City of God by Beverly Swerling Read Free Book Online

Devrey broke his neck in a drunken tumble off the half-built upper landing of the grand Broadway mansion he’d no money to finish. Bastard was long in the ground before Samuel heard he was dead. No matter. Samuel wouldn’t have returned to do his father honor if he could have magicked himself back to New York on a broomstick.
    But he had no choice when it was Jacob Astor who summoned him home to take over the New York end of the shipping that was but one of Astor’s interests. A paltry interest some might say, given the size and the scope of the real estate and all the rest. Small and unimportant, like Samuel Devrey himself.
    Let them talk. Astor did not own him. He was, for instance, entirely sure that Astor did not know about Mei-hua, brought to him two months after he returned to New York along with her dowry of furniture and clothing and the one-time wet nurse, Ah Chee. And while Astor probably did know of Samuel’s investment in the Cherry Street lodging houses and even about their Chinese occupants, the man who was rumored to own most of Manhattan island was unlikely to be bothered by that. Much less, the fact that Wilbur Randolf’s modest fortune would some day be in Samuel Devrey’s control.
    As for the rest, Samuel was prepared to bide his time.

Chapter Three
    “H AVE YOU CONSIDERED my suggestion, Carolina?”
    “What suggestion is that, Mrs. Devrey?”
    “About the baby’s name,” Celinda said. “Calling him Lansing.” Bastard had not turned out to be the sort of husband a woman wanted to memorialize, but it was important that Samuel and his wife recognized their duty. Not to the memory of Samuel’s father. To her. “I can understand that you might be thinking of naming a boy Wilbur, but your dear papa is still alive. Surely the next wee one can be named for him. You don’t look comfortable, Carolina,” leaning forward over the sofa but not making any effort to alter things with her own hands. “Shall I summon Dorothy to adjust your pillows?”
    Comfortable? With her mother-in-law paying two visits in as many days? And soon to be one of the very few people she was permitted to receive? “I’m fine, Mrs. Devrey. Though I thank you for paying me such mind.”
    Celinda Devrey held an embroidery hoop in her left hand and a needle in her right, but she hadn’t taken a stitch in ten minutes. “Ofcourse I’m mindful, my dear. It is my duty. Particularly since you have no mother of your own.” One thing she had found to celebrate when Samuel announced his choice of bride. Because Carolina’s mother was long dead, there was no other woman to contest the role of family matriarch. On the other hand, she’d known at once that being the indulged child of a wealthy widower had imbued the girl with more independence of spirit than was desirable in a daughter-in-law. Nonetheless, she would cope. Celinda had been coping since the first day she herself became a wife. Or put more accurately, the first night. A dreadful business at best, made worse by Bastard seldom actually managing to make a job of it—too drunk most of the time. No wonder they’d had only the one son. “Does your Mrs. O’Brien at last agree you must begin your lying-in?”
    “Not quite yet, Mrs. Devrey. I believe I told you she says start of the eighth month. I calculate there are two weeks to go.”
    Celinda raised an eyebrow, remembered the embroidery and took a stitch, then held the hoop a bit away to admire the result. “Calculate,” she said, as if it were an extraordinary notion. Then, before Carolina could start discussing the unpleasant details of what she would probably call, in the manner of young women these days, monthly visits from grandmother, “No matter. I’m sure Samuel is taking special care of you just now.”
    “Samuel is always most considerate.”
    “I’m pleased to hear it. I do know he works very long hours.” At least that was the situation according to Barnabas, Samuel’s stable boy, whom Celinda