City of Glory (19 page)

Joyful nodded his thanks, then took Manon’s arm. “Come. Hurry.”

“We cannot,” casting a quick look over her shoulder and noting gratefully that the Widow Tremont was still occupied with paying for her honey, “I mustn’t be seen to—”

“Hush. Come quickly and no one will see us. Elsie will keep lookout for us. You will, mistress, won’t you?”

The woman wiped her sweaty face with a bright red handkerchief and bobbed her head in the direction of the coopery.

Joyful hurried Manon across the gravel path, past the sleeping boy, and beyond the displays of finished kegs and barrels to the darkened rear behind Valentine’s lathes, and the piles of staves and iron bands that were the tools of his trade. He found the sweet smell of fresh wood shavings almost overpowering. The smell of Manon as well, the smell that was uniquely hers, along with the lilies-of-the-valley scent of Hungary Water. He’d known other women who used the same scent, but before Manon, none he wanted forever. He drew her close. “I can’t bear how troubled you are. What has happened?”

“I don’t know how to explain”—the words muffled, spoken with her head pressed to his chest. “You know nothing of jewels, so it will be hard for you to understand.”

Joyful put his hand beneath her chin, turning her face up to his, wanting to speak of other things, not wanting her touched by what he must do to secure their future. “What is the name of the purple gem that’s the color of your eyes?”

“Amethyst.”

“Yes, that’s it. I saw one once in Canton. You will have amethysts after we are married. I will send word to China that I will pay any price for the most beautiful such jewels to be had.”

“Joyful, please. You must listen to me.”

He let her go. “Yes, of course I must. It’s about Blakeman’s visit Thursday night, isn’t it? Manon, does your father suspect about us?”

“Papa suspects nothing. He is a dear man, a wonderful man, but I can make him think anything I want. No, don’t smile like that, Joyful. You believe I am speaking women’s foolishness. I am not. But we are wasting time. Mr. Blakeman, his visit last night had something to do with the Great Mogul.” And when she saw his look of puzzlement, “It is a diamond. The largest in the world. Almost two hundred carats. This big.” Manon held up her hand and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and saw Joyful’s eyes widen. “Like a pigeon’s egg,” she added.

He shook his head in wonderment. “How can a diamond be such a size?”

“It was even larger before it was cut. According to Tavernier, eight hundred carats. He saw the diamond in India in 1649. By then it had been cut, and the lapidary who did the job made such a mess he was not paid but fined by the Mogul emperor who owned it.”

Joyful put his hands on her shoulders and peered into her lovely face, feeling the heat of his wanting her even as he knew he must remain absolutely cool, avoid at all costs the one wrong move that would lose him everything. “Did Blakeman sell your father this fantastic diamond?”

“Of course not! Where would Papa get the money to buy a treasure of that sort? That’s the part of this business that so troubles me. A diamond such as the Great Mogul…Joyful, no one in all New York could afford to buy such a stone. Not even Jacob Astor. It is a jewel for a king, or an emperor. If Mr. Blakeman brought Papa the Great Mogul, the only plan can be to cut it. And I cannot believe my father would agree to do such a thing.”

Jesus God Almighty. He was beginning to see the pieces moving around in his head, forming themselves into different patterns, varied options. “The stone…What did you say it’s called?”

“The Great Mogul.”

“You believe Gornt Blakeman wants your father to cut it, so it can be sold to various very rich men? Men like Jacob Astor?”

She nodded, eager for him to understand and grateful that he did. “Yes, exactly. What else can he want? I think—”

“Manon, if you are right, if that’s what Blakeman’s after, would your father do it?”

“No! That’s what I’m telling you. I know he would not.”

“Why not?”

“Because he has not the skill. Papa is a wonderful goldsmith. Gold and silver, they speak to him…no, they sing. With precious stones it is his knowledge that is important. He understands their rarity and their value, so he can buy and sell them with skill. But as a a diamond cutter…” Manon shook her head. “He has some training, but very little practice. The Great Mogul is one of the world’s rarest treasures. To attempt to cut it and fail, have it shatter into splinters…Papa would never forgive himself. It would destroy him.”

“Then he cannot intend to do it.”

“But what can he intend, Joyful? What can this Gornt Blakeman want with Papa? And how did he come to have the Great Mogul in the first place?”

He laid his hand alongside her cheek. “I think I know, but I’m not sure yet. And I don’t know exactly what role your papa is to play in the scheme. But this is wonderful information, my love. No, don’t shake your head, it is. It puts me—us—well forward of where we were. And I’ll look out for your papa.”

“You promise?”

“Of course I promise.” He laid his palm alongside her cheek, feeling the silkiness of her perfect skin, not trusting himself to kiss her, because he might not stop.

Manon felt his need. So many times in these past weeks, when her frustration at his reluctance to ask for her was at its worst and the circumstances made it seem possible, she’d almost forced the issue. She could simply yield to him now. If she pressed herself against him—but here, like this…His right hand was still pressed to her cheek. Manon reached for his black glove and raised it to her lips and kissed the wrist that ended in nothing.

In the alley behind the coopery the woman in rags who had seen them near the produce table caught her breath. She watched through a tiny window that hadn’t been washed in so long it provided only a shadowy view, but she could see well enough to know the blond girl had kissed a part of Joyful Turner he had never allowed her to touch. Delight Higgins shuddered and pulled the shawl closer, seeking warmth to dispel the chill in her heart.

Chapter Nine

New York City, Pearl Street,
Barnaby Carter’s Warehouse, 1
P.M.

I
T WAS SUNNY OUTSIDE
but semidark in the cavernous building where normally every variety of coach and carriage was on display. There were none to be seen now, only the huge and heaving crowd—mostly men, but Joyful noted a goodly number of women—filling the place, and spilling out the open double doors that led to the street.

“Lot forty-seven. Three more chests of tea.” The auctioneer stood on a makeshift block, a line of empty kegs overlaid with boards at the far end of the warehouse where no daylight could reach, lit by half a dozen huge torches tipped with flaming pitch. “Straight from Canton despite the almighty British navy, blast them all to Hades. Take a good look at this delicious and wholesome treasure, ladies and gents. You’re not about to see more anytime soon.” He kept talking while the chests were manhandled into place by the porters. They wore nothing but homespun shirts and leather breeches, and still dripped sweat. Every other man in the place sweltered in his woolen cutaway coat. The city’s she-merchants, females who had moved from ordinary shopkeeping to owning large storehouses and dealing only in wholesale, were not the sort to adopt the latest French fashions and give up their corsets and petticoats; they were swaddled in heavy taffeta and brocade. The place reeked of overheated flesh and sweat-soaked cloth. And something else—the indescribable musk of a lust for goods and profits. That hunger had been building since the day before, when
Canton Star
sailed into harbor. Now it was a frenzied storm of desire driving prices almost beyond reason.

The auctioneer used his long pointer to indicate the chop on the tea chest nearest him. “They tells me this mark here means black tea from a place they calls Yunnan. And you clever folks wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that’s the finest tea in China. So what am I bid, ladies and gents? Who’ll start me off at forty dollars each chest? You there in the front, madam, I see you. Do I have forty-five? Indeed. Fifty then. Sixty? Yes sir. Against the she-merchant with the premises on William Street. Surely you’re not all done?”

“Eighty,” a voice bellowed from the rear. Another yelled that he’d pay a hundred. Moments later the hammer came down on a bid of one hundred and ninety-five dollars each chest for the lot of three. Sold to the man known to provision Archibald Gracie’s private stores.

“Gracie does himself well, doesn’t he?” a voice said in Joyful’s ear.

“Why not? President of the Tontine, takes the lion’s share of the trades. How have you been, Barnaby?”

Joyful had been ignoring Barnaby Carter for months, since he came home with one hand rather than two, but he’d known there would be no avoiding him today. Not once the broadsides that went up all over town announced the venue for Blakeman’s auction as Carter’s premises. Not as unexpected as it might be, considering the amount of business the two men did together in the ordinary way of things. Blakeman’s coaching routes to Philadelphia and Boston were the most lucrative in the nation, but they traveled along rough and rutted highways from hell. His rolling stock required constant renewal; Gornt Blakeman and Barnaby Carter each needed the other to stay in business. “How have you been, Barnaby?”

“Well enough, Joyful. But I could do with a game of billiards.”

“You mean you think you might beat me now I’m one-handed, since you seldom could when I’d two.” He had practiced using the glove to support his cue stick. It was awkward as bloody hell.

“I’d like a chance to try.”

“Sometime soon, old friend. That is, if you’ll be able to spare the time. Look at this.” Joyful nodded at the jammed warehouse. “Never seen such a crowd in here before. Are you planning a permanent switch to auction hall?”

It was not as far-fetched a notion as it might have been a few years back. These days New York had outgrown the informal arrangement that allowed each type of commodity to be traded at a particular inn or tavern—real estate at the Exchange Coffee House, goods and shipping cargoes at the Merchants’. Since Independence, businesses had sprung up with no purpose other than the sale of whatever came out of a ship’s hold. Most of the auction venues were in fact here on Pearl Street, because it was hard by both the wharves and the countinghouses. Auctioneers, on the other hand, were for hire all over the town.

The one Blakeman had found to conduct his sale was a small wiry man, agile and with a booming voice. Most important, he was fast. While Carter and Joyful talked, the auctioneer arrived at the crying of lot fifty-one, half a dozen bolts of shimmering silk in rainbow colors that glowed and glistened in the light of the flaming torches. Moments later the hammer fell and the fabric had gone to a consortium of the city’s finest mantua-makers—all women—whose representative paid an astonishing seven hundred dollars. Still, it was less than Blakeman might have gotten had he used a regular auction house. None of those would have permitted a single buyer to represent a group of competing merchants, to avoid bidding against each other and driving up the price. It was a rule the city’s tradespeople broke at their peril; the penalty was to be banned from future public sales. Worth the risk today, probably. God alone knew when another ship would arrive from Canton.

Or perhaps not God. Might be that the information lodged with Jacob Astor.

The great man was standing off to the side of the auction block. As far as Joyful could tell, he had bid on nothing. Come simply to see what
Canton Star
had managed to get through the blockade, and because, like every trader in New York, scenes like this were what he lived for.

Barnaby disappeared, summoned by one of the porters. Joyful saw his chance and began edging toward Astor, trying to attract no attention. Not too difficult in these circumstances; everyone was concentrating on the goods, and the auctioneer, and the drama that took place as each lot was cried and the bids spiraled ever upwards.

Now he was close enough to see Astor’s narrow mouth and beaklike nose. The eyebrows were black, the hair, cut to earlobe length. Naturally white, it seemed. Joyful could see no traces of powder on the exquisitely hand-stitched lapels of the great man’s cutaway. He was short and stout, and said to be over fifty, but there was nothing soft or aging about Jacob Astor. Simply standing beside him, Joyful could feel the man’s strength.

He had written the note before coming here, after he’d left Manon at the Fly Market, while he thought about the diamond she described.
No one in all New York could afford to buy such a stone. Not even Jacob Astor. It is a jewel for a king or an emperor.
The crush of bodies kept pushing him closer. Near enough now so he could jostle Astor’s arm, or just slip the note into the man’s pocket. Too risky. What if he never checked, simply put the coat in the hands of his valet?

Astor bumped his hip. An accident, Joyful told himself. There was a second bump, and he would swear Jacob Astor had pinched his thigh. He looked down. Astor’s hand was extended palm up, ready to receive the note that no one other than Joyful himself knew he had written.

Jesus God Almighty, the man was a seer. Joyful’s fingers were trembling when he pressed the piece of paper into Astor’s hand. The older man was cool as ice. His expression never changed and he never looked at Joyful. His fingers curled around the bit of paper and made it disappear. Seconds later he was gone.