Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  When occasionally the books palled, she entertained herself by staring out the windows at the activity along the street. She was rewarded one day by the sight of a pair of nuns in windswept habits making their way among the earth-covered miners and their fancy women. Another time she saw a hurdy-gurdy man and his monkey. Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Negroes, and a half-dozen other nationalities passed beneath her windows, nor was it too rare for her to see the somber dressed figures of Mormons pacing along. From her vantage point she saw the parade of a flea-bitten circus, an ancient elephant, a sad bison, and a dyspeptic camel. She also watched the funeral procession of the girl who had been murdered.

  It was not an impressive affair, and yet there were flowers on the coffin that trundled past on the black, plume-decorated undertaker’s wagon, and the carriages that followed were filled with women dressed in their best, with bodices buttoned to their throats in the current mode, hats shielding their faces, and gloves on their hands. Surprisingly, there were quite a few men riding or walking in the cortege.

  It was the women who drew Serena’s closest attention, however. Watching them in the bright light of day on this solemn occasion, seeing them dabbing at the tears that ran down their faces, talking quietly among themselves, or staring with set features straight ahead, she could not tell that they were different in any way from any other women she had ever known. The only remarkable thing about them, it appeared, was their occupation.

  How hard it was to connect them with the terms she had heard used in whispered undertones these last years since she had grown old enough to hear such things mentioned, to see in them the depraved creatures given over to the pleasures of the flesh that were denounced from countless pulpits. So they used their bodies to gain money? What choice did they have? Would starving have been better, or the slavery of working at back-breaking menial tasks for a pittance, even if such tasks could be found? There would have been no market for their wares except for the strong desires of men, and yet the men who paid over their coins escaped the stigma conferred on these women by society, as well as the dangers of pregnancy and disease. There was no justice in it.

  Serena had never pondered such ideas before, never had cause. Nor was she so sanguine as to think it would have occurred to her to do so now if she had not found herself in much the same position as those other women.

  As time crept past, the realization of just what had happened to her became clearer. Often at night, sitting at the top of the steps that led down into the barroom, the nearest to the saloon that Ward would permit her, she watched the women at their work, comparing them to herself with a slow rise of fear. As they went about their work, serving drinks, encouraging gaming, high-kicking in a dance that showed their underclothing on the stage at the rear of the barroom, their nervous, overloud laughter and ingratiating smiles made her wince. The brassy ones, with their posturing and posing, the lewd invitations in their bodies and eyes, seemed to have a brittle quality in their hard personalities. It was as if they had yielded up so much that what was left had to be closely guarded against encroachment, because, if their defenses should prove too weak, life itself might be thrown away in a last gesture of reckless defiance. Would she someday come to this, this short-tempered competition for the favors of men, the desperation to please, the eagerness for the forgetfulness of strong liquor? The pathetic pride as some grinning miner was led away out the back door and up the rear stairs of Pearlie’s parlor house next door?

  Her presence there, at the entrance to Ward’s private rooms, did not go unnoticed. The women below sent her glances of curiosity and envy that turned slowly to resentment. They ran their eyes over the wrapper she invariably wore, and a sneer curled their lips. No small amount of their displeasure was caused by the fascination of the men in the room with her silent, demurely provocative, rather wistful figure above them with her feet close together and her elbows propped upon her knees. Once or twice, miners had tried to approach her, but the seemingly casual intervention of a broad-shouldered bouncer at the foot of the stairs had made them veer off in another direction. The most ludicrous thing about that circumstance was the fact that the bouncer was more often than not Otto Bruin. He had returned to town within days of Serena’s arrival and had taken up what was apparently his old job. Positioned near the bottom stair as much to protect her as to keep her in her place, he reminded her of a particularly vicious bulldog guarding what belonged to his master. Though she did not like to think of herself as Ward’s possession, it was increasingly evident that nearly everyone else around her looked upon her in that light.

  The exception was Pearlie. Ward’s partner had first seen Serena as negligible, a diversion that would last no more than a night or two. She had been annoyed to find her still in Ward’s rooms at the end of a week, an annoyance that had turned to irritation when Serena was still in residence after the second. At the end of the third, Pearlie’s displeasure became smoldering anger, building slowly to rage.

  One night the woman, dressed in a gown of watered peach taffeta trimmed with pure-white marabou, and with aigrettes in her high-piled auburn hair, strode toward the foot of the stairs. Otto hesitated, as if doubtful whether to step into her path. With a cold look of scorn, Pearlie brushed past him, picked up her skirts, and mounted the carpeted steps to tower over Serena.

  “What do you think you are doing, sitting up here on your pretty little behind? Get up from there and put a dress on. We need you down below.” She jerked her head in the direction of the barroom in a gesture so curt that one aigrette plume loosened from her curls. With a vicious jab, the woman set its comb back in place.

  As Serena turned her head to look up, her dark hair spilled across her shoulder, cascading in curls across her breast. “I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted to,” she answered. “Not only do I not have a dress, Ward would never let me.”

  “Don’t have a dress?” Pearlie echoed.

  “My trunk hasn’t arrived.”

  The other woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I could have sworn — not that it matters. Come as you are.”

  “I told you, Ward—”

  “I don’t care what Ward said, or what he wants. I see no reason why you should take advantage of the shelter and food provided to you by the Eldorado without giving something in return.”

  Serena colored. “I would gladly pay my way, if I could.”

  “Mealy-mouthed nonsense!” Pearlie’s lips twisted in a sneer as she cut across Serena’s words. “I’ve told you what you can do to repay the debt. You needn’t look so reluctant! You may have been an innocent when Ward came across you, but you can hardly make that claim now. If I know Ward, you have been thoroughly inducted into the pleasures of the flesh, and it is time you sampled the methods of other men. Who knows, you might even astonish yourself by enjoying it.”

  “I doubt that,” Serena answered, her voice hard. The suggestion did not surprise her as much as she might have expected. Pearlie, of all the other women, was the only one who seemed to find enjoyment in what she was doing, though admittedly of a macabre sort. It might have been due to her freedom and financial independence as owner of the parlor house to pick and choose, or it might not. Some nights she would refuse all requests for her company with a tormenting glitter of laughter in her light-blue eyes. Others, she would accept the advances of as many as four or five different men. Appearance and style of address had little to do with her choices, or so it appeared. If anything, stamina seemed to be her main criterion. She sometimes disappeared into the night with Otto Bruin. He would return alone after an hour or so, with a swagger in his step and a self-satisfied smile on his fleshy lips.

  “Don’t be so smug. You will come to it eventually, you know. Whatever Ward feels for you now, it is unlikely to last. It never has before.”

  “That may be,” Serena answered slowly, intrigued by the bitterness in the woman’s voice. Ward had denied Pearlie’s claim upon him, but he had not said that there had never been one. Had she been unable
to hold his interest?

  “I know it is. You may as well resign yourself to what I say. Now, get up off your backside and get below.”

  “I think not.”

  The words were low and deep, and spoken in a tone so firm it could belong to no man except Ward.

  Pearlie whirled, a spot of color blazing on each cheek. “This does not concern you!” she snapped in frustrated fury.

  “Doesn’t it? You are interfering with my private arrangements, Pearlie, something you know I will not tolerate.” As he spoke Ward moved up the stairs toward them, coming to a halt on the tread where Serena sat so that she seemed to recline at his feet.

  “Your arrangements! Do you mean this stray you picked up and brought in to batten upon us?”

  “Serena is in my care,” Ward said, his voice dangerously quiet. “She is no charge upon the Eldorado.”

  “If that’s so,” Pearlie cried, her lips trembling, “then you are being cheated. She spends so much time staring out the window, or squatting here on the stairs, that I can’t imagine what she does to warrant such tender concern.”

  “Can’t you?”

  The suggestion in the soft words could not be misunderstood. Pearlie’s hands clenched into fists. “Damn you!”

  “My apologies,” Ward murmured, inclining his head, “but you seemed so anxious to know, I thought your curiosity should be gratified.” He stretched out his hand, and when Serena put her fingers into it, pulled her to her feet. He slipped one arm around her waist, holding her to him, casually sliding his fingers upward over her ribs, almost cupping her breast.

  “Ward—” Pearlie breathed on a note of pain.

  “You will forgive us if we say goodnight now, won’t you, Pearlie? I’ve been waiting impatiently for closing time this hour and more. Since you have brought me here, close to Serena, I find myself unable to resist the temptation to carry her off to bed.”

  He did not wait for a reply, but turned, and holding Serena close, climbed the last step and moved away down the hall.

  Inside their rooms, Ward moved through the dimness to where Serena had left a kerosene lamp burning with a low flame on the bedside stand. His attention on turning up the wick, he said, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable just now. Pearlie has a way of bringing out the worst in me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Serena followed him into the room, moving to the window to stand gazing into the night.

  “It matters to me,” he said abruptly.

  “As a gentleman?” she asked, her tone dry.

  “Yes, dammit!”

  She knew when he moved to stand close behind her, but so long as he did not touch her, she could pretend to be unaware of his nearness. Silence, the most suitable answer to his claim, hung in the air. She heard the rustle of his broad-cloth coat as he lifted his hand as though to touch her shoulder, then let it fall again.

  “Do you do this kind of thing often?” he asked, his tone grim.

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Stare out the window, as Pearlie said just now?”

  His change of subject was disconcerting. “There isn’t much else.”

  “I hadn’t realized. Maybe I should thank her for pointing it out to me.”

  “I don’t believe that’s a good idea, not at the moment.”

  “No. I think something should be done about your lack of entertainment, however.”

  “There’s no need,” she answered, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

  “I think there is. I wouldn’t want you to be too dissatisfied. Besides, you haven’t seen much of the town or the mines.”

  “I’m not a child. You don’t have to promise me a treat to keep me satisfied. If you were really concerned, you would let me go.”

  “Must we go over this again? I thought you understood it is for your protection.” He placed his hands lightly at her waist and bent his head to brush his lips along the slender curve of her neck.

  She twisted away from him. “Somehow, it doesn’t seem like it.”

  After a moment he began to shrug out of his coat, throwing it to one side, tugging at the string tie under his collar. “Maybe you would rather go downstairs at night, as Pearlie suggested? Is that it?”

  “No!” The mere idea chilled her so that she clasped her arms around her, rubbing the goose flesh that sprang up along her arms. The nights were growing cooler, almost cold. Her bare feet were like ice.

  “I didn’t think you would, but a man can never be sure.”

  “That doesn’t mean that I want to be kept here at your convenience, waiting for you to notice me!”

  “Do you wait for me, Serena?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt, stripping it from his trousers as he watched her with an intent look in his dark-green eyes.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I was only trying to understand you. I would have expected before now to have been called upon to chase you down. I will admit that I have been surprised that you haven’t made a more determined effort to get away.”

  Serena swung away. “Toward what end? This thing I am wearing, as you well know, makes me look like a walking invitation to be bedded. I’ve had enough of being mistaken for something I’m not, I thank you! Even if that didn’t happen, I have no money, no friends, and without them, no way to leave this place. What it comes to is, this entire town here in the mountains, so far from anywhere, is a prison.”

  “I can see you have given the matter some thought,” he said, his tone laconic.

  “How can you expect anything else?”

  “Maybe I’m used to women who act instead of thinking.”

  She paused in her pacing to stare at him, her chin high. “I suppose you prefer that, women who are all feeling and no brains.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Deliberately, he removed his gold stud cufflinks, then stripped off his shirt and flung it on the bed.

  “You don’t deny it, either.”

  “No, I’m far too intrigued with the question of why you are troubling yourself with what type of woman I might like.”

  “I’m not!” she declared in goaded tones. Moving in a dark swirl of hair, she stepped to the bureau and, picking up the silver-backed brush she had taken for her own, stood twisting it in her hands.

  He stepped into the sitting room to use the cricket bootjack that sat beside the cast-iron stove with its long, flat top and ornate nickel-plated grill. Levering off his half-boot of soft brown leather, he said, “No? It sounded uncommonly like it to me.”

  “Then you are mistaken.”

  “Possibly,” he admitted as he returned to the bedroom.

  She glared at him in the shaving mirror, dragging the brush through the silken masses of her hair. “If you think I am studying how best to please you, then you are thick-headed, and thick-skinned, beyond belief!”

  “Unkind,” he murmured, “when I have been considering this past hour how best to please you.”

  He meant that in the most physical sense, Serena knew. Her mouth tightened, and she sent him a dark look, though she was aware of a quickening inside her she could not control.

  “Don’t you believe me?” he asked, his voice silky and one corner of his mouth tugging in a smile.

  “You — you have been wasting your time,” she snapped. In the reflective surface of the shaving mirror she watched his slow advance. The silver-backed brush clattered as she placed it once more on the top of the bureau.

  “Somehow I don’t think so.”

  A wild rose flush glowed on her cheekbones, but her blue-gray eyes remained steady. “If you mean—?”

  “No, no, Serena, how could I?” he asked, amusement running through his voice. He cupped her shoulders in the palms of his hands, smoothing slowly down over her arms as he drew her back against him.

  But he did, she knew he did. He meant to remind her that she did find pleasure in his arms, that try as she might, she could not always remain unmoved under his caresses. Not always, but often, he penetrated her defens
es, made her respond to him against her will. With gentle tenderness, or sudden rough passion, he broke through the barriers she set between them, and yet he was never quite satisfied. It was the knowledge that he wanted still more from her that allowed her to meet his green eyes now.

  “You could, easily,” she answered his question, her voice husky.

  Busy with the satin rope tie of her wrapper, he said, “What a terrible opinion you have of me.”

  “With — with good reason.” She tried to inject the proper sting into her voice, but it was difficult while she rested against the hard planes of his bared chest, enclosed in the strength of his arms. Her wrapper fell open and he slid his hands about her waist, spanning its slimness so that the tips of his fingers and thumbs met.

  His green eyes grew dark as the wrapper opened wider, and he allowed his spread hands to glide upward to the pink-and-white fullness of her breasts. “I think,” he said, “that I must give you even more.”

  7

  The knock that fell on the door was sharp, and yet somehow furtive. Serena looked up from the penny dreadfuls she had been turning over without enthusiasm in their box. Ward had been gone only a few minutes. If he was returning for something he had forgotten, he would certainly not stop to knock before entering, but she could think of no one else that the barman on constant duty below would let above the stairs. Almost no one, that is.

  She pushed the box of books under the bed and rose to her feet. Gathering her wrapper around her, tying it firmly in place, she moved to open the door.

  It was Pearlie who stood outside. There was a wary look in her pale-blue eyes. Opening tight-pressed lips, she said, “I would like to speak to you.”