Wanton Angel

by Linda Lael Miller

  The mayhem of drab calico and brightly colored taffeta continued all around, but Menelda, for all the splotches of mud on her face and dress, held her chin high. She smirked, her beady eyes flashing with sweet triumph. “Surely God will smite you for what you’ve done, Bonnie McKutchen!”

  The voice grated past Bonnie’s ear, low and fierce and audible only to her. “God,” said Eli McKutchen, “will have to wait His turn.”

  Every muscle in Bonnie’s body tensed, suddenly and painfully. “Oh, no,” she breathed.

  “Oh, yes,” countered her former husband.

  Just then, Forbes arrived with his hired henchmen and the marshal of Northridge. The men began dispersing the mud-flinging, hair-pulling faction, but Bonnie couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think of anything but the granitelike body against which she remained hopelessly pinioned.

  “Put me down,” she managed to say, after some time had passed, assuming a pretense of dignity. “This instant.”

  Bonnie was not released, but the arm loosened enough that she could turn her head—it took a moment more to gather the courage for that—and look up into Eli’s face.

  “If it isn’t the mayor of Northridge,” he drawled ominously, apparently unconcerned that half the population of the town was gathered in that boggy, dung-dappled street, looking on. “Who would have thought that august office would be held by a whore?”

  All Bonnie’s terror or, at least, most of it was displaced by a fury that coursed through her veins, stinging like the venom of a snake. She struggled to free her arms for attack, only to have them crushed against her sides. “I am not a whore!” she screamed.

  “And I’m not a Presbyterian!” taunted Menelda Sneeder.

  Bonnie squirmed, wild with bloodlust, making a trapped animal sound in her throat, but she could not free herself.

  At that moment a man wearing thick spectacles and carrying a battered valise appeared in front of Bonnie, a savior with red muttonchop whiskers and very kind eyes. Bonnie recognized Seth Callahan, the family attorney. “Put Mrs. McKutchen down, Eli,” he said reasonably. “You are making a scene.”

  Eli’s arm tightened reflexively, then relaxed. Released so abruptly, from a position that had not allowed her feet to touch the ground, Bonnie lost her balance and tumbled to her knees.

  Outraged, terrified and humiliated, all of a piece, Bonnie filled both hands with mud and bounded back to her feet, hurling the sodden dirt at Eli as she rose. In the second of grace granted her by his reaction, one of seething shock, Bonnie lifted her ruined skirts and broke into a dead run.

  Eli caught her easily, again with that flint-hard arm, then turned toward the Brass Eagle, carrying her against his hip the way a schoolboy would carry books.

  “Let me go!” Bonnie wailed, in fear for her very life.

  Eli strode inside the Brass Eagle, pausing at the base of the stairs, and neither Bonnie’s cries of protest nor her struggles slowed his pace by one whit. He started up the stairway, Seth hurrying to keep up and adding his protests to Bonnie’s.

  The cabbage-rose pattern on the carpeted steps seemed to rush past Bonnie’s eyes like pictures in a nickelodeon. “Eli,” she croaked, as they reached the upper floor, “I beg of you. Put me down.”

  Eli’s dusty black boots covered the length of the hallway in mere seconds; there was no answer but for the opening of a door.

  Bonnie squeezed her eyes shut, for this was Forbes’s private apartment and there was no telling what sinful sight might present itself.

  “Eli!” shouted Mr. Callahan, with spirit and a contrasting note of hopelessness. “I must insist that you listen to me!”

  “Later,” Eli retorted, and slammed the door of the suite, probably in Mr. Callahan’s face. There was a resolute sound of metal meeting metal—the shooting of the bolt, no doubt.

  Bonnie opened her eyes in an effort to regain her equilibrium and forestall the motion sickness that was quivering in the pit of her stomach.

  Pausing only momentarily, Eli strode into a bathroom of luxurious proportions. He shifted Bonnie so that he held her upright again, as he had in the street below, then reached down to insert the plug in an enormous marble bathtub. Deftly, he opened one spigot.

  Steaming hot water began to gush into the deep tub and Bonnie knew fresh terror. He meant to parboil her!

  She began to flail and wriggle against her captor, her heart pounding in her throat and filling it so that she could not scream.

  In the meantime, someone was hammering thunderously at the door of the suite, jarring it on its hinges.

  “Eli!” bellowed Mr. Callahan’s voice, regrettably far away, and the doorknob began to rattle. “Damn you, open this door or I’ll get the sheriff! I’m not bluffing!”

  “Neither am I!” Eli shouted back, grappling with Bonnie while he bent to add cold water to the boiling tub. “Go ahead and get the marshal—they don’t have a sheriff here. Tell him I’m giving my wife, the mayor, a badly needed bath.” He paused and chuckled speculatively before adding, “Care to place any bets whose side he’s going to take, Seth?”

  “I am not your wife!” Bonnie found the courage to point out. “For the last time, Eli, let me go!”

  He tested the water with a vigorous swish of one hand. “If you say so, dear,” he responded, and then he dropped Bonnie, dress, feathers, mud and all, into the tub.

  The water splashed high, covering Bonnie’s face, filling her nostrils. She sputtered and choked, infuriated beyond all bearing, and let loose a stream of Patch Town invective that would have given the members of the Friday Afternoon Community Improvement Club collective heart failure.

  Eli sighed as the door of the suite finally gave way with a whining crash, stepped back from the side of the tub and folded his arms across his chest. His fine clothes were muddied, Bonnie was pleased to see, and behind the mockery in his golden eyes snapped a controlled rage that was better left unnoticed.

  “Are you through bathing, dear?” he asked sweetly, as Forbes, Mr. Callahan and the marshal all wedged themselves into the doorway like vaudevillians in a comedy revue, their mouths agape.

  Bonnie’s dignity was entirely gone. She rose from the water like an Independence Day rocket, hair and clothes dripping, makeup doubtless running down her face. She didn’t care how she looked; at that moment, her one aim in life was to tear Eli McKutchen apart with her own hands.

  Her voice, as she moved toward him, was a low, throaty monotone. “You self-righteous, overbearing, store-stealing—”

  Eli stood still, unafraid, unmoved, a maddening grin curving his perfect lips, but the three rescuers backed out of the doorway, their eyes wide.

  After one quick glance about, Bonnie selected the toilet brush as a weapon and it seemed to fly into her hands. Holding it baseball-bat fashion, she took a hard swing and struck Eli’s chest a bristly blow. The slight spray of water didn’t bother Bonnie, considering the sodden condition of her person, but it made Eli’s jaw tense and intensified the quiet ferocity in his eyes. With one swift motion of his hand, he wrenched the brush from her grip and flung it aside, sending it clattering against the wall.

  There was a short, ominous silence as Bonnie and Eli stood facing each other, neither willing to give so much as an inch.

  Forbes, apparently the bravest of the three, edged his way past Eli’s massive frame. His brown eyes laughed at Bonnie briefly before fastening themselves to the face of her oppressor. “Mr. McKutchen, if there’s anything I can do to straighten out this—er—matter—”

  “You’ve done quite enough,” Eli replied, his eyes never leaving Bonnie’s face. “And don’t delude yourself, Durrant: I won’t forget the favor.”

  Forbes shuddered visibly, but he was never off balance for long and he quickly recovered his obnoxious aplomb. “You seem to misunderstand the situation, Eli—Mr. McKutchen. Bonnie—Mrs. McKutchen—is a hurdy-gurdy dancer, not a—a—”

  “Whore?” Eli supplied, with biting clarity.

  Lacking
the toilet brush, Bonnie had no recourse but to kick her estranged husband soundly in one shin. He gave a howl of pain and during that precious moment of distraction, Bonnie dodged past him, past Forbes, and fled for her life.

  She ran into the hall, bathwater dripping from her hair and her clothes, her shoes sodden and squishy, and down the rear stairs, through the kitchen. There, with the cooks and serving girls staring at her in utter amazement, she paused to catch her breath and think.

  She couldn’t very well go dashing through the streets in this state of disarray, and yet every moment she tarried in the Brass Eagle increased her dire risk. The thought of facing Eli McKutchen again, before he’d had time to recover his reason, was a horrifying one.

  Bonnie stood on the far side of a worktable, trembling with cold and fear and fury, trying to think. If she could just reach the newspaper office and Webb Hutcheson, she would be assured of safety.

  “If Forbes or—or anyone else comes in here,” Bonnie whispered, through chattering teeth, “you haven’t seen me. Do you understand that? You haven’t seen me!”

  With that, spurred by a clatter in the fancy dining room beyond, Bonnie dashed out the rear door and cautiously rounded the building. Menelda and her battalion of do-gooders were gone; there was only the usual late afternoon traffic in the streets.

  Huddled near a corner of the Brass Eagle Saloon, Bonnie drew a deep breath and scurried down the street toward the humble offices of the Northridge News.

  “I hope you know,” Seth Callahan blustered coldly, “that you have made a complete fool of yourself.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” chimed Genoa, lifting her wineglass in the air and her wry eyes to Eli’s face.

  Eli looked around the once-familiar parlor, feeling crowded by the army of Dresden figurines, the false mantels, the portieres and plants, the displays of wax fruit and the tasseled curtains. He suppressed an awesome urge to spread his arms in an attempt to clear some space and give himself room to breathe. “Why didn’t you tell me that Bonnie was—dancing—at the Brass Eagle?”

  Obviously delighted by the whole situation, Genoa took a leisurely sip of her wine and savored it properly before answering. “You didn’t ask.”

  Eli’s hand tightened around a snifter of brandy, all but crushing the delicate crystal to shards. “As my sister, it was your duty—”

  Genoa shot out of her Morris chair, her pale blue eyes flashing, her narrow face red with incensed conviction. “Don’t you dare to talk to me about duty, Eli McKutchen. You suffered a tragedy when you lost Kiley, but your actions after the fact were hardly admirable, were they? You shut Bonnie away when you might have given her comfort, as was your duty, and then you went off to a silly war, where you had no business being! And if that wasn’t enough, you proceeded to carouse through Europe, like the prodigal son, completely ignoring your responsibilities not only to Bonnie, but to our grandfather’s company!”

  “Here, here,” muttered Seth, hefting his glass, apparently emboldened by its contents. His eyes glittered with admiration as he watched Genoa.

  Eli was taken aback—much of what Genoa said was true, though he wasn’t willing to admit that yet—and by the time he’d thought of a response, the petulant wail of a child filled the cluttered parlor.

  The prettiest nanny Eli had ever seen stood in the tasseled and beaded doorway, a squalling toddler riding on one hip, addressing Genoa: “Pardon, Miss McKutchen, but little Rose Marie is some fretful and I wondered if she shouldn’t start her nap early, even though the schedule says—”

  Eli stared at the child, setting his glass down among a half dozen china shepherdesses, and she stared back with eyes exactly the same color as his own, falling silent in mid-wail. Her hair, like his, like Genoa’s, was wheat-brown with a mingling of gold, and her identity fell on his spirit with the weight of a house. “My God—Bonnie’s child?”

  Out of the corner of one eye, Eli saw his sister nod. “Yes.”

  “I’d forgotten—” His voice fell away. It was a lie; he’d never forgotten, not for a moment. He’d been torn apart by the knowledge that Bonnie had borne another man’s child, and he’d never dared hope—

  “A startling resemblance,” observed Seth. “Uncanny, isn’t it, Miss McKutchen?”

  “Absolutely striking,” agreed Genoa, in tones of saucy gentleness, before speaking crisply to the nanny. “You may give Rose Marie her nap now, Katie, but let’s not let Mrs. McKutchen find out. You know how she is about the schedule.”

  Katie, a lovely, dark-haired imp with a look of dignity about her that ran completely counter to her station in life, nodded and smiled, then turned to go.

  Both Eli and the child protested at the same moment, the child with a cry, Eli with a quick “Wait—”

  Genoa touched his arm. “Later, Eli,” she said softly. “There will be plenty of time for you and Rose to get to know each other.”

  Reeling with a curious mixture of wrath and pure delight, Eli relented and sank into an overstuffed chair, reaching blindly for his brandy snifter. Seth had to find it and put it in his hand, and, after a good look at his employer’s face, he refilled it in the bargain.

  Webb was away from the newspaper office, as luck would have it, and Bonnie couldn’t wait for him. She finally waylaid a goggle-eyed messenger boy passing on the street and sent him to the Brass Eagle, with a hastily scrawled note for Forbes.

  Instead of sending a reply, Forbes came in person, his brazen brown eyes humorously sympathetic as they took in Bonnie’s ruined clothes, smudged face and tangled hair. “Oh, Angel, you’ve got us all into a mess this time, haven’t you?”

  Bonnie swallowed, cold and miserable and deeply shamed. Forbes’s opinion didn’t matter but, if she were to be honest with herself, she had to admit that Eli’s did. “I suppose I’m fired,” she said.

  Forbes paused long enough to draw a cheroot from the inside pocket of his coat and, leaning against the jamb of Webb’s open door, he struck a wooden match against the sole of his boot. “Eli McKutchen is the one man I can’t afford to tangle with,” he said, with uncommon forthrightness. “On the other hand, nobody draws business into the Brass Eagle the way you do. And you’re not legally his wife, are you?”

  Bonnie had divorced Eli rather impulsively, angry because he’d gone off to war and because her father’s store had fallen into such ruin. She shook off the regret that possessed her whenever she thought of her action and, lifting her smudged and rouge-stained chin, announced, “Eli McKutchen has no legal hold over me, Forbes. None whatsoever.”

  “He has a few over me, Angel,” Forbes reflected, his eyes in the far distance now. “He has a few over me.”

  “He isn’t going to approve of your management of the smelter,” Bonnie agreed. “It seems to me that since we’re both in trouble, we might as well stand our ground.”

  Forbes chuckled. He was a rounder and every other sort of scoundrel, but Bonnie had to admire his spirit. “So you admit that you’re in trouble, too, do you?”

  Bonnie lowered her head for a moment, and then nodded. She thought of her daughter and her store and her position as mayor, joke that it was, and felt a new determination surge through her. “I’m not going to let Eli bully me, Forbes. I have reasons to fight and, by God, fight I will!”

  As if in wonder, Forbes shook his head. “Are you forgetting how powerful Eli is, Bonnie? We’re not dealing with a spurned pot-tender or a lumberjack, you know—your ex-husband is a man the likes of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Astor.”

  “I’ve met them all,” Bonnie sniffed and in that moment, if she was forgetting anything, it was the ridiculous state of her appearance, “and they’re only men.”

  Forbes’s perfect teeth were bared in an insufferable grin. “Well, Angel, if you’re game, so am I. We’ll beard the lion and all that.”

  Despite everything, Bonnie laughed. With the demeanor of a queen, she swept past Forbes and started walking down the street toward the Brass Eagle Saloon and Ballroom. “Why
didn’t you tell me you had a bathtub like that?” she demanded. “My word, it’s so luxurious as to be sinful, Forbes Durrant!”

  Forbes looked unaccountably happy as he strode along beside her. “That’s the way I like my sin, Bonnie-my-sweet. Luxurious.”

  A shiver crept up Bonnie’s spine, a shiver that had no connection whatsoever to her wet clothing. It was all very well to whistle in the dark, but the truth was just as Forbes had pointed out—Eli was one of the most powerful men in America. If his temper didn’t cool and his natural good nature failed to come to the fore, he might well crush not only Forbes, but Bonnie herself.

  Dottie Thurston assessed Bonnie’s fresh dress and neat, if somewhat dewy, coiffure with slightly envious eyes. “Forbes never lets nobody else use his bathtub,” she complained in an undertone, as the ballroom began to fill with token-bearing miners, smelter workers and sheep farmers. Soon the orchestra would play, the dancing would begin, and Bonnie found herself dreading the evening as never before.

  “It was something of an emergency, you know,” Bonnie whispered back, her eyes anxiously scanning the rough crowd of men awaiting the first strains of music and the feminine contact the dancing would allow them.

  “Don’t know why you’d want to leave a man like that anyhow,” Dottie fussed, her hands on her round hips now, her eyes, like Bonnie’s, moving over the night’s crop of dancing partners. “Eli McKutchen’s good-lookin’ enough to stop a girl’s heart, and he’s got all that money, besides.”

  Blessedly the music began before Bonnie had to give a reply. She danced first with Till Reemer, who worked as a foreman at the smelter, and then with Jim Sneeder, Menelda’s husband. Jim had a habit of wrenching his partner a little too close during a waltz—and all the dances were waltzes—so Bonnie kept her arms stiff to hold him at his distance.

  “Heard Menelda got a little out of hand today,” he commented, trying all the while to draw his dancing partner nearer.

  “Yes,” answered Bonnie, remembering the upraised hatchet and the hatred—perhaps not entirely unjustified—flashing in Menelda’s eyes. “We did have words.”