The Enchantment by Kristin Hannah Read Free Book Online

The escapes, they'd discovered too late, didn't reach the ground. The victims had burned to death staring down at the firemen and the water wagons clustered in the alley below. Even though she'd taken a job as a typist on Wall Street and moved to Catherine Street by then, Emma had been close enough to hear the screams. . . .
    Something, some wisp of sound, floated to Emma's ears.
    It was a lullaby.
    Drawn almost against her will, she followed the sound to a tumbledown rear tenement less than fifty feet away. The top floors of the building disappeared into the low-slung layer of haze. Below the fog, clotheslines traversed the dirty backyard, and from their sagging expanses, wet, worn clothing snapped in the wind.
    Sounds battered her ears, pulled her back in time: the barking of half-starved dogs looking for food; the bellow of an angry husband seeking his helpless wife; the soft shuffling of bare feet on rainy sidewalks.
    And above it all, the haunting strains of a mother's lullaby. She walked to the sagging fence that lined the tenement's muddy backyard. Looking up to the second floor, she saw a woman huddled on the cold iron slats of the fire escape, and in her arms was a baby wrapped in a tattered blanket.
    The child gave a violent shudder, then let out a loud, high-pitched hacking that was immediately followed by
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    a wheezing wail. The mother sang louder, and reached a too-thin, blue-veined hand to the child's face.
    "Shh, Jeannie. It'll be okay, love. ..." Emma turned quickly away. Tears stung her eyes and clogged her throat. The scene was so close. . . . She had sung the same lullaby to her dying mother, raised a similarly shaking hand to Mum's fire-hot bow. Whispered the same desperate, aching words . . .
    Emma moved closer. She could barely make out the woman's face, for her too-pale, care-creased skin was almost indistinguishable from the cheap gray wool fascinator that wreathed her head and neck. The woman's drawn mouth worked softly, haltingly, and the lullaby left her lips in hesitant, painful spurts.
    The child hacked again, harder this time. Emma had no doubt that the babe was dying; nor that the mother knew it as well. With half a chance, the baby might live, but here, in the hopeless pit of poverty, there was no chance at all.
    Unless Emma herself made one. She stepped forward. Her knee brushed the rickety fence and a rotted slat fell onto the wet sidewalk.
    The mother's head jerked up. Her tired, bloodshot eyes narrowed suspiciously when she saw Emma.

    Wordlessly the woman bundled up the baby and hurried back into her apartment. The door creaked, then slammed shut in her wake.
    Emma stared at the closed door for a long time, the mother's glassy eyes etched into her memory. There had been no hope in those eyes; no hope in that quiet lullaby. No hope of escaping this hellhole. No hope of even surviving.
    Once again Emma realized how lucky she'd been. Unlike most of the people in this neighborhood, who 44
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    were beaten by poverty until they dropped, exhausted and depleted, into a waiting grave, Emma had never let herself accept life in the slums. Never.
    Yes, she'd been lucky. And something else, something even more important. She'd been smart.
    She was still smart, still lucky, still hungry for success. She'd made one fortune, and by God, she could make another. And once she'd made it, nothing on Heaven or Earth would pry it from her hands again.
    Nothing.

Chapter Four
    Emmaline looked up at the ornate chateau-styled town house and swallowed thickly. A flutter of butterflies nested in her stomach. She pressed a slim, gloved hand to her abdomen.
    It was foolish to be nervous. She'd gone over this decision a thousand times in the last few days, and it seemed the perfect plan of action. She and Eugene
    should marry.
    Marry. She suppressed a shiver of repulsion at the word. It was so ... personal, conjuring up myriad disturbing images—joint checking account, shared power,