Daisy's death.
The sound of deep laughter caught Noelle's attention. At the end of the narrow alley two men stood, caught in the soft yellow glow from the lone streetlamp. Noelle's breath quickened. She knew by their dress that they were gentlemen. What were they doing so far from the pleasures of the Haymarket?
She thought carefully. One of the reasons she was successful was that she did not take chances. Toffs were bad luck; she had made it a rule to stay away from them. Only once had she broken that rule, but he had been old and feeble. She had also been well rewarded, she reminded herself. The pockets of the upper classes were filled with silver. Expensive watches rested at the ends of golden fobs. Their silk handkerchiefs alone could fetch as much as a shilling from the pawnbrokers in Drury Lane.
Of course there were problems. Many of these gentlemen now carried paper bank notes in their pockets instead of silver. She bit thoughtfully at her bottom lip. Trying to use one of these bank notes was tricky. None of the street peddlers would take them, and despite the upper-class accent she had struggled so hard to maintain, she would have no luck passing the paper on to a more respectable merchant without raising suspicion. Of course, she could always sell the notes to the pawnbroker, but her practical nature rebelled at that because the amount received for the notes was always significantly less than their face value. Silently she laughed at herself. Here she was worrying about getting rid of the paper money before she even had it.
She looked again at the two men. Although she couldn't see them clearly, she sensed they were young. She needed money so badly, she just might risk it. I've been lucky so far, she reminded herself-but no, that wasn't quite true. It hadn't just been luck; she had been careful. She had not taken foolish chances. And setting upon two rich young gentlemen was foolish. She stood there indecisively, then reluctantly began to turn away just as the shorter of the two stumbled, barely saving himself from falling onto the muddy cobblestones.
Why, he's drunk, Noelle thought, her interest caught anew. That does change the odds a bit, doesn't it?
Sidestepping a pile of rotting garbage, she moved from the doorway that had provided such poor protection from the drizzle and stealthily crept closer to the men, finally concealing herself in a small recess between two buildings.
The shorter of the two turned. He had a boyish face with full cheeks and small merry eyes. Unruly sandy hair peeked out from under a tall beaver hat.
'Quinn, old boy,' he addressed his companion, 'sorry to be such a deuced poor guide, but I'm afraid I've got us lost.' He punctuated this pronouncement with a loud hiccup. 'Bradley's Hotel should have been right here.' Gesturing vaguely into the night air. he took a final swallow from the bottle he held before passing it on to his companion.
'Don't worry, Tom.' His companion's voice was deep and strong, the American accent unfamiliar to Noelle. 'At least we'll both be spared an unpleasant evening with Simon.' He drank deeply from the bottle.
Noelle strained to see the face of the speaker, the man called Quinn, but he remained turned away from her. He was even taller than she had first imagined. Powerful shoulders thrust against the seams of his coat. He was hatless, and the raindrops in his raven-black hair sparkled in the glow of the streetlamp.
'Come now, Quinn. your father's not a bad sort,' Thomas expostulated, lowering himself unsteadily onto an adjacent doorstep. 'The old boy could have left you home in America to run the company. Instead you're here, renewing our schoolboy friendship and enjoying London's elegant nightlife.' He laughed uproariously at the irony of his own poor joke.
'I wish to God he had,' Quinn replied sourly, handing the bottle back to Thomas. 'All he's done these past three months is lecture me about my unsuitability to be the heir of Copeland and Peale.'
Noelle's ears picked up at this reference. She had no idea that Copeland and Peale was a small but prestigious builder of oceangoing ships; she only knew that such an imposing name undoubtedly meant money.
If I could just see his face, she thought. I've no intention of taking him on cold sober. She shuddered slightly as she again observed his broad, powerful shoulders.
Quinn continued bitterly, 'My God, I think he's gone crazy. He can't seem to look to the future. He's going to ruin Copeland and Peale with his damned pig-headed stubbornness.'
Privately Thomas thought Simon wasn't the only stubborn one, but he wisely kept this opinion to himself.
'He refuses to put up any capital for experimentation. The initial studies I've done on hull shape are staggering, but they need to be extended. We could revolutionize the China trade, but Simon refuses to take them seriously. Even conservatively, Tom, Copeland and Peale ships could make the New York to Canton run in one hundred and ten days and be back in less than ninety.'
'Ninety days?' Tom didn't bother to hide his incredulity. 'It's impossible! I don't blame Simon for being skeptical.'
'No, it's not impossible,' Quinn insisted. 'With some radical hull revisions, our ships will do ten knots or better. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one doing experiments with hull shapes. If Copeland and Peale isn't to be hopelessly outdated in fifteen years, we need to start now-more hull experiments, a model, and then a ship. I don't know how Simon can be so blind. I've a mind to get out now and start on my own. He's going to bankrupt us, the bastard, or, at the very least, turn us into second-rate shipbuilders.'
Thomas's eyes widened at the venom in Quinn's tone. 'Now, now, old boy, have another drink. With more of this good rum in you, things won't seem so bad.'
As Quinn turned to take it, the full glow of the streetlamp fell on his rugged face. Noelle drew in her breath sharply. The American was young, in his mid- to late twenties, and incredibly handsome, but it was an unconventionally rugged handsomeness, foreign to Englishmen. His skin was bronzed. The black hair Noelle had observed earlier tumbled over a broad forehead. His cheekbones were high; his nose strong, narrow at the bridge; and the line of his jaw clean and hard. Dominating all was a pair of piercing eyes, black as chipped onyx.
The tiny hairs at the back of her neck prickled. Her instincts, finely honed from living by her wits for so long, warned her that this was not a man with whom to trifle.
'At least Simon should be pleased at the way you've been received socially. With half the hopeful mothers in London pushing their unmarried daughters at you, you've become the catch of the season,' Thomas remarked, not without envy.
Noelle looked at Quinn more sharply. She tried to imagine why rich ladies with beautiful clothes and plenty to eat would possibly want to marry this menacing stranger. He was undoubtedly handsome, but couldn't they sense the savagery in him? Wives were property, owned by their husbands. They would have to be daft to put themselves under this man's control.
'Believe me, Thomas, it's not something I'd wish on my worst enemy!' Quinn took a thin cheroot from his pocket and lit it. 'All those overdressed, overstuffed matrons pushing their whey-faced daughters at me. It's enough to turn a man against women!'
'By Jove!' Thomas hooted. 'Quinn Copeland a misogynist! That'll never wash, old boy. No, from what I've seen, you're a marked man, marked for the parson's mousetrap!'
'Shut up, Tom,' Quinn growled. He pulled deeply from the bottle, swallowing the rum as though it were water.
Thomas grinned, enjoying Quinn's discomfort. 'You can tell me. Which one of our high-steppers are you going to choose as your bride?'
'Dammit, Tom, not you too!'
'Oh, Simon's been at you, has he?'.
'For years,' Quinn responded, leaning indolently against the lamppost, the smoke from his cheroot curling around his black hair. 'At one point he told me he was no longer requesting that I marry, he was ordering it.'
'That's rather heavy-handed, even for Simon, isn't it?'
'I thought so,' Quinn replied sardonically.
Even in his befuddled state, Thomas sensed there was more to the breach between Simon and his headstrong son than disagreements over either the management of Copeland and Peale or Quinn's marital status. 'If he wants a Copeland bride so much, why doesn't he marry again himself?'
'You miss the point, Tom. Simon, like many Americans, is a self-made man. He rose from being a carpenter's apprentice when he was thirteen to one of the greatest shipbuilders in the world at forty. Now, at fifty, he wants to forget that he was ever a carpenter's apprentice. He wants the name Copeland to be as respected as Winthrop or Livingston or Franklin. Although he won't admit it, he has visions of a Copeland dynasty, oldest son to oldest son. But for this dynasty, he needs a woman. Not any woman, naturally. Only someone of impeccable breeding can be
