Chapter Two

Gentleman? Dorothea narrowed her eyes. Whatever the man standing in front of her might be—dangerously attractive from his wild head of hair to his scuffed boots—he could not be considered a gentleman.

She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t possibly trouble you, sir. Surely you have business here on the waterfront. You must be in the area for some reason.”

“I came to meet a man, but he’ll wait on me. They always do.”

Such arrogance! But he wore it well.

“I assure you, I can see myself home. It’s not the first time I’ve been out after dark.”

“Then if you will forgive me saying, you must be as foolish as you are beautiful.” He wagged his crooked arm suggestively. “I would not let my sister out in this neighborhood unaccompanied.”

“You have a sister?”

“Well, no.” The smile flashed again.

Oh, blast, Dorothea thought. What was she to do? Would it be so terrible to let him see her home? Of course, the supper invitation went beyond consideration.

Didn’t it?

He leaned closer, his voice a mere whisper aimed at her ear. “But if I did have a sister, I’d hope she’d be like you. No, but wait—that would be purely sinful.”

Dorothea, although trying to take offense at such suggestiveness, laughed instead.

“Very well, I’ll accept your escort. Just let me try and do something with my hair first.”

She handed him back the hat, clawed the streaming hair from her eyes, and gathered it all between her hands. Still fighting the force of the wind, she gave the heavy tresses a twist and secured them with the one or two hairpins she could locate. Last of all, she accepted the hat and crammed it on.

“There now,” he crooned, “a real lady.”

When he extended his elbow yet again, she accepted it, and they started away, their steps matching perfectly.

“I should not go anywhere with you, sir,” Dorothea said, “lest you tell me your name.”

“I can tell you a name.” He slanted a look at her. “Folks call me O’Hare.”

“O’Hare!” Dorothea stopped walking abruptly and stared. “The O’Hare?”

She’d heard of him—a personage of some fame in south Boston, he’d been denounced as a scoundrel, a rebel, a leader of the near-militant Irish labor force that plagued the city. The Guardian had run more than one story decrying his activities and those of his cohorts, as well as any number of letters sent in by angry Boston residents, denouncing him. There’d been some ugly incidents: confrontations with young Anglo toffs, protests staged outside businesses, some of which had turned violent, and even a series of fires.

But now he turned to her and smiled as charmingly as if she’d just paid him a grand compliment.

“He, and no other. I see you’ve heard of me, Angel. I’m flattered.”

“Your fame does rather precede you.” Dorothea’s thoughts flew with the speed of which they were sometimes capable. Was she safe in this man’s company? Could she turn his presence somehow to her advantage? Might this encounter be an opportunity?

For all the denouncements and rather dubious fame, no one had successfully interviewed this man. Indeed, Dorothea had heard Mr. Winton bemoaning that very fact to one of his top reporters just yesterday.

Dorothea needed an exclusive, an interview that would thrust her to the forefront of her chosen profession, make her employer take her seriously.

And she just might have the means right here on her arm.

O’Hare may not like the idea, but when necessity dictated, she could be just as persuasive as he.

She gave him her best smile. “Mr. O’Hare, perhaps I will accept your supper invitation after all.”

****

O’Hare blinked as the raven-haired beauty turned the full power of her smile on him. Well, and she had changed her mind with astonishing speed at learning his identity. He wondered if he should be alarmed but dismissed the possibility. No woman so innocently lovely could have unscrupulous intentions.

Sure, even without the smile she was enough to steal his breath: skin pure as pearl, with all that black hair in sharp contrast, and a pair of blue-gray eyes so dreamy and fey he scarcely dared look into them.

He’d wooed many a beauty, from one end of Boston to the other, most of them lightskirts, a few actual ladies, and had learned a lot about women along the way—what they liked, what they didn’t, and how to talk them into damn near anything. A smile and a bit of the Irish generally did the trick. Women just liked him, despite his reputation. He didn’t ask why.

But he’d never seen a lass to match the one beside him, who’d reclaimed his arm and resumed walking as if they strolled through a summer’s day instead of an ink-black, windy waterfront night.

“Well, now,” he said softly, “and isn’t that wonderful news?”

He could feel heat radiating from the place where her arm looped through his and from her side as well, pressed close. He didn’t doubt her for a lady—one hundred percent. But she might as well be a seductress for the effect she was having on him.

Caution, lad, he told himself. He could afford to be nobody’s fool.

“And might I ask why you’ve decided to accept?”

She cast another of those looks at him, brimming with intelligence. Him not being a particularly tall man, she came to the top of his ear.

Just the right height for kissing.

“I’m hungry,” she confessed with disarming frankness. “Where’s this restaurant?”

“Not far. If I’m to take you to supper, might I have the honor of knowing your name?”

“I don’t see why not. I’m Dorothea Sinclair, and I’m a reporter for the Guardian.”

O’Hare stiffened with dismay. Ah, and he knew there had to be a catch. Hooked like a fish and in over his head was he?

“That rag sheet!” he exclaimed in disgust. “They never print anything that isn’t either sensational or serving the elite of this city. And since when have they begun hiring female reporters?”

“What’s wrong with that, Mr. O’Hare? I would think you, of all people, would embrace equal opportunities for everyone. Isn’t that what your campaign in this city is all about?”

“It is,” he conceded. “Equal pay and treatment despite class, place of birth—or gender. But I can tell you, Miss Sinclair, you won’t find any of that while working at the Guardian.”

“A person has to take her opportunities where she finds them.”

Aye, so, and had she decided he offered an opportunity? He hoped not. He liked her and wouldn’t want to slap her down.

He clucked his tongue. “Is that why you were standing there on the dockside looking as if you wanted to jump into the ocean?” And why he saw evidence of dried tears on her cheeks, though he certainly wouldn’t mention those.

She faltered, and her toe caught on a stone underfoot. O’Hare’s arm kept her from stumbling.

“Yes, well,” she said, “you may have caught me at a weak moment. The struggle for equality isn’t an easy one, as I’m sure you agree.”

An unexpected wave of protectiveness surged up through him. He didn’t make a habit of coddling women—his ma had taught him better than that. Women were for charming and sometimes for using—ultimately they cared only for themselves.

She went on determinedly, “I did not have a particularly good day. I’m afraid homesickness overtook me for a moment or two.”

He snorted. “Being homesick’s a fool’s game. Take my advice and deal with the moment. Don’t look too far ahead, and never, never look back.”

And who was he to be giving advice?

She shot him yet another of those looks that seemed to see right through him. Damn it, he wouldn’t have said he found intelligence arousing—till now.

He decided he might just as well relax and enjoy himself—take his own counsel and live in the moment. What harm could she do him, after all, a wee slip of a thing?

“How much farther, Mr. O’Hare?”

“We’re almost there. And as I say, it’s not ‘Mr.’ O’Hare—just O’Hare, sure.”

“Not your real name but a moniker, correct?”

“What’s that, when it’s at home?”

“Just a title you’ve given yourself.”

“You make me sound like a pretender.”

“I don’t think that at all. Your story is both fascinating and edifying. Well worthy of a grandiose title, certainly.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Are you saying you find me inspiring?”

“Oh, very much so.” She launched into a lengthy diatribe about the books she’d read—extreme enough in number to fill a library, from the sound of it—and the heroes in them. Well, if she’d come looking for a hero, she searched in the wrong place.

And by heaven, how she could talk! He didn’t follow half of it but had to admit he liked the sound of her voice and the way she leaned into him at specific moments. Did she even know her high, rounded breast touched his arm?

He interrupted her flow of words by pausing in front of the Golden Cockrell, or rather she interrupted herself to exclaim, “What’s this place?”

“Our supper house.”

“But”—she looked aghast—“it’s a tavern.”

“More or less. There’s a room in back where the proprietress, Miss Eunice, serves food. Families go there all the time.” Of course they were the kind of families with whom this wee flower likely never associated. He need not tell her that.

“I can’t go into such a place!” She sounded appalled.

He shrugged. “You’ll have to venture into far worse places, chasing stories.”

“You’re right.” She cast him another searing look. “And I imagine I’ll be safe in your company.”

O’Hare’s knees promptly went weak. What magic did she have that affected him so? He usually took women and their ploys with a healthy grain of salt.

He barely recognized himself, with Miss Dorothea Sinclair on his arm.

With tongue-in-cheek gallantry, he returned, “Sure, and would I not lay down my life for your honor? Come away in.”

A wall of light and noise hit them as they stepped through the door of the Cockrell. Barely dark and the place already hopped with activity. Men—all clad just as roughly as O’Hare—crowded the long, polished bar to the right.

Women, many of them lightskirts, chatted up fellows at the tables to the left. O’Hare wondered if Miss Sinclair could tell the ladies’ profession. Him, he felt comfortable around such women. His own mother had earned her living thus, back when he was very young.

Heads turned all over the room when he came in, and cries of greeting sang out. “O’Hare!” And some just, “Hare!” along with one or two, “Darling lad!” from women he’d bedded in the past.

Curious eyes focused on the woman beside him. Even with the tattered hat back on her head and her black hair only more or less bundled beneath it, she screamed class. A rarity, here.

And why bring her to such a place? Did he want to shock her? Maybe. Also, Eunice served up good food he could afford.

He caught Eunice’s eye and jerked his chin at the back room. She nodded in return.

Hopefully it would be quiet in there. But first they had to cross the big room, where conversation had died to a murmur and everybody stared.

Get a good look at her, boys—this one’s under my protection.

Miss Sinclair clutched his arm so hard he bet she left bruises, but she showed no other sign of agitation. Head high, she sailed like a neat little sloop past the moored boats tethered in the harbor. Aye—with him, a right scow, at her side.

He heard her breathe a sigh when they reached the relative seclusion of the back room. Not large, the room held but six tables. Two men sat at one, in close conversation.

O’Hare eyed them before choosing a table as far away as possible, and pulled out Miss Sinclair’s chair like a gentleman.

“Well,” she said once seated, “this isn’t so bad.”

“Wait till you taste the fare. And we can talk here with a bit of privacy. You can present your proposal to me.”

She stared at him. “How did you know—?”

“Ah, come, Miss Sinclair. I am no fool. You wish to make your way up at the Guardian. And reporters all over the city have been angling for an interview with me.”

She looked relieved. “Then you are not opposed to the idea? You’ll give me an exclusive?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Eunice O’Riley entered the room, leading with her magnificent chest. “Well, well, if it isn’t the most charming man in the city of Boston come to grace my lowly establishment. To what do I owe the honor?”

“I’ve been talking up your wondrous food, treasure. We’re very hungry. What would you recommend tonight?”

“Well.” Eunice eyed Miss Sinclair. “I’m fresh out of oysters, if you were hoping.”

“Me? Hope? You know better than that.”

“Aye, well, I’ve a fine bit of salt beef and potatoes, with pumpkin chutney. The best, as you say, in south Boston.”

“In all Boston,” O’Hare corrected.

“Ale first?”

“I’ll have a pint. My lady?” he raised an eyebrow at Miss Sinclair.

“Oh, I’m afraid not. I don’t drink.”

Conversation at the other table ceased. Eunice stared at Miss Sinclair as if she’d just sprouted antlers.

“Do tell?”

“Bring her a wee cordial,” O’Hare told Eunice. “Just to take the chill from her bones.”

Eunice crooked an eyebrow but made no objection and sailed off. Conversation at the other table resumed.

“Cordial?” Miss Sinclair began. “I hardly think—”

“A word of advice, darlin’. If you’re chasing down a story on the other fellow’s turf, you don’t make yourself stand out in any way, understand? Refusing a drink in this place makes you stand out like a beacon on a dark hilltop.”

“Yes, I quite understand. Thank you.”

“Oh, I’m full of wisdom, me.” He gave her his best smile. “Now why don’t you convince me I should grant you an interview?”