The Beloved Woman

  “Ten dollars!” someone called.

  Mrs. Albert clutched her ample, mostly uncovered bosom in disbelief. “This is her first night at work, boys! She’s new to the business! And pure-blooded Cherokee Injun—you know what kind of things a savage will let a man do. I cain’t let this momentous occasion pass for less than twenty dollars.”

  “Twenty-two!” someone said immediately.

  Justis listened in sick horror. He couldn’t believe that Katherine knew what she’d gotten herself into, that she was eagerly waiting upstairs for the top bidder to use her as he pleased. But a friend of his had seen her knock on Mrs. Albert’s door this morning and go inside.

  He almost choked on disgust. He knew he’d bullied her, that he’d spent the past three weeks circling her like a randy stallion, scaring her, trying to intimidate her into agreeing to do what he thought was best. He’d seen the pure anguish in her eyes this morning, as though she finally knew that she was losing her fight with him.

  He’d been a bastard. He admitted that. But what kind of lady would take up whoring rather than accept a respectable offer of marriage?

  “Twenty-sish,” a pot-bellied miner with a mouth full of tobacco gurgled. “I’ll pay twenty-sish to have her.”

  Justis pulled one of his pistols from his belt. He angled through the crowd and stopped directly in front of Mrs. Albert. When she saw him she reeled back two steps and gasped loudly. “Mr. Gallatin, she said she didn’t belong to you no more. I’ll get the sheriff if you cause trouble.”

  Justis leveled the pistol at her head. “No trouble. I’ll give you fifty dollars gold for her. For the whole night.”

  “You’re the winner,” she said weakly.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs, last room on the left.”

  She nearly collapsed with relief when he lowered the gun and turned away. The crowd parted quickly, and though there were some angry mutterings, no man was fool enough to hinder his departure.

  Mrs. Albert’s girls had been watching the action from the staircase, and they scattered wildly in front of Justis. He strode along a narrow hallway where colored lamp globes cast flickering red shadows. When he reached the last door on the left he raised a foot and kicked it open.

  A chair clattered to the floor and the door latch hit the room’s far wall. He stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. The scene on the bed made him groan with fury and disgust.

  Katherine, wearing only her sleeveless undershirt and petticoat, her hair streaming over her like a curtain, scrambled upright and stared at him in shock. Then her eyes darkened with fury. “Get out! I’m free of you, you hear? I have a place to live and a job to pay my way!”

  “What kind of lady are you? What kind of lady turns herself into a whore just out of spite?”

  “A desperate one,” she retorted. “And it’s no worse than what you wanted me to be—a slave in a loveless marriage, a doxy with a wedding certificate!”

  “A what?” He cursed viciously, then flung a hand out in a violent gesture. “This is what you’d take instead? This is what your damned pride tells you to do?”

  She got to her knees and shook her fists as if ready to do battle. “Your pride drove me to this! Your pride and vanity and lust! Now, get out! I won’t take your orders anymore, sir!”

  His chest heaving with anger and frustration, Justis started forward, then halted, thinking. He’d planned to drag her back to the hotel and lock her up. But then what? Keep trying to gentle her with words? Hellfire, the heartless cat would spit in his face.

  He smiled an evil, victorious smile. “You’ll take my orders for the rest of tonight,” he told her. “Whether you like ’em or not. I bought you.”

  She froze, speechless, her dark eyes wild. “You couldn’t have.”

  “What? You weren’t plannin’ to work on your first night in the house?” He tossed his hat onto the washstand. “Well, Mrs. Albert has other plans. She just auctioned you off downstairs. I was the high bidder. Fifty dollars.”

  She sank back on her heels, her hands rising to her throat. “I completely misjudged her.”

  “Better get used to being lied to. You’re gonna hear a lot of lies in this place—most of ’em while you’re layin’ on your back.”

  “You paid for me,” she whispered grimly. “You bought me so that you wouldn’t have to pretend to be gallant anymore.”

  “That’s right.” He threw his weapons on the washstand, then whipped his belt off and slung it so violently that the heavy gold buckle cracked the handle on the washstand’s pitcher. “Cheer up, Katie. If I’m the first man to ride you, at least you’ll get broken in easy.”

  Her eyes were wells of torment. Suddenly she dropped her hands from her throat and braced them on the bed, leaning forward like a panther in a crouch. “Take me,” she said in a low, fierce tone. “Take your fill, and then you’ll let me go.”

  “Maybe you’ll beg me not to.”

  “This is nothing but business to me. A way to show you how little I care what you do.”

  He scanned her belligerent expression, and his mouth curled in disgust. “I think I believe you.” He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. “I’m ready. I want a damned good time for fifty in gold.”

  “You’re not taking off your trousers or boots?”

  He smiled sardonically. “Not for the first round. I’m in a hurry.”

  For a moment she hesitated. Then she slung her hair back and climbed off the bed. Justis watched as she reached under her petticoat and untied her drawers. They fell to the floor and she kicked them away. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him calmly.

  “Do you want me to remove my stockings?”

  “No. But take off the undershirt.”

  She nodded, then stared blankly at the floor, her mouth set in a tight line. But she couldn’t hide the tremor in her fingers as she untied the drawstring around the scooped neck of her shirt.

  Justis bitterly ignored the sympathy that threatened his resolve. She had planned to do this for other men. why should he feel sorry for her now? But his sorrow refused to be ignored, and he cursed the lack of readiness between his legs. Dammit, he wanted to take her in anger, shoving himself into her like a weapon, but his body betrayed him.

  “Hurry up,” he said impatiently. He crossed the room to her, grabbed the loosened undershirt, and jerked it down her shoulders.

  She caught a whimper in her throat and glared up at him as the shirt settled around her waist and elbows. He saw fear flicker in her eyes and made himself study her without emotion. Stepping back, he appraised her slowly.

  Blood hammered in the pit of his stomach, and his body couldn’t help but harden at the sight of her jutting, darkly nippled breasts, their bronze skin gleaming in the lamplight. By fashion’s standard she was much too slender in the arms and waist, but that delicacy made her breasts seem all the more voluptuous.

  “You’ll do,” he said gruffly. “Lie down.”

  Her expression a mask, she pulled her arms from the shirt, leaving it hanging about her waist, and slowly stretched out on the bed. She stared at the ceiling without blinking and laid her arms by her sides. He noticed that she clenched her fingers into her petticoat.

  “Do your business,” she said in a tortured whisper.

  Justis ground his teeth in frustration. He told himself that this was the only way he’d ever dominate her, that she’d be forced to notice him after this. He was also relatively certain that she’d feel bound to him afterward, whether she’d admit it or not.

  “It’ll hurt your first time. There’s nothing I can do about that.” He shoved her knees apart and knelt between them.

  She continued to stare at the ceiling. “I don’t care.”

  Katie, for God’s sake, care. He bent over her and flattened his hand on her stomach. “You might as well get used to men touching you,” he said grimly.

  She shivered as he slowly moved his hand over her, between he
r breasts, over each shoulder and down each arm, then back up. He turned his hand over and stroked the same areas with the backs of his fingers.

  Her chest rose and fell harshly. It was from fear and distaste, he thought, but then he watched her nipples harden into dark peaks. He shuddered. Her body had betrayed her too.

  With both hands he began to touch her breasts, drawing his fingertips over them in feathery strokes, moving closer to the nipples each time but not touching them.

  “I thought you were in a hurry,” she said in a tear-soaked voice, swallowing hard. “I imagine that few of Mrs. Albert’s customers take this much time.”

  “You oughta thank me for it,” he said fiercely, trying not to reveal the knot in his own throat. “I’ll learn you things your customers will like.”

  “Teach you,” she corrected him, her mouth trembling. She never stopped staring at the ceiling, but a tear slid from the corner of one eye.

  Justis looked away and fought a desire to shake her until her teeth rattled. He wanted to cry too. He wanted her to say that she felt something for him, even just a little.

  “Some men will probably want to do this to you,” he said bitterly. He bent over her and took one of her nipples in his mouth. He sucked it gently at first, then harder, taunting it with his tongue. With a despairing sound she arched under him, pushing her breast farther into his mouth but just as quickly pulling away.

  “You make me disgusted with myself,” she said between gritted teeth, her breath coming in little puffs. “If it is so easy for me to react to a man I don’t want, then I am well suited to a whorehouse.”

  “You want me.”

  His hand surrounded her other breast and squeezed it upward. He raked the nipple with his teeth, then apologized with slow, wet strokes of his tongue. She made a mewling sound and raised her hands to his naked shoulders, trying to push him away.

  “I’ve heard Mrs. Albert’s girls talk. I know the customers don’t tempt them like this!”

  “How is it different, then?” He drew the tip of his tongue down the center of her stomach. She squirmed, and her fingers dug into his skin.

  “They’re not gentle. They don’t try to give pleasure.”

  “You want me to treat you like a whore?”

  “Yes.” Her tone held angry determination. “That’s what I plan to be.”

  Tenderness left him. “Damn you, Katie.” He unbuttoned his trousers with violent speed, then pushed her legs farther apart. In one coordinated movement he shoved her petticoat to her thighs and lowered himself atop her. “Draw your knees up and put your arms around my neck,” he ordered. “And look at me while I take you.”

  She cried out and shook her head. “I can’t look at you.” Her arms encircled him and she pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder. He felt her tears slipping down his chest. “Do it,” she begged. “I hope it hurts so much I can hardly stand it. Then maybe I won’t want you anymore. Dear Lord, I hope I won’t.”

  Her words sank into him like a knife, slashing his bitterness in two. She wanted him, wanted him so much that she’d go through this because she thought it would rid her of the wanting. Slowly he drew back and looked down at her. His hands lay on either side of her head on the pillow; he realized that he had wadded the pillow’s covering into his fists.

  She shut her eyes and cried silently. “Don’t stop,” she urged. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “Give me an honest answer to one question. Do you want to stay here and be a whore?”

  She looked up at him miserably. “That’s not the point.”

  His angry tugging had drawn the pillow covering completely out of place. Justis realized abruptly that the covering was her dress. “Look at this,” he said sarcastically, pulling it from under her. “You don’t even want to put your head on a dirty pillow. How can you work as a—”

  He stopped, words dying in his throat when he noticed dried bloodstains on the skirt of the dress. “Who did this to you?”

  She grabbed for the dress. “That’s not your concern!”

  He dropped it on the floor, then sat back and pushed her petticoat all the way up. “Who hurt you? Why didn’t you say so? What bastard tore you open like that?”

  He slipped his hand between her legs and she wriggled desperately. “Leave me alone! Don’t! Justis!”

  He held her down with one hand while he probed gently with the other. She quivered with anger and humiliation as he studied her thighs and stroked his fingers over the thatch of black hair between them. Finally he looked at his fingers. “You’re not bleeding.”

  She twisted her head aside and shut her eyes. “I’m a whore now, bleeding or not. I … I took two customers this afternoon.”

  “That’s funny,” he said in a dry tone. “What I had my fingers on was still tighter than an old maid who’d sat on a lemon.”

  Her eyes flared with fury. “No matter. I’ve already been bedded by someone else!”

  “You prissy little liar.”

  She tried to scramble upright and slap him with both hands at the same time. He caught her wrists and she hung from his grip, making fierce sounds that reminded him of a trapped animal. “Finish what you started!” she commanded. “What do you care if I’m bleeding or not, hurt or not, virgin or not!”

  “I don’t want to hurt you more!” he yelled. “I don’t need to prove I’m a man that way! If you’ve been bedded by someone else, I’ll doctor you and kill him!”

  The unselfish words stunned her. With a groan of exasperation and sorrow she collapsed back onto the bed. “Impossible,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Impossible to know what to do when you say something like that.” She drummed her heels on the bed in frustration, then admitted, “It’s not my blood on the dress. I’ve not taken any customers.”

  “Whose blood is it?”

  “I delivered a babe for one of Mrs. Albert’s girls. That’s what I spent all of today working at. I intended to be a whore, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  He groaned with relief. “Katie Blue Song, you’re more cantankerous than any other woman in the world. Why did you stay here?”

  “I was going to work as a doctor instead. Mrs. Albert said she’d give me room and board if I’d tend her girls and those at the other houses. The old biddy lied to me.”

  “Katie, oh, Katie. You crazy, proud gal. I drove you to desperation, and I’m sorry. I sure don’t want our first time to be like this—you scared, mad, and laying on a whore’s bed with tears in your eyes.”

  “The first time? Justis, don’t expect—”

  “Shhh. You’re upset. Save the arguin’ for later.”

  He pulled her upright and held her tightly. After a moment, working together, they got her legs from around him. Justis buttoned his trousers, then helped her settle her undershirt back in place.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, still a little stunned and breathless. She gazed straight into his eyes while he fumbled with the tie string. “Though I believe that you wanted to strangle me when you came into this room.”

  “I don’t always go about things the right way. Like this morning at the store. I was wrong to talk to you that way.”

  She ducked her head. “I suppose you’re trying very hard to do your duty to my family.”

  “Yeah. I owe ’em.”

  “You mean it when you say that you can’t let me go off into the world alone, even with a lot of money. I believe you’re sincerely concerned about protecting me, not just about keeping the Blue Song gold.”

  “Yeah.” His fingers increasingly awkward, he guided the shoulders of her undershirt into place. “I reckon you’re beginning to see why the world’s not a safe place for a gal like you alone.”

  He was startled when she clasped his face between her slender, gentle hands and looked at him tenderly. “You’re a fine man.”

  He felt the breath stall in his throat. “Then you’ll marry me.”

  “No.” Her eyes clouded with sorrow. “Your sen
se of duty will ruin us both. No more talk of marriage. For white and Indian to mix would only bring grief. I know it’s been done before—my grandfather was a half-breed, remember—but he was born when the A-ni-Yu-wi-Ya ruled the world. You and I would have been accepted by that world, but not by this one.”

  Justis sighed. The A-ni-Yu-wi-Ya. The Principle People. They would have adopted him into Katie’s clan and treated him like a native born. “The offer stands, Katie. I want to marry you.”

  She stroked his jaw and looked as if she might cry some more. “No. It would take a great deal of love to make a marriage like ours survive. We have friendship, but it’s not enough. Neither can we build a marriage on duty and lust.” She left the obvious point unsaid—that she couldn’t love him.

  “I reckon you’re right. I won’t mention any more about it,” he muttered. “It was a fool idea.”

  A careful shield dropped over her face. She drew her hands away. “I understand why you offered, and I’ll always be grateful.”

  He patted her knee. “If I leave you alone, will you promise to stay in Gold Ridge and live at the hotel? As a guest, I mean. Not like you were beholden to me, or anything. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “Then I promise. You have my word that I won’t try to leave town.” She paused, then smiled at him. “I know that one day you’ll give me my fair share of the Blue Song gold. I am beholden to you, and always shall be.”

  “That’s nice.” Beholden, he thought grimly. He wanted much more from her than that.

  Her gaze dropped to his bare chest. She stared at it wide-eyed, as if seeing it for the first time, which, in a way, she was. This was the first calm moment they’d had together. Justis couldn’t read her eyes, but he doubted that he looked like the kind of dandy she favored.

  “That feller in Philadelphia,” he said as casually as he could. “I guess he’s hard to forget.”