded a fiery vengeance.

Joyful never recognized her. Not in Barnaby Carter’s shay. Not in this place they’d built together. Not in her bed. Not last night when he was so enthusiastically fucking her in the hawk’s nest. Not today in the Fly Market. She had opened herself to him in every possible way, and Joyful had never cared enough to realize that she was part of his past as he was part of hers. She was a convenience. Beautiful and available, and black enough inside and out so she should expect no more. Because—time to tell herself the truth—she had never been part of Joyful Patrick Turner’s plans for his future.

“Perhaps you should consider, Mr. Blakeman, that what you’re calling whoremongering is not the only…shall we say the only vulnerability to be exploited?”

Gornt realized that she was giving him something special, and that it might be more valuable than she realized, considering how little she really knew of his intentions. “And what might another be, Miss Higgins?”

“A young lady. I believe her name to be Manon Vionne.”

There it was then, the other piece of the puzzle. A woman, the jeweler’s daughter as it happened. That’s why Delight Higgins was betraying her lover, and that’s how Joyful Turner knew whatever he knew. “Ah,” Blakeman said. It was a sound of great satisfaction.

“Ah,” Delight echoed.

She undid the last tie, the green dressing gown fell open, and he reached for her. Delight allowed herself to melt against him. The bear trap waited.

Maiden Lane, 5
P.M.

“Excellent,
ma petite,
as always.” Maurice Vionne ate the last mouthful of his dinner of duck stewed with onions. “You are as fine a cook as your
maman
before you. I said as much to Pierre DeFane just the other day.”

“I am flattered by your praise, Papa. I take it, however, that Monsieur DeFane cares about my cuisine only on behalf of his nephew, the widower from Virginia.”

“Of course. DeFane is well married. You know Madame DeFane, surely.”

“Surely,” Manon agreed. A tiny bird of a woman with the claws and the destructive instincts of a hawk. “And when is this nephew to present himself in New York?” She would meet him a time or two, maybe even permit him to call on her here rather than simply see her in the company of others. That would show Joyful he had to stop shillyshallying.

“As soon as he can. It’s very difficult to travel these days. We’re told there are British warships in the Chesapeake who land troops at will, and harry the roads and the surrounding farms.”

Her father sounded truly worried. Suddenly, the matter of Mr. Madison’s war seemed to Manon to be more urgent than whether she could maneuver some unsuspecting widower to serve her ends. “It seems a terrifying prospect, Papa. The British can’t really make us colonies again, can they? So many soldiers and militia in the streets, and sometimes, in the market, one hears dreadful things.”

Vionne pushed back from the table and stood up. “Dreadful indeed. And perhaps true, at least in part. But for myself, I do not think the redcoats will prevail, however much damage they do. We were a morsel too big for them to swallow in ’76 and so we shall be now. Independency,
ma petite
Manon, once and for all time. That is how it must be. Never doubt it.”

She was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. “Of course, Papa. I am sure you are right.”

“Yes, and about you as well. You would do well to remember always that your papa has only your best interests at heart. Now, please hold yourself ready to produce some refreshments in the next hour or so. I am to have a guest.”

“The man you saw last night, Papa? He is to return?” Her heart began the same fierce tattoo that accompanied any thoughts of what she might do to speed the time when Joyful would consent to ask for her hand. Or even, perhaps better, whisk her away without bothering to get permission. “I can—”

“I told you to forget about last night’s caller. I am expecting a colleague, Mr. Frank of Water Street.”

“The Hebrew goldsmith, Papa?”

“Yes. We’ll offer him some wine, and perhaps a few cakes. Nothing too fancy, Manon.”

“Yes, Papa. I will do exactly as you say.”

Half an hour later when she carried the tray of wine and small cakes to the shop, she found her father conferring with another man as well as Mordecai Frank the smith. “Ah, come in, my dear. My daughter, gentleman. Manon, may I present Mr. Frank, whom I believe you have met, and his friend, Mr. Simson.”

Manon knew Samson Simson as well, but only by reputation. He was an attorney, the first Jewish gentleman to be a member of the New York bar. Why would Papa and Mr. Frank want a lawyer? None of her thoughts showed on her face. She smiled and nodded and dropped a graceful curtsey. And though she tried hard not to stare at the book all three had been bent over when she arrived, she knew it was the Tavernier.

Maiden Lane, 10
P.M.

“Your daughter, sir,” Blakeman said. “Manon. I want her.”

Vionne’s eyes were heavy with sleep—he’d been in bed when an insistent hand on the brass knocker of the front door summoned him to his shop—and now they opened wide with astonishment. “You want my Manon? For what?”

“What do you think? For a wife. I am unmarried and nearly forty. Past time, wouldn’t you say? As soon as the banns can be called. A matter of a few weeks, I believe.”

“But—”

“Yes? But what?”

“You don’t know her. Last night…I don’t think you’d ever seen her before.”