Free The Golden Cross by Angela Elwell Hunt Page A

would want anything she had done.
    He took the sketch, rolled it up, then stood and bowed as formally as if she were the Queen of England. A group of barmaids watching from a nearby table tittered with laughter at his dignified gesture, but Heer Van Dyck seemed oblivious of them. After saluting her, the gentleman moved through the doorway and left Aidan alone at her table.
    “Got a new gentleman friend, Irish Annie?” A sailor yelled over the noise of the tavern. “I could show you a better time than that old goat.”
    “You’ll not show me any kind of time, haven’t I said so before?” Aidan called back, rising from her chair. “And if you can’t tell an honest gentleman when you see one, then you, sir, don’t have both oars in the water.”
    Undiluted laughter rang through the room as she walked back to the bar.

    Schuyler Van Dyck,” Orabel mused, fingering the damp little card. She and Aidan were sitting in the small chamber Bram leased behind the tavern, the only place where Aidan and the other women felt they were not on public display.
    “Van Dyck,” Aidan repeated. She leaned back upon one of the loosely stuffed pallets that served as a mattress. “Sort of a stuffy-sounding name, isn’t it? I imagine he’s right up there with the Vanderveers and the Van Diemens—”
    “He seemed like a nice man.” Orabel pushed a pile of soiled garments out of the way, lay back, and gazed dreamily at the ceiling. “I think you should accept his offer. Even if he can only teach you for a few days, it wouldn’t hurt you to go to his house and enjoy a bit of the good life.” She turned on her side and smiled at Aidan. “Can you imagine what they serve in his house? Real tea with sugar, Aidan, and sweet biscuits. Doesn’t that sound a sight better than the gruel and ale Bram gives us?”
    “I don’t know.” Aidan rolled over and propped her head on her hand. “What good will only a few lessons do? He’ll have to leave, and I’ll know a wee bit more about painting—but what good will that do me here in the tavern? I’ll still be nothing but a barmaid, Orabel.”
    “Being a barmaid’s not the worst thing in the world.” Orabel’s voice was soft with hurt. “And you’re luckier than most of us.”
    Aidan bit her lip, shamed into silence by her own thoughtlessness. Bram couldn’t afford to put all the girls to work in the tavern; as a favor to Lili he usually kept Aidan pouring at the bar. But Orabel, Sofie, Brigit, and several of the others had to pick pockets and beg for money enough to eat. Though they rarely spoke of it, Aidan knew they sometimes found other ways to earn their keep.
    “I’m sorry, Orabel.” Aidan shrank from her friend’s wounded expression. “I’m truly sorry. I’d give anything if I had enough money to get us both out of here. I’d buy us a little house on the other side of town where we could live in peace, and we’d be genteel ladies. No drunken seamen around, no bossy Bram. No fights, no one cursing in our ears all the livelong day, no threats of the workhouse …
    Aidan’s voice trailed away as a deep, painful blush washed up from Orabel’s throat and lit her face. “That would be nice, Aidan.But I’m not expecting anything from you or anybody else. I’m fine. I’m really fine.”
    Aidan closed her eyes for a moment, regretting her words. Two years before, frightened, fragile, and slightly daft from her experience on an ocean-going ship, Orabel had disembarked in Batavia. Her parents had sailed with her from England, but both had succumbed to a mysterious ague that plagued the passengers. With no protector aboard ship, thirteen-year-old Orabel had been attacked by drunken seamen and abandoned on the wharf—forlorn, orphaned, and pregnant.
    Lili and the others had taken the child in. Sofie tried to teach Orabel the finer points of picking a sailor’s pocket, but the girl was too shy and hesitant to be much good at filching a man’s money belt. Orabel found