Gambler's Tempting Kisses

by Charlotte Hubbard

  She pulled a gold case from her skirt pocket, selected a cigarette, and struck a match. Then she turned to Dillon, glaring. “So what’s your part in this little charade, Mr. Devereau? Or perhaps that’s not really your name.”

  “Oh, it is,” he assured her. “My business with Erroll has waited sixteen years and it’ll keep a little longer. It’s your daughter and husband who wish to speak with you.”

  Marcella laughed abruptly. “Poor Charity was deeply distraught over my last letter, I bet. Her father undoubtedly turned my gruesome fate into a text for several sermons and made a tidy buck on them. He has a particular talent for that.”

  Reverend Scott bristled. “And your flair for decadence never ceases to amaze me, woman. It wasn’t enough to go gallivanting around with Uncle Erroll,” he said, pointing a condemning finger. “You had to rub my nose in his wealth with every letter, and send a damn photograph to remind me of him.”

  “That was a nice touch, wasn’t it?” She blew the smoke from her nostrils in a thin stream. “But you deserved every sleepless night since you got that last letter, for not upholding your end of our bargain.”

  Charity slipped her hand into Dillon’s, seeking his gentle strength. Her parents must have struck a devious agreement years ago, just as she and Devereau had done, and animosity was now whirling between them like a cyclone. “I—I don’t understand,” she pleaded in a tiny voice.

  “Of course you don’t. I knew your father would shirk his responsibilities with you.” Mama inhaled deeply on her cigarette and then gestured toward the parlor with it. “We may as well sit down. This’ll take a while.”

  Her mother led the way and perched in a wing chair by the window. Papa leaned on the mantel, keeping his distance; the armpits of his black coat were dark with perspiration. As Charity settled beside Dillon on an elegant settee, she was only a few steps away from Mama. It was like viewing her own reflection in a plate glass window: the image was distinct, yet her mother looked smaller than she recalled, cool and untouchable. Her catlike eyes lingered for a moment on Charity’s large diamond, and then studied her face and figure.

  “I met your father at one of his revivals, when he was preaching in Atlanta,” she began. She sounded calmer now, yet her eyes smoldered with irritation when she glanced at Papa. “He stole my innocence, promising my salvation with each secret meeting. And when my parents guessed I was pregnant and threatened to send me away, he did the honorable thing and married me. To prevent nasty rumors, we moved to Missouri.”

  Charity’s jaw dropped. She’d been conceived in sin ... and the revelation left her speechless. Time had obviously erased Mama’s guilt, because she continued with a sardonic chuckle.

  “But Noah didn’t know the meaning of honor. Thought his occupation would fool people—thought I’d be eternally grateful because he’d rescued me and removed the stigma of illegitimacy from you,” she explained in a chilly voice. “When I asked why the collection plates were full yet there was never any money for clothes or household goods, he looked me straight in the eye. Swore every extra cent went toward the mission of the church. He was a compulsive gambler, Charity, and by the looks of your dress, he hasn’t changed one bit.”

  Charity turned to stare at her father, who appeared to be choking. His eyes were pinched shut and his beet-red face confirmed Mama’s accusations, which made a lot of missing pieces fall into place. All his evenings out . . . his moodiness . . . perhaps even the black eye that was now only a shadow behind his spectacles. She looked away from him, humiliated, and felt grateful for the compassionate squeeze of Dillon’s hand.

  “I see you’ve found a man yourself,” Mama continued, “but I’m surprised you married for the same reason I did. You were such a pious little girl.”

  “No! I ...” Charity’s throat went so dry it squeaked. “Di-Dillon gave me a splendid ceremony and—and we’re very happy. And I’m not in the family way,” she added, hoping she sounded positive rather than desperate.

  “But you are easily led, dear daughter,” her mother replied with a shake of her head. She drew deeply on her cigarette, making its tip glow red while she considered her next words. “For me, marriage and motherhood were a trap—not that I resented you, personally—and being divorced sounded heavenly compared to living with a hypocritical cheat. But your Father wouldn’t hear of a divorce—what a scandal that would cause!—until I threatened to expose his gambling habits.”

  Mama’s face creased with a smug, mirthless smile. “Saint that he was, Noah agreed to untie the knot—but only if he could keep you, and only if I swore I’d never come home. I went along with his conditions because he said I could write to you, and because he agreed to tell you all these things when you turned eighteen. We devised the story that I’d contracted consumption and was staying with your Aunt Magnolia so you wouldn’t be shunned by your father’s parishioners. It was a workable agreement, until I realized he wasn’t ever going to tell you the truth.”

  Too stunned to look at her father again, or to comprehend the lie they’d all lived for the past ten years, Charity stared at her lap. Mama’s cruel story was shredding her heart into ribbons, but this was no time to retreat into the naive fantasies of her youth. Too many questions remained unanswered, so she forced herself to look at her mother. “Everyone in Leavenworth knows you as Maggie Wallace, Mama. What happened to your sister?”

  Dillon held his breath as he watched Charity’s face tighten with the courage it took to ask such a question. The situation was even more disgusting than he’d imagined, and there seemed to be no end to the layers of sordid lies that were coming to light.

  And Marcella sounded so calm—almost proud—as she responded. “Your Aunt Maggie died of consumption when we were seventeen, right before I met your father. No one in Missouri knew that, of course. And since Maggie was always so saintly and helpless, it gave me great pleasure to assume her identity and give her a whole new reputation. Your father’s spent his entire life covering his butt, but when I became free, I at least lived honestly. I decided to start a new life out west, so I—”

  “Looked for a sponsor on a wagon train and moved in with Erroll Powers instead?” Charity finished bitterly. “So we heard, Mama. And you had that picture made to fool me. Do you know how many times I prayed for an invitation to that mansion you described in your letters? But you never intended to see me again, did you? Living in that big house with that handsome man, you could forget I even existed.”

  The parlor rang with a stunned silence. Marcella clenched her jaw; she missed the ashtray by several inches when she rubbed her cigarette out on the marble-topped table beside her. Dillon heard Noah’s labored breathing, but it was his wife’s face that captivated him. Charity’s sunburned cheeks remained dry—he suspected she was too shocked for tears—and her lips were a grim, determined line as she awaited her mother’s reply. He cleared his throat and addressed Marcella in the most civilized tone he could manage. “Your daughter deserves an answer to those questions. And you’d damn well better give her one.”

  Marcella’s eyes narrowed and she fumbled in her skirt for the cigarette case. “What choice did I have?” she demanded. “A man like Erroll wouldn’t waste a second glance on a woman with a child, and my only other option was whoring. I figured once he married me, I could soften him up about bringing you—”

  “And after all this time he hasn’t,” Charity challenged. She wondered where she’d found the fortitude to speak to her mother this way, but she wasn’t about to back down now. “Sounds to me like you took up a different sort of whoring. You could’ve written me the truth, but no—you sent Papa and me on a wild-goose chase with that last letter. Made us suffer the indignities of your adventures with Jackson Blue and Mr. Powers. We thought you were dead, Mama!” she blurted. “I cried and cried, thinking I’d never see you again. And here it was all a sham, just like the last ten years of my life!”

  Again there was an awkward silence, this time underscored by the pfffft of Mama
’s match and the approaching whistle of a train. Marcella glanced nervously toward the door. “And had I told you the truth earlier, you would’ve found a way to Erroll’s estate—we both would’ve been kicked out,” she argued. “I never dreamed you’d go to Leavenworth, after the gory details I wrote. I thought your father would know better.”

  “Papa didn’t want to go,” she replied quietly. “And now I wish I hadn’t threatened to leave without him, but I—I loved you, and . . .”

  The train’s whistle was loud and distinct this time, and the crystal chandelier in the dining room shimmied as the engine roared into town. Mama sprang from her chair, pointing her glowing cigarette at Charity. “Don’t snivel at me, young lady! Powers was going to marry me in Frisco—till you three chased him off! He thinks you’re railroad detectives, trying to catch him—”

  “He’s known me for years, and my unsettled score has nothing to do with the Kansas Pacific,” Dillon interrupted. “And it isn’t Charity’s fault that Erroll knew who she was the moment he saw her.”

  “It wasn’t my fault I was mistaken for you in Wichita either!” Charity chimed in. She felt bolder, because her mother’s explanations sounded no more honest than her letters of the past decade. “You made quite an impression on Soaring Eagle and the Cheyenne, Mother. Not that Jackson Blue hadn’t warned us about the—the way you have with Indians.”

  Marcella’s face hardened, and then she snickered. “Redskins think my hair color makes me a goddess,” she replied archly. “And Western men admire a woman who speaks her mind and can cut the noose of traditionalism. Your father never allowed me an opinion—not even about my own clothes, for God’s sake! He’s hardly the same sex as the men I’ve met since I left him.”

  Papa drew an outraged breath that seemed to bring him back to life. He strode a few paces closer, gripping his lapel as he pointed at her. “You can’t be proud of what you’ve become, Marcella. Any woman who—”

  “And who are you to preach?” The auburn curls at Marcella’s temple shook with her anger as she blew smoke in his face. “The Reverend Noah Scott probably left a trail of gambling debts from here to Jefferson City. You’ve lied to your flock and to your daughter about my absence, and you’ve reveled in the chance it gave you to keep playing cards! Charity never guessed why she was only allowed two dresses, because you told her that Christians didn’t adorn themselves with material possessions. Nice suit, Noah. Is it new?”

  Charity’s distraught expression told Dillon the initial shock of all she’d learned was wearing off. He tried to draw the conversation to a close, hoping Marcella could still catch the train and be out of their lives. “Your daughter traveled for days, hoping to visit your grave,” he said in a low voice. “And when she learned what you’ve really been doing, she still wanted to see you. No matter how you feel about Noah, you at least owe Charity an apology.”

  Marcella smirked. “I never apologize, Mr. Devereau. And if you think I’ll change now, you’re as naive as my daughter.”

  Mama spat into her palm and then stuck the end of her cigarette in it. Charity’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t respond when her mother glared at her and said, “So now that you know the truth, you should go home. Which is more than I can do, now that Powers is probably on that train.”

  Chapter 21

  The front door slammed behind Marcella, and the parlor echoed with silence.

  Devereau couldn’t remember the last time he’d been too stunned to speak. From Jackson Blue he expected cutthroat betrayals and blatant immorality, but Marcella Scott had just made every whore he knew look like the Virgin Mary! What kind of mother left her child, and then wove a web of lies to protect the life of a well-heeled harlot? What sort of woman assumed her dead twin’s identity and then faked her own death to avoid ever seeing her family again?

  Only a bitch with the heart of a dragon. And the way she fumed and smoked one cigarette after another, that was precisely the beast Marcella reminded him of.

  Reverend Scott was leaning against the mantel, his head resting on his folded arms as though he were praying to the ornate clock that ticked above him. Charity sat limply on the settee, staring at the lace curtains. They were both in shock, and Dillon felt responsible for their anguish.

  “Sweetheart, I’m truly, truly sorry for what’s happened, and for bringing you here to witness it,” he whispered. He brushed her hair back from her face, expecting her to flinch from his touch. “I should’ve listened to Blue—to your father’s objections—and left you in Leavenworth.”

  With a rueful laugh, she focused her liquid green eyes on him. “I was on my way to see my mother before I ever met you, Mr. Devereau. If you think Papa and Jackson Blue could keep me away from her, you don’t know me very well.”

  Her uncompromising reply relieved him immensely. Yet her eyes contained a pain no tender word could erase, because no one learned of her untimely conception or her mother’s resentment without suffering the deepest sort of agony. There was no excuse for Marcella’s selfish behavior, and when the sting of today’s revelations wore off, Charity would realize just how callously she’d been rejected.

  Dillon wrapped his arms around her, hoping his touch would tell her of his deepening love. Here was a woman who’d gambled on a long shot and lost life’s most elemental love, that of a child for her mother, yet Charity had retained her sense of self. “I’m not sure I could remain so ... unruffled, if my mother had deceived me for most of my life,” he said quietly.

  Charity nuzzled his chest, soothed by his familiar scent. “I think I suspected something was amiss all along,” she replied in a whisper. “Mama was never sick—even at eight, I was shocked to learn she had consumption—and by the time she wrote to me about it, she’d been visiting Aunt Maggie for a month. Her letters sounded so cheerful for an invalid’s telling about evenings with Maggie and Erroll in their splendid house. Lonely as I was, I ate up every word. Her letters and that faked photograph were all I had,” she added in a voice that trailed away.

  Loosening herself from his embrace, Charity gave him a quavery smile. “Jackson Blue and Mr. Henry merely supplied the missing pieces by telling us about her escapades in Leavenworth. And when you consider the magnificent life we’ve cost her, I guess Mama could’ve done more than shout the truth at us. She had a pistol in the other pocket of her dress.”

  Dillon, too, had seen the weapon’s shadow beneath the folds of Marcella’s white skirt, and he sensed Charity’s mother had only begun to vent her wrath. He knew their paths would cross again, as surely as the queen of spades brought him bad luck.

  Behind them, Noah cleared his throat. Devereau watched him brush the sleeves of his black coat as though he’d been trounced in the street; the preacher’s shoulders sagged and the leonine pride that had been his trademark was nowhere to be seen. He looked only at Dillon, and he spoke with quiet resignation. “I suppose we should leave, before our host comes looking for us. He’s been quite indulgent, considering the way we interrupted his party.”

  Devereau nodded and studied Charity, whose face reflected pain and betrayal when she glanced at her father. His parents had never lied to each other and rarely fought, so Dillon felt unqualified to reconcile the silent accusations and anguish that hung between father and daughter.

  He couldn’t justify the preacher’s lies and self-serving behavior over the past decade, yet he ached for Noah Scott. The man had been cuckolded by a jezebel who was even more hypocritical that he was. He’d accepted the responsibility of raising his daughter to be a fine Christian woman, despite his own moral failings. And today, because he’d agreed to a divorce ten long years ago, he’d been humiliated and exposed in front of the child he’d been trying to protect.

  Dillon fell into step beside Scott, who gazed at Charity’s back as they headed toward town.

  “I owe you an apology, Noah,” Dillon said in a low voice. His father-in-law’s eyes remained fixed on Charity’s faded gingham gown, so he continued without expecting an
y response. “Had I listened to you and minded my own business—had I realized how vindictive Marcella would be—I wouldn’t have insisted you come along.”

  The Reverend let out a wry laugh. “What’s the line about hell having no fury like a woman scorned? And I certainly can’t cast the first stone.”

  They walked without talking for a few more blocks. When they turned toward Front Street, they discovered that the crowds had gone to the open fields outside the city limits to watch the fireworks display, leaving the litter of food vendors and paper streamers behind. The only sound was a rumbling like slow thunder, accented by whistles and yips and the bawling of cattle.

  Charity looked over her shoulder and then stopped to stare. “Would you look at that! I think that herd’s coming right down this street!”

  Dillon glanced toward the approaching cloud of dust, chuckling. “It is. And once those longhorns are penned up across town and the drovers are paid, we’ll see another sort of fireworks entirely.”

  His wife’s face softened with awe at her first sight of a spectacle he’d seen hundreds of times, and he used the herd’s noise to his advantage. “I don’t intend to tell Charity how you lost the monte game to Blue, or about the way I coerced you into continuing this trip,” he said, leaning toward Noah. “So forget what you owe me.”

  Scott glanced toward his daughter. “We all have ways of getting what we want, don’t we?” he replied with a hint of his usual rancor. “But it’s an offer I can’t afford to refuse. And since you haven’t received your satisfaction from Powers, I assume you’ll continue your pursuit?”

  He couldn’t mention the deal he and Charity struck on the eve of their wedding, and he wasn’t going to let on about the quandary he was in because of it. After half a lifetime, Dillon again had the chance to make Powers answer for his father’s death, yet he couldn’t subject his wife to further abuse from Erroll and Marcella. He had fulfilled his part of the bargain by delivering Charity to her mother, yet ...