Page 27 of The Finest Print

26

4 June 1848

Porter—

As discussed, enclosed is a letter of recommendation for you. It’s likely the most effusive I’ll ever be—but I mean every damn word. I regret losing the shop for many reasons, but significant among them is that it affects you. I sincerely hope your next place of employment is a sounder operation than mine.

I’ll write from New York with my new forwarding address.

And Tobias, if you happen to see Belle, you’ll have both my envy and my gratitude. I know she, too, considers you a friend.

—Fletcher

Todd Eamon had arranged Ethan’s passage on the Empire , sailing from Liverpool on the seventh of June. Ethan reluctantly determined it best to depart London two days prior; he couldn’t afford unexpected delays.

The shop he left in the hands of Tobias, who would close out their operation before the deed was signed over to Howe. Tobias was to sell what he could—the presses, the paper, the ink—and use the profits to pay their outstanding salaries; the remaining funds he should keep for his family. Ethan deeply regretted putting the Porters out of work, but a successful auction should see them through until Tobias secured new positions for himself and Sam.

But none of that, of course, would replace what Ethan was really losing—his friend. Tobias had been a stalwart companion, measured and competent and kind. Ethan hoped Belle would still see him. He drew painful comfort in the thought of their little band carrying on without him.

On his last evening, Belle came to him. She didn’t say what she’d told her mother and father, and Ethan didn’t ask. When she knocked on the door of the shop, the sun was low in the sky, and he was waiting for her.

He led her inside, up the stairs, to the residence they would never share.

Days had been hurtling by, but there, in his bedroom, Ethan determined time would slow. They undressed each other in increments, lingering over each small intimacy. There are things a man might forget—the heavy swing of her hair along his stomach, the stretch of his bicep above her head, the way her sigh met his.

Ethan wouldn’t forget.

He put her hands everywhere he wanted his memories; he put his mouth everywhere he wanted hers.

He moved within her, letting her quicken his pace, their hushed promises tangling in the slivered air between them.

When she came apart, he hooked his arms beneath her shoulders and slowed, holding in his mind’s eye the exact shape of her breathless smile, of how she lit up for him.

He kept her as long as he could, and then a little longer.

When he finally walked her home, it was very late. He saw her to the door, he crossed the green, he waited for the top left window to darken.

It never did.

The next morning, Ethan departed for Liverpool. When he arrived in Euston station, once more carrying his own trunk, he couldn’t help but think how far he’d come, how little he’d traveled.

He was right where he’d started—the same locomotive, the same shit-covered boots, the same empty pockets.

Yet nothing was the same at all.

Somewhere in the middle of all the London fog, Belle’s lamp was glowing.