by Tate, Kristy
From The Recipes of Mercy Faye
The noise thundered through the house. The shaking became so violent it seemed the brothel would slip from its foundation.. Girls screamed and men bellowed as they streamed out the doors and jammed into the hall. Trent caught sight of a half naked Mr. Muir jostling through the throng, his white rear shaking with expediency. And then everything was lost in a haze of orange and yellow putrid smoke that smelled of sulfur.
Mercy used the diversion to thwack Steele’s gun hand with her staff. The gun clattered to the floor. Steele howled in pain or outrage, or perhaps both and as he stooped for the gun, Mercy brought her staff down on his head, so hard it cracked.
“Well done,” Trent said, picking up the revolver and placing his boot on Steele’s back.
Mercy brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Thanks. I’ve actually had practice.”
Trent raised an eyebrow at her and then motioned to the hall. “We’d better go before we turn to ashes.”
Mercy looked at Steele squirming beneath Trent’s boot. “We can’t just leave him here.”
“If he dies in the fire--”
Mercy shook her head. She drew closer to Trent, her features becoming clearer through the thick smoke as she approached. Touching his arm, she touched her lips to his ear. “The fire’s a ruse.”
Stunned Trent stepped back. “You did this?”
She rocked back onto her heels, looking smug. “Well, not alone.”
He grabbed her by arm, debating if he should kiss her or kill her. Steele used the distraction to roll out from under his boot. Mercy noticed and brought another strike of her staff on his head. Steele went limp.
“You’re getting rather good at that,” Trent said, placing his foot firmly on Steele’s back and pulling Mercy into his arms. She felt warm and soft, despite the acrid air, he could still smell the cinnamon that clung to her hair. She tasted and smelled of pie. “Quite scary,” he murmured, his mouth against her lips.
He stopped short of deepening the kiss when a figure materialized beside them from the smoke. “Chloe?” he choked.
What was she wearing? Someone, and he didn’t have to think too hard to know who, had wrapped her so that her waist had the same circumference as her chest. She looked like a mobile water barrel. He stared down into Mercy’s face and when he did speak, his voice broke. “You involved my sister?” He swallowed.
“Did you really think I could be left behind?” Chloe demanded. She turned her attention to Mercy. If Chloe thought it odd that Mercy would be holding her brother in a bawdy house while wearing a Little Bo Peep costume, she didn’t remark upon it. “All the girls are in the wagon and we need to leave before the others discover this is all smoke and mirrors.”
“But, what about?” Mercy jerked her head at Steele.
Chloe, perhaps for the first time, noticed the lifeless form beneath Trent’s boot. “Did you kill him?”
Mercy shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
Mercy nodded. “He’s exceptionally hard headed.”
Trent knelt beside Steele and pulled his wrists behind his back.
Mercy held up a finger. “I know just the thing. I saw them in the cupboard.” Going to the wardrobe, she pulled long lengths of linen out of a basket. She held them out with a curious look on her face before handing them to Trent. “Still, what will we do with him?”
Trent’s face tightened with concentration as he tied Steele’s wrists together. “We’ll leave him at Sherriff Calhouns. I heard he’s been looking for him.” Finished, he stood and wiped his hands as if he’d dealt with something dirty.
Chloe tugged at Mercy. “We need to leave.”
Trent wanted to argue. He wanted both girls to stay where he could see them, but he also recognized their immediate need to escape. It would take him awhile to get Steele down to the coach, so he nodded. “We’ll meet on the other side of the bridge. Be careful.”
There were so many other things he wanted to say. Be careful sounded weak and ineffectual compared to the strength of the emotions raging inside of him. He watched the two women, Mercy with her staff held aloft and Chloe with her felt hat pulled low, slip from the room and into the bedlam and smoke.
*****
Mercy and Chloe made their way down the hall in grim silence. The tide of patrons and girls swept down the front stairs, and Mercy followed them but Chloe tugged her down another hall. “Where are we going?” Mercy asked, bumping into a man trying to jump into his pants.
Chloe tightened her grip on Mercy’s wrist. “Cassie suggested the dumb waiter. It’ll take us straight to the basement.”
“But, isn’t that dangerous?” Mercy stumbled and nearly tripped over her staff.
“Not as dangerous as meeting Lady Luck. She has to be somewhere close. According to one of the girls, she’d taken to her bed about an hour ago. Supposedly she’d received a guest that had sought a private audience.”
“Steele.”
“Probably.”
Mercy considered this as they trotted down the now deserted hall. “No, that doesn’t make sense.” She halted in front of the dumb waiter and pointed at it. “And that doesn’t make sense, either.”
“Any sign of Eloise?” Chloe asked, as she grabbed the handled of the dumb waiter and wrenched it open, exposing a dark three by three cage.
Mercy shook her head. “Miles?”
“He’s completely beside himself.”
“You’ve seen him, then?”
Chloe flushed crimson pink. “Come on,” she said, dropping Mercy’s wrist and swinging a leg into the dumb waiter.
“This would have been much more difficult in skirts,” Chloe whispered. She needn’t have bothered. The back stair that led to the maid’s quarters above and the kitchen below was deserted. They could hear the press and clamor of the girls in the next hall, the snapping and sparking of the fireworks, but from Lady Luck’s private quarters, directly above their position in the back hall, they didn’t hear a thing. It’d been a miracle that they still hadn’t heard, seen or been confronted by the Madam.
“Not that this will be easy,” Mercy said, passing Chloe the rope so that she could climb in.
Chloe pushed herself into the back corner of the dumb waiter, her knees up around her ears. She held the rope high so Mercy could wedge into the tight space.
“But, it’ll be very, very fast,” Chloe said. “Especially if the rope breaks.”
Mercy closed the dumb waiter’s door, leaving a space large enough to throw out the rope. She took a deep breath. “Ready?”
Even in the semi-darkness, Mercy could see Chloe grin. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Escape from a brothel?”
“No, ride a dumb waiter.”
“You are joking.”
“There are dumber things to ride,” Chloe said, chuckling as she tossed out the rope.
Mercy held her breath as the dumb waiter plunged into darkness and sped toward the cellar.
CHAPTER 35
Smoke a Brisket low and slow. A brisket needs long exposure to heat and smoke to reach its ultimate taste and texture.
From The Recipes of Mercy Faye
The girls milled around the cellar in a various stages of undress. Most wore their nightgowns, a few were in slips, one had on less than the Little Bo Peep costume. Mercy counted the girls. Nine girls. Mercy’s throat caught. Could the profits from her bakery really afford to employ them? How would they all squeeze into Georgina’s townhouse? Would they be happy with a new life? Or, would they return to prostitution? She took a deep breath. These girls hadn’t chosen this life, she reminded herself, it’d been forced upon them, and they weren’t being forced into a life of service in Mercy’s bakery, they were free to leave. But, with what? They didn’t even have any clothes. Looking at the girls, some with wide frightened eyes, others stifling nervous giggles, Mercy felt the enormity of what she’d begun sitting on her shoulders.
She hadn’t even fou
nd Eloise. Trent hadn’t found Rita. Belle, Melanie. All lost.
A girl called Regina slipped a cold hand into Mercy’s own. “Thank-you,” she breathed.
Mercy squeezed Regina’s hand. She’d started something, and now she needed to finish it. She didn’t know what would happen when Lady Luck roused from the private chamber and found the girls gone and the brothel filled with smoke. Would she seek retribution? Had Mercy pulled the girls from the proverbial fire pan and landed them into the, albeit fake, fire?
Young Lee sat on the stone steps just below the root cellars trap door. A plethora of spent cartons lay about him. He shot Mercy a gleaming smile. “I done alright.”
“Fabulous,” Mercy assured him.
“I save the best for last. Our big escape goes with a bang.”
“But, this time, no light, right?” Mercy asked.
Young Lee pushed back a lock of his dark hair and wiped a smudge of ash across his face. “Just very big noise and lots of smoke.”
Shepherding girls was a lot like boiling bagels. They floated where they wished and, just like a bagel sometimes needed prodding to stay below the water, the girls needed constant reminders to stay quiet and out of sight. She finally managed to get them in a hushed huddle in the corner of the cellar. Most of them stood barefoot on the cool dirt floor. Crates of wine and barrels of whiskey lined the stone walls. It’d be so frightfully easy to start a real fire, she thought, watching Young Lee with his explosives and flint so close to the alcohol.
“We’ll leave one at a time,” Mercy whispered, pointing to the open cellar door. “Chloe will go first to show you where to go. The wagon is hidden just beyond the trees.”
One by one the girls traipsed through the moonlit courtyard to the stand of trees beside the bridge. Mercy wrung her hands until they began to scream in complaint. She tried taking a deep breath, but the tightened corset bound her ribs.
“Almost done, boss,” Young Lee said to her. “We’re ready for our last blast.”
When the last girl slipped into the night, Young Lee gave her a wicked grin. She nodded and he struck the flint. The tinder caught and lit. Young Lee thrust the powder coated fuse into the small spark and waited.
It fizzled and then died.
Mercy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Young Lee. We don’t need it.”
Young Lee glowered at her. “No.”
Again he struck the flint. It flickered and then winked away.
Young Lee worked the fuse with the desperation of someone who’d been promised a favorite toy and was about to have it denied. He fought for the right to use his rockets. Mercy felt ready to burst with frustration and impatience.
She didn’t want to leave Young Lee, but finally she said, “I’m going. Stay here if you like.” Perhaps he heard her, perhaps not. The hood of his cloak had fallen over his face as he bent over his handiwork.
Mercy ran into the dark.
But, the wagon wasn’t there.
When the explosion ripped through the air, Mercy covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. When she opened them she was dangling mid air.
Hands like a vice clamped around her waist and hoisted her two feet above the ground. Mercy screamed and flailed her legs. She hadn’t seen nor heard anyone, which wasn’t surprising. Her ears still rang and the sulfur stench of smoke rolled out the windows of the brothel. She couldn’t hear or see, but she could fight.
Just not very effectively from mid air.
*****
He’d need to wait. The two girls might be able to glide through the smoky dark confusion without notice, but Trent doubted he’d be able to sling Steele through the crowd without gaining unwanted attention.
So, he waited. It may have only been a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity amidst vaporous reek of sulfur. Steele still hadn’t stirred by the time Trent hoisted him over his shoulder. He labored Steele down three flights of steps, knowing that he was more likely to die of asphyxiation than exertion. The halls still pulsed with yellow, red and brown haze. Finally, he pushed open the back door and took a deep breath.
As he’d hoped, the courtyard looked deserted. In the distance he could see the outlines of coaches, and men astride horses parading into the darkness. He wondered which carried Chloe and Mercy. And Chloe had mentioned others. Had they found Eloise? What about Miles?
*****
Mercy kicked, squirmed and tried to reach behind her to stop the chuckling. She didn’t like being abducted, but she especially disliked being abducted and mocked. Waving her staff, she tried to connect with any of her assailant’s body parts, but every bit of him seemed out of reach. “Put. Me. Down.” Her staff whistled through the air, never landing or making contact until it smacked a tree branch. The impact sent reverberations down her arm. “Ow,” she muttered as leaves, twigs and seed pods rained down on her head. She spit and increased her thrashing.
“I knew you’d put up a good fight,” a voice, frustratingly calm and steady, said.
Her energy had begun to flag, and it was disheartening to know that for all her efforts for the contrary, her captor sounded like he was enjoying himself. He sounded familiar. She managed to catch a glimpse of his massive forearm. Orson. Her hopes of escape diminished. Orson easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
“I like a fighter.”
She’d have to fight brawn with brain. Mercy willed herself to be still and tried to go limp. She had a vague idea of slipping through his hands. Orson had other plans. Like tossing her over his shoulder, holding the right wrist while pinning the left ankle. Mercy felt like a calf being carried to the slaughter.
A calf with a shepherd’s staff! She twisted so she could aim for his head.
Orson chuckled, grabbed the staff, and then deposited her in the back of a hay filled wagon.
*****
Trent’s heart leapt when he saw a crook of a shepherd’s staff waving in the back of a wagon. The staff disappeared as the driver slapped the reins but it then reemerged, along with the top of Mercy’s hair. Was he mistaken? No, she sat up and the moonlight glistened off her round shoulders. Trent swallowed fear mingling with rage. What was she doing? Where was she going? This couldn’t be another part of her ill conceived, albeit successful, plan, could it? Where was Chloe, Young Lee, Mugs, the other girls? The wagon lurched over the bridge, sending Mercy back down behind the slats holding the straw.
The wagon turned and moonlight played on the massive forearms of the driver.
Orson.
Trent found Synosby still tied to the tree in the thicket of alders. To his surprise, Miles’ horse stood beside Synosby, casually chewing, long blades of grass protruding from his mouth. With his heart thundering in his ears and adrenaline surging, it seemed wrong for the horses to stand so casually. He knew it’d only take him and Synosby minutes to overtake the hag pulling the straw filled wagon. He flung Steele across Synosby’s back. Steele’s tied hands and boots pointed to the ground on either side of the horse. Steele would have a raging headache and a stiff back by morning. Mid morning, Trent corrected himself, looking at the rising sun that spread a slow pink stain over the eastern horizon.
Trent gave the brothel a fleeting glance as he secured a strip of linen that bound Steele to the horn of his saddle. Smoke poured out the windows that shimmered red, yellow and gray. Red hot sparks impersonating as embers flew and popped in the air. The place looked deserted until Miles emerged from the root cellar trap door lugging the spent canisters that, given the Chinese characters on the sides, had most likely held the fireworks. Miles’ hair stood in odd angles, and he had smudges of smoke smeared across his face.
“Nice work, my friend,” Trent called out. “Any sign of Eloise?”
Miles shook his head and then pointed at Trent’s burden. “What you got?”
“Trash. I was hoping you could deposit it for me at Calhoun’s.” He explained about Mercy’s kidnapping,
“Gladly. At least we know Eloise isn’t with him. So, where is she?”
“When he wakes you could grill him for your sister.”
“Do we want him to wake?” Miles eyed Steele lying across Synosby’s back like an extra long saddle bag. “Seeing as how you already got him up there, why don’t you take my Nelly?”
Nelly wasn’t Synosby, but she looked strong. She gave Trent a curious stare as he mounted her. Trent slapped Nelly’s flanks and urged her forward while Synosby snorted a complaint when Miles swung onto his back.
Trent knew he could overtake the wagon in seconds. Miles, with Steele on board, galloped behind him. He understood the urgency. They’d found Steele, but not Eloise, which meant that she was with someone else, somewhere else, and the possibilities seemed endless.
In any other circumstance it would have been amusing to watch Mercy bobble in the back of the wagon. Several times she attempted to stand, or even come to her knees, but the lurching wagon pitched her up, down, and sideways. At least he knew she wasn’t hurt. But that could change in an instant. A well placed bullet or a blow to the head could silence Mercy forever, and from his current vantage point, all he’d be able to do was watch. He tried to imagine his life without her and failed. She belonged with him, he belonged with her. He pushed Nelly harder while grappling for the pistol secured to his side.
Trent wondered why Orson had kept Mercy alive. What purpose could she possibly serve? Other than the obvious. But why Mercy? Of all the girls fleeing the brothel, why had he chosen Mercy? Had it been random? Did he know Mercy had staged the fire?
Trent dodged a low hanging branch. As of yet, Mercy and Orson hadn’t noticed him and he prayed that the rattle of the wagon and clip clop of the nag would overpower the rumble of Nelly’s hooves. Miles and Synosby thundered away in the opposite direction as Trent approached the wagon.
Orson reached to his side and slipped a gun out of a holster. The gun barrel gleamed in the early morning light. Orson, shot a quick glance at the fleeing Miles and then turned in Trent’s direction, pointed the gun and fired.
