“That’s fine,” Sabine said. “I have plenty of others who do. You put on a good show. If I get you cleaned up and properly dressed, you could do well.” She nodded at Jonas, who, as usual, stood far enough back not to loom, but close enough to intervene if needed. “Your man there…”
“My brother,” Amelia told her, more or less truthfully.
Sabine ran a skeptical eye over the large, black-haired man before turning back to Amelia’s own petite blond form. “Well, whatever he is, he has a way about him. I can always use that. At any rate”—she raised her voice to address the pair of them—“I’m willing to try you out for a few months; then we’ll see where we are.”
Amelia and Jonas exchanged a look. They hadn’t survived by ignoring good chances. And they had plenty of experience getting out of bad situations.
Sabine was as good as her word. After those first few months, they’d moved into a set of small rooms in the old carriage house behind the club. Jonas worked the floor, appearing whenever he was needed to charm new guests or eject those who became unruly. Amelia held séances and told fortunes. And if her unreliable gift rarely showed itself, she’d long ago learned to compensate.
She had her seer’s crystal, useless lump of rock though it was. And she had the cards, with their intricate swirls of color and stylized pictures. They were ink on paper and nothing more, but they were pretty. The clients liked them. And when the clients were happy, the coins flowed like water.
The club was a world unto itself, where the strict social hierarchy that ruled outside the doors was temporarily suspended. No few of Mr. McAllister’s Four Hundred were frequent guests of Sabine’s. They mingled with artists and drank with actors and conducted liaisons that would have gotten them struck from invitation lists throughout the city were they to become publicly known. To that end, various city officials received envelopes fat with cash each month. In return, they happily turned a blind eye to the misdemeanors taking place beneath Sabine’s roof.
The moral crusaders were another matter. Tommy managed them. He stood guard at the front door each night, as immovable as St. Peter. He turned away temperance advocates, anti-vice crusaders, and other assorted Comstockian zealots, as well as the rowdier university students and anyone else who looked likely to make too much trouble—although Sabine believed a little trouble kept the place lively.
Onstage, Lina finished her performance with a final flourish and blew a kiss to the cheering audience. The girl leaned down to accept an enormous bouquet of roses from a woman with a mannish haircut and a severely tailored suit. She whispered something in Lina’s ear, and the girl laughed and shook her head.
Although the men and women who worked for Sabine weren’t technically whores, nearly all of them were willing to entertain offers. Lina, it appeared, had just declined a final overture from a former client.
“Sabine’s right. She’s making a mistake,” Amelia said, as Lina’s would-be suitor turned away with an air of resignation.
Jonas was scanning the crowd with an avidity Amelia recognized from recent experience. Looking for Sidney. Amelia suppressed a sigh. Jonas was selective, but he often took advantage of the offers that came his way. He’d left a trail of broken hearts and lightened wallets in his wake. He’d always been diligent about preventing attachments from forming—on his side, at least. But this most recent entanglement left Amelia on edge. She’d seen the young man once or twice from across the room and hadn’t been impressed. But Jonas seemed to like him. They’d even met away from the club, although Jonas still thought she didn’t know about that.
“Maybe,” he said finally.
“Maybe?” Amelia turned toward him. “Lina’s giving up her freedom, her ability to make her own money. And for what?”
“Maybe she loves him.”
Amelia snorted. “More fool her, then.” She pushed away from the railing. “Come on. We have to get back to work.”
* * *
Hours later, after a particularly lengthy reading, Amelia stood with a groan as Jonas entered the room. She cast a baleful look at the sparkling chunk of quartz on the table. “Enough. I can’t look at another card or stare at that blasted thing any longer.”
He crossed the room and began to massage her temples as she leaned against his chest. Eventually she sighed and pulled away.
“Let’s see if there’s anything left in the kitchen and call it a night,” Amelia said. “I want something for this headache, and I want my bed.”
They made their way down the staircase and through the front room. The crowd had dwindled, although a few people still sat finishing their drinks and pulling out wallets and purses to pay what were certain to be, in some cases, truly enormous tabs. Tommy stood by the front door, ready to help inebriated guests into waiting cabs.
They passed the shining oak bar at the back of the room and nodded to one of the bartenders as he wiped glassware and whistled to himself.
“We had a good night,” Amelia said. When Jonas didn’t respond, she turned and found him scanning the thinning crowd once more. He stiffened when he saw her watching.
She couldn’t stop herself. “Sidney wasn’t here tonight?”
“No.”
She couldn’t think what to say, so settled for: “Are you sure it’s—” in as neutral a tone as she could manage. It was not neutral enough.
“Don’t. You’ve been clear about what you think. I don’t need to hear it again.”
Stung, Amelia let it drop as they entered the kitchen. The staff were cleaning with the manic energy of people who’d already worked all night and knew they needed one final push before they could leave. Jonas wove around busboys carrying dirty linens and stacks of clean plates, Amelia in his wake.
“Lina was here earlier,” Jonas said, reaching a side table where a paper sack sat beside a roll of fabric. “She was giving away most of her things. Said she’s getting a whole new wardrobe when they get to California. I snagged this for you.” He shook out the cloth bundle to reveal a heavy velvet cloak. “It’ll be long on you, and it’s got her name stitched inside, but you can pick that out,” he said. “It’s quite a bit nicer than yours.”
Amelia reached for it. “Thank you. Is there supper?”
He held up the sack.
They walked out the back door, crossed the courtyard, and climbed the stairs to their apartment in silence, the air between them still thick. Amelia hung her new cloak on the hook beside the door and smoothed the heavy fabric with the back of her hand. The paper sack held a pair of cold meat pies, the flaky crust only slightly toughened after sitting for several hours. After they ate, they took turns using the tiny washroom. Jonas disappeared into his room without saying good night.
Amelia undressed in her narrow room, pulling off her gown and sighing with relief as she released the hooks on her corset. She tossed both garments onto the spindly wooden chair in the corner, then reconsidered with another sigh and hung up the gown properly. She brushed her hair out of its chignon and wound the honey-colored strands into a loose braid. She climbed into bed in her shift, still troubled. She didn’t like being crosswise with Jonas. They rarely apologized to each other, generally tending to let their disagreements slough away unremarked upon. As she considered getting up to make an exception, Jonas knocked on her door and stuck his head into the room, already in his nightshirt.