across the face. She crumbled to the stoop with a cry, holding her face in her hands.
“Fucking whore telling me what to pay,” the red-faced bald man shouted to cheers from the crowd of popinjays.
The woman looked up from where she cowered, and Elspeth could see blood running from her nose and lip. She’d seen enough.
“Stop!” she shouted as she picked up her skirts and hurried up the steps. “Stop this instant!”
Elspeth crouched down and pulled a handkerchief from her drawstring bag. She handed it to the woman, who looked up at her guardedly. Elspeth leaned forward and dabbed the blood from the woman’s chin and mouth while the young men on the street in front of the house continued their taunts. She stood quickly and turned to the bald man.
“Pay her! Pay her this minute,” she said.
The young man stepped between them. “There’s no reason for you to get involved, miss. Please be on your way.”
She batted his hand away when he reached for her. “Don’t you dare touch me! You and your . . . your father are here together? How disgusting you are!”
The crowd roared their approval, and she could see Mrs. Fenway and Ezra at the edge of the crowd. The shop owner said something to her son, and he raced down the street, away from his mother’s shop.
“This is not my . . .” the young man said, clearly affronted.
“Then why are you here with him? What need do you have to frequent this house?”
The young man’s mouth twitched, and that was when she noticed he was startlingly handsome. Strikingly so. The crowd on the street was taunting him, asking him to tell her about his need. She felt her face go red and wished she could have taken back her words, but it was too late. She would have to brazen it out and was about to repeat her question when the bald man leaned close to her.
“What do you know of this house, girl? Are you looking to audition? I’ll be happy to recommend you if you meet my expectations.” He let his eyes drift down to her bosom and farther still.
Elspeth stared at the bald man, three times her size, covered in the finest herringbone wool—yards of it, she estimated—his purple four-in-hand held in place with a glittering diamond stick pin. She did not retreat, not one inch, but held completely still, her eyes riveted on his. She would not be the one to look away. He turned suddenly and swept his hand in a wide arc.
“I think she likes me! I think she’s fallen under my spell! And she’ll like my long, fat sausage too, won’t she, boys?” He turned to look at her, bending his knees just a bit to grab his crotch and thrust his hips at her. The men in the crowd roared their approval.
The young man was pulling on his arm. “Schmitt! That’s enough. Come away.”
Elspeth speared him with her glare. “Make an escape now after your da’s had his way and not paid her and hit her too? Coward!”
The muscles in the young man’s neck stood out white against the red color of his face and throat. He leaned around the bald man. “He is not my father, miss. You should go before you are caught up in something ugly. Go.”
“As if this is not ugly enough, a grown man in a fine suit hitting a woman on the stoop of her home!”
“It could get worse. Go!” he growled as the crowd shouted their appreciation at whatever crude comments Schmitt had just made.
“I’ll see her—” Elspeth began and stopped abruptly as her brother James shouldered past Schmitt and the young red-faced man. He put his hand under her arm, none too lightly, and turned her to go down the steps. Schmitt stepped in front of them.
“I saw her first, boy,” he said. “Go on about your business.”
“Come along, Elspeth,” James said quietly without a glance at Schmitt.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the young man said and reached out his hand as if hoping to shake hers. “Mr. Schmitt lost his head for a moment.”
James leaned in and spoke quietly. “Don’t touch my sister. Ever. And tell your friend to back out of our way.”
“Or what, boy?” Schmitt asked and turned with a broad smile and a sweep of his arm to the crowd. “Or what?”
But other than a few whispered words and quick exchanges of coins, the young men crowded in the street were completely silent. They were