i

THE STREET TO WHICH THE CARRIAGE brought Amanda several weeks later testified to the parsimony of the firm's owner. Kent and Son had been relocated in a dingy district of warehouses and chandler's shops near the North End piers. Despite the October sunlight and the brisk, salty smell of the air, Amanda was in a cheerless mood when she alighted from the carriage, paid the driver and told him to return in an hour.

As the hired rig clattered off, a scrofulous man in a blue jacket limped from a nearby doorway. A grubby blue bandana was wrapped around the man's forehead, hiding his eyes. Amanda noticed him sidestep a rotting fish carcass.

The man extended a dirty hand. "Penny for a Mexican veteran, ma'am?"

Furious over the appearance of the frame building that housed Kent's, she whipped up her closed parasol and whacked the beggar in the side of the head.

"Jesus Christ! Have you no charity, woman?"

"I'm as charitable as you are blind, my friend. Go cheat someone else. But first I suggest you pull that bandana down more snugly. I can see your eyes move."

Muttering, the man hobbled away. The limp vanished after he'd taken a few steps. And he did adjust the bandana before he slipped down an alley, cursing her.

Well, his anger wasn't any stronger than hers. The building was a disgrace. Its warped, split clapboards were layered with grime. So was the signboard swaying from an iron fixture over the door. The board's gilt lettering was blurred by accumulated dirt. The lower half of the "e" in Kent had flaked away, and the "o" in Son was totally gone. The tea bottle design was barely discernible. She swung up the parasol and gave the sign a smack to set it swinging. Then she headed for the door.

While Joshua Rothman continued to negotiate with Stovall's attorneys, she had deliberately avoided driving by the firm. Now she decided that had been a mistake. She should have prepared herself gradually for the sorry state of the company.

Finally Rothman had given grudging consent to the visit. She had set out from the American House this morning with great enthusiasm. That enthusiasm was already destroyed.

At the door, she stopped, recalling the banker's caution about behaving with restraint. Rothman believed the seller's lawyers might well approve the current offer. She didn't want any actions of hers to upset that-nor did he.

She got her anger under control. But it took her almost two full minutes to do it.

ii

Sunlight from the open door spilled over the stained floor. The light seemed to stir the resentment of the five decrepit men bent at desks covered with untidy piles of paper. They blinked like animals roused in a cave.

The front office area was badly lighted. Only two oil lamps hung from ceiling fixtures. The management evidently relied on daylight through a pair of plate glass windows flanking the door. The smallness of the windows-each was less than a yard on a side-was another indication of Stovall's niggardly ways. On a gloomy day, Amanda imagined the office would be Stygian. It wasn't much better now.

The five men watched her from their desks. Not a one of them looked younger than fifty. All had a dispirited air. Three went back to work as she slammed the door, cutting off the sunlight.

The floor vibrated. The presses-located in the basement, she guessed-had a slow, ponderous sound, as of someone laboring for breath.

"Who is in charge here?" she asked, advancing toward a rail that separated the desks from the small waiting area. Her voice made one of the employees start. The gutta-percha cane leaning against the back of his chair toppled over and clanged on a spittoon. The floor around the spittoon showed that the spitter missed frequently.

One of the human wrecks shuffled to the rail.

"Mr. Payne is chief editor and general manager, madam. He's busy."

"Where's his office?"

"There-" A veined hand fluttered toward two partitions walling off the back part of the room on either side of a corridor. "But I tell you he's occupied. Conferring with one of our authors."

"Who are you?"

"Mr. Drew. Office manager. May I ask your business? Are you a bookseller interested in the Kent line?"

"If I were, one look at this place would convince me the Kent line is probably as outdated as-never mind."

Watch your tongue, she thought as she pushed through the gate in the railing. But she was still angry.

"See here!" Drew snorted as she headed down the aisle toward the partitioned offices. "You have no right to thrust yourself-"

She wheeled around. "I certainly do, sir. I'm trying to buy this company. I've come to look it over.

He gaped. "You're the one-?"

"Yes, and if I'm successful, I guarantee there'll be some immediate changes!"

Sullen, Drew watched as she continued on, her cheeks scarlet.

iii

The narrow corridor dividing the walled office space ran straight to the back of the building. At the extreme rear, Amanda glimpsed a dark stair leading to the upper floors. The first door on her left bore a small, tarnished metal plate reading T. PAYNE. The door was ajar.

She reached out to knock, only to be stopped by the weary sound of a man's voice.

"Of course I don't like the manuscript. But I don't have to like your vaporish fantasies to publish them. I have instructions from Mr. Stovall! Drew will write your check before you leave the city."

"Theo-"

Amanda blinked. The voice, deep and almost masculine, belonged to a woman.

"-I frankly get goddamned sick of your Harvard snobbery. You know how many, copies A Frenchman's Passion sold. Bartered Virtue did twice as well. This manuscript will outstrip both of them put together."

"The title makes me ill."

"What's wrong with Convicted by Love?"

"If you don't understand, I can't possibly explain. Will you stop puffing that disgusting weed in my face?"

Amanda's mouth rounded. She'd assumed the unseen man was the source of the cigar fumes. In response to the complaint, the woman laughed-a rich, cynical laugh that somehow tickled Amanda.

"Indulge me, Theo. You have your habit. I have mine. And I can't plunk myself down at Commodore Vanderbilt's dinner table and smoke a cigar. I have a position to maintain in New York! That's why I like coming to Boston to bring you a manuscript-and discuss the words dropped from Bartered Virtue. Here's the list. Sixty-two adjectives, eighty-nine adverbs-"

"Good writing doesn't need those crutches, Rose."

"Who said my writing's good, dear boy?"

"Not I, certainly."

"Theo, were you drunk when you edited the manuscript?"

"That's insulting."

"Well, goddamn it, I corrected the proofs till my eyes watered! I put back every word you took out. And you ignored them!"

"Rose, please," the man pleaded, sounding tired. "You know Mr. Stovall has given orders-expenses are to be kept to an absolute minimum. We can't bear the burden of resetting once I've edited the copy."

"You'd better start resetting, or I'll take my next manuscript to Mr. Harper in New York. He'll appreciate the value of my work! If it weren't for the sales of my novels, you couldn't afford to publish that dull literary drivel everyone praises and no one buys. I understand the book trade better than you do!"

"Then why don't you take over my job? I happen to be thoroughly sick of it. God, I wish I'd never quit the newspaper!"

At that point, Amanda finally knocked and thrust the door open. "Excuse me-"

The man behind the cluttered desk was about thirty-five. He was small-boned, with pale skin, bloodshot hazel eyes and a thick pink nose. His neck cloth and silk shirt had seen better days. He smelled of whiskey.

"This is a private conference, madam! Deal with one of the gentlemen up front."

She was amused rather than annoyed. The little man in the large chair resembled a small boy physically; his face, by contrast, suggested a hundred years of debauchery crammed into a third of that time.

The woman with him, exceptionally robust, was about Amanda's age. She had a blunt chin, forthright blue eyes and white hair. Her crinoline skirt was wider than Amanda's-and far more expensive. In one gloved hand she held a green-wrappered cigar, half smoked.

"I prefer to deal with you," Amanda said, turning sideways and tilting the bell of her skirt to maneuver it through the door. "My name is Mrs. de la Gura. I hope to purchase Kent and Son."

His reaction was similar to Drew's: "You-?" He jumped up. The top of his head barely reached her shoulder. "I had no idea-that is, Mr. Stovall's attorneys wrote that someone was interested, but no names were mentioned-"

"I've come to look over the premises."

"You mean Stovall's going to sell?"

"It's a distinct possibility."

"Jubilee!" the editor cried, doing a little jig. "I think I'll go out and get a drink to celebrate."

"Not right now, please," Amanda said. "What's your first name?"

"Theophilus."

"I prefer Theo. I heard your guest using it-" She acknowledged the stout woman gazing at her through a curl of smoke from the cigar now clenched in her teeth.

Realizing he'd neglected introductions, Payne blurted, "Oh, excuse me-Mrs.-de la Gura, you said? This is Kent's romantic novelist, Mrs. Rose-that is-"

His cheeks turned as pink as his nose. His eyes appealed to the elegantly groomed woman. She rescued him. "It's all right if she's going to own the place, Theo." She extended her hand. "Rose Ludwig. Mrs. Adolph Ludwig of New York City."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Ludwig."

"Down in New York, nobody knows I'm Mrs. A. Perm," the woman confided. "Being an authoress isn't an occupation my late husband-or his friends-would consider proper."

"I'll keep your secrets," Amanda told her.

Rose Ludwig drew the smoldering cigar from her mouth. "Including my vice?"

Laughing, Amanda nodded. "Now, Theo, although the sale hasn't been consummated, it's far enough along so that you and I should get to know one another. I'm buying Kent and Son to diversify my holdings"-the lie came glibly-"and if Mr. Stovall comes to terms, I'll probably want you to continue acting as editor and manager. Provided you and I find we can deal with one another."

Payne took the candid remark as a threat. He started perspiring. Amanda decided that Hamilton Stovall had reduced the man to a state of fear.

Rose Ludwig settled herself in a chair beside Payne's cluttered desk. "Where are you from, Mrs. de la Gura?"

"California."

"One of those new gold millionaires?"

"Not quite yet."

The woman intimidated Amanda a little. She'd caught the reference to Commodore Vanderbilt, the steamship magnate. Mrs. Ludwig obviously had important social connections.

But she didn't act as if she did. She disarmed Amanda by tossing her cigar butt in Payne's spittoon and nodding emphatically. "Well, by God, I'm glad you're here. I like your cut. How about you, Theo? Isn't she a big improvement over Mr. Stovall?"

"Careful!" Payne warned, a finger at his lips. He mouthed a name: "Drew."

Amanda realized the doddering office manager must be a spy for the owner. She kept her voice low as she asked, "Do you know Stovall personally, Mrs. Ludwig?"

"Unfortunately I do. My late husband forced me to entertain him several times. Adolph once owned a fairly substantial block of shares in the Stovall Works. The last time Mr. Stovall graced our house, he drank too much-nothing personal, Theo-ignored his wife-she's dead now and I'm not surprised-and fawned over another guest. A gentleman," she added pointedly. "And he pretends to be so respectable! He's really a dreadful man-a grotesque. He wears a white silk scarf that covers half his face, and never takes his gloves off indoors because his hands are scarred, they say."

Theo Payne shut the office door and added to Rose Ludwig's comments in a whisper, "He's also a political primitive. He boasts about membership in the Order of the Star Spangled Banner."

"I'm not familiar with that," Amanda told him.

"The inner circle of the Know-Nothing Party."

Amanda merely nodded. It was evident Payne detested Stovall's politics, and perhaps hoped to draw her out about hers. She changed the subject.

"It's obvious you're not happy here, Theo. Why haven't you resigned?"

Scratching his pink nose, he walked back to the desk. "I have four youngsters in my family, Mrs. de la Gura-and positions aren't easy to locate these days."