by Tess LeSue
“How do you put this thing on?” she asked, confounded by the habit. No matter which way she turned, she couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“Put the shift on first,” Calla told her, stepping up to help. She’d been raised on a mission and threw herself into the role of Mother Superior with vigor when Wilbur came calling. As she helped Emma into the sack-like shift and then lowered the even-heavier full-body apron over the top, she didn’t bother to ask why her boss was dressing up as a nun. The Heart of Gold was the kind of place where it was best not to ask too many questions.
“How’s a note going to help?”
Unless you were Justine. Justine never stopped asking questions.
“It’s not just about the note,” Emma said, distracted by the contraption Calla was trying to cram onto her head. “It’ll be the whole setup.”
“You know, proper nuns would cut their hair off,” Calla said as she yanked the white coif down over Emma’s ears.
“Good thing I ain’t a proper nun.” Although she had been wondering how to get the henna out of her hair. Henna didn’t shift. Maybe cutting her hair wasn’t such a bad idea. It could be part of her whole fresh start, and when her hair grew back, it would be her natural color. Emma Jane Palmer’s natural color. She didn’t quite remember what that color was anymore. Reddish. But probably darker, now that she was a grown woman.
“What whole setup? You give me such a headache!” Justine was whipping herself into a frenzy. She’d have to learn some serenity if she wanted to survive running this place.
“You should try wearing this thing, if you want to talk headaches.” Emma tried to wedge her fingers between the coif and her forehead. It was pinching off the blood supply to her brain.
“What whole set up?” Justine was so angry her eyeballs were just about bulging out of her head.
Emma took pity on her and put her out of her misery. “I’ll tell him we’re playing a little game, honey. He likes his games. At least, according to the girls. Most of the time I think he’s more interested in playing than in poking.”
“You can say that again,” Calla agreed, hefting the stiff headdress over Emma’s coif. “Sometimes he likes to play hide-and-seek. We leave clothes scattered about like clues and he has to come find us. We’re supposed to be naked when he does, but often we cheat. He quite likes having a reason to get all angry and give us a spanking.”
“It never ceases to amaze me how many men like spanking,” Emma mused.
“I don’t mind a spanking myself,” Calla admitted. “It’s better than being poked. I don’t mind anything that keeps them busy, to be honest, so long as they poke less.”
“Are you suggesting that you’re going to play hide- and-seek with Hec Boehm?” Justine sounded appalled.
“Of course not. I’m just going to tell him I’m playing hide- and-seek. I’ve already written the note—it’s over there by the peacock feathers.”
Justine all but dove for it. Emma saw her nose wrinkle as she read it.
“Did I lay it on too thick?” Emma asked.
“This is insane,” Justine muttered.
Emma watched Justine closely. Her gut told her the plan would work. But maybe her gut was an idiot.
Justine looked up. Her dark eyes were frightened. But not as frightened as they had been. “You’re going to send him on a wild goose chase to Fiebre del Oro?”
“Clever, isn’t it?” Emma couldn’t keep the smugness out of her voice. It wasn’t just clever; it was on the verge of genius. Everyone knew she’d funded Dottie to set up a whorehouse in the gold town up north. It made sense that she’d go there.
Her lusty little note to Hec should prove a successful bit of bait, anyway. He fancied himself a hunter, so she’d play the prey. She’d have the girls set up her room for Hec’s arrival tomorrow. Candlelight, a hot bath, the good Spanish wine set out in the best glasses. Rose petals floating on the surface of the water, she thought in a fit of inspiration. Calla had done that once for the Judge and it had worked a treat. She’d have Gina and JoBeth lead him upstairs, where they would prepare him for her. He’d like that. They could undress him and bathe him, and maybe give his little soldier a tug if that’s what he was up for. They could feed him the wine until he was all hot and pink from it. Towel him down. Then Gina could read him Emma’s note—Gina was the only one of the two of them who could read, so it would have to be her—while JoBeth acted out all the things Emma promised to do to Hec when he finally found her. That note (and JoBeth’s close attentions) should get Hec into the game. Then he could light out the next morning for Dottie’s place at Fiebre del Oro, where Dottie would have another room ready for him, with her homebrew instead of Spanish wine, and her German twins instead of Gina and JoBeth. Emma had sent Blossom’s boy Henry on to Fiebre del Oro already, with a second note and instructions for Dottie. She’d paid generously for the German girls’ time and included a nice extra chunk of cash for Dottie too. The twins could keep Hec happily entertained for the night, reading Emma’s promises to him while they used their plump white bodies on him. The note would send him on to Sutter’s Mill next, to a whorehouse named the Silver Tongue. A whorehouse that didn’t actually exist, but it would take Hec a while to realize it. By the time he worked out she’d tricked him and had ridden all the way back to Moke Hill, she’d be safely through Angels Camp and Mariposa, where she’d sell off her shares in her other whorehouses. By the time old Hec reached Angels Camp, she’d be off to San Francisco to buy herself that nice little house with a view of the bay. And by then, she’d be a demure little nobody in gingham—hell, not gingham, surely muslin would be dowdy enough—and men like Hec Boehm wouldn’t look twice at her. She’d be boring Miss Emma Palmer, with reddish hair and not-so-dowdy muslin gowns, tending her cabbage patch and growing freckled in the sun. Hec would be tearing up California looking for a woman who no longer existed.
It was genius.
“Clever!” Justine was shaking. “You think it’s clever?”
Uh-oh. Justine was still mad.
“And what’s he going to do to me when he gets back to Moke Hill?” Justine’s face had gone a bit gray.
“That’s the cleverest bit!” Emma beamed at her. “That’s when you give him the other note!”
Justine’s hand was starting to clench around the first note and Emma had to prize it out of her hand. She didn’t fancy rewriting it; she was on a tight schedule. Calla followed her as she moved, jabbing the black nun’s veil into place with hairpins.
“He’ll shoot me before I can give him any more damn notes!” Justine shouted.
“Hush. You don’t want the Koerners to hear you, do you?”
“Tilt your head back,” Calla instructed Emma.
“There’s more to this contraption?” Hell, no wonder nuns were celibate.
Calla laughed and wrapped the wimple around Emma’s neck.
“What’s the other note say?” Justine asked through clenched teeth.
“Just that he’s not to shoot you because you’re going to give him ten percent of the take from now on.”
“I’m what?”
“It’s perfect! That man would walk over hot coals to pick up a dropped dime. He ain’t going to hurt you if it hurts business, and as we all know, business at the Heart of Gold is good.”
“That ten percent ain’t yours to give away,” Justine raged, “it’s mine!”
“Fine, don’t give it to him, then. But he might shoot you if’n you don’t.”
Justine cast about to see if there was a weapon handy. But the only one was in Emma’s hot little hand.
“You selfish, two-faced . . .”
“Hush, Justine,” Emma snapped, “stop talking before you say things you’ll regret. I’ve been good to you, and you know I’ve been good to you. It hurts me that you don’t trust me.”
“Trust you! After this!”
Emma frowned. It didn’t matter how nice you were to people; they always wanted to believe the worst of you. “You honestly think I’d treat you bad? After all we’ve been through together?”
“You just did,” Justine said bitterly.
“No, honey, I just saved you from getting shot by Hec Boehm.” Emma moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Buried in her tangle of unmentionables was a sheaf of papers. “If you think I’d steal from one of my girls, you don’t know me at all.” She held the papers out to Justine, who looked at them suspiciously.
“What’s that?”
“My shares in Dottie’s place in Fiebre del Oro. I had Teague put them in your name. It’s a forty percent share. It’ll more than compensate for the ten percent you’ll lose to Hec from this place. It’ll also give you wriggle room if he demands more. You can give him up to forty percent of here, without putting yourself out of pocket. Dottie’s place is the biggest whorehouse in that hellhole; it’s making more than here already. No one but us three here and Dottie need to know you own it. And Calla won’t tell, will you?”
“Nope,” Calla’s voice was muffled. She had her head stuck in the wardrobe. Scavenging through Emma’s gowns, probably, now she knew her ex-boss was leaving town.
Justine wilted. She read the documents, turning grayer by the minute. This time her color was leeched by flat-out shame.
“I’m sorry, Seline. I shoulda known you’d treat me fair.”
Yes, she should have. Emma was surprised to find herself on the brink of tears. It shouldn’t hurt to be thought ill of. But it did.
“My name ain’t Seline, it’s Emma,” was all she could manage to say in reply.
Justine nodded and rolled the papers up. “Sister Emma,” she corrected shakily, taking in the getup.
Emma looked down at herself. “You gotta admit, it’s a good plan.”
Justine nodded again, and when she spoke, her voice was tight. “I gotta admit . . . it’s better than I gave you credit for.” She looked like she was going to cry for a moment, but she pressed her lips together hard and pushed her emotions back down. That was something they were all good at. You didn’t survive around here if you weren’t. “You might need a belt,” Justine observed.
“I got one!” Calla came crawling out of the wardrobe, waving a belt. In the other hand, she was dragging a heavy mass of black wool.
“What the hell is that?” Emma asked.
“I’m coming with you,” Calla said brightly, holding up another habit. “You need someone to show you how to act like a nun! And I want to go south. I got enough money saved to get myself back home.”
“Of course,” Justine muttered, “because getting one nun out of here unseen wasn’t hard enough.”
“Justine . . .” Emma warned.
“I know, boss,” she sighed, “focus on the solutions, not the problems.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tess LeSue writes sexy and adventurous romances, set against sweeping historical backdrops. Her current love affair is with the wild landscapes and even wilder men of the Wild West. Bound for Eden is her first Western. Tess also writes literary fiction under the name Amy T Matthews and teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Flinders University in Australia.
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