“When will your man be back?” Mrs.Webb asked.
“Stephan will return soon.” It wouldn’t take him long to locate Alden’s dwindling supply of money and say good-bye to Miss Labrie.
As the three of them waited in silence, he prayed Stephan would indeed return soon. If he and Persila didn’t leave on that boat, Mr.Webb and a crowd of sympathizers might find them. At the very least, the man would drag them back before the judge, refuting the sale of his slave. The worst scenario involved some rope and a tree.
Minutes later, there was a frantic knock on the door, and Mrs.Webb opened it.
“We must hurry,” Stephan insisted.
Mrs.Webb didn’t move. “I’ll go at my own pace.”
“The city is on fire.”
Mrs.Webb leaped toward the window, and when she yanked up the shade, Alden saw smoke billowing several blocks away. They had no time left for games.
“Do you have the money?” she asked.
Stephan nodded, but he didn’t hand it to her. Instead, he dug into his carpetbag and gave Alden the little money left from his stash, along with several pieces of paper, a pen, and inkwell. Alden dropped the gold coins in his pocket and drafted the manumission paper on the bureau, trying not to think about the loss of time or the looming fire.
“Good riddance,” Mrs.Webb said as she signed it.
The remaining transaction happened at lightning speed. After they paid Mrs.Webb, Persila eagerly ripped her old ownership papers into pieces.
Mrs.Webb glanced back out the window. “Here comes my husband.”
The two men and Persila fled down the back steps and raced through the smoky street, toward the wharf. The waiting paddle wheeler gave a long blast on its horn.
With the fire, it might leave early tonight.
“I bolted the iron shutters and door at the hotel,” Stephan told him as they ran. “No one was inside.”
“Where did Miss Labrie and Isaac go?”
“Probably to her aunt’s cottage near City Cemetery. It’s up on the knoll.”
They stepped onto the wharf, and Alden sighed with relief when he saw the paddle wheeler still moored at the other end.
As they raced across the long pier, the deckhand untied the mooring line from a piling. Alden shouted, but if the man heard, he ignored them, signaling for the captain to leave.
Persila cried out as the steamer slid away, but Stephan sprang forward, leaping onto the deck. Then he stretched out his arms for Persila. Alden swept her up and passed her across the watery divide.
Both Stephan and Persila waved as the boat began paddling briskly toward the coast. Then Alden turned, hurrying toward the cottage on the knoll.
Chapter 34
Sacramento City
July 1854
Isabelle didn’t light a candle in the sitting room. If Victor could track her to Sacramento, he could easily locate her aunt’s home. Better to stay in the dark tonight, pretending that no one was in the cottage. Perhaps Stephan could help her gain passage with Persila up to Vancouver Island tomorrow. Then she would give him the keys to her hotel.
After Ross left the hotel, she had found Isaac in the kitchen. While he retrieved his and Alden’s things, she’d thrown some clothing and personal effects into a carpetbag. She should have left Alden a note on her desk as well and salvaged her money and Aunt Emeline’s box from their hiding space, but her mind had been all muddled.
Sing Ye had come with her and Isaac to the cottage but hadn’t stayed with them. Nicolas took her to visit a friend who lived on a rancho outside of town. He feared backlash from today’s trial, and he wanted to keep his wife safe. Aunt Emeline would be pleased, knowing how much Nicolas cared for Sing Ye.
And her aunt would be praying all night if she knew Victor was in town.
Nicolas had asked her and Isaac to join them on the rancho, but she’d said she thought it best to wait here for Stephan and Alden, to see if they needed further assistance with hiding Persila. She would never forgive herself if something happened to Sing Ye because of her past or her current work.
