Much Ado About Madams (26 page)

“
Fine.” She did want to be independent, but not stupid, and in this matter, he was probably correct. “I’ll be back here for supper unless I dine with the suffragists. We often did so after our meetings in St. Jo.”

She buttoned her jacket and pinned on her bonnet. “How long until you’re ready?”

“
Now. I’ll come back and wash up after I get you delivered.”

The hotel clerk couldn’t be found and the maids hadn’t heard of a suffragist meeting.

“
Where’s the newspaper office?” she asked the older maid.

“
Down the street, right next to the undertaker’s.”

Reese escorted Lucinda to the newspaper office. The editor, his ink-stained fingers and visor, greeted them from behind the press as Lucinda and Reese came in and stood at the counter.

“
Need an announcement written up? Wedding? Birth?” He grabbed a rag and wiped his hands as he approached them.

“
No, sir.” She gulped. “We’re not...um, I was wondering if you could tell me where the suffragist meeting is being held.”

“
Suffragists!” He broke out into a smile and grabbed a notebook. “In Silver City?”

“
Yes, sir.” She thought he might even be amenable to the cause. “I need to know where they’re meeting.”

“
I hadn’t heard anything about it. When is this meeting?”

“
Now. Where would a meeting of that nature most likely be held?”

“
Masonic Temple, maybe, or over at the Idaho Hotel.”

“
It’s not at the hotel. We already asked.”

He scratched his jaw. “No, wouldn’t be at the Mason’s. None of the bars, either. Might be at the schoolhouse or the church. We’ll check the school first.”

On the way there, the editor took out his notebook and fetched the pencil from over his ear. “Just who will be at this meeting, Mrs.—”

“
Miss. I’m Miss Lucinda Sharpe from St. Joseph, Missouri. The meeting is to be led by none other than Susan B. Anthony, whom I’ve heard speak a few times. What an intelligent woman!”

“
Miss Anthony’s here in town and I didn’t know it?” He shook his head. “Not possible.”

“
What do you mean, not possible?”

“
I have news spotters at the Idaho Hotel, which is also the stage stop. Someone of Miss Anthony’s import would not have disembarked without my knowledge.”

“
Maybe she didn’t identify herself.”

“
Any single woman would have been brought to my attention. There’s a shortage of respectable ladies in these parts. In fact, single ladies are the most welcome news of all. Sells papers.”

Lucinda stopped walking and Reese bumped into her, then held her for a moment to steady her.

“
So you’re saying there’s no suffragist meeting?”

The editor pivoted and headed back to the newspaper office. “Nope, and I have a paper to get out.”

Tears welled in Lucinda’s eyes but she refused to let them spill. She stood, watching the newspaperman walk away.

Reese put his hand on her back. “Let’s get some breakfast. If we get the errands done by noon, we have plenty of time to get back home, barring another landslide.”

* * * * *

They ate breakfast in the restaurant between the butcher shop and the bath house, but Lucinda had little appetite.

“
So Fannie flummoxed me.”

Reese’s appetite wasn’t affected at all. “I’d say so.”

“
I can’t imagine why she’d do such a thing.”

“
I’d say we did exactly what she wanted us to do.”

Lucinda gasped, “You mean—”

“
That’s exactly what I mean.” He cleaned up the last bits on his plate and leaned back, calling for the check. “Remember the picnic with Sadie?”

“
Yes, that didn’t end very well.”

“
It ended just as they planned.” He paid the waitress. “Want to come with me on my errands or wait in the hotel?”

She needed to do some thinking, but after spending months in Dickshooter, she wasn’t about to waste a single moment in the city. Besides, she needed to stay busy to keep from working herself into a lather. “I’ll go with you. I have a little shopping to do.”

The first stop was the bank. Much to her delight, the teller was a woman!

“
May I help you?”

Reese stepped up to the window. “Morning, Miss Gardner.”

“
Mr. McAdams, what can I do for you today?”

Just then, an energetic woman about Lucinda’s age bustled in. She had dark hair peeking out from her bonnet and one glove was dangling at her fingertips.

“
Iris! Wells Fargo brought a whole shipment of dime novels, including the new
Honey Beaulieu, Lady Detective
!” Then she stopped short and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

Miss Gardner frowned and cleared her throat. “That’s quite all right, Daisy.” Lucinda hid a smile, because obviously the teller didn’t approve at all. To Reese, Miss Gardner said, “Please excuse my sister. She’s...exuberant.”

Lucinda would have liked to make friends with Daisy Gardner, but it was doubtful they’d be back to Silver City anytime soon.

“
Do any stores sell ready-made dresses here?” she asked Daisy.

“
Yes, but you’d have to ask my sister about that. I live in Oreana and we make all our own clothes. My father owns the mercantile there.”

“
But he allows Miss Gardner to live here?”

“
Iris has her own way in life. She wants to be a banker, and there you have it. Me, I think banking would be horribly boring.”

“
You’d rather marry and have children?”

“
Heavens, no! I want to be a detective, but don’t tell anyone. It’s most unladylike and my mother is not in favor of such endeavors at all. Do you enjoy married life?”

Lucinda laughed. “I’m a schoolteacher. Mr. McAdams escorted me here to attend a suffragist meeting, but apparently there was none, so what does any woman in the throes of disappointment do? Shop.”

“
A schoolteacher, huh? I don’t think I could stand being cooped up in a room with a bunch of snarfling kids.”

Thinking of her students, some of whom had far worse habits than snarfling, she said, “It’s not so bad, and you get summers off. At least I can live my own life and not have to answer to any man.”

Daisy leaned close and whispered, “Mr. McAdams is quite handsome, and he seems quite smitten with you.”

If she only knew. In a way, Lucinda wanted him to be smitten with her, but that would just complicate already complicated matters. “We’re only friends.”

“
That’s a start!”

Reese finished his business and they left the bank. Lucinda packed her trunk, then visited several stores to shop for small gifts for each of the Comfort Palace ladies. Meantime, Reese purchased supplies for the winter and settled the repair bill with the blacksmith and the livery.

They checked out of the hotel, with the same clerk eying her as if she were a fallen woman, which didn’t help her turmoil at all since now she was.

“
Repairs are done and they’re harnessing the team now,” Reese told her. “We’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

She still saw red every time she thought of Fannie and her hoax, but Lucinda had made a commitment to teach the ladies, and she would not renege. “I’ll change to my traveling clothes and ask the maid to fill the picnic basket.”

By the time her order was filled, he’d pulled the wagon in front of the hotel and the bellboy loaded her trunk and Reese’s valise.

The long, rugged ride back to Dickshooter held little appeal, other than she would be sitting close to Reese for half the day. Even that was a mixed blessing.

She must guard her heart.

* * * * *

Reese guided the wagon out of town toward Dickshooter, hoping for no unpleasant surprises along the way. In this country, a man never knew what he’d be facing from one minute to the next. The most dangerous of all perils sat right next to him, back straight, her hands in her braced on the seat to keep her from jostling overmuch.

A few minutes outside of Silver City, he pulled the team to a halt and hopped down.

Lucinda’s tense gaze flicked all around. “Why are we stopping here?”

“
Too many varmints out there—four-legged, two-legged, and some with no legs at all.” He fetched his pistol and holster from the valise, and put his rifle in the scabbard on the driver’s seat, then climbed back up and took the ribbons. “Better to be ready.”

The autumn sun heated the high mountain desert and within an hour they’d both doffed their jackets. Lucinda sported a new pair of leather gloves and a bonnet with a brim, both much more appropriate for traveling in rough country than what she’d worn before.

Things needed said to her. For some reason, his voice box didn’t want to say them. A rousing fight with ten men would be less daunting. Finally, he screwed up his courage.

“
You and me, we better get married.”

“
Out of the question.” Her denial, quick and brisk, shocked him. While he was no prize, and half his parentage shamed him, he expected she’d want to marry after making love. Didn’t all women?

“
There could be a bun in the oven.”

“
And maybe not.”

“
Would you quit being so stubborn? We can’t stay away from each other. I’ve wanted to kiss you every time I see you since the first time we met. You feel the same, since you got the juices flowing for what happened last night, so don’t deny it.”

She didn’t say a word, but gazed straight ahead as she did when she had already made a decision. He planned to change her mind.

“
I’ll sell the Comfort Palace to Gus and have the twins help me build a cabin on the ranch.”

“
You don’t have your herd established yet.” Her dismissive tone annoyed him. “Don’t you need the income from the brothel to buy cattle?”

“
For your information, Miss Schoolmarm Sharpe, I have never taken a nickel from that business. Not one nickel. The twins and Gus are on my payroll, not the Comfort Palace’s. I buy all the Comfort Palace supplies with my cattle brokering business. The women don’t know it, but they keep every penny they make. All the women’s money is accounted for, and anytime they want to leave, I’ll give it to them.”

He waited for her to fully understand what he’d said. She was quiet for a long time, several minutes at least.

“
Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
Because a man doesn’t go around telling everyone his business. Besides, I didn’t want the whores to think they weren’t welcome. Where else would they go?”

“
Why do you care where they go?”

“
Most of them were innocents ruined by someone I’m not too proud of. It’s up to me to make sure they’re safe now.”

“
Who ruined them and what do you have to do with it?”

Did he really want to bare his soul? No, but neither did he want his child growing up being teased and taunted by his classmates.

“
My father was Stuart McAdams. They called him Fast Hands Stuart.”

* * * * *

If Reese had stuck a knife in Lucinda’s heart, she couldn’t have felt more pain. Fast Hands Stuart, the man her mother had been accused of murdering. A gang of vigilantes had lynched her for it with out a trial. No one had minded since her mother was just a whore. Whores had fewer rights than a stray dog.

“
Marrying you is out of the question.”

But Reese was nothing like his father—didn’t look like him and certainly didn’t act like him. Still, there was bad blood. Even more importantly, he’d eventually learn that her mother had killed his father, or at least accused of it. No one knew for sure what really happened. He needed killing, though, and if her mother had managed to murder a man nearly twice her size, Lucinda couldn’t blame her for it.

Telling Reese about it this very moment tempted Lucinda, but if she did, then he’d know she wasn’t a respectable schoolteacher at all—she was the daughter of one of his father’s whores. She didn’t even know who her father was, although her mother had said her father was an honorable man. How he could be honorable and leave a woman and her baby to the wolves, Lucinda couldn’t reconcile, but her mother held to it until the day she died.

Reese gave her a package, small but heavy, wrapped in a blue cloth. “I bought something for you.”

He probably felt the need to give her a gift after she’d thrown herself at him. She handed the box back. “I can’t accept it.”

“
It’s not a gift—it’s something you need.” He pushed it back in her hands. “Open it.”

Removal of the blue cloth revealed a finely polished wooden box. It looked expensive. “I shouldn’t.”

“
You should. Open it.”

She opened the lid to find a pistol nested in maroon velvet.

“
This goes with it.” Reese dug into his pocket and gave her a smaller box. “Ammo. I’ll load it for you when we stop, but don’t shoot it until I’ve had a chance to show you how.”

“
Fannie has one like this.”

“
All of the women do. I bought them each one when I got here and found out my hotel was actually a brothel. But all women need protection, not just whores.”