Page 37 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

Brendan shrugged. “I don’t know exactly how. He might palm the pea or slide it into another shell, some sleight of hand that tricks the customer. It looks like a game of chance, something a man might win once in a while, but nobody ever wins but the hustler—or somebody he’s planted in the audience, to tempt others to play.”

“Let me guess,” Maggie remarked dryly, after she’d absorbed all Brendan said. “My father was the hustler and Danny was the plant?”

Brendan cracked a wry smile. “You’re good at this.”

“Maybe I should join them?” Maggie quipped before letting out a weary sigh that felt as if it came from the depths of herbeing. She found she couldn’t be angry—not again. She didn’t have the energy or the will, and she knew Danny or her da would never change. It was futile to expect them to, and yet she loved them anyway—another exercise in futility, it seemed. “You said they were in trouble with a gang and the police?” she asked after a moment.

“The problem with this kind of confidence trick,” Brendan explained, “is that people get wise to it. They had to keep moving it around—the waterfront, the Coast, North Beach, the Mission. But eventually they ran out of new places to go, new customers to pluck, and they started muscling in on a gang’s territory—they were doing the same thing, you see. And at the same time, some cheated customer got wind of it and reported them to the police. Although, truth be told, I think they’re more afraid of the gang, and rightly so. Behind bars in San Quentin probably seems like a pretty safe place, from where they’re standing.”

One of the state’s most notorious prisons, a safe place! Slowly, despondent, Maggie shook her head. “So what are they going to do?”

Brendan hesitated, and she twisted around to face him. He was sitting very close, closer than she realized, so she could see the glints of gold in his hazel eyes, the stubble on his jaw, breathe in the scent of him, the aftershave she still didn’t recognize.

“Brendan…?”

“They’ve got a plan,” Brendan finally said, his voice heavy. “They’re leaving San Francisco, Maggie. They’d have told you themselves, but they’re in hiding, down in a warehouse by the waterfront.”

“Leaving? But where are they going?”

Again he hesitated, and Maggie felt her fingers clench into fists.

“Brendan, just tell me,” she implored, her voice hitching in her anxiety.

“They’re heading north,” he told her quietly. “There’s a steamer,City of Pueblo, leaving for Port Townsend tomorrow morning.”

Maggie stared at him blankly. “Port Townsend?” She had no idea where that was.

“In Washington State. From there, they’ll go onto Victoria, in Canada, and then Fort Wrangell and finally Juneau, although they’ve got ideas about going even further north than that. Heading up somewhere to look for gold.”

For a second, Maggie could only stare. “They’re going toAlaska?” she finally asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Now Brendan looked more somber than ever, and with a lurch she realized there was more to come, andthisnews was what Brendan dreaded sharing. “And Maggie…” he began, his gaze steady on hers and full of both determination and sorrow, “I’m going with them.”

CHAPTER 20

Maggie’s lips parted soundlessly as she scanned his face as if looking for clues, her mind spinning in useless circles. “You?” she finally managed, moistening her lips as he continued to gaze at her steadily, the expression in his eyes sorrowful but resolute. “But…why?”

“I need a change.” He turned to stare down at his hands, his fingers laced tightly together between his knees. “There’s a lot of opportunity to be had up north,” he continued. “I’m not talking about panning for gold. But… land, maybe, for anyone who wants it. It’s all federal land now, but Alaska is so big and wild, and I’ve heard that just about anyone can go up there and have their own acres?—”

“You want to be afarmer?” Maggie asked, still incredulous. He’d never spoken of such ambitions before. “InAlaska?”

“I want to besomething,” Brendan returned, heat in his voice. He looked up, his eyes flashing, before he continued in a quieter tone, “I don’t want to make a fortune, but I want to make alife. More than I had here, and more than I had in Chicago.”

The kind of life he’d had in New York, he meant, Maggie knew. The kind of life that she’d taken from him, where he’d had his own prosperous business, a comfortable home, respectand friendship from his neighbors and customers. Brendan had always insisted it had been his choice to leave New York behind and go with them to Chicago, but right now it didn’t feel like that.

“But what about Jessamine?” she blurted, and Brendan kept her gaze, unblinking.

“What about her?” he asked quietly.

“I thought… I thought that the two of you…” Maggie couldn’t bear to finish.

“What’s between Jessamine Conant and me isn’t worth staying for,” Brendan told her flatly. A faint blush touched his cheeks, but he didn’t look away. “Jessie and I both always knew that.”

Maggie was the one to glance away first, embarrassed as well as disappointed by his admission. So she had been right; therehadbeen something between Brendan and Miss Jessie. She’d suspected for a long while, of course, but the confirmation of it still stupidly hurt, even though she knew she had no right to feel anything at all. She’d had her own romance, doomed as it had been, with Theo Stein, and that kiss, brief as it had been with Philip.

“But Alaska,” she finally said faintly. “It’s so far away?—”

“That’s what I want,” Brendan cut across her. “I want to get away from… from all this. From everything here.”