Speak Through the Wind (26 page)

She moved her hands to the side of his face and tilted it back to look up at her.

“Tell me, Sean. One more time. Did Ben really send you?”

“Does it matter?”

“What would he think, seeing the two of us here like this?”

Sean grasped her hands and kissed each palm. “Part of me thinks it would kill him.”

Part of her thought so, too, and the thought of it knocked down the last wall of protest as Sean pulled her to the bed beside him.

tymie lined the shot glasses along the bar—twenty in all, each full of dark amber whiskey Side by side in the center of the row of glasses stood two frothing mugs of cold beer. A hush fell over the crowd gathered at Mott Street Tavern as Stymie held his hand high above the bar, sending officiating glances to the two figures poised over the first shot glass at each end of the row. At one end, a fellow named Burly Joe, fresh from the docks, still reeking of whatever vile cargo he’d hauled onto shore. At the other, Kassandra, her head just foggy enough to muffle the sound of Stymie’s hand slamming down on the bar and the explosion of voices that accompanied it.

She reached for the first glass and tossed the drink back, barely feeling the bitter burning of the whiskey slide down her throat. She slammed the empty glass down on the bar with one hand and picked up the next shot with the other—a nifty trick she’d mastered months ago that shaved a second or two off her time. The floorboards buckled a little bit with the sixth shot, and Kassandra grabbed the edge of the bar to steady herself, holding on long enough for Burly Joe to turn and share a laugh with his buddies. She snuck down nine and ten while his back was still turned. Her head was full and ringing, barely registering the last shot, by the time she reached for the beer. After the harshness of the whiskey, it tasted cool and smooth. She tilted her head back and took long, deep swallows, ignoring the spill down her chin. She slammed the mug down in triumph before bringing her arm up to wipe off her face with her sleeve.

The fellows who had come in with Burly Joe declared they’d been swindled as they handed over money lost betting on their most dedicated drinker.

“It is all right, boys,” Kassandra said, encasing the last word in a reverberating belch. “Next time you will know better.”

There was much muttering that there’d never be a next time to come into this swindling snake pit, but soon their anger melted under the flirtatious persuasions of Bridget and Fiona. Even Kassandra took Burly Joe’s unfinished beer out of his hand and offered to dance with him if he’d buy her just one more drink.

The small gathering of musicians struck up a lively jig and tables were shoved to the side to make room for the men and women who paired themselves off with little discrimination and even less decorum. The room was a spinning mass of music and bodies, and Kassandra found herself bounced and tossed and flung from one man to the next, pausing just long enough to rest against the bar and convince one man or another to buy her a drink, too, if he was to have one. She tipped Stymie a wink and a smile with each nickel handed across the counter before whirling off again on some other broadcloth arm.

At some point she broke away and walked over to the fogged over window to rest her head against the cool glass. Kassandra brought her sleeve up to the glass, wiped a clean, imperfect oval, and peered through to the other side. There she saw Sean and a small gathering of Branagans standing around a fire built high in a steel drum. They all assumed an identical posture—hands shoved deep into pockets in an attempt to appear impervious to the bitter cold, caps pulled low over their eyes, green mufflers wound right up to their chins.

She saw young Ryan, too. Of course he wasn’t so young anymore. He was nearly as tall as Sean and probably sixteen—almost the same age she’d been when Ben first brought her to this place. That was two years ago? Three? She’d have a better idea this spring, on the baby’s birthday. Or even tomorrow morning when her head wasn’t packed with whiskey batting.

A rough tugging on her waist caused her to turn and face head-on the barreled chest of Burly Joe.

“I’m taking you upstairs,” he said, baring a mouthful of sparse brown teeth. “Gunna try and get some of my money back.”

“You need to settle up with Ben.”

“We’re settled,” Burly Joe said, moving his hand from her waist to grab her upper arm. “Let’s go.”

“Buy me a drink first?”

He laughed at that. “I’ve bought you enough drinks.”

“Just one more. It is cold upstairs and—”

“I ain’t buying you no drink. Come on.”

Burly Joe pulled her through the crowd, their conversations and laughter washing over her like one continuous wave. As she passed by, she tried to latch on to someone to anchor her to this place. She wasn’t going upstairs with this man until she saw Ben. He always screened her men. Certainly he wouldn’t approve of this loathsome fishmonger.

When they got closer to the bar, she saw Ben standing behind it, drawing a beer. He always liked to help out on busy nights like this, saying it helped him keep in touch with his people. Burly Joe was trying to steer her past the bar, towards the door at the back, but Kassandra veered resolutely and pounded her hand on the counter, trying to capture Ben’s attention.

“I ain’t buying you no drink,” Burly Joe said, leaning his body against hers, trapping her against the bar.

“You need to settle up with Ben,” Kassandra said. She continued to pound on the bar, rattling the empty glasses littering its surface. “Ben! Ben!”

“I told you I already settled with Ben.”

“That is impossible. Ben!”

He heard her that time and, after handing the beer across the bar, excused himself from his conversation and walked toward Kassandra.

“What’s the problem?” Ben asked, looking right over Kassandra at the man standing behind her.

“You tell me,” Burly Joe said. “Your girl here ain’t being much of a sport.”

“There’s no problem, Kassie,” Ben said, still not looking at her. “We’re good.”

Ben turned to walk away as Burly Joe reached his hand between her body and the bar and began to pry it loose.

“Ben, wait!” Kassandra thrust herself forward and grabbed a handful of Ben’s shirt.

“What are ya thinkin‘?” he said, turning and wrenching himself out of her grasp.

“Come closer.” She crooked her finger, beckoning him. “Closer.” He brought his face nearly next to hers. “I am not going upstairs with that man tonight.”

Ben smiled at her—the smile that never quite reached his green eyes. “He’s already paid for ya, Kassie. Go.”

“I will not,” Kassandra insisted. “He stinks of fish.”

The smile now crept up to his eyes, and Ben laughed. “Have ya taken a whiff of your own self lately, love? That’s hardly a reason for turnin’ anyone away.”

Ben was still chuckling to himself as he set out two glasses on the bar and poured three fingers of dark liquid into each one.

“This one’s on the house, friend,” he said, pushing the glass toward Burly Joe. “And one for you, love. I forgot that it sometimes takes a little more to warm y’up.”

Burly Joe reached around Kassandra and picked up the glass, thanked Ben by raising it to him, then downed the drink in one full swallow.

Kassandra stared at the glass she held, surprised at the appearance of her fingers—red and rough, the nail beds encrusted with grime. Her hand shook just a bit, though not enough to slosh the liquid over the side. She took a breath to steady the glass before raising it to her lips. She’d never developed a taste for swill—traces of wine and scotch and gin dumped together when there wasn’t enough of any one to tap from its keg. But it was one more drink. Kassandra braced herself against the bitterness and tipped her head back, filling her mouth with the vile stuff.

When she looked straight again, there was Burly Joe, smiling at her with that mouth half full of rotted teeth. He was laughing—probably at something Ben just said—because the two of them were sharing a conspiratorial look. For just a moment, Kassandra considered spitting that mouthful of swill right into Burly Joe’s face. Maybe that would get him to close that mouth, make him angry enough to leave her alone. If nothing else, it would mask the smell. But who knows what he might do to her once he got her upstairs? And Ben would see to it that he got her upstairs.

So she turned and spat it on Ben instead.

The ensuing silence didn’t fall all at once, but began with those closest enough to see the drink hit Ben’s face, and spread layer by layer through the crowded tavern until the only sound was a single fiddle note that screeched to a halt at someone’s nudging insistence.

The initial angry curse was the only emotion Ben showed. Even as the droplets of his tavern’s swill dripped down his chin and clung to his pale eyelashes, his expression remained passive as he calmly took the bit of towel Stymie offered him and wiped his face dry. But Kassandra knew–saw it in the narrowed slits of his green eyes—just how angry he was, and she wasn’t fooled for a minute by the unruffled timbre of his voice when he said, “Go upstairs.”

“Not with him.”

“Find another girl,” Ben said to Burly Joe. “Got plenty of ’em here.”

“Don’t want no other girl here,” Burly Joe said.

There was a soft, unison gasp from the crowd at the challenge in his voice.

“Well, then.” Ben folded the towel neatly and set it down on the bar. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ever-present bundle of folded bills, pulling two off the top and setting them down on the bar next to the towel. “Go somewhere else. Go hit the places on Centre Street. Girls there dance with bells on their feet.”

The man actually seemed to be considering whether to take Ben’s order, but to Kassandra’s relief he soon swiped the pile of bills off the bar, dropped them in his own pocket, and went out into the cold night.

“Now,” Ben said, capturing Kassandra’s attention once again, “go upstairs.”

Without a word, Kassandra turned away from the bar and made her way through the crowd to the door at the back and up the stairs to wait in her cold room.

It turned out that she had quite a bit of time to wait. Long enough to run her brush through her hair and put a cleaner skirt on over the two she was already wearing. She dropped a bit of lavender water into her washbasin and splashed it over her face and clothing. The icy water may have stung her skin, but it also cleared her head—so much so that she subjected herself to a few more splashings long after she felt clean. She plaited her hair into a soft braid that she coiled and secured at the back of her head with the one comb he’d given her.

All of this she did by the dim light of a single candle. She hoped the softer light would lend warmth to the puffy pallor of her face and hide the cluttered corners of the room. Ben always did hate a messy room. She puttered for a few minutes, straightening the cover on the bed, hanging up her discarded clothes, laying her brush and mirror straight on the bureau top. Then, with one short, bitter breath, she doused the candle, saving it to light the room when Ben came to see her.

The sudden darkness caused the room to spin, and she staggered a bit before the backs of her legs found the edge of her mattress and she fairly fell down upon it. Groping around the end of her bed she found the shawl Imogene had given her the night Kassandra first helped bring a child into the world. She never let the garment leave this room, but kept it close by for those times when she needed the comfort of its warmth around her shoulders. She needed that comfort now—though it did little to ward off the bone cold of the room—and she pulled the edges of the shawl tight against her as she lay down on her bed, curling her legs up against her body.