Chapter 2
Maggie kept her expression polite but faintly reserved as she waited for the door to open.
Her hands were slippery as they clutched the strap of her hatbox, and her hat felt itchy on her head.
She had, of course, never been to such an establishment as this, and she was not particularly pleased to be on the steps of one now.
She felt passersby’s curious and undoubtedly condemning glances from the street, and the space between her shoulder blades prickled with shame.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she let it out slowly as she considered what she would say to whoever answered, and then the door opened.
A woman stood there, tall and willowy, her auburn hair dressed in a stylish bouffant.
She wore a simple shirtwaist and dark skirt, both of good quality, and they suited her trim figure.
She looked more like a schoolteacher than the madam of a brothel, and Maggie didn’t think she could be much past thirty.
She eyed Maggie with frank and friendly humor. “May I help you?” she asked, her lips twitching with amusement, and for one scorching second, Maggie realized the woman must think she was there in search of a… job, and what an unlikely candidate she obviously was.
“I’m looking for my father,” she informed the woman quickly, her voice coming out more sharply than she’d intended. She felt another blush rising to her already heated cheeks. “Declan O’Halloran. He gave us this… establishment… as his address.”
“Ah, Declan,” the woman exclaimed, and now her voice was full of affection. “You must be his daughter, then. Maggie, isn’t it?”
For a few seconds, Maggie could only gape at her.
For years, she’d been on what had felt like a wild goose chase, searching for her father, traveling all the way from Ireland to New York, then Chicago, and now San Francisco, always on the faintest of hopes, following the frailest of threads.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how much she’d given up on the idea of ever finding her father.
“Y… yes,” she stammered. “I am Maggie.” She glanced behind her, to where Danny and Brendan were watching from the base of the steps, her brother with lively interest, his face full of eager hope, while Brendan gazed off into the distance as if he didn’t care whether she found her father or not.
“He’s spoken about you often,” the woman said, smiling.
“And your brother. I’m Jessamine Conant, and I run this house.
Most people call me Miss Jessie.” She opened the door wider, revealing a pleasant hall with a Turkish runner, a hat stand and marble-topped table, a potted palm and a coat rack. “Won’t you come in?”
Maggie hesitated, and the woman gave a knowing laugh.
“Don’t worry, we don’t have any gentlemen visitors at this time of the day.
The first ones come around noon.” She cocked her head, her eyes narrowing slightly, although her expression was still friendly.
“Unless you’d rather not?” she asked, a touch of coolness to her voice, despite her ready smile.
“Is my father here?” Maggie asked uncertainly. Why, she wondered, would her father live in a brothel? The only answer she could think of was unpalatable, to say the least, and she hardly wanted to enter the premises herself, yet it seemed she would have to.
“He certainly does, on the top floor,” Miss Jessie assured her. “You can go right up, if you’d like. I don’t think he’s expecting you, though?” She smiled, so the freckles dusting her nose stood out in relief.
Maggie felt herself taking an instinctive liking to the woman, despite the fact that she ran a brothel.
There was something decidedly appealing about her open face, her elegant manner.
And the front hall of the house looked entirely respectable, decorated with various antiques and ornaments, nothing gaudy or bawdy about it at all. It gave her some small reassurance.
“No, he’s not expecting us,” Maggie admitted.
“Perhaps it will be best if we wait for him down here?” At the top of the staircase, she glimpsed a woman in a nearly sheer nightgown walk by, her throaty laughter drifting down the stairs, the gauzy fabric of her gown streaming out behind her.
“Yes,” Maggie went on hurriedly, “I think it’s better if we wait down here. ”
Jessamine Conant’s hazel eyes glinted with humor. “As you wish,” she replied, and headed upstairs.
“Maggie, what’s going on?” Danny called from the sidewalk. “Is Da here or not?” Her brother sounded as afraid as he was hopeful; Maggie knew how much he was hoping they would finally find their father, a man who had near mythical status in Danny’s eyes. He’d been only six when he had left.
“He is here,” she confirmed, a tremble to her voice, as she clutched her hatbox to her.
She still couldn’t believe it. After all this time, they had finally found their father.
She had no idea what she would say to him, how he would react to their sudden reappearance in his life.
What if he didn’t want them here? What if they’d come all this way for nothing?
She glanced at Brendan, wanting, needing him to say something, to reassure her as he so often had in the past, but he remained silent, his gaze moving between her and her brother without a word.
“He’s here?” Danny asked, his voice caught between eagerness and incredulity.
Despite his seeming confidence that they would find their father without any trouble, her brother looked stunned by the news.
“He’s truly here?” he pressed, and now he sounded like a little boy, and the thought made Maggie ache.
They had both waited a long, long time to find their father.
She prayed their reception would be welcoming.
“That’s what the… landlady said,” she replied, gentling her voice. “Miss Conant.” She was not about to be on familiar terms with a brothel madam, as much as she’d liked the look of the woman.
He shook his head slowly. “Here…”
“Yes, Danny. Here.” She held her hand out to him. “Come. Miss Conant said we could wait inside.”
To her gratification, Danny took her hand. Maggie glanced at Brendan, but he had already turned away, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, allowing them this moment alone out of consideration—or indifference? She didn’t know and decided not to care.
Together, she and Danny stepped into the entrance hall of the brothel.
Maggie breathed in the scents of cigar smoke and stale liquor on the air, overlaid with lavender and beeswax, a hint of musk.
From upstairs, Maggie heard the murmur of female voices, low and intimate, and she wondered how on earth her father had ended up in such a place as this, and yet at the same time she realized she was not surprised.
Her father had always been charming, hiding his dissolution with careless ease, taking on an appealing hangdog expression whenever he’d been caught in the wrong—losing his week’s pay on a turn of the cards, coming home smelling of another woman’s perfume.
Maggie remembered it all, even if Danny had been too young to notice.
Ten minutes passed by the steady ticking of the grandfather clock by the stairs before Miss Conant came downstairs, her skirts sweeping the steps as she descended.
“Your father will be down shortly,” she told them with a ready smile. “I’m afraid he was still asleep, and it took a moment to wake him.”
Asleep, even though it was approaching eleven o’clock in the morning? Maggie did her best to school her expression into one of capable cordiality, but she didn’t think she fooled Jessamine Conant, who gave them both a frank and assessing glance.
“He seemed delighted by the news of your arrival when he did wake up,” she told them with a hint of humor in her voice. “In the meantime, may I offer you some refreshment?” She turned to Danny. “You must be Danny. Your father has spoken of you both, many times.”
“He has?” Danny goggled at the brothel madam, both, Maggie suspected, because of what she’d said and who she was. Jessamine Conant was, she was forced to acknowledge as she watched her now, both elegant and beautiful—and entirely in control of the situation.
“He has,” she affirmed, and then ushered them into the sitting room, which was well appointed with several velveteen sofas and armchairs, comfortable and only slightly shabby.
The only indication that this might be a house of ill repute was the rather overdone chandelier suspended from the ceiling, with what looked like a hundred crystals dangling down.
A framed sampler above the fireplace read What is Home Without Mother?
There was something, Maggie reflected, that was both comforting and chilling about such a message in a place like this.
“Would you like some lemonade?” Jessamine asked, ringing a small silver bell.
“And perhaps some sandwiches or biscuits?”
“Thank you, that’s very kind.” It was odd, Maggie reflected, how a woman in such a notorious profession could make her feel gauche, but Jessamine Conant did, and without, she suspected, even trying.
Brendan, meanwhile, was still loitering outside, seeming unwilling to join them.
What a motley and mismatched crew they must seem to this elegant woman, Maggie thought, wishing it were otherwise yet not knowing how it could be so, not with the way they all were now.
A maid, untidy and surprisingly slatternly, considering the elegance of her employer, her hair in disarray and her apron stained and crumpled, came to the door of the drawing room, a sullen look on her face.
Miss Conant, her voice mild and musical, addressed her.
“Evie, my dear, will you bring some lemonade?” she asked with a gentle smile.
“And some biscuits, perhaps? Thank you, my dear.” She waited for the girl to leave, continuing to smile at her in encouragement, before turning back to Maggie.
“You’ve come far?” she asked as she perched on a velveteen divan, her skirts spread out around her.
She gestured to the sofa opposite her. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.” Her fair eyebrows rose.
“There was a gentleman with you, I believe…?”
“Mr. O’Donaghue. He’s a… family friend.” Maggie smiled rather tightly. “I’m sure he’ll wish to give us some privacy for this reunion.”
“Of course, as you wish.” Jessamine’s eyebrows arched higher. “You traveled some distance, it seems. Did you arrive today?”
“Yes, from Chicago.” Maggie sat opposite her, putting the hatbox on the floor by her feet.
“And before that, from New York,” she continued, “and before that, Ireland.” She let out a breath that felt more like as sigh.
The distance they’d come, and the weight of those years, rested heavily on her in that moment, a long, winding road that had led to…
what? Finding her father in a brothel? As well as not even knowing how he would he react to their appearance on his doorstep, and with nothing to their names?
“Goodness,” Jessamine remarked. “Such a long way! You must be exhausted. And what are your plans in this city?”
Maggie stared at her speechlessly, unable to think of any response.
When she’d come to New York, she’d had a head stuffed with vague notions of making her fortune and finding fame.
She’d wanted to design beautiful hats and live in a mansion to rival the Vanderbilts and be someone of fashion and consequence, parading to Central Park in her carriage, making a splash in society with her designs.
She’d thought such ambitions were not just grand but somehow noble, and she’d turned down Brendan’s marriage proposal more than once because they’d seemed so important to her at the time.
Then, in Chicago, amazingly, all her hopes had to come pass, more or less.
She may not have lived in a mansion, but her boutique had been in the best neighborhood of the city.
She may not have been a person of true consequence, but she’d designed the hats that had rested on the heads of those who were.
She’d believed herself to be important, only to be brought unbearably low when she’d realized just how utterly unimportant she’d been—both to the women who had bought her designs, and to the man who had funded the whole enterprise and stolen her heart, almost without her realizing.
Theo Stein. Just the thought of him brought a flush of shame to Maggie’s cheeks.
It had been both humbling and humiliating, to have absolutely everything taken away from her—not just her shop or her livelihood, or even the love of the man she’d thought she’d loved, although all those had hurt, terribly.
The deepest loss, however, had been that of her dreams, for now Maggie harbored no more ambition—not for the grandiose imaginings with which she’d come to this country, or even for the far humbler aspirations she’d tried to nurture since.
Despite the cheerful enthusiasm she’d done her best to show to Brendan, she felt flat and empty inside, and as she looked down at the hatbox that held the last of those dreams, she knew she had no plans for this city, no hopes or ambitions for herself here or anywhere.
She wanted nothing but a roof over her head and a way to keep her body and soul together. Survival, that was all.
“I suppose we will have to discuss our plans with our father,” she answered at last. She glanced at Danny, who kept turning to the door eagerly, clearly longing for their father’s arrival.
“My brother has had notions of panning for gold, haven’t you, Danny?
But I suppose that has come and gone in these parts some time ago. ”
Danny jerked his head from the door to scowl briefly at her. “I was just joking,” he grumbled, clearly embarrassed to be seen as so childish, and Jessamine laughed lightly.
“Indeed it has gone, many years ago now, although there is always talk of finding gold or silver further north. Men have been traveling through here on their way to British Columbia, or more recently, Colorado.” She turned to Danny with a gently teasing smile.
“If you are looking for gold, or just for adventure, there are certainly many places where you can still find it.”
Danny seemed momentarily dazzled by having Jessamine’s smiling attentions solely focused on him, and he stammered out something unintelligible while Maggie cast her own anxious glance toward the door. Where was their father? And what would they even say to him when he arrived?
And then, amazingly, he was there, striding into the room with all his old, easy charm, his ready smile in place, his arms stretched out, his manner entirely as if he hadn’t crossed an entire country without telling them—or abandoning them alone to face their fate in this strange new country.
“Mo stoiri!” he cried as he came toward them. My treasures. “We’re together at last!”