Free City of Glory by Beverly Swerling Page A

in the early afternoon of this summer day. She was smiling and humming softly when she returned to her father’s house on Maiden Lane.
    Manon came in through the kitchen door, avoiding the shop where Maurice Vionne traded in jewels when he could get them, and more regularly engaged in the smithing of gold and silver. Her father was waiting for her. “You’re soaked, Manon. Where have you been?”
    “To the Fly Market, Papa. I told you I was going. There was a dreadful storm, did you not hear it?”
    She set down her basket as she spoke, and took off her high-crowned straw bonnet and her embroidered shawl, revealing a white and-lavender-checked day dress with a high frilled neck and long sleeves with ruffled cuffs. Modest enough, but wet as it now was, the thin cotton fabric clung to her body. That didn’t alarm Vionne as much as the flush in her cheeks. Lately, he was more and more convinced his daughter was keeping secrets, and less and less sure what to do about it. Her mother had died eight years before. Vionne was convinced that if his wife had lived their Manon would be married by now, and he would be dandling a grandchild or two. Perhaps a grandson to replace the three sons who had not lived to work beside him as he’d once dreamed, a male heir to learn smithing and inherit his business. “I heard today that Pierre DeFane has a nephew coming from Virginia,” he said. “Seems his wife died last year and he—”
    “I will be happy to meet the gentleman when he arrives, Papa. I am always happy to entertain your friends, you know that. Now, look at the lovely fish I found at the market.” Manon folded back the cloth that covered the contents of her basket and held it up for his inspection. “You shall have a delicious soupe de poisson for your dinner.”
    It was always the same: She never opposed him outright. If she did, he could command her obedience. Instead she was compliant and sunny and seemed to fall in with whatever he wanted. But nothing ever went his way, always hers. You are too clever for me, my Manon. Too clever for any man. And that is the problem. “Soupe de poisson,” he said. “I will enjoy that.”
    Maurice Vionne was perhaps the best known of the town’s Huguenot jewelers. He could afford a cook, but like her mother before her, Manon did all the shopping and cooking for the household. It was a considerable savings in the monthly expenses, so perhaps it wasn’t so bad that she was a spinster. Besides, she was useful in the shop. In a country without a royal court to support trade in precious stones, smithing was the everyday work that bought their dinners. All the same, trading in priceless stones, that was in the Vionne blood, and Manon had an eye for a jewel as keen as his own. “I will want you to mind the premises later this evening,” he said.
    “Of course, Papa. Will you not be here?”
    “I will be upstairs. With a visitor.”
    Manon’s heart began to pound. She made a huge effort not to let her excitement show. “A customer, Papa? Someone you won’t see in the shop?”
    Vionne shrugged. “Someone whose business is private. Jewels are often held close to the heart, ma petite. You have surely learned that by now.”
    “Indeed, Papa.” Manon knew that more than one widow had come to Maurice Vionne long after business hours, white-faced and mortified that she needed to sell her jewelry to get money to live. “Am I to take it you will be receiving a lady?”
    Vionne started from the kitchen and didn’t look at her when he spoke. “Not a lady, no. Please hold yourself ready just after seven, Manon. Here in the kitchen. I will let my visitor in myself, and call you after I have him settled.”
    “I will do exactly as you ask, Papa.” So! Perhaps Joyful was correct. Nothing in her voice or her manner gave away her excitement, but she could not keep her hands from trembling. Pray God Papa had not noticed.

    Chatham Street, 4 P.M.
    Gornt Blakeman moved quickly through the