The Heart's Pursuit (25 page)
Dean’s hand gripped hers, causing her to look at him. Her own surprise was mirrored in his eyes. He’d probably never seen anything like this house. His home had been a shack on the high desert. He had to be even more overwhelmed by this than Silver.
She squeezed his fingers. “I guess we might as well go inside. I can’t see that it will do any harm. Can you?”
Dean shook his head.
“All right. If nothing else, we can see if it’s as fancy inside as out.”
C
orinne Duvall waited for them in the entry hall. She leaned the handle of her parasol against the wall, a panel of violet silk balancing on the shiny parquet floor, then removed her gloves, laying them one on top of the other on the dark mahogany table near the front doors. Watching her reflection in the mirror above the table, she freed her bonnet and lifted it from her yellow curls.
“I love hats, but they can get tiresome,” Corinne said, meeting Silver’s eyes in the mirror. Then she waved a manicured hand toward an arched doorway. “Let’s get comfortable, shall we, and you can tell me about yourself and why you’ve come to Virginia City.”
Silver’s hand tightened around Dean’s as they followed the woman into a large parlor. There were fireplaces with
elaborate screens at both ends of the room. To the right was a white grand piano, its curved edges trimmed with gold paint. A white fur rug lay beneath it. Several groupings of chairs were placed about the high-ceilinged room, and plenty of light spilled through the glass windows, their heavy brocade drapes pulled open and tied back.
Dominating everything else in the room, above the far mantel, was an enormous portrait—at least fifteen feet high—of Corinne Duvall in a riding habit. Silver couldn’t help staring at it.
“Quite good, isn’t it? I believe the artist earned his commission.”
Silver glanced over her shoulder toward Corinne.
“Maurice, the artist, was in love with me when he painted it. You can tell. He was kind to me.”
“He wasn’t kind. It looks just like you.” Silver’s gaze returned to the portrait.
“When I was younger, perhaps. No more.”
Corinne Duvall was wrong. She was still as beautiful if not as young.
“Come, Miss Matlock. Join me.” Silver turned to find Corinne now seated on a white-and-gold brocade sofa. She gestured toward a companion piece not far away. “Please sit down.”
“Miss Duvall, I—”
“Everyone calls me Miss Corinne. Please do so. And will you allow me to call you Silver?”
“Of course. But I don’t understand why you brought us to your home. All we wish is to find a place to stay that is clean and safe and that we can afford.”
“Those are the very reasons I brought you home with me, my dear. Virginia City is not a safe place for an unaccompanied woman. Particularly not for one as attractive as you. If I’d left you in town, goodness knows what might have happened to you. We have more than our share of drunkards, outlaws, and cutthroats in Virginia City.” Once again she motioned toward the nearby sofa. “Now, please sit and tell me about yourself.”
Silver felt she had little choice but to obey.
Corinne smiled, prompting gently, “Where are you from?”
“A small town in Colorado, near Denver.”
“And what brought you to Nevada?”
Silver hesitated. What should she say?
“A man?”
Yes, but not the way Corinne meant.
“When I came to Virginia City, I was a penniless orphan. To survive, I worked in a saloon and entertained the men. It wasn’t a nice existence. But I was smart and I was lucky, and I managed to change my life for the better.” Corinne’s smile was fleeting. “There are many reasons why girls end up in a place like Virginia City. I try to keep as many as possible from going through what I went through.”
Silver didn’t understand Corinne’s full meaning, and
yet a shudder passed through her for the little she did comprehend.
The Chinese manservant appeared in the doorway carrying a silver tray.
“Ah, my afternoon tea.” Corinne motioned him forward. “Thank you, Chung. You’ll have some too, won’t you, Silver? Such a civilized practice—tea in the afternoon.”
The manservant set the tray on the low table between the sofas.
“Chung,” Corinne said, “when we are finished with our tea, please show Miss Matlock to the blue room and draw her a bath. The boy should have the room at the end of the hall on the third floor. The one on the north side.”
It seemed settled. Silver and Dean were staying. At least for one night. She could decide about what came next tomorrow.
Steam rose around Silver’s face as she reclined in the porcelain tub. She hadn’t felt anything this wonderful in a month of Sundays. A lazy glance took in the opulence of the bathing room with its ornate molding, gilded mirror, and multicolored bottles of sweet-smelling bath salts and perfumes.
Finally, with the water growing cool, Silver stepped from the bathtub and dried herself with a plush towel. She wrapped her hair in a second towel. It would still be damp
when she went down to supper, but she didn’t care. It was clean, and she felt renewed because of it. Even her ankle seemed better because of the bath.
The bedroom she’d been given was, indeed, blue—the paper on the walls, the Persian rugs on the floor, the bedspread on the large bed, and the curtains over the windows. All were in varying shades of blue, from the delicate hue of a robin’s egg to the vibrant color of an indigo bunting. And when she returned to the room after her bath, instead of her own travel-stained clothes, she found a dress—every bit as lovely as the violet silk Corinne had worn earlier that day—laid out on the bed. Beside it were all the necessary undergarments. Silver picked up the dress and held it against her chest. It seemed it would be a perfect fit.
From somewhere in the house a clock chimed the quarter hour. She’d best get dressed or she would be late for supper. After the kindness of her hostess, she didn’t want to appear rude. She dropped the towel and began to dress.
Beyond the bedroom door, the house came alive with sounds. Footsteps. Closing doors. Soft voices. Silver had thought Corinne Duvall lived in this big house by herself with just her servants. Obviously she’d been mistaken.
At a minute before the hour, Silver opened the bedroom door and made her way down the grand staircase and across the parquet floor, guided to the dining room by the female voices spilling into the hallway through an open door. Her stomach seemed filled with butterflies.
She stopped beneath the transom and surveyed the room.
The women were arrayed in a spectrum of colors, no two the same. There must have been close to twenty of them, ranging in age from fifteen or sixteen to perhaps thirty or so. Jewelry glittered at their throats and on their earlobes and fingers. They stood in small bunches, visiting, laughing. On the table, fine china and crystal sparkled in the light shed by the candelabras.
What on earth would Jared think of this?
She clenched her jaw, the thought unwelcome. What did she care what Jared Newman thought? He’d left her without a backward glance. Not so much as a by-your-leave.
Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the dining room.
E
ach girl had a story of her own, some of the stories exciting, most of them sad. As the sumptuous meal was served by Corinne’s servants, Silver heard bits and pieces from each of them in turn. With every new story, Silver’s understanding of this house and its inhabitants grew.
Corinne Duvall had saved all of them from a life of starvation or abuse or prostitution. In return for a place to stay, good food to eat, and fine clothes to wear, the girls worked in Corinne’s Rainbow Saloon. But they were not the usual dance hall girls, serving liquor to drunken miners—or worse. They were forbidden intimacies beyond simple conversation. But, according to the girl seated on Silver’s left, there was the occasional love story that ended in a wedding.
She learned one more thing during the meal. The Rainbow Saloon had honest gambling tables, and because of that, more men came there to gamble than any other saloon or gaming hall in all of Virginia City. If Matt Carlton was in this town, he would end up at the Rainbow sooner or later.
And if he’s who Jared believes him to be, one of the girls at this table could be his next victim.
Even as a shudder passed through her, fresh resolve stiffened her spine. She meant to do everything she could to make certain there was no next victim. She wanted and needed the reward in order to help her father, but there were some things even more important than money.
