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even eager, to trade—”
    “Yes!” Trenton slammed a fist into his hand
and looked excitedly at Nathaniel. “That could work. What about the
cargo from his last ship?”
    Nathaniel shook his head. “He’s too rich and
too angry to give Richard up for money. It has to be something else... something he simply can’t
refuse.”
    “Wait.” A gleam entered Trenton’s eye. “Your
father has a daughter, doesn’t he?”
    “Aye.” Nathaniel watched Trenton’s face
split into a smile as his friend’s thoughts became obvious. Then a
grin tempted the corners of his own mouth. “Aye,” he repeated
softly, “that he does.”
    * * *
    Manchester was famous for its spinning
mills. More than seventy sprawled off its wide streets, kingpins
amid the pubs, pawnbrokers, rambling warehouses, and surrounding
slums. Some were four or even five stories high and housed as many
as a thousand workers. All were ugly, irregularly shaped giants
that hummed and whirred and belched soot into the air through long
snouts that turned everything a dismal gray.
    Alexandra hardly noticed. She was too
accustomed to the factories and the soot they produced to condemn
their existence. And she could think of little besides her goal.
Would Fobart’s manager give her the money? What could she say to
convince him?
    She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder.
Willy had been deeply asleep on the couch when she left, his
stubble-covered jaw slack, snores and grunts resounding. But her
fear of her stepfather was strong enough to make her believe he
would catch her no matter what, and only by taking a firm hold of
such emotion was she able to remain committed to her plan.
    Readjusting the small bundle of belongings
she had quickly gathered and hidden beneath her skirts, she swung
Madame Fobart’s skirts over her shoulder and strode from the muddy
little court where she lived and worked past Piccadilly Street and
into the heart of the city. As she entered the crush of the noon
hour, mill workers elbowed past, eager to use the brief respite
from work to meet a comrade or get a bite to eat. Merchants hustled
about as well, soliciting what business they could. Even a few
masters, those who owned or ran the factories, could be seen on the
street that day. Their carriages rumbled through town, pulled by
fine horses and driven by liveried servants.
    Hurrying west, Alexandra forced a smile at
the many tired faces she passed as grimy buildings and crowded
streets finally gave way to patches of green grass here and there.
Small, neatly manicured gardens lay beneath patches of snow,
adorning houses that grew steadily larger until Alexandra spotted
Madame Fobart’s.
    The dressmaker’s was painted in shades of
pink and green and trimmed in white. A rosebush, devoid of blooms,
scaled the turned posts of a wide verandah. Stairs led to a massive
oak door with a heavy brass knocker. Nothing indicated that the
building was anything more than the mansion of an aristocrat or
merchant, except for a lace vest hanging on a brass rod outside one
of its three plate-glass windows. Anything more obvious would seem
vulgar to the genteel class. Madame Fobart’s catered to
Manchester’s elite. The women of the ton came to her for their most
exquisite gowns of rich silk or velvet.
    And the bonnets! Madame’s milliners were
some of the most skilled Alexandra had ever seen.
    Though Madame Fobart employed a veritable
army of seamstresses, skirts were hired out. Alexandra highly
doubted Madame’s patrons ever faced the fact that impoverished
hands stitched part of their gowns. The rich certainly paid enough
for their apparel. Alexandra guessed that many of that noble class
would faint if they acknowledged the truth, and she cringed at the
memory of the tales that had recently circulated. One story told of
the death of a great lady made ill by some poor needlewoman who had
used the garments she sewed as coverings for her sick child.
    Considering the circumstances of many in