Wanton Angel Read online

  “Vaudevillians?” Bonnie echoed, careful to keep her voice down. She had a fascination with show people and their performances, though admittedly this enthrallment had brought her to dire regret on one tragic occasion.

  The stranger nodded and there was a spark of amusement in his eyes. “My guess would be that they’re booked at the Pompeii Playhouse in Northridge. Most vaudevillians travel with a troupe, but there are exceptions, of course.”

  Bonnie was wildly curious and thus willing to overlook the patent impropriety of speaking, let alone sharing a seat, with a man she didn’t know. She stole one more glance at the family of thespians and then turned widened, grayviolet eyes to the face of the gentleman sitting beside her. “My goodness! Northridge must have grown and prospered since I was there last—certainly there was no playhouse.”

  The man smiled, revealing a set of enviably white teeth. “The theatre is the benevolent work of the Friday Afternoon Community Improvement Club, which, curiously enough, invariably meets on Tuesday mornings. They’ve started a library, too, and have poetry readings on alternate Thursday evenings.”

  For a moment, Bonnie remembered how she had yearned for books to read during her childhood. After she learned to make sense of the printed word, she still had only a dog-eared copy of McGuffey’s Reader—until Miss Genoa McKutchen befriended her and changed her life forever, that is.

  “I grew up in Northridge, you know,” she said, frowning slightly and stiffening to keep her balance as the train careened around a particularly sharp curve of track and the loosely bolted seats threatened to come unfastened from the floor. “I don’t remember meeting you, Mr.—”

  “Hutcheson. Webb Hutcheson.” The name was supplied with gruff pleasantry. “I’ve only lived in Northridge for a few years. My misfortune—if I’d been there earlier, I might have met you.”

  Bonnie colored slightly and looked down at her hands, which were knotted together in her lap. Unable to deal with the larger tragedy of her life, for the moment anyway, she despaired over the smaller: Her best gloves were so stained and smudged that they would surely be unsalvageable.

  The silence lengthened as Mr. Hutcheson awaited her name. Bonnie didn’t like saying; anyone who was the least bit familiar with Northridge’s history would recognize it immediately. The smelter works had been built by Eli’s grandfather, Josiah McKutchen, and Eli’s sister, Genoa, was a prominent resident. Still, her arrival wouldn’t be a secret for long in any case, and she could hardly withhold her identity when her companion had so forthrightly offered his.

  “I’m Bonnie McKutchen,” she said.

  Mr. Hutcheson sat up just a little straighter, with no pretense of interest in the newspaper he held or anything but what Bonnie had said. “Eli’s wife?”

  Bonnie swallowed and nodded her head, her eyes averted. A feeling of aching loneliness washed over her, as though there weren’t a whole world full of people all around her, and she came near to weeping—something she hadn’t done since that cold December afternoon when she and Eli stood beside the grave of their infant son, Kiley, together and yet apart, each swathed in their dense and separate griefs.

  They had traveled back from the cemetery at the head of a procession of carriages hung with crepe, plumes of black feathers nodding and bobbing on the horses’ heads, and Eli had stopped loving Bonnie that day.

  Mr. Hutcheson cleared his throat, bringing Bonnie back to the here and now, and gave the headline on his bedraggled newspaper an emphatic thump with one forefinger. “What do you think of this war with Spain?” he asked, a mite too loudly.

  Bonnie flinched, inwardly at least. Her traveling companion had unknowingly struck a subject almost as painful as the death of her child. It was a struggle not to crumple in upon herself, not to cover her face with both hands and wail. Through the shifting blur of the present, she saw the past: the cold distance in Eli’s eyes as he’d told her that he meant to go to Cuba with his friend Teddy Roosevelt. If she needed anything, he’d pointed out dismissively, she had only to ring up Seth Callahan, his attorney, and ask for it.

  “I need you!” Bonnie had wanted to scream, but, of course, she hadn’t. She’d drawn herself up, using her pride as a handhold, and offered the argument that Eli was a businessman, not a soldier. Her calmness and logic had changed nothing.

  Bonnie blinked her eyes and the misty vision faded. Conscious of leaving Mr. Hutcheson’s question suspended in midair, she drew a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. “The Spaniards did express a desire to avoid armed conflict,” she said. “Mr. McKinley put that fact before Congress, but they insisted on fighting, not only in Cuba, but in the Philippine Islands, too.”

  Webb Hutcheson’s handsome face was expressionless; Bonnie could not read his convictions in his eyes or the set of his chin or a rising of the blood beneath his skin. “They did sink the Maine, Mrs. McKutchen,” he reminded her blandly.

  “That has not been proved,” Bonnie insisted, warming to the subject. “It is possible, you know, that the Spanish forces were not responsible for the tragedy.” And a tragedy it had been, that explosion in Havana harbor, back in mid-February. Two hundred sixty American seamen had perished in the blast.

  They sat in stricken silence for a moment, the two of them, both as horrified and baffled as if the incident had just taken place before their eyes.

  “Public sentiment demanded some form of retribution,” Mr. Hutcheson offered.

  Bonnie cast a contemptuous glance at his copy of the New York Journal and scowled. “Public sentiment,” she said, “was created out of whole cloth by men like Mr. Hearst and Mr. Pulitzer.” She paused, tugged at the tops of her soiled gloves in an unconscious display of annoyance. “Two days ago our navy destroyed the entire Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. Wasn’t that retribution enough, Mr. Hutcheson?”

  He sighed and laid a finger thoughtfully to his mustache, then looked away. Perhaps he was hiding a smile; men could be so damnably superior when a woman spoke of international affairs. Once, months before, when Bonnie had ventured to offer an opinion on the growing crisis between the United States and Spain, Eli had laughed and shaken his head, disregarding her remarks as he might those of a child.

  She simmered at the memory, starting when the train whistle shrilled to alert the populace of Northridge to an imminent arrival. Mr. Hutcheson looked quite sober, although one side of his mouth appeared to quirk almost imperceptibly as he said, “You are well-informed, Mrs. McKutchen. Tell me—will you be in Northridge long?”

  Bonnie cleaved to her dignity, even though her cheeks were throbbing and her heart was beating too fast at the prospect of making a new start in a town that might well take open delight in her reduced circumstances. “It is my plan to take up permanent residence there,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”

  Mr. Hutcheson arched one chestnut eyebrow and hesitated for some moments before answering. “Expressing sympathy for the Spanish position might not be the wisest course, if you hope to have friends. The prevalent view in Northridge is ‘Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain.’”

  The train seemed now to be pitching forward at a furious rate, like a foot racer flinging himself across a finish line. Reflexively, Bonnie reached out for an armrest and found herself clutching Mr. Hutcheson’s muscular knee instead. She drew back her hand with a cry that elicited a throaty chuckle from the man beside her.

  “My readers will be most interested to hear about your plans to settle in Northridge,” he said.

  Bonnie instantly recoiled, as though he had flung a hissing snake into her lap. “Your readers?”

  His smile was blandly polite. “I publish the Northridge News,” he explained. “I would like to print a short article—”

  Perhaps it was the expression on Bonnie’s face that silenced him, for surely it conveyed horror. She felt betrayed, wondered if Mr. Hutcheson had known who she was all along. Had he only struck up this conversation to obtain material for the pages of his newspaper? If he knew the truth, what a s
tory it would be!

  She envisioned a headline, PATCH TOWN UPSTART PUT IN HER PLACE. The ladies of Northridge would cluck and shake their heads as they read, secretly pleased that Jack Fitzpatrick’s little girl was no longer living above her station, no longer the cherished darling of their favorite son, Good Prince Eli.

  “No,” she said, in a firm and quiet voice. “There will be no article about me.”

  Mr. Hutcheson said nothing, so Bonnie turned her attention to the window again, staring out at the tattered beginnings of Northridge. The town sprawled beneath a mountain thought to be an extinct volcano, bounded on the opposite side by the river. The horse-drawn ferry Bonnie had loved as a child was still in operation, she was pleased to see. How often had she stood at one of the rough-hewn wooden railings, having gladly paid the penny fare, pretending that the angry Columbia was an exotic sea and she a pirate princess? She could almost feel the cool river mist on her face again, hear the bleating of sheep being hauled across to market. The backs of her legs tickled, even now, as though touched again by shifting, woolly creatures.

  Mr. Hutcheson spoke with quiet diplomacy and, despite the screeching of the train wheels along their tracks, Bonnie heard him clearly.

  “My horse and buggy will be waiting at the depot,” he said. “I would be happy to drive you to the McKutchen place.”

  It was over a mile to Genoa’s grand house, not a distance that would ordinarily have given Bonnie pause, but she was tired and there was her baggage to consider. She had brought little enough, heaven knew, compared to all that she had left behind, but it was still more than one person could carry. There would be no one waiting at the depot, for though Bonnie had wired Genoa that she was coming, she had not been able to say exactly when she would reach Northridge.

  “You are very kind,” she said in soft acceptance. “Thank you.”

  While Webb fetched her baggage, Bonnie stood on the footworn platform between the train and the small station, steam from the engine hissing in the air and swirling around her in clouds. For all her misgivings, she was glad to be back in Northridge. In New York, she had always felt out of place, ever conscious of her background and the Cinderella quality of her life with Eli. Here she would not be a usurper or a pretender, but simply Bonnie. Nothing more would be expected of her.

  Heartened, she wondered if wild asparagus still grew along the railroad tracks beyond Patch Town, and who lived in the shack that had been hers and Gran’s and Da’s during the early years. She hoped that her father’s business had not fallen into serious disrepair by its neglect. Underneath all this wondering was one pulsing, elemental question: Would Eli come looking for her once he learned that she was gone?

  There was bedlam all around her, a familiar and temporary excitement stirred by the arrival of the train. Speckled, short-horned cattle were being driven out of a stock car farther back, through a chute and into a holding pen adjoining the livery stable next to the depot. The frightened beasts bawled and scrambled against one another, and the men herding them along shouted colorful oaths. Women in bright dresses and painted faces muttered with disappointment that the train had brought them no customers, and the family of vaudevillians were bumping into each other in vacuous confusion, except for the girl, who stood apart.

  Finally Webb Hutcheson reappeared, driving a smartly tended though modest buggy. Bonnie’s belongings had been crammed into the narrow space behind the seat and the fancy women watched with renewed enthusiasm as the editor of the Northridge News helped his passenger step from the platform into the rig.

  “Dances are still only a dollar, Webb honey,” a redhead sang out. “Come by the Brass Eagle tonight and ask for me. The name’s Dorothy, if you don’t recall.”

  Webb grinned and reddened slightly, then brought the reins down with a brisk movement of his wrists. His sturdy-looking sorrel horse bolted forward and the buggy lurched into motion.

  Bonnie bent around the black bonnet of the rig for one last look at the women in silks of sapphire blue, emerald green, pink, and amber. Their gowns gleamed like gaudy jewels in the late afternoon sunshine. “They like you,” she said. Perhaps it was the expansive relief of being off that train that caused her to be so outrageously forward.

  Webb laughed. “Hurdy-gurdies like any man with a dollar in his pocket,” he answered.

  Hurdy-gurdies! Bonnie just had to look back again, and the stretch was so great that she nearly fell out of the buggy. It was only Mr. Hutcheson’s swift hand on her arm that saved her.

  Bonnie blushed when she looked into Webb’s face and saw the gentle laughter in his eyes. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask about hurdy-gurdy dancers. Did they sell their favors as well as their dances? Was it true that some of them amassed fortunes and went on to marry well or engage in respectable businesses?

  Bonnie certainly couldn’t ask Webb Hutcheson things like that, but she made a mental note to put the questions to Genoa at the first reasonable opportunity.

  The familiar brick smokestack still loomed above the fenced confines of the smelter yard, far up on the hill, but the fancy building down the road, near Patch Town, was new. Before they started up the steep road leading to the main part of town, Bonnie saw the courthouse jail and the bank and Webb’s newspaper office.

  The road was strewn with sawdust and dappled with horse dung, and there were loaded wagons traveling up and down the hill. On one side was the undertaker/furniture-maker’s establishment; on the other was new addition, the suspiciously fancy structure with a façade and a sign that read EARLINE’S.

  “Earline’s what?” Bonnie presumed to ask.

  Webb seemed reluctant to answer, and he cleared his throat once before doing so. “Rooming house,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’m living there myself—just until my place is built, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Bonnie, who couldn’t have cared less where Mr. Hutcheson chose to live. Now that she’d escaped that jarring, stultifying train, and her head was clearing, she was anxious for a look at her father’s store. At the same time, she felt a pang that Jack Fitzpatrick wouldn’t be there to greet her, as a sort of cushion to break her fall from grace. But Jack had returned to Ireland in haste, just a year after Bonnie’s marriage, and though he’d stopped in New York to bid his only child a rather hurried and furtive farewell, he hadn’t explained. He’d thrust the deed to his general store into his daughter’s hands and trudged up the ramp of a steamer bound for London, and that had been the last Bonnie had seen of him, from that day to this. There had been one mysterious, badly spelled letter—Jack Fitzpatrick, bless his soul, could barely read or write—conveying the news that he’d found work in a Dublin saloon and reminding Bonnie that the store in Northridge was hers now.

  Although her father’s state of mind and curious behavior had worried Bonnie greatly at the time, she had not taken the matter up with Eli, for he was less charitably inclined toward Jack Fitzpatrick than his late grandfather had been; he would surely have ascribed his father-in-law’s actions to an undeniable weakness for rye whiskey. So, for reasons of pride, Bonnie had engaged in a series of small deceptions in order to contribute to her father’s livelihood without her husband’s knowing.

  “Mrs. McKutchen?”

  Bonnie started in the buggy seat, felt a pang at finding herself nearly three thousand miles from what had once been her very own Camelot, alone, unloved and quite nearly penniless. She forced herself to smile. “I guess I was wandering,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You looked so—bereft for a moment there,” Webb replied, with gentle bluntness. “What’s wrong?”

  Bonnie looked away quickly, lest the tears stinging behind her eyes betray her. “I wonder,” she ventured, after a moment or two, “if we could drive by my father’s store—if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “Your father’s what?” Webb asked, and he sounded so puzzled that Bonnie turned to stare at him, the imminent tears forgotten.

  They had come to Nor
thridge’s main street now, and Webb had stopped the buggy to let a wagon loaded down with lumber have the right of way.

  “My father’s mercantile,” Bonnie said, feeling strangely alarmed. “It’s just down this way, on the other side of the Union Hotel.”

  Webb averted his eyes and a muscle flexed in his jawline, but when the lumber wagon had passed, he turned from his straight course to Genoa’s house and headed toward the Union Hotel without saying a word.

  Just beyond that well-kept and reputable establishment stood the narrow two-story building Jack Fitzpatrick had once taken such pride in. In just a few years, it had fallen into a state of dishonor the likes of which Bonnie had never seen. The paint, once a pristine white, was now peeling, the windows were filthy and cracked, and the beautiful sign bearing her father’s name had been replaced with an ugly board, sloppily lettered with the damning words COMPANY STORE. MCKUTCHEN ENTERPRISES.

  “McKutchen Enterprises?!” Bonnie demanded of no one in particular and everyone in general, gathering her skirts to leap out of the buggy.

  Mr. Hutcheson stopped her by again clasping her arm, just as he had earlier, when she’d nearly fallen out, staring after the hurdy-gurdy dancers. “Bonnie, wait—”

  Bonnie had no more strength to fight, but she trembled with rage and the tears she’d struggled so hard to control filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “That bastard—that smug, self-righteous bastard—he stole my store!”

  Apparently unmoved by Bonnie’s lapse into smelter-brat vernacular, Webb sighed. “What are you talking about?”

  “That store belongs to me, that’s what I’m talking about! And if Eli High-and-Mighty McKutchen thinks he’s going to get away with this—”