“Not yet,” said Elizabeth. “I have jewels that I can sell.”
“I’m not taking your money under any circumstances.”
“Pride is a luxury you cannot afford. Are you going to let Dyer beat you?”
Zachary turned to walk away. Elizabeth grabbed his arm. “Don’t look for finality. Just pick yourself up.”
Zachary ripped his arm from her and walked away.
Elizabeth had witnessed Zachary’s tone with Dyer. Indeed, he had emerged like a cougar, a large and sleepy one, still purring politely, but switching its tail.
“Let the man be for a while.” O’Reilly puffed on his pipe. “He’s not a quitter. Just has his back to the wall.”
“I’ll go to my father.”
“Not a chance, I’m sorry to say,” said O’Reilly. “The Spencer dynasty is too busy collecting railroads, banks and plots of land the size of small states. Do you think your father might relish Zachary’s downfall, too?”
Her throat closed in, the air thickening with unspoken emotions. Might her father wish such a thing? Was he involved? How little she knew about her father hit her right between the eyes. Should she confront her father? No. Her instincts told her he would never divulge the truth. She loved and adored her father. His abandonment of her during her time of need to Missouri reared its ugly head. His betrayal was a knife to her heart and to say otherwise would be to accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.
She had stared at the white wave of hair artfully arranged above Dyer’s ear, idly wondering if her anger would be enough to ignite it. The man she had admired her whole life turned out to be a ruthless thug.
Elizabeth preferred the oil magnate when he embarked on his banal conversations—when he stopped speaking his face seemed to change and the air thickened around him. How she wished to challenge him, words had threatened to spill from her lips like marbles scattering across a tile floor, so she had bit her tongue to stop them. And then, nerves rattled up her spine. Howstrange Dyer still clung to the same handkerchief she had made him.
She drew in a deep breath. How could she make it up to Zachary? “What could he do without money?”
O’Reilly set his jaw. “I’m not letting Fiona down. The way I see things is…just a suggestion–my soon to be brother-in-law has resources where you could hock those jewels. Perhaps a surprise package of bills might anonymously be placed on Zachary’s desk with no one to know anything about it.”
Elizabeth picked up her skirts and dashed to her carriage.
“Where are you going?” called O’Reilly.
No longer was she the naïve little girl imprisoned in a gilded cage. “I’m going to meet with Fiona and her infamous brother.”
“Make sure you don’t tell him I’m going to be related. He’ll kill me before I reach the altar.”
“There is no way that will happen.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because Fiona would kill him first.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Bowery lay a rough division of town where Elizabeth was forbidden. She fixed her gaze where immigrants and white working class visited dime museums, tattoo parlors, bars, and other amusements. Barefoot children in tattered dirty clothing ran everywhere.
Elizabeth’s nails dug into her palms, her mind crowded with nightmarish thoughts and unspeakable dread. She wrinkled her nose as she alighted from the carriage. The street smelled of sewage and other things she didn’t want to entertain. Desperate men and women barely gave her a look, emboweled with their misery.
She peered at one dejected mother with her baby in her arms. Elizabeth’s heart squeezed. That could be her and Caroline. Something must be done to help these mothers and their children.
“Your brother never married?” Elizabeth asked Fiona as a distraction to calm her nerves.
“Never. There was talk of his having met a woman he cared for years ago. A real beauty. But she was forced to marry an older man with far greater resources.” Fiona linked her arm with Elizabeth’s and urged her forward. “If your parents find out Itook you to the Bowery, I’ll be fired. I’m glad I insisted on you wearing my friend’s day dress. Stay close to me.”
Despite their common clothing, the two women remained standouts on the street and quickly moved into the dark shadows of a soot-drenched building. Crossing the threshold, Elizabeth’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Grotesque faces leered.
She coughed in the smoke-filled room, gripping her reticule. Was this where Satan’s minions resided? Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder. The vulgar flock of savage fiends crowded nearer. Perhaps meeting with Fiona’s brother was not a good idea. Yet, how could she ask the most notorious underlord to meet her for tea at the fashionable Delmonico’s?
Did one man have his teeth sharpened to points? Some had dark beards twined with long dangling braids that rested on their chests with a near equal amount of hair growing from their ears. Several men exhibited black patches over a missing eye. Whiskey, rotten fish and unwashed bodies assailed her. With no air movement, she placed a handkerchief to her nose to keep from retching. Hungry men. Unkempt. Her knees shook.
