* *
Miranda had to admit Lucille was an astute businesswoman. The madam instructed the girls to set up a low platform by the window near the entrance. A hooked rug and a rocking chair went on the platform, and Miranda’s task was to sit in the rocking chair.
All day. All evening.
Instead of her black mourning gown, she wore a soft wool dress in pale blue, modest in cut, with lace ruffles at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was twisted into an elegant upsweep, the formal look softened by a few strands left loose to flutter around her face.
During the day, sunshine through the window gilded her, like an impressionist painting. In the evenings, an oil lamp burned on the small table beside her. She was allowed to pass the time sewing or reading. Sometimes, the tabby cat that lived on kitchen scraps would come in and sit on her lap, and she’d stroke the animal, drawing comfort from the gentle vibration of its contented purring.
Next to this scene of domestic harmony, separated with a hemp rope from the saloon floor, the way a valuable exhibit might be guarded in a museum, stood a sign.
Bride Lottery
Tickets $10
One ticket per person only
The rule to limit the number of entries had been subject to much debate among Lucille’s girls. In the end they had agreed that the banker, Stuart Hooperman, was known to be eager to acquire a wife. If he bought a dozen tickets, it would reduce the odds for anyone else, which might dampen wider interest.
During the day, most of the men who came into the saloon were polite enough not to stare. Instead, they stole covert glances at her while they sipped their drinks or ate their meals. At night, when the whiskey flowed, some grew bolder and crowded by the rope, ogling at her, whispering comments to each other.
Miranda blocked them all out of her mind. Growing up with servants, she had developed the skill of ignoring their obtrusive presence, and now she put that skill to use. Mostly, her thoughts dwelled on her sisters, and on Cousin Gareth.
Was he still pursuing her, or had he given up and returned to Merlin’s Leap? Or had he figured out the message in Charlotte’s letter and was on his way to Gold Crossing? How was Annabel faring alone at Merlin’s Leap? Had she managed to write to Charlotte, alerting their eldest sister that she was presumed dead?
“Who do you want to win?” asked Shanna, the black girl, as she drained whiskey from the barrels behind the counter, getting ready for the evening. She was the most talkative of the girls, the most eager to find out about Miranda’s past.
Miranda lowered the canvas fabric she was sewing. In truth, she had not allowed her thoughts to dwell on the prospect of marriage. When she was not thinking of her sisters, her mind was occupied with escape plans. Lucille, of course, had seen right through her, had pointed out the marshal kept an eye on the trains, Miranda would die in the wilderness if she tried to flee on foot, and anyone who stole a horse was hanged, female or not.
“Makes no difference to me who wins,” Miranda replied.
Shanna straightened behind the counter. She was solidly built, with big breasts and wide hips, yet she moved with grace. Her face was a perfect oval, her eyes large and almond shaped. She would have been a beauty, had it not been for the jagged scar at the corner of her mouth and two missing front teeth.
“Trust me, it makes a difference.” Shanna touched her scar. “Some husbands are worse than others.” For a second, she stilled, in the grip of some unpleasant memories. Then, with a brusque, efficient gesture, she slammed the bottles of watered-down whiskey on the counter and hurried off into the kitchen.
Miranda stared after her. For a moment, the cloak of numbness she’d wrapped around herself flared open, allowing fear to flood in. Quickly, Miranda emptied her mind and filled it with thoughts of her sisters. If Charlotte was managing to survive pretending to be some man’s wife, so would she.
Today she’d know her fate. Miranda sat in the rocking chair, reading the Psalms. Her choice of reading matter was limited to the Bible and a stack of penny dreadfuls. Her feet pushed in a frantic rhythm against the platform beneath her, sending the rocker into a wild swing. She kept reading the same lines over and over again, not taking in the words.
“Watch out,” Nellie cried. “You’ll do a cartwheel in that chair.”
Nellie was the petite blonde with a passion for knitting. She didn’t know how to make shapes, only straight to and fro, so she knitted long woolen scarves with brightly colored stripes. The girls already had at least two each. Nellie tried to give them away to her customers, but some had a wife at home which created a problem.
There were four girls in the saloon. Nellie and Shanna, and two brunettes—the quiet, brooding Trixie and the plump, good-humored Desiree. To Miranda, the girls did not seem unhappy, except perhaps Trixie, who was the plainest and the least popular with customers.
Many of the men who paid for their services were regulars, and the girls saw them as friends. Fort Rock was a mining town, and sometimes, when a prospector had a lucky strike, he would take on a girl as his exclusive sweetheart.
And all the girls dreamed.
They dreamed that one day some man would love them enough to give them the shiny badge of respectability. Take them away from the saloon life, to someplace where no one knew of their past and they could become one of the women who greeted each other on the boardwalk outside the mercantile and went to church on Sundays.
“Showtime, girls!” Lucille called from the top of the stairs.
She announced her entrance with the same words every night and she always wore shades of red. Scarlet, purple, magenta, pink—gowns decorated with ruffles and bows and teamed up with elaborate headdresses. Tonight, ostrich feathers bobbed over her auburn upsweep as she made her regal descent.
Downstairs, Lucille picked up a big glass jar from the end of the bar counter and walked over to the rocking chair where Miranda was seated. She banged the jar down on the small table beside Miranda. “You can do the honors tonight.”
Inside the jar were folded tickets. The men who wanted to participate in the lottery handed over their money and Lucille wrote down their names on bits of paper torn from a receipt pad. Each ticket was folded into a square and dropped into the jar.
Nellie shook her head in dismay. “Only ten suitors.”
“It’s enough,” Lucille replied. “I’m breaking even on the bride. And I’ve sold an extra fifty dollars’ worth of whiskey to the men who came in to inspect her.” She made an airy gesture toward the working girls. “And have you not been twice as busy as usual?”
Desiree tittered. “Staring at the bride put the men in the mood.”
The batwing doors clattered. Miranda glanced over. Oh, no. Not him.
Slater, a huge, swarthy man with a drooping moustache, had been the first to lay his money down for the lottery. Miranda had been on display for six days, but only in the last two days, after Shanna’s grim warning that not all husbands would be the same, had the carefully built barrier around her emotions cracked. From that moment on, she had felt the men’s eyes on her, like insects crawling on her skin.
Some were reverent and worshipful, some greedy and lecherous, and after tonight she would become the property of one of them. He might be gentle, he might be rough, he might be cruel, and there was nothing she could do about it.
The terror Miranda had kept at bay broke free, making her hands damp and her heartbeat swift. She kept her eyes on the Bible that lay open in her lap and pretended to read. She was the brave one. She refused to let anyone see her fear.
Slater sat down, big and bony, the long duster like a tent around him, spurs jangling on his boots. He ordered a steak, as he did every night. He had a narrow,