Betina Krahn (17 page)

The reform candidate seemed as startled as everyone else at the reminder that he was present.

“But of course I’ll come,” Netherton said quickly. “The reforms we seek go to the very heart of the issue of proper representation. One man”—he held up a finger—“one vote!”

“Ye hear that, sister?” came voices from the far side of the hall. “One
man,
one vote!” “Women got no bizness votin’!” “Go home to yer stoves an’ kids, where ye belong!” Even the temperance-demanding reverend turned on them, shaking an accusing finger.

Trembling with anger, Beatrice hardly felt it when Lacey and Frannie took things into their own hands, snatched up her purse, and shoved her down the row toward the nearest exit. It took some doing, but they made
their way up the packed aisle, jostled their way through the rowdies at the back, and escaped.

The night air filled Beatrice with a cold blast of reality. She paused on the pavement just outside the hall, righted her jilted hat, and braced for the censure she was sure to receive from the committee. But when Susan Anthony appeared, she reached for Beatrice’s arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“So much for the promises of politicians,” she said with a wan little smile. “It’s an old story, my dear. Don’t lose any sleep over it. Did you see who he arrived with? Richard Croker himself and a pack of Tammany’s wretched ward heelers and ‘shoulder hitters.’ Barrow is Tammany’s lap dog.” She wagged her head sadly. “He’ll never be a friend to women.”

Beatrice winced as one by one Carrie Catt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Belva Vanderbilt squeezed her hand or pressed her cheek with theirs before departing for their carriages and cabs. But their unexpected understanding and consoling words only scored the humiliation of his betrayal deeper into her pride.

“How dare he do that to me? Promise me his support and then—”

“Damned
man
,” Lacey growled, looping her arm through Beatrice’s.

“Hanging’s too good for him,” Frannie declared, snagging her other arm and helping to propel her toward her carriage.

“He’ll pay for this.” The depth of her anger surprised her; it felt too intense and too personal to be caused just by the political sleight of hand he had performed tonight. “I’m going to make him change his mind and support women’s suffrage in public or my name isn’t Beatrice Von Furstenberg!”

“Give it up, Beatrice,” Frannie said, pulling Beatrice to a halt. “It’ll just be throwing pearls before swine.”

“A handsome, sweet-talking swine,” Lacey said with a twinge of jaded interest, “but a swine, nonetheless.”

“Yes, well … you know what happens to swine,” Beatrice responded with narrowing eyes. “Sooner or later they become somebody’s bacon.”

TWO HOURS AFTER
the debate ended, the congratulations were still ringing in Connor’s ears.

Brawling, colorful Boss Croker had indeed been in the audience … along with mayoral candidate Thomas Gilroy Big Tim Sullivan, the so-called “Baron of the Bowery,” and Connor’s dapper campaign manager Charles F. Murphy. They had spirited Connor off to O’Toole’s for a celebratory drink.

“I doubt you’ll need three more debates,” Boss Croker declared. “One more should pretty much finish old Netherton off. Did you see him tonight? So green around the gills, I thought he was going to be sick.”

“And what you did to that suffragette,” Big Tim Sullivan added, “that was brilliant. I thought I’d bust a gut laughin’ at that old Pearly Quinn!”

Boss Croker laughed, too, then grew more serious. “You can’t ignore these vote-crazed women, Barrow, but you can’t give them much attention either. Can’t have people thinking you’re soft on this ‘suffrage’ nonsense.”

“You know I’d give my right arm for you and the party, Boss.” Connor laughed. “But asking me not to give women attention … well, there are some things that are just beyond a man’s control.” He waggled his brows and they responded with ribald laughter.

“I’ll go see this ‘shrieking sister’ settlement house,” he
continued, flashing his infamous grin, “show some concern … listen to the ladies … kiss a few babies. I can take a news reporter or two along and see we get some good press out of it.”

Croker clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s our boy. Always thinking.”

Now, as Connor climbed into a cab and headed home he allowed himself a quiet moment to savor the night’s victory. Closing his eyes, he laid his head back against the worn leather seat, listened again to the applause and once again felt that invisible flow of power from the audience that always energized him.

Then into that brief pleasure blew a draft of uneasiness.
She
materialized in his mind, looking just as she had tonight, standing in the audience. Proud. Headstrong. Womanly. With extravagant curves, a lush red mouth, and smoky emerald eyes that betrayed the passion burning in her.

He had known instantly why she was there—he should have expected something like that—could have prevented it if he hadn’t been so angry three days ago when he left her house. All he had wanted to do that afternoon was put distance between him and her. It didn’t occur to him that she expected an instant, full-blown declaration of support for women’s suffrage at his very next public appearance … in front of Boss Croker and half of Tammany Hall. Didn’t she know anything about politics?

The cab stopped and he opened his eyes, expecting that they were at his brownstone. When he reached for the door handle, it turned before he touched it and the door swung open.

A male form sprang into the cab, knocking him back against the seat.

“What the hell—”

A second man barreled in and Connor was suddenly pinned to the seat by two sets of shoulders and knees. They grabbed his arms and though he struggled, he couldn’t seem to gain enough purchase against the floor or seat to fight back. Then a hand clamped over his mouth, and a familiar voice with an Irish brogue stilled his resistance.

“Sorry, gov—” The pair thumped on the roof and the cab lurched into motion again. Light from a streetlamp fell across one of his assailants’ faces and Connor recognized Dipper Muldoon.

“She sent us to get ye. Said not to take ‘no’ fer an answer.”

He looked at the other man and found Shorty O’Shea nodding earnest confirmation.

He didn’t have to ask who “she” was.

WHEN THE CAB
finally came to a stop, Dipper and Shorty pulled him from the carriage. They had brought him to a broad alley lined with tall wooden fences and doors to carriage houses, and now ushered him across a service yard and into the rear door of an imposing brick house. A turn or two and a glimpse down an elegantly appointed hallway confirmed his suspicion.

When the two opened a pair of imposing mahogany doors and shoved him inside, there she stood, on the far side of a large, richly furnished library with her arms crossed.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, dismissing the pair. “If you will wait just outside …”

As the doors closed, she looked Connor over with a critical air.

In the soft light of a desk lamp, her eyes glinted and her skin glowed golden. She was wearing the same fitted navy suit she had worn earlier, at Cutters’ Hall: prim standing collar, leg-of-mutton sleeves, narrow waist, and a gently flared skirt that finished in a modest bustle. He
had no damned business noticing that her hair was slipping from its Gibson-style coif or that it gave her a lightly mussed and eminently touchable appearance.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing dragging me here by force?” he demanded, annoyed by his wayward thoughts.

“I doubt you would have come any other way.” She lowered her arms and advanced to the edge of the nearby mahogany desk. “Why did you renege on your promise this evening? I want an explanation and a timetable for your announcement of your support of women’s suffrage. And I will have both”—she pointed sharply to the floor—“before you leave this room.”

“Or?”

“I should think that would be obvious.
You won’t leave
.”

“Going to lock me in again?” he said, lowering his gaze pointedly to her chest. “As I recall, that wasn’t overly effective.”

He wasn’t sure if the increased color in her face qualified as a blush.

“I’ll depend on my new employees to see that you stay.”

“Dipper and Shorty? What makes you think they would raise a hand against me? We go back a long way … Dipper, Shorty, and I.”

“Well, we have an arrangement … Dipper, Shorty, and I.”

“Similar to the one you have with me, no doubt. ‘Do as I say or face ruination and disgrace.’”

“Jail, actually,” she said with an arch smile. “But that is hardly the issue.”

“I beg to differ.” He started toward her, but stopped after only a few steps. “That is exactly the issue here.
What the hell gives you the right to go around extorting and bullying and using any and every underhanded tactic known to man—”

“Precisely. Every tactic known to
man,”
she declared with a calm that infuriated him. “I am doing nothing to you or Dipper and Shorty that men don’t do to each other all the time. Nobody cries foul when a man exerts a little leverage’ on a rival. I do it and I’m called wicked and unnatural … a harridan, a heathen, or an amazon.”

Beneath the anger in her eyes, he glimpsed a deep well of resentment. Her crusading on behalf of women, he realized, was not a sentimental bit of “do-gooding” on her part. Her determination came from something far more personal. He tilted his head to view her from a fresh angle.

“Tell me. What’s your stake in all of this ‘suffrage’ and ‘women’s rights’ rigmarole? What do you get out of it?”

She seemed surprised by the question, but quickly generated what sounded like a well-rehearsed response.

“The satisfaction of knowing that I’ve done something worthwhile, something that will have a lasting impact on the world, something that will make women’s lives better.”

“Yes, yes … but what do
you
get out of it? Suffragettes complain about women being downtrodden”—he strolled around the room, touching a polished marble bust on a shelf, stroking the mahogany desktop, and running his fingers through the hand-cut crystals hanging from the lamp shade—“but you are probably the least downtrodden woman in the entire state of New York. You have everything a woman could ever hope to have … money, position, and power. Whether you want to admit it or not, you already have the vote in one of the most powerful places in the country … the boardroom.
Better yet, you don’t have to ask permission of anyone to do anything. You’re a widow. You have married respectability without the mess and bother of a husband. What could having the vote give you that you don’t already have?”

“You honestly haven’t a clue, do you?” she said, returning his scrutiny. “You’ve never had someone tell you your opinions and ideas are worthless just because you’re a man … that you can’t deposit money in a bank, that you can’t purchase a piece of property or sign your name for a—”

“And you have? Was it your husband? Did he make your life such a living hell that you’re now determined to return the favor to the entire male sex?” The subtle stiffening of her shoulders made him think he’d struck a nerve.

“My marriage has nothing to do with my belief in women’s rights.”

“What colossal—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—
bullshit
!” He approached her in a deliberate prowl, his eyes narrowed as if trying to peer straight into her. “Let’s see”—he tallied the points on his fingers—“you’ve said marriage is a great weight and a burden, you complain that men dismiss and ridicule women, you detest vulnerability, think romance is illusion, and believe real love is so rare as to be virtually nonexistent.”

He halted and gave her an insultingly thorough look.

“Taken together, that can only mean … Mercer was a dried-up old cod, decades older than you, who treated you like a child, except on those rare occasions when he wanted you to be his accommodating toy. You were required to hold your tongue, to decorate his parlor, and to make certain his food was hot and his bed was warm.” The sparks struck in her eyes made him reconsider that
last duty. “Ahhh. Old Mercer didn’t even bother with that.” He broke into a wry grin. “He
was
old.”

He thought for a moment that she might explode. Instead, she reasserted control and tightly refolded her arms.

“If you’re trying to divert me from my purpose in bringing you here, you’re doomed to disappointment. I want to know why you refused to declare your support for suffrage.”

“Some would say that a woman who marries for money should know enough to be satisfied when money is all she gets,” he continued, trying to imagine her with the doddering old fellow he’d seen briefly, some years ago.

“Let’s see if my powers of deduction match yours,” she said. “You’re a glib, smooth-talking politician—which means you’ll say whatever is expedient at the moment—hang the consequences. Your singular goal in life is getting elected to office, no matter what it takes. You think women are basically subhuman, and thus, any and all promises made to one are nonbinding. Taken together, that can only mean that you never
intended
to keep your promise.”