by Rue Allyn
He shoved her back into her original position. She kept her balance by placing her arm around his neck and shoulders. He didn’t seem to mind.
“An excellent beginning.” The Chinaman beamed. “But I wish more stimulating entertainment.”
He nodded toward the guard who held the two women. “Begin.”
The voluptuous woman was forced to lie on her back and spread her legs.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered the woman on the floor.
Edith turned her head, unable to watch. A quick pinch on her nipple forced her head back around.
“You will watch and learn. Understand?”
She nodded.
Cool, dry lips replaced the pinching fingers and the tiniest of flickers told her that he suckled her breast. His hand squeezed the other breast. Edith kept her gaze anchored on the two women.
A pearly liquid matted the nether regions of the woman on the floor.
A breath of air on Edith’s damp nipple caused a shiver.
“Lick up that mess.” The Chinaman instructed Ella with a pointed finger.
Ella knelt between the other woman’s legs, lowered her face to the juncture of the prone woman’s thighs, and delicate as a cat lapped at the liquid. The woman groaned and lifted her hips toward Ella’s mouth.
Beside Edith, the Chinaman chuckled gleefully. “That’s it, suck her. Suck for all you’re worth.”
His gaze as well as the guards’ riveted on the gyrations of Ella and her partner.
A soft touch across Edith’s thigh drew her attention. The Chinaman’s phallus no longer lay flaccid. It rose, moving as if of its own volition, wrist thick and monstrously long. She had to get the key — if she allowed him to put that thing inside her, he’d split her in two.
A glance at the floor showed the two women still tangled in the throes of their forced intimacy.
Inspired, Edith bent her head, taking the Chinaman’s earlobe between her teeth.
“Ahhh.” He sighed his pleasure at the small caress and responded by dipping one of his long fingernails between her legs, parting her nether lips and scraping back and forth across the bud that sheltered there.
The touch wasn’t painful, but Edith didn’t want to feel pleasure. Still she used the natural response of her body to swing her empty arm around his neck from the other side. With both hands behind him, she could easily untie the ribbon that held the key to freedom. Pretending to fondle his neck, she undid the knot until only one twist of the ribbon remained.
However, her movement had brought her breasts close to his mouth, and he took full advantage, clamping down and sucking hard first on one then the other. The finger between her legs slid into her body’s opening. The constant stimulation caused her hips to buck, settling that scraping finger deeper inside. Her hands gripped the ends of the ribbon and pulled them apart.
Afraid that his nail would cut her, she cried out, as if she’d just found her release. She forced her hips to still and collapsed against him. The key dangled from her left fist.
Quickly she leaned back, able to smile at him in truth. He had no idea what was coming next.
He withdrew his finger from her and raised it to his lips, licking at the creamy fluid that covered the digit from nail tip to his last knuckle. “I see you are finally ready for me. Stand up and straddle my hips.”
Edith nodded and smiled. The time had come. She stood between his legs.
“I said stradd — ”
She thrust her knee into his scrotum as hard as she could. He slid from the bench groaning in pain, unable to speak.
Edith whipped around and shouted. “Now.”
The guards rounded on her.
“Kill her,” ground out the Chinaman.
The guards drew their long knives.
The two women leapt from the floor onto the guards’ backs.
Off balance the guards toppled to the deck where the women wrestled them for control of the knives.
Edith ran for the nearest shackled woman and released her, then the next and the next. Each freed woman leapt into the fray with the guards.
She was moving to another group of women when a weight on her back caused her to stumble to the floor. Scrawny, long nailed fingers circled her throat. Leaving the key for some other woman to pick up, she twisted and looked into the implacable face of the Chinaman. Death rode on the glee in his expression.
She pried at the fingers to no avail. One nail, slightly longer than the others, bit into her skin, and she felt blood trickle down her neck. Her vision began to gray. With her last bit of strength she swung her fist, aiming for the Chinaman’s temple.
She never heard his howl of pain or the gunshot that brought all the fighting to a stop.
• • •
A slim figure emerged from the deep shadows at the far end of the warehouse where moments ago Dutch and his compatriots had cast their plans. Guzzling the last of the three bottles of cheap whiskey that he’d scrounged after lying to Dutch, Judge Jeremiah Trahern crossed the wharf and scurried over the gangway onto the ship. Keeping to the shadowed side of the crates and barrels on the deck he made his way to the forward hold. For once in his misbegotten life he’d do the right thing, even though he’d probably die as a result. Trey Trahern would be safe if it was the last thing his father ever did.
He wasted precious minutes confirming his hunch about Trey’s location by listening to the guards. Trey was in the forward hold with two other guards. Silently, Jem moved in that direction. He secured his pistol in his waistband. Then with the empty bottle in one hand and his knife in the other he crept down the steps leading to the forward compartment.
The two men guarding Trey’s inert form were too busy throwing dice to notice they weren’t alone. Jem cracked the bottle over the head of the nearest one and knifed him in the back. As he drew his pistol the second man was on him. They struggled, tripping over Trey’s body and falling to the floor. The stronger and younger guard landed on top and knelt on Jem’s chest. He began bending Jem’s gun hand so the pistol faced the judge. Before he could force Jem to fire the gun, Trey slammed into the man, knocking the pistol away. After kicking Trey off, the guard anchored his hands around Jem’s throat. He was going to die, without saving his son. His one attempt to right a wrong had been for nothing. He looked toward his son and prayed to see forgiveness. Amazement filled him as his body emptied of breath. Trey, who had every reason to hate him, had reached the fallen pistol and fired it at Jem’s killer.
• • •
Dutch cradled Edith against his chest and quaked with fear. She was too pale, too still. Her breathing was too shallow. When he pressed his hand to her heart he felt a wild erratic beat.
Around him, Marcus and the Tsangs were seeing to the women, releasing them, giving them blankets or clothing to cover themselves. One of the Tsangs tended a dark-haired woman who’d been sliced in a fight with one of the now dead guards.
“We’ll have wagons here soon to take you to the mission. The vigilance committee will have clothing and medical help there,” Marcus’s voice soothed and calmed.
Numb to just about everything, those women who hadn’t been injured in the fray nodded and settled to wait.
“Mr. Smiley?” One of the vigilantes approached. “Father Conroy says you and Mr. Trahern need to come to the forward hold real quick.”
Marcus looked at Dutch.
He clutched Edith closer. “I won’t leave her.”
“But … ”
“No. She’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong. She’s not injured, but her breathing is shallow and her heartbeat’s irregular. I won’t leave her; she needs a doctor, fast.”
“The doctor’s in the forward compartment,” said the vigilante.
“Bring her with us,” said Marcus. “I’ll help you.”
Working together, the three men moved Edith the distance to the doctor. Dutch carried her into the room.
“If you’ve got injured, put ’em on the floor beside this fellow I’m working on,” said the unfamiliar voice. Another man, his face covered, lay dead on the far side of the patient the doc was tending.
Following directions, Dutch settled Edith as gently as possible on the hard planks.
“I’ve done all I can for this fellow.” He drew a sheet up to the man’s chin and turned toward Edith. “What’s wrong with her?”
Dutch didn’t hear. His ears were buzzing, and he felt dizzy.
“Sit down, Dutch, before you fall down. What’s wrong?”
Dutch yielded to Marcus’s hand on his shoulder but pointed at the man the doctor had just seen. “That’s Trey, and I think the dead man’s the judge.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dutch sat at Edith’s bedside in Marcus’s home. The doctor had taken one look at her, noting the small scratch on her neck and the lack of other wounds, then asked how she’d been found. Next the doctor insisted on examining the Chinaman, sprawled in death in the mid-ship hold, Dutch’s bullet in his brain.
The doctor returned, lifted Edith’s eyelids, checked her pulse, and announced her poisoned. He showed Dutch a paper containing some crystals he’d scraped from beneath one of the Chinaman’s fingernails.
“I don’t see it often,” said the doctor. “Moreso with the Chinese. The poison reacts like an unexplainable illness in the human body.”
“Do you know the antidote?”
The doc shook his head. “Could be any one of a thousand things. The Chinese are fond of cooking up their own concoctions. Most likely the Chinaman gave the antidote to someone he trusted for safe keeping. I’d start with those bodyguards if I was you. You’ll be looking for a small vial of liquid. Liquid’s easier to administer than powder or smoke. Now if you’ll excuse me, I best get to the mission. Those women are gonna need my help.”
Dutch had thanked the man and did as he suggested, but a search of the guards’ bodies and the Chinaman’s clothing turned up nothing that resembled a liquid or that could quickly be made into a liquid.
He picked up Edith’s hand and held it to his cheek. She’d been comatose for two days, each day slipping further from his reach.
He felt lost and helpless, more so than on the day the judge had deserted his wife and children with a promise that he’d come home soon. Save for Trey and his friendships with Marcus and Father Conroy, Dutch had lived behind a solid barrier of mistrust until the day Edith had made her incomplete confession about her reasons for being in Duval’s brothel. That day had sealed his destiny to be her husband for life. He’d been briefly hurt when he discovered she’d used him. However, that small betrayal no longer concerned him. He was about to lose her, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
The door opened behind him. He didn’t bother looking. It would only be someone who came to tell him to rest. Or to eat something. Or that making himself ill wouldn’t help Edith. None of that mattered, especially if Edith died, which seemed likely since they were no closer to finding an antidote than they’d been two days ago.
“Hey brother.”
Dutch clung to Edith’s fingers.
“If you’ve come to convince me to leave, even for a minute, you might as well turn around and go back where you came from.” His voice was flat.
Trey crossed the room and sat in the desk chair. A sling cradled his right arm and a variety of bruises decorated his face. “Don’t try your temper on me, Dutch. I’m not up to it yet.”
“Ha. Some temper. I couldn’t make a kitten jump.” Dutch released the precious hand, leaned forward, and, with elbows on knees, rested his aching forehead in his palms. “I’m sorry. Do you have any chocolate?”
“Here,” his brother offered the piece amicably. “You are one sorry son of a gun.”
“What kind of remark is that?” Dutch whipped around in his chair, snarling.
“The kind that got your attention and proves you can do more than sit here wallowing in self-pity.”
“I am not wallowing. I’m waiting.” He turned the chair to be able to look Trey in the eye but clasped Edith’s hand once more.
Trey raised an eyebrow. “Call it what you will. You aren’t one to sit and wait, not since … well.”
“Go ahead, say it. Not since the judge left us and I realized he wasn’t coming back. Just ’cause the old reprobate’s dead is no reason to tippy-toe around him or glorify him.”
“He saved my life, Dutch.”
“Because the Chinaman double-crossed him.”
“I don’t think that was his only reason. You didn’t hold him as he died. You didn’t see the regret in those eyes.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I had. He was a gambler and a drunk. The bluff was his stock in trade.”
Trey’s lips thinned. “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I thought of someone who might have the antidote.”
Torn between the desire to shout for joy or shake his brother for dribbling out information, Dutch merely stroked Edith’s fingers. “Who?”
“Remember the doctor said the Chinaman probably left the antidote with someone he trusted.”
“So?”
“So I think that person is Cerise Duval. She and the Chinaman have been thick as thieves recently, and their history is as long as San Francisco is old. If it isn’t Duval, I’ll bet she knows who it is.”
“Great. The one woman who wouldn’t help me if I was stabbed before her eyes.”
“I agree. Given your history with Cerise, she’d probably twist the knife in deeper.”
“Then, even if you are right, what good is your guess?”
“I never told you why I was driving that wagonload of women to the gold fields for the Chinaman, did I?”
“The judge claimed you wanted easy money and told him some story about me sending you east to school, as if I’d believe what he said.”
“As far as he knew that was my reason. But the real reason is that it was my first job for the Pinkerton Agency.”
“You hired on as a Pinkerton? What about Trahern-Smiley?”
“You’re the one who wanted a respectable import-export business, not me.”
“But our reputation?”
“Being a Pinkerton man won’t hurt anyone’s reputation, but I’ve got my eye on a US Marshall’s badge. I just need some experience before I can apply, and Pinkertons is the best way to get that experience.”
“I can’t say I’m happy about this, but if it’s what you want … ”
“It is.”
“So what does you working for Pinkerton have to do with getting Cerise Duval to help us?”
“Some of those women we rescued knew things about Duval that I’d never heard before. Like she has a daughter in finishing school back east. A daughter who doesn’t know what her mama does for a living.”
“And Duval would do just about anything to make sure her daughter never learns how mama makes the family fortune and ensure that no one else ever knows about the relationship.”
“You got it. After I delivered the women safely to Father Conroy and before I resumed my cover, I checked out the story. It’s true. The girl was born sometime after Duval came to San Francisco in 1850, then Cerise had her shipped back to New Orleans. Duval’s mother lives there and raised the child until she was old enough for boarding school. By then Cerise had made enough money that she could afford the best for her baby girl. Cerise visits with her daughter at her mother’s house in New Orleans. I’m not certain the girl knows that Cerise is based in San Francisco.”
“This is better than evidence of a murder Cerise was p
arty to about ten years ago.”
“How so?”
“Let’s just say that the judge and I were both involved enough that it’s a story I’d like to keep quiet as much as Cerise.”
“Well this time I think we’ve got a clear upper hand.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“Go downstairs to Marcus’ library and strike a deal with Madame Duval right now.”
“You have her here?” Dutch stood so fast his chair toppled to the floor.
Trey grinned and nodded, joining his brother at the bedside. “Thought that might interest you. Care to join me in the negotiations?”
Dutch looked down at Edith, still and pale. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Trey placed a hand on his brother’s arm. “Eileen will sit with her and call you immediately if there’s any change.”
Eyes bleak with fear and worry, Dutch looked at Trey. “You and I both know that without the antidote the only change will be for the worse.”
“Then come downstairs with me. Confront Duval. Do something to help Edith.”
“All right.”
• • •
“You drive a hard bargain, Dutch Trahern. You could at least have let me keep the cash from your wife’s trunk as a finder’s fee.” Cerise Duval moved into the front entry, waiting, while Trey retrieved her cloak.
“You’re lucky we don’t prosecute you for robbery. As for bargaining, I learned from a master.” It was the closest Dutch would ever come to acknowledging their shared past.
“Yes, you did. However, I am satisfied with the terms. In the event of my unexpected demise, you and Trey will make excellent guardians for my daughter, and I believe that my secrets will be safe with the very respectable Trahern brothers. I wonder though if you will be as happy once your Boston virgin recovers.”
“You’d best pray that she does recover. The doctor is giving her the antidote as we speak, but your secrets aren’t safe until Edith is on her feet.”