Marriage Broker

Prologue

1892 Boston

The sudden change in weather caught Tobin McIntyre by surprise. As the drizzly rain deteriorated to a heavy downpour, she spared a glance for the estate's manicured lawn below.

Twenty feet at least to the ground. Broken neck territory for a second-story thief like herself. And the slippery copper drainpipe under her shimmying knees only confirmed the danger:

One false move and she'd fall.

No matter. Between increasingly heavy wind gusts, Toby took a quick swipe at her face, then continued inching upward.

She had no other choice.

Back on Boston's waterfront, ten little scalawags - escapees like herself from various local orphanages - were bellyaching to her about hunger pangs. Bad enough an abandoned warehouse overrun with rats served as a roof over their collective heads but nothing for supper again tonight, too?

Unacceptable.

Toby clenched her jaw, rounded her back, and kept going. This haul was getting done no matter what. And should she lose her balance and topple?

She'd hobble back up, brush herself off, wipe off the blood, and start all over again. Too much was at stake to quit now. Rings. Necklaces. Maybe even a genuine diamond tiara thrown into the mix.

This was one classy neighborhood. Who knew what she'd find? And here, rich folks kept their valuables out in plain sight. Easy pickings for a thief like herself. And she wasn't fussy about the take... so long as she could exchange the hot stuff for ready cash. If not, she'd end up swiping loaves of Ciabatta again. As the bread cooled outside on wire racks in the Italian section of Boston's North End, she'd run by and help herself to a few and that happened too many times to count.

One problem:

Her flaming red hair. Once upon a time, a raggedy longshoreman cap was enough to disguise the most distinguishable characteristic of her appearance. Not of late. Not since losing the hat. Get too close to the goods now and a lynching mob of pissed-off bakers would take off after her, their rolling pins swinging, flour flying like gunshot everywhere, and nowhere to duck.

Somedays, she just couldn't cop a break.

Still and all, no complaints about the work. It was necessary and besides she was built to steal. All her fellow crooks said so. A flat-chest and narrow-hips lent her an agility unsurpassed in the business. No brag, every two story-man in town envied her balance on rooftops.

Then it happened. Six months ago, her "friend" finally paid her a visit.

"A periodic inconvenience," an older girl explained.

More like a goddamned bloody disaster. Little wonder it was called the "curse".

Her lad's woolen trousers?

A tight fit for her new womanly hips.

Her once flat chest?

A genuine bosom that bounced when she ran, something she did plenty of in her line of work. And forget stealing one of those chest-squashing devices. Washerwomen never hung lady's unmentionables out to dry in plain sight, not in Boston. Bunch of prissy prudes in this city.

In her frustration, Toby groaned out loud.

What was she thinking?

Making unnecessary sounds were a no-no in her line of work. Especially in this ritzy area, where an unfamiliar noise had the entire neighborhood of nosy do-gooders scrambling to alert the police.

Never happened downtown. Squealing to the authorities gave city folks a bad case of the hairy hives. Why go looking for trouble, they definitely figured there. Especially when coppers were nowhere to be found, anyway.

Fortunately, Toby was known in the business for her moxie. And steady hands. Twitchy made for mistakes...

Like landing arse first on a fancy estate's manicured lawn during a suddenly heavy downpour.

And here she'd considered this mansion an easy take. After all, while casing the joint, she'd spied the homeowners take off in their hoity-toity carriage, the gent and lady all gussied up in their tony finery for a night out on the town. Off to a concert, maybe at the newly opened Symphany Hall or some such swanky place. Rich folks could afford to gad about, go anywhere they damned well pleased, the price of tickets no object...

A fit of jealousy would've grabbed Toby by the balls, if she had any, which she did not. Unfortunately, what she did have was a newly blossomed bosom. Also, hips. Both threw her off-kilter during a climb in the rain.

Just so happened that luck was on her side here. Finally, her destination had arrived.

Speed was everything in her line of work. Straightaway, Toby grabbed the crowbar from her beat-up leather toolbelt and jimmied the window. A couple of upward heaves and she was over the sill and in out of the lousy weather.

Flowery perfume gone stale tipped Toby off to the sad state of the couple's marriage. That and the furs and shoes and hatboxes and velvet-lined jewelry boxes piled high with trinkets all a-glitter. The grand lady of this castle slept alone. No room for a king in this fairytale. Nor would any man put up with the cloying stink of musty possies in the air.

Money made up for a lot but not everything, Toby supposed philosophically. Not love. Never for love. Love was everything in life.

With her hungry lads in mind, Toby got down to the business of stealing, easily fenced pieces getting stowed in her robber's satchel first.

A simple, rose-engraved pendant watch, a one-of-a-kind item, stopped Toby in her tracks. Rather than toss the fragile item in with everything else, she looped the filigree chain ever so carefully around her neck so it wouldn't get busted.

An out-of-place noise... the sound of breathing in a house she'd presumed to be empty... tipped Toby off.

Shit. She had company.

The darkly handsome male watching her from the doorway must've been the adolescent son of the male who'd left earlier that night in the carriage with that stuck-up, white-gloved, society bitch.

He whispered, "I was outside, looking up at the rain-bloated clouds, when I spied you climb into the house. You were so free. So graceful. Like a circus acrobat. Or a ballet performer. Small and dainty. Agile too. But strong all the same."

Shit. An eyewitness account of her crime. And he had her description down pat. This would never do. Never mind that she had only just turned fifteen, Toby could still get sent up the river for years on account of her crimes. What would happen to her band of hungry waterfront brats then?

They'd starve, waste away and die, without her looking out for their welfare.

Sheer panic set in then, especially since outside, the crunching of wheels on gravel had Toby thinking the worst. No doubt, a paddy wagon had arrived to take her away.

A single nightstick - that Toby could handle. Easy. She'd done so before. But this would be an entire police unit ready to stomp her arse. Wearing heavy leather combat boots, no less.

Narrowing her gaze on the youngish male still watching her every move, Toby came out fighting:

"Hey, kid - are you the fucker who squealed on me to the cops?"

His face took on a horrified expression. "Not me, miss. The callbox is all the way over by the Boat House. Too far for me to have gone."

He had a point. Jamaica Pond was down the street. Ritzy folks rowed there all the time. Lucky sods. Except if they fell in the drink and couldn't swim. The pond was said to have no bottom...

Her audience nodded at the pendant around her neck. "I gave that to my stepmother. I earned the money to buy it shoveling snow every winter. My father's new wife never once wore it, never even said thanks. Not good enough, I reckon."

Toby couldn't help her gasp. "But it's a beautiful piece!"

"Maybe." A pleased blush turned his face all-red. "but it's not something you deserve to get in trouble over. She won't even notice it's missing. And I can tell you like it. So, take it. It's yours, by my say-so."

She never cried, but she did then, bawled until snot rolled down from her nose as she nodded. "Fine then, I'll pawn it first. My... my... boys will eat good tonight."

"Your boys?" He looked her over, his eyes lingering on her face. "You're younger than me."

"Not my boys. Not exactly. We're not related or anything. But they're mine all the same. You don't fucking gotta be blood to fucking belong to someone, you know."

"Only sometimes. Only if you're lucky." Looking lonelier than she could bear, he smiled at her then. "Now, takeoff. Leave the same way you came." He nodded to the open window. "You've got about a minute to get out of here before police start pounding on the front door. I'll hold them off as long as I can while you make your getaway. Don't end up in jail tonight. Wait for me to find you someday instead."

Toby blinked stupidly up at the young gent, a substantial distance. He'd be tall in a few years... "Wh-what?"

Instead of explaining himself, he raced away, leaving Toby to heave herself back over the same windowsill through which she'd arrived.

Much easier sliding down a copper drainpipe than climbing up one. At the bottom, rather than make a run for it, Toby looked back at the house.

The rain had stopped by then, the winds died down, the rainclouds moving onto someplace else, and there he stood, her sort of hero, framed in the upstairs window, not yet a man, highlighted in moonlight, gazing out at her.