Jo Goodman (29 page)

"Take that as 'I'll-think-about-it.' I haven't heard what you'll pay."

He named an amount that was less than Annie Jack was getting in his kitchen but more than Ivory received at the Palace. "I don't care what you do at your own place," he said.

"You mean I can't live at the Phoenix?"

"No, you can't live there. If I put up everyone who worked for me, there'd be no room for guests." He held up his hand as Ivory's dark eyes sparkled with her intent to argue. "I'm here about one of the gowns you gave Sam," he said. "Maybe you'd better sit down, Ivory. You're not going to like this much."

Without quite knowing why, Ivory sat. She felt her skin grow cold as Grey put forth his question and explained some of the circumstances surrounding his asking it. She'd heard of Berkeley Shaw's special talent before it was put on display last night. There had been rumors that Grey's new hostess had some second sight or sixth sense. Ivory hadn't given it much credence. More than rumors surfaced yesterday evening when a few of the witnesses at the Phoenix's gala opening dropped by the Palace on their way home. They couldn't stop talking about what they'd heard and seen Grey's hostess do with the likes of Sam Brannan and Lorne Fitch. She'd heard Anthony's story from the gambler himself. Anthony was something of a cipher, but he wasn't easily impressed. Miss Shaw had made a thorough job of that.

"So is it true?" Grey asked when he came to the end of his recitation. "Does Miss Shaw know what she's talking about?"

Ivory's gaze had swung to the window. Now she stood and drew back the drapes. Her view was the alleyway behind the Palace. She saw a milk wagon negotiate a tight corner and head for the square. A drunk appeared from behind one of the outbuildings and hitched a ride on the back. He passed out among the clattering milk containers. Her eyes followed a customer of one of the other girls as he stumbled toward the privy. Apparently he decided he couldn't make it and proceeded to relieve himself where he stood. The strikingly blue, cloudless sky didn't make anything she witnessed less tawdry.

"I wasn't always a whore, Mr. Janeway. I grew up in a Godfearing family, and I expected to marry and have babies and raise them the same way." Ivory pulled her glossy black hair over her shoulder and clipped it with a comb she picked up from her vanity. "We came out here with Brannan's group in '46. That's right. I'm a Mormon. Or I was. My father was one of the leaders Brannan dismissed for breaking with church law. My father never broke with anything. He was dismissed for accusing Brannan of misusing the communal funds. My parents and I lived separate from the rest of Brannan's flock after that. When it became clear that Brigham Young wasn't going to change his plans for settling in the Salt Lake Valley, things only became worse for my parents. They decided to head overland to meet with Young."

Ivory sat down on the stool in front of her vanity. "There were twenty of us in the party that set out to cross the Sierra Nevadas. Three of us survived. The two men with me didn't want to go on, and I couldn't go alone. I was lucky to make it back to San Francisco but not so fortunate that I knew how to protect myself."

"Hank Brock was one of the other survivors?" Grey asked.

Ivory nodded. Her slight smile was mocking. "I thought he loved me," she said. Her short laugh rang hollow. "Do you know any woman who makes love the first time without being in love? Or thinking it's returned?"

Grey thought he might know exactly one. "I suppose not," he said as expected. "But making love isn't rape. Miss Shaw was certain it was rape."

Ivory didn't respond to this overture. She told her story at her own pace, in her own way. "The first I realized that Hank had no intention of marrying me was when I became pregnant. He was actually grateful when I lost the baby. He thought we could continue just as we had been. I was the one who said no. I turned down half a dozen other offers of marriage because I was spoiled goods. None of those men cared about that; some of them didn't know.
I
knew.
I
cared. And when men all around me began to make money with the gold strike I realized I could make it, too."

She looked at Grey, her head lifting defiantly, her eyes unashamed. "I'm good at what I do," she said. "You know I am."

"Ivory." Grey said her name gently. The truth was he couldn't recall much about their encounters together. Beyond a moment's pleasure and release, they had meant little to him. He felt sick to his stomach. "Ivory, you don't have to unburden yourself to me."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" She came to her feet.
"You
came here asking the questions, Mr. Janeway. If you're feeling some burden, then look to yourself for the cause of it."

Grey thought having a shoe hurled at him would have hurt less. He actually winced. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're right."

Ivory DuPree relaxed her militant stance. "It was last winter," she said. "Hank had made some money in the goldfields, and he was working for Mr. Brannan as one of his exterminators. He was feeling pretty full of himself when he came here one night and got liquored up. He asked for me. I told him no. He asked Howard for me, and Howard told him I wasn't interested. I thought that was the end of it. People don't generally cross Howard, after all. That would be like crossing you in your own place."

Grey nodded. "What happened?"

"Hank got me alone upstairs. He pushed me down on the floor and threw up my royal blue skirts and had me right there. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I was too bitterly ashamed to do either of those things. I thought I had some control over who used me, you see. Hank showed me that night that I didn't." She sat down again, carefully this time, as if she were a child's balloon being slowly deflated. "Your Miss Shaw was correct in the details she supplied you," Ivory said finally. "Did Hank Brock accompany Brannan to the Phoenix last night?"

"He was there."

"I can't imagine why he'd tell Miss Shaw what happened between us unless it was in the way of a warning."

"She didn't say she learned anything from Brock."

"Then how?" asked Ivory. "I've never told another soul until now."

"Didn't I mention that part?" Grey said, thinking back. "No, I suppose I didn't. I didn't want to lead you."

Ivory's dark eyes merely grew puzzled.

Grey sighed. "Miss Shaw was wearing your gown last night."

"You mean she
felt
what happened to me in it?"

"More than that. There were moments in the gaming hall when it seemed she
was
you."

Ivory's jaw sagged a little. "That's quite incredible... if it's true."

"That's what I thought... if it's true."

* * *

"Wait right here," Berkeley told the boy she had deposited at the end of the long bar. She turned to go, stopped, and went back to straighten his collar and the shoulders of his ragged jacket. "Stand up straight and don't look around as if you mean to steal something. And definitely don't steal something. Mr. Janeway will never let you in again if you do that. He'd never let
me
in again."

Berkeley hurried to the kitchen, where she doggedly ignored Annie's efforts to evict her while Berkeley helped herself to fruit, warm bread, and a bowl of stew. She carried her load back to the gaming hall and placed it on the bar. "You can eat this here," she said. "I'm going to find Sam."

"Thank you, ma'am." The boy whipped off his hat and revealed a thick shock of hair every bit as pale as Berkeley's. He crumpled the hat and stuffed it under his jacket behind his back. He dipped a chunk of the bread into the stew and began eating hungrily.

Berkeley watched him a moment, remembering all too well what that gnawing hunger felt like. "I won't be long."

The boy didn't lift his thin face to acknowledge her departure. He scooped up another portion of stew and jammed it in his mouth.

Grey Janeway took two steps into the Phoenix before what he saw brought him to an abrupt halt. "For God's sake, tell me you didn't go out dressed like that."

Nathaniel Corbett lifted his head. He didn't turn because he could see the man speaking to him quite clearly in the mirror. "No," he said somewhat defiantly, "but I came in this way."

Grey recognized his mistake as soon as the towhead had come up. The eyes that watched him with a mixture of rancor and wariness were closer to his own shade of tempered steel than Berkeley's leaf green ones. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

Nat did not answer immediately. His eyes shifted to the staircase.

Grey almost groaned aloud when he saw the boy look for rescue from above. He knew instantly who the angel was. "Did
she
bring you here?"

Nat's mouth closed tightly.

"I'm not going to torture you, boy," Grey said, shaking his head in disgust. "Give me a name to call you by."

"Nathaniel Corbett. Mostly I'm called Nat." He pushed his plate away though he wasn't close to eating his fill. "You can't make me say anything about the lady. I'm not giving her up."

Berkeley appeared at the top of the steps, Sam in tow. She made her descent quickly, seeing that everything was not quite as it should be. "Mr. Janeway," she said pleasantly. "Have you been properly introduced? This is Nathaniel Corbett. Nat, this is Mr. Janeway, the owner of the Phoenix. The one I was telling you about. He might have a job for you here."

Nat brushed off remnants of stew on his trousers and extended his hand to Grey. "Pleasure, sir."

Grey stared at the thin hand. There was dirt beaten into the whorls of his fingerprints. Grey took the hand and shook it. "Job?" He was looking at Berkeley.

"Yes," she said with complete confidence. "I thought there might be something. Sam seems to think so, don't you, Sam?"

Sam was pulling on his eyebrow and rocking back and forth on his heels. "I said we might have use for a lad that could run the stairs, fetching for guests and whatnot. That's all I said."

"It doesn't matter, Sam. She would have come up with something if you hadn't. Where did you find him, Berkeley?"

"I'd seen him around before. This morning he was rummaging in the refuse behind the Nip and Tucker. It's not right for anyone to live that way."

Grey didn't disagree. "How old are you, Nat?"

"Twelve." He felt the full force of Grey' s flinty stare. "That is, I will be in a year."

God help him, Grey thought. Another orphan in the storm. "Where the hell are your parents?"

"Dead, sir. I have an uncle in Virginia that I lived with."

Berkeley sidled up beside Grey and said under her breath. "He ran away."

"I figured that out all on my own, Miss Shaw." He regarded the boy again. "You had some notion of making your fortune in the goldfields. Is that it?"

"No, not exactly, sir. Thought I'd just get away from my uncle."

"And how long have you been here?"

"About eight weeks."

"He fell in with the Ducks at first," Berkeley said. "They used him for getting into places they couldn't, then he'd have to let them in."

"Are you done with the Ducks?" Grey asked. He watched the boy's narrow face carefully as the youth nodded vigorously. "If I find out differently, Miss Shaw here won't be able to save you. Is that clear? You'll be on your own, and I'll make you wish you had stayed in Virginia with your uncle."

"Grey!" Berkeley pulled on his sleeve, trying to get him to reconsider his words. "He's just a—"

"Is that clear?" Grey asked Nat again.

"Yes, sir."

Grey nodded, satisfied for now. "Sam, find him some decent clothes, then take him around and show him what you want him to do. You can fix him a room above the stable."

Berkeley yanked hard on Grey's jacket. "Not the stable. You can do better than that."

"I could," he agreed, "but I'm running a hotel here, not an asylum for foundlings." Whether he was just running an asylum was open for debate. He saw that Berkeley was prepared to argue with him. "All right, Miss Shaw, what would you offer as an alternative?"

"There are a few empty rooms. Sam told me." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sam quickly duck his head as if he could disavow all knowledge of their earlier conversation. "Nat can have one of those."

"He can't afford it."

"Then I'll pay for his room."

"You
can't afford it."

"Then he can stay with me. There's room enough for both of us. Shawn can bring a cot in and—"

Grey caught Berkeley's wrist. "Give us a moment," he told Sam and Nat. His smile did not reach his eyes. "This way, Miss Shaw."

Berkeley allowed herself to be escorted to the farthest corner of the gaming hall. "I don't think they can hear us here," she said. "I'm not certain they can even
see
us."

Grey was not amused. "That boy is
not
going to share your suite," he whispered roughly.

"I don't see why not. It's mine. I'm paying for it."

"But you're there at my sufferance."

Her eyes widened. "I beg your pardon? Do you mean you'd pitch me in the street if I went against your wishes?"

"That's precisely my meaning."

"But—" She broke off when she realized that not a single argument occurred to her. "That's really very small of you, Mr. Janeway."