Crimson Palace (29 page)

"We’re so very different, Ned. You’ve got to understand. I’ve just spent eight of the most important years of my life living in an exciting city, mingling with wealthy, important people. How can I be expected to leave that all behind as if it never happened?

"My friends came from the most prominent families in Boston. Dinner parties, evenings at the theater, summers on the coast were simply taken for granted. Everyone I knew lived in beautiful mansions.

"And they all had perfectly trained servants. Can you imagine how I felt having to pass off a Chinese woman as my maid? I would have died on the spot if they had ever found out that my mother hired her away from a bordello! My friends had real maids, real butlers.

Her outburst took Ned by surprise. He had never really thought much about what Jenna’s life had been like for all those years. Hearing how she felt about Boston and all her rich friends there, she seemed different to him now. Not that he loved her any the less, but suddenly she seemed even more precious, more fragile.

"I never let anyone in Boston know that my mother runs a casino," she continued. For some reason she had to make Ned understand her longing for all she had left behind in Boston, and why she loathed everything remotely connected to her mother. "My friend’s mothers were all such ladies. They were always being mentioned in the society pages. You can’t imagine how terrified I was that someone would find out that the fine, upstanding family I had invented was only a figment of my imagination."

"You don’t really know your mother as well as you think, Jenna. She’s one of the finest women I’ve ever known. I doubt if any of your ‘fine ladies’ in Boston could hold a candle to her."

"I knew you wouldn’t understand. How could you? You’ve probably never ventured over a hundred miles from here."

"Never have, and never needed to."

"There! It’s just as I suspected. You can’t possibly understand how I feel."

"All right, I’ll give you that one. I’m not well traveled, or well educated. But tell me this, if your ma is such a terrible person, how it is that your brother Garrett is so content with his life? I’ve never heard one word of complaint from him. Not about your ma or about the casino."

"Of course he doesn’t complain. This is all he knows. His big dream is to finally be allowed to work at the Crimson Palace."

Leaning against the railing, she looked pensively to the distant mountains. Ned stood by her side, wanting with all his heart to reach out to her with understanding and comfort, but he held back, sensing she would resent any overtures he might make.

"To be honest with you, Ned, I envy both of you. Garrett loves the casino. Someday mother will be only too happy to welcome him into the business. And you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted right here in this beautiful valley. It must be wonderful to know what it is you want out of life and then to be able to obtain it at such an early age.

"But I can’t even imagine what my life will be. Oh, I know what I don’t want it to be, but I haven’t a clue to how I’ll ever find true happiness."

When she turned to face him his heart nearly broke. Unshed tears glistened in her beautiful blue eyes.

"You can’t begin to imagine how frustrating it is being a woman. If I were a man I would just take the first train heading east and make of life what I wanted. But, being a woman, I can’t do that. Oh, no, I have to wait for some man to come along to take care of me. No respectable woman lives alone in cities like Boston. What would people think? Who would be my guardian?" Sarcasm dripped from her words.

"But a man who did the very same thing would be perfectly accepted. Now you tell me, is that fair?"

His heart reached out to her, but no words of comfort came to his lips. His own hopes lay shattered.

The pain in her eyes told him more than words ever could that she would never share his life - that she could never think of him as anything more than a friend. He realized that life with him in his peaceful valley would kill the fiery spirit that he loved so very much.

Chapter 21

"I must say, this is an improvement over the Crimson Palace," Jenna declared as she surveyed the interior of Reno’s most elegant restaurant.

"This place is a dump compared to the restaurants I’ve been to in San Francisco," Clay replied.

"Is that where you mysteriously disappeared to all last week? You know you’re lucky to still have a job, just taking off like that."

Clay shrugged his shoulders to show his lack of interest in his job at the Crimson Palace.

"When this deal I’m working on comes through I’ll never need to work in any sleazy casino again. I only went to work there in the first place so I could make contact with some of the high rollers. It was only the first step in my plan."

Looking at him with curiosity, Jenna swirled the contents of her champagne glass, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

"Your plan, hmmm? And just how does this plan work?" She was dying to learn if she was included in his plans, but she would choke before she let him know her thoughts.

"That, my dear, is a secret. Only a fool talks about a deal before it’s done. But I will tell you this much, in a few days I’ll have enough money to blow this town’s dust off my boots forever."

"You’re leaving Reno?" Somehow the thought had never entered her mind. If he left, her own plans went with him!

"So fast it’ll make your head spin. There’s nothing in this hick town for a man like me. I sure don’t intend to spend the rest of my life dealing cards in that two-bit casino."

"No, of course not. I always felt you could do better than that."

"I don’t have to leave alone, Jenna. I might find room for you to come along," he said, a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. If Jenna had been more experienced she might have realized that the look in his eyes was one of calculated cynicism, not amusement.

"To San Franciso? I...I don’t know. I’d always thought when I left Reno it would be to return to Boston.

I’ve never given much thought to San Francisco."

"Well, that’s the offer, sweetheart. Boston’s got nothing for me, but I can live like a king in Frisco."

"I don’t know, San Francisco..."

"You talk as if Boston was the center of the universe. There’s nowhere on earth that holds a candle to Frisco. Why, the most famous actors from all over the world have performed there. Its restaurants are world famous. And I bet you’ve never seen more beautiful mansions then the ones they’ve got there, not even in your precious Boston.

Where do you think all those men who made their millions in Virginia City live? You can bet money none of them took their bucks to Boston. No siree, they built themselves mansions in a place called Nob Hill, right there in San Francisco."

"And I suppose with your plan, you’ll have enough money to join them in Nob Hill?"

"On, not in, and you bet you’re life I will."

"That must be some deal you’re working on."

"Logical projection, Jenna, logical project. I never said this one particular deal was going to make me a rich man. But it’ll put me in a position for the next one, and the next one. A year, maybe less, and I’ll be up on that hill, rubbing elbows with the best of them.

"And you can be there with me, Jenna. What do you say to that?"

She looked at him with calculating eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. Perhaps her "plan" wouldn’t die with Clay’s leaving, after all. Maybe it was just getting better!

"You are serious about this, aren’t you? You’re not just teasing me?"

"I’ve never been more serious in my life."

"I’ll have to think about it, but I’ll tell you right now, it certainly does have its appeal."

"Don’t take too long making up your mind. A week, two at the most, and I’m out of this berg for good, with you or without you."

His tone held just a hint of a threat, but Jenna was too deep in her own thoughts to notice.

***

Trying to conceal her secret during the next few days took every ounce of self control Jenna possessed.

Although she had been inclined to accept Clay’s offer on the spot, a few niggling doubts held her back. It was those doubts which plagued her as she went about her duties at the library and during the few hours each day she spent with Mei Jung and her mother.

Although Clay was wonderfully handsome and she had never met a more fascinating man, she found herself wondering if she actually loved him. At one moment she was certain the answer to that question was a definite yes, but then, a moment later, she would have had to answer in the negative. She thought about the way he made her feel when he kissed her, the delicious sensations she experienced when he dared to touch her where no gentleman would even consider touching a lady. When she thought of him like that, her body responded with a memory of its own, tingling with the desire for an even greater intimacy.

But something in the back of her mind kept her from making a definite commitment to his proposal. Was this truly what love was all about? Would he always make her body come alive with his touch? Did he truly love her?

But, oh, how she longed to leave this hateful city! To be able to put the memories it evoked behind her forever. She longed to mingle with fashionable society again, proudly, with her head held high, not afraid that someone might recognize who she was and bring her up to ridicule.

She spent hours alone in her room, dreaming of what life would be like in San Franciso if she went away with Clay. Would they ever have one of those mansions on Nob Hill? Could his secret plans truly be that lucrative?

Jenna’s preoccupation did not pass by Shinonn unnoticed. Although she couldn’t be certain that her daughter’s recent reflective mood was caused by Clay, she had a very uncomfortable feeling it might.

What could the man be up to now, she wondered? Could it be that he was forcing the relationship even further than Shinonn had already feared?

In her concern, she decided to speak to the one person she could talk to frankly about her daughter, Alex, so she was more than a little relieved when he brought up the subject himself one afternoon.

"I haven’t seen much of Jenna lately," he mentioned. "She doing all right?"

"I haven’t seen much of her myself the last few days, and, frankly, I’m getting a little worried about it. Of course, her job at the library keeps her away from the house quite a bit, but when she’s not working I think she’s seeing Clay Turner. When she is at home, she spends nearly all her time up in her room avoiding me."

"Hmmm, well I suppose a girl her age needs a little time to herself."

"I suppose, but I’m hardly an expert on the subject of girl’s her age, am I? By the time I was her age I’d been on my own for nearly a year. If you’ll remember, I was eighteen when I joined up with the wagon train."

A warm smile creased Alex’s weathered old face.

"You were really something then. And all that time everyone thought you were just a scruffy young fellow off looking for adventure. You sure fooled us all."

"Oh, I don’t think I fooled Sofie all that much. When I look back on it, I realize that she didn’t seem all that surprised when I finally confessed my ‘great sin’."

Alex laughed gleefully at the memory.

"We did have some fun, didn’t we? I tell you, being with Sofie, and then when you came along, those were the best years of my life. Oh, life is good here at the Palace, darned good, but nothing will ever beat those early days with Sofie."

"I’d give a lot to have her here now. Maybe she could talk some sense into Jenna. If I say one word against Clay, she gets her back up something terrible. Every time I mention his name all it does is make him more appealing to her."

"Why don’t I give it a try? Maybe she’ll listen to a man, even if she won’t listen to her mother."

Welcome relief washed over Shinonn.

"I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it, Alex. Maybe you can reason with her, even if I can’t. Yes, I do think she might listen to you."

***

"Please don’t tell me you’ve come to talk to me about the virtues of Ned Turner, Uncle Alex. It would be just like mother to get you to do her dirty work."

Alex chuckled softly as he stirred his iced tea.

"Well, I can think of worse people to talk about than Ned, but no, I know better than to try to talk a young woman into falling in love with a man I’d chosen for her. No, although I think the world of Ned, I didn’t come to talk to you about him."

The two of them sat together on the shaded porch of Shinonn’s huge house. It was a nice, early summer afternoon, the dry, high desert air made pleasurable by a light breeze coming from the mountains to the west.

Jenna hadn’t been fooled for one minute when Alex surprisingly dropped by for a visit. She knew that he would not likely have come by uninvited unless he had something on his mind.

He stirred his tea once more, obviously reluctant to broach the subject that weighed heavily on his mind.

"I came here to talk to you about Clay."

She felt her body stiffen. Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone?

"I know what you’re going to say - nobody knows him like you do, and, most assuredly, nobody understands him. I’m sure he’s convinced you that everyone is against him."

"Well, you are, aren’t you?"

"Jenna, I wish it were as simple as that, but it isn’t. You deserve the very best. You’re a beautiful, charming young lady. You have everything to offer a man. But Jenna, you have got to believe me when I tell you that Clay Turner is not that man."

"Uncle Alex, how can you come here and talk to me like this? You don’t really know him. Oh, you think you do, because he works for you, but you don’t. You don’t know what he’s like down deep where it really counts."

"I know him like you never will, hopefully. The man is a liar and a cheat. He can’t be trusted. I should have fired him many times, and I would have it if hadn’t been for his mother. As a matter of fact, if it hadn’t been for Maud, I never would have hired the man in the first place.

"But what worries me the most where you’re concerned is that down deep Clay Turner is cruel. He’s the sort of man who enjoys other people’s pain. Jenna, you can’t possibly trust your life to a man like him."