Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [183]
She thought back to the second day on the immigrant ship to New York, and smiled at the memory of their first conversation. Who would have thought that skinny street urchin would become her dearest friend?
All at once she knew what she wanted to do. Tomorrow she would ask someone to take her out to Bonanza Creek to see the goldfields and Jack.
Chapter Thirty-four
The five-dog team were raring to go, barking and pawing impatiently at the snow-covered ice of the river.
‘Sitting comfortably?’ Cal Burgess asked Beth as he tucked the bearskin tighter around her.
Beth nodded. With a wolf-fur hood, a coon-skin coat and several other layers of clothes beneath, she felt very cosy.
At Cal’s signal the dogs leapt forward, and Beth’s head whipped to and fro alarmingly. But as the dogs got into their stride it was smoother, the fine snow on the ice rising up and sprinkling on her like icing sugar.
She had packed her belongings the previous night. All the gowns she wore in the saloon and her daintier clothes, shoes and boots were packed into a box which this morning she’d left in safe keeping with friends who owned a restaurant. Her valise was packed with everything else, and before leaving she’d bought some luxuries for Jack — fruit cake, jam, chocolate, fruit, a quantity of lamb and bacon, cheese and several bottles of whisky. Her fiddle was wedged in the seat next to her and if it hadn’t been for her run-in with John that morning she would have been bubbling over with excitement at this trip to see Jack.
She had been making some coffee about seven that morning when John came into the kitchen. She could smell whisky on his breath and judging by his heavy eyes and crumpled, grubby shirt, he’d drunk himself insensible and slept in his clothes.
She offered him some coffee, but his only reply was a baleful stare which implied she shouldn’t even be in his kitchen.
‘There’s no need to be so hostile,’ she said gently. ‘I’m leaving for good in a short while.’
‘Where?’ he asked.
She knew this wasn’t concern for her, only fear she was going to another saloon and might talk about him.
‘I don’t think you have the right to ask me that when you’ve been so unpleasant,’ she said airily.
He gave her another baleful look. ‘Whores like you should be run out of town,’ he retorted.
Until that moment she’d had every intention of leaving quietly without any recriminations, but calling her a whore changed everything.
‘Why, you hypocritical arsewipe!’ she exclaimed. ‘You were lusting after me from the first day I moved in here. I held you at arm’s length for three months, and when I did succumb, you couldn’t get enough of me.’
‘You tempted me,’ he whined. ‘You are a Jezebel preying on men’s weakness.’
Beth put her hands on her hips defiantly. ‘You pathetic snake in the grass,’ she hissed. ‘How dare you try and ease your own conscience by putting all the blame on to me? You are the guilty one because you have a wife and children. I think your poor wife would see it as you taking advantage of me!’
‘My wife is a gentlewoman,’ he snapped back. ‘She would understand that I was no match for a whore like you.’
Beth was outraged. ‘Gentlewoman! What the hell does that mean? That she only lets you fuck her in the dark with her nightdress buttoned up to her neck? No wonder you wanted me — I bet you fulfilled every last little dirty fantasy you’ve ever had. But then there’s every chance someone else has been fucking your wife while you’ve been up here. She might even have found out what it’s like to be loved by a real man, not some sanctimonious weakling.’
He lifted his hand to strike her, but Beth slapped it away. ‘Lay one finger on me and you’ll regret it,’ she snarled. ‘I could go out on to Front Street right now and raise a posse who would skin you alive. I have friends in this town. Now, get out of my way!’
He slunk away then like the snake he was, leaving her shaking with anger and a little ashamed that she hadn’t seen what he was right from the start.
Tearing along at what seemed