Rescuing the Heiress

Tess had raided the attic with Annie and they had both come away with elaborately decorated dark hats and veils.

Annie’s was silk with the brim rolled to one side and the crown bedecked with silk and muslin cup roses and a taffeta bow.

Tess chose the one she had always loved seeing her mother wear. It had two sweeping ostrich plumes anchored in a rosette of shiny black taffeta centered with a large jet ornament. That pin had been a gift from her father to her mother and Mama had always adored it.

Their shirtwaist blouses and lightweight, plaited skirts were their own but they had covered them with heavy wool coats. Tess’s reached below her ankles. Annie’s brushed the floor.

“I’m too short,” the girl complained, lifting the hem. “I’ll get it all dusty.”

“Better dust than mud,” Tess countered. “Just be thankful it isn’t as wet out there as it usually is in the spring.”

She glanced from the second-floor window of her bedroom where they were finishing their preparations. The garden below was bathed in a light mist, and beyond toward the Pacific, clouds lay low, obscuring the moon and much of the landscape, including the lights of the parts of the city nearest the shore.

“Hopefully it won’t rain later tonight,” Tess said. “Looks like the fog is going to be bad though.”

“I know. Maybe we shouldn’t go out.”

“Nonsense. Did you order my mare harnessed to the buggy and tell them when to bring it around, as we’d planned?”

“Yes. But I don’t know that we’ll have a driver. The last I saw of Michael he was still with Mary. I thought surely he’d want to go home and change if he truly intended to take us.”

“I suspect he was wishing he’d be called back to work so he wouldn’t have to keep that promise,” Tess said. “I sincerely hope he doesn’t spend the entire evening lecturing us on the proper place of women in the home.”

Annie grinned. “He can’t really do that unless he goes inside and listens to Miss Younger.”

“Which is highly unlikely,” Tess added. “Wasn’t he funny when he got so uppity? Imagine thinking he can tell us what to do.”

“He sounded like your father may when he finds out what we’ve been up to tonight.” Annie was shivering in spite of the warmth of her wool coat. “I’m not looking forward to that.”

“Nor am I,” Tess replied with a slight nod, “but I truly feel that this is a cause worth investigating. It’s not as if you and I were planning to officially join the movement or anything like that. We’re just curious. Think of it as a lark.”

“Michael surely doesn’t see it that way.”

“No.” Tess sobered. “But his opinion isn’t our concern. As long as he lives up to his promise we’ll have no trouble.”

“I wish we’d asked someone else to escort us.”

“I don’t,” Tess replied candidly. Truth to tell, she was looking forward to being driven into the heart of the city by the handsome fireman almost as much as she was looking forward to hearing the suffragette lecture.

She began to smile, then grin. There weren’t many socially acceptable ways she could spend time with the cook’s son. Not that she’d ever admit she was looking for any. Perish the thought. But this adventure would be fun. And perhaps in the long run, one more man would begin to understand why so many women were banding together to demand emancipation.

Annie’s squeal startled her from her reverie. “The buggy’s here!” She grabbed her hat to help hold it in place as she added another long pin. “It’s time to go.”

“All right, all right. Keep your voice down or Father will hear.”

“Sorry.” Annie pressed the fingertips of one hand to her lips while continuing to steady the large hat with her other. “Did you leave a note?”

“Yes,” Tess whispered. “And I sincerely hope Father doesn’t find reason to miss us and read it.” She reached for the other young woman’s gloved hand. “Come on. Our carriage awaits.”

Chapter Two

Here they come, Michael thought. Or do they? He shook his head in disbelief. Except for the lightness of their steps, the approaching pair resembled stodgy matrons rather than the lithe, lovely young women he had expected. If this was their idea of a joke he was not amused.

While a groom steadied the horse, Michael circled the cabriolet to assist them. Frowning, he offered his hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Mahoney,” Tess said, placing her small, gloved fingers in his and raising her hem just enough to place her dainty foot on the step leading to the rear seat.

“It’ll be good only if your father doesn’t find out what you’re up to,” Michael countered. “I can’t believe you convinced me to be a party to this.”

Stepping aboard, she laughed softly, her eyes twinkling behind the thin veil that she’d arranged to cover her face. “Neither can I.”

“You two look like you’re going to a funeral,” he said with disdain. “I just hope it isn’t mine.”

Tess merely laughed. Michael was too troubled to comment further. Instead, he helped Annie up the same step, then vaulted easily into the driver’s seat. “Ready?”

“Ready,” they said in unison, sounding like two happy children headed for a romp in Golden Gate Park on a sunny afternoon.

Their carefree attitude irritated Michael. He’d spent enough time in the seamier parts of San Francisco to know that his chore of protecting these foolish young women might prove harder than either of them imagined. Yes, the city was more civilized than it had been right after the gold rush, but there were still plenty of ne’er do-wells, drunks and just plain crooks out and about, especially after dark.

His fondest hope was that the crowd of women at Mechanics’ Pavilion would act as an adequate buffer to help safeguard his charges. He couldn’t hold off a mob single-handed, not even if he were armed, which he was not.

An aroma of salt water and rotting refuse from down by the wharves was borne on the fog, although it didn’t seem quite as offensive as usual, probably because the evening was quite cool and there was no onshore wind to carry as much of the odor inland.

Michael flicked the reins lightly to encourage the horse to trot after he turned onto Powell Street. Driving over the cobblestones with the metal-rimmed carriage wheels gave their passage a rough, staccato cadence, although there was so much other traffic on the wide boulevard the sounds melded into a clatter that made it hard to differentiate one noise from the others.

Teamsters yelled at their teams, whipping the poor beasts to force them to haul overfilled wagons up the steep streets from the wharves. A herd of cattle was evidently being driven up Market Street because their combined bellowing and shouts of the drovers working them could be heard blocks away.

Add to that the occasional echoing pistol shot, probably coming from the seamier areas of the city, and Michael was decidedly uneasy. The sooner they reached the pavilion and he got these two innocents settled inside the hall, the happier he’d be.

A giggle came from behind him, tickling the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. It was Tess. Of course it was. Annie might be accompanying her but this so-called adventure had most certainly originated in Tess’s active mind.

He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Tess replied, her voice still tinged with humor. “I was just thinking of how much more enjoyable this jaunt would be if we’d taken Papa’s new motorcar.”

“You’d need a different driver if you had,” Michael told her flatly. “I’ve plenty of experience handling the lines but never an automobile.”

“You drive them with a wheel or a steering lever, not reins,” Tess teased. “Everybody knows that. Papa says the time will come when horses are unnecessary.”

“I doubt that. Those machines will never catch on. Too noisy and complicated. Besides, you’d spend all your spare time stopping at pharmacies to buy jugs of fuel. Imagine the inconvenience.”

“No more so than having to feed and water horses,” she countered. “You should know all about that. Those fire horses you care for are beautiful animals. When they race through the streets as a team it’s a thrilling sight.”

“How would you know?”

She tittered behind her gloved hand. “I have seen them in action many times. And you driving them, if you must know.”

“Have you, now? That’s a bit of a surprise.” When he turned slightly farther and smiled at her, he saw her gather herself and raise her chin.