“Yes, ‘hire.’ As in pay money to provide a service,” Cassius said. “Family friend, indeed. Well, no matter.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Reed?” Venice asked.
“Obviously your uncle has been regaling this chap with stories about you. Perhaps, knowing you were here, unescorted, Milton hired him to see to your safety. A bodyguard of sorts.”
Venice looked askance at Noble, her expression troubled. “Milton doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“But if he did,” Cassius went on, as though he hadn’t heard Venice, “it was only because he didn’t realize that someone of your own class would be here to see to your comfort.” He shrugged. “Ergo, we no longer need him.” He pointed at Noble.
With a twist of his lip, Noble returned to the bar counter and another two fingers of whiskey.
“But how could Uncle Milton know I was here?”
“Perhaps I am mistaken.” Cassius shrugged dismissively. “What does it matter? All that need concern us is that I promise, dear lady, we’ll have an exciting time.”
Cassius’s voice seemed unctuously suggestive to Noble. His hand trembled on the glass. Anger pulsed cold and bitter through his veins. Unescorted. Exciting time. Jaded, fast, and wanton.
Venice looked to where Noble leaned on one arm, his back against the bar, a splinter of wood he’d plucked from the scored surface rolling from side to side in his mouth. When he saw she was looking at him, he straightened.
“Sounds like you’re gonna have a load of fun,” Noble said. His words sounded bitter and their tone chased the blood from Venice’s cheeks.
Noble spat the toothpick out and started from the barroom, pausing just long enough to hiss down at the bewildered-looking Blaine, “If you tell her who I am, they won’t be able to find all the pieces of you.”
“But why?”
“Even an Irish mongrel has a bit o’ pride, Blaine, me boyo. Besides, she’ll figure it out for herself soon enough.”
Chapter 5
“Gal, can you explain all that to me?” Katie asked as she trailed Venice into the rooms she was renting her. Wordlessly, Venice sank down on the edge of the bed.
Amber. The man’s eyes were clear, light-catching amber, thought Venice. He was so beautiful and so ragged.
The man’s words had been poetic, tender. He’d told her he knew her like his heart’s rhythm. Then, seconds later, he’d dismissed her with a sneer. Why? From the moment their eyes had met in the mirror, there had been something so familiar about the man. It was unsettling. But then, she’d felt unsettled from the moment she’d first seen him at the watering trough.
“How come you went all white when you saw that long-haired feller?” Katie prodded. “And who was that other guy?”
Venice felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I thought he was angry with me.”
“He who? The long-haired feller?”
Venice nodded. “I believe he mistook me for a woman of easy virtue and since I er, disabused him of that notion, I thought he might be angry with me. But I don’t think he recognized me.”
“Now, why the hell would he think you were a calico gal? What do you mean recognize you? Is he blind?” Katie asked indignantly.
“Well, he might have some small justification for his misconception.” Venice winced. “I whistled at him.”
Katie’s jaw dropped open. “Go on with ya. Never say it’s true!”
The twinkle that had been noticeably absent in Venice’s eyes for the past hour flickered back to life. “Yup.”
“Here? How? Why? Ferget the why. I got eyes myself.”
“I was on my balcony this morning and he was at the horse trough. Washing. Without a shirt on. And he started to put it on and I . . . I just whistled. I didn’t mean to. And when he looked up, I called him pretty.”
The stunned expression on Katie’s face was too ludicrous to resist. Venice started to smile and then to giggle and finally gave way to full-blown laughter. After a second, Katie burst out laughing, too.
“Pretty? Hot damn.” Katie dabbed at her eyes. “I’ve called good-looking hombres like that a lot of things, but pretty ain’t never been one of ‘em. What did he do?”
“He smiled,” Venice said. “And then he did something that made all of his skeletal muscles manifest themselves in pronounced, lineal definition.” She sighed. “It was wonderful.”
“If you say so,” Katie said doubtfully. “He really done it to you, hasn’t he?” she added quietly.
Venice didn’t deny it. “I don’t even know him and yet I get the most incredible sensations when I look at him. He makes me feel all . . .” She stuttered to a halt, frustrated. She tried once more. “It’s the most bizarre thing. My mouth goes dry, my skin itches, my fingertips, everything, starts tingling. I can’t seem to catch my breath and it’s almost frightening!”
“Just a darn minute, here. Honey, ain’t you never been hot for a man before?” Katie asked.
Venice didn’t know the vernacular, but Katie’s meaning was perfectly clear. “Not like this.”
“Chrissakes, honey, how old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
Katie vaulted to her feet and stood glowering down at Venice. “That’s just out and out unnatural, that is!”
“I’m sorry.”
The expression of abashment on Venice’s face erased most of Katie’s womanly outrage. “Ah, kid. You need a man. Bad. Luckily, you can do somethin’ about it. And if’n I was you, I’d do it soon, less’n your body just sorta shrivels up ‘fore it knows what it’s missing.”
“What do you suggest I do?” Venice asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
“Go back to New York, pick yoreself out one of them high-society beaus of yours, and get hitched.”
Venice smiled wanly. “Like Cassius Thornton Reed?”
“That the other guy? The one in the nice duds? Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“Want? Want doesn’t have much to do with marriage, does it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t feel this way about Mr. Reed. I’ve never felt this way—at least to this extent—about anyone!”
“Shit. You get any notions about marrying that dirty range rider right out of your head.”
“Marrying?” Venice repeated. “I said I found him extremely . . . invigorating. I didn’t say anything about marrying him.”
“Yeah. Well, I did. High-class gals like you don’t tumble into the sack with a guy less they has a gold band ‘round their finger. And that would be one helluva mistake, even assuming you could get a footloose drifter like him to commit. Which, given your particular talents, I don’t doubt you could.”
“I know it would be a mistake,” Venice said softly.
“Good,” Katie replied. “‘Cause you’d just end up miserable. Like I was with that ne’er-do-well husband of mine, Josiah. You try breeding a horse and a donkey and you gets a mule . . . ugly, mean, and barren.” A touch of ancient sadness colored her words, but after a snort of self-contempt she went on. “And once you get hitched, you can’t get unhitched. Marriage is forever.”
“There’s always divorce.”
“Worse than dying, to my mind. Nope,” Katie said adamantly, “marriage is forever and forever is a long time to be paying for a tumble in the hay. You just stick to your own sort and you’ll do fine.”
“What am I supposed to do, Miss Jones?” Venice replied in a low voice. “There aren’t any men of my sort. I’m as much an oddity in New York as I am in Salvage. At best, intelligent men consider me peculiar.”
Her voice dropped sadly. “I am an oddity. I don’t seem to be able to find much pleasure in the things most women do; parties, teas, musicales. I want to see things no one else has seen. I want to discover things; the source of the Nile, a new species of bird, the height of the largest Sequoia, the bones of a prehistoric animal.”
“So? Do it. With your money, Venice, you could probably buy a new name for Niagara Falls.”
“That’s the problem,”
Venice said, frustrated because she couldn’t make Katie understand. “The men my father introduces to me think a walk in Central Park is the ultimate adventure. Stocks, bonds, railroads are all they think of. Yes,” she said, holding up her hand to stave off Katie’s outburst, “I know; I have a duty. A duty to marry someone who will be an astute partner in the Leiland Foundation’s management. There are charities and organizations and societies that rely on the foundation. I know all this.”
Her hand dropped and she gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. “Believe me, Miss Jones, your well-intentioned lecture on marriage isn’t necessary. No one knows better than I what disastrous consequences come of marrying for love. I just wish . . . well, what does it matter?” She shook her head and smiled wryly. “But he certainly was pretty, wasn’t he?”
“Could someone hand me a cloth or something? I got soap in my eyes,” Noble yelled from the storage room at the back of Grundy’s Mercantile.
He leaned over the tub of water in which he was crouched, groping for a towel. Maybe nothing was going to wash away the feeling of inferiority the Leilands were so good at raising in him, but at least the Grundys weren’t going to take advantage of him. He’d be damned if he was going to dry himself off with his own shirt.
“A towel!”
A sodden rag thwacked Noble in the back of the head. “Gee, thanks, Anton.”
“Wasn’t Anton, McCaneaghy.”
Wiping the suds from his eyes, Noble squinted up at Tim Gilpin. “Gilpin. Shouldn’t you be off telegraphing the East Coast stories about house-sized jackrabbits?”
Tim snorted. “Poetic license, McCaneaghy. That story paid for my new type set. ‘Course, if you ever wanted to see your name in print, I could probably see clear to cutting you in on the correspondent’s portion.”
Noble rubbed a chunk of soap into his hair, working up a lather for the fourth time in order to wash off the thick layer of kerosene and axle grease he’d kept spread over his body for the past six hours. God, how he hated lice. Always had, ever since he’d lived in the tenements where lice and the attendant stigma of shaved heads had been inescapable. He’d spend a week in a vat of this noxious remedy, burning his skin and raising welts on his body, before he’d ever shave his head again.
“We could make a fortune, Noble. Wild Bill Hickok, Bill Cody, those boys have the right idea. Parlay a couple of adventures into a pile of money”
Noble got out of the tub, toweled dry, and pulled on clean underwear.
“Hell, boy!” Tim said. “Don’t you know what a goldmine you are? Here’s Wild Bill selling all sorts of balderdash to the eastern newspapers on the merit of a couple of long yanks of yeller hair and a mouth quicker than his reported aim with a pistol. Then, there’s you. War veteran, Yale graduate, more real adventures than half the blowhards in print—and with long hair!—and you won’t let me write down a word of it!”
Noble heaved the tub over to the back door of Grundy’s Mercantile and tipped the oil-slicked water onto the ground. Crossing to the storage shelves, he began picking through untidy piles of ready-made clothing. “Since you’re here, do me a favor.” He leaned close to Tim. “Do I still smell like kerosene?”
Tim gave a cursory sniff. “Not too bad.”
“Good.” Noble picked out a white shirt and thrust his arms into the sleeves.
“Come on, McCaneaghy.”
“Uh-uh,” Noble said, pulling on a pair of jeans and stuffing the shirttails into them. “Where the hell are Anton and Harry?”
“I don’t know. They were in that shed out back when I came in, sawing something,” Tim said in frustration. “I don’t know what you have against making easy money.”
“Just remember, Tim,” Noble said, banging his boot heel down against the floor, “Milt subscribes to all those eastern papers. It might take them a while to get out here, and it might take me a while longer to get to them, but eventually we’ll meet up. And if I ever read my name in any of them, I’ll have your hide as a windbreak. Swear to God, I will.”
“Fine. Give up a chance at fame and fortune. What do I care? It’s not like I need you to write a story the New York papers will pick up. Not now. Not with a regulation, bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool sensation staying right here in Salvage. Right at the Gold Dust Emporium.” Tim polished his fingernails on his soiled vest. “A celebrity who’s going to treat our little hamlet to a New York—style entertainment.”
Noble hauled on his other boot and stood up.
“Prettiest sensation you ever saw,” Tim prompted smugly.
Venice again. Noble dragged his wet hair to the back of his head in one fist and secured the tail with a leather thong. Without a word he pushed past Tim. Tomorrow he’d ship his records off to Washington, outfit himself, and take off for . . . . for . . . away from her!
Cassius Thornton Reed straightened his jacket and picked up the expensive cheroot charring the dresser top. The woman lay sprawled on the bed in a tangle of sweat-scented sheets and blankets. Her large breasts were bare above the black and red corset, the sole piece of clothing she wore except for the fancifully spiked leather boots. She was asleep.
It hadn’t been a very satisfactory coupling. Cassius had been too aware that Venice Leiland was renting rooms a few doors down the hall. No, not satisfactory. Still, he wasn’t going to ruin his chances at the Leiland millions by indulging in his usual tastes. He’d probably been a fool to indulge himself at all, but on the way into the saloon, the whore had accosted him, grabbing his hand and rubbing it over her big, pliant breasts while squeezing him with nimble, eager fingers. He wasn’t a man to deny himself pleasure.
Quietly, Cassius opened the door to the corridor and slipped outside. He paused, flicking the glowing cheroot at the spittoon near the top of the stairs. He’d always been partial to big, white breasts. Next time, he promised himself as he tiptoed past Venice’s door and started down the steps, he was going to get his money’s worth.
He didn’t even notice the first spirals of smoke rising from the hall runner a foot in front of the spittoon.
Watching something black and shiny scuttle into the thin ticking of the mattress Sal had rented him decided Noble; the floor would be less crowded. He pulled off his boots and tugged his shirt free of the waistband. He kicked open his bedroll and spread himself on top of it. Clamping his hands behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling. It was well past midnight, but he’d be damned if he could sleep.
It was her fault. Her and her wide, gray eyes and her stilted little “Who are you?” Apparently she’d afforded him as much room in her memory as she had the butcher’s dog. In other words, none. Noble flopped onto his side, ramming the wadded-up jacket he used for a pillow into a different configuration.
She’d dogged his footsteps for over three years, until he’d gone to Yale. She’d been his shadow. His cluricaune. Fey, spritish lassie.
Angrily, Noble heaved himself to a sitting position. Irish drivel. Restlessly, he paced to the room’s small broken window, tearing off the piece of canvas someone had tacked across the opening.
With unseeing eyes, he stared down the road to the Gold Dust. He knew her type. Constantly craving something new, something different, something to sate jaded senses. Privileged beauties who devoured stimulation like dowagers ate chocolate, greedily hoarding thrills, no matter what the cost to themselves or others.
Young women like Adele.
Noble balled his hand into a fist against the window jamb. He hadn’t thought of Adele in years. He added her resurrected image to the list of offenses he counted against Venice.
Adele Sumner. Black-haired, black-eyed society darling. Her long pale fingers pressed over his lips as they stood in the dimly lit back hall of the Leiland mansion. Her eyes darted nervously behind him to ensure no one saw her with the cook’s son.
“Boy, you can come to my room later, after midnight. Mind you now, don’t get caught or I’ll scream you right into gaol.”
He’d been seventeen and a randy young fo
ol and he’d gone to her room. Well, he wasn’t seventeen now, and he wouldn’t allow himself to act the fool. He would see things as they were. No excuses, not even for Venice.
Beneath the light-stubbled swath of the Milky Way, his gaze traveled to the saloon where Venice slept. Thin tendrils of diaphanous fog embraced the second-floor verandah. Or was it something else? The sharp scent of burning wool reached Noble’s nostrils at the same time that his bare feet hit the hard-packed ground beneath his window. He launched himself down the street, racing toward the Gold Dust.
Behind him, a fire alarm started clanging. Voices shouted out behind Noble as he sprinted the last hundred feet to the front door, tore it open, and vaulted up the stairs. The fumes hung in a dense shroud here, the acrid smell burning his nostrils, parching his throat.
“Fire!” a hysterical female voice screamed. Up ahead squeals of terror and muffled profanity erupted from behind the closed doors. A man burst from a room, hopping on one foot as he tried to drag on a boot. The frightened woman behind him stuffed belongings into a carpet bag as she stumbled into the hall.
There was no way to tell where the smoke was coming from. It drifted thickly in the narrow hallway. People were choking and coughing, men outside calling for pails. The woman with the carpet bag stumbled past him, her red eyes streaming tears. He grabbed her arm.
“Where’s Venice Leiland?” he yelled. She twisted out of his grip.
“She’s using Katie’s room! Last door!” she yelled. His eyes stinging, Noble raced forward, squinting through the poisonous blanket.
At the end of the hall, he raised his fist and pounded on the paneled door. “Venice! Venice! You’ve got to come out!”
Unidentifiable phantom bodies lurched through the smoke, emerging from rooms, jostling and clawing in their panic to make it down the single, cramped stairway. Sobs were covered by angry demands and hoarse cries.
“Venice!” Noble grabbed the door handle and yanked it savagely. It was locked.
Connie Brockway Page 6