The Bride Wore Blue (23 page)

The last word came out on a whisper but seemed to echo off the wallpapered ceiling. Pouring drinks, delivering cigars, and serving fruit compote and sandwiches was one thing. Vivian hadn’t allowed herself to think about the other.

“You can’t have really expected to remain a mere hostess.” Miss Pearl pulled a toilet water decanter from her dressing table and gave her mostly bare chest a spritz. “The other three girls work the downstairs and the upstairs, and I expect you to do the same.”

Vivian pressed a hand to her roiling stomach.

“If you want to keep your job,” Miss Pearl said, “you will entertain upstairs.”

Vivian had tried to find work elsewhere … everywhere. Unless she was willing to throw herself on the mercy of her sisters, she had to keep this job. She swallowed hard. “I do want to keep my job, ma’am.”

“That’s more like it.” Miss Pearl returned the spritzer to her dressing table.

Vivian had a pretty good idea who the special request had come from, and he seemed nice enough. He’d been showering her with attention since she’d started. “The young man from the card game?”

“No, although he may be next in line.”

“A line?”

Miss Pearl let out a laugh that defied her queenly attire and shooed Vivian toward the door. “I’ll be down in a few minutes and introduce you to him at the party.”

Nodding, Vivian shut the door behind her, the click rattling her to the core. She forced her quaking knees to carry her down the stairs.
Being here and working upstairs wasn’t what made her a soiled dove, she reminded herself. This was merely a paying job. The damage had been done long before she’d stepped foot in this town.

The man who’d requested her tonight was no different than Gregory.

At the parlor door, Vivian glanced at the ornate grandfather clock in the corner. Half past five. She still had time before the guests arrived. Time to at least try to settle her stomach.

A smorgasbord of smells assaulted her as she entered the kitchen, a beehive of activity. Roasted pork, fresh-baked breads, peach desserts—most likely with too fancy a name for her to pronounce. She’d never seen so much food in her life. And she didn’t feel like eating even a bite of it. The colorful display took her back to the family house in Portland and Tilly’s Sunday spreads—the way it was before her family separated.

Mary looked up from the center counter, where she prepared a tray of raspberry puffs. “Why, Miss Violet, you look mighty pretty, you do.”

“Thank you. I thought if it wasn’t too much trouble I’d have a cup of tea before the party.”

“No trouble at all. Betts has some steeping.”

Betts wiped her hands on her apron and pulled a cup from the cupboard. “I’ll have your tea for you in two shakes.”

Vivian took a small step toward the stove. “I prefer my tea without brandy, Betts.”

Mary’s laugh was easy and infectious.

“Yes miss.” Betts grinned. “I prefer mine with a little whiskey, myself.”

A knock sounded on the kitchen door, and Mary looked down at her gooey hands. “Would you get that for me?”

Nodding, Vivian pinched her skirt on one side and swished across the room. She opened the door. A mountainous man the color of cast iron stood in front of her, holding a big block of ice.

“Much obliged, ma’am.”

Vivian couldn’t move words past the lump in her throat. Thankful for her painted face and the pesky wig, she dipped her chin and turned her face away from Otis Bernard, the man whose son had told jokes at Miss Hattie’s birthday party.

Was there no one in this town who didn’t frequent this place for one reason or another?

Carter had taken refuge from the coolness of the night—and from sight of the passersby—behind a wagon, where he had Liberty tied to a post just in case he needed his horse. Every few minutes, he walked across the street and made another lap around the Homestead House. Was this how Moses felt at Mount Sinai, like he was going in circles with no end in sight?

Carter had watched while one dapper-looking man after another darkened the door of the sporting parlor. The bowler hats and dandy suits all blended together.

While he expected the bandits to make a stupid mistake, he didn’t expect to see Leon Kelso, the fellow who bought the horse from Pearl, stroll up to the front door. Nor did he expect Pickett to walk up, show Carter his scarred face, and turn himself in. Carter couldn’t say what the mistake might be, but he had to be ready. And if Miss Pearl was important to Kelso, it was more likely he’d be here
for the big party than in a saloon tonight. Carter had seen many a man fall for the promise of a prostitute’s love.

For the past hour, he’d seen no one come or go. The house glowed with electric lighting, and the windows offered silhouettes of those wining and dining inside. Pearl DeVere knew how to endear herself to the influential. Donations to the widows and orphans. Baseball uniforms for the boys in town. Extravagant parties with enough food to impress the pharaohs.

Stringed instruments began to play a gentle waltz, and the sound of voices softened. The madam was known for many things, including her love of live music. And as the shadows began to spin in time with the music, Carter couldn’t help noting that he hadn’t been to a dance since his father died. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done socially the past several years, in fact, outside of an occasional meal at the Raines’s home. Witnessing Vivian Sinclair’s tears in the kitchen that Sunday nearly three weeks ago and holding her hands for mere seconds hardly counted for courtship.

He tugged the collar on his jacket tight and buttoned it. August in Colorado was as unpredictable as the women. Once the sun dropped below the Sangre de Cristos, a damp coldness swept through the night air. Carter breathed into his hands to warm his face. The scent of impending rain filled his nostrils. An hour ago, he’d thought about going home and getting the gloves he’d forgotten, but that would likely be the time Pearl DeVere walked out on the arm of a man he didn’t recognize. Perhaps a man wearing a belt buckle with a racehorse on it.

Nothing had ever been that easy for Carter, but he had to hope for a break, and he’d rather it happened in town than out on a wild chase in the mountains.

Vivian hadn’t been able to turn off her emotions tonight. In an attempt to settle herself, she patted the back of her neck with cool water and paced the small necessary on the second floor. How could she have thought working in a sporting house was a good idea?

The answer came quick and easy. Money. She’d desperately needed a job, and Miss Pearl was hiring.

The young man she knew from the game table had asked for her first dance of the night, but according to Pearl, he wasn’t the mystery man who had requested her entertainment. Her knees quaked and her hands trembled. At least one of the men who frequented this place was an outlaw. And she’d withheld important information from the deputy she cared about. How could she have done that? Any of it? The old Vivian never would have stooped to working in a brothel. Not the Vivian who valued her good name.

She dried her hands on a towel. What if the unidentified client was the man from Miss Pearl’s bedchamber on Wednesday? The man she’d overheard fighting with her boss? If he knew she’d heard him confessing to the robberies and killing for their future—his and Pearl’s …

Nothing mattered more to Carter Alwyn than catching the men responsible for the train robberies and killing the miner named Mac. How could Vivian not tell him what she’d heard?

Vivian flipped the dark hair off her shoulder. The wig. The face paint. The fancy ball gown. No matter how hard she tried to pretend, she wasn’t Violet. She’d thought her transgressions with Gregory had ruined her, that what happened to her didn’t matter. That she didn’t deserve better. Maybe she didn’t, but Carter deserved to know the truth.

What she’d done with Gregory, what the women did here, what Miss Pearl expected of her tonight—all of it was wrong. And now it was time she did the right thing.

She’d seen Miss Pearl walk up the staircase alone less than an hour ago. Perhaps she was still in her room. Vivian had to end this charade tonight. Right now.

Vivian walked quickly along the hall and then stopped to listen outside the door at the far end of the hallway, in case Miss Pearl had a guest. Nothing. After two minutes, when she still heard no sound from the room, Vivian knocked. “Miss Pearl?”

Silence. The hostess might be resting, but what Vivian had to say couldn’t wait. Swallowing her anxiety, Vivian opened the door.

Miss Pearl lay on top of her Irish point spread. She still wore her stunning pink gown, but her party shoes lay beside the bed.

Vivian took slow steps toward her. “I’m sorry to wake you, Miss Pearl …”

The madam’s eyes were open, but her chest wasn’t moving. Her lips were blue, her skin ashen.

“Miss Pearl!” Vivian gagged and forced herself to breathe past the knot in her throat. She laid her hand on Pearl’s bare arm. Clammy. She put her fingers to the woman’s neck to feel for a pulse the way she’d seen her father do with Mother. Nothing.

Miss Pearl was dead.

Vivian closed Pearl DeVere’s eyelids and had just turned to go find Opal when a man wearing tails and a top hat rushed toward the bed, trapping Vivian against the wall.

“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded.

“She’s dead.”

“No.” His fleshy face twisted, and he patted Miss Pearl’s hand. “Wake up, darling. I’m here just as I promised, to see you in your gown.” When she didn’t rouse, he stiffened and scowled at Vivian. “What did you do to her? ”

She recognized the pungent odor of licorice-root first, then the belt buckle. The shorter bandit from the train grabbed her arm. Her knees quaked. “Nothing. I-I came up to—”

“You killed her!”

Shaking, Vivian stomped his foot and jerked out of his grip. Her shin slammed into the bed frame, and a sharp pain shot up her leg. Swallowing hard, she jumped back, dodging his grasp.

“You’ll pay for this!” he shouted.

While he struggled to regain his balance, Vivian ignored the cry stuck in her throat and raced out the door. She didn’t look back as she dashed down the stairs, her skirts rustling and her sore shin screaming at her. She wanted to scream too, but she didn’t want anyone stopping her. She had to reach Carter’s office. He’d know what to do.

If there were people in the foyer or in the hallways as she ran past, she didn’t see them. Her vision blurred by fear, Vivian rushed to the kitchen as fast as her heavy gown would allow and pushed through the swinging door. “Telephone the police!” she yelled. “Miss Pearl is dead!”

Amidst a flurry of gasps and objections, Vivian ran past the kitchen help and out the back door. A sheet of cold rain blasted her, and she swiped at her face and ran up the alleyway behind the Homestead House. Muted light from windows and the glow of the street lamps on Bennett provided just enough light to direct her wild steps.

Only three blocks to go. To remain concealed for as long as possible, she’d take Second up to Bennett. When she reached the sheriff’s office, she’d tell Carter the truth. All of it.

Vivian was nearly to the corner when she heard footsteps slapping the muddy road behind her. Her back and arms ached under the weight of her skirts as she forced a faster pace from her tired legs. Rain stung her eyes. A furious pulse pounded in her ears. Still she ran. How could she have been so stupid? So blinded?

God, please help me
.

At Third Street, Vivian changed her plan and veered right onto Bennett, hoping to slow her pursuer, and praying Carter might be out on the street or looking out his upstairs window. Or anyone who could help her. She couldn’t keep this up. Her sides ached and her throat burned.

Footsteps splashed the mud behind her. He’d caught up to her.

Thick arms coiled around her middle and lifted her off the ground. She kicked and flailed, but he was too strong and she too tired.

“You killed my Pearl,” he growled in her ear. “Now you belong to me.”

Vivian stopped fighting. She wasn’t surprised God hadn’t answered her prayer. Wasn’t surprised He hadn’t saved her from this treacherous man. She didn’t deserve saving. Her change of heart was too little, too late.