The Lady of Bolton Hill

Chapter 19





This time when she came out of the opium-induced stupor, Clara had a better idea of what to expect. Her head was filled with pressure, and the raging thirst made it hard to move her tongue in her mouth. Lifting her eyelids was even a struggle, but there wasn’t much point anyway. She could still smell the sawdust and knew from the grainy texture of the concrete floor beneath her exactly where she was. The worst was the awful, repetitive sounds of banging that made the pain in her head reverberate with each whack.

When she finally managed to open her eyes she could see the source of the noise. Bane and that awful person named McGahee were nailing crates shut. She scanned the area and saw Mr. Manzetti, still drugged and motionless on the cot, but something was different. She turned her head and noticed the dozens of crates that had been stacked around them were gone. The warehouse was almost empty.


She pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned against the brick wall behind her. “Where is the opium?” she managed to ask in a ragged voice.

Both Bane and McGahee glanced her way. “It’s out there in the world now,” Bane said, a couple of nails clenched between his teeth. There were still plenty of crates scattered across the floor, but McGahee was filling them with bottles of whiskey, and Bane was nailing them shut. Propped up on the far wall were bolts of fabric, dozens of bolts of silk and calico and muslin. She must have been deeply drugged to have remained insensible while so much cargo moved in and out of the warehouse.

“There is water on the counter if you want it,” Bane said. “It is not drugged.” Somehow she believed him. Of all the horrific things Bane had done in the few hours since she had known him, he had not lied to her. Not that she put it past him, but the bruise on her arm was proof that Bane could easily drug her without resorting to tricks. She carefully walked to the counter and drank. Just getting on her feet and quenching her thirst helped ease the pounding in her head. She studied Bane as he unpacked new crates of contraband, and for the first time noticed a diamond winking in his ear. The fruits of his ill-gotten gains, no doubt.

Her gaze strayed to Mr. Manzetti, still unconscious on that cot. She did not know what the reaction would be if she attempted to tend to him, but decided to find out rather than ask permission. Bane ignored her as she kneeled beside the cot and put a gentle hand on Manzetti’s shoulder.

“Mr. Manzetti? Can you hear me?” She nudged him harder. His face remained slack, his mouth hanging open as gentle snores continued.

“It’s pointless, girl,” McGahee growled. “Bane shot him up with enough dope to keep him dreaming for days.” She looked to Bane for confirmation, but he didn’t stop filling the crates with bottles.

She sent a glare at Bane. “I’m no expert on opium, but I’ve experienced enough of it to know that abusing Mr. Manzetti with an endless stream of the stuff can’t be healthy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Bane continued to nail the lid on a crate without breaking rhythm, but he snickered at her. “You sound just like a schoolmarm. Why are you so worried about him in any case? You are the one who is about to meet your maker.”

The thought had not left the forefront of her mind since the moment she’d been kidnapped. “So I ought to be measured for a casket; is that what you’re saying?”

“Sit down,” Bane ordered. She sobered at the pair of handcuffs dangling from his fingers. Her gaze flew to his. “I’m not going to kill you, but I’ve got to help McGahee get these bolts of cloth out of here. Give me your hand.” And with that she found herself manacled to a pipe that ran along the side of the wall. The warehouse doors were slid open and a horse pulling a wagon was led in by some of the men she’d seen the previous day. “Don’t get any bright ideas about screaming while those doors are open, or I’ll break your neck before you can utter a sound,” Bane said.

For the next few minutes she watched while more crates of whiskey were unloaded from the wagon and bolts of cloth were put in their place. When the fabric was loaded, Bane ordered the men to take it to the Camden train station. He closed the warehouse doors behind the wagon, and she was once again alone with Bane. The boy used a crowbar to pry the lid from the new crates and began removing bottles of whiskey, which he loaded onto the table.

“Why are you unpacking all those bottles? Aren’t you just going to crate them up in different boxes?” That seemed to be what he had been doing all morning.

Bane shrugged. “This shipment is headed out west, and I don’t want anyone to know where it originally came from.”

“Why should that be a secret?”

Bane looked at her like she was a simpleton. “Taxes, Clara. I’m not a big fan of paying taxes.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling rather foolish. Someone who stooped to arson and selling opium surely wouldn’t shy away from a little smuggling. There seemed to be no end to the criminal endeavors Bane indulged in, but she knew she had to keep him talking. The more they talked, the more likely it was that he would regard her as a human being who should not have her neck snapped. Yesterday she thought she saw a tiny glimmer of humanity lurking deep within him, and her only hope of survival was finding that spark and nurturing it forth.

Clara leaned her face against the side of the pipe she was chained to. Her body still felt as if sludge was moving through her veins, and the support of the cool pipe against her overheated face was welcome. “I’m sorry you sent the opium out,” Clara said. “A lot of people are going to suffer because of that.”

Bane pried a lid from a crate. “Don’t tell me you lose sleep over what a bunch of dope fiends choose to do with their bodies.”

Clara needed to talk to Bane, and he kept turning away from her to mess with those crates. She was trapped against this pipe and needed to get to where she could look him in the eye. “If you unlock these handcuffs, I’ll tell you why you should care about all those dope fiends.”

He snickered again. “That ought to be some fairy tale.”

“Unlock me and I’ll prove it to you. I swear I won’t try to escape.”

Her vow must have been good enough, because Bane strolled over and unlocked her handcuffs.

“It isn’t just dope fiends who get hurt,” Clara said as she rubbed the circulation back into her aching wrist. “When I was in London there was a terrible story of what a mother did to her own daughter.” Clara remembered clearly because the story was so horrible, some of the people at The Times thought it was too gruesome to print.

“There was a woman who was living in India because her husband was a sergeant with the Royal Brigade. Mrs. Stockton was her name, and she had a six-year old daughter named Hannah. When her husband died of a fever, Mrs. Stockton decided to return to England, but there wasn’t a lot of money. The Crown would provide passage for her and the girl on a navy ship, so there should have been no problem. But Mrs. Stockton had developed a terrible dependency on opium while living in India. She bought as much as she could before her journey to the port at Mangalore, but by the time she arrived in the port city, she was already running low on the drug, and she feared running out during the passage at sea. It takes over a month to arrive home, you see.”

Bane had stopped his hammering and was watching Clara. The sudden silence felt odd in the cavernous warehouse. “Mrs. Stockton sold Hannah to an Indian brothel in exchange for two pounds of opium,” she said quietly.

The hammer slipped from Bane’s hands and clattered to the floor, but he remained motionless as he stared at her, his face stamped with revulsion.

“It took a while for her crime to be discovered,” she continued. “When Mrs. Stockton returned to England she took up work as a prostitute to feed her habit, but eventually her husband’s family sought her out and inquired what had happened to the girl. When she could provide no explanation, they turned to the police, who launched an inquest and discovered that Hannah had not been aboard the ship when it sailed for England. Mrs. Stockton was arrested and placed in prison, where the depth of her fascination with opium became apparent. She confessed to what she had done, and then hanged herself with a bedsheet.” Clara rubbed the raw spot on her wrist where the handcuff had marked her, feeling foolish for complaining about this minor irritant when that precious child had endured unspeakable depravities. She looked back at Bane. “I always wondered if she hanged herself because of what she had done to her child, or because she knew prison would deprive her of opium. I suppose we will never know.”


“What happened to the girl?” Bane’s voice was tense, and his knuckles were white as he clenched his hands into fists.

“No one ever found her,” she said softly. “By the time Mrs. Stockton’s crime had been discovered, almost a year had passed. A search was launched in Mangalore, but the child was long gone, leaving no trace whatsoever.”

A transformation had come over Bane. A muscle throbbed in his jaw and his eyes were narrowed in anger and a hint of . . . remorse? It was hard to tell because he turned away from her and began pacing the warehouse, his spine rigid with tension.

“So you see it is not merely the dope fiends who suffer from the sale of narcotics,” Clara said. “For each dope fiend there is a child, or a parent, or a spouse.” She glanced around the near empty room. “How many pounds of opium were in the crates you just shipped out?”

She did not expect him to answer, but he did. “Nine hundred pounds.”

Close to half a ton of opium. But perhaps it was not too late; perhaps Bane had the power to stop the avalanche of human misery he had set in motion. His face was still tense and shuttered. For some reason the story of little Hannah Stockton had knocked him off-kilter, and she would never have a better time of reaching him than right now.

“Where is it headed, Bane?”

“Some to Cuba. Some to New Orleans.”

She was surprised he answered, and kept pressing for more. “How is it going to get there?”

“Forget it, Clara. It’s out of my hands now.”

“But you know where it is. How is it going to get out of Baltimore?”

“There is a ship in the harbor called The Albatross. It sails in eighteen hours on the morning tide.”

Clara straightened her spine. “Then we have eighteen hours to get it off that ship. You can’t let this sort of stain pollute your soul. You can begin turning your life around right now, and I will help you do it. I think the Lord would be very proud of you for taking such a fearless step.”

Bane picked up the crowbar and went back to unpacking his newly delivered contraband. “Don’t get started on the God-talk again.” He had turned his back on her, but Clara walked over to kneel in front of him.

“Look, Clara, I’m in way too deep to just walk away from all this,” Bane said. “I’m sorry about what happened to that girl. It is true that I never thought about the effect the opium business has on innocent kids.”

This time when he looked at her, the regret in his eyes was plain. “Clara, if I thought scuttling this deal would help that girl in India, I would do it in a heartbeat, but it is too late for her and it would probably get me killed.”

“You know too much?”

“I know everything. If I tried to cut loose, there isn’t a rock in this entire country he would not turn over and smash open in order to search me out. So drop the God-talk, okay? I’m in too deep and it is not an option for me. If that opium disappears on my watch, I’ll be dead before the next full moon.”

She handed him another nail. “I thought you said the people you respected most were those who could face up to their fears. I should think stopping The Albatross might fit into that category.”

“It would fit into the category of sheer insanity,” Bane said. He finished pounding a row of nails into the crate and shoved it into the corner, but Clara did not miss the introspective look that lingered on Bane’s face long after she stopped talking.





Bane spent the better part of an hour repackaging the whiskey. With each crate that was repackaged, Bane made precise notations on a document he was keeping. “Even criminals use bills of lading,” he had told her.

Suddenly, he stopped and stared her straight in the face. “Have you ever been in love?” he asked.

She turned the question around on Bane. “Have you?” she asked him.

Bane stared at her, the oddest expression in his eyes. “Been in love? Maybe. I don’t know.”

Keep him talking, Clara thought. “Tell me about it.”

Bane shifted in his seat, and judging by the flush on his face, he might actually be embarrassed. “I’d rather you go back to your God-talk.”

So as Clara concluded her first experience in black-market shipping, she talked to Bane about salvation. As she spoke, the tension of the last few days began to drain away as a sense of peace and warmth swelled within her. She was doing exactly what God wanted of her. She was trying to save a boy who had brought an unimaginable amount of destruction into His kingdom and turn that energy and intelligence into something positive.

Bane held up his hand. “If what you say is true, I can hop off this train of destruction I’ve been riding, and God will greet me with open arms so long as I vow to quit my wicked ways.”

“That’s right. If you want salvation, you can have it today,” she said earnestly. “Just walk away from this life and never turn back. I can help you get started in a life that is new and clean and worthy.”

Bane shot to his feet and began pacing again. “If I walk away from this web of pure evil, every crime lord on both coasts will be salivating for my blood. I know where all the bank accounts are stashed, where all the skeletons are buried. I know the distribution channels for every shipload of opium that enters and leaves this country. You are asking me to walk into the jaws of certain death, Clara.” Despite the dark words, Bane’s face was bright with excitement. She could practically see his sharp mind rattling through his options, and she knew she was on the cusp of swaying him.

“I know it will be frightening,” she said. “But the Lord will welcome you back into His fold and protect you. No matter the stain on your soul or the darkness of your life, He will never abandon you. If you give your life to God, He will shield you through whatever terrors plague you.”

Bane turned to face her and looked her straight in the eyes. There was a resolve in his demeanor she had never seen before, and then he uttered two words she never expected him to say.

“Prove it.”

The question took Clara aback. “How?”

The intensity of his stare was frightening, but she was mesmerized and could not tear her eyes away. Bane grabbed a knife, and with a violent lurch that stunned her into immobility, he stabbed the document that recorded his opium shipments to the table. The knife vibrated from the force long after Bane took his hand away.

“If you truly believe the Lord will protect those who do His work, I want to watch you walk into the jaws of death,” Bane said as he leaned in close to her. “I want to watch you walk onto a ship swarming with hardened criminals and dump the opium into the bay. Tonight. Prove that you really believe God will protect you. Prove that you have the courage to do what you are asking of me.”

The force of what he said was like a fist in her chest. The dare he just tossed in her lap was so terrifying Clara could not even draw a breath to respond to the stunning challenge; she just stared at him in openmouthed astonishment. “I can get you to the docks and on board the ship,” Bane continued. “I want to watch you walk into the middle of a drug deal and scuttle it. If you truly believe that God led you to me in order to make the world a better place, you don’t get to bail out just when things get interesting. I’ll get you onto The Albatross, and I want you to dump the opium in the bay.” His smile widened. “I’ll even go with you. If you say this is what God wants me to do, I’ll do it. But you are coming with me, Clara. Every step of the way.”


Clara had seen those crates, more than thirty of them. How on earth could she dump thirty crates loaded with opium and escape without notice? Her heart pounded and the heat of the warehouse made her feel light-headed. “Bane, I don’t know anything about ships. . . .”

“I’ll be right there beside you.” The smile Bane sent her was grim. “You go in this with me . . . or the deal is off.”

Bane strode to the far side of the warehouse, and with a mighty heave he slid the door wide open. The clatter of the door rumbling on its rails made her flinch. Sunlight streamed into the dusty confines, and the din of street traffic filled the air. “You are free to go, Clara. I won’t stop you. But if you walk out this door, The Albatross and all its cargo will set sail with tomorrow’s tide, and I will know precisely which sort of Christian you are.”

The sounds of children laughing in the street and the call of a fruit peddler selling oranges filled the air. If she walked out that door she could be safe at home within the hour. This nightmare would be over and she could go about her life and make amends with Daniel.

And she would also know that when she had been tempted, she had failed. At this moment she had the power to help save a young man from pursuing a life of rampant crime, and she needed to delve deep within her soul to find the courage to see it through. But what Bane was asking of her was so terrifying her voice box had gone mute.

Clara tore her eyes away from the sunlight streaming through the open door. Her breathing felt choppy and the muscles in her legs tingled as she fought the temptation to sprint out the door and into freedom. It would take only a few seconds, and Bane promised he would do nothing to stop her. He was awaiting her answer with an odd combination of mockery and hope on his face, but Clara was still paralyzed by fear.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Once again the verse arose in her mind, and she knew precisely what she needed to do. There was no point in fretting or doubting; she was simply going to trust in the Lord and submit to His will. She turned to face Bane. “You make the plan,” Clara said, “and I’ll carry it out.”





Bane dumped another three spoonfuls of sugar into the cup of thick black coffee, then slid it across the table to Manzetti.

“Drink up,” he said casually, but covertly Bane was scrutinizing the man’s every movement. The wobbling of the coffee as Manzetti raised it to his lips was less noticeable now and his eyes were more alert. They could not leave until Manzetti was completely sober, and Bane had spent most of the afternoon on the task. After six hours, the opium was finally wearing away. Between cups of coffee, Clara had been coaxing Manzetti to walk about in the confines of the warehouse, stretching his abused muscles and exercising his lungs. When Manzetti was finally roused and in control of his faculties, the news of what had transpired over the last few days did not go over well with the man.

Manzetti gaped at Clara in disbelief. “This pretty-faced brat tries to kill you, and now he wants our help undoing the mess he dug himself into? I’d rather rip his arms off.”

Bane remained unruffled. Anyone who grew up in the Professor’s household was not intimidated by someone whose only weapon was brute force. “Think of the mess,” he said blandly.

Manzetti stomped across the floor and shoved himself into Bane’s space, standing so close Bane felt the heat from Manzetti’s breath. He refused to flinch or to take a step back, even though Manzetti was more than a foot taller than he. “If Clara wasn’t watching, I’d be feeding you to the fish in the Baltimore harbor,” Manzetti said in a voice that reeked with loathing.

Clara intervened. “Mr. Manzetti, the plan is for you to drive us to the docks. The men guarding The Albatross know Bane and will follow his orders when he tells them to leave the ship while we dump the opium.”

Manzetti’s voice was dense with skepticism. “What kind of guard leaves the ship?”

“They will do as they are told,” Bane said. After all, every one of those men knew Bane was the Professor’s heir apparent and gave him their unquestioning obedience as they rushed to do his bidding. Bane had fought hard to earn his reputation for cold, ruthless efficiency. How strange that now all he wanted to do was destroy that reputation in exchange for the salvation Clara described.

“I don’t trust him,” Manzetti said. “You expect me to believe this truant is prepared to walk away from thousands of dollars? All on a dare?”

Bane turned away to sprawl back in a chair, negligently dangling his shoe off the end of his big toe as he studied Manzetti. “Money does not have any allure for me,” he said slowly. “I’m far more curious to see if Clara has enough backbone to see this through.” Bane straightened and tugged the shoe back on his foot, analyzing the way Clara was chewing the corner of a thumbnail in anxiety.

Don’t back down on me now, Clara, he silently urged. No matter how conflicted she was, he must not pressure her. He wanted to know . . . he needed to know if she really believed what she had said about salvation.

“Clara and I will board the ship, while you divert the attention of the guards on the docks,” Bane said.

“No way,” Manzetti said to Clara. “Daniel will skin me alive if I let you walk onto that ship like a lamb to be sliced, diced, and slaughtered. If anyone boards the ship with this brat, it will be me.”

Bane shook his head. “Nope. It has got to be Clara. No one else will do.”

“Bane says I can pass myself off as a boy when we board the ship,” Clara said. “His clothes will fit me, and I’ll be able to hide most of my face from them because of the sack I will be carrying on my shoulder. There is no way I could pass as a boy if I’m the one manning the wagon where the sailors will be told to wait. You will have to do it, Mr. Manzetti.”

Manzetti turned his steely glare on Bane. “I’m doing this for her, not for you.”

At Manzetti’s capitulation, Clara’s smile widened and her eyes sparkled. She was quite possibly the first truly good person Bane had ever met in his life.





There was only a sliver of moonlight casting a weak glow over the city as the wagon bumped along the cobblestone streets toward the harbor. The clomping of the horse’s hooves and roll of the wheels seemed unnaturally loud in the silence of the night, but surely that was just paranoia. Why should anyone take notice of a wagon with a couple of passengers and a few bags of wadded-up material?

Because they were on a mission to outsmart a passel of hardened criminals, and Clara was certain the entire city could hear the pounding of her racing heart. Manzetti was in front driving the rig, while she sat curled beside Bane in the back of the wagon, swaying in tandem with him at every dip of the wagon as they moved closer to the docks. Never in her life had she worn boy’s clothing, and it felt odd to see the outline of her legs stretched before her. A baggy shirt, a vest, and her hair twisted up beneath a cap completed the look. Bane had rubbed some damp coffee grounds over her face to get rid of that “lily white look” no respectable boy would have.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” she whispered as she saw the harbor ahead of them. To her criminally inexperienced ways, Bane’s plan seemed like a good one, even though he had armed himself to the teeth before they left the warehouse. A revolver was in the holster at his waist, a switchblade tucked in his boot, and in his pocket he was carrying some device the size of an apple that would “create quite a show.”


Bane was back to his remote, unnaturally cool demeanor. “We’ll pull this off,” he said confidently. “I figure we will both survive this night, but my odds of making it to Christmas don’t look so good.”

Clara felt her mouth go dry. How odd that not even two days ago Bane had completely terrified her, and now she deeply cared about what happened to him. “Is that because you didn’t kill me as planned?”

Bane snorted. “No, that’s nothing. It’s the guy who owns this opium who is going to be the problem.”

“He is the criminal emperor you were talking about?”

“Yup.” Bane gave her a sad little smile. “I want you to know, no matter what happens, I’m glad you are willing to go on that ship with me. You have given me something to believe in. I’ve never really had that before, and it feels so . . .” He appeared to be struggling to find the words. Finally he simply said, “It feels really good.”

And then he turned to her, his face filled with concern. “Look, Clara. Don’t ever tell anyone what you’ve done tonight. The dragon who owns this stuff is going to be out for blood, and he’s not someone you want on your tail. I will go to my grave swearing that I acted alone on this. I need you to promise me you won’t put yourself in danger by trying to tell this story to the world. It’s not worth it.”

Looking into that beautifully sculpted face, it was hard to believe that Bane was still little more than a boy. His eyes were old, filled with anxiety on her behalf. “I promise, Alex.”

He laughed a bit at the use of his given name. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

She curled her hand over his. “I will never give up on you, because you truly are a hero, Alex.”