Reviews for books by Nanette Kinslow
“There are two types of stories that always demand my attention. A good love story and the story of a quest. Ill Repute embraces both. This story of Alice, an entirely identifiable young woman raised as a prostitute, and Joseph, the young prospector that ultimately saves her life, is entirely engaging. As with all of Ms. Kinslow’s books I was completely taken in by her sweet, simple storytelling talents. I know that any time I have one of her novels in my hand I am whisked away on an adventure. Ill Repute is Kinslow at her very best!”
- Rebecca Niveana, former editor- Stevens Publishing
“For lovers of romance Ms. Kinslow’s novel has hit the jackpot. If you are a fan of historical romance, or have ever been truly in love, you will find (her) books nearly impossible to put down.”
- Minnesotan Intelligencer
“Ms. Kinslow’s engaging story-telling style makes the book hard to put down.”
- News of Delaware County
“Kinslow’s characters come to life so much that I had several emotional responses to her words as I read the book.”
-Ed Cohen
“Love, love, love! Can't wait for the story to be continued!”
- Kathy Kaminski
“Kinslow has a magnificent talent in portraying … strong character(s). Fantastic reads! If you are a believer in all things ‘meant to be’ these novels will not disappoint!” - Diana Clark
“A beautiful setting in which to tell the story of renewed hope & love between very likeable characters.” - Gail Cook
“Kinslow connects from the first page. Every time I stopped reading I couldn't wait to pick it back up.”
- Kathie Fleischauer
“…Characters quickly become well known as Ms. Kinslow provides insight to their personalities with her excellent way with words. I found her books… difficult to put down...”
- Muriel Zondervan
“…You totally become involved! The author is extremely talented. I hope the series continues on.”
- Patti Ranney Shadrick
“Turn three pages into Ms. Kinslow's (books) and you will find yourself whisked away as if in the arms of the handsome heroes painted with the pen of pure romance. Her prose will have you standing in the room …, a part of the magnificent world she has created. I would not be surprised to hear that one day this newcomer is considered one of the great female writers of our time.”
- Laureen Silverman
“Great character development. Thanks Nanette- good job - but thanks for hours of enjoyment for this voracious reader!”
- Debra A. Johnson
“I have to say that you have earned a place on my list of favorite writers with Ms. Kinslow’s two books. Historical trips … were such a treat for my heart and my imagination. What a wonderful romp!
- Emily Donet
“Like taking a walk through time, falling in love and having an affair without the consequences…”
- Dianne Albright
“Kinslow's characters burst into your life fully developed. …The scenes play across your mind like beautiful cinematography.”
- Dolores Magro
Books by Nanette Kinslow
Stavewood
South of Stavewood
Home to Stavewood
The Secret of Stavewood
Sweet New England
Ill Repute
Pie Crust Promise
The Matter with Margaret
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my editor and publisher for your patience and support.
A word of thanks to Kenneth Hallowell for his expertise, eagerness to help and continued support.
Ill Repute
Ill Repute
A novel
By
Nanette Kinslow
Ill Repute is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2013 Lighthouse Publishing
Copyright © 2013 by Nanette Kinslow
ISBN-13: 978-1492744122
ISBN-10: 1492744123
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States by Lighthouse Group Publishing
Cover design by Pat Warn
To the adventurer in all of us, especially those whose adventure is love.
Part One
August 25, 1896
Tutchone, Alaska
Chapter One
Alice Ellis stepped from the dilapidated wagon into the slick clay and felt the mud ooze up over her boot. The ground tugged as if attempting to remove her footwear and the wagon lurched forward forcing her to set the other foot into the muck as well. At nineteen she was considered to be just below average height, with a shapely, slender figure and was unusually fair of face. She had traveled half the continent to reach Alaska and she would plant her feet in the rich soil just a year before a hundred thousand fortune hunters would venture there seeking gold.
Looking up at her surroundings she swallowed hard, overcome with the pathetic condition of a few pitiful structures on the flatland along the gulf. Beyond the water the hills rose in splendor, with the colors of a rich tapestry. Countless streams tumbled down the mountainsides. Emerald green gave way to deep crimson and innumerable shades of purple against a clear sapphire sky. Alice shuddered from the crisp chill in the air and noted the obvious contrast of the drab buildings to the stunning landscape.
Swatting away the gnats that had begun to descend upon her she took a deep breath of the crisp air and tried to lift her boot.
“Here.” A lanky prospector took her hand and, when she was still unable to free her feet, grabbed her boldly about her narrow waist. He pulled her from the mud and set her down on a gravel path that ran along the front of the buildings.
Alice smiled in appreciation, studying his strange attire. His clothing was baggy and tattered, an odd collection of layered pieces that were piled on against the cold. He wore a ragged, broad brimmed hat and his hands were calloused and discolored. She looked up at his face and could not discern what his age might be. He looked older in an unkempt full beard and his face was deeply tanned, but he smiled at her with soft blue eyes, giving Alice the impression that he might be much younger than she first believed.
Joseph Southers had been in Tutchone more than a full year and he and a partner had staked a claim farther north along the creek bed. His companion had abandoned the quest but Joseph remained, determined to pull enough gold from the icy creek to return home to Pennsylvania a rich man. In the last few days had he had made a discovery that further convinced him to remain yet another summer. At twenty-two he figured he still had time to make his journey north worthwhile and that his intended bride would be thrilled at his success.
He acknowledged Alice’s gratitude, noting how ridiculously overdressed she was and how completely out of place she seemed. Her hair was arranged in a tumble of curls beneath a fancy bonnet and she wore an elaborate, blue dress.
“You’ll want to let those boots dry out completely,” he suggested, “before you try to brush out the mud.”
Alice looked down at her shoes and smiled silently.
“Where are you headed?” Joseph could not imagine what she could possibly be doing in Tutchone.
“The saloon. I am to meet with Madam Tucks.” Her voice was soft and her manner well-spoken.
Joseph furrowed his brow. There were women in Tutchone certainly, wives, a few prospectors and the whores and saloon girls. This girl did not look like any of them.
“There, the wooden building,” he indicated.
“Thank you so much.” Alice smiled sweetly and lifted the hem of her s
kirt, stepping along the gravel path delicately.
Joseph shook his head and watched her as she entered the weathered building and then went to post his letter home.
Alice nearly had to put her shoulder to the door to get the lopsided entry to open. She stepped inside and allowed her eyes to acclimate to the darkness. The saloon smelled of sour mash and acrid urine and the echoed rustling of a bird in the rafters startled her. There were a few tables and several chairs and a lopsided piano leaned against a pillar in the center of the room.
“Lookin’ for someone?”
Alice turned to a man’s voice as he emerged from a hall in the back of the building. He was thin to the point of scrawny and he held a steaming cup of hot liquid. He stopped and leaned in the doorway. His clothing was a baggy pair of trousers over filthy long johns and oversized wool socks.
“I’m Alice Ellis. I’m looking for Madam Tucks,” she said.
“Upstairs. First door you come to,” he said.
Alice climbed the staircase to the balcony that stretched the length of the building and tapped on the door.
“Yeah.” She heard a voice call from inside.
Alice slowly pushed open the door and stopped. Upon the bed lay Rose Tucks. Alice stood perfectly still.
Once tall and voluptuous, Rose was now obese. Her once flaming curls were a filthy tangle upon her head and her massive bust lay nearly exposed over a huge gut.
“Shut the door!” Rose snapped.
Alice stepped inside. The room stank of sex and liniment, and a pungent odor like that of burning pitch. The bedding was stained and trailed onto the rough hewn floor. She looked at the madam and it was apparent that Rose Tucks had to struggle to focus on her face.
“Rose,” Alice said clearly. “It’s me, Alice. Dora’s daughter.”
“Alice, honey. Your mama wired me you were coming months ago. I was sorry to hear she didn’t make it. Well, come over here and let me get a look at you!”
Alice stepped to the side of the bed and held her breath.
“Why, I thought you were pretty at fourteen,” Madam Tuck slurred. “Your mama was right, you were destined to be a beauty. These men around here won’t know how to act with you around. I might have to charge extra just for them to look at you!” She started to chuckle but instead coughed deeply.
“You go back downstairs and get Tangled Bob to set you up in the room right at the top of the stairs. Have him move Darleen down the hall. You and I are going to get plenty of flake now, you’ll see. Tell him to show you how to measure out the color and you come back here when you’re all settled in.” Alice quickly realized that gold went by many names here.
Alice left the room quickly and stood on the balcony trying to catch her breath.
Alice’s mother, Dora Ellis, had run one of the finest brothels in the country. The home was established and very successful years before Alice had been born. She had seen prostitutes come into the house with drug and alcohol addictions, sometimes filthy and starved. Dora never turned anyone away. She’d always given each one the opportunity to make something of herself as a professional. Alice had never seen the kind of bawdy houses from which they had come.
She straightened her back and descended the stairs while trying to block out the dusty surroundings.
“First you take the gold and you put it in here,” Tangled Bob said and handed her an empty shell casing. “You measure it on here.” He placed the shell on a scale and with a steady hand he slid the counterweight to a mark etched into the bar. “If it weighs this much, he’s paid the regular rate.” He slid it to a second scratch. “At this mark he’s paid for the special rate. Then you empty the gold into this.” He handed her a canning jar.
Alice wondered how anyone could possibly live on a few flakes of gold and looked around the room. The space was small, only big enough for a bed, a table with a lamp and the scale. Alice considered that she may have brought more clothing than would even fit into the room.
“Where do I keep my things?” she asked.
“You can put your stuff on the floor at the end of the hall downstairs. No food though or the animals get to it.”
“Is there someplace where I can get some things to clean up?” she asked.
“Like a bath?” He peered at her curiously.
“To clean the room,” she replied.
“Kitchen’s downstairs.”
Alice gathered her baggage from the street and lugged one bag upstairs and left the others in the back hall. She tried dusting the mud from her boots but quickly gave up the effort and shook out her embroidered skirt. She returned to the Madam’s room and tapped on the door. Except for loud snoring she got no response and so she ventured outside.
There were men along the beach working with flat boxes on wooden legs. They filled the boxes with gravel and then poured in pails of water. Alice knew they had to be looking for gold though she didn’t understand the process. Then she saw the man who had helped her when she had arrived. He was speaking to someone so she nodded to him and smiled.
“Where’d she come from?” Joseph’s companion asked.
“I don’t know, Jack,” he replied. “She came in on the wagon earlier.”
“There’s supposed to be a new girl coming in for Rose. If that’s her she’s pretty fancy for one of the doves.”
Joseph considered his friend’s observation. Many of the men had taken to calling the girls at the saloon the doves not only as a play on the phrase fallen doves, he thought, but perhaps as a way to make the women seem more attractive somehow. Joseph preferred it over many of the other names the girls were called. She was awfully pretty to be one of the prostitutes, he thought, but he could not imagine any other reason she would have anything to do with the madam there.
“I’ll ask her.” Jack hurried towards the girl and Joseph watched as he approached her.
“You the new whore?” Jack asked frankly.
Alice looked at him openly. She knew the term. She’d heard it plenty of times, but at home it was rarely used. At home they were called ladies.
“I’m a new lady of the house,” she responded.
“Old whore is quitting?” Jack asked.
“No, no,” Alice corrected. “I’m just a new one. Tell me, would you know how many ladies there are at the house?”
“Counting you, I’d say one.” The prospector slapped his knee and laughed at his own humor.
Alice watched Joseph chuckle several feet beyond them.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Chicken-leg Jack,” he responded with a wide grin.
“And him, there?” Alice indicated Joseph.
“Amish Joe,” he replied.
“He’s Amish?” Alice questioned.
“He’s from Pennsylvania, where the Amish are, I suppose,” Jack responded. “I’ll come and visit you at the saloon.”
“Thank you,” Alice responded and watched him return to his friend.
“She’s the one,” Jack informed Joseph. “New whore, but says she’s a lady.”
“I see,” Joseph remarked, furrowing his brow.
Chapter Two
Early that evening several of the women emerged from their rooms and Alice lingered in the doorway to the kitchen, watching them descend the stairs. They all wore old ragged clothing, their hair a tangled mess. Nearly all of them smelled of liquor and one strongly of vomit. When it appeared that all of them had entered, Alice counted eight women. She climbed the stairs to the madam’s room and tapped sharply on the door.
Rose beckoned her to enter and Alice stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“Your girls are a mess,” she said frankly. “My mother told me that you were one of the best. She was certain that you ran one of the finest houses around.” Alice waited for a response.
“Your mama,” Rose chuckled. “I’d like to have seen your mama try to run a house up here in this godforsaken hell. It’s damn freezing all the time and there ain’t nothing up here.
Is that why your mama sent you here? Because she thought I was running some damn fancy house like she had?”
“Well,” Alice cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Then you are in a fix, aren’t you?”
Alice considered her words. “Are you sick?”
“What?” Rose pulled herself up in the bed.
“Are you sick? Is there something physically wrong with you?”
“No, I ain’t sick.”
“Is that the problem?” Alice pointed to an elaborate pipe on the bed stand.
“Not a problem for me.” Rose took up the pipe and struck a match. The pungent smell of opium filled the air.
“Let me take over.” Alice folded her arms.
“My house?” Rose tried to focus.
“The women. I’ll clean them up, give you your cut and make you some money. I’ll work for you, but not this way.”
“Get the hell out,” Rose spat.
Alice nodded and left the room. She walked through the saloon and the women and patrons watched her leave. Alice knew it would be light for hours and she needed some air.
She paced in agitation behind the buildings trying to figure out how she would get back to Montana. She knew she had enough money to leave but not enough to make it all the way back home. Besides, there was nothing left for her there. She was certain that she could earn her way back home, but she knew without the protection of a good house, sex on the road was dangerous and risky.
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