The Tory Widow Read Free Page A

men—Anne spent no time trying to make sense of the concepts and ideals filling newspapers and pamphlets, posted on walls, and spoken on street corners at every turn. She was only concerned with the rights of one woman. Keeping Merrick’s Press prosperous enough to remain free of her father’s tyranny and predilection to marry her off again—that was what kept Anne fully occupied.
    Marriage.
    The word alone was enough to set her teeth on edge. As a propertied young widow, she drew many a zealous suitor to her shop these days, but she had no problem rejecting every offer. She’d had more than enough marriage for one lifetime.
    Anne skirted around the tea-water peddler’s cart and donkey blocking the walkway, the sight making her wistful for the convenience of fresh, clean water delivered to her door. Merrick’s death coupled with new taxes and political strife had severely affected trade, forcing her to dispense with many such luxuries. Still, she could not bear for her coffee to be tainted by the brackish water drawn from the nearby public well, so every dawn she and Sally joined the stream of women toting buckets, making their way to the city’s only truly potable source, the Tea-Water Pump in Chatham Square.
    A trio of denizens came up from the dingy streets west of Trinity Church and fell in behind Anne on her northward trek up Broad Way. She glanced over her shoulder.
    Prostitutes.
    It was a bit early in the day for these women to have emerged. As a port and garrison town, New York City proved a haven for such women of ill repute. Doxies and whores of every ilk had, until recently, plied their trade with ease. But when the British military vacated the city to take up arms in Boston, these garish women in their ridiculous wigs and brassy petticoats suffered a harsh economic adjustment.
    How ironic, Anne thought. Losing all their Loyal customers, just like me.
    To Anne’s relief, and contrary to a typical streetwalker’s languid stroll, the women set a brisk pace and the threesome was quick to pass her by.
    Half a dozen dockworkers in red knit caps with lading hooks dangling from the waistbands of their baggy sailcloth trousers swaggered out from the Boar’s Head tavern across the street. One of them shouted, “How much?”
    Without a hesitation, a prostitute squawked, “Only four shillings, darling!”
    â€œHoy! Ladies! ” the shortest and slightest longshoreman called, wagging his hips. “How about you pay me four shillings and I’ll treat yiz to the biggest and best cock in Christendom.”
    The women stopped dead in their tracks, causing Anne to halt abruptly as well.
    â€œYou’ve got it all wrong, sweetie,” shouted the youngest and prettiest whore with a jut of her hip. “ We’re the ones what get paid to tell the lies about the size of your cock.”
    The whores flounced off in a giggle and the dockworkers fell about laughing at their mate’s expense.
    Anne put a kick in her step and outpaced the bawds, but as if she were the lead bird of a migratory flock, the prostitutes cruised along in her wake, matching her step for step. Past Crown Street, the sidewalk grew even more congested. Apprentices, mechanics, housewives, shopkeeps, schoolboys—the entire population of the town, it seemed—streamed onto Broad Way from all directions, and Anne found herself caught up in a rush toward the Commons. She clutched her package to her breast, swept along in the human wave like so much flotsam and jetsam. Every opportunity to escape from the throng eluded her. She asked one of the whores who were now crowded beside her, “What is going on?”
    The woman smiled, her fuzzy yellow teeth a high contrast to her pitted face painted with a thick layer of white face powder. Fleshy cheeks were heavily rouged, and in a fruitless attempt to hide a scabby sore, she’d applied a crescent-shaped black silk patch at the corner of