Fatal as a Fallen Woman (7 page)

"Pigheaded fool," Ben muttered.

"There's the pot calling the kettle black! How long are you going to stay here, fussing over me, making everyone miserable, before you take yourself off and find out what happened to your Diana?"

Ben tensed at the reminder. His gaze shot from Aaron's chest to his face, half-expecting to find an expression of little-boy mischievousness there. Instead Aaron looked uncharacteristically somber.

"She's important to me, too, you know. And you promised she'd be back." 

"We can't force her to return. Not to marry me. Not to serve as your muse. And her editor wants her to stay in New York. He offered her the chance to cover the sort of news she'd been hoping to write about. And a raise in pay."

Ben hadn't considered Horatio Foxe's sudden generosity a threat at the time. After all, Diana hadn't left here with Foxe. Instead she'd delayed her departure from Bangor for two additional days, to make sure Aaron was going to recover. Although they hadn't formalized an engagement, Ben had felt certain she meant to marry him. The trip back to Manhattan had been necessary so that she could put her affairs in order and pack.

"She was excited about reporting on crime and criminals." He wasn't sure why he was confiding all this in Aaron. His brother was not the most logical person to use as a sounding board.

"You think an assignment has put her in harm's way?"

"If she got involved in something dangerous—"

It did not bear thinking about!

"You told her you'd follow her to New York if she hadn't returned in a month."

Ben wondered which of the servants had been eavesdropping when he'd issued that ultimatum—the "deadline" Diana's telegram had referred to.

She'd said she needed to think about his proposal of marriage without the distraction of his presence and he'd let her go, certain she'd soon come to see things his way. Her experience with Evan Spaulding had scarred her, but he thought she knew he was nothing like her late husband. Judging by the tone of the letters she'd been writing to him, she realized that. In fact, he'd expected the next one to be an answer, her agreement to become Mrs. Benjamin Northcote. But no "next" letter had ever come, only that damnably cryptic telegram. 

Too restless to remain seated, Ben heaved himself to his feet and began to pace. He stopped by the window, staring up at the North Star. Although he could not see much at night, he knew that the last of the snow had finally melted. Maine's long winter was over and spring planting was imminent. This was the time for new beginnings.

"I agree," Aaron said.

Ben turned, his stance wary. He did not think Aaron had been speaking to him. But before he could confirm his suspicion, his brother's gaze shifted to the door.

"What do you intend to do about her?" Maggie Northcote demanded in a brittle voice. Ben had no idea how long she'd been standing there, listening to their conversation.

"He's going to New York," Aaron said. "He told her he'd follow her if she didn't come back on her own."

Maggie thumped the doorframe with one fist. "In a month, he said. It hasn't been a month yet. And how can he leave you, my darling, or his other patients?"

"If it will help," Aaron said, "I'll take an oath to do no painting at all for at least three days."

"Six."

"Five."

They shook on it. Then Ben turned his attention to the black-clad figure still hovering in the doorway. "A word with you, Mother?"

He took her arm and hauled her into the outer room of Aaron's lodgings in the carriage house behind the Northcote mansion. It had been fitted up as an artist's studio and was permeated with the distinctive smells of turpentine and linseed oil. Stacks of canvases lined the walls but only two had been put on display. Both showed scantily-clad mermaids. Each figure had Diana's face.

Ben turned away from them to snag the bentwood chair that customarily sat on a small pedestal at the center of the room. He eased his mother into it, then went to a sideboard stocked with crystal decanters and glasses and poured her a snifter of Aaron's best brandy.

She glowered up at him. "Do I need this for fortification?"

"I don't know. Maybe you'd prefer to throw it across the room. It should splinter with a gratifying crash."

She sipped, but her scowl remained fierce.

"I have to make sure she's all right. I intend to remind her that if she wants to work after we're married, I have no objection. How could I?"

The implied compliment failed to soften her attitude, but Ben was beyond caring if he had her approval. He shouldn't have delayed this long. His decision made, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"I told Aaron he needed to rest for another week, hoping he'd agree to four days. He'll be fine without me here. There's no need for you to hover over him."

"If you say so, dear heart."

"I do. So, I'll be taking an early train tomorrow. I don't expect I'll be gone long, but I will take as much time as I need to locate Diana and convince her to return with me. If all goes well, we'll be married by the end of the month."

"Go, then." She knocked back the rest of the brandy in one gulp, heaved a long-suffering sigh, and stood. "We'll struggle along without you if we must."

"I'm sure you will," Ben muttered as she swept regally out of the carriage house. He just hoped she wouldn't get into too much mischief while he was away.

Chapter Four

Diana awoke groggy and disoriented and needed several minutes to remember where she was and how she'd come to be there. It was the portrait of Elmira, the same one that had once graced the Broadway mansion, that gave her the answer. It now hung opposite the bed in the owner's suite at the Elmira Hotel.

Jane had taken Diana upstairs after Matt's reluctant departure the previous evening. Diana frowned, uncertain now why she'd been so resistant to his attempts to convince her to stay elsewhere. He'd meant well. And she couldn't explain, even to herself, why she'd felt such a total lack of concern about spending the night in a whorehouse.

The unpalatable and inescapable fact that her mother owned and operated a bordello made Diana's head ache. Bad enough discovering that Elmira Torrence was a fugitive, but the additional shock must have been too much for her. It had quite undone her usual common sense.

Yawning hugely, she swung her legs over the side of the high four poster and made her away into the attached bath. There seemed to be little point in trying to sort out all she'd learned, let alone search for answers to her many questions, before she'd had a good breakfast and several cups of coffee.

Whatever else might be said about the Elmira Hotel, it boasted the latest amenities. No chamber pots or long walks to an outhouse for Elmira Torrence! The bathroom had a large, claw-footed tub, a water closet with an elevated flush tank, and a corner washstand topped with marble. Rabbit-ear faucets supplied both hot and cold running water.

Diana's first glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink had her retreating a step, appalled by her own appearance. "I must have been more exhausted than I thought," she muttered. Apparently, she hadn't taken time to unpin her hair and brush it free of dust. She didn't always braid it before crawling into bed, or even wear a nightcap, since she'd recently read that it was healthier to leave hair loose at night, but she rarely skipped the usual hundred strokes.

When she'd finished untangling the mess, she sloshed cold water into her face, but her ablutions didn't do much to improve her appearance. There was something wrong with her eyes. Diana blinked and stared harder at her reflection, a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She remembered taking a light supper before falling asleep. Jane, who'd identified herself as Jane Foster, Elmira Torrence's secretary, desk clerk, and accountant, had brought up a tray. She hadn't stayed to chat, but she'd promised to return this morning and tell Diana everything she wanted to know.

Wandering back into the bedroom, Diana studied the few crumbs left on the plate. She'd eaten sliced ham, cheese, a boiled egg, and buttered bread, consumed the glass of wine that had accompanied the meal, and then scarcely had time to remove her traveling clothes and put on a nightgown before she'd fallen into a deep, restless sleep.

She'd dreamed about Ben. Vivid dreams. Erotic dreams.

As she felt color rush into her cheeks, Diana came to a conclusion that made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She'd had similar dreams before, but only when she'd been dosed with laudanum. Had Jane laced her wine with the potent combination of opium and alcohol? And if she had, why?

Diana wondered if she'd been wrong to think herself safe here. Still, she had not been harmed. Drugged sleep had simply kept her out of the way while the occupants of this house conducted their usual business.

The dull throb of a lingering headache made it nearly impossible for Diana to think clearly. Pressing her fingertips to her temples did nothing to help, but as she moved into the suite's sitting room she caught a whiff of something that would. She flung open the hall door before Jane could knock.

This morning's tray was larger than the one that had held Diana's supper, but she ignored the array of covered dishes to fix her gaze on the most important item, a large pot of coffee. Without speaking, she seized it and sloshed a generous portion of the reviving liquid into a cup. Her first long swallow cleared the cobwebs from her brain and eased the pain of her headache. A second smaller and more ladylike sip had her narrowing her eyes at Jane.

Once again, the young woman was dressed demurely. She looked like any of a hundred other girls who went to work in offices or as sales clerks. What on earth was she doing as second in command of a whorehouse?

"Did you sleep well, Mrs. Spaulding?" Jane asked.

Reminded of her suspicions, Diana glared at her. "I slept very poorly."

Jane busied herself uncovering the dishes of food she'd placed on a small table and did not look up. An array of mouth-watering treats nestled on warmed plates. Sausages and eggs. Potatoes and ham. Diana polished off her coffee and held the cup out for a refill. She was not worried about being drugged this morning. The Elmira Hotel's residents were done with their night's work. If there had been anything else to hide from her, they'd had plenty of time to conceal it while she slept. And if they wanted her out of the way for good, she'd already be dead.

She waited until Jane finished pouring before she went on the attack. "I would like to know how laudanum got into my supper last night."

Jane's head snapped up and their gazes met. Diana was surprised to see that the eyes hidden behind the ugly spectacles were a remarkably pretty green, and that there was more than a hint of fear in them.

"Laudanum?" Jane's voice rose to a squeak and the heightened color in her cheeks offered further proof of guilty knowledge.

"You
have
heard of it?"

"Yes. I mean, . . ." Her hands shook when she returned the coffee pot to the table. It landed with a thump and a slosh. "Everyone knows laudanum is a liquid derivative of opium. It's taken by the tablespoonful to calm the nerves and ease pain."

Diana frowned as she bit into the sausage she'd filched from a plate. Women of all sorts used laudanum and thought nothing of it. "I suppose," she said slowly, "that someone might have believed they were doing me a kindness, that I needed sedating after what was clearly a series of shocks. After all, many a mother gives Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup to her children, in spite of the fact that it contains a poisonous narcotic."

"It will not happen again," Jane promised, seizing on the tentative explanation Diana offered her. She seemed genuinely distressed to discover that the effect of the dose of laudanum had not been beneficial.

Diana gave her a curt nod. "Good. I do not care for opiates and my nerves are already as steady as a diamond cutter's." She pulled a small chair up to the table and sat. "Have you eaten?"

 "I am accustomed to taking my morning meal a bit later, with the boarders. We serve two meals a day here, breakfast at half past eleven and dinner at five."

"And how much do the . . . ladies pay for room and board?" When Jane hesitated, Diana caught her forearm and held it until their gazes locked. "I am Elmira's daughter. I want to know what her life is like. How she makes her living."

"She never spoke of you. Not once."

"Nevertheless, I have come here to help her. I can do very little if I don't have all the facts, including those about the operation of her business. How much do the boarders pay her for a month's food and lodging?"

"Twenty dollars."

Satisfied, Diana gentled her voice. "I believe it is time you and I dropped the pretense that this is an ordinary boarding house. We both know what goes on here. What I don't understand is how my mother became the madam of a brothel."

"You'll have to ask Elmira that question."

"She sells the services of girls younger than I am." Diana felt a little sick at the thought.

"A man's not going to pay much for an
old
woman, but if it relieves your mind, most of Elmira's profits come from selling beer and wine." At Diana's look of surprise, Jane shrugged. "Beer goes for a dollar a bottle. A split of champagne costs five."

A fork full of fluffy scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth, Diana paused to give Jane a sharp look. "How much do the . . . boarders earn?"

"An average of fifteen dollars a night apiece."

Diana felt her eyes widen. A woman with a good, respectable job in an office might take home that much for a month's work, if she had a generous employer.

"Half of that goes to your mother."

"In addition to paying for their room and board?"

"Are you one of those do-gooders who'd rather see them join the other jobless, homeless souls camped out on the banks of the South Platte?"

"No, but shouldn't they be allowed to keep all they earn?"

"Your mother has expenses, Mrs. Spaulding. Upkeep on the building, hiring the professor, who is both our piano player and the bouncer, and paying for extra musicians on busy nights. They get two dollars apiece for an evening's work, and a free dinner in the kitchen. Elmira also employs three women who do not deal privately with gentlemen. I do not, nor do the cook or the night maid. There is also a boy to do odd jobs. The cook is paid twenty dollars a month, the maid a dollar a day for housekeeping and washing and extra for the ironing and mending. In addition to all that, Elmira has to bribe the police not to bother us. Just be grateful there's no mac involved!"