Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  “No,” Serena answered, her voice stiff, then as he began to turn away, she changed her mind. “Wait. Is there anything here I can use to make repairs?”

  “I doubt it, though you can look around, if you like. You might start in the dressing room at the back. On second thought, don’t bother. When I come back, I’ll bring you something to wear until your own things put in an appearance.”

  “I want nothing from you.”

  A mocking smile twisted his lips. “So you said once before. It’s really too bad. You are likely to get it anyway, though I suppose I will have to resign myself to doing without your — gratitude.”

  He moved with his lithe stride to the door. It closed quietly behind him. With a frown drawing her winged brows together, Serena stood staring at nothing. He was a puzzling man, this Ward Dunbar. For all the sign he had given this morning when they had awakened together in the gray dawn in bed aboard the private railroad car, his remorse of the night before, the things he had said on the platform outside, might never have been. He had got up and put on his clothes, and then, either from tact or indifference, left her alone. And yet, some time later when she emerged from the tiny bathroom, she had found him standing beside the coverlet where she had left it to dry, a corner of the brocade crumpled in his hand as he stared boringly at the faint rust-orange water stain that marred its shining surface. He had lifted his eyes to hers for a long moment, and it had seemed to Serena there was an accusation in their dark-green depths. That expression had been so like the glint of contempt in his face just now, when he had mentioned the wealthy men of the town, that she could not help but question if there was some connection with what he had felt then, and just now. Had he suspected her of trying to keep her virginity to barter in return for the affections of a rich man? It did not matter, not really. Still, she hated to have him think that she would sell herself in such a fashion.

  Would he actually keep her a prisoner here in these rooms? It did not seem possible, not in this day and age. But beyond the question of why he would feel the need, it would not be an easy task, not if he left her alone like this. She had only to fling up a window and scream for help, and when it came, charge him with his crime.

  Would help come? There would be nothing unusual here, she thought, about women crying out, calling in shrill voices, screaming with laughter. What attention would be paid one more? And even if someone came, could she bring herself to speak of what had happened? Supposing she could, would they believe her? Might they not just as easily conclude she had brought her problems upon herself when she refused to accept the place assigned to her as a woman, refused to accept the authority of the man who had her in his keeping, Elder Greer? What was so terrible about her now being in the keeping of another man?

  What was so terrible was the loss of her freedom. But Serena, staring at the closed door where Ward had gone out, could not persuade herself that the miners passing back and forth along the street outside could be brought to see it. Nor, in all truth, could she find it within herself to blame Ward. The purpose was to protect her, wasn’t it?

  Was it? It made no sense otherwise. He had come across her under peculiar circumstances that made him doubt her virtue. He had given her aid and, finding her desirable, had taken the payment he deemed most suitable. The discovery that the price he had exacted was more than he deserved had come as a shock to him; there could be no question of that. Bringing her here was his way of making recompense, but by no word or deed had he suggested that she could expect anything more from him than his protection. The saving respectability of marriage was not a condition one could associate with such a man; she did not expect it. But what, then, did she expect?

  Abruptly Serena threw back her shawl, letting it fall to the floor. Swinging around, she hurried to the front window. Her fingers felt numb. She could not discover how the curtains opened. Then she was pulling the gold silk wide, sweeping it back on either side. The sash was stiff from disuse, but she pushed it high, letting the cool mountain air inside. With the palms of her hands on the sill, she leaned out the window.

  An instant later, she drew back inside. From where she stood, she could see Ward just leaving the Eldorado, crossing the street. The sun gleamed with russet lights on his dark-brown hair, noticeable since he was the only man on the street without a hat of some kind. He walked with a free swinging stride, avoiding an oncoming wagon with ease, a man with a purpose. Head and shoulders above the others, or so it seemed, he threaded his way through the ambling drunks and sauntering midnight dandies without looking back.

  He was gone. She was alone. Serena drew a deep, calming breath. Chin high, she picked up her shawl from the floor, pulling it close around her once more, and swung in the direction of the door that led out into the hallway.

  The knob turned under her hand. She stepped outside and drew the panel to behind her. With a quiet tread, she moved toward the head of the stairs.

  A lazy murmur of voices came toward her as she walked. She heard the slow brushing sweep of a broom being wielded below, and the clink of glasses being stacked. At the head of the stairs, she paused, one hand clutching the shawl together at her throat while she reached for the stair railing with the other. She descended a step, two, three.

  Silence fell in the barroom. The creaking of a chair was loud in the quiet. A man with an apron tied around his waist and wearing armbands on his sleeves came into view. The light of an oil lamp, burning low this time of day, shone on his bald pate with its gray fringe of hair as he tilted his head back, staring up at Serena.

  “Would you be wanting something?” he growled, his tone insolent despite the politeness of his query.

  Serena halted. “No. I — thought I would take a little walk, see something of the town.”

  “Expect you had better wait for Mr. Dunbar, let him show you around.” The man crossed his arms over his burly chest, his feet spread wide. Once more, the words were civil, but the barman’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

  Serena veiled her expression with her lashes. Ward’s threat to post a guard over her had not been idle. She should have known it would not be. Indeed, she had known it, but she had to test it for herself. “You may be right,” she answered. “I hope he doesn’t mean to be long?”

  “I doubt that, seeing as how he knows you’re here, waiting for him.”

  With a cool nod, despite the color in her cheeks, Serena inclined her head and, turning, retraced her footsteps with as much dignity as she could muster. The barman did not move, but stood watching until she was out of sight.

  Back inside the room, the air was close and overwarm, filled with the musty newness of fabrics and thick-napped rugs, overlaid with the sour liquor smell that drifted up from the barroom. With the sudden energy of fury Serena went through the suite of rooms, opening the curtains, shoving the windows as high as they would go. The apartment slowly filled with light, making it seem less somber, less opulently depraved. By degrees, the air began to circulate, to billow a silk panel, to ripple the fringe on the brocade over-drapes, to move the peacock feathers lightly in their brass urn.

  There was dust everywhere, a slow seeping from the streets. Serena could write her name on the surface of the bureau in the bedroom, and wipe cloudy streaks across the mirror in the door of the wardrobe. The rolltop desk in one corner was so thickly coated as to appear covered with gray fur, and the red brocade curtains drawn around the head of the four-poster bed needed a good shaking. Beyond the bed room was a dressing room, also fitted with a wardrobe and a small, rather feminine-looking dressing table. An alcove of the same room, shielded by a sandalwood screen, contained a claw-footed tub and other bathroom fixtures.

  Serena stood staring at them a long minute. She had not expected such amenities, not here. The rawness of the camp the number of privies seen sitting discreetly at the back edges of the street lots, had not encouraged her to expect it. Was it a part of Pearlie’s reorganizing of Ward’s rooms? She did not know. She only knew that her grandfath
er’s plantation home on the Mississippi River, a home of much pride and luxury, could not boast of such convenience. On trips with her mother as a young girl, there had been the novelty of bathing in a long tub of lead with soldered seams called a julep tub. It had been filled by Negro servants carrying cans of water laboriously up the back servant’s stair from the kitchen. Otherwise, as a child and young woman, she had performed the necessary rituals of cleanliness in the round wooden tub her mother had used for washing clothes. Never had she enjoyed the comfort of a porcelain tub such as the one before her, not even at Mrs. O’Hare’s boarding house. The bathing arrangement there had been only a slightly larger edition of her mother’s washtub, something on the order of a rain barrel, with the hot water supplied once more from the kitchen.

  Leaning over the tub, Serena turned on the tap. It ran cold for a few seconds, then began to grow warm. She drew in her breath. The temptation to make use of that lovely flowing water was near impossible to resist. She longed to wash her hair, to lie back and soak the grime of the long wagon journey, without facilities of any kind, from her skin, things she had not been able to do during her quick ablutions the afternoon before in Mrs. O’Hare’s barrel. At the mere thought her skin itched.

  She turned off the water and straightened. She could not do it. Ward might return at any minute. They were his rooms, his things. She had no right to make use of them.

  As she turned away, she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror set in a scrolled wood frame attached to the dressing-room wall. The reflection showed a slim girl in a dress that was faded and wrinkled, stained where she had fallen to her knees in the dirt of the street, and with the bodice in shreds. Wisps of dull hair straggled about her face, falling from the few pins left to her after her struggles, and there were blue shadows under her eyes from fatigue and restless nights. It was no wonder Ward Dunbar thought he could do as he pleased with her. She looked like the homeless waif he had called her, spiritless, without pride or strength of will. No wonder she had aroused Pearlie’s laughter, even her tolerant contempt.

  It was not to be borne. She could not stand to look so another minute. Let Mr. Dunbar come back when he pleased, think what he chose. She had not asked to be brought here, had certainly not wanted to be incarcerated in this place. If she made herself at home more than he liked or expected, that was too bad. There was little he could do about it.

  There was a bar of castile soap in the brass holder beside the tub. Serena soaped her hair with it again and again, letting the fine, silken lather slide down over her shoulders and across her rose-tipped breasts. She scrubbed herself inch by inch, then lay back, luxuriating in the warmth of the water, the delicate scent of the soap, the feeling of being fresh and clean.

  Once she thought she heard a sound and she started up, splashing water onto the carpeted floor, her heart pounding so that the wet and shining roundness of her breasts thudded with its beat. It was nothing, only the slamming of a distant door, perhaps in the saloon’s storeroom somewhere below. It had sounded loud because of the open windows and doorways, that was all. Ward’s rooms lay lengthwise of the barroom, which would make the dressing room with its bathing alcove on the backside of the building.

  Finally the water began to cool. Serena rinsed the last traces of soap from her hair. She stood up with slender grace and, drawing the dark strands of her hair over her shoulder, twisted it around her arm, squeezing the water from its long length. As she flung it back over her shoulder, the wet ends of the tangled skein whipped against the skin below her waist. Reaching for a Turkish towel from the nearby hardwood rack, she stepped from the tub. She dried herself with slow care, enjoying the feel of the soft, velvet-like toweling. As quickly as she dried her back, however, her wet hair dampened it again. Drawing it forward once more, she leaned forward from the hips to rub the lustrous tresses.

  She did not know what caused her to glance at the mirror on the wall. It might have been no more than an accident; it might have been that unconscious awareness of being observed that comes to us at times. From where she was standing, the angle of the mirror neatly circumvented the sandalwood screen, revealing the interior of the bedroom and the high surface of the brocade-covered four-poster bed. Upon that coverlet was stretched a man. He was fully clothed, propped against the pillows with his hands locked behind his head.

  It was Ward. His booted feet were crossed and his eyes were hooded as he lay staring. It was in that brief moment of recognition that Serena realized that if she could see him, he could also see her.

  She whipped the towel around her. The heat of a flush warmed her face, deepening as she had some difficulty in finding the ends of the towel to cross over her breasts. To be caught at such a disadvantage once more added anger to her embarrassment, and as she dove to swing the dressing-room door shut, it did not close lightly.

  Holding the towel around her, she swung away, pushing at her hair, trying in distraction to force her fingers through the tumbled masses. The nerve of the man, lying like some Biblical king spying on her as she bathed. To know that he had observed her when she thought she was alone, making an entertainment of her private moments, was more enraging than if he had barged in upon her.

  Where were her clothes? As much as she might cringe at the thought of putting them, soiled as they were, back on, she had to have something to cover herself beside a length of toweling. She had left them thrown over the bench before the dressing table. They were not there now, nor had they slid to the floor on the far side.

  A knock came on the door. Serena did not answer. In growing wrath, she stared around her, then took the few steps needed to peer behind the screen, scanning the bathing alcove.

  The knock came again, firmer, more insistent.

  “Go away!” Serena cried.

  For an answer, the knob turned and the door swung slowly open. Ward lounged against the jamb. “If you are looking for something to wear,” he drawled, his tone laconic, “you might try this.”

  Hanging on the end of one brown finger was a wrapper of deep-blue sateen with shadings of lavender in the folds. It had elbow-length sleeves in layers that were edged with lace, a high waistline that wrapped and tied with a long purple satin cord, and a flowing skirt that spread into a demi-train in the back.

  “What is it?” she asked, clutching at her towel though she had almost forgotten her near nudity for the moment.

  “I told you I would bring you something to wear.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “It belongs to you.”

  “A bribe?” The word was bald, uncompromising.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Let’s call it a replacement for your dress that was — damaged.”

  Serena raised her chin a fraction. “Let’s not. Where are my clothes?”

  “You know,” he said, his face bland, “I’m not sure. I told Sanchow to burn them — he is the Chinaman who brought our breakfast from the restaurant down the street, which, incidentally, is getting cold. But you know how frugal the Chinese are. They refuse to waste anything. He will probably give them to his wife either to refurbish or to sell for paper rags.”

  “You mean you gave my clothes away!”

  “I didn’t know you were so fond of them,” he replied in mock apology.

  “It’s all I have to put on!” she exploded.

  “How can you say so? You have this!” Once more he indicated the wrapper.

  “You would like that, to have me walk around in front of you dressed as some — some lady of the half-light.”

  “Such a delicate phrase. I wonder where you heard it? But let me disabuse you of your curious notion about my tastes. If it is me you are studying to please, you will wear nothing at all. It was your feelings in the matter that concerned me.”

  She was silenced. She felt at a disadvantage, bewildered in the knowledge that she was confronting a man who had stepped outside the line of what was acceptable, yet one who might step back inside at any time. She expected civilized
behavior and received enforced intimacy. She braced herself for an assault upon her defenses, and was met with sudden, disquieting solicitude.

  “Of course, if I was wrong, if you would prefer to stay in your towel, then I have no objections.” A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth as with studied slowness he allowed his gaze to move over her, dropping from the line of her shoulders to the curves of her breasts defined by the damp towel, and lower, to the indentation of her waist that flared into a slender hipline, her tapering thighs and calves and small, narrow feet. The bronze of his face paled a shade, and a look of strain came into his green eyes. “I suggest,” he added, “that you make up your mind quickly.”

  It seemed sensible. Clenching her teeth, Serena took the wrapper from his hand, stepped back, and slammed the door upon him. It wasn’t her fault that it did not quite hit him in the face.

  She tugged her towel loose and flung it over the screen, then shook out the sateen garment and slipped her hands into the sleeves. It was a lovely fit, neither too full nor too tight. There was a small string tie under her right breast, then the material overlapped it and was held together by the satin cord. The only trouble was, this cord was the only closing. The bodice of the wrapper had a small, standing ruffle that grew narrower as it swept forward in a wide, curving neckline shaped like an inverted heart. The effect was an inordinately deep and wide décolletage that displayed more bosom than was seemly. The front of the skirt, caught high in its Empire style, was demurely closed as long as she stood still, but the instant she took a step, it opened to reveal the length of her legs to well above the knee, especially with the drag of the demi-train in the back to spread the opening wider. Though she had considerably more material draped upon her frame, the wrapper was not as protective of her modesty as the towel had been.

  A tap came on the door once more. “I hate to rush you, but I can’t guarantee the food will be edible once it gets cold.”