Against the Tide (15 page)

Lydia sat at her desk in the Navy Yard office, one eye on an Italian newspaper, and one eye on Willis. It was a few minutes until five o’clock, and Willis was quietly causing quite a commotion. For
the last ten minutes he had been holding a hand up before his eyes, alternately wincing and grimacing, although everyone in the office was studiously ignoring him. Lydia had found that Willis usually “suffered in silence” for about twenty minutes. If all three of them ignored him, there was a good bet they would reach the end of the business day before he cracked and shared his sufferings with the world. Lydia, Karl, and Jacob were all earnestly engrossed in the tasks before them, performing heroic work in ignoring Willis’s drama, but their efforts were in vain.

Willis could no longer bear the strain. “Could no one block that light shining through the window? The glare of that setting sun . . . it is like ice picks in the eye.”

Lydia sprang to her feet. “Perhaps I’ll close the blinds,” she suggested. She caught Jacob trying to hide his laughter behind a German technical journal as she tilted the venetian blinds across the window in front of Willis. “Is that better, dear?”

Willis still winced. “Now the light is diffused,” he said. “That makes it worse, as though it were assaulting me from a thousand directions instead of just one.”

Lydia resumed her seat, determined not to let Willis’s calamities impact her day. She owed the admiral another eight minutes of scanning the Italian press before she could escape to her own desperate misery of wondering what would happen when she saw Bane again this evening. He had made it quite plain two nights ago she would never see him again, but this morning Lydia learned the admiral had an appointment with Bane after business hours. She intended to be waiting.

She twisted her head to look at Willis, still cringing from the assault of the sun. The man shied away from colorful food, loud sounds, and inappropriate sources of light. Pathetic, but was she much better? Bane did not believe she had the mettle to share his
world. He thought her need for order and routine disqualified her for a life alongside him.

When the grandfather clock in the hallway finally struck the five-o’clock hour, Lydia gratefully tucked her newspaper onto the top of the stack she would begin reading tomorrow. She put her pen back into the top left-hand drawer, replaced her Italian dictionary in the correct spot, and straightened the papers stacked on her desk until they were at precise ninety-degree angles with two inches between each set of papers.

“Can I walk you down to the streetcar station?” Karl stood at the office door, already wearing his overcoat, his hat in hand. Everyone else had already left.

“No, thank you,” she said. She scrambled for an excuse to linger. “I saw an article in the Russian newspaper about the coronation of a new duke. I’d like to stay and read about it.” Karl accepted her answer and left her in the silent office. Her gaze strayed to the etching of Lewis and Clark on her desk. She was nothing compared to those men. Or to Bane. She was more like Willis and his thousand ailments than a person who could boldly tackle the challenges of the world. The headache that had been pounding was getting worse. She opened her drawer and took a tiny sip of Mrs. Winslow’s Syrup. Bane had tossed the bottle she kept in her reticule, but she had another in her desk and still another at home. There was no way she would be up for having a painful discussion with Bane if she could not ease the pounding in her head.

It was almost six o’clock when she heard the office door open. She whirled around to see Bane, who looked surprised to see her.

“I had hoped—” He caught himself. “I thought you would be gone for the day.” He sounded disappointed she was still here.

“Sometimes I stay late to read an article I am interested in.”

“Ah.” For the first time since she had known Bane, he seemed
to be at a loss for words. “I’m here to see the admiral,” he finally said. “He is expecting me.”

And with that he strode to the admiral’s office, knocked, and let himself in. Not a second glance at Lydia, nor one of his wicked little grins. A look at her desk showed everything in perfect order. How odd that she wished he had at least fiddled a bit with her ink bottles.

His entire demeanor had shifted as he built a wall of ice around himself, but she could not let him shut her out like this. She had finally found an anchor in her storm-tossed world, and letting the demons from Bane’s past carry him away from her was not an option.

Bane’s meeting with the admiral dragged on. The late autumn sun slipped beneath the horizon, and the evening grew chilly. She tried to pass the time by reading an Albanian newspaper, but her distracted thoughts constantly strayed from the newspaper and wandered to Bane. She should have known he would not be easy. He was a complicated man who hid a vast reservoir of anguish beneath a roguish veneer of charm.

At last the door opened and both Bane and the admiral prepared to leave. “Still here, Miss Pallas?” The admiral was always so excruciatingly proper.

She cleared her throat and held up the Albanian newspaper. “I became engrossed in what I was reading. I won’t be much longer.”

“Very well.” The admiral left the office, and Bane was about to follow.

Lydia shot to her feet, the chair upending behind her. “Bane!”

He paused, his back to her as he held the door. At last he turned. “Yes?”

She was almost speechless. “Are you really just going to walk away?”

He closed the door. The room was silent save for the ticking of the clock on the wall. Bane’s expression was pleasantly blank. “I thought I made it clear the other night,” he said in a calm voice. “Now that we know who the culprit is, there is no need for us to continue meeting. And I don’t have any need for future translations. Goodbye, Lydia.”

He turned around to leave again, and she needed to stop him. “You haven’t paid me.” Her voice lashed out, a desperate attempt to stop him from crossing that threshold.

Lydia grasped the edge of her desk, hoping Bane would make some lighthearted comment about her stingy ways, but he merely extracted his billfold and thumbed through its contents.

“Here is forty dollars,” he said, laying the bills on Jacob’s desk. Couldn’t he even trust himself to cross the room and hand it to her directly? “I will have the remainder delivered to this office after I contact my bank in Philadelphia for the balance. And that should conclude our business, correct?”

“You know that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

Bane leaned against Jacob’s desk, folding his arms across his chest and staring at the floor. “I don’t think we need to revisit the reasons I can’t afford to allow anyone in my life, do we?”

“I am willing to take the risk.” She straightened her shoulders and walked around her desk so she could stand opposite him. He looked so alone, standing there with his arms crossed before him, shutting out the rest of the world. “I know that you come with dangers and problems,” she said. “Life with you will never be an easy, blissful thing, but life isn’t perfect, and I understand that. I accept that.”

All the pain of the world was in his eyes as he dragged them to meet her gaze. “Lydia,
you are perfect.
” A sad smile crossed his beautiful face. “You are perfect in every way to me. I would die for you, but I can’t drag you down with me. I can’t do that to you.”

She remembered what he had told her of how fearless he had been when he was a smuggler, how he wielded that fierce courage to accomplish unimaginable feats. Even after becoming a Christian, he had turned the force of that power toward conquering new dragons. But it seemed she had stumbled across the one thing even Bane was too afraid to risk: herself.

“I am willing to take the risk,” she said.

“If we were together,” Bane said slowly, “you would begin to resent the life I forced you to live. You would grow exhausted and embittered.”

“That is not true. I could learn to be stronger.”

Bane’s smile was sad as he slowly shook his head. “Look at how desperately you crave a home where you can feel safe and surround yourself with your books arranged alphabetically by author. Do you think I have ever had a home, Lydia?” Bane had never mentioned where he lived, and Lydia had never thought to ask.

“There are a series of hotels I use in various cities,” he said. “I never stay in the same room twice. I rent a storage room by the wharves where I keep out-of-season clothing, but nothing of value because those rented spaces have been plundered and destroyed twice. I have no books, no collections of photographs or letters or any of the things normal people accumulate to document their lives. I own nothing, because I am always running, and acquiring things would only slow me down and make me vulnerable.”

He looked directly at her as he said those words. It was clear that he thought of her as someone who would slow him down and make him vulnerable.

And he was probably correct.

“So this is goodbye, then?” She hated that her voice sounded so thin and vulnerable in the cold, dark office. She wished she
could appear nonchalant, as if her heart wasn’t shattering into a thousand pieces.

“It has to be.”

She nodded, not quite knowing what to do with herself. What was the proper etiquette for when her dreams were collapsing around her? Perhaps it was best not to pretend and simply tell the truth. She looked deeply into his troubled blue eyes.

“There won’t ever be another man like you,” she said. “For me, you will always be the man I think of as a great, glorious love. I wish I could be more like you. Brave and daring and committed. I expect I will think about you every day for the rest of my life.”

It hurt to see Bane’s face, normally full of such roguish charm, now drawn and serious. He said nothing as he touched the side of her face, then turned and stepped out of her life forever.

16

T
he next day began as any other. Willis arrived early to make tea for the office, but by the time Lydia arrived he was pressing cold compresses to his forehead and complaining about the new typeface used by the
Times of London.
“The change in font is playing havoc on my senses,” he said. “They ought to have distributed a warning to their readers before springing something like this on us.”

Lydia helped herself to a cup of tea, breathing in the familiar, soothing scent. She was numb inside. It was hard to believe this was the exact room where her heart had been shattered just a few hours ago. With the sound of hammers coming from the dry docks and her desk meticulously arranged, everything was precisely as it always was.

Except for the void in her soul that was gaping wide open. She was not quite sure how she would ever regain her momentum.

“Are you all right, Lydia?” Jacob asked, leaning forward in his desk to see her better.

She must have hesitated a bit too long, because he rose and
came to stand beside her. “You look flushed,” he said. “Have you been sleeping well?”

Apparently the fact that she spent a sleepless night feeling sick to her stomach was plain on her face. She tried to manage a smile. “I’m okay,” she said, but the tremor in her voice gave her away. Karl sprang to his feet and crossed the office in three large steps.

“Is that Bane fellow troubling you again? Should I ask the admiral to keep him away?”

The irony of Karl’s question almost prompted a laugh from her. “No, truly, it is all right.” She looked at both men standing before her. Karl, with fatherly concern stamped across his Nordic features, and young Jacob, who was always looking out for her. She could not ask for two better companions to share an office. Willis was still holding a compress to his face and moaning softly, no doubt confused as to how Lydia managed to be attracting all the sympathy on a day when his sensibilities had been assaulted by the
Times of London.

“Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “This is nothing that a little time won’t heal.” She did not quite believe that statement, but it was enough to send Karl and Jacob back to their desks.

A moment later the admiral entered the office. Dressed in a dark wool overcoat and full military uniform, he was certainly a handsome man, but this morning he looked unusually distracted, stern even. And he was looking directly at her. Instead of heading to his office as he normally did, he walked to her desk, a somber expression on his face.

“Miss Pallas, I need to speak with you in my office.”

She set a technical report down. Never in the four years she’d worked here had he asked to speak with her alone. “Now?”

“Now.”

Concern rippled through her. She prayed this had nothing to
do with Bane’s insane plan to pair her up with the admiral. Surely he would not have tried to resurrect something along those lines. Or could it be something about his senate campaign? She was an emotional wreck, and the last thing she needed was something else to rock the stability of her world.

She stepped inside the admiral’s office and closed the door. Unlike the front office, where they could easily hear the bustle of work in the dry docks, this room was silent except for the ticking of a brass mantel clock. An immense globe graced one corner, but most imposing was the admiral’s desk. It was the largest desk she had ever seen, and he was sitting behind it observing her with the stern, uncompromising look he had used earlier.

“Please have a seat, Miss Pallas.”

“Thank you, sir.” She lowered herself into a leather-covered chair across from his desk and waited.

“Last night I dined with the city’s district attorney, and I heard some disturbing information,” he said.

“Oh?”

The admiral fiddled with a pen. “Alexander Banebridge dug up evidence of smuggling taking place in the Custom House. It appears he found evidence of a corrupt customs inspector.”

“I see,” she said hesitantly.

“Word has it that he used a translator to help him with some of the Turkish documents. When he spoke to the district attorney, he did not use any names, but he let slip that the translator was a ‘she.’ I can only assume he was referring to you.” That piercing gaze had her pinned to her chair. She did not know if this was going to earn her condemnation or praise, but his look was unsettling.

“Yes, sir,” she said softly.

“Am I correct in assuming you and Banebridge riffled through the offices of various inspectors in search of this information?”

The way he phrased it made it sound pretty bad, but he was entirely accurate in his assessment. “Yes, sir.”

The admiral straightened in his chair, replaced the pen in its holder, and looked her directly in the eye. “I’m sorry, Miss Pallas, but your employment here is terminated.”

Lydia felt as if she had been shot. She couldn’t move, couldn’t draw a breath. She could only stare in shock as the admiral continued speaking. “I demand absolute integrity from my employees. Sneaking in and out of offices, even if it was technically legal, is something I will not countenance. Please collect your belongings and leave the office immediately.”

She couldn’t draw a breath. She was overheated and light-headed, and she was getting dizzy. She fought to pull in some air but could not quite make her lungs respond. Whatever else happened, she needed to escape the admiral’s harsh glare. She stood, but everything started spinning and her first step wobbled. Badly.

Admiral Fontaine was at her side in an instant, pushing her back into the chair. He forced her head down to her knees. “Take a breath,” he ordered. “Lydia, I said take a breath,” he said more firmly.

She obeyed. Oxygen began flooding through her system, and the world regained its kilter. She tried to sit up, but the admiral’s hand was still splayed across her back, holding her head down. She stared at the carpet. How stupid she felt, sprawled over in the chair like this.

“I’m all right now,” she said. The admiral’s hand lifted, and she sat up, still unable to meet his gaze. “I’ll just go get my things,” she said inanely.

She rose to her feet but was still dizzy, and the admiral took her arm, guiding her out the door of his office. “Jacob, come help Miss Pallas . . . do whatever it is she needs you to do.”

She saw Jacob coming toward her. Everything felt like a dream, but she knew with hideous clarity that this was real. The admiral handed her over to Jacob, who walked her back to her desk. After the admiral returned to his office, Lydia looked about the room that had been a second home to her.

“I’ve been fired,” she said blankly.

Karl raced to her side, and even Willis came to her desk. “How is this possible?” Karl asked, astonishment on his face.

“Is he going to let the rest of us go as well?” Willis asked. “Has funding for the research wing been eliminated?”

Lydia shook her head. “None of you has cause for concern. I made a mistake, that’s all.” She looked at the objects on her desk. Almost all of them belonged to the navy. Two of the pens were hers, as were her framed pictures of Lewis and Clark and the Mediterranean island. She reached for her satchel, but her hands shook too badly to open it.

Jacob laid his hand over hers. “Don’t be afraid, Lydia. We will look out for you.”

“Yes, of course,” Karl said. But Lydia did not miss the look that flew between the two men. They wanted to help, but what could they actually do? Karl’s budget was tightly stretched supporting his wife and four children in a tiny apartment. Jacob had even less than she did.

She tugged at the satchel until it opened. “I’ll be fine,” she said, with more assurance than she felt. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Since she had been fired, there would be no references. Without references, it would be almost impossible to attain professional employment anywhere else.

It did not take her long to put her few belongings into her satchel. She didn’t know if she could face saying goodbye to Jacob and Karl and Willis. All she wanted to do was escape as quickly as possible so she could collapse in private.

She closed the Italian dictionary she had been using when the admiral had arrived this morning and put it back in its spot between the Greek and the Russian dictionaries. She tidied her ink bottles one final time when Willis set something on her desk.

“It is a blueberry scone,” he said kindly. “I thought perhaps you might like something a little sweet today.”

Willis had a voracious sweet tooth, and parting with any of his delicacies qualified as an act of great valor for him. She wrapped the scone in a handkerchief and tucked it in her satchel. “Thank you,” she said numbly.

She stood and glanced around the office, trying not to make eye contact with anyone as they stood ringed around her, somber as mourners at any funeral gathering. “Thank you, everyone. You all have been the best office mates anyone could have imagined,” she said. It was best to stop before her throat clogged up and she embarrassed herself again.

Just before she reached the office door, a thought froze her in her tracks.

She turned around to face Karl. “I am expecting a letter to arrive here within a week or two. Will you see that it gets delivered to my apartment at the Laughing Dragon?” She would need every dime of the money Bane owed her.

Karl nodded. “Yes, certainly.”

Then she turned and closed the door on the best job in the world.

There was only one thought pounding in Lydia’s mind as she raced home, clattered up the three flights of stairs, and burst through the door of her apartment. She tossed her satchel on the table, raced to her bedroom, and reached for the delicate blue bottle of headache syrup sitting on her windowsill.

As her shaking fingers pried the cork from the opening, she thought of Bane and her promise she would take no more of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. He was so adamant she should abstain from this sort of medicine, but Bane wasn’t here, this was the worst day of her life, and she needed something to help her survive the next few minutes. Tension gripped her spine like a vise, racing all the way up her back and into her neck, so debilitating it was hard even to swallow. And she would only take a sip. Besides, why should she keep a promise to a man who had abandoned her and gotten her fired from the only decent job she had ever known?

The syrup was overly sweet, but soon the tension raging in her body would ease. She would not cry. She never cried. Just as she always did when her world was turned upside down, Lydia would muster her forces, make a plan, and get herself out of this mess.

She took another sip. As the strain began to loosen its grip, Lydia’s world came into focus. She was an intelligent woman, and Boston was a city swarming with commerce from all over the world. Surely there would be other employers who were in need of her translation skills.

It did not take long for her to learn otherwise.

In the days that followed, she made a list of any establishment that might have need of a translator, including newspapers, publishers, courthouses, shipping offices, even schools. She nearly wore holes in the bottom of her shoes as she walked from office to office. Either there were no positions available or her lack of references stopped the interview in its tracks. Some employers took one look at her and bluntly said they did not hire females.