Dare to Love Again (The Heart of San Francisco Book #2): A Novel (6 page)

Lottie beamed like the sun while Allison’s face felt just as hot. She avoided Miss Penny’s eyes as she hurried out the door. “See you tomorrow, then!” Practically vaulting down the steps to escape, Allison froze midair at the sound of Miss Penny’s voice.

“Miss McClare . . . may I have a word with you, please?”

A groan clotted in her throat as she slowly wheeled around. “Yes, Miss Penny?”

The old woman scurried down the steps, sympathy soft in her gaze. She placed a frail hand on Allison’s arm. “He’s really quite harmless, you know.”

Allison blinked. “Pardon me?”

“Mr. Nick, as Lottie likes to call him. Or as the rest of us have fondly dubbed him . . . ,” the blue eyes sparkled with mischief, “Mr. Cranky Pants.”

Allison grinned outright. “So it’s not just me?”

“Oh, heavens no! Nicholas is one of the most consistent human beings you will ever meet, Miss McClare.” Her mouth crooked in a wry smile. “He treats everyone poorly at first.”

“Ah . . . so there’s hope,” Allison said with a soft chuckle.

The old woman issued a snort. “Not much, mind you, but some.” She cocked her head, studying Allison with a keen eye. “It may help to know, however, he’s made veiled references that lead me to believe he was badly hurt by a wealthy young woman from high society.”

A glimmer of comprehension dawned as Allison nodded. “So that explains his disparaging remarks about me and my wealth.”

Miss Penny winced. “Yes, I’m afraid so, including Lottie’s innocent reference to Miss La-di-da. But all grumpiness aside, Nicholas is a good man, more like a son than a boarder and the
apple of our eyes, albeit a sour one at times.” Her face softened into a tender smile. “Especially Lottie’s, because other than my nephew, Nicky’s the only man she’s been exposed to.” Her eyes sparked with moisture as her gaze wandered into a faraway stare. “The rest of my girls—ages eight to twenty-two—were abused in some way by men, most in brothels, so you can only imagine how leery they were of Mr. Cranky Pants in the beginning.” A raspy chuckle parted from her weathered lips as they tipped in a sad smile. “But Lottie came to us as a baby when her mother died giving birth, so she had no fear, loving Nicholas unconditionally until he had no choice but to love her back.”

Allison quietly swallowed the shame in her throat.

Miss Penny looked up then, the melancholy disappearing in a flash of a smile. “Now he loves all of us, and we love him, so you see, Miss McClare—he really is quite harmless.”

Allison arched a brow. “Unless you’re a wooden stick, then run for the hills?”

The old woman’s chuckle floated in the air. “Precisely.” She paused. “He did apologize for his rude remarks and give you the new pointer, yes?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. You be sure to let me know if he gives you any further trouble, Miss McClare—”

“Call me Alli, Miss Penny, please.”

“All right, Alli. Well, you need to get home, and I need to help with dinner, but if Mr. Cranky Pants steps over the line again, young lady, you have my express permission to whack him alongside the head with that brand-new stick, do you hear?” The old woman bustled back up the steps before Allison could even respond, pausing long enough to shoot a sassy smile over her shoulder. She winked. “After all, three times is the charm.”

6

H
ands clasped to her chest, Allison whirled around to survey her brand-new theater, a warm sense of satisfaction pervading her soul as few things ever had. A lover of the arts like her, Mother had provided the best of everything—from a brand-new baby grand to the newfangled electrical system with dimmers and spotlights overhead. Scarlet drapes flanked a curved oak arch, a perfect match for rows of polished oak folding chairs in the long, narrow room that now occupied half the first floor.

Prior to the opening of the school, it had taken months to transform the old house into the Hand of Hope School, removing walls and converting the parlour, dining room, and study into the theater, office, and several classrooms on the first floor alone. Mother had even expanded the kitchen so it could serve as a dining room for the girls and teachers as well.

A sigh of contentment breezed from her lips as she drank in the rich surroundings. Cherrywood-paneled walls gave the theater an air of elegance and refinement so foreign to the poor students who would attend. Gilded paintings depicted various forms of artistic expression, from dance and drama to music and literature. Allison closed her eyes and imagined the sounds of music and laughter and speech filling both the halls of their
new school and the hearts of their students. When the stage area wasn’t being used for plays, recitals, and assemblies, it would serve as a gymnasium for indoor games, parties, and gatherings of all kinds. It seemed almost too good to be true—the Hand of Hope School was up and running, hopefully to offer both a hand and hope to the disadvantaged girls of the Barbary Coast.

Casting a quick glance at the large clock over the door, she gasped. Her gaze darted to the windows at the front of the theater facing the street, where the pink glow of dusk was just beginning to bleed across the wood-planked floor. “Oh, drat, it’s getting dark!” she muttered. She quickly slipped her cashmere shawl over her shoulders and pinned her plumed hat, then retrieved her reticule and doused the lights. Letting herself out the front door, she carefully locked it behind her, nerves humming with excitement.

“Now, you won’t stay too late, will you?” Mother had asked, reluctance lacing her tone over allowing Allison to work late at all.

“Of course not, Mother, and there are plenty of taxis I can call,” Allison had assured her, although she had no intention of taking a taxi at all, not when her very first cable car ride awaited a few blocks away. A sliver of guilt prickled at misleading Mother, but she shook it off, the thrill of independence trumping any worry she might have had. Wasn’t it Mother who had encouraged her independence in the first place, insisting Allison go to college to become a teacher? She adjusted her hat with a jut of her chin, then smoothed her black gabardine skirt with sweaty hands. For goodness’ sake, she was a twenty-two-year-old working girl now, a licensed educator and a self-sufficient woman. If she wanted to take the cable car home, then by gum, she’d take the cable car home!

“If you think it’s safe for a
fancy dame in diamond combs to sashay through the worst
part of town to sightsee on a bloomin’ cable car
, you are way too stupid to teach in a school
.”

Her lips compressed. Besides, she needed to prove to herself and her family she was a responsible adult
and
prove her mettle to Mr. Grunt-and-Ga-roan as well. After all, this was only two measly city blocks hundreds of people walked every day of their lives, including the infamous Mr. Nick, right? And she’d bet not one of them carried a hat pin as large as hers.

Head high, she skittered down the front steps to the cobblestone street, the thrill of adventure tingling her skin. She paused to squint the length of Jackson Street, swabbed in purple shadows that deepened by the moment, then set out according to Nicholas Barone’s directions—two blocks south at Jackson and Montgomery. Adrenaline pulsed as the sounds of nighttime on the Barbary Coast grew stronger. The tinkle of steam pianos and the tinny sound of gramophone music drifted in the air along with the pungent smell of gasoline and manure. Laughter floated her way as men and women staggered out of a bar several blocks down, and she slowed her pace when vile shouts and curses erupted. A fight broke out among the group, and Allison halted, grateful she was only four houses from Miss Penny’s. A surge of gawkers spilled into the street from the bars lining her route, obviously anxious to watch the fray. She waited until the ruckus broke up, dismayed that the sky had darkened to pitch by the time it was over. Ominous streaks of purple slithered into the horizon while the noisy swarm of people slithered back into the bars.

Eyes trained straight ahead, her breathing accelerated when several shadows between the buildings seemed to move. The sporadic gas lamps offered little illumination to allay the uneasiness that now prickled her nerves.

“Oh!” Frazzled by fear, she misstepped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell down, skinning her palms while her reticule and hat flew into the cobblestone street. “Thunderation,” she muttered,
dusting dirt from her shawl and her skirt as she lumbered to her feet. After hobbling to pick up her purse and hat, she was just about to pin her hat on when she froze at the faint shuffle of footfall behind her. She whirled around, her stomach plummeting at the sight of two unsavory men.

“Needin’ a bit of help, are you, sweet cheeks?” One of them offered a lazy grin, the smell of whiskey and sweat turning her stomach.

“N-no, th-thank you,” she said weakly, sweaty fingers carefully skimming the brim of her hat for the pin.

The second man grinned while he scratched the side of his bristled face, his lurid gaze traveling her body. “Now, sure you do, little missy. What kind of gentlemen would we be if we didn’t come to the aid of a damsel in distress, eh?”

Despite the chill of evening, a bead of sweat trickled beneath her high-collared blouse as Allison backed up, heart thundering. “I’m f-fine, gentlemen, truly,” she stuttered, relief flooding when she grazed the knotted head of the fourteen-karat-gold hat pin Uncle Logan had given her for Christmas. “I just need to catch the cable car, so if you’ll excuse me please—”

“Blimey, miss, we don’t mind escortin’ you none.” The first man tucked his thumbs in the tattered suspenders of his dirty shirt, rolling back on his heels while the other slowly circled her from behind. “Matter of fact, we know a shortcut, don’t we, Floyd?”

Her Irish temper surged. “If you gentlemen don’t leave me in peace by the count of three, you will sorely regret it.”

“Is that so?” the leader said with a putrid grin that churned the egg sandwich she’d eaten for dinner into bile that rose in her throat.

“Yes, sir, it is.” She thrust her jaw while her grip tightened on the pin. “One.”

Cackles shivered her spine when the men’s laughter rolled into the air. “Ooooo, help me, Pug, please,” the one man mocked from behind, “I’m askeered the hoity-toity rich gal’s gonna hurt us bad.” His eyes lighted on the reticule dangling from her wrist. “Why don’t you just toss your purse this way, darlin’, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Two.” Her fingers began to sweat, pin slick in her palm beneath the fold of her wrap.

“You ain’t too friendly, are you, darlin’?” Pug reached out to trail a grimy finger down the cashmere shawl that hugged the sleeve of her blouse.

“Three!” Heart in her throat, Allison stabbed his hand. The man’s shriek of fury and pain bit the air while she whirled to brandish the pin at the other.

“Why, you little . . .” Curse words peppered the night when Allison bolted past the wounded man, fleeing for Mercy House with her skirt hiked to her knees.

Someone ripped the shawl from her back, wrenching a cry from her throat, and she picked up speed, eyes fixed on Miss Penny’s door just a house away.

“Gotcha!” Brutal hands circled her waist like a vice, unleashing her bloodcurdling scream when the ivory busk of her corset gouged into her skin.

“Feisty little wench, ain’t she?” a voice sneered as a foul-smelling hand cut off her air.

Cries muffled, she thrashed wildly in her assailant’s arms while fear iced her skin. She heard the rip of her sleeve, and cool air rushed into the hole that gaped at her shoulder. Somehow she rammed the pin into the man’s thigh, and he dropped her with a roar of agony, tumbling her to the cobblestones with a grunt. She scrambled up, and he grabbed her again, hat pin flying when he
tore hat and hairpins from her head. Curls spilled down her back while tears spilled from her eyes. “Help me, somebody, please!” she cried, pummeling the man in a frantic attempt to flee.

“Oh, no you don’t, missy.” Pug yanked her toward the alley with a fistful of curls. “Time to pay the piper.”

God, help me, please . . .

Pain seared her body as bile climbed up her throat. She kicked and slashed with unbridled anger, finally biting the noxious hand clamped over her mouth. Her scream rent the air along with the crazed howl of the man she bit, curses defiling the night as she tried to lunge away.

Ka-boom!
A gunshot stilled the blood in her veins. “I suggest you vermin scatter before I do it for you.”

Three sets of eyes darted to the stoop not twenty feet away. There stood Miss Penny in an apron with a shotgun in her hands, cocked and aimed and dusted with flour.

“Get inside, old lady, this don’t concern you,” Pug growled over his shoulder. His beady eyes settled on Floyd with a sharp nod in Miss Penny’s direction. “Get the gun.”

Floyd took a step forward, and a curse hissed from his lips when bits of cobblestone exploded at his feet. He jumped back while Miss Penny cocked and reloaded in the space of a heartbeat, flour dusting both her nose and her cheeks. “Now those were warning shots, you snake-belly scalawags. The next two are going to nick a little more.”

“That old bat’s crazy, Pug! I ain’t stayin’ around so some old hag can drill us with holes.” Floyd backed up, hands in the air. “You’re on your own,” he shouted before hightailing it down the street to disappear around a corner.

Pug shoved Allison hard, and she stumbled to the ground with a cry. Moving toward Miss Penny, he absently rubbed the
bloody hole in his hand. “Now, come on, ma’am,” he said, voice gentle, gaze hard. “You and I both know you’re not gonna shoot me . . .”

Chest heaving, Allison scanned the street for her hat pin, heart lurching when it gleamed in the lamplight just a few feet away. She snatched it up along with her shawl and hat and, not daring to breathe, tiptoed behind Pug with blood in her eyes, aiming straight for his rump.

Words Allison never heard before burned her ears when the man vaulted in the air with a screech that would have curdled his whiskey. Obscenities spewed as he kneaded his backside, mouth gaping and eyes bugging out of his head.

A deadly click drained the blood from his face.

“Now, I suggest you crawl back into whatever sewer you slithered out of, mister,” Miss Penny whispered, squinting down the flour-dusted barrel of her gun, “before the two of us put any more holes in your worthless hide.”

Carefully raising his hands, Pug slowly backed away, finally turning to limp all the way to the far end of the next block before vanishing into the crowd.

The air in Allison’s lungs whooshed out, depleting her energy while hot tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Miss Penny,” she sobbed, rushing into the old woman’s arms. “I was so scared!”

“There, there, Allison, it’s all ‘behind’ us now.” Her touch was gentle as she patted Alli’s back. She pulled away with a glint of tease in her eyes. “Especially Pug.”

Alli’s giggle erupted into another sob as she clung to the elderly woman.

“Goodness, child . . .” Miss Penny kneaded Alli’s shoulder. “What in heaven’s name are you doing out here alone this time of night?”

Alli sniffed, lip quivering at the enormity of danger she’d been in. “I-I w-was working late and m-meant to leave b-before it got dark, b-but I lost track of t-time.”

“Merciful heavens, you should never wait outside for your driver, especially after dusk.”

Alli pulled away. “I . . . wasn’t waiting for Hadley,” she whispered with a touch of heat in her cheeks. “I was . . . walking to the cable car.”