“He was filling in for the Mopsies,” Claire said. “May he come in?”
“If he stays out of the way,” George put in. “And don’t throw anything.”
Alice let this go as none of her business, though how these two could have a history in the ten minutes since she’d left the Compass was beyond her. Claire and Jake took a table, and the airmen joined them. Andrew stopped to speak with a man heading out the door, and Alice—you’d think she’d know better—felt a glow of warmth that he had got right down to the business of helping her.
But mooning over that wasn’t going to help her find her pa. She ordered something mild in the hopes that at some point later this evening, she would not be caught vomiting all over Mr. Malvern the way she had on the occasion of their first meeting. W Cst h="hen the barman didn’t seem inclined to move away, but stood there drying glasses, his gaze moving from table to table as he kept an eye out for trouble, she cleared her throat.
“Business good?”
“Middling. I was hoping the count’s ship’d bring in business, what with the size of the crew it carries, but no such.”
“You see a lot of traffic through here. Different crowd from the Compass, I understand.”
He nodded, and wiped out another glass. “Compass caters to visitors. We get a different lot here. More flighty, you might say.”
“You might have seen a friend of mine, then. Mining engineer, he is. Was. Accident took one eye.”
The barman considered, twisting his towel in the glass. “How old?”
“Your age, maybe. Give or take five or ten years.”
He snorted. “Ain’t seen anyone like that lately.”
Lately? “It could’ve been awhile ago. Years, even.”
“Some friend. Close, are you?”
Caught. “It’s my pa,” she admitted. “I’m trying to get a lead on him, but I haven’t seen him since I was knee-high.”
Another snort, this time not without sympathy. “Maybe he don’t want to be found.”
“That might be. I’m prepared for it. But I’d still like to give him the chance to tell me so.”
“Sorry. Not ringing a bell. But I can ask around. What ship?”
“Stalwart Lass, out of—”
“—Resolution. I’ve heard of it. I wouldn’t be bandying that about, if I were you.”
“Oh? Ship got a bad name? I stole her, if that makes a difference.”
Slowly, he set down both glass and rag. “You stole the Stalwart Lass? Ned Mose’s ship?”
They were thousands of miles from Resolution, and she’d walked into the one bar in the one city to strike up a conversation with the one man who could get her clapped in gaol with one word.
Alice resisted the temptation to put her head down on her arms and weep.
“I did. Used to be I called him Pa, but we had a falling out.”
“Pa? Your ma Nellie Benton?”
“She is. We’re still speaking, at any rate.” It was one-sided at the moment, but he didn’t need to know the details.
“I remember Nellie Benton fondly,” the barman said, picking up another glass and leaving the first one abandoned where it sat. “You’re in touch with her, you tell her Mike Embry sends his regards. Tell her I’m a darned fine prospect now, she ever changes her mind.”
n>“I’ll do that.” Silently, Alice blessed her mother for treating this man kindly. “She ever talk about my pa?”
His face cracked into what might have been the first smile it had worn in a decade. “We didn’t converse much about other men, missy.”
“Alice. Alice Chalmers.”
“That his name? Chalmers?”
“Could’ve been.” Ma wasn’t much on accuracy except when it came to the account books at the Resolute Rose. “I’m pretty sure.”
Nodding, he said, “I’ll see what I can find out. In exchange, you pass that message on to your ma.”
“I said I would, Mike. I’ll be around for a couple of days.”
Too late, she remembered she was supposed to be pulling up ropes as soon as she could dodge Claire and the rest of her party.
“It’ll take me that long to put out the word, find out who knows what. Three days, at least.”
With a sinking feeling in her middle, Alice knocked back the rest of her drink, laid down a coin, and pushed away from the bar. At least in a fistfight, she knew what to do. In the air or under an engine, she was in command of her element. But now she was stuck with at least three days of shopping and balls and all manner of nonsense, where she knew nothing and commanded less.