Felicia Andrews Read online

  Another match. He licked at his lips and reached out with his free hand to stroke her breasts roughly. She gasped, could not help a slight wriggling in an attempt to move away, and received for her efforts a stinging blow across her mouth. She tasted blood. Her tongue probed at a loose tooth. And still he toyed with her, pinching and pulling, then running his hand down to the flat of her stomach where it inscribed a large circle before dipping under her waistband. She took a deep breath and told herself that as long as she was able to keep control, they would not do more than attempt to humiliate her.

  No time, their leader had said.

  She would not be raped, then. She told herself they would not rape her.

  "You been a good girl, not callin' out, " Spar said.

  "Mighty good," his partner said, leaning forward to give his hand room to move below her navel. "Oh Lordy, Spar, I think we goin' to make the time."

  NO! she screamed silently .

  . . . there was an alley in one of Hell's domains on earth. Natchez-Under-the-Hill . An alley into which she had been dragged. Dragged . Beaten. Men stripping her . Sneering . Nothing but an Indian . Worse than the prostitutes that walked the levee. Worse than the blacks who lived in hovels beyond the city limits. An Indian. It wasn't rape. They were doing her a favor, letting her know how a white man could treat her . It wasn't rape. But they raped her . . .

  She heard the nightmarish sound of a buckle being unfastened.

  And it galvanized her.

  She arched her back slowly, and Spar's partner stared at the full breasts that rose toward his face. He leaned forward even more, his tongue like a snake's, his eyes glazing slightly as she lifted her hips as if giving his hand a chance to dip more easily between her legs. A moment, then, frozen, as she heard Spar's breath drawn in--then she snapped her arms forward in a whiplike motion that broke her free of his grip, brought her hands to the face leering above her and her nails to the corners of his eyes.

  Her hips dropped, her knees thrust toward her chest, and as she ripped the flesh from his face, she toppled him to the left and scrambled to her feet. The last match flared and vanished, but she had seen the position of Spar and moved toward it rapidly, listening to him trying to pull his trousers back to his waist. She struck out with a hand to find him, heard him snarl when she caught him on the shoulder. It was enough. She lashed out with a boot and caught him squarely in the groin. He screamed and fell, his abruptly subsiding moans joining those of his companion, who thrashed around on the ground and demanded her life while, at the same time, bellowing to the stars that he had been blinded.

  Amanda stood for a moment, her chest heaving as her lungs sought air, then she whirled and dashed into the trees. She knew there would be no pursuit. The one would need medical attention; the other would remember his instructions and, in spite of his rage, dare not chase her.

  The man with the voice of the dead would not approve.

  And by the time she had reached the gazebo again, her blouse was retucked into her skirt, her right hand holding it closed. She did not know what she was going to tell the others, and was almost grateful when a decision was taken out of her hands as soon as she walked through the front door.

  Harley was sitting on the divan with William. Olivia and Sarah were gone . The two men spun around at her entrance, and Harley jumped to his feet as he gaped at her hand.

  "Jesus, Mandy," he said. "What the hell'd you do, fall off the cliff?"

  FIVE

  The flames rose lazily from the pine log fire, licking at the air, sending frequent showers of rainbow sparks up into the chimney. The sharp scent of the burning wood filled the room like an exotic perfume, and the soft muttering from the hearth reminded Amanda of New York and standing outside her home on a crisp autumn day, listening to her father and his friends playing cards inside. The talk seemed the same-murmurings, occasional bursts of laughter, murmurings again. She leaned back into a corner of the divan and closed her eyes, let her senses concentrate on the bath of warmth the fire provided her.

  Almost before she'd had an opportunity to explain what had happened, Harley had ushered her to the stairs, bellowed for Olivia, and sent the two of them to Amanda's room where she changed into a soft woolen nightgown and even softer tufted robe. With fleece-lined slippers on her feet, then, she returned downstairs where Wilcox, still trembling slightly from his ordeal, had already decided she'd been set upon by highwaymen who'd chosen the woodland for a night's retreat. She did not dispute it. The poor man had enough to worry about, she thought, without knowing that someone had set spies on the house.

  And that was her problem as she lay there, alone now and feeling the drowsy effects of flame and brandy; though her identity was known to the man with the dead voice, she could not be sure that it was she alone he was after, or if anyone from the house would have done. Had it been Harley, he might just have been beaten as an example-as she was--to Wilcox that someone wanted him out of business. It was logical, and it made a twisted, evil kind of sense. Yet she could not help a periodic sensation that the two men and their leader had been waiting out there for some time, days perhaps, just to get hold of her-no one else. She smiled to herself, then, and combed her fingers through her hair. Had this been Coreville or Four Aces, the idea might have made more sense; but this was San Francisco, and beyond those few she had met at the banquets and parties, she knew no one, least of all someone who could be her enemy.

  She stirred. Soon she would have to rouse herself and make her way into her bed. Footsteps on the floor above, however, forestalled her. William, she surmised, pacing while his wife slept. Long after they had been convinced she had been no more than severely frightened by her experience, William insisted that he was not about to go broke because of the fire. There were other places where goods were stored, he told them, and his only problem would be in stalling many of his customers until he was able to make the rounds of the other brokers and replace as many of the lost pieces as he could. First thing in the morning he would return to the site and rummage through the debris, hoping against inevitability that something might be left.

  He had left no guards; he had been too shaken, and by now it was too late.

  Shaking her head in admiration for the man's tenacity, she pushed herself to her feet and made her way to the stairwell. She sighed and ran a hand gingerly over her chest in anticipation of the unsightly bruises that would rise there by dawn. Then she climbed the narrow staircase and turned left to her room, shoved back the heavy rose-designed quilt, and slid beneath it. The pillows were high, firm, and cradled her head perfectly. A simple pleasure, and one that was exceedingly welcome just now.

  And suddenly, without warning, her legs began to quiver, her arms to tremble, and her teeth chattered as if she had been thrown into a dead-of-winter blizzard. She clutched the quilt to her neck and drew herself into a tight ball. Nausea churned in her stomach, cramps worked their way along the backs of her thighs and calves, and she whimpered as her head rolled from side to side.

  Those men. Their breath reeking of cheap wine and rum, their hands encrusted with unimaginable filth. The leers on their faces, the sheer animal lust that glazed their eyes when her blouse was torn open.

  She tried to take a deep breath and could not. She struggled to control the spasms in her limbs--and failed.

  She wanted to cry out, then, for someone to hold her until her reaction to the attack passed . . . but there was no one she could call to. She was alone, as she had been since Guy had died and Douglas had withdrawn into a sullen, bitter shell. Harley's gruff manner was unsuitable now, and it wasn't the sympathy of a woman she needed-it was strength, a feeling that someone was in control where she had failed. It was, she thought, one thing to be your own woman, to carve your own place in a world dominated by single-minded men, but it was quite another when you were faced with a nightmare and had no one to face it with you. Independence was fine for a great many things--it was fuel for self-respect and a buttress against the battles tha
t sprang up at her constantly.

  But . . . what good was it if you could not share it? She had the children, of course, but that was a different sort of peace, a different view of the emotion called love. Sharing with Alex and Bess was not the same as sharing with . . .

  The spasms passed, and she was left gulping for air and freezing. She rubbed her arms briskly to bring back the warmth and lay staring at the wall, at the dark, until sleep finally overtook her and allowed her to pass the hours until dawn without a single shred of the waking nightmare she had had.

  When she awoke, she felt as though she had not slept at all.

  The street was bustling with activity when she, Harley, and William rode around the comer and came face-to-face with the previous night's destruction. The debris had long since been cleared from the cobblestones and sidewalks, and only oily, soot-black puddles marked the places where the fire-extinguishing apparatus had been. But she saw William blanch at the sight of his building, hold onto the reins of his black mare tightly until his knuckles were drained of blood.

  There had been four two-story structures facing the street, and all of them were now piles of blackened, charred, slow steaming timbers that reached grotesquely toward the overcast sky. Pedestrians and carriages slowed as they passed, but none of them stopped. There was business to attend to in other parts of the city, and they had no time to gawk at affairs that were not their own. Miraculously, she noted as they urged their mounts closer, none of the buildings surrounding those affected seemed to have suffered more than minor scorching and smoke damage. The fire had been centralized, and the daring work of the fire fighters had obviously not been in vain.

  Bleakly and incongruously a hitching post was the only thing that stood without damage in front of the Wilcox office. Two other horses were already tethered there, and just beyond them a buckboard upon whose seat was perched a young woman in a drab print dress and sullied white bonnet.

  "Cal Johnson's wife," Wilcox said as he slipped from his saddle and waited for the others to dismount. He kept his voice low. "Her husband and two brothers had a law firm next to my . . . my place. Above them there was an empty loft, used to belong to some Irishman thinking he could start an inn here, away from the waterfront. " He was wearing simple denim trousers and work shirt, boots that reached to his thighs, and a narrow-brimmed, low-crowned hat that served no purpose but to keep his hair from his eyes. Harley was dressed similarly, and Amanda had insisted that she wear that single pair of riding breeches she'd brought from Four Aces. Wilcox stared at her again, and a small smile broke the taut line of his lips. "You're a sight, Amanda, " he said, repeating what he had told her before they'd left. "Wouldn't be surprised if you got arrested for dressing indecently. "

  She laughed and took hold of his arm. She knew he was trying to avoid turning around, but knew too that the sooner he did, the sooner his agony would be tempered by his eagerness to get on with it. So thinking, she guided him away from the horses and they stood, silently, at the rim of the destruction.

  "God," Wilcox whispered. "You look around, and it seems like such a little thing. "

  For a moment she did not understand what he meant, then she shifted her gaze and nodded. The city stretched above them, looming, bright even in the gray air, and its voice of commerce and raucous exhilaration seemed to dwarf the tragedy that confronted them. Behind her, less than two blocks away, she could hear the continuous roar of the waterfront--ships' bells clanging tor arrivals and departures, voices that were blurred into a single droning sound, all of it filling her ears with a relentless energy that made her at once nervous and excited.

  She turned to William, who was shaking his head at the mess and at the same time rubbing his hands briskly. Before either of them could speak again, however, four men raced up to them, younger than Wilcox, their faces stricken with sorrow. They were, she learned, William's associates and clerks, and she was pleased to hear him accept their condolences gracefully, then immediately launch into a series of commands that would, in concert with the others who had been burned out, soon result in the clearing of the plots and the raising of new walls.

  " . . . as many men as you can, " he was telling them, his eagerness infectious. "I want all this garbage out of here before nightfall tomorrow. Danny, you get yourself down to the docks, see who you can find. Ed, I want you to get hold of that damned Canuck, LeFevre, and see how soon he can get me new lumber. I'll need carpenters on call. Timothy, you stay with me and we1l go through here, see if God's left us something to start over with for now. Brian, there's . . . "

  Amanda walked slowly away, realizing she had been shut out without malice, knowing that she would only be in the way once the work gangs arrived and the wagons filled the streets to cart away what was to be dumped. She was aware, then, that several pedestrians were staring at her as they passed, and she wondered if it was because she wore trousers or if they were struck by the glittering snakeskin and polished-stone headband she was wearing to keep her hair flat against her head. She smiled to herself, then to a few small boys who had raced up to see if they could pick up a few cents from the men who were now picking their way through the black-scarred clutter. One of them made a comment about her scalping him, and she whirled on him, scowling, her teeth bared in a fierce grimace. When he yelped and dashed ahead of his companions, she laughed loudly, more so when she caught Harley's disapproving eye.

  The hell with him, she thought; if I lost my temper at everyone who made a crack at me, I'd be twenty years in jail already for multiple murder.

  She walked to the comer slowly, her eyes on the ground in front of her, and nearly collided with a horse-drawn trolley that suddenly clanged into the street from a side road. Its sides were open and its ornate roof was painted in several shades of green, gold, and red. The horses were a team of perfectly matched blacks with tails and manes braided, heads held high, nostrils distended. By day's end she knew all that finery would be drooping, but for now it was a welcome change from the desolation behind her.

  At the back of the trolley was a platform, on the steps a conductor in a stiff dark uniform with brass buttons and silver trim at the cuffs and stiff collar. She grinned at the military aspect, was still grinning when a man suddenly jumped from the platform behind the conductor and straightened himself in front of her.

  He wore a snug-fitting tan suit with a jacket extending to the middle of his thighs and trousers cut just above the tops of gleaming brown Wellingtons. A handkerchief protruded nattily from his breast pocket, and his string tie was held at the throat by a clasp of azure stone. Amanda could not help but notice that those women still on the trolley had turned to stare at him surreptitiously, and not a few of the women pedestrians had paused in their strolling, their faces a mixture of admiration and confusion. The question on their minds was obvious--what was a man like that doing talking to a . . . a woman like her?

  "How, " Trevor said, grinning, one hand raised with its palm out.

  "What?"

  "How," he repeated. "Isn't that an Indian greeting?"

  She glanced up at the sky and smiled as she shook her head. "You've been reading too many penny dreadfuls, Trevor Eagleton. "

  "Then what do they say?"

  ''To a white man? As little as possible. "

  He laughed and took her arm as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Amanda did not dispute him; she knew she should have been annoyed that he had not contacted her after promising he would but was pleased that he had shown up at the right time. They headed back toward the others.

  "I thought I might find you here," he said, tipping his hat to a passing woman. "I heard about this business this morning and thought I might come around to see if I could be of some help. "

  She stared openly at his suit. "In that?"

  "Well," he said, refusing to meet her gaze, "I admit I might have hoped you'd come, too. "

  As they approached the site of the Wilcox office, she saw the disapproving expression on Harley's face,
one that vanished quickly before she could comment. Wilcox was standing several yards deep in the debris; he saw her and waved as he used a long shard of timber to poke aside the ashes. One of his clerks was standing gingerly beside him, clearly unhappy as he held several blackened items in his outstretched arms--his face was already streaked with charcoal, and his shirt was torn down one sleeve from elbow to stiff cuff.

  Trevor thrust his hat back on his head and set his hands on his hips. "Damn, " he said. "It must have been hell down here last night. "

  "Was, " Harley said shortly, accepting the man's grip when Amanda introduced them.

  "You were here?"

  Harley nodded, then inclined his head toward William. "So was he.

  "Poor bastard. He isn't ruined, Is he?"

  "No," Amanda said. "Not quite. " She explained quickly what William had told her, but there was no expression to read on Eagleton's face, and her voice trailed off into silence.There were several groups of men now making their way through the rubble, and Wilcox and what was apparently one of the other owners were shouting orders back and forth, gesturing, once in a while chasing some of the flop-capped boys who were scrambling around behind them. The crowd watching the procedure, Amanda noticed then, was growing, and before she could comment on the possible dangers, a group of uniformed men forced their way through and began easing people back, into the street.