Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) (4 page)

Adjusting the heavy saddlebags on his
shoulder, he followed her into a small office with an ornately
carved roll-top desk. While she got out her register and prepared a
pen, Prophet looked through the open French doors to a parlor,
where several well-dressed gentlemen and ladies were dancing to
piano music. Around a table sat several other men in business
suits, smoking pipes or cigars and reading newspapers and
magazines. Two gents looking as old as the Minnesota hills sat off
by themselves, playing checkers and scowling.

‘
Real
nice setup you have here, Mrs. Ryan.’

‘
Thank
you, Mr. Prophet,’ she said, handing him a freshly dipped pen.
‘After you’ve had your bath, you’re welcome to join us.’

Prophet snickered and, holding
the saddlebags awkwardly over his right shoulder and taking his
rifle in his left hand, stooped over the desk to sign the
register.
‘Oh, I don’t reckon I’d fit in with this bunch, ma’am.’ He
regarded her eyes, in which the light from the desk’s Rochester
lamp danced like starlight on a summer lake, and his throat
swelled. Good Lord, what a creature!

‘
Uh,
if you don’t mind me askin’,’ he said, his curiosity piqued, ‘how
did one as young and lovely as yourself come to run a boarding
house in Luther Falls?’

‘
I’m
charmed by the compliment, Mr. Prophet,’ she said, though she
didn’t look charmed. ‘My husband, Archibald Ryan, owned the first
sawmill here in Luther Falls. He was somewhat older than I, and
died two years ago—only a year after we married, I’m
afraid.’

‘
Oh,
I’m sorry, ma’am.’

She nodded solemnly.
‘This was our
house,’ she said, glancing around. ‘Can you imagine?’

Prophet wagged his head and whistled.

‘
I
certainly couldn’t have lived here alone, so I turned it into a
boarding house. I have several year-long residents.’

‘
They
look right comfortable, Mrs. Ryan.’

‘
I do
try my best.’ She turned to him and caught him staring at her. ‘The
charge is two dollars, Mr. Prophet.’

‘
F-for
wha-what?’

‘
The
room, Mr. Prophet.’

‘
Oh!’

He cleared his throat,
chagrined, and gave her enough coins to cover several nights.
Holding up a key on a gold ring, she said,
‘Your room is number
twelve.’

He accepted the key and started edging away,
feeling like a dog slung around by its own tail but reluctant to
stop feasting his eyes on this woman.

‘
Good
night, Mr. Prophet. I’ll summon Annabelle for your bath
straightaway.’

‘
Much
obliged, Mrs. Ryan.’

‘
Uh,
Mr. Prophet?’

Prophet stopped at the newel
post at the bottom of the
wide staircase and turned around. ‘Yes,
ma’am?’

She gazed at his saddlebags
with a schoolmarm
’s suspicion. ‘Did I mention there could be no consumption
of spiritous liquids on the property?’

Prophet swallowed, his right
knee quaking.
‘Yes, ma’am. You sure did.’

She smiled a smile that had no
doubt taken its toll on the men of Luther Falls.
‘See you in the
morning for breakfast at seven o’clock, Mr. Prophet.’

‘
Seven
o’clock it is, ma’am.’

‘
Sharp.’

‘
Sharp.’

At once madly in love with her
and scared to death of her, he turned and started up the stairs. He
would have turned cartwheels through the parlor if
she
’d asked
him to. No wonder her husband was dead. Married to such a
browbeating vixen, he’d probably gone mad and cut off his own head
with a rusty saw.

On the third floor, Prophet found his room,
went in, and fumbled around until he got the bracketed wall lamp
lit. Neat and comfortable, the room sported a double-sized,
four-poster bed with a canopy, an oak wardrobe, and a washstand
with a built-in cupboard and a deep porcelain bowl. The two sashed
windows were covered with heavy mauve curtains, and there was even
a writing desk upon which sat a leather-bound book, its title in
gilt lettering: WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

Prophet stood for a full minute
taking it all in. He hadn
’t stayed in a room this grand since wintering in
Denver three years before.

Shaking his head, he hung his rifle and
shotgun on the wall pegs between the two windows and dropped his
saddlebags on the bed. He tossed his hat off and sat next to the
bags, eyeing them cunningly, staring at the bulge his bottle of rye
made in the left pouch.

Should he or
shouldn
’t
he?

Guiltily, he glanced around the room, as if
there were a peephole somewhere and she were watching him.

‘
Oh,
for Chrissakes!’ he groused aloud, opening the flap and producing
the bottle. ‘She’s just a woman like any other—born to be
hornswoggled.’

He popped the cork and took a long swig, the
air bubbles rising toward the lip. He took another drink and,
feeling relaxed, kicked his boots off and scooted up against the
headboard, resting there, his eyes on the canopy as he very slowly
but surely anaesthetized himself against the wear and tear of the
trail.

He wasn
’t sure how much time had passed
before he became aware of footsteps in the hall. A loud, single
knock on the door.

‘
Yoo-hoo,’ a shrill voice sounded. ‘Bath time!’

Jesus, he
’d forgotten! His heart leaping
into his throat, Prophet slapped the cork back on the bottle and
looked around for a place to hide it. Finally slipping it under his
pillow, he got up and opened the door.

A woman very closely resembling
an Oklahoma mule skinner—her shoulders were that broad, her face
that haggard—said,
‘Bath time, Mr. Prophet,’ in a high singsong.

She pushed her way into the room, a tin tub
in one hand, a bucket of cold water in the other. While Prophet
gazed on, befuddled, she set the tub on the floor, hefted the
bucket in her big, well-muscled arms, and poured the water into the
tub.

‘
There
we go—nice and cold to start out. Gets the circulation going. Now
I’ll go down for some hot!’

With that, she waddled out of the room,
shuffling from side to side, wide shoulders working like a yoke on
a pair of contrary oxen, and disappeared, not closing the door
behind her.

Prophet stood there, staring at
the door. What was he supposed to do? Climb into that damn ice
melt? He
’d
had enough river baths. No thanks. He’d wait for some hot water to
temper the cold.

Which was what he did, inciting a
Norwegian-laced tongue-lashing from the beast known as Annabelle.
He smoothed her feathers, however, by offering a silver dollar
gratuity in return for as much skin-peeling hot water as he could
take and the tub could hold.

Then he locked the door behind
the retreating Anna-belle, climbed into the tub, his skin reddening
instantly, and sat there in the steaming suds for close to an hour,
sipping from his bottle on the floor. All he wanted now was a
cigar, but he guessed he could do without, under the circumstances.
He certainly didn
’t want another surprise visit from Annabelle, who could no
doubt inflict some serious damage with those maul-like fists of
hers.

And then there was Mrs. Ryan
... Cordelia. If she found him smoking in here, let alone drinking,
she
’d sure
as grit in a sandstorm throw him out with his horse. But it was
nice to think about her... the way her eyes sparkled and the way
her full bosom heaved under all that velvet and lace.

He was sound asleep and
dreaming about her beneath two quilts and the softest, cleanest
sheet he
’d
ever experienced, when he awoke to a creaking sound in the hall.
Then there was a tinny clicking, as though someone were trying to
unlock his door.

Shit!

He reached for his gun on the
bedpost, but it wasn
’t there. He’d gotten careless and left his gunbelt on one
of the pegs across the room.

Shit!

‘
Who
the hell is it?’ he asked as he heard the door squeak open in the
darkness, instinctively expecting a bullet.

‘
Sh.’

‘
What?’

‘
Be
quiet. It’s Cordelia.’

‘
What
is it?’

He heard the door squeak shut and softly
latch. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a figure move
toward him, heard the sibilant sound of rustling silk. Smelled
laurel in full bloom....

The figure moved toward him and
stopped beside the bed.
‘You’ve been drinking. I can smell the
whiskey.’

His heart pounded and his head
swam.
‘Uh ..
.’

‘
Your
punishment is you must make love to me.’

He heard the cloth moving again, and then he
saw her figure before him, the dim light from the window revealing
proud, delicate shoulders thrust back behind heavy breasts, the
dark nipples staring him down like a pair of .44s.

His pulse throbbed in his throat. There was
a low humming in his head. His throat had gone dry as the Sahara
during a sandstorm.

She reached down, found his
hand, and brought it to her breast.
‘You want to. I know you do. I saw the way
you looked at me earlier.’

‘
Sorry
. .. I...’

‘
I
haven’t had a man in two years, Mr. Prophet.’

He didn
’t know what to say to that. He
rubbed his thumb around on her nipple, which quickly grew erect
beneath his touch. She looked down at it, saying, ‘I’ve never met a
man here I wanted to be with ... as much as I wanted to be with you
as soon as I saw you.’

He could hear her breath
quicken as he worked at her nipple. She brought both her hands to
his, cupping it and her breast both,
‘You mustn’t tell a soul.
Promise?’

‘
I
promise.’

‘
Slide
over.’

He slid over.

‘
Tell
me one thing,’ he said, running his hand down her impossibly smooth
thigh. ‘Am I dreaming?’

She laughed huskily and bit his lip, pushing
him back on the bed.

THE NEXT MORNING, Prophet woke to the sounds
of someone shuffling about the room. He turned his head on the
pillow and opened his eyes.

Pale dawn light seeped around the edges of
the curtains. In the smoky dusk of the room, Cordelia held her silk
wrapper out before her, tossing it around to find the front. Her
breasts jiggled as she did so, and Prophet groaned with desire.

‘
Where
. . . where you going?’ he asked her.

‘
Well,
good morning,’ she said cheerfully.

She drew the wrapper on and sat
on the edge of the bed, leaning down and kissing
Prophet
’s
lips, running a rough hand through his hair. Her wrapper yawned
open, exposing her breasts, and Prophet took them in his calloused
palms, fondling them gently and kissing each nipple in
turn.

‘
It’s
early,’ he said, his voice muffled by her bosom.

‘
I
have to go down and help Annabelle with breakfast,’ she said,
making soft sounds of delight as he buried his nose in her
cleavage.

‘
Come
back to bed,’ he urged.

‘
I
can’t,’ she laughed, drawing her wrapper closed and pulling away.
‘But I’ll be back again tonight—you can bet your boots on
that!’

Prophet grinned and smacked his lips at the
prospect, watching her lithe form fairly float to the door, her
long black hair rippling down her slender back.

‘
Oh,
Lou?’ she said, turning around.

‘
Yes,
my pet?’

‘
What
are your plans for the day?’

‘
Don’t
have any,’ Prophet said, stretching luxuriously.

‘
Then
would you mind—? Oh, I hate to ask this.’

He lifted his head from the
pillow.
‘Ask
what?’

She thought for a moment, then
shook her head.
‘No, I can’t.’ She started twisting the
doorknob.

Prophet pushed up on an
elbow.
‘What
is it, Cordelia?’

She stopped again and turned to
face him.
‘Well... I was just wondering... You see, the man I had
taking caring of chores around here is laid up with a kidney
ailment, and ...’

‘
And
you need something done. What?’

‘
Oh,
Lou, what will you think of me, asking a favor after we’ve . . . ?’
She let the sentence trail off and drew her shoulders together,
bunching her breasts.