Just North of Bliss (17 page)

“Cards?” Garrett scoffed. “So, if I deal a
couple of kings, does that mean I’m going to rule America?”

“Not that kind of cards,” His mother said.
“I think the cards fortune tellers use have different pictures on
them.”

“Oh.” Garrett glared at his hand, which his
mother still held in a grip from which he couldn’t extricate
himself. Belle deduced he didn’t like it that his sarcastic comment
had been demolished so neatly.

“Can fortune tellers really tell the
future?” Amalie was obviously fascinated by the prospect.

“Certainly not, dear,” Belle said with
conviction. “But some people pay them lots of money in hopes that
they can. Some people don’t like the idea of the future taking care
of itself, but want to know what’s going to happen to them ahead of
time.”

“It’s all bunkum,” Garrett stated
positively. “Papa said so.”

“Hmmm,” said Gladys, as if she wasn’t as
willing as her son to take her husband’s word as Gospel.

“I’m sure your papa is right, Garrett,” said
Belle. “But lots of people like to believe in fortune-telling,
because they want to think they have some control over their lives.
Or they want to prepare for what they think is coming.” She was
getting confused. “Or something like that.”

“It sounds like fun,” Amalie said after
pondering the subject for a moment or two.

Her mother laughed. “It does, rather,
doesn’t it?”

Even Garrett offered a reluctant, “Kind
of.”

“Oh, dear.” Belle laughed, too. “I didn’t
mean to start anything.”

“No,” said Gladys, grinning slyly, “you were
hoping to stop something, weren’t you?”

Before Belle could reply, Amalie cried,
“Let’s go get our fortune’s told, Mama! Even if it’s not true, it
might be fun.” Belle could have kissed the darling child for once
more saving her from a ticklish situation. She glanced at Gladys,
who glanced back, then shrugged.

“Why not? As Amalie said, it might be
fun.”

“It might be.”

“It only costs a nickel,” Garrett pointed
out, reading the cost of a palm-reading on the sign tacked up
beside the booth.

Belle thought it must be nice to consider
the throwing away of a nickel as nothing at all. Actually, now that
she was employed, she could probably spare a nickel on nonsense,
too, without feeling guilty about it. The notion tickled her.

“Let’s go, then.” She put Amalie down. The
child was small, but even a small bundle got heavy after a while.
“I’ll be interested to see what the future has in store for Miss
Amalie.”

“Do you think she’ll say I’m going to get
married and have babies like Mama?” Amalie skipped toward the
booth.

Belle was about to answer the little girl
when a premonition assaulted her so suddenly, she didn’t even have
time to consider it before darting after Amalie and grabbing her up
in her arms once more. “Just a moment, sweetheart. Let me look
inside first.”

Quick as a wink, she thrust Amalie into her
mother’s arms. Then, with her heart thudding, Belle put her hand on
the door latch. Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to smile.
“I’ll just go in first and see if Miss Finney is free. All
right?”

As soon as she opened the door, Belle knew
her premonition had been correct. An appalling sight struck her. A
huge man had Kate Finney pinned up against the wall of her booth,
his hands circling the poor girl’s throat.

“Tell me!” the man growled. A foul stench of
whiskey and sweat permeated the room.

Kate gurgled. Without thinking, much less
speaking, Belle rushed up to the pair with her parasol raised. She
presumed the poor girl couldn’t form words with the man’s hands
pressing against her windpipe.

“Stop it!” she shrieked. She brought the
parasol down on the man’s head with all the force in her body.

The man grunted, staggered backward, and
released Kate, who sank to the floor. Belle didn’t hesitate for a
second. Again she raised her parasol and bashed the man, this time
on the side of his head, because she could get more force behind
the blow. He staggered and grunted again.

He was in the process of shaking his head,
presumably trying to clear it of a whiskey-and-parasol-induced
fuzz, when Kate slowly pushed herself up from the floor. She tried
to say something, but Belle only heard a strangled gasp issue from
her lips. She swung her parasol again, only to discover her last
blow had broken the weapon. It flapped comically.

“Drat it!” Belle cried.

“You bitch!” the man, regaining some of his
senses, roared. He lunged at Belle.

Fiddlesticks. She didn’t have much time to
think about anything except how to defend herself. With her parasol
broken and flapping, she did the only thing she could think of on
the spur of the moment. She used it like a lance. The broken shaft
didn’t exactly stop the man’s progress, but when it stuck him in
the belly, it must have hurt him a good deal.

He let out a bellow of pain even as the
impetus of his heavy body hitting the parasol shoved Belle back
against the opposite wall of the booth. After that, Belle lost
track of things. The gigantic man loomed like a monster in her
vision for several seconds, then emitted a roar. To Belle, it
looked as if his face contorted horribly for no more than a
second—and then he was gone. Her back plastered against the booth’s
wall, she found herself peering into the dead-white face of Kate
Finney, who held a blood-stained crystal ball in both hands.

The two women stared into each other’s wide,
petrified eyes for Belle didn’t know how long before sounds of the
world penetrated her staggered brain.

“Belle! Good heavens! Belle!”

Belle had to give her wits a series of
imperious and increasingly fervent commands before they allowed her
to turn her head. Gladys stood in the door of the booth, staring at
the wreckage inside with terror writ large on her features. Garrett
and Amalie stood beside their mother, stunned into immobility.

Kate Finney and Belle both turned their
gazes on the man lying on the floor, unconscious. Belle wished she
could shoot him to make sure he stayed that way. Unfortunately, she
had no gun. Even more unfortunately, such a beneficent deed would
have been considered illegal by the authorities.

She cleared her throat. “Um, Garrett, will
you please run and fetch a Columbian Guardsman?” She was surprised
to hear her voice, because it didn’t sound right. It sounded high
and impersonal; not at all the voice of a woman who’d just bashed a
man over the head with her parasol twice and then stabbed him in
the stomach with the same instrument. She heard a soft thud, and
looked down to see that she’d dropped her parasol, which bounced
off the feet of the man sprawled in the booth.

“Um . . . What?” Garrett’s gaze seemed fixed
on the unconscious man. “What happened?”

It was Gladys who came to her senses first.
She rounded on her son. “Explanations can wait, Garrett Ernest
Richmond. For once, do as you’ve been asked without arguing about
it. Go get a Columbian Guardsman. Now! This instant!” She sped
Garrett on his way with a smart slap on his rear end.

Amalie leaped over the man and raced
straight to Belle. Belle was barely in time to stop the child from
plowing into her uncorseted midsection. She was still staring at
Kate when she caught Amalie in her arms.

At last Kate spoke. Lifting a hand to her
throat, where vivid red marks declared the damage the man had
inflicted, she said in something of a croak, “Thank you.” She tried
to clear her throat and winced.

In sympathy, Belle winced, too. “You’re
welcome.” Because she was worried about the poor girl, she said,
“Don’t try to talk. We’ll—we’ll—” She had no idea what they’d, so
she stopped trying to make sense. Tea. She wished she had some hot,
sweet tea to offer Kate.

Stepping warily around the fallen body,
Gladys went to Belle and laid her hands gently on her shoulders.
“What in the name of mercy happened? Do you need help, Belle?”

Belle shook her head. “No. Miss Finney’s the
one who was hurt.” She hugged Amalie hard, grateful for something
to hold on to. “That man was trying to—to strangle her.”

“Good heavens!” The tender-hearted Gladys
swerved around the body again, this time in the opposite direction.
She reached out to grab Kate just before the girl could crumple to
the floor in a faint. “He tried to
strangle
you? Who is he?
Why did he do something so dreadful to you?”

Belle, whose first impression of Kate Finney
had been that she was as tough as nails and as sharp as tacks, was
shocked when the girl subsided into Gladys’s arms and burst into
tears. She was even more shocked when she heard Kate’s answer to
Gladys’s question.

“He’s my f-father,” Kate stuttered through
her sobs. Gladys held her tightly and glanced with horrified eyes
at Belle.

Belle felt foolish when her own eyes began
to leak. “Oh, my.” The conversation she’d overheard between Kate
and Win Asher took on a clear and terrible meaning to her now. “Was
he trying to find your mother?”

Still sobbing as if her heart were
breaking—which, Belle imagined, it probably was—Kate nodded. She
croaked out a pathetic, “Yes. I wouldn’t tell him.”

“Good Lord.” Gladys’s comment was a mere
gasp of air.

Win Asher and a Columbian Guardsman in a
pristine military-type uniform and a huge walrus mustache arrived
within seconds of each other. The Guardsman showed up first.

“All right, what seems to be the matter
here?” said he in a pristine and military sounding voice through
his bushy mustache.

“Kate!”

Win, on the other hand, didn’t stand on
ceremony. He leaped over the sprawled man, who was beginning to
groan softly, and ripped Kate out of Gladys’s embrace. Pulling her
into his own strong arms, he hugged her hard. “Good God, Kate, what
did that son of a bitch do to you?”

Even as she reviled herself as a despicable
person, Belle felt a twinge of jealousy for Kate Finney. Gracious
sakes, what kind of evil person was she, that she could feel
jealous of a woman who’d almost been murdered by her own father?
She tried not to think about it.

“It’s my father,” Kate sobbed. “I wouldn’t
tell him where Mama is.”

“Good for you, Kate. But, damn it, how did
the bastard get in here? I thought the gate keepers had been warned
about him and were supposed to keep him out.”

Belle saw Kate nod against Win’s shoulder.
“But they’re so busy, Win. They can’t keep track of everybody who
visits the Exposition.” Her voice was painfully ragged, as if it
were scraping against the back of her wounded throat before it left
her mouth. Belle wished she wouldn’t even try to speak.

It was Kate who pushed herself away from Win
before he let go of her. Again, Belle’s heart squished painfully.
Again, she was disgusted with herself.

The girl rubbed at her throat. Belle
grimaced in sympathy. Carefully, she let Amalie down. “Do you need
a doctor, Miss Finney? You probably ought to be seen by a
doctor.”

Win whirled around. “Good God, I didn’t know
you were here!”

He didn’t look as if he were pleased to see
her, either. Belle’s lips pursed before she could stop them.

Kate grabbed Win’s arm. “She saved my life,
Win.” She looked at Belle, who saw tears swimming in her big brown
eyes once more. “Thank you so much, Miss—Miss . . .”

“Please,” said Belle, “call me Belle.” In
spite of the emotions tumbling around inside her, she smiled at the
girl.

“Belle. You saved my life, Belle. Thank you
so much.” Kate’s tears overflowed and trailed down her mottled
cheeks.

Win stared at Belle, who drew herself up
straight and frowned at him. “She did
what?
”

Chapter Nine

The Chicago police department had been
called for as soon as the Columbian Guard had ascertained that a
crime had been committed. Two officers stood inside Madame
Esmeralda’s booth, one of them taking notes. A physician who had
been hired by the fair directors to take care of emergencies looked
into Kate’s throat with the aid of a tongue depressor and a tiny
little electrical light that fascinated Garrett. It was all his
mother and Belle could do to keep him out of the doctor’s way.

Win still couldn’t believe it. Never in his
wildest imaginings—and he’d been having a few lately—had he
envisioned Belle Monroe as a heroine. This aspect of her character
threw Win’s assumptions about her all askew. He wasn’t sure what to
make of her anymore.

He and Belle occupied chairs that were
generally used for people having their fortunes told by Kate or
Madame Esmeralda. When he glanced at her, Belle had her hands
clasped tightly in her lap. Her cheeks had gone ashen pale, her hat
had tipped slightly on her sleek dark hair, and she was chewing her
bottom lip nervously.

Shaking his head in wonder, he murmured, “I
still can’t believe you bashed that bastard on the head with your
parasol.” He had deliberately used the word
bastard
because
he wanted to see Belle’s reaction.

It wasn’t what he expected, which further
jostled his opinion of her as a simpering southern belle with no
brains, no sympathy, and no depth of character. Instead of rounding
on him in a blaze of indignant fury, she turned her head and
blinked at him, as if she’d forgotten he was there. He, who’d been
thinking of her almost exclusively since taking her to her hotel
room the night before, felt a nip of righteous indignation. Dash
it, he might not be the world’s most perfect human male, but he
wasn’t all that forgettable, was he?

“I beg your pardon?” she asked politely.

Win cast his gaze heavenward. “I said,” he
said, “that I can’t believe you hit that bastard over the head with
your parasol.”

He got a reaction that time. She frowned.
“And why not?”