Texas Rose TH2 (19 page)

It was a daring act of defiance to stand in a public street talking to a fallen woman. It was even worse to offer to teach Starr the rudiments of education. Evie might never have done it had she not been desperate. But she had accomplished it with a smile and a flutter of eyelashes when confronted with David Powell's accusations, and he had fallen like a ton of bricks. The schoolteacher now had permission to lend grammar books to saloon girls.

Evie almost grinned at the thought of the stately Mr. Powell actually believing that she meant to teach Starr how to read and write and lead her to the path of righteousness. He obviously thought all women were idiots. Starr wanted to run her own bordello, and she needed the basic mechanics to do so. Evie wasn't about to stand in the way of ambition.

She looked in on Daniel one more time before slipping down the stairs. It was Friday night and the worst possible time to try to meet Starr, but she had little choice in the matter. It was early. The men from the farm and ranches surrounding the town hadn't had time to ride in yet. Starr knew Evie couldn't come at any regular times.

It might have been better if she could have sent word ahead, but Evie didn't want to give herself time to think about this. She refused to think of what was happening to her insides as anything more than an infection like gangrene that had to be stopped, but if she gave herself time to think...

She wouldn't. Slipping down an alley beside the general store, Evie clutched her package carefully under her arm. She didn't want to be a coward, but she could always fall back on the gown as her excuse for being there if she had to. But the visions of the future if she chickened out were not pleasant. Even in the books she read, women who found themselves in her condition ended up floating in the river for their sins.

Evie hurried up the rickety wooden stairs behind the saloon as Starr had instructed. Rain began to patter against the building as she did so. The rain was bound to be a good portent. It meant there weren't as many men wandering around outside the saloon as there might have been had it been a warm, dry night.

Her stomach knotted as she knocked at the door at the top of the steps. Evie refused to acknowledge what she was doing, what she was going to do. She had to see Starr. That was all she told herself as she waited for someone to answer.

The youngest saloon girl opened the door, and her face fell with disappointment at Evie's presence. But she offered no complaint as she led Evie into the private parlor that the three girls shared. It had once been the bedroom of a fourth girl, but the bed was covered now with a swath of wine-colored velvet to which someone had sewn gold tassels and added matching bolsters. It almost looked like a couch instead of a bed. Evie tried not to think of what the piece of furniture had been used for previously as she sat down on it now.

The younger girl disappeared down the hall to find Starr and didn't return with her employer.

Starr was alone and already dressed for her evening performance when she hurried in. Evie suspected the other woman's stack of golden tresses was not only artificially enhanced with lemon juice, but plumped up with a roll of fake hair. Nobody had that much hair.

Nobody should have that much bust, either, but the revealing cut of Starr's gown made it obvious that portion of her anatomy was real. Evie tried not to think of Tyler touching Starr there. She tried not to think of Tyler at all. He was gone, out of her life. He had nothing to do with anything.

"Evie! What on earth are you doing here tonight? The school board would fall flat on their faces if they saw you here now."

Every rustle of Starr's silk produced a heavy waft of perfume. Evie tried to choke back her nausea, but something must have shown in her face. Starr hurried to pour her a glass of brandy.

"Here, drink this. It will steady your nerves. I heard about your little brother. Is there something I can do?"

Starr was tall and strong and older than Evie. She would know what to do. Evie took the glass but the smell of strong spirits made her even more nauseated. She set it aside and offered up the package in her hand.

"I don't need this anymore. There's more where this came from. They were made by a couturier from Paris. They probably won't suit you, but Rose and Peachie might like them. I'm very good at alterations, if they need any."

Starr looked suspiciously from Evie to the newspaper-wrapped package she held out. Evie had dressed carefully in a gray foulard walking dress with a matching hat perched atop her intricately looped and braided chignon. She knew she looked the part of proper society matron, but inside, she felt like a frightened little girl.

With a nod, Starr opened the package and drew out the pink foam of a silk evening gown dripping in lace and ruffles with a train that would sweep the floor. She wouldn't know a Paris design if she saw one, but she knew a gown that would floor any man that encountered it. This was such a gown. And it was obviously designed for the woman waiting nervously for her response.

"You wish to sell it?" Starr asked, perhaps a little too harshly.

Evie flinched but nodded. With an offhand gesture, she tried to recover her poise. "Daniel will need a lot of doctoring. And I won't be returning to St. Louis. What use has a schoolteacher for the likes of that?" She tried to sound contemptuous.

"You have others? I can't offer this to one of the girls without having something to offer the other. I'd have war."

Evie didn't relax but nodded stiffly. "I thought the green might look good on Rose, but I couldn't carry both at once."

Starr stroked the silk thoughtfully, then impulsively took a seat. They would be having a riot downstairs if she didn't show herself soon, but Evie had gone out of her way to be kind when there wasn't a woman in town who would even look at her. There was more here than readily met the eye.

"I'll take them both." Mentally, Starr made a calculation of how much Evie and her brother would need to live on for the next month. She might never have learned arithmetic, but she knew dollars and cents. She quoted a figure that made Evie's face light.

"Now tell me why you came here tonight instead of waiting for a proper hour when there aren't a dozen men standing in line downstairs."

Evie tried to calm herself, to look Starr in the eye, and make the announcement as one woman to another. Instead, her gaze drifted off to a square, claw-legged table with a vivid scarf draped across it. She clenched her fingers and let the words tumble out of their own accord.

"I'm pregnant. I need to know what to do about it."

She heard a harsh intake of breath, and the voice that replied was heavy with scorn. "I should have known. I should have known that a proper lady and a schoolteacher wouldn't have made friends with the likes of me for nothing."

Starr rose and walked toward the door. "Bring the other dress tomorrow morning. I'll pay you then. But there'll be a charge for what you want done. I know how to do it, but you'd better think long and hard about it first. It isn't pretty, and it isn't pleasant, and you're going to regret it for a lifetime."

She slammed out.

It would have been simpler if Evie could have cried, but she couldn't. Dry-eyed, she touched her hand to the glass door knob, clenched it as if she could drain strength from it, then forced herself to open the door and walk out. She would go through with this. She had to go through with this. What difference did it make if a prostitute despised her for it?

She let herself out the side door and stumbled on the stairs in the darkness. She clutched the wooden railing and kept herself from falling, but it felt the same as if she had. She felt as if she had been delivered a solid blow to the stomach. She was going to be sick if she didn't get out of here soon.

She couldn't hurry. She had to catch up her long skirt and petticoat in one hand and maneuver the rain-slick steps while grasping the railing with the other. She was actually leaving a bordello in the dark of night after asking the inhabitants for a way to get rid of the child growing within her. She had come a long way down since leaving St. Louis and Nanny's protection. There wasn't any way her bubble of dreams could survive.

But she would fall even farther if she kept the child. She didn't have the money to do what her own mother had apparently done. She couldn't pay someone to take her bastard and hide it. She couldn't afford to raise it. There simply wasn't any other choice.

As if stifling the one other solution made it appear in person, a familiar form loomed before Evie when she stepped off the bottom stair. Tyler caught her shoulder and jerked her against him, wrapping his long canvas coat around her to keep her from the sudden cloudburst of rain.

"What in hell were you doing up there?" Tyler growled, hurrying Evie away from the sounds of a tinkling piano and male laughter and the sultry song of a woman issuing from the lighted building behind them.

"None of your business," Evie muttered through chattering teeth. Now that she had done it, set the clock in motion, she was going to fall apart. Even her knees were trembling. She was almost grateful that Tyler was holding her up. Almost. She wished he would shut up and go away. This was all his fault. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon. And she didn't like the way his arm felt wrapped around her waist. She didn't like the heat of him beneath the coat. She was going to be sick in a minute.

As if he sensed her impending collapse, Tyler pulled her into a darkened doorway. He blocked the rain with his back and let her lean against the wall. The night was too thick to see more than the paleness of her face. It had been so long since he had seen her this close that he had almost forgotten how fragile she was. She had taken the form of an unforgiving phoenix in his mind. But she was still Evie, the lovely liar who had released the beast in him.

"I can't think of any good reason for you to be in that place, Miss Peyton. You'd better start talking fast." Tyler tried to be abrupt. He really didn't want to know what she was doing up there. But instinct had kept him alive more than once, and he was overcome by a powerful instinct now. Or premonition. He wanted to shake her.

Evie whipped her head back and forth. "Go away. It's none of your business. Just go away. I'm sure Starr is waiting for you. You wouldn't want to disappoint her now, would you?"

She was recovering some of her old self, but not fast enough. Tyler waited for the lies to begin. "Starr waits for any man with money in his pockets. That's got nothing to do with this. Are you going to tell me what you were doing up there or should I begin guessing?"

"You may guess all you like. Let me by, Mr. Monteigne, or I shall scream and tell everyone that you are molesting me." Evie straightened her shoulders and stood firmly on her feet.

"Do that, Miss Peyton, and let everyone question what the new schoolmistress was doing outside a saloon on a Friday night. Since I know for a fact that you're not the type to sell your porcelain body, shall I offer a conjecture or two?"

Evie shoved at his chest, but Tyler caught her gloved fingers and pressed them tightly against his chest.

"If I'm wrong about you selling your body, forgive my stupidity. I'd pay good money to have you back in my bed. Do you have any idea how many nights I've laid awake chastising myself for not at least enjoying what you gave to me? How many times I've tried to recall all the beauty that I held in my hands and threw away?" Tyler's fingers tightened around hers as he gazed down at her bent head. Admitting these things didn't make him happy, but there was something about Evie that made him do what he didn't mean to do. "Apologizing won't make things better. Tell me what's wrong, Evie."

"You're what's wrong. Get away from me, Tyler Monteigne. Get out of my life. You've ruined me. You've ruined everything. I don't ever want to see you again."

He could hear the choked tears in her voice, and he knew instantly what was wrong. He had lived through this once before, when he had been much, much younger. A cold, clammy hand stole around Tyler's heart, but he jerked Evie into his arms and refused to let her go. She struggled, but she was a slender wraith against his greater strength. Her skirts wrapped around his legs as she tried to kick free, but he placed a hand around her bustled bottom and lifted her from the ground.

"You're pregnant, and you wanted Starr to get rid of the child." Tyler announced it firmly, as if he had been privy to the conversation that had taken place. To do anything else was to open the loopholes for her lies. He wasn't letting her lie about this. He might kill her, but he wasn't going to let her lie.

"You don't know anything!" she wept against his chest, kicking futilely in search of his shins. "Let me go. Daniel is waiting for me."

"We can just go ask Starr now, can't we?" Tyler lowered her to the boardwalk, even though his first urge was to throttle her. He could feel the violence building inside of him.

Evie jerked from his grasp and tried to escape through the small space between Tyler and the wall. He stuck his arm out and trapped her, and she stared up at him with hatred. "Go ask Starr. See if I care. You can't stop me, Mr. Monteigne. You have no claim over me at all."

Tyler felt her words like a blow to the gut, and he nearly bent double with the pain. But this was Evie, the actress. He caught her shoulder and jerked her until she glared up at him. "Tell me yes or no. Are you carrying my child?"

She looked as if she wanted to spit in his face. But it was dark out here and he figured all she could see was the shadow of his face beneath the broad-brimmed hat. He dug his fingers into her shoulder, forcing her to acknowledge he was real and not a play toy in her mind. In return, she gave him what he wanted, hit him with the blow he deserved.