Authors: Nicky Penttila
Nash spent the last five sitting up in the bed watching her.
“Did you not wash this morning?”
“I get dirty during the day.”
“How? You barely go outside.” He pushed down the sheet so she could get in. She slid on her backside and down before he could grab her. He slid down to meet her.
He kissed behind her ear, then lower, near her neck. She sighed into him.
“You’re tired.”
Her spine stiffened. Did he want more? He should. Could she give it to him this time? What if she couldn’t? How could she call herself wife, if she denied him his rights as husband? Mrs. Heywood kept her husband happy, all too obviously. Could they tell that she was failing at this?
He blew warm air down her neck, tickling the tiny hairs and easing her thoughts. “I’m not complaining. I’m a bit tired, too. And I like to hold you like this.”
She sighed, snuggling deeper into him. A living blanket, his warmth stirred peace into her skin.
“I don’t know why you are afraid of me, Maddie, afraid of what we might do in this bed. It is wonderful, nothing at all to fear. But we will wait until you feel it’s right.” He chuckled. “For my sake, though, don’t let it be too long.”
Not everything in Manchester was new plate and flash. The church that guarded Maddie’s mother was a vertical gothic structure, stone walls and razor spires. Protected by a wrought-iron fence and a small lawn of headstones, it looked out of place, as if the bustle of town had surprised it sleeping.
Maddie went through the gate and took the roundabout path, lazily twining through the graveyard. Nash didn’t know about these regular visits, on her way to the warehouse. He turned cool whenever she spoke of her first family. She couldn’t help herself, though. She had decades of proper daughtering to catch up on.
The church clock read five of ten; already she was late to the warehouse, and she’d do anything not to lose that position. She loved working with numbers, but it felt so much better doing it for him. Even when the figures showed ill for the day, he smiled when she served them up to him. She was the prettiest bookkeeper he’d ever had, he’d say for the dozenth time, and still it would set her insides glowing.
She carried that glow through their genial walks home, as they read each other parts of the day’s papers, as they went to bed and he continued his gentle lessons in the mysteries of their bodies. Far and away, the best was the sleeping. Most nights now she slept without those awful dreams, and without waking. Something about Nash set her soul at rest.
It couldn’t be his body, all strong lines and sharp angles. Nor the musk of his arousal. Perhaps it was the sound of him, his regular breathing, the soft murmurs he made when she started to wake, shifting position in the night. She prayed she kept him half as content.
The path took her to her mother’s grave from the back. Maddie touched the curved headstone, sending a prayer to heaven for her mother’s soul, and for the souls of the Wetherbys, her families forever tangled in memory. It wasn’t until she’d raised her eyes again that she saw the flowers.
Three daisies and two ferns, tied with string, at the foot of the front of the stone. Maddie nearly dropped her own small bouquet, a half-dozen lilies.
Somebody had been here. On purpose, to visit this grave, this one alone. She saw no other posies near any other marker. Could it be a friend who remembered Mary Moore’s birthday? Maddie had no idea what day her mother had been born. Was it a child playing a game, choosing a pretend lover to mourn? She never saw children in this garden.
Or could it be her father, truly, who still mourned his wife, taken from him too soon?
Maddie swayed on her feet, dizzy with imagination. She scanned the yard again, but she was still the only living soul. The flowers had wilted, as if they had been left yesterday. It had been a working-man’s holiday; perhaps that’s why he had time to come. He might want to visit every day, as she did, but was prevented by work. If he was a worker, that is.
Mr. Heywood would not tell her of her father, saying that no contact was the terms of the adoption agreement he had signed. She had signed no such agreement; she never would agree to such a thing. She could contact him.
Once the idea came to the front of her mind, it grabbed her with talons. He might come back. She would need to change the timing of her visits, to see if he came at different hours. She would alter her habit of taking walks at mid-day, and take them throughout the day instead. But Nash would notice that, and Mrs. Willis would worry.
Perhaps she could hire a boy to stalk the graveyard. But what boy would wish to do that? Nonsense, she scolded herself, she had no proof he came regularly. She should learn the workers’ calendar and plan her visits around that timetable.
The ground-thrumming of the morning bells made her jump. Ten o’clock already, so late she would need an explanation. She’d need to work hard to hold
I’ve found my father! He lives!
behind her lips.
She laid her bouquet behind the smaller one, nesting like spoons. As she hurried down the straight path she thought her lungs would burst, or her heart. She had never felt so happy.
Something good would come of this. Something wonderful.
It must.
* * * *
The Starr Inn did not improve on acquaintance. Nash inhaled the bitter foam of his ale to mask the sour-mash odor of the place. He should be at the warehouse, where Maddie was, not jawboning again with these special-committee blowhards. Nothing had changed but their tempers.
“We need martial law,” Malbanks declared. “After Oldham and Stockport, there can be no doubt we have revolt on our hands.”
“Nonsense.” Nash set his ale down on the mightily scored trestle, trying not to inhale too deeply. “Peaceful marches, both. A day of speechifying and no mayhem—unless you count our volunteer constables.”
“They were right to take offense at talk of sedition.”
“Again, there was no loss of life or property.” Clayton took off his glasses to clean them on a none-too-clean handkerchief. “Even the letters from London say watch and wait. If London does not fear imminent revolt, why should we?”
“London is days away,” Malbanks said. “The battleground is here.”
“There’s been no violence here, despite the talks of strike, and the hungry men,” Clayton said, resetting his spectacles.
Heywood held up a hand. “Malbanks, you are close to the constables. Do Nadin and his crew see trouble brewing?”
“Not directly.” The man looked angry at his admission.
“Not at all, you mean.” Nash tried to tamp down his own anger. Why had they all been called in just to argue this point yet again?
“No, there is some evidence.” Malbanks pursed his lips, as if having to explain himself left a bad taste in his mouth. “Many of the villages have trimmed the size of their rushcart parades, siphoning money and attention to flags and carts for these public meetings.”
“I would think you’d approve of that,” Nash said. “Fewer drunken bumpkins on carts on Sundays.” While the purpose of the rushcart parades was to bring clean rushes to line the floors of parish churches, they also included a weeklong pageant of revelry that could get out of hand.
“Instead they preach sedition at one another. Scarcely an improvement. And Nadin says they are far better organized than back in Seventeen.”
Clayton rubbed at his spectacles with a finger. “And how does our chief constable know that?” Malbanks’s glare sliced through the grime on Clayton’s glasses, and the other man flinched.
“The question is a good one.” Nash easily countered the man’s grimace with one of his own. Their gazes locked with a near-audible click. Malbanks looked away, back to Clayton.
“The meetings are public, and these so-called reformers let anyone listen.”
“Even our spies? Brave men, after Seventeen.” Clayton patted Nash’s hand. “You were at sea then, but those poor reformist souls stood no chance. The crown knew their every step, and swept them up and off to prison like leaves.”
Nash never took his gaze from Malbanks. “I heard that most of the brouhaha was fomented by the spies themselves.”
Malbanks shrugged. “What if it was? They would have done it anyway; we just set it up that they did it on our schedule.”
“Gentlemanly of you.”
Malbanks returned Nash’s glare with new ferocity. “This radicalism is no mewling cry for reform. It’s a cloak for conspiracy and rebellion, and we must stamp it out.”
“To be sure.” Heywood’s soothing tone acted as a balm, easing them all back into their chairs. Malbanks even took a sip of his claret as Heywood carried on speaking. “It is telling, though, that there has been no voice of rebellion in these meetings. That is unlike Eighteen seventeen.”
Malbanks choked the wine down. “It merely means these rebels learned their lesson. They’ve gone further underground.”
Nash had had enough. “So having no proof of rebellion is now proof of rebellion? Your evidence of conspiracy is a complete lack of evidence?”
Malbanks pressed his fine lips tight. His man, Trefford, spoke up. “They outsmart us, is all.”
“Unschooled weavers and spinners, outsmarting the cream of Lancashire? It’s laughable on its face.”
Heywood rapped the table. “Enough. I do not see agreement at this table to declare martial law. We’ll meet again next week. I hear there is to be another meeting in your town, Trefford. Perhaps you will have a clearer reading for us then.”
Malbanks pushed to his feet, a bantam used to outpunching his weight class. “The longer we dawdle, the more the danger builds. I might point out to you, Mr. Quinn, that with this new consortium scheme of yours, any delay at all would sink you.” He strutted out of the room.
Heywood leaned back in his chair. “You took that round, boy. But the spread is growing tighter. Watch that you don’t drop your guard.”
* * * *
Maddie liked working with Jem Smith. The warehouseman’s leg was much improved, though he still needed the crutches to walk. To appease Lord Shaftsbury and please Mrs. Perkins, Nash had sent Perkins back to Shaftsbury Castle, leaving Maddie to manage the bulk of the office bookkeeping, with Mr. Smith standing in on those afternoons she paid her social visits. His hand was as neat as hers on the ledger lines, a relief from Perkins’s hen-scratches.
With Nash out at another committee meeting, Mr. Smith was back in the warehouse proper, overseeing the loading and unloading. His time in the office had shown her husband Mr. Smith’s qualities. She hoped Nash would make the warehouseman his second in name as well as deed. With another skilled overseer to hand, he might allow himself a day off.
Maddie needed less than a week to comprehend the general operation of the warehouse. An astounding amount of materials came in and went out, and very little was retained as profit. The intricate balance between suppliers and customers was difficult to maintain, especially as the stock was so changeable. She didn’t know how Nash managed smiling at men who would badmouth your product just to buy it for a few pence less.
He was a natural salesman though, able to talk with anyone. He couldn’t have learned it at the castle, or even aboard ship. Perhaps he was just born with it. She wondered what she had just been born with. Certainly not the gift of conversation. Those social calls were draining. Nor a love for figures, despite her fondness for them now. Perhaps her imagination, though it, too, brought her little profit.
She caught herself dawdling, staring moonstruck out the small-paned window. He was late. The shadows halved the courtyard. If he did not come soon, she would need to call Mr. Smith to take the receipts to the banking-house. Nash never liked to keep much paper overnight, saying if they were known as a cash-poor ’house no one would think to rob them. He had a man in overnight, to guard the contents. And, of course, he paid the constables the donation they expected to keep a sharp eye out.
Finally, she saw him striding across the yard. A loader ran out to meet him, agitation in his step. He nodded and followed the man toward the side entrance, but remembered to look for her at the window and wave. She turned back to her little counting-desk, smiling. He’d want the receipts soon enough.
She didn’t look up immediately as the door opened, its tiny bell ringing. It wasn’t Nash, though, but someone with a cough so painful the sound of it pinched her lungs. A young man, grizzled before his time, and spitting into a filthy rag.
“Spare a cuppa water fer’n old man?”
He wasn’t old, but there was no doubt he needed the water. She poured him a glass from the pitcher at the sideboard and walked to the front to hand it to him.
He grabbed her by the wrist, spilling the drink. “No screams, clear? Where is your blunt?”
“At the bank.”
“Not seen him left yet.”
Maddie flicked her wrist hard, fingernails talons as she turned. He let go her arm with a yelp.
“No need for that, miss.”
“Get out.” She stepped away from him. He pulled a knife out. The flash of its blade mesmerized, the thought of its power scared her. The man might be scrawny and sick, and smell of an ash heap, but he could still cut her bloody.
“Not without the blunt.”
Panic raced her heart, and sense fled. But anger remained. She would not be pushed about so, and by a stranger whose breaths were shorter than her own.
“You know so much, you find it. You know so much, then you know you haven’t seen me before. I don’t know where the strongbox is.”
“But thee know it’s a strongbox. Give it me.”
Never. Nash would be livid, and he wouldn’t let her help him anymore. What was a small cut compared with spending the rest of her years shut out of his life? “Follow me, then.”
“Tell me where it is, and you can run out the back.” He was softening to her, or at least didn’t want to cut her if he didn’t have to. As coughs racked his chest, he brought both the knife and his grimy cloth to his mouth.
“But that’s where it is, in the back. He keeps it where he can see it, he does.”
“No good for the clerks.”
“We don’t handle much coin here. Mostly receipts.” They paid out more in coin, to drivers and delivery men, than they took in. Were he clever, the man would have known that the time to hold up Nash was on the way back from the bank in the morning.
Although he did seem to know that the time to hold up Nash himself was never. His feverish gaze flicked from her to the back door, to the front door again.