Free Band of Sisters by Cathy Gohlke

house—ever?” Olivia stared from Drake to the disheveled woman, who could have been no older than she, and back to Drake.
    But Drake, clearly working to control his fury, did not answer, and the young woman apparently could not. Olivia pushed between them and helped the woman to her feet. She felt not much more than skin and bones.
    “Miss O’Reilly was just leaving.” Drake spoke with authority, taking the broken woman’s arm from Olivia to escort her roughly from the room.
    “But what is this about a letter from Father?”
    “Your father?” The flame-haired beauty turned, wrenching her arm from Drake. “Is Colonel Wakefield your father?” she nearly begged.
    “Co—Colonel?” Olivia stuttered, as taken off guard by the question as she was by the woman’s thick brogue. “Yes, yes—well, he was. Drake has told you that my father passed away?”
    The woman’s face fell and her breath caught in a sob. “Then it’s true. Then it’s no matter.”
    “What is no matter?” Olivia stepped closer, wishing to help.
    “Enough of this,” Drake insisted. “Miss O’Reilly has another appointment and must be on her way.” He ushered her to the front door, ignoring Dorothy and Curtis Morrow, who had emerged from the dining room.
    Stepping across the threshold, the woman turned again to Olivia with eyes empty as the sudden dead of winter.
    Drake closed the door.

Maureen had not felt the damp and raw of New York’s bleak November as she’d made her way along cobbled and paved streets to the address printed on her da’s precious letter. She’d felt only the warmth of hope, hope, hope beating in her chest.
    But with the all-important letter reduced to ashes in the Wakefields’ grate, and with nothing better than a shove and a kick through the front door, the cold seeped through Maureen’s woolen shawl and skirt and chemise, right down to the chilled bones beneath her flesh and the feeble heart they covered.
    The late-afternoon mist became a frigid drizzle. Shivering against the dampness that trickled down her neck, she pulled her dripping shawl over her hair, adjusting the wet, woolen weight across her shoulders. The miserable turn of the weather reflected the miserable turn in her soul.
    She’d tried to prepare herself for the possibility that Colonel Wakefield, like her da, might no longer be there. She’d never prepared herself for the rough treatment of the man called Drake.
    She supposed him Olivia Wakefield’s husband. If so, she pitied her yet wondered that American women were so outspoken to their husbands in front of strangers. Still, Drake’s actions and wishes had prevailed.
    “Katie Rose,” she whispered as she trudged through rain-wet leaves and muddy gutters, “what will we do now? What will become of us?”
    The very whispering aloud made Maureen shiver. It gave her fear voice.
    “There must be another way,” she spoke louder. Those words heartened her a little, so she tried again. “Of course there’s another way. There’s never only one way.” It sounded fine spoken into the rain, but she didn’t believe it and walked a little faster—down East 20th, across Park Avenue and Broadway—as though she could outrun the inevitable.
    What if I told Mrs. Melkford that I have a job—that the Wakefields gave me a job in their great house? Maureen turned down Fifth Avenue and crouched on a low stone wall beneath a tree—the first she’d seen surrounding a residence more modest than the Wakefield mansion. Dusk settled heavily. She’ll know I’ve lied when I come back with no money and no place to live. They’ll not let me have Katie Rose if I’ve no job.
    Maureen buried her head in her hands. She would have sobbed if she’d been able to muster the energy. But she was too worried to sob, too frightened at the thought of losing Katie Rose to Ireland and Gavin Orthbridge.
    When she lifted her head without inspiration, the night had truly come. Without a map she’d be fortunate indeed to