Page 42 of The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
“Have ye finished with the Merritt papers?”
Caleb came out of his thoughts to find Hugh Sanderson, one of the firm’s partners, looking at him expectantly from the doorway. An affable man of middle age, he had light brown hair, whiskers, and a pipe perpetually between his lips.
It had been nearly a month since Caleb had arrived at the firm with his portfolio tucked under his arm, delirious with hope. Hugh had gently explained to him that they didn’t just hire men off the streets as architects, but that they were in need of a good clerk. It wasn’t the vocation of drafting plans and designing buildings of which he had always dreamed, but it was certainly more than he could have ever hoped to do in Boston.
“Oh, right. Here,” Caleb said, leafing through stacks of paper and handing him a packet of sketches and estimates.
Hugh glanced through the papers and gave a nod. “Good.” Taking a long puff from his pipe, he glanced out the window. “I hate to ask, since it’s downright miserable out, but we need more of that heavy stock, and—”
Caleb all but leapt out of his seat. “I can get it.” He was desperate to get out, to resume his search, which he had all but abandoned since taking the job. Here in the office with the sound of rain on the windows it was too easy to slip into a melancholy, too dangerous to settle and never pick up his search again.
Hugh raised a brow. “Are ye sure? Ye’ll have to get them to wrap it in canvas to protect it from the rain and—”
“Yes, yes. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” He gave the bewildered Hugh a clap on the shoulder as he grabbed his hat and coat and headed out into the rain.
The brisk air was an elixir for his melancholy. He took the long way to the supply store, and found himself in one of the city’s ancient cemeteries, a sprawling necropolis of mossy stones and picturesque ruins. How different the elaborate crypts and monuments were from the simple burying grounds of Boston, with their primitive folk headstones. He had never thought death to be anything other than dreary and distasteful, but looking at the expansive cemetery through Tabby’s eyes, he began to understand how a place like this could offer hope, peace, and even beauty in its own right.
By the time he emerged through the back gates onto the street again, the rain had transitioned to a soft mizzle, and the clouds were starting to part. He was making his way through the market square, when he caught sight of a young woman with bright red hair hawking sweets from a tray. If he hadn’t been thousands of miles across the ocean, he would have sworn that it was Tabby.
He stopped in his tracks. There was something in the way she moved, the way she held her chin as she tried to tempt passersby with her goods. She turned around, and he caught a glimpse of icy, clear eyes. His neck went hot. They weren’t Tabby’s, but he had seen those eyes before.
She stopped to banter with a cheesemonger, her bright hair a splash of color against the drab and rainy surroundings. Removing her tray and handing it off to another young woman, she started walking through the square. Without thinking twice, he fell into step behind her, trailing her like a hungry shadow.
When she headed toward a pub, he decided to make his move. The supplies that Hugh was waiting for were forgotten, as was everything else. The answers to the questions that had been plaguing him for the past month were so close that he could practically reach out and touch them.
He waited a beat before pushing the door open and following her inside. He was just about to find an innocuous place at the bar to wait, when she spun around and faced him.
“Who are you? Why are you following me?”
Her voice was so like Tabby’s that for a moment he was too dumbstruck to do anything but stand and gape at her.
“Well?” In a fluid motion, the woman had slipped a little blade out of her sleeve and was now pointing at him with unnerving confidence. “If it’s money that you’re after, you could hardly have picked a worse mark.”
Before Caleb had a chance to assure her that he had no interest in her money—or her lack thereof—a burly man twice his size ambled out from behind the bar and put himself between the woman and Caleb. “This man botherin’ ye, Allie?”
“I don’t know,” she said without taking her gaze from Caleb’s face, or lowering the blade. “Is he?”
This was it. “I saw your picture in London, and I recognized you back there in the square. I only want to talk,” he added. “I’m not after your money, or anything else, for that matter. I just want to talk.”
The blade wavered. “That cursed picture,” she said, more to herself than to him. Then she tightened her grip on the handle and jabbed it in the air in his direction. “Don’t tell me that you followed me all the way from London. You aren’t one of them, are you?”
“One of who?”
She only narrowed her eyes, so he continued.
“Your hair, and your...your eyes,” he said in a rush. “I... It’s just, you look like someone I know. Someone I knew. I’ve been looking for you, yes, but not following you. Well, only following you from the square, that is.”
Hunching into his shoulders, he closed his eyes and braced for a blow to land, sure that he had insulted this stranger beyond all measure. But no blow came, and when he opened his eyes, she was looking at him with unmistakable interest.
“Was this someone...” the woman trailed off. “Your accent—it’s American. This person that I look like, where did you see her?”
Caleb shot another glance at the mountain of a man who was still tensed and ready to beat him to a pulp before answering. “Boston,” he said. “I’m from Boston.”
She looked shaken, and he could see her struggling to maintain her composure as she turned toward the bartender. “I’m fine, Malcolm, thank you.”
When the man had given him one last look of distaste and lumbered away, she turned back to Caleb. “What is her name?” she asked him in a whisper.
“Tabitha.”
