Rebecca Hagan Lee (14 page)

It was empty. As was the hall closet Will checked as he walked by. After searching the six other guest bedrooms and finding them unoccupied, there was only one more place to look.

Will took a deep breath and opened the door to his suite of rooms. He had left several lamps burning, and at first glance his room looked as empty as the others, but there was a spot of blood on the floor beside his bed. He looked closer and saw other drops of blood leading to his private washroom, where the door he’d closed before going downstairs for the evening was standing ajar, and a pair of small black leather boots lay on the threshold. The owner of the boots, wearing black trousers and a white tunic, was lying facedown on the washroom floor, feet still in the boots, a straw Chinaman’s hat hanging by its ties resting on the back of the tunic.

Crossing to the washroom threshold in two strides, Will leaned forward and took hold of the intruder’s arm. “Who the devil are you and what are you doing in my room?”

The interloper let out a cry of pain and curled into a tight ball.

Instantly regretting his rough handling, Will gentled his voice and asked, “Where are you hurt?”

The person on the floor—male or female, it was impossible to tell from behind—groaned in reply.

Kneeling on the floor, Will untied the strings holding the hat in place and tossed it to the side. Easing his hands beneath the person’s torso, he gently rolled the body over and got the shock of his life.

“Oh, Christ!”

One eye was swollen shut. The other had a bleeding cut above her eyebrow. Her face was bruised, her lips cut and swollen, and her hair was inky black, but there was no mistaking the sprinkle of golden freckles decorating the bridge of her nose. “Julia Jane!” Cradling her against his chest, Will scooped her up and carried her out of his bedroom to the landing at the top of the stairs. She was so pale her bruises stood out like India ink on an alabaster surface and there was fresh blood seeping through the fabric of her tunic. “Jack!” he bellowed. “Bring bandages. Ice if you have it. Cold water if you don’t—and hurry!” Turning on his heel, Will carried her back to his room and laid her atop the counterpane on his bed, yanking his pillows from beneath the covers and using them to prop her up as he began unfastening her tunic, searching for the source of the blood. “Julia Jane? It’s Will. Can you hear me?”

She tried to open her eyes. One eyelid fluttered open. The other stayed closed. “Will?” Her voice was a rough, barely audible whisper.
“Keegan?”

“That’s right,” he assured her. “It’s Will Keegan, and you’re safe with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Julie tried to smile, but couldn’t. Her bottom lip was split and cut where she’d bitten it. “Too late,” she whispered. Tears leaked from the corners of her battered eyes, rolling into the hair at her temple, and she began to shake with reaction.

Will shoved her tunic open and discovered blood saturating a long strip of fabric awkwardly wrapped around her torso and tucked into the top of her corset. “I’m so sorry, Julia Jane. So damned sorry this happened to you.”

“Not your fault,” she managed.

“The hell it isn’t.” Will worked as he talked. Reaching down, he slipped his hand beneath his mattress and pulled out the knife he’d hidden there, then began carefully slicing through the bloody cloth, dropping strips of it on the floor as he removed it. “I knew the danger. I should have gone with you. I should have insisted on taking you to a hotel and making sure you were safe.” He peeled two layers of red-stained fabric away before he revealed a nasty stab wound a couple of inches deep and about four inches long—the classic mark of a wound where the assailant jabbed the knife in and sliced when he withdrew it. A steady trickle of blood leaked from the injury. Pulling the rest of her makeshift bandage from beneath her, Will pressed it against her shoulder, applying pressure to staunch the bleeding

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, wincing at the discomfort. “I should have listened.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Julie lifted her hand and gestured toward her neck and shoulder. “He tried to kill me.”

“Who tried to kill you?” Her words filled him with a rage he’d never felt before. It was different from the moral outrage he felt over the hundreds of innocent Chinese girls who were brought to California by the promise of freedom who found themselves enslaved, humiliated, brutalized, and often murdered. This rage was primal—and personal. Someone had hurt her. Leaning closer, Will recognized the bruising on her throat and neck. Someone had tried to kill his Julia Jane by strangling her. Someone had put his hand around her throat and attempted to extinguish her life.

Julie rolled her head from side to side against the pillow. “I don’t know,” she croaked. “A big man.” She took a deep breath. “Is it bad?”

Will clenched his jaw so tightly he was in danger of cracking his teeth. His brave little missionary who dared to go where angels feared to tread was crying . . . and her silent tears tore at him like nothing else had ever done. “Not too bad.”

“There was a l-lot of b-blood.” She struggled to speak.

He was no doctor, but he knew enough to recognize shock when he saw it. “You’ll probably need a few stitches. . . .” She blanched, turning paler by the second.

Afraid she might faint, Will wisely changed the subject. “Did he attack you on the street?”

“No,” she whispered. “My room.”

“At the mission?” As far as he knew, she lived in the women’s dormitory at the Salvationist mission. How the hell had a man gotten in there? What kind of operation were those people running?

“No,” she managed “Russ House Hotel.” Reaching up with her good hand, she tugged from her tunic a key suspended from a ribbon. The number six was painted on the tag.

He knew it didn’t matter, knew it hurt her to talk, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You took a room at the Russ House?”

“Needed privacy.”

He looked at her costume and realized the women’s dormitory at the mission couldn’t offer the sort of privacy she’d need to transform herself into a Chinese girl. “Someone tried to kill you at the Russ House?” Will didn’t attempt to hide his shock. The Russ House was one of the finest and safest hotels in San Francisco. Until he moved to San Francisco, it was where he’d stayed whenever he was in the city. It was still Jamie’s favorite hotel. Will was appalled. “How did you get here from the Russ House?”

“Walked.”

His horror worsened. “Like that? Past curfew? In your condition? Are you mad?”

Julie nodded, then moaned. The sound of her pain and the reason for it shot through him, touching every raw nerve in his body. “Jack!” Will bellowed once again, glancing over his shoulder at the door. “Where the devil are you?”

The urgency in Will’s voice carried down the stairs and sent Jack scurrying into action. He came barreling up the stairs carrying a pail of cold water, ran down the hall, and came to a sudden halt in Will’s door. “I’m here!” He took a moment to catch his breath after running up the stairs and saw the figure lying propped up on pillows in Will’s bed. “Sweet Jaysus!” Jack exclaimed. “You caught her.”

“I didn’t catch her,” Will told him. “I found her. On the floor.”

“You think she’s our intruder from the other night?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Who is she? And what the devil happened to her?”

“Someone did their damnedest to kill her.” Will turned to look at his friend and colleague. “Lock the door, bring the ice, and take a closer look, Jack.”

“No ice.” Jack closed and locked the bedroom door, then walked over to Will’s shaving stand and poured cold water from the pail into the washbasin. He grabbed a clean flannel face cloth from a shelf and dropped it in the basin. He snagged the towel hanging on the hook and threw it across his shoulder, then lifted the basin and brought it over to the bedside table.

Leaving the compress on her shoulder, Will wrung the face cloth out and placed it against Julie’s swollen eye before Jack set the china bowl down on the table.

She sucked in a breath and let it out in a hiss as the cold water stung. “I must look like Quasimodo.”

“Shh,” Will soothed as he gently washed the blood from her face. He carefully pressed the soft cloth against her swollen flesh, using the cold water to help ease the pain. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry for that, but I need to wash away the blood so I can see the damage.”

She whimpered at the word
blood
, but she had to know she was covered in it.

Jack watched Will ministering to the battered figure on the bed and was struck by the tender note in his voice. He spoke to her the way he’d spoken to little Tsin, soothed her in the same voice he’d used to soothe the frightened child during the long trek through the tunnels. Jack didn’t recognize this girl, but there was something familiar about her. He took in the black hair, the tunic and the trousers, the black leather boots, and the tears leaking from her good eye—her good
blue
eye—and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Good lord, it’s Typhoon Julia!”

Chapter Seventeen

“Temper gets you into trouble; pride keeps you there.”

—ANONYMOUS

T
yphoon
Julia?” Julie’s question came out in a harsh, painful-sounding whisper. “You call me
Typhoon
Julia?”

Will nodded. “Affectionately, of course.”

She managed the ghost of a tiny smile. “Of course.”

Jack stepped forward and bowed. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Jack O’Brien, born in Dublin in the auld sod, most recently from Chicago and Silver City, Nevada. Now San Francisco.”

“Julie Parham,” she murmured. “Late of Hong Kong, now San Francisco.”

Will and Jack exchanged meaningful looks. She’d introduced herself to Will as
Julia Jane Parham
, not Julie Parham, and hadn’t breathed a word about growing up in Hong Kong. Will was honest enough to admit that the fact that she’d introduced herself to Jack as the less formal, less forbidding Julie rankled more than he liked. He wasn’t honest enough to explore the reasons for it.
Not yet
.

They were from the same British Crown colony, after all, and might have crossed paths on occasion. She might have even been a day student at the Presbyterian mission school. His parents’ school. Though the island was packed with souls, the British community was insular, and far smaller than the Chinese one.

“A pleasure, Miss Parham,” Jack said.

Julie winced as her split lip made itself known. “The pleasure is mine, Mr. O’Brien.”

“Under other circumstances, perhaps. Not under these.” Will looked down at her and frowned, then dabbed at the bead of blood on her bottom lip. “You’re from Hong Kong?”

“Born in London.” She spoke around the flannel cloth as he continued to blot her lower lip. “Grew up in Hong Kong.”

“Any relation to Commodore Lord Nelson Parham?” Will asked. He didn’t know the commodore intimately, but he had been introduced to him at one of the Craigs’ parties. A young lieutenant during the Black Sea campaigns of the Crimean War, Commodore Parham had been awarded a captaincy for saving his ship and his crew. He had risen through the ranks of the Royal Navy and been awarded his current rank. Commodore Parham’s name and flagship were well-known in Hong Kong.

She looked alarmed. “Father.”

“Does your father know that his daughter is our Typhoon Julia?” Will asked.

Julie didn’t answer.

“All right,” he conceded. “That can wait.” He dipped the face cloth into the bowl of water once again, wringing out the excess, then tenderly bathing Julie’s battered face. “I have a more important question. . . .”

Julie braced herself.

“What in Hades have you done to your hair?”

She sagged with relief. “Wig,” she managed.

“Thank God
.
”

Julie looked up at him, fixing her undamaged eye on him.

“I was afraid this was permanent.” He lifted a strand of jet-black hair.

“No,” she whispered.

“Then let’s get rid of it.” Will ran his hands over her black hair and began removing hairpins. After locating all the pins, Will removed the wig and revealed her glorious red hair, freeing it from its confines by raking his fingers through it to separate the strands. “That’s much better,” he said when he finished.

“That explains her hair. What’s she doing dressed like a Chinese peasant?” Jack was pretty sure he knew the answer, but the detective he had once been had to ask the question.

“Can you think of a better way to move around Chinatown?” Will folded the face cloth and placed it over Julie’s swollen eye, then handed Jack the basin. “We need more water.”

Jack carried the bowl into Will’s washroom and poured the rusty-colored water down the sink drain, then refilled it with fresh water from the pail he’d brought up from the kitchen. From the looks of the flannel and the stained water, she’d bled enough to cause concern, and was still bleeding. “She needs a doctor.”

“I agree,” Will said to Jack before turning to Julia. “I’m going to send someone for a doctor friend of ours.”

Julie rolled her head from side to side against the pillow. “No doctor.”

Will brooked no argument. “Yes, a doctor. My needlework is atrocious and you may have internal injuries Jack and I aren’t equipped to handle.” He pressed the damp cloth against her lips. “Dr. Stone is trustworthy. He has a practice here in the city, and he’s affiliated with a company owned by a friend of mine. He’ll keep your secret.”

She looked up at him. “Will you?”

“You know the answer to that, Julia Jane.” Her name sounded like a caress on his lips. “Or you wouldn’t be here. After the havoc you wreaked this morning, you would have to be crazy to come back, unless you knew I wasn’t a danger to you. And you’re not crazy. Foolhardy, perhaps, but not crazy.”

She closed her good eye, then slowly opened it. More tears rolled from the corner of it, over her cheekbone, and into her hair. “You’re right. I knew I’d be safe here, because you didn’t hurt me when I wrecked your saloon.”

He grinned, showing a dimple in one cheek, and touched the end of her nose with the face cloth. “Why would I hurt you? What’s a little broken glass between friends?”

He said
friends
, but the look in his eyes suggested a more intimate association.

Jack coughed. “About a hundred dollars.”

Julie would have smiled at his dry wit if her guilty conscience hadn’t plagued her ever since she’d wielded her parasol against the Silken Angel Saloon’s front window. “I promised I would pay for it,” she managed in a raspy voice. “And I will.”

Will shot Jack a dirty look. “Not to worry. We have insurance. Right, Jack?”

“Right,” Jack agreed. “Cost us a blooming fortune, but we secured it after our second broken storefront.”

“That’s all that matters.” Will took a deep breath. “Now, Miss Julia Jane, have you any objections to Dr. Stone seeing you dressed like this?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you’ll have to trust me to get you out of your tunic and trousers into something more conventional,” he said.

“All right.” She was so tired and battered and bruised, she’d trust him to do anything.

He couldn’t tell through the discoloration and the assortment of cuts and bruises on her face, but he thought she was blushing.

“Buck up, Julia Jane,” he said. “I promise not to look at the interesting bits.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jack teased, winking at her.

Julie raised her uninjured arm to cover her eyes.

“What’s this?” Will asked, touching the fabric wrapped around her wrist.

She flinched.

“Does your wrist hurt?”

Julie cradled her wrist and nodded. “He twisted it when I hit him with the chocolates.”

Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Did you say
chocolates
?”

“In a two-pound tin from Ghirardelli’s.” It hurt to talk, hurt to swallow, but Julie was compelled to tell Will and Jack what she couldn’t tell the police.

“You were planning to eat two pounds of Ghirardelli chocolates?” Jack was astounded. She was such a slim little thing.

“I was planning to give them to friends as
gifts
.”

The spark of annoyance in her barely audible voice brought a smile to Will’s lips. She was badly hurt and scared, but the man who attacked her hadn’t touched the fire inside her. Brave, idealistic Julia Jane was still there. “Ignore Jack and go on.”

“I bought the tins of chocolate this afternoon.” Julie frowned, recalling that it was after midnight. “
Yesterday
afternoon. I left one on the chest at the foot of my bed. The man in my room was trying to smother me. I reached out, felt the tin, and hit him on the side of the head with it. He twisted my wrist until I let go. Then he put his hand around my throat and squeezed.” She stared down at the blood staining her hand. “I couldn’t breathe, but I twisted and turned until I managed to get him to loosen his grip so I could breathe. But I had tied my room key to a ribbon I wore around my neck, and I think he got hold of it. I could feel it cutting into my neck when I was trying to breathe.” She fixed her good eye on Will.

The matter-of-fact way she said it sent chills down his spine. He didn’t want to think about how close she had come to losing her life, didn’t want to think about how close her assailant had come to permanently extinguishing the spark that was Julia Jane, instead of temporarily dampening it. But Will couldn’t show the mix of terror and relief and gratitude he was feeling, so he praised her instead for clouting her attacker. “Clever girl.” Will continued his inspection of her, recognizing the abrasions on her neck and the bloodied ribbon. “Let’s take a look at your wrist.”

Julie nodded. Her wrist was swollen and marked with bruises in the shape of a man’s thumb and forefinger. The man who had attacked her had had to exert a tremendous amount of pressure in order to cause that bruising. But Julia Jane had been fighting for her life, and she’d refused to let go of the only weapon she had. Will held her arm in a tender grip and studied the damage. “I think it’s broken,” he said to Jack. “But I’m not sure.” He looked up and raked his finger through his hair in an angry gesture. “If it’s not broken, it’s badly sprained.”

Jack agreed. “It needs to be set if it’s broken, and tightly bandaged if it isn’t.”

“We’ll leave that for the doctor to determine.” Will looked down at Julie. “Try to keep that arm as still as possible, and maybe we can limit the damage and minimize the pain until the doctor gets here.”

Because he and Jack both knew it was going to hurt like hell if the doctor had to set it.

Will turned to Jack. “I’m going to need your help. Is there anybody else we can send for Dr. Stone? Luis? Ben?”

Jack shook his head. “Nobody here except the poker players. It will have to be one of us.”

“I’m not leaving her.” Will was firm.

“Then it will have to be me,” Jack said. “How are we going to explain a young lady being here in your room? Besides the obvious?”

“I don’t want the obvious,” Will said. “We have her reputation to consider.” He gave the question a moment’s consideration. “Any suggestions?”

“Nobody has to know who she is or that she came to the Silken Angel dressed like that,” Jack said. “If we get her out of her Chinese garb we can say we found her and create a fiction to support it.”

“We could leave her in her Chinese garb and say we found her,” Will pointed out. “Without the fiction.”

“A white girl dressed like a Chinese peasant? With a British accent to boot? Care to explain that one?”

“No.” Will was adamant. “Either way, the doctor is sure to think she’s a saloon girl. Especially with the beating she’s taken. I just hope he doesn’t think I’m capable of this. It would make our continued association difficult.”

“He knows better,” Jack replied. “And the fiction is better than him knowing who she really is.”

Will turned to Julie. “Agreed?”

He didn’t think she would answer, but she finally did. “Agreed.”

“All right, Jack, let’s finish converting this Chinese peasant into British aristocracy.” He looked at her.

“I’m sure that is going to be more like trying to turn Quasimodo into Esmeralda,” Julie murmured sotto voce.

“What’s that?” Will smiled, the single dimple in his cheek finally making a return appearance.

“You heard me.”

“So I did,” Will agreed. “Brace yourself; I’m afraid this is going to hurt. . . .”

“
Everything
hurts.”

“I’ll do what I can to minimize the pain.”

Julie bit her already bitten lip.

Jack passed Will the folded flannel face cloth.

Will placed it against Julie’s lips. “Bite on this,” he urged as he carefully worked her tunic over her head and down her arms, taking special care not to touch her shoulder or jostle her injured wrist. “I’m going to have to cut this off,” he told her, staring down at her very pretty corset embroidered with tiny rosebuds. And stained with blood splotches.

“You wear a corset under your peasant garb?”

Julie closed her eyes. “Of course not. I wore binding because Chinese peasant girls don’t wear corsets.”

“
You’re
dressed as a Chinese peasant girl and
you’re
wearing a corset.”

“For the same reason you’re cutting it off. I was wearing my undergarments when I was attacked. The wound in my shoulder prevented me from unlacing,” she explained. “I used my binding to stanch the blood. . . . And I wore my corset because I couldn’t go without anything. . . . But corsets p—” Realizing she was having a conversation about her intimate apparel with a man, she abruptly broke it off.

But she’d provoked Will’s curiosity. “Corsets what?”

She heaved a weary sigh. “Push up and display. I needed the opposite in my peasant costume in order to make me look like a boy.”

Will stared down at her, and Julie swore the temperature in the room rose a few degrees. “I hate to be the one to disappoint you, Julia Jane,” he told her, “but nothing is ever going to make you look like a boy.”

She tried to frown and failed. “It does when I bind them—when I pull the binding tight enough. But I couldn’t do it by myself with my wound—” She broke off again.