Rebecca Hagan Lee

by A Wanted Man

  “I have something I need to do tonight and I can’t do it in my mission dress. And I don’t want Wu to run low on hair dye,” Julie managed to reply despite the water cascading over her head, “and wonder why.”

  “Wu won’t question. He looks the opposite way.”

  Julie’s heart began to race. “You told him about me?”

  “No need. He already knew you are ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ girl who wears China clothes and works in laundry.” Zhing’s answer was matter-of-fact as she rinsed the last of the soap out of Julie’s hair, twisted it to wring out the water, and handed Julie a towel.

  Julie wrapped her hair in the towel, then helped Zhing fill the bathtub for her bath. “Did he ask why?”

  “I told him you help us to earn favor from your gods.” Zhing emptied a pail of boiling water into the tub.

  Julie poured two more pails of cold water into it and Zhing added another pail of boiling water and peach-scented bath salts. Testing the temperature of the water with her big toe, Julie slipped the flannel robe off and climbed into the bath tub. She leaned back, letting her head rest against the rim, and slid down until the water reached her shoulders. Closing her eyes, Julie allowed the hot water to soak away the aches and pains and the bone-chilling cold that had accompanied her early morning journey through the thick fog.

  The thick fog that had facilitated her escape from the Silken Angel Saloon. She’d come very close to being caught. Too close. It was sheer luck that the sound of the bedroom door softly closing woke her from a deep, dreamless sleep. She’d managed to slip quietly out of bed and tidy the room, because she’d crawled into it fully clothed after helping herself to the leftover soup and chicken and vegetables she’d found on the kitchen range. Making her escape from the saloon had been almost as frustrating as waiting for her chance to slip in. But nothing was as frustrating as knowing she’d failed to rescue the girls Will Keegan had purchased at the auction.

  After making her way from the kitchen, through the main salon, and up the stairs to the second-floor bedrooms, Julie had found the girls from the auction sleeping soundly. She’d planned to get in and out of the Silken Angel Saloon without Keegan being the wiser. She intended to liberate the unfortunate girls right from under his nose. She’d planned to lead them out of bondage, out of the Silken Angel Saloon, and out of Chinatown to the mission, but to her dismay Julie discovered she wasn’t as resolute as she thought she’d be. Julie was cold and wet, hungry and tired, and her resolve had fallen victim to her need for food, shelter, and sleep. “Wake up, Jie Li!” Zhing touched her shoulder. “You cannot be lazy here.”

  Lazy? Julie opened her eyes and realized she’d fallen asleep again. She was burning her candle at both ends as Jie Li and Julie; working as a laundry girl, collecting dirty clothes, delivering clean ones, hauling pails of water to and fro, and keeping up with her everyday missionary chores and the duties to which she’d been assigned was exhausting for a young lady who had never done anything more strenuous than ride horses and garden. It seemed as if she fell asleep every time she closed her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “Finish bathing before the water gets cold, Jie Li. So I can help you dress before I leave to collect dirty laundry.”

  Julie did as Zhing Wu asked and bathed in record time, scrubbing her face and neck, arms, and hands, washing away all traces of Jie Li. Exiting the tub, she removed the towel from her hair and reached for a comb while Zhing laid out her undergarments.

  Pulling on stockings and garters, drawers and petticoats, chemise and corset seemed strange after the freedom of her peasant clothes. Julie sucked in a deep breath as Zhing tugged on her corset strings, and held it while she tied them. Julie barely breathed as she smoothed her camisole over her corset. When she was finished, Zhing dropped the gray wool dress over her head. Julie fastened the brass buttons on the military-style jacket that covered the plain sleeveless bodice, pinned her hair into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck, placed her gray bonnet on her head, and tied the ribbons beneath her chin. Turning to Zhing, she asked, “How do I look?”

  “Like an English missionary girl in an ugly dress,” Zhing replied in Cantonese as she handed Julie her brushed and polished black boots.

  Julie sat down on a kitchen chair to put them on. They weren’t as comfortable as her black cloth shoes, but they were warm and dry and sturdy—exactly what she’d wished for when she was standing in the cold outside the Silken Angel the night before.

  “Don’t forget your cloak.” Zhing took Julie’s gray wool cloak off a peg on the wall and handed it to her.

  “Thank you, Zhing,” Julie said. “I don’t know how I’d manage without you.” Reaching into the pocket of her cloak, she removed a small leather purse and handed Zhing two ten-dollar gold pieces. “Will this be enough for a new tunic and trousers and shoes and the hair color?”

  Zhing nodded. “More than enough, Jie Li. I’ll bring your change when I bring your clothes. Where will you be?”

  “I’ll be at the mission later this afternoon, or the Russ House,” Julie told her.

  “Be careful, Jie Li,” Zhing told her as Julie walked to the door. “And keep hat on and hair covered in Chinatown.”

  Julie paused, her hand on the door latch, puzzled by Zhing’s order. “Why? Didn’t all the dark stain wash out?”

  Zhing nodded. “Dark stain is all gone, but so is safety.”

  Julie frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Chinese girls not the only treasure in Chinatown,” Zhing told her. “Fiery hair is of great value to Chinatown madams.”

  Julie sighed. The red hair that had been the bane of her existence since childhood was of great value in Chinatown? Zhing had given her another reason to despise it—and one more thing to worry about in her search for Su Mi. . . .

  Chapter Eleven

  “I am contented with the violence of my own character; it draws a line for me between friends and enemies.”

  —LADY HESTER STANHOPE, 1776–1839

  Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness. Sowing in the noontime and the dewy eve . . .’” The words of the hymn announced her arrival moments before Julie stepped onto the boardwalk outside the Silken Angel Saloon.

  Seated on a chair in the main salon, Will Keegan looked up from his breakfast of steak and eggs and coffee and saw Julia Jane Parham in all her tambourine-banging, psalm-singing glory through the newly cleaned gold-lettered plate-glass window. Will was so relieved to see her he was willing to overlook the fact that her visit was premature. There was a week left in the month. Miss Parham had violated their agreement.

  He smiled to let her know there were no hard feelings on his part.

  She smiled back. Right before she began the refrain of that infernal song: “‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. . . .’” Right before she dropped her tambourine on the boardwalk and raised a parasol with a silver knob handle.

  “No!” Will shouted, jumping to his feet, overturning the table and his breakfast in the process.

  The sound of the table and his breakfast dishes and cutlery crashing to the floor was drowned out by the sound of the plate-glass window in the main salon shattering. Glass flew everywhere. Shards of it littered the floor and covered the tables and chairs nearest the window. Will watched as Julia Jane Parham raked her battered parasol along the bottom edge of the windowframe, dislodging the remaining bits of glass. Retrieving her tambourine from the boardwalk, she hitched up her skirts, flashing shapely ankles and calves in the process, and climbed through the open storefront. Glass fragments crunched beneath her boots as she made a beeline for the bar.

  “Are you crazy?” Will roared, grabbing her around the waist and lifting her off her feet as she swung her parasol at his head. He ducked, narrowly avoiding being bashed in the face. She missed his head, but she connected with the crystals dangling from one of the wall sconces and a bottle of whiskey sitting on the bar. She sent the whiskey bottle ski
dding down the polished mahogany bar and into three glasses. The whiskey and the glasses sailed off the end of the bar and crashed to the floor in a spray of spirits and broken glass. “You could have been sliced to ribbons! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “As much damage as possible!” she shouted back, wriggling in his grasp, trying with all her might to smash the rows of liquor bottles lining the shelf in front of the mirror behind the bar.

  The saloon was empty at this time of morning, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Not with Julia Jane wreaking havoc on the place. They were sure to draw a crowd of onlookers and a constable or two. An angry red-haired Salvationist wielding a parasol was hard to miss. The last thing they needed was to provide the residents of Chinatown with fodder for the gossip and rumor mills. He didn’t want Li Toy or members of the Kip Yee tong or any other tong nosing around, or for the police to come calling. Until he learned whom he could and whom he couldn’t trust, Will didn’t want members of the San Francisco Police Department anywhere near the Silken Angel.

  Not with Julia Jane Parham on the premises.

  Holding her in a viselike grip with one arm, Will wrested the parasol from her grasp with his other arm and tossed it aside before she could do any more damage to the saloon or to him. “I can see that,” he replied. “What I want to know is why?”

  “I should think you would know why!”

  “If I knew why, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  She kicked at him, and her booted foot connected with his shinbone.

  “Ouch! Dammit! That hurt!” He yelped.

  “Let me go!” she ordered. “Or I’ll do worse!”

  She smelled like peaches. Peaches and good Irish whiskey. The combination was surprisingly complementary and highly intoxicating. Will found it hard to keep from dropping her, with all her thrashing about, and it was difficult to protect himself from her boot heels when all he could think about was how good she felt and how good she smelled. He resorted to threats. “If you don’t stop wiggling, I’m going to drop you.”

  “Drop me onto my feet and I’ll stop wiggling,” she told him, kicking out once again, hoping to connect with more bone and sinew.

  Will managed to avoid her kick, but several chairs and a table were overturned in the process. “You kick me again and I’ll turn you over my knee and give you the paddling you deserve.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Julie sputtered, more incensed at being held so easily than she was at his threat.

  “Try me.”

  She was spoiling for a fight and rebelled against being thwarted, but Julie recognized the steel in his voice. She’d met her match in Will Keegan. He was serious, and she didn’t doubt for a minute that he would do exactly what he’d threatened. “Put me down at once!”

  “I’ll be happy to,” he told her. “If you agree to live up to your promise not to smash the place and behave.”

  She continued to struggle against him. “That promise is no longer valid.”

  “Oh?” He grunted when she elbowed him in the ribs. “Why not?”

  “I made that promise because I thought you were a gentleman,” Julie informed him.

  “I accepted it because I thought you were a lady,” Will retorted.

  “I am a lady.”

  “Prove it by behaving like one,” he challenged.

  Instead of meeting his challenge, Julie offered one of her own: “When you prove that you live alone above your place of business.”

  Will remained silent.

  Julie was triumphant. “I was a fool to believe you were a gentleman. I should have trusted my instincts. I knew I was right. I knew you were lying about living alone upstairs. I knew that wasn’t the case at all.”

  “It was very much the case,” he retorted. “At the time. And I’m as much a gentleman now as I was then.”

  “I wouldn’t boast about it,” she told him. “It doesn’t speak well of your character.”

  “And going back on your word and wrecking my saloon speaks well of yours?”

  “My motives are pure,” she argued. “Yours are not.”

  “I doubt that,” Will shot back, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Are you going to keep your promise and behave or not?”

  She declined to answer.

  Will heaved a sigh. She didn’t weigh that much, but he was beginning to tire, holding her off the ground while she struggled to free herself. She was testing his strength as well as his patience. “I’ll take that as a no. And since you don’t appear inclined to honor your promise, I guess we’ll stay as we are awhile longer.”

  “Since you don’t appear inclined to release me,” Julie pitched his words right back at him, “I’m going to scream bloody murder, and I promise I’ll have every constable in the district swarming around you in minutes.”

  “Scream away, my lady,” he invited, calling her bluff, praying she didn’t call his. “And when the constables get here, I promise to let you explain why you broke my window, vandalized the grand parlor, and attacked my person without provocation.”

  “Without provocation?” She huffed. “I assure you, Mr. Keegan, that I had plenty of provocation. Seven thousand dollars’ worth of provocation . . .”

  He looked down at her. Her ugly gray bonnet was askew, the bow beneath her chin partially untied, and the brim shielding her face covered with slivers of glass. There were more splinters clinging to her cape and dress. And although it didn’t show on the dark gray wool, Will knew her garments were stained with whiskey. A line of tiny blood droplets beaded along a small scratch on her cheek. Her blue eyes shot sparks at him, nearly singeing him with the heat of her wrath. “That was you last night? Behind the barrels?”

  “Of course it was me,” she informed him.

  Will was as alarmed as he was stunned by her admission—so alarmed the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “Have you lost your mind? Do you know what might have happened to you if you had been found out?”

  “The same as those poor unfortunate girls, I suppose.”

  “You should be so lucky.” He snorted. “I brought seven of those girls home with me.”

  “You bought seven of those girls,” she reminded him. “You purchased them like cattle.”

  “That’s what has your dander up this morning? That’s what sparked this display of missionary zeal . . . ?”

  “Of course.” Julie smirked at him. “I’m a missionary. Missionary zeal, as you call it, is one of the requirements.”

  Will glanced at the damage in the main salon. “I call it wanton destruction, and I’m heartily sick of it.”

  “I could say the same of you,” she told him. “After three weeks in San Francisco, I’m heartily sick of men like you. . . .”

  “Men like me?” He arched an eyebrow in an elegant gesture made up of equal parts query and haughtiness.

  “Gentlemen who become pimps.”

  Surprised that she knew the word and stung by her use of it, Will nearly made good on his threat to drop her amid the liquor and the broken glass. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “What else should I think? You purchased women at an auction. You brought them to your saloon.” She paused to gather her thoughts before continuing. “I can only assume that like so many other men in San Francisco, you intend to profit from their misery, to prey upon poor ignorant Chinese peasant girls and use them to . . . to . . .”

  “To what, Miss Parham?”

  “To . . . to slake your passions.” Julie gasped for breath as she felt the muscles in his arm tighten involuntarily. Her face flaming with indignation and embarrassment, she snapped, “And I’ll thank you to remember that as far as you’re concerned, it’s not Miss Parham; it’s Lady Julia.”

  Her sudden disdain for him sparked his temper. “I’ll thank you to remember that this is the United States of America. We put an end to British rule. We’re a democratic republic with little use for aristocratic titles. Here in my saloon, it’s Miss Parham or Miss Julia. No ladies al
lowed.” His words were a reminder of her earlier visit to the Silken Angel, when he’d refused to risk her reputation by allowing her inside the main parlor.

  “Yes, of course,” Julia replied in her most proper, aristocratic English. “But I seem to recall hearing that the United States of America had abolished slavery.” She gave him another of her proper little British smirks. “How wonderfully democratic of you to find a way to circumvent that law in order to purchase Chinese females as chattel for your personal pleasure.” She glared at him. “And how dare you preach American civics to me when, judging by your accent, you are as British as I am!”

  “Not anymore,” he informed her. “I became an American citizen when I immigrated to this country.” Will bit the inside of his cheek to keep the muscle there from twitching. He was annoyed as hell, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that he found her incredibly alluring. He was drawn to the little spitfire like a moth to a flame. And like the moth, he’d have his wings singed if he wasn’t careful. There was no doubt about it: Julia Jane was maddening. Intelligent, courageous, daring, beautiful, and absolutely maddening. She was different, and that intrigued him. She wasn’t coy and she didn’t resort to feminine wiles to get her way. She didn’t cry or plead or cajole. She stood her ground like a bare-knuckled prizefighter and gave measure for measure every bit as good as she got. After years spent in the company of docile Chinese women—after years spent mooning over Mei Ling—Will found that refreshing and stimulating. “You seem awfully interested in my personal pleasure, Miss Parham,” he drawled, to see how she’d react. To see whether he affected her as much as she affected him.

  “I am not!” she exclaimed. “My interest in you is purely professional.”

  “Liar,” he whispered close to her ear. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Your interest in me is completely personal. It’s neither pure nor professional.”