Chapter 27
Sacramento City
June 1854
Lobster salad topped the dinner menu, followed by turnip soup, warm dinner rolls, cantaloupe slices garnished with sprigs of mint, and coconut cake for dessert. The Golden Hotel food was better than any Alden had tasted since leaving Scott’s Grove, and breakfast and dinner were both included with the price of a room.
An accomplished pianist entertained them with Mozart’s works as Miss Labrie fluttered around the dining room like an elegant butterfly, welcoming her guests, pouring wine, offering Chilean coffee to accompany dessert.
Gentlemen—including the mayor of Sacramento City—filled the twelve tables, accompanied by several ladies dressed as fashionably as their matron. Isaac was the only child in the restaurant, and the only Negro seated for the meal. The patrons politely ignored him.
Miss Labrie smiled at each guest who came through the door—smiled at Isaac, even—but she never once smiled at him.
Clearly, he’d offended her, but he couldn’t recall what he might have done to deserve her contempt.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Walsh,” Miss Labrie sang as she welcomed a man standing at the arched entrance. The tables were filled, but she still waved him through the door. “We will find the perfect place for you.”
Moments later, Stephan carried a small table and chair out from the kitchen and set them beside the piano. Miss Labrie covered the table with a white cloth and filled a goblet with wine.
“We’ve missed seeing you,” she said to her new customer, her smile gracious again.
Mr. Walsh smoothed out his mustache with the tip of his finger before taking a sip of the wine. “I decided to return to the goldfields for a season.”
“Did you have any luck?” she asked as Stephan brought the tableware and silver for his place setting.
“I always have luck.” He took another sip. “But I have missed your restaurant very much. There is no decent food to be found in the foothills.”
“I’m glad you’ve returned safely home.”
He set the goblet back on the table. “Has your Mr. Kirtland returned as well?”
Alden saw the flicker of sadness in Miss Labrie’s eyes. Or was it frustration?
Mr. Walsh didn’t seem to notice.
“Why are you staring?” Isaac whispered.
When he looked back at his companion, he missed the answer to Mr. Walsh’s question. “I was observing. Not staring.”
And wondering. Why was a woman so beautiful and intelligent still unmarried in a land filled with wealthy, lonely men? Perhaps it was because she was intelligent. She could keep the profits made from her hotel, no husband threatening to take it from her.
Then again, perhaps she was planning to marry this Mr. Kirtland when he returned.
“Do you think Persila is all right?” Isaac asked.
“I hope so.” Alden took another bite of the creamy coconut cake. He’d been inquiring around the city to see if any of the hotels had registered a Mr. and Mrs. Webb, but he’d yet to find them here.
“I wanted to tell her that I’ve bathed twice now.”
Alden smiled, looking back at Isaac. “She’d be quite pleased to hear that.”
Stephan stepped up to their table with a pot of coffee. The thin man, clothed in a black swallow-tailed coat and white gloves, reminded him of Thomas. “How are you both faring?”
“Very well,” Alden replied, his stomach mercifully full. After five months on the ship, he would be forever grateful for a good meal.
Stephan poured them both a cup of coffee. “Are you traveling to the interior soon?”
Alden shook his head. “Not unless I have to.”
“What are your plans?”
“I need to find work here in the city. At least for a month or two.”
“We had a recent vacancy here,” Stephan said. “I could ask Miss Labrie if she’d consider hiring you.”
Alden forced a smile. “She’d never agree to that.”
Stephan returned his smile. “I wouldn’t be so certain.”
Miss Labrie’s private sitting area was on the first floor of the hotel, beside the restaurant. Inside was a high-backed settee, polished table, and three upholstered chairs. Along the papered wall was a small library of books in a glass case.
Two doors led into the room—the one from the dining room and the other, he assumed, into Miss Labrie’s bedchamber.
An hour after breakfast, the woman entered through the restaurant door. She carried a bone china teapot in one hand, and in her other hand, her fingers laced between the handles of two matching teacups.
She wasn’t surprised to see him—Stephan had arranged the meeting—but she was clearly not happy about spending time with him.
She held up the pot of tea. “Would you like some?”
“Yes, please.” Alden unhooked one of the cups from her finger and placed it on the table. She poured the tea into both cups, then stirred a spoonful of honey into hers. She didn’t offer him anything to sweeten his tea, and he didn’t dare ask.
He took a sip and almost choked on the bitter, earthy flavor. It tasted like dried tobacco leaves.
“It’s a Chinese tea,” she explained.
“It probably tastes better with sugar.”
She ignored his slight. “I’m told you need a job.”
“I’m looking for temporary work. I have an apprenticeship with Judah Fallow when he returns to town.”
Her gaze remained on her teacup. “Does Judah know you own a slave?”
“He knows that I attended law school,” he said, setting his half-full teacup back on the table. “He asked me to work for him.”
“He may change his mind once he finds out about Isaac. He’s known in Sacramento for being a staunch abolitionist.”
“It seems the abolition laws are a bit muddled here.”
Her arms stiffened, the teacup perched on her lips for a moment before she lowered it. “A muddled law doesn’t make something right.”
Sitting back in his chair, he realized his offense to her was a misunderstanding. She seemed to abhor slavery as much as he did, and she believed him to be the exact person they both despised. No wonder she was hostile to him. He wished he could tell her the truth, but as long as free blacks were in danger here, he had to guard Isaac.
He leaned toward her again, anxious to change the topic. “Your steward said you might have some work.”
She took another sip of tea. “Sometimes I need to order supplies in San Francisco. Stephan was traveling there for me after—” She stopped herself. “There are rumors about free blacks being kidnapped in the city and sold into slavery. I can’t risk having him travel anymore.”
“I can travel to San Francisco for you,” he offered. “And I can help make repairs around the hotel and retrieve shipments down at the wharf as well.”
She studied the teacup in her hands. “Whoever I hire will also need to help Stephan and Janette in the kitchen.”
He couldn’t help but smile. What would his mother think, knowing he’d earned his way around Cape Horn working in the galley? And now this woman was offering him the opportunity to earn his keep by working in a kitchen as well. Work, he’d realized, that could be even more grueling than his time in the fields.
She glanced briefly up at him. “You’ve probably never even been inside a kitchen, have you?”
“Actually, Isaac and I are both well acquainted with kitchen work.”
Her eyebrows slid up. “You want me to hire him too?”
“We work as a team,” he replied. “And it will keep him out of trouble.”
She considered his proposition. “I suppose I have enough work for both of you, but I won’t pay you for Isaac’s work.”
“That’s hardly fair—”
“I will keep seventy-five percent of both your earnings for room and board, and I will pay Isaac the additional twenty-five percent directly for his work.” She paused, looking up at him again. “If he wants to buy his freedom with the money, he shall.”
The gold in her eyes gleamed in the light, and for a moment, he thought he might have seen those eyes before. In Massachusetts, perhaps? Or was it back in Virginia, when he was a boy?
Miss Labrie refocused on her teacup. Even though she talked confidently to him, she didn’t like to meet his gaze.
He cleared his throat. “Isaac’s well-being is my business.”
“If I hire you, he becomes my business too.”
Silence draped between them for several moments, and then he finally agreed to her terms. “We will work for you until Judah returns.”
“You may need a position after he returns as well.”
“I suppose I’ll determine that later this summer.”
She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It read nine o’clock. “I need you to go to San Francisco this afternoon.”
“Will Isaac come with me?”
She shook her head. “I’ll need his help here.”
“I’ll rely on you to treat him right.”
She stood up. “I treat all my employees well.”