An Irresistible Temptation (12 page)

Sophie and Carling held hands and moved
determinedly forward. At first, they dared not slow down for fear
of being swept into one of the seedier looking establishments, each
with a barker calling out the evening’s entertainment. Finally,
Sophie grabbed Carling into the nearest doorway.

“What are you doing?” Carling hissed, as a
man bumped into her, paused, eyed her up and down and then tipped
his hat. “Get on with you.” Carling turned her back.

“I decided we’d better jump in somewhere or
we’d end up in the bay. Besides, I hear music.”

Gripping each other more closely, they went
inside, astonished at the paintings of naked women that adorned the
walls. There was music, indeed, a small orchestra, but it was
definitely not the main attraction. Most of the patrons were men
and they were staring at a stage that contained dancing girls in
various stages of undress.

“Good God,” Sophie murmured.

“Too right,” Carling said. “I think we should
leave.”

“Wait,” Sophie murmured as the audience burst
into applause, cheers, and loud whistling. On the stage appeared a
woman in a large headdress, spangle-covered short corset above
which her nipples protruded, and see-though Turkish pants. A barker
on the street behind them yelled, “Just in time, folks, step in.
See Little Egypt and her exotic dance.”

“Hey, you.” They both turned as one to the
nearest table. A man their own age sat there, his tie undone, his
eyes glazed with alcohol. “Pretty girls. Take it off.”

“I beg your pardon.” Carling had her hands on
her hips.

“No begging, darling. Take off your
clothes.”

“Why, you!” Carling started to swing her
purse at the man’s head. Grabbing her hand, Sophie pulled her back
outside. The pleasant effect of their earlier wine had left her and
she was starting to feel a needling of fear. The next place they
went in was more of a gambling den, but still, scantily clad women
were everywhere. This time, it was Sophie who was accosted, as a
young man, evidently in his cups, tried to pull her toward a
staircase, with the offer of an “extra 50 cents” if she spanked
him. Carling dragged her out of his clutches just as he passed out
on the stairs.

“Are you ready to go home?” Carling
demanded.

“It sounded better when Riley described it,”
Sophie confessed, as they moved along the street. “I thought it
would be more the atmosphere of a fair.”

Right then, Sophie got jostled again. “I
think I’ve had a man’s hand on about every part of my body,” she
said. “Let’s cross over.”

Across the street, from inside the blatantly
titled Ye Olde Whore Shop, music blared out.

“A steam piano,” Sophie said, wanting to poke
her head in but Carling held her back. Next door was The Living
Flea, equally loud. But as they approached The Dew Drop Inn and saw
the vulgarly erotic signs and the naked women hanging out of the
upper stories, Sophie’s footsteps faltered.

“I give up,” she said to Carling. “If we’re
not careful, we’ll end up in an opium den. This is definitely men’s
entertainment.”

With that, she was grabbed from behind and
hauled inside. Her last view of Carling was her horrified face as
two men blocked the entrance so she couldn’t get past.

“Unhand me, at once.”

“Virgin or not, senorita?”

“How dare you!” Sophie tried to keep her
voice from trembling, stamping her foot for good measure. At last,
she was released and turned to see a Mexican man with a gold tooth,
smiling broadly.

“We don’t have to discuss anything. Strip and
I’ll see if you’re worth keeping.”

“I’m leaving.”

“I pay well. Twenty dollars a week and I
provide clothing.” He gestured over his shoulder and she couldn’t
help but look, staring in fascinated horror at five women dressed
in red jackets and black stockings, and nothing else. Each was with
a man, some sat on a man’s lap and some were pressed against the
wall. Each had the man’s hands or mouth on them in some fashion.
And one couple was in the middle of the act, itself, lying across a
round table.

She edged backward, coming up against one of
the men who blocked the entrance. Was Carling still outside, trying
to get in?

Gold-Tooth was laughing. “You’d look good
like that, senorita.” He crossed his arms, considering her. Then he
reached out to her, pushing her jacket aside in a quick motion and
palming her breast. She gasped and smacked his hand away, pulling
her coat tightly around her and crossing her arms. It was then she
realized that her purse was gone, no longer dangling from her
wrist. She felt a tendril of despair curl through her.
How had
this night gone so terribly wrong?

“So, virgin or not? I have a special room if
you’re a virgin. You can service customers in there for a few weeks
for top dollar, then come back down here.”

Sophie didn’t even try to understand how
anyone could service men and be in the “virgin” room for a few
weeks.

“I’m leaving,” she said again firmly. “If you
don’t let me go, I’ll . . . My brother is a lawyer,” she finished
lamely.

The man considered her, not appearing too
worried, but then he shrugged.

“Fine, but maybe you regret it sometime soon,
eh?” He looked past her. “Pedro, Juan, let the ‘lady’ leave. Give
her some help.”

They parted in front of her. “No, that’s not
necess—”

With a hard shove against her back, she was
flying out onto the dark street. The last thing she remembered was
throwing her hands out in front of her as she crashed down on the
pavement.

*****

Sophie came to in a strange place; it was
very bright, causing her to close her eyes again. She could hear
the echoing voices of people who seemed far away. She was confused
and she hurt, both her head and her hands and her knees, and she
had no idea where she was or why. She didn’t want to speak because
her mouth felt so dry, so she settled for making a sound, somewhere
between and moan and a sigh.

Immediately, she heard a scuffling sound and
opened her eyes again. To her astonishment, it was Riley Dalcourt
looking down at her.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, showing her his
dimple.

She was too confused to answer. Maybe she was
dreaming, but she didn’t usually feel such discomfort in her
dreams.

“Water,” she whispered.

He turned away and then back in an instant
with a glass of water. He lifted her head slightly off the pillow
and helped her to take a sip. It wasn’t very cold, but she was
extremely grateful. From this position, she could see two nurses
with their long white aprons covering their puffy-sleeved gowns,
walking the length of the long room. They hardly made a sound on
the spotless wooden floor.

Sophie was sure, after her thirst was
quenched, that she’d be able to think clearly again. She lifted her
right hand to take the glass from him and saw the bandages.

“Oh,” she gasped in distress, swiftly lifting
her other hand, which she saw was not bandaged. She curled and
uncurled her fingers and realized her palm was only scraped. Her
right hand, however, was completely immobilized. She felt her pulse
race as panic whipped her heartbeat to a rapid trot.

“What happened?” she asked, hearing her own
high tone of fear.

He pulled up a chair beside the bed. It was
strange to see him there, with his smoothly combed hair, his
clothes spotless, looking every bit the city doctor. And no trace
of a cowboy at all. He was calm and professional, as he told her,
“I think you were robbed.”

Breathing deeply, she attempted to calm down.
Then she frowned, vaguely recollecting falling to the pavement and
a flash of pain. Or was it the other way around?

“I was pushed,” she said, after a moment’s
consideration.

“Your friend, Carling Rilkers, brought you
in.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

No wonder everything ached. “Is Carling all
right?” Their evening was coming back to her, beginning with too
much wine and ending with her in a . . .

“Miss Rilkers was unhurt, but she’s very
worried. I’ll let her know in a minute that you’re awake.”

Oh, she was awake, and everything was coming
back to her as fast as Mercury’s winged feet. Did Riley know where
she’d been? Why did that matter? After all, she was not his
business. She went to brush her hair off her face and froze at the
sight of her bandaged hand.
God her wits were dim today
. If
Carling was fine, then the next most important thing was her hand.
But the question she wanted to ask was sticking in her throat.
Instead, she formed the next most reasonable question:

“Where am I exactly?” She turned her head
back and forth. She was in a ward, obviously, with beds lining two
walls and many large windows. She could see a fireplace near her,
but it wasn’t lit. She couldn’t see the other patients, only one of
the nurses who’d stopped at a bed farther down the room. And she
wrinkled her nose at the smell of some disinfectant cleaner.

“You’re at City-County Hospital. It’s the
best hospital in San Francisco. We use surgical gloves,” he paused
and pulled a pair out of his coat pocket and waggled them at her
before shoving them away, “and carbolic acid as antiseptic. We even
have our own nursing school, and you might be impressed to know
there are women doctors here. Doctor Finley, one of my professors,
worked on your hand, but he’s a he.”

She jumped at the mention of her hand and
irrationally felt tears well in her eyes. She had to ask him.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing too bad,” he said, seeing her
distress. Then, gently, he added, “But two fingers are broken.”

The blood drained from her head, causing the
room to tilt. She was glad she was already lying down.

“And my head?” She heard her voice
quiver.

“Well, you had quite a knock on it, but your
pupils are dilating and constricting, in turn, and you’re speaking
quite normally to me. All signs are good, though I’d like to see
you on your feet and taking a few steps.”

Sophie didn’t feel like standing up. But she
realized she had to use the bathroom.

“Nurse,” Riley called out to one of the women
to assist her.

Minutes later, Sophie was looking at herself
in a small mirror in a bathroom in one corner of the ward, with the
nurse holding her arm and Riley right outside the door. Her
forehead was bandaged, her chin was scraped, and her face was pale.
Her hair looked like a bird’s nest. All in all, not good, she
thought, not with the man she . . . she cared about seeing her in
all her hideous glory.

With her good hand, she felt her forehead
under the white bandage. Apparently, an egg was in the nest, though
a small one.

“Don’t touch it, dear,” the nurse said.

Sophie sighed. She wanted to lie down again.
She wanted to sleep and wake up to find this was all a dream.

“How are you doing in there?” came Riley’s
voice through the door.

She ought to be embarrassed, but after all,
he was almost a doctor. Sophie smiled at the nurse. “I’m
ready.”

“We’re coming out,” the nurse said, then more
quietly to Sophie, “That young man hasn’t left your side for hours.
Mr. Dalcourt is very popular here, not to mention skilled, and
we’re looking forward to his becoming a full-time attending
physician.”

With her good hand, Sophie wrapped the
hospital robe around the white unfamiliar nightshirt she wore,
wondering fleetingly who had removed the gown she’d been wearing
the night before, and then allowed the nurse to tie the belt at her
waist.

“Feeling steady?” Riley asked as they
emerged.

“Enough, I suppose.” Sophie said.

After he dismissed the nurse with a word of
gratitude, he held her elbow for the walk back down the ward to her
bed. She even let him make her comfortable against the pillows, all
the while looking at the planes of his handsome face and the way
his shirt stretched over his chest, while he made the gentlest of
movements. She was certain he was doing the nurse’s job and not the
usual practice of a doctor or a medical student. Then he caught her
watching him and he smiled.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“Not really,” she said truthfully. “Didn’t
Carling tell you?”

“Just that you were out.” He narrowed his
eyes. “What is it that neither of you want to say? Sophie, what
were you doing?”

“Exploring the city,” she hedged.

“At nearly midnight!” His eyes darkened with
understanding. “Why, the only places open are gambling dens and
brothels.”

“Mm.” She feigned interest in the
ceiling.

“Christ, Sophie. Tell me what you were
doing.”

“I wanted to see the Barbary Coast, all
right?”

He made a sound that was a cross between
anger and exasperation.

“To be precise,” she said, “I believe I ended
up in the red light district.”

He looked at her as though she had lost her
wits entirely. “Do you know that women have gone missing from that
area? Don’t you read the papers? Kidnapped for the purpose of
enforced prostitution.”

“For your information, I was approached with
such a proposition and, as you can see, I made it out alive.” She
spread her hands and caught sight of her bandages again, promptly
bursting in to tears. Suddenly, all the fear she’d felt the night
before rose up and choked her throat. She was so lucky to be lying
in a clean hospital bed with Riley by her side. She could be held
captive in . . . in the virgin room. All the horridness came
flooding back, but now Riley was putting his arms around her.

He gave her the briefest of consoling hugs,
then pulled back to look at her, his gaze hard and direct, while
she used the bedsheet to wipe her tears.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Sophie. What
you did last night is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.
I think you realize that now, and will never, ever go there again.
Am I correct?”