Khristos’s eyes took on an eager glint when Luke returned to the work counter with a platter of chicken, a brick of cheese, and a bowl of leftover custard. “Better than cookies,” Luke observed as he set the last on the butcher block. “You like custard?”
Khristos nodded enthusiastically, his pale cheeks still tracked with tears. As Luke set out dishes, silver, and drinking glasses, then sliced some cheese, he took a closer look at the child. He couldn’t help but notice that Khristos’s white flannel nightshirt was threadbare and yellow with age. Sable hair, cobalt eyes, pale skin: Milo Zerek’s children all bore an unmistakable family resemblance. Luke wondered how it might feel to grow up belonging somewhere—to know your real last name, to have a father who loved you and a brother and sister who looked like you.
Luke’s only known relative had been his mother, and she’d been a poor excuse for one, slapping him around, calling him filthy names, never even bothering to make sure he had food to eat. Born a bastard, Luke had learned to live up to the name at a very young age, stealing for his supper, lying to save his hide, doing unto others before they did it unto him. He hadn’t taken the surname of Taggart until he’d turned thirteen and run away from home, a seedy brothel in Kansas City. He’d seen the name Taggart on an order board at a feed store, liked the sound of it and had been using it as his handle ever since.
As he straddled a stool, Luke tossed Khristos a hunk of cheese, then handed him a chicken leg. As the two of them began to eat, it occurred to Luke that he had a prime opportunity to learn more about his new paid companion. “So,” he said, “tell me about your sister, Khristos.”
The child fastened a bewildered blue gaze on Luke. “Ain’t much to tell,” he said around a mouthful of chicken. “Exceptin’ that we always sleep right next to each other, with my papa and Ambrose on the other side of the room. That’s how come I got scared, ’cause I ain’t never slept alone. Not in my whole life.”
Luke didn’t miss the pleading look in the kid’s eyes. Since the only bed partner he wanted for the night was Cassandra, which didn’t seem likely given all that had happened, he ignored the hint. “You’ll get used to sleeping alone. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Besides, you’ve got Lycodomes.” Having made mention of the dog, Luke glanced around to see where the mongrel was. Since there was no sign of him in the kitchen, Luke assumed Lycodomes was still lying beside Khristos’s cot in the storage room. “It must’ve been hard on Cassandra, not having any privacy. As I understand it, most young ladies have their own sleeping area. If not a room, at least a privacy curtain.”
Khristos looked surprised to hear that. “What for?”
His teeth buried in the meat of a chicken thigh, Luke eyed the boy for a long moment. Tearing meat away from the bone with his teeth, he pocketed it in his cheek. “To dress behind, for starters.”
“What for?”
Luke drew his brows together in a frown. Looking into Khristos’s innocent blue eyes was like looking into Cassandra’s. Somehow, Milo Zerek had managed to raise at least two of his three children without their acquiring much carnal curiosity or knowledge. Luke didn’t care to recall just how much sexual savvy he’d possessed at Khristos’s age because it brought back bad memories. But he could say with absolute certainty that he’d been a storehouse of knowledge in comparison, and he’d definitely been curious about female anatomy. Of course, he’d been raised in whorehouses, where a woman’s body was a much sought-after commodity, so maybe that explained it.
“Girls are put together differently than boys,” he pointed out cautiously.
Khristos nodded sagely. “They can’t whiz standin’ up.”
Luke circled that for a moment. “You mean take a piss?”
Khristos’s eyes went as round as supper plates. “You better not say that in front of Cassie. She’ll lye soap yer mouth, but good.”
“Lye soap my what?”
“Yer mouth,” Khristos repeated. “For sayin’ bad words.”
“You’re telling me she puts soap in your mouth?” The very thought made Luke’s chicken start to taste funny. “Jesus H. Christ!”
Khristos gave a startled laugh, choked on a swallow of milk, and sprayed the butcher block with white. He pressed the sleeve of his dingy nightshirt against his lips. “She’s gonna get you good,” he mumbled against the flannel, his eyes reflecting his mirth. “You’ll be burpin’ lather clear ’til next week!”
“She’ll have to catch me first.” Luke grabbed a towel off a rack behind him and swiped at the mess Khristos had made on the counter. “But I’ll heed the warning, just the same.” He smiled slightly. “Any other things I should know about her so I don’t get in trouble?”
As he wolfed down his food, Khristos spouted information, all of which Luke filed away in his memory to be sorted out later. That their papa said Cassie was sharp as a tack in most ways, but not too smart in others, always trusting people she shouldn’t, forever bringing home stray animals they couldn’t feed, and always hankering for things they couldn’t afford.
“I reckon we all do that, though,” Khristos observed as he shoveled custard into his mouth. “Me, I hanker after a shotgun. And Ambrose, he wants a felt fedora hat.”
Luke, who’d long since stopped eating, watched in stunned amazement as Khristos kept stuffing his mouth. “More milk?” he offered, as he served the boy more custard. Khristos nodded; Luke poured. “What kind of things does Cassandra hanker for?” he asked as he corked the jug.
“Mostly stupid stuff, like genuine patent leather slippers, like what’s in the window over at the dress shop.”
“Ah…” Luke recalled seeing those slippers as he’d passed the shop. As a general rule, he preferred to patronize Paulette’s, on the other side of town, where more revealing clothing and seductive underthings were available.
“And she loves the sparklies.”
“Sparklies?”
“You know, like that there brooch she wears.”
“Jewelry,” Luke clarified.
Khristos scraped his bowl clean and put a last spoonful of custard in his mouth. Luke was surprised the boy could consume so much without becoming sick.
“Well…” he said. “If you’re finished eating, I guess we should go to bed.”
Khristos’s face fell. “Cassandra says I never even turn over once I go to sleep,” he informed Luke.
“Oh, really.” Luke pretended that the hint had gone straight over his head.
“And I ain’t wet my covers since I can’t remember when.”
“That’s nice.”
Luke averted his gaze from the child’s beseeching eyes and stacked the dirty dishes. Why he bothered, he didn’t know. He paid servants a bloody fortune to clean up any messes he made. “Well, Khristos, it’s really late, and I’m tired.”
“Mr. Taggart?”
Luke felt the question coming and deliberately didn’t glance Khristos’s way. “What?”
“If I was to promise to be real still, and be real quiet, and not cry no more, would you let me sleep with you? Just for tonight, ’til I get used to it here and stuff?”
“Sorry, kid. I’m used to sleeping alone.”
A frantic edge entered Khristos’s voice. “You won’t even know I’m there, I promise.”
It was on the tip of Luke’s tongue to say no, absolutely not. But then he made the mistake of meeting Khristos’s gaze. There was something about great big blue eyes, he decided. One look into them, and all his convictions went flying out the window. “If you wet my bed, I’ll have your—”
“I won’t! I promise. Thank you, Mr. Taggart! You won’t be sorry. Honest!”
There were, Luke mused an hour later, various measures of regret a man experienced when he’d made a bad mistake: sort of sorry, very sorry, damned sorry, and goddamned sorry. Luke was goddamned sorry. It was one thing to drift off to sleep with a skinny little runt of a kid lying next to you on a wide expanse of bed. It was quite another to be startled awake only minutes later by a hun
dred-plus pounds of damp, smelly dog landing smack dab in the middle of you.
“Son-of-a-bitching Christ!”
“Lycodomes! That’s Mr. Taggart’s side!” Khristos scolded. “Get back over here!”
Feeling as though his lungs had collapsed, Luke sat bolt upright, one arm clamped over his belly. “Get that damned dog out of my bed!”
Khristos hugged Lycodomes’s neck, drawing the canine down beside him. Still bug-eyed from being so rudely awakened, Luke gaped at the interlopers in his bed, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. That stinking, wet, muddy, ill-mannered beast was lying on his imported white silk sheets? Even with nothing but moonlight to illuminate the room, Luke could see dirt smears.
Khristos, his small chin quivering, his eyes glistening with tears shot through by moonlight, stared back at Luke. “He’ll be good.”
Outraged, Luke jabbed a finger toward the hallway door. “Get…him…out!…of here!”
Khristos sailed off the bed as though he’d been catapulted, tugging the dog behind him. After Lycodomes exited the room into the hall, the child returned to Luke’s bed, sniveling softly.
“Don’t cry,” Luke told him firmly. “It’s nothing to cry about. I just don’t like dogs. All right?”
“But Lycodomes always sleeps with me or Cassie,” Khristos informed him tearfully. “He’s lonesome.”
Luke imagined the dog smearing mud all over the walls out in the hall and soiling the floors. But he’d be damned if he would get back up, get dressed, and go clear back downstairs again to put the beast outdoors. “He’ll be fine, Khristos. Trust me. He’ll sleep outside the door where he can smell you.”
More sniveling.
Determined not to listen, or care, Luke closed his eyes and worked the muscle along his jaw. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he said, “You promised not to keep me awake if I let you sleep with me, Khristos. Lycodomes is fine out in the hall, I tell you. So what’s the problem?”
Gulp, shudder. “Maybe if you was to tell me a story I could go to sleep,” Khristos finally suggested between loud sniffles. “Cassandra always tells me a bedtime story.”
Luke searched his mind. The only stories he knew were the ones told by men in saloons and gambling houses. Besides, it was three o’clock in the goddamned morning. “I don’t know any stories.”
Gulp, sniff, shudder. Blessed silence. Then gulp, sniff, shudder. Luke opened his eyes and stared for a long while at the ceiling. He couldn’t quite credit the fact that he was lying on sheets that now stank of dog, his bed partner a snot-nosed, blubbering little kid. And to think he was paying five hundred dollars a month, plus a twenty thousand year-end bonus, for the privilege. Something had gone seriously awry here. Gulp, sniff, shudder.
No more, Luke vowed. He’d reached his limit, by God. First thing in the morning, he would take Cassandra aside and lay down the law to her. By the time he finished with her, she’d understand exactly what her duties as his paid companion were, and she’d either start performing them, as of tomorrow night, or find herself tossed out into the street on her ear.
“I know lots of stories,” Khristos said shakily. “Maybe I could tell you one.”
So much for the kid being quiet, Luke thought sourly. At this point, though, he preferred almost anything to listening to him snivel. “Sure, kid. Tell away.”
Khristos took a jerky breath, then wiped his nose on Luke’s sheet. “Once upon a time…” he began, “a long, long time ago, there was a real ugly toad.”
Luke shot him a look. “Don’t you have a better story than that? I don’t like toads.”
“This is a special toad. He ain’t really a toad at all, y’see. He’s a prince.”
“A what?”
“A prince,” Khristos repeated. “It’s a really good story, I promise. Cassandra tells it to me lots.”
That caught Luke’s attention. Maybe, by listening to the story, he could get some insight as to how the girl’s head worked. “Okay, tell away, kid. I’m listening.”
“Once upon a time,” Khristos began again, then proceeded to spin a tale about a prince who’d been cursed by a wicked witch and turned into an ugly toad. Before Luke realized how it happened, he was hanging on the child’s every word. When the story concluded with the toad’s being kissed by a beautiful lady who magically restored the prince to human form, Luke was sorry to have it end.
“So…did they get married, or what?” he asked Khristos.
“Sure,” Khristos said. “Cassie always ends her stories with ‘happily ever after.’”
Luke snorted. “It’s a pretty dumb story, if you think about it. What beautiful lady in her right mind would kiss an ugly toad?”
“Cassandra says the lady saw past the toad’s ugliness,” Khristos explained. “She knew there was a handsome prince hidden behind all the warts.”
Luke snorted again. “Right. You don’t really believe that stuff, do you?”
“Cassie says there’s something wonderful and beautiful inside everyone,” Khristos murmured drowsily, “if only people look deep enough to see it.”
Luke, who lay with his arms pillowing his head, shifted his elbow to look at the child beside him. “You going to sleep?”
“No,” Khristos said faintly.
Just seconds after he made the denial, the child began to breathe more deeply. Luke smiled to himself. Telling the story had done the trick; the boy was out like a candle in a strong draft.
Fastening his gaze on the ceiling again, Luke went back over the story Khristos had told him, particularly the ending. So Cassandra believed everyone had something good and beautiful inside them, did she? He smiled again, thinking that the girl had better be packing a shovel if she hoped to dig deep enough to find anything beautiful inside Luke Taggart.
She was obviously walking around with her head in the clouds, he decided, and it was high time she got her feet firmly rooted in reality.
Luke was nearly asleep when there came a soft scratching on the door. Determined to ignore it, he rolled over. But as the minutes passed, the scratching grew more persistent. Finally, Luke could stand it no longer. He shoved himself out of bed, strode angrily across the room, and jerked the door open, intending to scold the dog and put a stop to such behavior.
Big mistake. The second the door swung open, Lycodomes came barreling in and promptly jumped on the bed.
“Lycodomes,” Khristos said drowsily and looped his arm around the dog’s neck.
Luke heaved a resigned sigh and sat on the edge of the bed, thinking of the fleas that even now were probably breeding on his sheets. He couldn’t quite believe he was actually considering letting the mongrel stay. But when he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw that Khristos still had one arm around the dog’s thick ruff. Lycodomes, who had already settled in comfortably, licked the boy’s face.
“Son of a bitch,” Luke said.
With a groan, he lay back down. One good thing about dog smell, he noted as he closed his eyes. After a few minutes, it lost its edge.
As that thought drifted through Luke’s mind, something damp slapped him across the mouth. He sputtered and swatted it away, only to have it slap him in the face again. Dog tail, he realized. Too drowsy to fight the situation any longer, Luke anchored the wagging canine appendage under his arm. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he heard a low, threatening growl.
TEN
Luke rose from bed the next morning ready to lay down the law. The sooner Cassandra realized, in detail, exactly what was expected of her, the sooner Luke could stop wasting his energy on filthy dogs and homesick boys.
Already this morning, he’d had to drag himself out of bed twice—once to usher the mongrel outside before the damned thing clawed a hole in the expensive oak door, and once to show Khristos the way to the kitchen so the kid could get something to eat. By then, it had been well past time for Khristos to leave for school, of course, a situation Luke was determined would not repeat itself on the morrow. A good education
would one day be of paramount importance to the boy if he ever hoped to make something of himself, and every day he missed school constituted lessons he might never again have an opportunity to learn.
Luke knew exactly how difficult it was to patch the holes in a ragged education—and how inadequate a man could feel when he was repeatedly reminded of his ignorance.
As though summoned by his black thoughts, a sour smell assaulted his nostrils and he scowled. Christ on crutches, he thought as he tugged on a clean shirt. Even now, his rooms reeked of wet dog. The first thing he intended to do this morning was speak to Mrs. Whitmire about having the whole damn suite disinfected. Well…maybe not the first thing. Before he issued mandates for the bedchamber to be cleaned, he was going to give the housekeeper a dressing down she wouldn’t soon forget. Imagine the callous gall of the woman, sticking poor, scared Khristos in a storage room. Every time Luke remembered finding the child in there, his blood started to boil.
As he tucked in his shirt and buckled his belt with angry precision, his thoughts turned to Cassandra. For once, his mental picture of her sweet face did nothing to mellow his mood. Directly after breakfast, he was going to haul her into the study and put the fear of God into her. No preambling. No mincing of words. He’d just lay it on the line. There were plenty of women in Black Jack who’d give their eye teeth for this position. She could either earn her wage or pack her satchel, and at this point, he didn’t particularly care which.
Or so he told himself.
When Luke finally found time to speak with Cassandra after he got downstairs, he quickly discovered that laying down the law to her was easier said than done. First, he had to get her attention, and short of snarling at her, which he was suddenly reluctant to do, he wasn’t sure how to go about it. Every room in his house, not to mention the countless objects she encountered in them, seemed to fascinate her.
First she discovered the breakfast room, which, she hastened to inform him, was bigger than her whole house down in the mining district and, in her estimation, “totally extravagant.” He already had a huge dining room that could easily seat forty people. How many eating rooms did one man need? Then she stumbled upon the octagonal solarium, where she stopped to examine and admire every plant, all the while marveling that she felt as if she were outside. By the time Luke finally got her headed toward his study, he was seething with impatience.