The Tea Rose Part 33

The loft was nothing but a plank floor under a pitched roof: but it was well-built, with loophole doors at the front that shut tightly, and it kept both wind and water off him. He took his jacket off and laid it neatly on top of the hay bale that served as his bureau. Then he pulled a flask from his back pocket, unscrewed the cap, and poured it contents-rich, creamy milk-into a chipped bowl at the top of the stairs. The tom kept late hours-Joe had never seen him come in-but he was always there in the morning, nestled in the crook of his knees. Joe made sure he always had milk for him and the cat repaid his kindness by keeping the mice down.

After he'd eaten, he stripped down to his underwear, fluffed the hay under his horse blanket, then bedded down to read his newspaper. When he finished, he snuffed the lantern and pulled his other blanket over him. He lay quietly, knowing it would be ages before he slept. Distant sounds of laughter and singing carried up from a nearby pub. He felt so alone, so utterly isolated. The knowledge that a short walk could bring him to a bright, jovial taproom full of weekend merrymakers only served to reinforce his loneliness. He could no longer laugh or smile. He was too haunted by what he'd done. Broken by remorse.

Once, when he was little, perhaps ten or so, two of his mates had had to go in early from a game of football on a Sat.u.r.day evening to go to confession. He asked what that meant and they told him they had to tell the priest their sins and say they're sorry for them, and then they could go to heaven. Joe had wanted to go with them. He wanted to go to heaven, too, but they said he couldn't.

Only Catholics could and he was a Methodist. He'd run into his house, upset. His Granny Wilton, who had minded him and his siblings while his parents worked the Sat.u.r.day-night market, asked what was wrong.

''I'm going to 'ell for my sins because I can't tell G.o.d I'm sorry," he said.

"Who told you that?" she'd asked.

"Terry Fallon and Mickey Grogan."

"Don't pay them no mind," she said. "It's nothing but a lot of mumbo jumbo. Them Papists can mumble 'ail Marys till the cows come 'ome. Won't make one bit of difference. We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them."

She'd made him feel better, mainly because she'd hugged him and given him a biscuit. He'd been too little to understand her words then, but he knew what they meant now. Once, when he had Fiona and they had all their ,dreams and hopes, he'd known heaven right here on earth. Now he only knew despair. His gran was right. G.o.d didn't have to punish him; he'd created his own h.e.l.l. By himself and for himself.

Miserable, he turned onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head. From where he lay, he could see the dark, starry sky through the loft's window. One star twinkled more brightly than the others. He remembered looking at this star ... it seemed like a million years ago now ... and telling it that he loved his girl, Fiona. Telling it they'd be together soon. He wondered where in the big wide world she was. The private detective he'd hired had not found her and was no longer looking now that he no longer had the money to pay him. Roddy had had no luck, either-though he had warned Sheehan to stay away from her. Joe prayed that wherever she was, she was safe and out of harm's way. He wondered if she ever thought about him, if "he ever missed him. He mocked himself for even harboring such hopes. After what he'd done to her? He was certain she hated him, as Millie hated him and Tommy hated him. As he hated himself.

He closed his eyes, sick with loneliness and grief~ longing for the black abyss of unconsciousness. Finally, after he'd tossed and turned for the better part of an hour, he fell into a fitful. shallow sleep, one full of demons and frights that made him flail and cry out. Shortly after one such cry, there came a soft padding of feet on the steps and an avid lapping at the milk bowl. After the tom finished drinking, he circled Joe. He paused once, baring his teeth at something in the darkness, then settled himself into the hay. The cat's presence did not disturb Joe. Instead, it gentled him. His breathing evened out and deepened. He surrendered to sleep. And all night long, the tom stayed up. Blinking its yellow eyes in the darkness. Awake. Abiding. Keeping watch.

Chapter 33.

"Oh, you should see it, Fee! It's absolutely perfect! The window runs the whole length of the front wall. The place is filled with light. And it's huge. Did I tell you that? I can easily get thirty canvases on the walls and another ten on easels in the middle of the room. I'm going to have the floor refinished, and then I'll have the walls repainted and then ... "

Nick was striding around the shop as he talked, too excited to stand ~I ill He'd just rented a shop front in Gramercy Park, which he was going to turn into a gallery, and the flat above it, where he was going to live. It was a pretty four-story building with another tenant above him and the landlady and her two sons on the top floor. He'd given the woman a security deposit and the first month's rent, then dashed over to Eighth Avenue to tell Fiona.

She'd been polishing the counter as he burst into the shop and she'd been alarmed at the sight of him-he was thinner than ever and as pale as milk-but he wouldn't stop talking long enough for her to ask him if he was all right.

" ... and the ceiling is so high, Fiona! Fifteen feet! Oh, it's going to be the most wonderful gallery in New York!" He leaned over the counter and kissed her smack on the lips.

"Mind yourself!" she scolded, laughing. "You'll get wax all over your jacket."

"You'll come see it, won't you, Fee?"

"Of course I will. As soon as you like. Nick, are you feeling -"

He cut her off. "Can you come tonight?" He held up his hands like a traffic cop. "No, not tonight, not yet! Not till it's all fixed up and the paintings are here and" -he paused to cough, covering his mouth-' I've got them all hung and everything's pretty and" -he coughed again, even harder. Then he reached for his handkerchief and turned away until the harsh, racking spasm stopped. When he turned back to her, his eyes watery, she was no longer smiling.

"You didn't go to the doctor's like you promised, did you?" she asked.

"I did."

She crossed her arms. "Really? What did he say it was, then?"

"He said ... uh ... that it was ... um ... some kind of ... chesty thing."

"A chesty thing? Oh, that sounds like something a doctor would say, you lying little -"

"I did go, Fiona! I swear it! Dr. Werner Eckhardt. On Park Avenue. He even gave me medicine. I've been taking it and I feel much better, I do."

Fiona's tone softened. "But you don't look well," she fretted, her brow knit with worry.

"You're too pale and thin and you've got shadows under your eyes. Are you eating properly, Nick?"

She ran her finger around the inside of his shirt collar. "You're swimming in your clothes. And now you've got a cough. I'm worried about you."

Nick groaned. "Oh, don't be such a badger, old mole. I'm fine, really I am. I'll admit I'm a bit tired, but it's only the gallery. I've been working dreadfully hard trying to locate a good place. I've been seeing ten, twelve shopfronts a day at least. And now I've found it! Did I tell you how beautiful the neighborhood is? And that there's a wisteria vine in front that hangs above the window? Did I tell you about the window? How huge it is?"

"Three times at least. You're trying to change the subject."

"Am I?"

"Promise me you'll eat properly, Nick. Not just champagne and those terrible fish eggs."

"All right, I promise. Now tell me what's new with you, Fee. I've been blathering away and haven't even asked how you've been."

There wasn't much to tell. She'd had a busy week at the shop. Michael hadn't returned to Whelan's and she and Mary were starting to think that maybe he wouldn't. He'd been pulling his weight in the shop and was talking about fixing up Mary's kitchen. She'd taken Seamie shopping for new clothes because he'd shot up again and Nell had started teething.

"Mmm-hmm," Nick said impatiently when she'd finished. "What else?"

"What do you mean, what else?"

He smiled knowingly. "Has William McClane come calling again?"

Fiona colored. "Of course not."

"I still can't believe it. Only in New York for a few months and already you've hooked yourself a millionaire."

"Will you stop? We took a stroll together, that's all. I'm sure I'll never see him again."

"He's beastly wealthy, you know. I remember my father mentioning him. I think they dined together once or twice. I saw how he looked at you. I'm sure he fancies you."

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm half his age and I'm not wealthy like he is or from the right circles."

"Fiona, you're a beautiful, captivating young woman. What man wouldn't be after you?

Admit it ... you fancy him, don't you? You can tell me."

Fiona gave him a sidelong glance. "A little, maybe," she allowed. "He's a wonderful man.

He's charming and kind. Incredibly smart. He knows everything. And he's a gentleman, but ... "

"But what? How can there possibly be a 'but' at the end of all that?" Fiona shrugged. "Fee?"

She frowned, rubbed her polishing rag over an imaginary dull spot. "Ahh, I think I know. It's that chap from London you told me about, isn't it? Joe." She polished harder. "Still?"

She put the rag down. "Still," she admitted. "It's daft, I know. I try to forget him, but I can't."

She raised her eyes to Nick's. "I once heard a docker, a man who'd lost his hand in an accident, tell my father that he still felt his hand. He said he felt the joints ache in the damp or the skin p.r.i.c.kle in the heat. That's what it's like with Joe. He's gone, but he isn't. He's still inside me. I can see him. Hear him. I still talk to him in my head. When will the feelings stop, Nick?"

"When you fall in love again."

"But what if I don't?"

"Of course you will. You're just not over him yet. My advice is to spend more time with McClane. An Astor or a Vanderbilt would make a nice companion, too. That's just what you need, Fee. A nice New York millionaire. That'll make you forget that barrow boy of yours. What did you and McClane talk about during your stroll anyway? You never told me."

"The shop. And subterranean railways."

Nick made a face. "How romantic."

"He's trying to help me, Nick. I told him I wanted to become a millionaire. I told him I needed to find the thing that would make me rich."

"And what did he say? Did he give you the secret behind all his millions?"

"He said to be patient, to watch and learn and see what sold and figure out ways to build on my sales. And if I did that, something would come of it. Small things at first. And then bigger things, like offering prepared foods, or maybe even opening a second shop. He had a funny way of putting it; he said to use what I know to grow."

"Did it work? Have you made your fortune yet?"

Fiona frowned. "No. We're making more than we were, though. Mary's savories are selling out every day and we're going to start offering prepared salads, too. We're actually going to have to get a new cooler to accommodate it all. But I'm not a millionaire yet. Not even close."

"Not to worry, Fee," Nick said, patting her hand. ''I'll tell you how to become a millionaire."

"Marry one."

She took a swipe at him, but he ducked. ''I'm not marrying anyone. Ever!. Men are far too much trouble."

"Not me."

"Especially you."

The shop door opened. Michael came in frowning. He was holding a piece of paper.

"Speaking of trouble ... " Fiona said under her breath. "Fiona, this invoice can't be right," he said.

"Which invoice, and why not?"

"The one from the tea supplier. Millard's. What did they bill you for the last time?"

"There wasn't a last time. This is the first bill. What's wrong?"

"It says we've had nineteen chests from them since you opened the shop again. "

"That sounds right. I can check the delivery receipts to confirm it, but I'm sure Stuart wouldn't cheat us."

"This is the Indian tea?" Michael asked, setting the invoice down on the counter.

"Yes."

He shook his head. 'I'll be d.a.m.ned. I was lucky if I moved a chest of the old stuff."

"A week?"

"A month!"

Fiona looked at the invoice, her eyes following her finger down the column. Nineteen chests had been sold to Finnegan's in a two-month period. She was down to her last two. That meant she'd been selling just over two chests a week, against her uncle's one chest a month. She got to the bottom of the invoice, mentally checking Millard's arithmetic, and found that the total corresponded to the number of chests sold, plus the two in the shop's bas.e.m.e.nt.

And then she saw it.

Embossed at the bottom of the invoice was the name "R. T. Millard" over a drawing of three species of fauna identified as a coffee bush, a cacao tree ... and a tea plant.

As Fiona stared at the tea plant, a slender little stalk with bladelike leaves, the fine downy hairs on her neck began to p.r.i.c.kle. She didn't hear her uncle anymore, though he was still talking.

She recognized the plant. She'd seen one before. In a nightmare. Her father had given it to her, pa.s.sed it to her through the bars of a cemetery gate. "What is it, Da?" she'd asked him. His answer echoed in her head now. "It's what you know."

It had been right there in front of her all along. b.l.o.o.d.y tea, of all things!

"Use what you know," Will had said. Blimey, if there was one thing she knew, it was tea! She could tell a Keemun from a Sichuan, a Dooars from an a.s.sam by the smell alone. She'd known that her Indian tea sold, but she hadn't known how well. That little plant, so delicate, so fragile was the very thing she'd been searching for. It would be her oil ... and steel ... and lumber. Her fortune!

"Fiona, la.s.s? Did you hear me?" Michael said, snapping his fingers in her face.

She hadn't. A humming had started in her blood. It surged through her, taking hold of her, making her heart pound. She was on fire with the power, the possibilities, of her new idea-an exclusive blend, wholesale accounts, an expanded selection of teas in the grocery shop, maybe even a tearoom; a beautiful, enchanted place like the one in Fortnum & Mason's.

"I said we've got to reorder. We're down to two chests. We'll be through them by next Wednesday at the rate we're going. I'm guessing we'll need at least eight more to get us t'rough the coming month," Michael said.

"No."

"No? Why not?"

"Because we're going to order more than eight. We're going to buy in every chest of Indian tea Millard's has and swear them to secrecy on the blend! No one else must have it!"

Michael looked from Fiona to Nick, as if he might know what his crazy niece was on about, but Nick just shrugged. "Why would we do that?" Michael asked. "It's mad! No shopkeeper orders more than he can sell."

Fiona cut him off. "We're not just shopkeepers anymore."

"No?" Michael said, raising an eyebrow. "What are we then?"

"Tea merchants."

"THE USUAL, Mr. McClane?"