Page 31

Sara had always avoided the squalid shoreline, a rough-and-tumble row of trading companies and warehouses full of rum, salt cod, lumber, and beaver pelts.

Rickety taverns bordered the sprawling market on Front Street, taking over after dark to cater to another kind of trade altogether: cockfighting, gambling, and every vice imaginable.

It was a dangerous place for women.

She should have planned this next step. Saved up her wages, gotten a reference from James, and found another respectable position.

Surveying the motley collection of establishments on the dock, she could see that now.

But Stephen Osgoode hadn’t left her a choice.

She’d shoved her belongings into a sack and snuck out the front door as soon as Evie was distracted by a book.

Guilt and loss mingled, tightening her throat, and sending a dull ache through her chest. She imagined the confusion and hurt on Evie’s face when she realized Sara was gone.

She’d never answer one of Evie’s questions again. She’d never see James again, either. She couldn’t believe how quickly she’d grown used to the warmth of his attention, the comfort of knowing he was near. Her life with the Kinneys already took on the hazy quality of a dream.

The world of the wharf, on the other hand, was all too real.

Dragging in a rough breath, she turned to the first tavern on the block, run by a seedy-looking man with greasy hair and rotten teeth. He looked her over from head to foot in a way that made her skin crawl.

“You’ll do.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the kitchen behind him. “Go make yourself useful.”

The cook wasn’t much better. She took one look at Sara and snorted.

“He’ll keep you busy, I have no doubt.” After a generous sip from the brown jug on the table, the woman set Sara to work making bread, a task that consisted mainly of picking weevils out of the flour.

“Will it be busy tonight?” Sara asked. The more she knew, the more prepared she’d be for whatever the night would bring.

The cook nodded. “Big meeting over at Davies’ Tavern. Probably come here after.”

“Meeting?”

The cook looked over at Sara and her sagging face briefly came alive. “I heard Mackenzie himself is coming to speak tonight.”

Sara bit her lip. The rebel. Well, at least if the men were all debating politics, she ought to be able to slip away early.

“Where do the servants sleep?” she asked.

The woman indicated a narrow servants’ stair behind her. “Up in the loft there.”

She turned to stir something on the stove and Sara caught sight of a dubious hunk of meat in a grisly gray broth. Her stomach turned. She already missed Mrs. Hobbes’s cooking.

She made her way up the stairs to a small airless attic with a few lumpy straw pallets.

Her lodgings at Cooper’s Inn were palatial by comparison.

In a corner was a pile of ragged wool blankets, and under this, she tucked the sack carrying her precious blue dress.

She’d keep her head down and her fine dress hidden away until she could earn enough to leave this city.

In a new place, Montreal perhaps, she could get a position as a maid without worrying someone would recognize her.

There was nothing tying her to Toronto, now that Granny was gone. She could start a new life.

The thought made her want to curl up in a ball and give way to the tears that threatened. She didn’t want a new life. She wanted to go back to Evie... and James.

The cook kept her busy the next hour, scrubbing the crusted pile of dishes. Then, she swept out the tavern and cleaned the tables. By the time she finished, her arms were aching. She’d grown soft, living at the Kinneys’. Good thing she got out before she forgot how to survive.

The snow that threatened earlier held off, but a cold wind blew off the lake as James turned up his collar and mounted his mare.

A ride through chilly, deserted streets was just what he needed.

His mind was in an uproar, anger still thundering through his veins.

He wanted to smash something. He wanted to tear Osgoode apart for making a game of him, for daring to threaten Sara.

He was angry with himself, too. It was his fault Sara was in this position. He’d brought her into his house, and insisted she stay. Exposed her to the scrutiny of the world and the insinuations of Stephen Osgoode. In the past, Osgoode had never dared threaten him so directly. But now...

Now, James had disrupted Ballantine’s dinner party and rejected the woman he’d chosen for him. Supported the rebels in front of the most influential men in the colony. Instead of reining Andrew in, he’d practically joined the movement alongside him. Ballantine would probably wash his hands of them.

He knew how Osgoode worked. He’d drop a few hints and enflame the gossip already swirling. Then he’d rush to Ballantine, full of pretend concern while representing James in the worst possible light. In a week, James would be discredited, and Sara a pariah.

James couldn’t shield a governess, not completely. People would see what they wanted to see, no matter how he tried to stay away from her.

The only way to protect her would be... to marry her.

A man in your position needs a wife.

Of course, Sara wasn’t the wife Ballantine had in mind.

He pictured the faces around the table tonight.

Proud, entitled. They wouldn’t acknowledge Sara O’Connor and he realized he didn’t care.

High society had been Amelia’s dream, not his.

He didn’t strive to be a part of that world and he certainly didn’t want that for Evie.

Marriage to Sara would cause gossip, yes, but it wasn’t unsurmountable. As his wife, Sara would be under his protection in the eyes of God... and the law. The thought was reassuring. While every other certainty in his life failed him, the law never did.

His wife.

He drew his first easy breath since arriving at the party.

Instead of sending him into a panic, the thought of marriage to Sara soothed him.

It wouldn’t be like the first time, when he’d let romance cloud his vision and drive him to foolishness.

She’d know from the start what he could give her.

Loyalty. Protection. And what he couldn’t.

James dug his heels into the mare’s sides, trotting along the dark, cold streets, his eyes trained for a glimpse of lamplight in the window to welcome him home. He was so lost in his longing, he almost rode into the small form that came darting across the street, calling his name.

“Mr. Kinney.” Henry waved his arms, causing the horse to shy.

“Henry? What on earth has you out so late?” His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. “Is it Evie?”

Henry shook his head. “Not her. Mrs. Hobbes sent me to find you.” He looked up, his face white in the gloom of the street. “Sara’s gone.”

The air left his lungs. “What?” There must be a mistake. She couldn’t leave them. She wouldn’t .

“She told Mrs. Hobbes she was preparing lessons in her room. When they called her for supper, she wasn’t there.” His voice caught. “I checked Irish Town. No one has seen her.”

James took a breath, forcing his mind to function. “Her room, was it searched?”

Henry nodded. “Mrs. Hobbes said all her things are gone and she left no note.” Henry’s eyes searched James’s face. “But I can’t figure why she’d go without telling us.”

“I—” James had no answers. For him, the last few days had been a revelation. He’d named memories and emotions he’d always hidden from others, and he’d felt... accepted. For the first time, he could imagine sharing his life with a woman again. He thought she might feel the same, but...

“Only one clue, as far as I can figure,” Henry continued, scratching his head. “Mrs. Hobbes said a man were there, just after you left. Out in the garden.”

“A man?” James felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Sara was involved with someone else?

“Pale fellow,” Henry added, watching James’s face. “Tall, fine clothes.”

“Sara left with him?”

Henry shook his head. “Nope, came back inside, wouldn’t say a word about it. But Evie was watching out the window and said he’d come before. Some lawyer man who’d been around, asking about you. She doesn’t like him.”

James’s heart started to race as a horrible suspicion entered his mind. Had Stephen Osgoode threatened Sara? James wouldn’t put it past him. The man had arrived at Ballantine’s after all the other guests.

A tense knot formed low in his belly. She didn’t have a job, and she hadn’t taken anything beyond her clothes.

She didn’t even have the wages he owed her.

He tried to flip through the facts available as he did before every trial, but an image of Sara, alone and in danger swamped his mind and prevented all logical thought. He needed—

“I need your help, Henry.” He reached down and Henry clasped his hand with a grim nod. He set his foot in the stirrup and swung up behind James on the horse.

“I reckon you do,” Henry said from behind him. “Until you learn to keep a closer eye on your womenfolk, sir.”

James sighed. If—no, when—he got Sara in his sight again, he wasn’t planning to let her go. “Where do you figure she’s gone? She’ll have to find work.”

“Prob’ly down at the wharf.”.

The wharf. Home of the worst sorts of depravity in the city. “Surely not.”

“Worth a shot. Only place to find work, quick like.”

“Well, let’s go then.” James turned his horse south.

“Got a pistol on you, guv?”

“What? Of course not.”

“Any gent what looks like you had better go armed into the wharf at night. Unless you’re handy with your fives?”

It took James a moment to work that one out. “I don’t make a practice of engaging in fisticuffs. I’m a lawyer. I use my words to solve conflicts.”

Henry snorted. “Lot of good those’ll do you down there.”

James pressed his lips together. “Enough. Time is wasting. Let’s go.”

James had never visited the wharf after dark.

The bustling dock was silent, the gangplanks drawn up for the night.

All the activity had shifted inside, the only lights coming from the taverns that were jammed willy-nilly between the tall warehouses.

At Henry’s insistence, they stuck to the shadows and kept their heads down.

Even then, James could sense watchful, calculating eyes on them.

How would Sara survive in such a place? He forced his whirling thoughts to still. He needed his wits about him.

Henry stopped at the entrance to a dark alley. “Stay here now, guv. Let me do the talking.”

James peered down the sliver of space between two buildings. Small forms materialized out of a side door. Children. The thought of them growing up in the shadow of this world made James ill.

Henry returned a moment later, tucking the coin purse James had given him back under his shirt. “Who were those children? Orphans?”

Henry shrugged. “Not exactly. Got mothers at least, only they’re most often... occupied in the evenings. Little ones got to stay out of sight.”

“They ought to be in bed.”

Henry snorted. “Don’t even have a house, never mind a bed.”

James shook his head. While he worried about his daughter’s curriculum, these children didn’t even have a roof over their heads. It wasn’t right.

“One of ’em figures she might be in Davies’ Tavern,” Henry said. “Worth a shot.”

They continued down the road. The stench of the harbor, the fetid water dotted with rotting cargo, lingered in every gust off the lake.

Henry stopped just before a tavern. The rough, deep hum of male voices spilled out into the street.

“This be it, guv. Davies’ Tavern. I reckon I should have a peep before you walk in there, sticking out like a sore thumb. ”

“Not a chance, Henry.” James reached down and tweaked the boy’s cap. “Sara will have my hide if she finds out I let you go into a place like that on your own.”

As it turned out, James didn’t stand out at all. The common room was bursting at the seams with men from every walk of life. Fine wool suits mingled with the rough linen of the dockworkers and the farmers’ brown homespun. The warm, heavy air was thick with tobacco smoke and suppressed excitement.

James paused on the threshold to let his eyes scan the crowd. Ducking into the shadows at the back of the room, he caught snatches of conversation.

“Didn’t even address our complaints,” a man said from the table to his right.

“They never will, either. We can’t waste any more time sitting around, waiting for them to notice us,” said the stout man at his side.

The other men around the table nodded their agreement. James stood motionless. Instead of a den of vice, he’d walked right into a rebel hotbed.

Henry materialized at his side, shrugging his shoulders and jerking his head to the door but James was only dimly aware of the boy’s movements.

Another figure had caught his attention.

At the front of the room, a man stepped up onto an overturned box, his red wig askew.

James had no trouble recognizing William Lyon Mackenzie, the most vociferous critic of the government and the leader of the rebels.

And at his side, eyes glowing with fervor, stood Andrew Ridley.

James didn’t need Henry’s tug on his arm to know it was time to leave. If Andrew caught sight of him, he’d never get away. And as much as he should stay and figure out exactly what would transpire in the crowded tavern, there was only one thought paramount in his mind.

He still hadn’t found Sara.