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Tentatively, Hope put an arm around her sister. She always thought of Caty as so sturdy, but her bones felt as small and fragile as Rachel’s. “Please, don’t cry, Caty.”

“If only she hadn’t—” Caty choked on the words. “Why? Why? Why?”

“It must have been the baby,” Hope said, feeling sick. “That must have been why he killed her, because he didn’t want her to tell anyone about the baby.”

Caty made a horrible noise, deep in her throat. She shook off Hope’s encircling arm. Yanking a handkerchief from her sleeve, she wiped her ravaged face.

“We do not speak of this again,” Caty said in a strangled voice. She straightened her cap on her tightly plaited hair. “If thee hasn’t hats to trim, then there’s Mr. Lacey’s room to clean.”

As if they could scrub it all away.

The bloody cloths in a bucket. Levi, begging Caty to send for the doctor.

Hope felt as though she’d just been through a tempest and emerged to find the world made unfamiliar with fallen branches and shattered glass. What else had she failed to see? What other secrets had Caty kept from her?

Poor Caty, always taking on everyone’s burdens, trying so hard to spare everyone else.

Hope held out a hand to her sister. “Caty—thee needn’t bear it all alone. I’m a woman grown. I’ll help thee carry thy burdens.”

Caty slapped the rag into her palm. “If thee want to share my burden, clean this room. I haven’t time to stand here all day gossiping like thee and Peggy.”

With that, she pushed past Hope and out of the room, leaving Hope standing in Mr. Croucher’s room with a damp rag dripping in her hand.

Chapter Eighteen

When my wife returned, I asked who went out? She said, “Elma and Levi.” I answered that it was wrong, [Elma] would get sick. She replied, “He will be more careful of her than I would be.”

—From the testimony of Elias Ring at the trial of Levi Weeks

New York City

March 21, 1800

“I mended the door for thee,” Elias said.

Caty dropped her rag into her bucket, placing her hands on the small of her back, which ached something fierce.

After Mr. Croucher’s room, she’d gone on and cleaned Mr. Lacey’s and Mr. Russel’s rooms, venting all her emotion into the grime and soot beneath the cracks. Sometimes it seemed like all the filth of the city found its way within their walls.

Caty hated herself for breaking down in front of Hope. She’d tried so hard to put up a strong front for the children. Hope might claim to be grown, but she was Caty’s child too, her little sister, hers to protect. To have Hope questioning her . . . offering to share her burdens . . . when she had no idea just how hard Caty had worked to protect her, to keep her in happy ignorance . . . it was all too much to bear. Caty wanted to sink down on the floor, cover her head with her apron, and howl like Eliza.

And now Elias wanted thanks for a task she’d first asked him to complete months ago.

“I thank thee,” she said.

Elias hovered in the doorway, casting a long shadow across the floor. He waited while Caty gathered up her bucket of filthy water, her dirty rags. He didn’t offer to take it from her.

When she went to leave, he stood in the doorway, blocking her path. “What did the lawyer want with thee?”

“Mr. Colden?” She knew just who he meant, but she was tired and sore at heart.

“He was with thee for some time.”

“Only to tell me of new evidence against Levi—and advise me how to speak at trial.” Meanly, Caty added, “I’m to tell the whole truth and all will be well.”

There was a petty satisfaction to watching Elias flinch. “Thee won’t. Will thee?”

Caty’s bucket was very heavy and her temper was short. The scene with Hope had been bad enough. She didn’t have the energy to soothe Elias’s sore conscience. She hoped it pricked him like a thousand fiery pitchforks. “Would thee have me lie in a court of law?”