Wicked

Lilly wanted to believe Deegan, wanted to very badly. Experience had convinced her otherwise. “I’m too tall.”

“Just right.”

“I’m not beautiful. In fact, only kind people would even term me a pretty woman.”

“Then they are not merely kind, they are blind,” Deegan assured her. “You have a beauty that transcends time.”

Lilly linked her arms around his neck. “I see you are one of the blind, then.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps I am. Blinded by your loveliness.”

“What is it they claim the Irish practice? Blarney?”

“It isn’t a religion, it’s a gift,” he corrected, “and I haven’t uttered a bit of blarney to you, my lass. If things were different, I would court you in earnest.”

If things were different. But they weren’t. She was still the strapping daughter of a city clerk and he was still a man in love with someone else….

Praise for Beth Henderson’s earlier book

RECKLESS

“An elegantly told tale in a Gilded Age shower of mystery and romance. Enjoy.”

—Mary Jo Putney

“Packed with interesting characters and an intriguing plot, Reckless will give the readers hours of pure pleasure.”

—Rendezvous

“The romantic intrigue storyline wrapped inside a nineteenth-century historical brings a freshness to both sub-genres.”

—Affaire de Coeur

#595 CARPETBAGGER’S WIFE

Deborah Hale

#596 HIS LADY FAIR

Margo Maguire

#597 THE DOCTOR’S HOMECOMING

Kate Bridges

Wicked

Beth Henderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Available from Harlequin Historicals and

BETH HENDERSON

Reckless #370

Wicked #598

Other Harlequin works include:

Silhouette Special Edition

New Year’s Eve #935

Mr. Angel #1002

Maternal Instincts #1338

Yours Truly

A Week til the Wedding

Seducing Santa

In Memory of the Olde Pages Mom Squad:

Jean Kemper Kastner

and

Dorothy Lupp Murray

We miss you, ladies.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Prologue

San Francisco, January 1880

The noise from the surrounding bars was muted from what it had been earlier in the evening. Outside, the fog had risen, inching its way up the streets from the bay, turning the byways into a netherworld where men disappeared easily, some with the help of a crimper, others out of natural orneriness or through the manipulations of a local devil’s minion.

Wrapping a threadbare shawl around her shoulders, Belle Tauber leaned against the cool, clammy brickwork in the doorway of her crib, watching as her last john of the night stumbled away into the mist. It must be her lucky day, she thought ruefully. Not only had half the men Severn steered her way been quick to reach their pleasure and leave, but one had passed out before his trousers hit the floor, and another two had fallen into a stupor after a few halfhearted pokes, and been unceremoniously tossed out by one of Severn’s flunkies. She’d managed to empty the pockets of each of the unconscious johns; Severn’s men no doubt had relieved the conscious ones of their valuables as they stumbled home along the dark, dank alleyways.

Belle wasted few thoughts on the hapless victims. Any man who trod the streets of the Barbary Coast knew he would pay for the privilege, though whether with cash or his life depended upon the wheel of fortune that night. Belle only hoped that Severn wouldn’t divine that she had held back a few coins for herself from the evening’s take. She shivered slightly, the chill along her spine owing nothing to the inclement weather. There was still time to replace the money and thus guarantee that when Severn’s hand touched her it would be only with tenderness.

When dawn broke and the sun burned its way through the encroaching fog, she would greet the day a year older. Belle doubted that the women in the neighboring cribs would recall it was the anniversary of her birth, but Miss Lilly would remember. She had promised to deliver a special copy of a photograph she had taken of Belle the week before, a fitting gift to celebrate her twentieth year, Miss Lilly had said kindly. Belle knew her profession had stripped any semblance of youth from her face and form long ago. It was why she was reduced to working in a crib rather than the high-priced bordello where the madam had once sold Belle’s innocence to the highest bidder. She had been pretty then. The photograph Miss Lilly had taken would show she was no longer.

She wouldn’t hand over the extra coins to Severn, Belle decided. The small hoard was her grubstake, a start for a better life. The meager amount was not enough to outrun him, so she’d wait for Severn to run up against a man who bested him, for only then would she truly manage to escape.

A second chill shook her thin body. Belle pulled the shawl even tighter around her shoulders. She should go in. The grubby shift she wore was no protection against the evils of night air. Severn would be furious with her if she became ill. A woman with the ague rarely made enough to please her man, much less enough to enable her to skim a coin or two for the future. Quietly, so as not to disturb those who already slept, Belle reentered the building.

In Severn’s room down the hall a man laughed. Severn’s familiar growl answered, although Belle didn’t catch what was said. They were probably viewing Severn’s large collection of erotic stereographs, three-dimensional pictures of plump, nude or nearly nude women posed in improbable positions. He occasionally used them to get a man’s blood up, and thus increase the price he’d receive for the services of one of his stable of whores. If the man with him was yet another customer, Belle hoped it was one of the other doves he disturbed and not her. She was just about to shut the door to her narrow crib when her attention was caught by another sound—the ring of cascading coins.

The clatter went on far longer than she expected, causing gilded dreams to dance in her head. As if unable to resist the alluring music, Belle stole closer, her bare feet soundless on the unvarnished floorboards. Was Severn boasting of his wealth to his visitor? And if so, to whom? It was dangerous to flaunt a fortune hereabouts. Even those who claimed to be a friend would willingly stick a knife in a man’s ribs to gain a single twenty-dollar gold piece, or less.

The door hadn’t closed entirely behind Severn and his companion. The aged flooring was warped, so that the panel near the portal sagged, leaving a gap just wide enough to show Belle a narrow glimpse of the gaslit room.

Severn sat at the table scraping the last of a glittering pile of coins into a rough cloth bag. When he finished he passed it to the man across from him and accepted a glass of whiskey in exchange. His long, lanky form was relaxed, the strength and power of his arms and hands disguised by the ease of his stance. As Belle watched, Severn raised his drink in a toast to his companion. “To yet another very successful night,” he said.

“You celebrate too soon, my friend,” the other man said.

While her line of vision allowed her to see only a shoulder and the back of his head, Belle was sure she knew the visitor’s voice, though she couldn’t put a name or face to him at the moment.

“And you celebrate far too infrequently,” Severn countered. “When are you going to start enjoying our good fortune?”

“When it becomes a much larger fortune,” the unknown man murmured. He got to his feet. “Unreasonable spending would tip the scales against me just now, Karl, and you know how much I would dislike that.”

“Leaving then, are you?” Severn asked.

“I must,” his visitor said, and turned slightly.

Belle held back a gasp as she recognized him. His name trembling on her lips, she barely had time to retrace her steps before the door to Severn’s room opened, the scrape of wood against wood preceding the thud of men’s footsteps.

Her heart pounding, Belle glanced back before slipping into the dark confines of her crib room. Beneath her foot, the ancient flooring groaned softly.

The secretive man at the far end of the hall turned hastily at the faint sound and caught a glimpse of a fluttering skirt a bare second before Belle closed her door and leaned thankfully against it.

She was unaware that he gestured ominously to Severn before going out into the fog-shrouded night.

Chapter One

Lillith Renfrew frowned as she handed the requested sum to the driver of the hack. It was far more than she’d paid in the past for the journey from her home on Franklin Street to her destination, but there was little she could do about the matter. She hadn’t the time to haggle like a fishwife over the fare. As it was, her lapel watch showed that she was nearly late for her rendezvous with Belle Tauber.

The driver pocketed the coin without checking the denomination, obviously trusting her, although Lilly couldn’t say she did the same where he was concerned.

“You’ll return in an hour as I requested?” she asked, gathering her equipment. With the straps of her two satchels settled bandolier-style across her chest, one carrying plate holders, the other photographs to be delivered, she shouldered the heavy camera with its awkward tripod base.

“You bet,” the driver called, and drove off never to be seen again, Lilly was sure. It wasn’t the first time a cabby had left her stranded in the Barbary Coast. Which just went to show that such men thought nothing of leaving a proper young woman alone in the most disreputable neighborhood in San Francisco.

Well, perhaps she didn’t look as helpless as other females. Or as proper, considering she was lugging photographic equipment. What other middle-class woman would have taken up the science of the camera with the intention of making her living by it? None to her knowledge, for how many other of the gentler sex were strong enough to transport the weighty camera and equipment without help? Again, none of her acquaintance, nor of her sister’s. Nor, as they so often reminded her, of their parents’.

At times it seemed as if the members of her family had but a single theme: her inability to be like the other women of her class, which, they felt, resulted in her sad lack of suitors.

It never crossed their minds that she was just as they had created her, her tall frame similar to that of her father and brother, her unfeminine strength the result of years of nursing duties, supporting and lifting her invalid mother. Lilly’s dearth of suitors was quite a natural state of affairs, considering she had no social life outside of her parents’ narrow circle. Pouring tea for her mother’s visitors, all of whom were elderly women, or acting as hostess when her father entertained an old business associate at dinner, had yet to put her in the way of an eligible, single gentleman.

Granted, she didn’t possess the golden haired beauty that had made her elder brother and sister much sought after. Not only had she been born a decade behind Edmund and nearly nine years after Vinia, Lilly had also been overlooked when physical assets were handed out. Rather than blond curls like her siblings, she had brown hair with nary a wave in it unless she used a crimping iron. Rather than eyes that rivaled the summer skies, as her brother’s and sister’s did, Lilly thought her eyes an unremarkable, washed-out shade of blue. Kind matrons described her as handsome, for her nose was too long to be fashionable, her jawline too square and her cheekbones too high. To top things off, she had never outgrown the angularity of girlhood, being barely rounded compared to other young women her age, and inches taller than was considered desirable.

Lilly sighed deeply. She had just listed all the reasons why she was no doubt quite safe roaming the Barbary Coast unescorted. Plus her purse was rather thin. The cab driver’s extortion made it impossible for her to treat herself to a cup of tea and a pastry before finding another cab or hopping on an omnibus to take her home. If Edmund hadn’t offered to pay for her glass plates, chemicals, albumin papers and card stock, she would not have been able to supply her subjects with a cabinet card likeness of themselves at no charge.

Which reminded her of Belle Tauber, who was waiting to receive her photograph. Lilly hurried off, hoping that Belle would like the mounting she’d chosen for the picture and the double row of gold ruled lines she’d carefully added to the mat simply because it was the young woman’s birthday today. Strange to think Belle was six years younger than she herself was. Lilly would have guessed her to be ten years older, Belle’s features were so forlorn.

The young woman seated on the back stoop of her building, waiting patiently, looked so unlike the young prostitute she knew that Lilly had to blink. Belle still wore the same shabby gown, the color faded with age to a nondescript shade neither brown nor gray. Her threadbare shawl did little to protect her from the wintry air, nor did her worn shoes warm her otherwise bare feet. The change wasn’t due only to the fact that her fair hair looked freshly washed and carefully pinned up, but rather to the excitement that seemed to emanate from Belle’s whole being. She leaped to her feet and hurried a few steps down the alleyway when she spotted Lilly, her eyes glittering unnaturally, her buoyant spirits briefly restoring the beauty that too many years in her profession had stripped away.

“Oh, Miss Lilly! I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Belle cried.

For a moment Lilly wondered if her client would for once forget the difference in their situations and hug her, but Belle recalled herself before doing so. The fact that she did hurt. Beyond their circumstances, Lilly saw little difference between them, for she, like Belle, was not her own woman. She had come to consider the soiled dove a friend in the weeks since they had first met, but Belle always kept a careful distance between them that seemed to preclude friendship.

“I am sorry to be late,” Lilly said, hastily setting the camera aside so she could rifle through her bag of photographs. “My sister knows very well how I treasure my one afternoon away from home, but when she comes to sit with our parents, she still insists on telling me in great detail about the most trivial things her youngest child has done, thus delaying me.”

Belle smiled softly. “Mamas like to brag, Miss Lilly. I know I woulda if my man had let me keep my babies.”

Having learned more about Belle’s past than she had cared to, Lilly knew there were no words to comfort the young woman for her loss. “Well, nevertheless, I thought it quite uncivil of her,” she said, as her hand found the correct package. “Here you are. Happy birthday, Belle. I hope you like the photograph I chose.”

“You sure took a passel of them,” Belle said, eagerly accepting the cabinet card. “I was beginning to think I was so ugly your picture box was refusing to have anything to do with me.”

She had taken a lot of photographs, Lilly agreed silently. Some showed Belle with unsightly bruises that even a heavy hand with powder could not conceal. In preparing the cabinet card as Belle’s gift, Lilly had spent hours studying proof sheets until she found an image she felt Belle would cherish.

“Oh, Miss Lilly!” The words were a sigh of appreciation. When Belle glanced up from the carefully posed photograph, her eyes were swimming with unshed tears. “You made me look beautiful again,” she whispered, as if she had doubted such a feat could be done.

“Nonsense,” Lilly declared stoutly. “You know very well that while a painter can improve the looks of his subject, a photographer can only reproduce what nature has given a person.”

“I’m gonna take this with me when I go, and treasure it all my years,” Belle promised.

Lilly glanced up from buckling her satchel closed once more. “You’re leaving the Coast? When?”

“Soon as I have a talk with a certain gent,” Belle announced brightly. “See, I know something about him that he don’t want known.”

“You’re planning to blackmail someone?” Lilly gasped. “But, Belle, you can’t do that. It’s wrong.”

Belle’s smile faded. “And what these men do to me every day ain’t?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lilly said. “It’s only that—”

“You and me’s from different worlds, Miss Lilly. You just visit in the Coast. I live here, and there ain’t no gettin’ out unless it’s with a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces.” Belle carefully placed the cabinet card in the pocket of her skirt. “I aim to get me some of those and clear out while I got the chance.”

Lilly had been privy to conditions in the Coast long enough to know that leaving the neighborhood was the dream of nearly every woman there. A dream that would never come true for most of them. But Belle was gambling with fate and, as Lilly had learned in the weeks she’d spent there, in the Coast fate always won.

“Be careful, Belle,” she urged. “Whether it’s right or wrong, what you are planning to do is most definitely dangerous.”

The prostitute smiled wanly. “Don’t worry ’bout me, Miss Lilly. I’ve seen this man enough to know he values his reputation even more’n he loves money. I’ll be fine and I’ll be gone. There can’t be nothin’ better’n that.”

“You’ve talked to this man already then?” Lilly asked.

Belle shook her head. “Not yet. I know where to find him later tonight, though. Once he pays me, I’ll be on the first train out of town and startin’ my new life.”

And if he decided not to pay her? Lilly wondered if Belle had considered such an outcome. Despite her own feeling of foreboding, she realized reasoning with the determined woman would be difficult. Perhaps in Belle’s place she would have been just as reckless, just as willing to gamble with the future.

Taking the initiative, Lilly quickly hugged Belle and was pleased when, after a slight hesitation, the woman returned the gesture. “Then I hope your new life is everything you want it to be,” Lilly said.

“Thank you, Miss Lilly. I just know it will be.” Belle giggled nervously. “It can’t help but be better than this, can it?”

A truer statement Lilly had yet to hear, but it didn’t lessen the fact that Belle’s plan was fraught with danger. She wished briefly that she did not have other photographs to deliver, that she hadn’t promised a group of newsboys to take their pictures that day. Still, Belle had far more experience in dealing with men than she herself had, Lilly admitted. Or was likely to have. No doubt the young woman knew exactly what she was doing.

Lilly shouldered the camera once more. “I wish I could stay longer but…”

“I understand,” Belle assured. “Thank you so much for my photograph.”

“It was my pleasure. I hope the rest of your birthday is just as pleasurable,” Lilly said as she turned to retrace her steps down the alley.

“It will be, especially when I show my photograph to the other girls,” Belle called.

Lilly gave a quick wave, then rounded the corner onto the street, and Belle was lost to sight.

Belle’s plan continued to nag at Lilly. She’d barely taken a dozen steps, threading her way through the bustle on Pacific Street, when she decided nothing was more important than convincing Belle that blackmail was not the answer to her prayers. Despite the weight of the camera, she’d walk home, forgoing the luxury of an omnibus in order to spend her fare on tea and cakes for Belle. Somehow Lilly would find a way to convince the prostitute that there were other, less risky ways of leaving behind her life in the Coast and beginning anew without a grubstake gained through blackmail.

Her decision made, Lilly turned back quickly to catch Belle and issue her invitation. With a few strides she rounded the corner, her serviceable dark brown walking suit making her blend in with the shadows that cloaked the nearly deserted alleyway.

Belle hadn’t gone inside yet. Her head was bent as she admired the cabinet card Lilly had given her. She seemed unaware of the man who slipped from the building behind her.

He was a lanky fellow, although not overly tall. As he was without a hat, Lilly saw that his dark hair thinned away from his brow, leaving a V-shaped section that he wore combed back and slicked with brilliantine. His clothing could well have been chosen for the setting, for while his trousers were a muddy gray-green shade that rivaled the alley floor, the coloration in his shirt nearly matched the brickwork of the surrounding buildings. He was cleanly shaved, and moved with a sureness of step associated with sobriety—something not often seen in the Barbary Coast.

Growing aware of his approach, Belle turned slightly, dropping the hand that held her likeness so that the cabinet card was hidden from him in the folds of her skirt. Because Belle showed no fear of the man, Lilly was totally unprepared when he moved swiftly, the hitherto concealed knife in his hand slashing across the young prostitute’s throat.

Paralyzed with shock, Lilly stared at the tableau, the man cradling his victim almost tenderly as she sagged limply in his arms. The photograph dropped from Belle’s hand and fluttered gently away into the shadows.

Deegan Galloway stood across the road from the undertaker’s parlor at Number 16 O’Farrell Street and decided the funeral trappings were tasteful. Or as tasteful as the flamboyant citizens of San Francisco, rich from mine and railroad stocks, could make them. Ostentation was de rigueur, for it was the end of an era. Norton I, self-styled Emperor of the United States, was dead.

If the lines of mourners and the bountiful floral tributes were anything to go on, the old eccentric would be greatly missed. For years he’d been living on the generosity of San Franciscans, consuming gratuitous meals in restaurants, having his portrait taken free of charge, his clothing supplied—all his needs seen to without the bother of earning a cent himself. A good number of times in the past, Deegan had envied Norton his delusions and the great care the people of San Francisco took to nurture them. That had been before he himself became the California-based business agent for his best friend, the wealthy English baron, Garrett Blackhawk, and gained the instant and quite comfortable bank account that went with the position. Fortunately, very little work or responsibility went with the job, which made it the perfect employment for a feckless fellow like himself. But then, after all the adventures they’d shared during the past two years, Deegan figured Garrett knew him too well to expect much of him when it came to honest labor.