The Last Honest Seamstress (15 page)

She could operate out of a tent, if Elizabeth would allow her to do the actual machine sewing at her house. As soon as things settled down she would make an offer on the piece of property where her shop had been. The owners had been anxious to sell before, she was certain they'd be doubly eager now. Then she would see Jacob Finn about a building loan. That was, if the vault had held and he had any money to loan. Otherwise, she would be forced to accept one of her many marriage proposals. She imagined herself pressured to marry some respectable man Elizabeth turned up.

Her thoughts roamed to strong arms. A kiss. Lapping waters.
 

With a start she came back to reality, jolted by the realization that it had not been Drew she'd been thinking of. She pulled the sash taut and strode from the room.

Chapter 7

No one was allowed into Seattle's ruins without a permit. Consequently, the eager crowd that gathered to await news from the bank vault openings congregated on the perimeter. Nervous anticipation rippled through the masses. Fayth felt it the moment she stepped forward into the mostly male crowd, hoping to be invisibly lost in the confluence. But the men were all too gentlemanly. They shuffled her to the front, to the edge of the ashes, whispering to her to be their luck.

Con spotted Fayth as she was pushed forward to the stakes and rope that cordoned the crowd back from the burned city. He watched from another street perpendicular to where she stood on the front line. She wore a cornflower blue gown that matched his memory of the color of her eyes, tied with a deep-blue sash swooped up over a bustled back, cut close, showing every curve she owned. She looked like sand struck by lightning. The woman, who a week ago had no luster, now shone like polished glass. Billy had not exaggerated–she was beautiful.

As Coral stood next to her madam Lou Gramm, she spotted Fayth in the crowd. "Look, there's Fayth! Thank goodness! Look, Olive." The cat purred in her arms. "See, there's your mistress. Doesn't she look beautiful? I told you she'd come through just fine. Fayth has as many lives as you do." She snuggled the cat up against her cheek and turned to look at Lou. "Do you think the bank vaults held?"

Lou was studying her ragtag group of girls. Most of them were still dressed in the gowns they escaped in, bedraggled despite faithful laundering. There wasn't a gown among them that would catch the eye of a single one of their high-class clients. What a damn waste! Their entire wardrobe up in flames! Her regular seamstress, Mrs. Green, had lost her sewing machine in the fire and left Seattle in despair to live with her sister in Chicago. Which left Lou in a bit of a predicament. There were few enough women around who had the skill to design and sew for her girls. And even fewer, perhaps not one, who would agree to.

Lou turned her gaze across the crowd to Fayth. "Where did she get that gown, do you suppose?"
 

Coral answered enthusiastically. "She made it herself. Fayth sews like a whirlwind. I saw the sketch of that very dress on her drawing board just days before the fire."

"That's her design? Very nice. She has talent." Fayth just might be the solution to Lou's problem. She had to act quickly to maintain her status as Seattle's premier madam. Everyone expected better of her than shabbily clad girls. Most of her clients had lost something to the fire—a business, an investment. They wanted entertainment. They wanted to forget their misery. She needed Fayth’s designs to create the proper lighthearted illusion that all was well.

"That's not even one of her best, but I'm guessing it was one she could make up fast." Coral's words interrupted Lou's thoughts. "She has sketchbooks full, or did."

A slow smile spread across Lou's face. "Time to call in a favor," she said lightly. Her eyes did not leave Fayth.

Word came by way of a reporter let in to cover the excavation. The Finn vault held! Fayth jumped up and down, screaming at the news. The logger next to her grabbed her in a bear hug. Men slapped each other on the back and pumped each other's hands. The banks were solvent. There would be money for loans. Savings were safe! The masses went wild with euphoria. She had a chance to recover now. A slim chance, but it was better than nothing.

Con watched Fayth as she was swallowed up by the crowd, half relieved by the news, half upset. Fayth would never have him now. He met Bailey on the
Eliza
and joined him for a celebration drink. The mayor of Seattle had pulled all liquor licenses the day after the fire; Seattle was dry. That didn't stop them. No one but them commanded the waters of the Sound. Bailey showed him to the captain's quarters and offered him a tankard of the beer he'd hauled up from Tacoma A couple of beers in, Con unburdened himself to his old friend.

"You turned her down?" Bailey's tone was incredulous.

"I've told you I did at least a dozen times." Con was losing his patience.

"Yes, but go over your reasons again, Con. They're so damned amusing."

Con scowled at him and slammed his beer mug onto the table.

"Let me see if I have this right. You turned down Miss Sheridan's marriage proposal, damned amusing in itself, now if some gal proposed to me—"

"Not a chance in hell, Bail," Con interrupted.

"Now you want this woman," Bailey continued smoothly, "always did, but you had a brilliant, highly logical plan for courting her, which is, not to court her. Forgive me if I miss your logic."
 

"Careful, Bail. I'd dump this brew on you if it weren't so hard to come by." Instead he lifted it to his lips and chugged half the glass in a single gulp. "I told you, I didn't want some business arrangement. I wanted her."

"Never knew you were such a romantic, Con."

"I'm not sure it's romance, Bail. Maybe it's simple lust."

"You are a romantic, Con."

Con shrugged and shoved the copy of the
Seattle Post Intelligencer
toward Bailey, tapping on an article. "Read this."

"So?" Bailey said when he finished reading the
PI's
account of the beautiful and stylish Miss Sheridan who worked at the relief tents. The article stated she handed out colorful ribbons, and clothes for children. A brief quote said that her mission, in her own small way, was to bring color and life back to Seattle. Bailey had seen a few of those ribbons himself. The article ended with a quip about Miss Sheridan being a beautiful spot of color herself.

"It's her," Con said. "She's going around all dolled up. You figure out what it means."

"Why don't you tell me what you think it means?" Bailey said.

"Why do women usually get fixed up?"

"I assume that's a rhetorical question."

"To catch men," Con said. "Before the fire, she dressed in mourning clothes." Con leaned back in his chair. "She's wearing her hair up in some fancy knot, with bunches of curls around her face. Curls!"

Bailey laughed again. "Spare me the fashion details. What's to say she hasn't just decided to change her look? Women do, you know. My sisters—"

Con waved him into silence. "No."

"Well, why not? She was trying to lure you into wedlock and she wasn't dressing up then."

"Nice of you to point that out, old friend." Con shoved his mug across to Bailey. "Pour me another. You're by the keg."

Bailey talked as he held Con's glass beneath the spigot. "You told me she changed her mind about marrying. What's changed?"

"Before she only
thought
she was desperate. Now, she's got to be panicked for real, wild for money. Everyone is." Con took his glass from Bailey and stared at the white foam on top for a minute. "The whole city reeks with the odor of a wild, desperate euphoria. Ordinarily decent folks looting. Scams everywhere. What crazy thing is she going to try now?"

"So? Save her the trouble. Propose to her yourself, Con." Bailey's tone was only half serious.

"I can't, she wouldn't have me. I kissed her the night of the fire. Right there on the deck of the
Aurnia
. My men would be sucking bilge water, or looking for another job if I ever caught them courting onboard. I'm not any happier with my own conduct. For more than one reason. It scared her off. The next morning she left without a good-bye."

"Then I'd say you need some practice kissing, my boy. You better stop by Lou's for a little drill in the intimate arts before you pursue this matter further. Maybe there's a reason a kiss is all you got for your trouble." The teasing light was back in Bailey's eyes. He was no help at all. "I'd have expected a greater show of appreciation."

Con's glower silenced him.

"I see. This must be something serious if you're protecting her reputation." Bailey was silent for a moment. "Lend her the money yourself."

"Haven't got it."

"Use your connections to throw some her way."

"How? Who do I know who needs a seamstress?"

Bailey shrugged. "As a last resort, you could try courting her, for real."

"I don't have time. I've whiled away all I can making these peanut runs between Seattle and Tacoma. As soon as I get Jacob to lend me the money to rebuild the wharf, I'm going to have to take on the longer runs out of town. No one in Seattle is shipping timber now. I need money myself. Seattle's crying for goods. There's a pile of money to be made long hauling—something you mailmen don't have to worry about."

Bailey laughed. "True. The government keeps paying me despite the fire."

"Yeah, lucky you. Unfortunately, my mail subsidy is too small to bail me out and if I don't make my next run to San Francisco I lose that, too." He drummed his fingers on the table. "I can't chance her being scammed or accepting some fool's proposal while I'm gone. If she hasn't already. I told you about that fancy gentleman Billy saw?"

"You did."

"I don't think she'll embarrass herself by proposing to me again." Con didn't like the dark turn his thoughts kept taking. "But there are enough rutting bucks around, she'll be able to snare one quick enough. Somehow, I have to link her to me."

Bailey was silent for a moment, thinking. When he finally spoke, his words hit Con with a strange profoundness. "Then you'll just have to force her into marrying you. Quickly."

From the parlor, Fayth saw Mrs. Beard in the entry, surreptitiously pulling back the curtains that shielded the narrow window flanking the door. Curious, Fayth looked out her own window and spied a fancy carriage as it came down the block.
 

A plain young woman, no more than sixteen and dressed in worn clothing, alighted from the carriage. Fayth turned away from the window and came around to the parlor entrance where she could see the guest over Mrs. Beard's shoulder. The girl at the door held a cat with a tiny tinkling bell on its collar.

"I've been told Miss Fayth Sheridan is a guest here. I believe I've found her cat and have come to return her—"

"Coral!" Fayth rushed past Mrs. Beard. "I barely recognized you." She addressed the cat. "Olive! You're alive." She hugged them both before taking Olive into her arms. "Oh, you naughty girl! You gave me such a fright!" She caught Mrs. Beard's disapproving look.

"It's all right, Mrs. Beard. Coral is a friend of mine."

Mrs. Beard stood in the entry like a scowling sentry, apparently intent on blocking Coral's entrance into the Kelleys' home. "You ought to choose your friends with more discrimination," she muttered under her breath.
 

Fayth took the hint and stepped out onto the stoop to talk to Coral.

"Fayth, you look stunning. What convinced you to trade away mourning clothes?"

Fayth laughed. "I've decided to be more colorful. Look at you! Looks like we've traded places."

"I left the face paint off when I realized I had to come here to find you." Coral's voice lost some of its gaiety. "Our whole wardrobe was destroyed in the fire."

"Oh, poor baby." Fayth held the purring cat to her cheek. "Both of you! Where did you find her?"

"She was wandering in the street when we evacuated."

Fayth looked up to the carriage at the end of the drive. Lou Gramm waited inside for Coral, watching their conversation with interest. "What's
she
doing here?"

"Lou wants to talk to you."

"Another time." Fayth nodded toward the matron in the window.

Coral shook her head. "Either you come out to the carriage, or Lou marches up here to their door. Sorry, but those are your options."

Fayth set Olive inside the door, called to Mrs. Beard to look after her, and turned toward the drive.

At the carriage, Lou greeted her with a measured smile. "Miss Sheridan, how nice of you to join me." She offered her a hand up. "Please come up and sit with me. I insist."

It was futile to defy Lou. Fayth ignored her hand and climbed up unassisted. Coral climbed in behind her.
 

"Thank you for allowing Coral to look after my cat."

Lou opened her hands in a magnanimous gesture. "You're most welcome." Her gaze flitted over Fayth.

"Why did you want to see me?"

"My! How you cut to the quick of the matter, Fayth." The madam gave her a generous smile. "I've come to make you a business proposal. Your beautiful gown caught my eye when we were out the other day. You're the only woman in Seattle dressed in anything even reasonably fashionable. I wondered to myself where a woman of your simple means would get such fine gowns."