Wanton Angel Page 3

  Webb arched his eyebrows. “It would seem that he already has,” he said quietly. “Mrs. McKutchen, let me take you to Genoa’s house now. You’re tired and overwrought.”

  Bonnie sat up straighter and dashed away her tears with the back of one gloved hand. She’d already betrayed the true state of her legendary marriage to Webb Hutcheson and now people on the street were beginning to stop and peer at her, with questions and dawning recognition in their eyes. “Yes—please—take me to Genoa’s.”

  Deftly, Webb turned the buggy around in a broad sweep and drove onto a quiet, tree-lined street, where there were few houses.

  Soon they came to a familiar wrought-iron gate set into a low brick wall. The horse’s shod hooves made a clippityclop sound on the cobbled driveway.

  The house, Bonnie was pleased to see, had not changed in her absence. The sight of it, with its gables and whitepainted brick walls and long, graceful verandas, was a restorative. The grounds were green with springtime and lilacs, both purple and white, bloomed everywhere, their delicious scent easing Bonnie’s weary muscles and broken heart.

  There was a frosted oval window in the front door, etched with the image of a ghostly swan, and even before the rig had come to a full stop, the door flew open. As Webb secured the brake lever and spoke soothingly to the horse, Genoa McKutchen scampered down the limestone walk, her skirts bunched in her hands, her face alight.

  Nearly forty years of age, Genoa was seven years older than her brother, Eli. She was not a pretty woman, for her face was too long and too sharply featured for beauty, and her wildly curly hair was too sparse. It was, however, the same shade of butternut-gold as Eli’s hair, and the way the sunshine caught in it caused a keen ache to swell in Bonnie’s throat.

  Genoa literally pulled her sister-in-law down from the buggy seat and then enfolded her in a bony hug. Tears of delight shimmered in her thinly lashed, light blue eyes. “You must be tired, dear—was the trip too dreadful? I must have Martha fetch lemonade—won’t you join us, Webb?”

  Webb smiled, and so, however wanly, did Bonnie, remembering an observation of Eli’s that his sister talked the way telegrams were written.

  “I’d better get to the office,” Webb demurred, tipping his round-brimmed hat in a gentlemanly fashion and turning to pry Bonnie’s baggage from behind the seat of his buggy. A plump maid came out of the house with a gangly boy, and they whisked the two valises and the twine-bound box inside.

  Both Genoa and Bonnie thanked Webb, and they lingered on the walk for a few moments, each with an arm around the other, as he drove back along the driveway and through the gate.

  “Are you hungry?” Genoa asked gently.

  Bonnie shook her head. “Could we walk for a few minutes, Genoa? Down by the pond?”

  Genoa nodded, linked her arm through Bonnie’s, and started toward the sparkling water, with its fringe of willow trees. Two fanciful small boats, carved and painted to resemble swans, bobbed beside a wooden dock.

  The two women sat down on a shaded marble bench, the breeze ruffling their hair.

  Genoa spoke first, and that after a long interval of sweet silence. “Why did you leave Eli, Bonnie?” she wanted to know. “It seems so sudden, so rash—”

  Bonnie pulled off her gloves and set them aside, then removed her hat, too. As calmly as she could, she told about the cold Kiley had caught in early December, how it had developed into pneumonia, how the child had perished as Eli paced the nursery floor with him.

  She did not mention that she’d been out when it happened, watching a frivolous vaudeville revue, for she wasn’t ready to think of that, let alone speak of it.

  “Eli blamed me for what happened,” she finished bleakly, watching the lapping water at the edge of the pond. “He went to live at his club the day after the funeral, Genoa, and I have reason to believe that he took a mistress.” Bonnie paused, sighed. The worst, from Genoa’s point of view and her own, was yet to come. “He’s gone to war, Genoa. Eli has gone to Cuba, with Mr. Roosevelt.”

  Genoa raised one hand to her breast and her face went white. With her grandfather gone and her parents far away in Africa, Eli was all the family she had, and Bonnie’s heart ached for her.

  “Eli isn’t a soldier!” she fretted, after a long moment of grappling with the shock.

  Bonnie took Genoa’s hand and squeezed it in her own. “No, he isn’t. But he is very strong, Genoa, and I’m sure he’ll be safe.” She thought of the high-handed manner in which Eli had absorbed her father’s store into McKutchen Enterprises. Her anger buoyed her, sustained her, kept her own fears and heartbreak at bay. For these reasons, Bonnie clung to that unworthy emotion and fanned it to full flame every time it threatened to die.

  Soon it became a habit.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE AMERICANO WAS a big, golden man and, even with his sickness, Consolata Torrez liked to touch him. When she was not working in the cantina of her Uncle Tomás, she hovered in her room upstairs, where the patient lay tossing and muttering upon a cot too narrow for his powerful frame. With cool water and a clean cloth, she bathed his jaundiced, fevered flesh and whispered, over and over again, the holy petition of the Rosary.

  Consolata left her charge only to serve wine and food in the cantina or to say novenas for the señor’s recovery in the small stone chapel across the road. It was not safe to keep the stranger here, for there was still trouble in the town of Santiago de Cuba and, if the Spaniards were to find him, they would surely kill him.

  Consolata sighed as she soaked the cloth in water that had grown tepid, wrung it out in strong brown hands, and continued to bathe the handsome Americano. Two days he had been here, two days out of his mind with la calentura amarillo, the yellow fever. When Uncle Tomás returned from Havana, he would be furious with his niece for sheltering this soldier. Consolata had endangered all of them, he would say, and no amount of candle lighting or saying of novenas would save them from the wrath of the Spanish should her foolishness be discovered.

  Consolata had seen the fruits of angering the Spaniards many times during her life of seventeen years, and her sigh turned to a shudder. Edmondio, her uncle’s friend, had spoken out against the invaders once, and now he had but two fingers remaining on his right hand, the disfigurement being his punishment for sedition.

  Frowning, Consolata lifted one of the Americano’s hands, strong and sun-browned, the palm uncallused. The fingers, one encircled by a golden wedding band, and the back of the hand were dusted with fine hair, just the color of brown sugar. This soft, glistening mat covered his broad, deep chest and his arms and legs as well, lying in moist sworls against his yellowed flesh like the scribbles of a child.

  The man began to toss and call out again. “Bonnie,” he moaned, “Bonnie?”

  Consolata bit down on her lower lip for a moment, silently begging the Virgin’s forgiveness for the hatred she felt toward the woman Bonita. Carefully, gently, she washed the strong-featured face once more.

  “Bonnie!” the man rasped in his delirium.

  Tears welled in Consolata’s eyes. She rose from her knees, a slender, shapely girl with dark hair that tumbled well past her waist and a face that brought many extra customers into the cantina. Leaving the cloth and basin on the floor, she reached for the finely made suitcoat hung so carefully over the back of a chair.

  In one pocket, Consolata well knew, there was a wallet, with much currency of los Estados Unidos inside, but she cared nothing for money. It was the folded papers that both intrigued and alarmed her, for they bore the golden man’s unpronounceable name and the names of those who should be told of his illness.

  She tucked the papers into the pocket of her skirt and, after smoothing a lock of brown-sugar hair from the señor’s forehead, crept out of the room on bare and silent feet.

  Downstairs the cantina was empty, because of the siesta, and there would be no customers to tend until the oppressive heat of the day had lifted. The street, too, was deserted, for all the villagers were r
esting, and the warmth settling over the valley of the Sierra Maestra was so dense as to be almost tangible. Resisting her conscience, Consolata paused to gaze at the sun-sparkles dancing on the bay. Steep bluffs rose above the waters on three sides, making Santiago de Cuba virtually impregnable by sea, and on the tallest of these was the Castilla del Morro, a grim fourteenth-century fortress.

  Consolata shaded her eyes to look up at the stronghold and silently cursed all men who made war.

  Finally she crossed the road, the dust hot and dry beneath her naked feet, and slipped into the cool and shadowy chapel. After proper greetings to the Virgin and the Blessed Savior, Consolata sought out the padre.

  Like the golden man, the padre was an Americano, though he spoke swift and effortless Spanish, and he was young. He had blue eyes with laughter in them and hair the color of fire, and he smiled at Consolata even though it was clear that she’d interrupted his siesta.

  “Do they have siesta in Kansas?” Consolata asked guilelessly, trying to put off the moment when she would have to give up her terrible secret.

  The padre, who had drawn his feet down from the top of his desk on Consolata’s entrance, cleared his throat and sat up very straight in his chair, then laughed. “No, my child, they do not,” he answered in faultless Spanish. “And that is their misfortune. What brings you out in the heat of the day?”

  Consolata could not find words to answer, so she drew the papers from her pocket and extended them in one hand. The padre accepted the documents and read them in one rapid sweep of his eyes.

  “My goodness,” he said, after a few seconds of thought. “Consolata, do you know this man? Why do you have his papers?”

  Consolata lowered her head. “He came to the cantina two days ago,” she mumbled in reply. “He has the fever—”

  The padre looked alarmed. “Where is your uncle, Consolata?”

  “Uncle Tomás is away in Havana. When he comes back, he will be very angry.”

  The missionary muttered something in English and rose decisively from his chair. Knowing that he wanted to see the stranger, Consolata led the way outside, across the hot and dusty street, into the cantina. The beautiful man from the North slept fitfully in Consolata’s bed, his flesh covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

  “How in the name of heaven did you get a man this size upstairs?” the priest asked, bending over the cot to touch the man’s fevered forehead with the fingers of one hand.

  Consolata explained that the Americano had roused, at least partially, after his collapse, and that she’d been able to keep him on his feet long enough to reach her bed.

  “You should have come to me immediately, Consolata,” the padre said, but the reprimand was a gentle one and there was understanding in his eyes. “This situation is extremely dangerous, not only for Señor McKutchen, but for you and your uncle.”

  Consolata could only nod.

  “You’ve told no one that this man is here?”

  “Only you,” Consolata managed to answer.

  “That is good. After dark, you and I will move him to my chambers in the church. In the meantime, I’ll go to the American forces and ask for their help.”

  Consolata was very conscious of the wicked thoughts and feelings that had possessed her from the moment she’d brought the handsome stranger to her room. She’d undressed him, after all, and bathed him, and she despised this woman he cried out for, without even knowing her. She clenched her hands together and lowered her head. “Padre, have I sinned?”

  Gently, the holy man from Kansas touched her tangled hair. “No, child. Kindness is never a sin.”

  Consolata’s uncle was of a different opinion when he returned from Havana and learned of the man hidden in his niece’s room. That night, when the cantina was filled with Spanish soldiers and there was no sign of either the padre or the norteamericanos he had promised to fetch, Tomás threatened, in his anger and fear, to turn both his sister’s child and her half-conscious charge over to the enemy.

  CHAPTER 3

  BONNIE ENTERED HER father’s store and swiped at a fly buzzing furiously near her left ear. Smells of spoilage and general sloth assaulted her on every side, and the chiming of the little bell brought no shopkeeper to attend her.

  Fighting to control the nausea that had troubled her since her arrival in Northridge nearly a week before, Bonnie raised her chin and took in the full scope of the mercantile’s descent into neglect.

  The stairs, leading to spacious apartments on the second floor, were littered with all manner of trash, their sturdy banister gone. The tilting bins, built directly into the walls, stood agape, and Bonnie knew without looking that weevils and possibly even mice frequented the sugar and flour they contained. A layer of grime covered the giant coffee grinder that sat on a table in the middle of the shop, and the potatoes and onions, in their bushel baskets, were not only sprouting but rotting as well. The framed photographs of smelter workers and miners, which Jack Fitzpatrick had cherished, were all but obscured by flyspecks and dirt.

  The windows, scrubbed and glistening when Bonnie had last stood inside this store, were coated with mud and the excrement of birds on the outside and yellowed by cigar smoke on the inside. The shelves were dusty and the solid wooden floor was covered in sawdust and strewn with elements Bonnie preferred not to identify. She stepped up to the counter and saw that the pickle barrel was uncovered, and there was something floating inside that had never, at any point in time, been a cucumber—Bonnie closed her eyes tightly and willed her stomach to calm itself when she realized that the object was a discarded cigar, swollen and wet.

  She shuddered and then started when a querulous voice behind her demanded, “Help you, missus?”

  Bonnie turned, one hand to her breast, to see an unkempt little woman staring at her through a white film of cataract. “No, thank you—I mean, yes—”

  “Make up your mind, honey!” the hag crowed, tugging at a clump of long hairs that sprang from her chin. “Either I can help you, or I cain’t!”

  Bonnie sighed. “I assume you work for McKutchen Enterprises?”

  “In a roundabout way, I reckon I do. But I gets my pay from Mr. Forbes Durrant.” The crone gave Bonnie’s fancy Eastern clothes a suspicious once-over. “Don’t get many ladies in here. Who are you, anyways?”

  “Might I see Mr. Durrant, please?” Bonnie countered, drawing herself up.

  “Oh, you want a dancin’ job! I shoulda figured, with looks like yours, that you weren’t no pot-tender’s woman. Mr. Durrant’s down at the Brass Eagle most times—hardly ever comes in here.”

  In addition to her nausea, Bonnie now had a headache. “I don’t wonder,” she answered, turning to leave. Now she knew, at least partially, why Genoa had skirted all her questions about the store, pretending to the vapors every time the subject had arisen.

  “Fine piece like you could earn a pretty penny down at the Brass Eagle!” the shopmistress called after her, in a burst of jubilant generosity.

  The bell made a tinny clatter when Bonnie slammed the door behind her. She stormed along the street, barely glancing at the Pompeii Playhouse across the way, a place that would have intrigued her greatly at any other time.

  She walked rapidly down the hill, passing Earline’s boardinghouse and the undertaker’s place, her face hot with rage. She’d known, of course, that Forbes Durrant managed the smelter works and mining operations at Northridge—he’d been plucked out of Patch Town and groomed and educated for the job by Josiah McKutchen’s own hand—and she’d never thought to question the choice. Now that Bonnie had seen Forbes’s neglect of the mercantile, however, she had opinions aplenty.

  Reaching the bottom of the hill, Bonnie turned to the right, passing the marshal’s office and the courthouse, which shared a framework building of minuscule proportions. She hurried past Webb Hutcheson’s newspaper office lest he see her and come out to speak—better to meet with Forbes without delay, while her ire was running high enough to provide impetus for the confro
ntation.

  The Brass Eagle Saloon and Ballroom stood alone on the very border of Patch Town, a huge place built of white limestone. Blue velvet curtains trimmed with gold braid and tassels showed at every window, both on the upper and lower floors, and the steps beneath the double front doors were made of rich gray marble. A beautifully wrought eagle of shimmering brass was inlaid along the front of the top step.

  Furious that such a place could have been erected within a stone’s throw of dismal poverty, of tar-paper huts and seeping sewers, Bonnie stomped up to the doors, tried one shining knob, and walked in. One did not knock at the door of a saloon, did one?

  Inside she found herself in an entryway that could only be described as grand. There was an Aubusson rug on the floor, and a cherrywood clock stood to one side of the carpeted stairs leading up to the second story. Bonnie did not want to think about the things that probably went on up there.

  To her right was a beautifully appointed saloon with a carved mahogany bar and dozens of round, felt-topped game tables. She caught glimpses of good paintings and polished mirrors. To the left was a ballroom, as large as any Bonnie had seen in New York. The orchestra platform was carpeted in plush sapphire blue, and there were brass fixtures on the walls between mirrored panels that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

  While Bonnie was still full of righteous wrath—people were all but starving within shouting distance of all this luxury, after all—she was intrigued, too. For a moment she even imagined herself wearing one of the fine gowns she had left behind in New York, whirling around this smooth oaken floor in Eli’s arms. How dashing he would look in his cutaway coat and tails, his tailored trousers with their black satin strips down each crisply creased leg …

  “We don’t need no more dancers right now, sweetie,” a female voice announced.

  Bonnie turned in the doorway of the ballroom, startled. Just behind her stood one of the fancy women she had seen at the train depot the day of her arrival—the red-haired one who had been flirting with Webb.