Well, there was his answer.
A bitter lump settled in his gut. “Don’t worry. The matchmakers like their commissions. They’ll find someone appropriate for you and your money, to feed your ambitions.” Someone whom, unlike him, the matchmakers would not laugh at before giving sympathetic tuts and telling him to come back when he’d found a more valuable position and lodging.
“A pity I’m not relying on one, then.” She pulled a book from the top of the stack she’d somehow managed not to drop and slipped it into a spot. Aaron blinked. Not in all his years—at the synagogue or the Jewish Orphans’ Home or at any of his five failed apprenticeships—had anyone provided him assistance.
With a grunt, Aaron returned to his work before pausing. “Did you say you weren’t using a matchmaker?” He couldn’t name anyone—especially among those with money and status to protect and defend—who didn’t use some form of a marriage broker.
After all, matchmakers didn’t only suggest prospective brides and grooms—they used their intimate knowledge of the community to ensure that harmonious and successful new families could be built. Ones with valuable partners from both parties.
“We consulted one to create a short list—but instead of merely meeting with their families, my grandmother and I are choosing publicly. In a rather spectacular way, to benefit both us and the community.” She selected another book.
Perhaps she wasn’t so ordinary after all.
He reached into his pocket and fingered the parchment that a moving carriage had tossed at him the prior day. Well, near him. The flyer had hit him in the head, actually.
He slid out the invitation and pointed at the words he’d read too many times already.
Miss Isabelle Lira is ready to marry.
To celebrate this momentous decision, in concert with our gentile friends, three festivals shall be held in her honor. Every eligible man in the Jewish community is invited to attend and seek her favor. At midnight, on the night of the last festival, she will announce her betrothed.
Proper attire required.
“You’re this girl?” he asked.
The woman poised to present the greatest entertainment anyone in the East End could imagine, permitted during the Omer and open to everyone. Well, almost everyone—everyone who wasn’t him. Even if he had the means to travel from the old Jewish quarter to Mayfair, he certainly didn’t have the proper attire.
Not that he hadn’t pictured attending. No, like a schmuck, he’d spent last night imagining himself entering a grand room to trumpets, with all eyes on him, people smiling and nodding in approval. As if he were someone to be proud of. Someone deserving of a proper, happy family.
Someone important. Someonespecial.
But he wasn’t. He was just Aaron. He needed to accept that truth and be grateful that he was still fed and sheltered despite all he lacked. That he had been permitted a place at all. He pointed once more. “This is you?”
“Yes.” She bent her knees and bobbed a little curtsy at him, like the goyim did. “Isabelle Lira, at your service,” she said with a cool dignity.
“I doubt you serve anyone, Miss Lira.” Not with her fortune. He squinted through the dim light at one of the wealthiest heiresses, if not the wealthiest, not just in England but likely in all of Europe. A woman who not only wielded enormous power in the community but also had a fighting chance of having influence outside it.
This was the closest he would probably ever be to a real princess. Another twist in his gut. Witch, his foot. She didn’t need magic to get what she wanted.
She palmed another siddur. “I suppose not. Though I am willing to provide help—if given a chance. To anyone in the community. Including . . .” She looked at him expectantly.
As if he was going to confirm his name, break the spell completely. Especially if she truly didn’t know who he was, which was beginning to seem more and more likely.
“I don’t need your help,” he said instead. He nudged another book with his elbow. Trouble wasn’t the half of what she was. Isabelle Lira had power. Lots of it. On a whim, she could crush him like an ant. “This doesn’t happen that often, does it? You not getting exactly what you want?”
“No. And I intend to keep it that way.” She winked at him, which shouldn’t have made his stomach tighten—but did.
He shoved the invitation back in his pocket, and before he could think better of it, the words were out of his mouth. “Then I wouldn’t get married.”
Her lips parted. “Why not? I know I’d cede some control to my husband, and I ought to compromise at times.” She wrinkled her nose as if she’d tasted something sour, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “But our purposes would be joint. If he hurts the business or our standing in the community or, say, becomes a spendthrift, he would suffer too,” she continued. “And if he misbehaves or wants what I’m not willing to offer, we end the marriage. I intend to have very specific terms from the outset.”
Oy. That was optimistic. Especially as “misbehave” was such an inadequate word for the danger of a bad husband. In his two years of fading into the background at the synagogue, he’d witnessed quite a few quiet, limited, and often less than adequate attempts by the Jewish leadership to fix such dangerous situations for members of the community. The results were mixed, at best—even for the women who, like Miss Lira, had their family names etched on countless plaques around the synagogues and community buildings, denoting their generous donations.
This was what happened when a person wasn’t exposed to their limits—they believed themselves invincible. A get might be billed as the right of any woman, but in his experience, obligations were not always practiced, and men were unlikely to resist the power and leverage withholding gave them.
Aaron clucked his tongue. “Being married to you is more profitable than not. He’d have no incentive to give you a divorce willingly, and the community’s reach is only so long. Your family might still care, but there are plenty of others who, with enough coin, are perfectly happy attempting to walk with the gentiles. So if you two couldn’t compromise—couldn’t become family—it would be in his interest to siphon away as much money as possible and abscond.”
“He could do that?” She knit her brow as if the idea had never occurred to her.
