Chapter Text
September, 1888
Irene rested her back against the carriage wall, clutching her gloved hands together tightly. She stared down at the lace rather than look out the window, faintly aware if she let herself relax her hands would be shaking. For the fifth time in the last ten minutes she reminded herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong, or even scandalous. Her actions were downright mundane. No one in their right minds would fault her. And Whitney wouldn’t ever even know she’d left the house.
She’d chosen a weekend he was out of town for her first venture into the city as a married woman, completely alone. Years under first her father’s watchful eye had made her jittery about going anywhere unchaperoned, his paranoia convincing him she would get kidnapped or pregnant or flee for Canada as soon as he looked away. Between him and her nurses, instructed to watch her with the same stifling guard, she’d welcomed finishing school as the only chance she ever had for a bit of solitude without suspicion. Whitney, in comparison, didn’t watch her closely, but his presence prickled her consciousness more than any nurse’s ever had. There was her husband, the man who by rights to law as good as owned her, could make her life tolerable or a misery without so much as a second thought. He pinched her cheeks as though she were a child and made passive comments about her and his expectations that stirred her irritation and nerves in one, all while leering at the maids. They’d been out, of course, to a variety of social events and a few dinners at fine restaurants, but when she went out, he went with her, always. Phresine assured her the marriage was still new enough that he was gloating about her and insistent on showing off his beautiful new wife. And she’d picked that up through multiple grapevines of gossip, which did make Irene feel better. But the instinct to sink back into the carriage and shake with nerves and impotent frustration held such a grip on her she couldn’t resist making herself small.
The cab slowed to a halt at a street corner to prepare to turn. Barely three seconds of pause. Completely normal. Far less normal was the door to the carriage opening silently and a man hanging on the stoop before swinging himself inside and closing the door just as silently to avoid the driver noticing. The man sat on the seat across from Irene, looked up at her, and went significantly paler than he already was. “Oh, fuck. Shit. Shit, I mean—don’t scream. Please don’t scream.”
He hissed the words, waving his hands in front of him. Irene felt her eyes widening, her heart pounding. She was so surprised, she even stopped shaking for a moment. But somehow, impossibly, she did not scream. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed back, finding her nerve again and setting her jaw.
“I didn’t see you. I thought this cab was empty. Fu—sorry. Sorry, ma’am. I’ll leave, but please let me wait til the next turn.”
“…You’re trying to travel without paying?”
He nodded. “It’s easier to sneak into cabs than trying to dodge omnibus watchmen. I’m sorry.”
Irene stared at him, blinking. He was older than she was, but probably not by more than a few years. Handsome, in a coltish, elegant sort of way, with sleek dark hair that had come loose from its pomade. A long face with a fox-like quality to it in the way his chin pointed and the slight arch of the bridge of his Roman nose; less pronounced than her own. Big, bright blue eyes. A neatly groomed but new and faintly ridiculous attempt at a gentleman’s mustache. Lanky—he’d be tall if he stood, perhaps as tall as Irene herself—and thin in a sharp, underfed way rather than looking intentionally trim. Clothes disheveled and old, but she recognized they’d been once fashionable and good quality. An air of desperation hung about him that felt familiar in a touchy sort of way, but for some reason she didn’t feel afraid of him.
It was at that point, Irene decided, that she must have lost her mind forever. The last few months of constant observation, of having Whitney hovering just within her view wherever she went, of having no serious company but Phresine, they must have broken something within her that abruptly she decided she could not get back. Or she saw something in the strange fare hopper that felt a little like looking into a mirror, or perhaps she saw her only chance for any kind of connection she might have that would not also be connected to her husband. Or perhaps she retreated into the back of her own mind and let her body go through the motions of life as she had not since she was a child, or her sense of reason fled for the afternoon. Whatever the case, she did not scream. She did not order the cab driver to halt his horses.
What Irene did do was extend her hand and clasp the strange man’s long, thin fingers still held out nonthreateningly, and shake them. “Well. Hello.”
The man’s elegant jaw dropped, then snapped closed. He furrowed surprisingly bushy eyebrows and she felt his hand close gently around hers. “…Hello, I suppose?” he whispered, suddenly wary. His bright gaze wandered up into the hat perched on her head, where a long hatpin secured it in place. Smart man.
“How do you do. May I ask where you’re trying to go?” She released his hand and folded both of hers into her lap once more.
“…I…It doesn’t particularly matter. Away from where I was.”
Irene tilted her head, noting his collar unbuttoned and a hint of sweat down the side of his neck. A scratch on his hand that looked fresh, red knuckles, a patch of dirt on one trouser leg. “Was someone chasing you?”
The man swallowed, his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “Not for anything illegal, I promise you.”
“What was it?”
“I…I submitted a college application and a few acquaintances took offense.”
Irene tilted her head the opposite way, giving the man another once-over and a tight little frown. “What’s wrong with applying to college?”
“I’m Jewish.”
Ah, standard ignorance then. Irene hummed in disapproval and let her insanity make another decision for her. “I’m going to have tea. Are you hungry?”
He stared at her like she’d lost her mind, which was quite fair. Surely some mental faculty or other had undergone some sort of horrible damage in the last five minutes. “Am I…hungry?”
“Come to tea with me. My treat. We’ll do lunch.” She nodded as if that was settled and looked out the window toward the buildings. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
“Ma’am, thank you, but—”
“I could always scream,” she said lightly, watching only from the corner of her eye as his mouth snapped firmly shut again. She watched him give her the same appraising look she’d given him, but his gaze didn’t make her feel clammy or angry the way most men’s did. He might be attracted to her—probably was, most men were—but he was sizing her up as a potential danger, not as a woman. It felt…good.
Wisely, the man elected to ride in silence until the driver halted. Irene gave him a look as she exited and paid the driver, and just as wisely the man did not flee as soon as the carriage stopped. Very smart man. She slipped the driver an extra nickel just in case he’d noticed the sudden extra passenger before closing her coinpurse. She held out her arm and the man tentatively held out his hand to rest on her elbow as if he expected her to bite him. She opened the door rather than wait for him to do it, fearing that would tax his manners, and steered them into the tearoom.
While she’d set out to take tea on the town by herself, the presence of the man, stranger as he was, made her feel more confident. Not that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—go out by herself eventually, but. Well. She never got to really talk to anyone else ever, did she? Not outside of polite conversation at parties or chat with Phresine, who had known her since she was ten. And she’d definitely never had the chance to meet a new man alone. It was wild, and dangerous, and insane, and somehow it stilled the tremor in her fingers. Let Whitney leer and flirt at all the women he liked. Here she was, taking tea with a strange Jewish gentleman, and her husband none the wiser. She could be brave for one wild, stupid afternoon, and maybe it would do her good.
The host sat them and took their order—a light soup and salad, then white fish with fresh summer vegetables and cake with tea. A more substantial meal than she’d dared to plan for herself, but her new companion had that Shakespearean hungry look about him. Irene folded her napkin in her lap and met his gaze again to find him staring at her with a guarded sort of apprehension and bafflement in his blue, blue eyes. His lashes were long, she noted, making his eyes almost too pretty to go with the rest of his face. “So.”
“…So,” he said back, tilting his head toward her. He fiddled with his napkin a moment before copying her movements and draping it over his lap.
Obviously born of lower means, no social manners training, but he could be teachable, she thought to herself. “College? Where did you apply?”
“New York University. To the law program.”
“Oh? You want to be a lawyer, or an attorney?”
His shoulders tensed as if expecting to have to go to battle for it. “An attorney.”
“Do you intend to pursue criminal justice or something else?”
“…No, I don’t have a great deal of interest in criminal justice,” he said slowly. The tension did not leave him, but it seemed to shift as he eyed her warily. “I intend to handle things like inheritance, litigation, domestic needs. Financial things.”
Irene just nodded. “I’ve heard there’s a great deal of work involved. You must be very dedicated. Do you know when you’ll hear back?”
“Sooner rather than later, I think,” he said slowly. The praise seemed to both throw him off further and relax him.
Irene gave him a half-smile. “I always wanted to go to college. My father insisted it was a waste of time to send me.”
“Why? I thought further education for daughters was becoming the done thing now.” He glanced at her dress—with a quick flick of eyes over her bosom, but he didn’t linger, which she appreciated. She got the feeling he was more interested in how expensive her clothing was than how she looked in it.
She sighed, the old familiar frustration rising in her again. “Yes, well. My father always was old-fashioned.”
“Was?”
“Mmm. He’s gone now. I suppose I could ask my husband if he wouldn’t mind if I attended.” She doubted it would be worth the breath to speak, but maybe she’d ask anyway.
The soup arrived quickly. Irene had been right. The man was hungry, though he restrained himself to eating as slowly as she did, and imitated her manners. His eyes darted around the tearoom as if he expected someone to bodily remove him at any moment. “Do try to relax,” Irene finally said quietly after sipping a spoonful of lovely herbed consommé. “You’re doing fine.”
He tensed again, shoulders inching toward his ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to sound breezy but landing on stiff.
She gave him another little smile. “You look like someone is going to throw you out on your ear just because there was a host at the door and you’ve dirt on your collar. Calm down. You’ve been behaving yourself admirably, and no one will mind as long as you’re with me.” She sipped another spoonful of soup calmly, ignoring the way he stared at her. The hint of vulnerability was familiar, too, and she didn’t want to face it. “The key to belonging somewhere you feel out of place,” she added, more to his waistcoat than to him, “is to act like you already belong there. You are doing fine, and you’ll need to have more confidence than this if you intend to be an attorney.”
“I didn’t ask for your judgement or advice,” he hissed. She bit her lip a little to keep from smiling more openly.
“That wasn’t either. Forgive me, I meant no insult. I’ve never gotten to meet someone new on my own before. Tell me about yourself, please?”
He snorted. “You first. Why isn’t your husband here with you?”
“He’s in Delaware for the weekend.”
For some reason, that was what made the man relax. And when he gave her a lazy, fox-like smile and reached out with the hand not holding his spoon to brush inviting fingers against her wrist, she realized why. “Oh? And while the cat’s away…”
“No,” she said quickly, with a shake of her head. She shifted her wrist out from under his hand, but left it on the table. A rejection, but not a cold one. “That’s very flattering, but no, I don’t want that kind of companionship.”
Some of the tension returned, and his brows furrowed again. He set down the spoon. “Then what do you want from me, ma’am?”
“Just the regular kind of companionship,” she said, trying to keep her voice as light as possible and not as desperately lonely as she suddenly felt. “And maybe a good lawyer one day who I didn’t meet through my husband, just in case. My mother,” she added when he raised an eyebrow, “always said one shouldn’t put all one’s trust in one man.”
“Your mother was a wise woman,” he said gruffly, the guarded look back in his eye. “I’m not a lawyer.”
“Well, with that sort of attitude, you won’t ever be. My name is Irene Carmichael.”
She could see him thinking, calculations turning over in his mind while she placidly sipped her soup. It really was tasty, and he could hardly even be tasting it as pent up as he was. “…I’m John Goldsmith.”
“No, you aren’t, and while I understand your reluctance to introduce yourself, I am insulted you couldn’t come up with anything better than that. You seem clever.”
“You seem…” the man trailed off, still staring at her.
“Eat your soup. And do try to enjoy it, or the cook will have worked so hard for nothing.”
He ate his soup. And his salad, carefully waiting until she chose her fork to begin. She plied him with questions about what he intended to study at university and what he was doing for work at the moment—delivery work for a butcher, and she was fairly certain that one wasn’t a lie. Talking about the city seemed safest most of the time, and it turned out they did have some neighborhoods in common. She gave him few details about herself, as few as he gave her, but remained honest. Awkward and stilted and uncomfortable as the meal was as times, it felt good, thrilling to talk to someone new who would have no connection to her own life. Someone who she could learn without any prior impressions or expectations getting in the way. She adored Phresine, but talking to someone her own age, who didn’t expect anything from her and who she didn’t feel the need to perform for felt like opening all the windows after the first spring rain.
The man slowed down naturally over cake, finally having eaten his fill. The sigh he gave when he took a drink of strong coffee suggested he was a stranger to a full stomach more often than not. Irene raised an eyebrow and reached into her purse, withdrawing a pencil and a hand diary. She scribbled down her name and post office number before tearing out the sheet and sliding it toward him.
“What’s this?” he asked, tensing again.
“My postal code, and the number for the telephone on our corner. My husband wants to put one in the house, but he hasn’t made arrangements yet, so that will have to do.”
“…What am I meant to do with that?”
She gave him a withering look, and repressed a smile of delight when he threw up his mental guard again. How novel, for anyone outside her own maids to find her intimidating. “You’re to write to me, obviously. I want to hear about your studies, once you’re accepted.”
“I might not be.”
“I think you will. And I was serious about knowing an attorney my husband doesn’t.”
He snorted. “Far better ways to do that than hope I’ll pass the bar one day.”
“Well. Maybe I just hope we’ll be friends one day. If you’ll ever tell me your real name. Oh, go on. I’ll even feed you sometimes, if you’d like. You can’t turn down free food, can you?”
“…You’re a very strange young woman,” he said cautiously. But he slipped the paper into his pocket.
Irene smiled, calling for the bill and paying it without blinking. “That’s not something people have told me before.”
“Maybe they just don’t know you well.” He paused and bit his lip. “…Relius Dunhaven.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dunhaven.”