This, however, wasn’t the time or the place, and Venice wasn’t the sort of woman who made syrupy confessions as, she suspected, neither was Katie.
But there were other ways to acknowledge Katie’s friendship. Lifting her chin, Venice surveyed the roomful of waiting men. Summoning up every ounce of her charm, she turned her most potent smile on the group. Sighs of pleasure whistled through the room.
“Gentlemen,” Venice called out gaily, “please take down that rope and pull your chairs nearer so that our dinner together might be a more intimate occasion.”
With a roar of delight, the men complied.
It was after midnight, but Cassius knew he wouldn’t be getting to sleep for some time. He was hot and heavy and uncomfortable, like every man who attended Reverend Niss’s revival. Damn! The things Fifi LaPalma had “confessed” to the huge crowd of men were even more lurid than his own fertile imagination could conjure. And Fifi had described them explicitly.
He was going to have to find a woman. It shouldn’t be too hard.
Apparently, all the whores in town made “donations” to Niss in order to stand outside the saloon, ostensibly to “hear the word.” They disappeared with the men as soon as the performance broke up and earned more in that one night than most did in a month. If they didn’t pay up, several of the “brothers” who traveled with Niss saw to it that their evil influence was removed from the immediate vicinity.
Cassius had almost skipped Niss’s performance, sure McCaneaghy would be there. A careful review of the room had shown he wasn’t. Cassius had always assumed McCaneaghy had maintained his repulsively spotless reputation at Yale by running to mongrel bitches, not being able to afford the pedigreed courtesans most of Yale’s student elite enjoyed. But maybe Noble was a bloodless eunuch. Or maybe he was just getting a little something from someone else. Like Venice Leiland.
The thought infuriated Cassius. She couldn’t be lying beneath the likes of him. But Cassius had seen the alacrity with which she’d sprung to McCaneaghy’s defense this afternoon.
For months in New York, Cassius had chased after Venice Leiland, indulging her every whim. He’d even borrowed money in order to follow her out here, sure she’d be impressed by his devotion and adventurous spirit, as well as thankful for his urbane company.
Instead, he’d found her fawning over the rough, uncouth Noble McCaneaghy. Well, Cassius swore, he was going to turn the situation back to his advantage. Somehow, the Leiland fortune would be at his disposal. He just had to figure out how.
Chapter 9
Noble was gone. Venice had watched him leave hours ago, as the dawn sky filled with mauve-colored clouds. She’d thought the promise of money, and maybe even some leftover fondness for her, would be able to keep him here. But she’d been wrong.
Well, it wasn’t going to do her any good standing around feeling as though she’d been abandoned by her dearest friend. He was a complete stranger to her now. A stranger with the smile of a saint, the touch of the devil, and the visage of a Celtic deity, but a stranger nonetheless.
She made herself smile at young Blaine Farley. He looked as awful as she felt. “Are you all right, Mr. Farley?” she asked. Blaine nodded, his bloodshot eyes glazing over slightly with the movement of his head.
“Jes’ fine, ma’am.” His tone didn’t convince her. “Where’d you want this trestle?” He pointed at the big plank table he’d dragged out of Herman’s Funeral Parlor and Barber Shop.
“If you’re certain you’re up to it, you can place it over there,” Venice said, pointing toward a grassy area nearby.
Wordlessly, Blaine set about dragging the table toward where other men were setting up various tents, booths, and kiosks.
She looked around her. The meadow behind the Gold Dust had been transformed. Striped tents flanked a central area where dozens of tables were set up. Men were busily stringing hundreds of the colorful Chinese lanterns Harry Grundy had found moldering in a corner of the storeroom.
One of the saloon girls was helping another tote an enormous basket of potatoes toward a kettle suspended from a tripod. For some reason, the “calico gals” of Salvage were in amazingly good moods and in rare charity with one another. They scurried about, their striped corsets, filmy wrappers, and vividly colored dresses flashing here and there as they prepared food for hundreds.
With so many people working so hard to make the party a success, Venice would be damned if she’d let thoughts of Noble McCaneaghy interfere with her social duties. She had some charming to do and by God, she was going to do it! It was just fatigue that made her eyes feel so gritty and watery, she told herself.
Yesterday’s encounter between Cassius and Noble still haunted her. She had never before realized just how sheltered her life had been. For the first time she had seen one man strike another in anger.
She could still hear the awful, dull thwack of Cassius’s fist hitting solid flesh and Noble’s gasp of pain. But far more shocking than the actual blows had been Noble’s reaction. He had acted as though such fights were a common, everyday occurrence.
Now, finally, Venice had evidence for what her father had always declared; Noble lived by a code she was only dimly aware of. That knowledge unnerved her.
How could she be attracted to a man who was so completely alien to her? And she definitely was attracted. There was no denying the frission of excitement he invoked with his slow drawl and his lightning-laced touch. Perhaps it was just as well he was gone.
But it didn’t feel that way.
“Miz Leiland!” Tim Gilpin hailed her as he jogged up, his florid face shiny with perspiration. “Your shipment is in!”
“It is?”
“Yes, ma’am! It just arrived. Five boxes with your name plastered all over the sides,” Tim said, leaning over and bracing his meaty hands on his thighs as he puffed. “I had some of the boys set ‘em out back of the loading platform. What’s wrong, Miss Leiland? You don’t look very happy”
“Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Gilpin. Of course, I’m delighted with the news,” Venice said. “I just wish Mr. McCaneaghy were here to enjoy the party.”
“Why?” Tim scowled.
She was too distracted to take offense at his belligerent tone. “Mr. McCaneaghy and I knew each other back East.”
“Oh?”
She didn’t elaborate.
“Small world,” Tim grumbled. “Well, Noble isn’t gone. I just saw him down at the station, not ten minutes ago.”
A swift, potent tingle of pleasure rushed through Venice. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s wonderful! Oh, this is grand news, Mr. Gilpin.”
“From the way you’re grinning, I’d say it was a far cry better than grand,” Tim said slowly.
Venice laughed. “Oh, dear me, sir! This is most, most felicitous!” Venice grabbed hold of Tim’s hands. “Thank you!”
“Congratulations,” Tim said dryly.
“Mr. Farley!” shouted Venice. Blaine looked up from the pleated paper skirt he was nailing to a nearby table. “Mr. Farley, would you be so kind as to do me a service?”
He snapped to attention. “Anythin’ you want, I’ll git, Miz Leiland. You want money, I’ll become a millionaire. You want water from the ocean, I’m off this minute. You want snow from the North Pole, I’m—”
“Nothing so taxing, Mr. Farley;” she said. “Please, ask some of the men to go down to the station to pick up the goods I’ve had shipped up for the party.” She paused. “But wait a while, please.”
“You got it, ma’am.”
Venice knelt in the center of the railway station platform, the crowbar she’d finagled from the station attendant in hand. Four of the five boxes addressed to her had been opened, their contents carefully inspected and returned to their crates.
Noble, one shoulder braced against the wall in studied nonchalance, poked through the nearest open crate with his toe. Wine bottles. A whole crate full. He looked over at Venice. She must have felt his gaze
for she looked up, bestowing another dazzling smile on him. Noble pressed his lips tightly together, trying not to answer her siren’s call.
After yesterday, he’d needed time to think, so he’d wandered up and taken some last-minute measurements of a creek north of town. He’d returned to the train station to ship this last bit of data back East and was just about to leave when Venice had come sailing in.
He’d braced himself to face yesterday’s termagant, but instead she’d been all winsome smiles. She was unpredictable, and it was driving him loco. He couldn’t figure it. Yesterday Venice had been ready to skin him . . . and he couldn’t really blame her. But laughing at her manufactured tears had allowed him a few minutes of blessed reprieve from the potent attraction he felt toward her.
His threat to leave Salvage had never been more than bravado, or wishful thinking. He wouldn’t trust anyone to watch over Venice. Anyone, that is, except himself. Certainly not Cassius Reed.
Though God knows they certainly suited each other. They were from the same class, the same background. They probably had the same friends. Yeah, old Cassius might be an ass, but he was definitely a better mate for Venice than—
Better mate? Where the hell had that word come from? Noble thought. He spat out the wood splinter he’d been rolling around in his mouth and scowled furiously. You get your head on straight here, boyo. Venice Leiland isn’t for the likes of you. Never was, never will be.
Unwillingly his gaze slid to where she knelt. There were smudges on her white shirtwaist. Her skirts were a pile of lace petticoats, ruched hem, and silk ruffles around her slender calves. Forcing the iron crowbar twixt the lid and lip of the last crate, she pried it open.
A pile of cedar wood curls filled the box. Venice frowned.
“I don’t remember ordering anything that would need to be packed in wood shavings,” she murmured. “In fact, I don’t remember ordering a fifth box at all.” She leaned over, tilting her head to read the label. “That’s my name, though. Odd.”
She straightened and dished handfuls of wood onto the floor. More followed, and more, until she sat amidst a large pile of shavings. The fragrant cedar entangled in her hair, caught in the nap of her skirt, and clung to her bodice. She looked too damn appealing.
With a snort of self-contempt, he turned and walked to the doorway, his hand clamping above the door frame. He stared, unseeing, into the street. He could hear her behind him. The aroma of wood mixed with whatever perfume she was wearing: fresh mountain glen and purchased sensuality. The two scents should have warred with each other but didn’t. Instead, the combined fragrance was powerful, alluring, quixotic, and arresting. Like her.
“Oh, God!” Venice gasped in a low voice. Noble’s head snapped around. She had sunk back on the floor, her hands pressed to her chest. Instantly, he was beside her, pulling her up, enfolding her in his arms.
She clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder.
“What’s wrong? Venice, what is it?”
“In the crate.”
Still holding her pressed to his side, he released one arm from around her and bent forward, rummaging amongst the wood shavings. Something cool, smooth, and hard curved beneath his fingers. Impatiently, he brushed more wood away. White bones gleamed in close-fitting half-spirals. A skeletal rib cage.
With his free hand, Noble reached down and tugged. Half a skeleton appeared. Curiously, Noble pulled the rest of it up. With a sound of disgust, he dropped it back into the crate.
Someone had bolted an antelope’s horn to the skull of what looked like a coyote or a bush fox. There was something grisly, something singularly unpleasant, in the idea of putting together mismatched parts of dead animals. It was more than unnatural; it was gruesome.
Venice made an unintelligible sound, burrowing her face against his throat.
“Why are you holdin’ on to Miz Leiland like that?” Blaine Farley demanded.
Noble swore.
Blaine Farley stood in the doorway, indignation and jealousy burning in his eyes.
Hot-headed young fool, thought Noble. Halfheartedly, he started to pull Venice’s arms from around his shoulders. She wouldn’t let go and Noble, never having been able to deny Venice anything, found to his utter self-loathing that he wasn’t about to start now. He settled his own arms firmly around her back and pressed her closer still, glowering at the red-faced boy quivering with outrage in the doorway.
“If you even lift your hands, I’m gonna kill you, Blaine,” Noble promised.
“Step away from her!” Blaine demanded. As if in answer, Venice’s arms tightened around Noble.
“Listen, Blaine,” Noble said, determined to keep his patience, “someone sent Miss Leiland some sort of thing. It scared her. That’s all.”
Blaine’s stance lost some of its belligerence. What had the crazy kid been thinking? That Noble was going to take advantage of the situation? Not that he wasn’t capable of it, he jeered at himself, but in a railway station? Come on, he had a little more decorum than that.
Noble’s voice cracked like a whip in the quiet room. “That is the last time I ever explain anything regarding Venice Leiland and myself to anyone. Next time someone decides to play knight errant, I’ll see he earns the title. I’ll flamin’ fry him! Is that clear?”
The boy gulped. “I’m sorry, Noble. But I come in and see you and her and I—”
“Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now, get out of here and find that worthless station attendant and ask him who delivered this crate and when. Do it. Now!” Without another sound, Blaine scooted out of the station.
“What is it, darlin’?” Noble asked, stroking the silky tendrils falling across her forehead. “Why does this hoax bother you so much?”
She looked up at him. Silver-eyed Mab. Black-haired, white-skinned changeling.
“It happened before. A few days ago. Someone buried a mouse with a bird’s skull wired to it and then pitched pebbles at me to lead me to it. I thought children might be responsible, but there aren’t many children in Salvage. And where would a child find the wherewithal to bolt something like this together?”
“Not everyone who’d think something like this is funny is a child,” Noble said. “I know you, Venice. You might not like it, but a couple mismatched animal parts aren’t enough to scare you. Not the kid who used to beg her Uncle Milton for snake-skins and deer skulls.”
She didn’t say a word, just laid her head against his throat.
“Venice, honey. Tell me.”
She nodded. “It’s stupid, really.”
“Honey, I am as familiar with stupid as a priest is with catechism.”
She laughed softly, the air escaping her lips caressing his throat. His arms tightened around her.
“Promise not to laugh?” she asked.
“No,” he said solemnly.
“You were a merciless boy, Noble McCaneaghy, and you’ve become a merciless man.”
“Just an honest one. Talk.”
“Last winter, I was in the Amazon. A tribe of local hunters approached the camp. One of their children was very ill and they’d heard we had potent medicines. All we really had was some laudanum, which we gladly shared. Apparently, it enabled the boy to get some much-needed sleep. Nature did the rest.”
“Yes?” Noble prompted.
“Their medicine man proclaimed me a great magician. Noble, I didn’t even administer the laudanum. It was our guide. Unfortunately the guide was a local man. Since I, however, was safely on my way out of the area, never to return, I presented no threat to the medicine man’s authority.” Venice’s tone was sardonic.
“For saving the boy’s life or, as I suspect, more for leaving, he gave me a necklace made of the tiny knuckle bones of a baboon.”
“Interesting taste in jewelry, Venice.”
“Oh, I never intended to wear it. I just didn’t want to be rude and not accept it. But this spring, I was invited to an adventurers’ ball. On a
lark, I wore the necklace.”
“I see you outgrew your impulsiveness along with crying when you didn’t get your way,” he teased gently.
He felt her lips form a smile against his throat.
“No one told me the press had been invited.” The chill in Venice’s voice proclaimed how she felt about this oversight. “The next morning the newspapers, all of the newspapers, printed stories about ‘Venice’s Headhunters Give Her Chain of Human Bones.’ Trash. Pure, unmitigated trash. Unfortunately, a religious sect believed it. They decided I was a godless pagan. Since then, they’ve sent me things, as a reminder of my depravity.”
“Your depravity?”
“Yes. It would be laughable if the things they sent weren’t so ghastly.”
If he hadn’t been holding her he wouldn’t have noticed the tiny tremor that shook her. “In what way?”
“Ugly things. This” —she pointed at the skeleton— “brought it all back.”
Noble could just about guess what some of those ugly things were. A history of horror remained unvoiced behind her simple account.
“And Trevor? Where was he when you were being hounded?”
Surprise registered in Venice’s voice. “What could he have done? We tried, and were successful, in keeping the incidents involving this sect from the press. Father was on the first leg of his campaign. If the press had gotten word of those . . . things, the results would have been disastrous for his political career.”
Had she been afraid whenever a package arrived? Noble wondered. Had anyone been there to hold her? To tell her not to worry? Had anyone even bothered to keep the damned packages away from her?
“His career?” Noble demanded angrily. “What about you, Venice?”
She pulled slightly away from him, amazement in her expression. Her shaking had subsided. The color was returning slowly to her face. Still, she made no move to step further away from him.
He nearly groaned. What was he supposed to do with her, looking at him like that? With her breath, sweet and warm, fanning his chin? Was he supposed to be a gentleman and release her? Hell, he’d never pretended to be a gentleman. He wasn’t going to start now. Most especially not now.
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