The Bad Baron's Daughter (2 page)

Struck by the undeniable truth of this statement, Katie lapsed into a short, depressed silence.

“Things do look dismal, don’t they?” she said looking at her reflection in the polished surface of the bar. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t given me this job in your shop. I know you didn’t want to on account of your not hiring women, but thanks.”

“I could hardly throw you out on the street, could I? Your old man did keep my mother in style for a few years. While the winnings lasted.” Zack took a coin from a customer’s grubby hand and slid a glass of gin across the bar.

“I wish he could win more often,” said Katie.

“The man already wins more than Lady Fortune intends for him to, Katie. But that’s the way things are with a gambler, more ups and downs than the peg of a butter churn. As for my not employing women, Katie… has it ever occurred to you why I don’t hire them? Because it’s too much trouble to be responsible for them. Do you know what I mean by that? No, I can see you don’t. Now listen. You have no way to make a living. You’re not employable. You have no talents that I know of. You’ve got only one asset.” He reached over to straighten her second-hand cravat. “You’ve got the kind of looks that make a man want to take you to bed.”

Katie blushed until her freckles disappeared. “Za-ck!”

“Well, Katie,” he said matter of factly, pinching her chin. “It’s about time somebody pointed it out to you. We bought you those boy’s clothes this afternoon and that may put off some of the bigger beefwits, but not for long. People are going to start catching on. How long do you think I can protect you? Sooner or later, and probably sooner, there’s bound to come a time when I’m not there at the right moment—or the wrong moment. And you know what’s going to happen to you? You’ll get it whether you want it or not, probably from a dozen rascals at once.”

“Za-ck!” she repeated. Her blush turned into a blanch.

“There you go again! I know my own bloody name!” He gestured toward the drunken prostitute slumbering on the strawpile. “Take a good look, Katie. That’s your future if you stay in the Rookery, unless you let your… looks work for you instead of against you. Listen to me, Katie. I have a lot of connections who could help us find someone to look after you. It wouldn’t be hard to get a generous settlement, enough so you could set up a comfortable house, pleasant circumstances, maybe even a few servants. Now don’t stare at me as though I’d smacked you in the mummer, it ain’t as bad as that. The fellow doesn’t have to be old and ugly. We could arrange for you to meet him first, before anything’s settled, and then if you didn’t like him or the arrangement, we’d look around for someone else. I wouldn’t want you to be with someone you couldn’t like. What do you think?”

“You want to know what I think?” asked Katie, her fists clenched, fire blazing in her eyes. “I think you took off your hat and your brain stuck to it. That is
the worst idea
I’ve ever heard. You’re saying that I ought to become someone’s mistress, aren’t you?”

“Don’t have to shout in my face, Mousemeat, I’m only two feet away. Damned if I know how a whipsy-gypsy rabblerouser like your old man ever hatched a chick so full of whims and prudery as yourself,” said Zack, reaching behind him to retie the slack strings of his apron. “Take my mother, for instance. She lived with your father for six years after your mother died—can you tell me that we weren’t as happy as any legal family? And look at my mother now, set up in Vienna in a bloody villa, mind you, by that German fellow, having the time of her life and enough money left over from her housekeeping accounts to send me the bacon to purchase the Maidenhead.”

“I don’t want to live in a villa in Vienna and I don’t want to buy
The Merry Maidenhead
,” said Katie. She frowned and patted Zack on the chest. “The trouble with you, Zack, is that you have no morals.”

“Sure, Katie. Fine, upstanding morals and a penny’ll get you a glass of gin. What good have morals ever done you? Anyway, you’re not in any position to be able to afford a satchel of morals. Save it ‘til you’re sixty-five and have ‘em then.” Zack leaned back against the bar’s brass railing and studied Katie’s angry face. “What are you doing, saving it for marriage? Anyone who’d want you, you wouldn’t want. Who’s going to marry the impoverished daughter of an outcast peer? On the other hand, there’s a pretty good field of men who would want you as a mistress.”

“That,” said Katie, in a hurt voice, “was not a kind thing to say.”

A lanky, doe-eyed girl with a red kerchief on her head came up in time to hear the last, and leaned over the bar with one hand on her hip, a saucy smile revealing the lack of one front tooth.

“ ‘Ey, Zacky, m’man. Are ya bein’ unkind to yer little friend ‘ere and ‘er jest arrived this afternoon? That’s a record even for ya.”

Zack leaned over the bar on his elbows and met the new arrival’s offered lips with a quick kiss of greeting.

“Hullo, Winnie. How goes the revolution?” said Zack.

“Not as good as th’ gin business looks. ‘N ya can stop makin’ fun o’ me chosen avocation. Ain’t ya interested in th’ struggle fer th’ rights o’ man?” replied Winnie.

“There’s only one man’s rights I’m interested in,” said Zack. “My own.”

“Aye, it’s a ‘eartless self-seeker, y’are,” said Winnie, mischievously. She turned to look at Katie. “Oi see ya changed genders since oi left this afternoon. Are ya all rested up from yer ride out from Essex this day on ‘at rattle-trapsy stagecoach? Was a fair piece ta come by yerself, wasn’t it? So. You talked Zacky around ta employin’ ya ‘ere.”

“Yes, with difficulty. Now Winnie,” said Katie, with a quick glance toward Zack, “tell the truth. Zack says people will be able to see through this disguise and be able to tell I’m a girl. Even with my hair up under my hat like it is. Is he right?”

Winnie subjected Katie’s trim form to a critical appraisal. “Oi’ll tell ya, sis. Yer so blisterin’ pretty even as a boy ‘n there’s some ‘at come in ‘ere won’t matter to ‘em one way or’t’other.”

Katie was shocked. “It seems to me, Zack, that you’ve set up your business in an awfully wicked part of London.”

Zack shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Mousemeat. It’s no place for the likes of you. There’s some bad people down here.”

“Yes, and if it was up to you, I’d be one of those bad people,” said Katie.

“Ooh, my, speakin’ o’ bad people,” exclaimed Winnie. “Lookee there who jest walked in th’ door. It’s Nasty Ned Fabian ‘n ‘is nasty friends.”

Katie followed Winnie’s gesture to the front of the shop, where a rough-looking bunch of foul-mouthed, dirtily dressed men were wading their way through sloshing tankards and sloshed customers and hailing a barboy for some gin. They set themselves up at a table near the gambling aristocrats and immediately began spitting gin on each other, “accidentally” dropping and breaking their flagons, and creating a loud disturbance. They were led by a nasty-looking brute indeed, well over six feet tall, with a crude, heavy face, glowering red-rimmed eyes, and a muscular, top-heavy look.

“Damn,” said Zack in a low voice. “Why does he have to pick my place?”

“Who is he?” asked Katie.

“Those lads likes’t’ mill, oi’m tellin’ ya,” Winnie informed her. “See ‘at big bloody rampsman in th’ middle, there, talkin’ louder than even th’ rest o’ ‘em? That’s Nasty Ned. ‘E’s tried fer years ta make it in th’ ring ‘n was almost top man a few times, but they say ‘e played too rough ‘n never really caught on. Now ‘e’s got nothin’ ta do but lead ‘is bloody gang o’ troublemakers ‘round ‘n bust up gin shops. ‘E’s so mean ‘e’d spit in ‘is own mother’s eye!”

“He’s a lot more than mean,” said Zack. “He’s a hired fist. If he’s in here, that means only one thing, that he has some business with someone. Katie, if he calls for anything, let me or one of the boys handle him. You stay away.” He glanced worriedly toward Katie. “If I had any sense, I’d send you up to your room now.”

“Zack, you can’t send me upstairs every time the clientele gets a little rough, or how am I going to be able to work here? And if Winnie can live in the Rookery, why can’t I?”

“Oh, pshaw,” said Winnie good humoredly. “Oi can take care o’ meself from point go. Anyone bothers me, oi jest tell ‘im oi got th’ French pox, or ‘at it’s me time o’ th’ month.”

“Kate, you can’t compare yourself to Winnie,” interjected Zack. “She was bom and raised here. Do you know that Winnie carries a knife in her garter? Do you think you could learn to do that? Or more to the point, do you think you could ever use it on anyone? I remember going fishing with you, and you couldn’t even hook the worm because you felt sorry for it. Katie, Katie, you can’t work in
The Merry Maidenhead
the rest of your life.”

“I’m not saying for the rest of my life,” protested Katie. “It’s only until I find Papa, or he finds me. Besides, it’s not the only possibility, not even considering your unmentionable idea of a few minutes ago. I could be a governess, for instance.”

“People don’t marry the daughters of outcast gentlemen,” said Zack, “and they won’t hire them to raise their children either.”

Katie tapped her lips thoughtfully with one finger. “All right then, I could be a chambermaid. That’s honest work.”

“Ha,” said Winnie. “Wi’ yer looks, girl? Oi can see ya trippin’ up ta change ‘is lordship’s sheets and findin’ yerself between ‘em instead.”

“I’m tired,” said Katie, “of hearing disparaging comments about my looks. If my looks are going to be a problem, I’ll take Winnie’s knife and cut off my nose.”

Zack grinned widely. “Believe you me, no one will hire you if you don’t have a nose.” He tapped the dainty member under discussion with one smudgy finger.

Katie drew herself to her full height. “If you will pardon me,” she said with a dignified smile, “I have not the time to dally. Someone’s signalled for service, and I’m going to wait on him. Pardon me.” Katie brushed past Zack, who watched as she walked through the hinged gate out of the bar and made her way across the crowded shop to the customer.

“Plucky, yer little friend,” said Winnie, making her fingers walk lightly up Zack’s bare arm. “And ya’d like ta turn ‘er into a playmate fer some baldin’, bloat-bellied banker? Seems a shame, y’know. Couldn’t ya jest let ‘er stay upstairs ‘til that father o’ ‘ers comes back ta look after ‘er?”

“Winnie, the Baron looks after Katie the way a thunderstorm looks after a picnic. Not that he ain’t fond of her, in his way, but the man’s so Godawful irresponsible that he’s barely aware of Katie’s existence six days out of the seven,” said Zack, grimly. “ ‘Sides, it won’t make a ha’penny’s worth of difference to Katie’s future whether the baron shows up or not, because it wasn’t my idea to set Katie up as some rich man’s light frigate. It was his.”

“What? A ‘ell o’ a father ‘e is,” said Winnie, with disgust.

“Can’t argue about that. The baron came to me some time ago and made me promise that if anything happened to him, I should make sure Katie goes to a decent protector. Said that when she was old enough, he meant to set to finding someone for her himself, but it’s more like him to disappear like this and leave me to do the dirty work,” said Zack bitterly. “Still, some provision’s got to be made for Katie—can’t leave a chit with her face wandering about the street.”

“What about Katie’s mother’s family? Wasn’t there money there?” asked Winnie.

“Aye, but the baron fought like badgers with his father-in-law years back and the two decided that if they ever saw each other again, it would be too soon. That grandpa never took much interest in his own daughter and none at all in Katie, but Katie wrote to him anyway after the baron disappeared. Clutching at stars, so to speak. She told him that he could get in touch with her here if he liked, but apparently he hasn’t liked. No help from that quarter.”

“Maybe not, but there seems ta be one thing missin’ from these nice little plans you ‘n th’ baron got fer Katie. ‘Er consent. Ya know, Zacky, oi’m thinkin’ that yer Miss Mousemeat may not go along wi’ it.”

“She will, Winnie,” said Zack with finality. “She’ll come around.”

Never, thought Katie, never, never, never. She set down one glass of gin on the table she was serving as punctuation for each “never.” She made a mental list of the numberless things she would rather do than join the muslin company. This list encompassed the impractical to the ridiculous, and she considered and abandoned a dozen schemes while trying to think of words powerful enough to forever drive from Zack’s mind his infelicitous plan for her future. She’d known Zack before she had been able to say his name, and knew him to be not easily dissuaded from a set course. In fact, she thought with misgiving, she had never been able to talk him out of anything. She glanced at the bar where Zack and Winnie were engaged in an animated political conversation with a group of Winnie’s friends; Winnie was gesturing theatrically.

A group of students had vacated the table near the aristocrats, leaving a crop of half-empty bottles and thumb-printed glasses. Katie set her tray down and began a clinking harvest. It was a pleasant chore because Lord Linden sat no more than four feet from where Katie was working, and she was in a good position to observe him. Hankering, she thought. Myself and every other girl in London. She watched as he caught the dice thrown to him. He shook them in one long white hand and tossed them into the center of the table with a negligent graceful flip. A nearby companion rallied him at the unfavorable result of the toss, and Linden responded with a slow, attractive smile that caused Katie to take in a quick breath of the reeky air. She reflected ruefully that she had been pierced by a foil not meant for her.

A bottle crashed from a nearby table and Katie turned toward the sound.

“‘Ey, wot’s a bloke ta do ta get some service around ‘ere!” Nasty Ned bawled. He was gazing angrily at her, conspicuously waving the neck end of a broken gin bottle.

Katie took a hurried step backward. “I’ll go call Zack,” she said hastily.

Ned snaked out one hairy, muscular arm and pulled Katie in front of him. The tray she had been carrying was upset; the glasses and bottles dumped and rolling on the floor.