Wanton Angel (39 page)

Bonnie stomped over to the windows and wrenched down one shade and then the other. She turned the sign in the door from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
and stood waiting half inside and half out, the brass key in her hand. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” she said, biting off every word. “For a start, I’m going to snatch Forbes Durrant bald-headed!”

Tuttle just stood there, probably trying to imagine Forbes with no more hair than one of his billiard balls.

Bonnie gestured angrily. “For heaven’s sake, Tuttle, stop standing there like a scarecrow in a pea patch and come along!”

Tuttle’s legs were long, but that day he had to hurry to keep up with Bonnie. Bent on rescuing a lamb from a wolf, she was moving at roughly the same speed as the five o’clock train to Colville and generating almost as much steam.

B
ONNIE BARELY NOTICED
the stream of people falling in behind as she and a gulping Tuttle O’Banyon made their way down the hill. They passed the undertaker’s and Earline’s rooming house and the wreckage of Webb’s newspaper office to climb the mud-stained front steps of the Brass Eagle Saloon and Ballroom.

The double doors stood open to the warm June weather, and inside the sound of hammers and saws produced an industrious cacophony. Forbes, alerted to impending trouble by some mysterious means of his own, stood waiting just inside the entryway, an indulgent grin on his face, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his embossed satin vest.

“I’ve been expecting you, Angel,” he said companionably. His brash brown gaze slipped momentarily to Tuttle, who stood gasping for breath at Bonnie’s side, and just as quickly dismissed him as harmless. “Permit me to offer congratulations on your second attempt at marital bliss, by the way.”

“Your congratulations,” Bonnie ground out, “mean nothing to me. I’m here to bring Katie home and you know it, you degenerate!”

Forbes smiled harder and rocked back on the heels of his
costly leather boots. “Ah, yes. The erstwhile nanny. Sorry, my beloved, but you’re too late.”

“I’d damned well better not be too late, Forbes,” Bonnie vowed, in a scathing undertone. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs,” Forbes answered blithely. “She’s being fitted for—”

Bonnie was only too aware of what Katie was being fitted for, and it wasn’t just the silken gowns Forbes had been about to allude to. “That girl is
fourteen years old,”
she said, starting around her former employer to mount the floodwarped stairs.

Forbes halted her progress with a surprisingly forceful grip on her left elbow. Bonnie was now fully conscious of the crowd of lookers-on clogging the doorway behind her, and the hammers and saws had been stilled as well. Doubtless the confrontation taking place at the base of the stairway was more interesting than the task of laying a new floor in the ballroom.

“Not so fast, sweet thing.” Though Forbes spoke the words in cordial tones, they nonetheless carried a distinct note of warning. “You no longer have the run of this place, and if I have to throw you out bodily,” he paused, smiling dreamily, unable to resist relishing the prospect for a moment, “I’ll do it.”

“Eli wouldn’t like that,” counseled some yokel, from the doorway.

“Somebody go up to Earline’s quick, and fetch Mr. McKutchen,” put in yet another small-town sage.

Bonnie flinched and her reward for the involuntary reaction to Eli’s name and scandalous place of residence was a slow smile spreading across Forbes Durrant’s eminently slappable face.

“Our Mr. McKutchen has more forbearance than I would ever have given him credit for,” breathed Forbes. “Imagine having a legal and moral right to your bed and still managing to resist. The man is either a saint or an idiot.”

“Amen!” shouted one of the spectators.

Various other daring souls shouted out their singular opinions as to whether Eli classified as a saint or an idiot. The final tally was a draw, give or take an idiot or two.

By some miracle Bonnie had managed to recover her composure. She lifted her chin and at the same time wrenched her arm free of Forbes’s grasp. After giving him one defiant look, she shouted, “Katie!”

“It won’t do you any good to reason with her,” Forbes said easily. It was obvious that he was enjoying his part in the sideshow, though there was still a certain snapping rancor visible in his eyes. “She’s disillusioned with you, Angel, and the money she can earn dancing the hurdy-gurdy looks good to her. Damned good.”

Bonnie knew that Katie was far too young and too idealistic to deal with the likes of Forbes Durrant and come out of the skirmish with her virtue intact. For all her book learning, the girl was woefully ignorant of the world and its ways.

This was apparent when the child appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in a skimpy bit of blue taffeta and wearing a feather boa. As she glared down at Bonnie and jutted out her chin, Bonnie was reminded of her own willfulness at the age of fourteen.

Katie examined her fingernails, making a show of sophisticated nonchalance. Probably because of her theatrical training, a trace of boredom was thrown in for good measure. “What’s all the fuss about?” she asked, almost yawning the words.

Bonnie wasn’t about to give a lecture on the perils of working in a place like the Brass Eagle; she knew that would be a waste of breath. Katie was caught up in the false glamour and the promise of making her fortune, and there was only one way to stop her from plunging headlong into a situation she simply wasn’t mature enough to handle. Fortuitously, the plan brewing in Bonnie’s mind would serve another purpose as well.

Forbes was watching Bonnie’s face and his expression shifted from one of smugness to one of watchful concern. “Get back to work,” he muttered distractedly to the men who were supposed to be replacing the ballroom floor. His worried gaze moved past Bonnie to the multitude pressing into the doorway. “You people—either buy beer or get the hell out of here.”

Grudgingly the spectators went away, and in the ballroom, the hammers thumped and the saws made their rhythmic, slicing sound.

Katie remained on the upper landing, leaning indolently against the balustrade, but she didn’t look quite so blasé now. “You might have invited me to your wedding, ma’am!” she complained. “It wasn’t as though we weren’t friends—”

So that was it. Inwardly Bonnie sighed. “I’m sorry, Katie—I didn’t mean to exclude you from the ceremony. It’s just that everything happened so fast—”

At last Tuttle spoke. “Get back in your regular clothes, Katherine,” he ordered, no less forcefully for the adolescent catch in his voice. “You look like a hussy in that getup!”

Katie flushed and made her way down the warped stairs, moving very slowly. “Do you know how much money I can earn in two years, Tuttle O’Banyon? Why, enough to buy a house—”

Bonnie turned to face Forbes squarely, leaving Katie and Tuttle to work out their argument on their own.

“I have a proposition for you,” she said.

Forbes assumed a look of blissful mockery. “Angel, Angel—how I’ve yearned to hear those words tripping from your lips.”

“Don’t push your luck, Forbes,” Bonnie hissed in an undertone. “I’m offering to come back here and dance the hurdy-gurdy in Katie’s place.”

Forbes’s eyebrows almost disappeared beneath the rakish lock of caramel hair that had fallen across his forehead. “You must think I’m touched in the head, Angel. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Bonnie batted her eyelashes and looked up at Forbes with an innocent smile. “Why, what kind of trouble is that, Mr. Durrant?” she asked sweetly.

Forbes gave her an ironic look and turned on one heel, striding purposefully into the saloon. Bonnie followed, watched with carefully hidden triumph as he rounded the fancy new bar and helped himself to a glass and a bottle of prime scotch. “Damn it, Bonnie,” he snapped, his reflection glaring at her from the long, ornately framed mirror behind
the bar, “do you think I was born yesterday? I know what you’re up to, so spare me the simpering histrionics!”

Bonnie bit back a smile. Years before, in the Patch Town days, she’d been able to charm Forbes out of everything from pencils to penny sweets in just this way—it was amazing that such silly tactics could still work. She leaned against the bar, bracing herself with her forearms. “Are you afraid of what Eli will do? Is that it?”

“You bet your sweet bustle I’m afraid of what Eli will do!” Forbes hissed, slamming down the bottle of scotch and the glass in a furious motion of both hands. He uncorked the bottle, sloshed a healthy dose of whisky into the glass and tossed it back. He made a choking sound before going on. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on between you two—maybe Eli is availing himself of Earline Kalb’s singular talents and maybe he isn’t—but I can guarantee you this, Angel: I’m not going to help you avenge yourself!”

“Think of the money you could make, Forbes, if I were dancing again.”

Forbes scowled and poured himself another double shot of scotch. “I’m making more by managing the smelter works, and I don’t plan to get myself sent packing again just so you can make a point, sugarplum.”

“Eli would never dismiss you for that, Forbes,” Bonnie persisted softly. “He doesn’t think in those terms. You should know by now that my husband keeps his personal life separate from his business life.”

“See this?” Forbes pointed to a small scar beneath his right eye. “This is a remnant of the
last
time I got on the wrong side of Eli McKutchen!”

“I think it adds to your roguish charm,” Bonnie said, and somehow she managed to keep a straight face. She even reached out and touched the tiny scar with the tip of one index finger. “I want to dance again, Forbes. Please?”

Forbes was sipping his second drink thoughtfully. “I’ll grant you that I’ve lost a lot of customers since you left, but you’re kidding yourself if you think McKutchen will look the other way and let his wife dance with every man jack who can ante up a silver dollar. He’ll go through the ceiling.”

“Maybe.”

Forbes was leaning against the opposite side of the bar now, and his tone was comically plaintive. “Why do you want to do this, Bonnie? Are you tired of living, or what?”

Bonnie sighed. “You were right when you said I wanted to avenge myself. That’s it, pure and simple, and there’s no use denying it.”

Forbes looked pleased. He did enjoy being right about things. “All right, Angel, we’ll do this your way. But be advised of this: When McKutchen comes busting through those doors out there, I’m not going to lift a finger to protect you. Furthermore, I’ll send you the bill for any damages.”

“What about Katie? She’s too young to work here, Forbes.”

Forbes stared off into space for a few moments, probably calculating possible profits. “She’s a beautiful girl, Bonnie. She might even bring in as many customers as you did.”

Bonnie played her trump card. “What do you think Lizbeth will say, Forbes, when I tell her the whole sordid story of how you’re willing to sacrifice a young girl’s innocence for profit?”

Forbes went pale as death.

“On the other hand,” Bonnie went cheerfully on, “one act of good conscience might sway Miss Simmons to overlook a few other—failings.”

“Nothing short of my putting a torch to this place and building a honeymoon cottage over the ruins will sway that woman,” Forbes muttered with enlightening gravity.

There was no ulterior motive behind Bonnie’s response. “You really love Lizbeth, don’t you, Forbes?”

For a moment it looked as though Forbes might turn away or even walk out, but in the end he gave a heavy sigh and answered, “Yes. It came as something of a surprise, given my lifelong habit of loving you.”

Bonnie ignored the reference to Forbes’s enduring ardor. “What are you going to do?”

Forbes looked so miserable that Bonnie actually felt sorry for him. “I’m hoping it will pass,” he said.

“Maybe it won’t,” Bonnie felt honor-bound to point out.

The time for intimate confidences had clearly passed.
Forbes gave Bonnie a mocking grin and lifted his glass in a toast. “Here’s to you, Angel. May you live to tell your grandchildren the stirring story of your return to the Brass Eagle Ballroom.”

Bonnie tossed her head slightly, in lieu of an answering toast. “May you live to have grandchildren,” she retorted, and then she turned to go.

“Wait a minute, Bonnie.”

She stopped, but did not turn around. “Yes?”

“Your gowns were ruined in the flood. You’d better go upstairs and see if the dressmaker can alter something Katie would have worn.”

Bonnie nodded. “Shall I tell Katie that you want to see her?”

“Hell, no,” Forbes replied, and once again Bonnie heard the clink of the bottle’s rim against the glass. “Tell her to go home and embroider tea towels for her hope chest.”

Smiling, Bonnie looked back over one shoulder at her longtime friend-enemy. “Thanks, Forbes.”

Forbes drained his glass before answering sardonically, “Any time, Angel. Any time.”