“I’ll need to find some way to replace what was lost,” she said, eager to change conversation topics.
“Stolen,” Abby corrected. “And you needn’t worry for now. Most of the women who come here have little, so we all pitch in.” She stacked the clothing back in the drawers and set to work on a pile of linens. “I’m sure we can find something for you to do for the rally.”
“What rally?”
“We’re members of the Brooklyn Women’s Suffrage Society. Ben helped found it years ago, and it’s small yet, but we organized a gathering in the park in two days to support a new bill to extend the vote to women,” Abby said, snapping a length of linen and folding it flat. “Equal opportunity only applies to those with a specific appendage.”
“It is the same in Britain, and completely preposterous.”
“This won’t be large,” Abby said. “A few hundred people, mostly from Brooklyn. But it’s about momentum and making sure we’re not overlooked.”
A fire burned low in Rose’s belly. She had never been overlooked, nor forgotten, but underestimated? So much of Rose Waverly was the woman society lauded, but could there be more lurking below the surface?
“For the rally,” Rose said as she took up a washcloth and took extreme care in folding it into quarters. “What sort of help do you need?”
Chapter 5
Therewasonceacook, a trickster called Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and when she went out in them she gave herself great airs, and thought herself very fine indeed. She thought herself deserving of the very best…
Ben should have stayed in his apartment. His blood still boiled after his brief interaction with Abby’s cousin, a literal English Rose, delicate and perfect and so completely out of place. She would cause chaos and destruction everywhere she went, as she demanded more than she could have. He expected her to bolt for the shipyard and demand passage home before the day was out.
If he could avoid her, he could focus on the work that needed to be done for the rally, and the endless list of tasks 138 Willow required of him.
But Cass asked for him to help build the signs, and the supplies were in her apartment, and that damned light kept going out no matter how many times he replaced it—
“Look who I’ve recruited!” Abby called as she pushed open the door from the bedroom and burst into the parlor, a grin splitting her round face.
Cass and Ben exchanged a quick glance before Cass focused again on painting the lettering on her sign, leaving Ben to watch as his “new recruit” stepped forward.
He hated how his breath caught at the sight of her. Rose was no less beautiful when stripped of her fancy clothing. In the costume of a Brooklyn woman she was striking, her elegance contained like potential energy, the sky just before a lightning strike. Her deep green eyes held his for a long moment before she turned back to her cousin, and Ben immediately missed her attention.
Abby leaned in to Cass, pecked a quick kiss to her cheek, then took up a paintbrush and the blank sign Ben had already hammered together. A stack of two dozen sat in the entryway, ready to be painted and distributed to anyone who descended on the park. “Do you know how to paint?” Abby asked.
Rose hesitated before picking up a broad brush soaked with black paint. “Watercolors, but I’m not terribly skilled.”
Ben stifled a snort of disdain, but apparently not well enough because Rose’s gaze darted to his and her brows furrowed. His cheeks heated, and he battled his desire to do something,anything, to earn his way back into her good graces. Not that he had ever resided there. “No skill is required,” he drawled. “Bold letters, large enough to be seen from a distance. Anyone can do it.”
Rose made a low noise of distaste, but stood next to Abby and watched with rapt curiosity asvotes for womentook shape under her brush. Rose hesitated, then moved with careful precision as she recreated the message on her own board.
“Have you been to many protests before, Rose?” Cass asked, and Abby shot her a warning look.
“No,” Rose replied, missing the interaction. “But once Harrod’s advertised a new line of silk scarves, and the crush to enter got quite heated. I nearly had to trample a girl to get my hands on the last pink one.”
The room went still. Rose raised her eyes and met Abby’s unblinking expression. Her cheeks flushed.
“I think she meant something political,” Abby said.
Rose shook her head. “The movement for suffrage is complicated in Britain. So much political action happens in drawing rooms and in clubs, not ballot boxes and public parks. Protests occur, but change is subtle, delicate.”
“We’re not barbarians.” Ben slapped his brush into the paint with more force than was necessary.
“Youare,“ Abby tossed at him with a wink. “With all your grunting and huffing.” She mimicked his low, guttural growls with a twisted scowl before dissolving into laughter, taking Cass along with her.
Ben grumbled, then attempted to clear his face of emotion. “We don’t knock our opponents around until they cry for mercy. There are politics at play here, just as in London.”
Rose’s stony gaze met his and held. “If you’re insinuating that I find your suffrage society coarse, you would be wrong. You may not be aware of our system—”
“I know your system,” Ben shot back, “as we designed ours to improve on the faults in yours.”
