Wicked. Beth Henderson

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      The money and respectable-sounding business connection were rewards, pure and simple. Deegan wasn’t sure Garrett was paying him off in appreciation for saving his life numerous times in Mexico, for steadfast loyalty under uncommon circumstances during their recent journey to England, or because Garrett had married Winona Abbot, the only woman with whom Deegan had ever considered himself in love. Deegan suspected it was the last reason rather than either of the former. Seeing his friend and his ravishingly lovely bride together and happy had certainly made Deegan only too aware of his own shortcomings where Wyn was concerned. Rather than continue to torture himself, he had not lingered with the couple when their ship had docked in Boston, but had booked a berth on the first westbound train.

      Since then he had kept sufficiently busy, setting up an office and hiring an eager young clerk to man it while he eased himself back into the upper echelon’s social world. Wyn Blackhawk’s family had smoothed over the ripples his last appearance among the Nob Hill set had caused—again a reward for the small part he’d played in saving her life. In fact, the welcome he received in the best homes now was so effusive Deegan frequently wondered if anyone in town recalled that he was the same cad who’d brazenly tampered with the affections of two of the city’s young heiresses.

      Deegan had become such a part of the upper crust’s world that no one had questioned the origin of the generous contribution he had made to the emperor’s funeral fund when the collection was taken up the day before at the Pacific Club.

      Not bad for a boy who had once sung in saloons for his dinner, or lifted patrons’ wallets if the coins thrown on stage hadn’t added up to the amount he thought his performance deserved.

      Of course, no one knew of his larcenous beginnings; they were a carefully guarded secret. Only one other person remembered those days, and she had too much to lose if the knowledge became known.

      And yet, as much as Deegan had longed for the leisured life he now led, he wasn’t satisfied with it. Despite the number of invitations he received regularly, despite his popularity with both men and women among San Francisco’s wealthy, something seemed to be missing in his life.

      It had taken him awhile to identify what it was, and he had been stunned at the answer: he missed the danger of his old life. Damned if he’d ever thought to miss that! But after years of living on adrenaline, endeavoring to outwit the devil himself, Deegan was finding respectability extremely tedious.

      Across the way the mourners continued to shuffle past Norton’s СКАЧАТЬ