Jade Star - Catherine Coulter [91]
“I wanted to meet her. Chauncey Saxton told me how very nice she was.”
“She runs a brothel,” Saint said. “It doesn’t matter how nice Maggie is. If you wish to make a friend of her, you will invite her here, you understand?”
“She won’t come here.”
“Then that’s an end to it.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said,” Jules said very calmly, “that I shall do as I wish. And that’s an end to it.”
“Jules, listen to me.” He stopped, knowing that nothing he said would make any difference. He knew she was stubborn. He simply hadn’t guessed how stubborn. And she thoroughly disliked him, so why should she care what the hell he thought about anything? He suddenly remembered Victoria, her body viciously beaten by a mean drunk. God, he hated prostitution. Even willing women could be brutalized, just as Victoria had been. “Several months ago, Maggie called me to the brothel. One of the girls, Victoria is her name, had been badly hurt.” He paused a moment, realizing that he didn’t have her complete attention. “Actually,” he continued, his voice hard, “the man had not only beaten her, he had used her unnaturally, and torn her.” Should he be more graphic? He couldn’t bring himself to be. “I had to stitch her up, Jules. She was ill for several weeks.”
“Why are you telling me this? It is terrible, of course, but it has nothing to do with me.”
He frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t want you hurt, Jules.”
“Then why did you go visit Jane Branigan?”
“She wanted to speak to me, that’s all. Nothing more.”
“About what?”
“It’s not important.”
“Are you going to sleep here tonight?”
“Your mind,” Saint said, clamping down on his body’s instant response to her words, “jumps about more unpredictably than that strange animal in Australia. No, I’m sleeping downstairs. I’m expecting a patient, he’s coming up to see me from San Jose.” That was a bloody lie, but what else could he tell her? No, I won’t sleep here or I’ll strip off your nightgown and force you. Again. And this time you wouldn’t be asking me to, since you know . . .
“Good night then, Michael.”
He merely nodded, and turned to leave.
“You needn’t be quiet when you leave to see Jane Branigan,” she called after him. “I’m a very heavy sleeper.”
A muscle moved convulsively in his jaw. “Good night, Jules,” he said, and strode from the bedroom.
Jules heard the front door open and close some fifteen minutes later. She turned off the lamp beside the bed, flipped onto her stomach, and cursed into the pillow.
It was only a week until Christmas, and the days had shortened drastically. It was only a bit after four in the afternoon, and Jules had to move to the window to read the letter. It was from her sister, Sarah. It was a taunting, rather petty letter, in which Sarah described in great detail her wedding to Tory Dickerson, a visiting planter from Oahu. “Good for you, Sarah,” Jules said aloud to the silent parlor. “Now maybe you’ll be just a little bit happy.” She folded the letter, then took it up to Thomas’ room, propping it up on his pillow.
She was alone, Lydia having left an hour earlier to buy some Christmas presents.
She wandered about the house, gazing into Michael’s surgery. There were several glass-fronted cabinets, two chairs, a desk, and a long table, where, she supposed, he examined people. She studied the bottles in the cabinets, but without much interest, for she recognized only a few of the labels. He’d been gone most of the day, called by David Broderick’s servant to come to his house. Broderick, it seemed, had broken his leg.
She grabbed her cloak, gently placed her derringer, now loaded, into her reticule, and stepped out into the growing darkness. She didn’t see Thackery. Perhaps he was off visiting Lucas. She had told him at noon that she wasn’t going out today. Well, so much for him. She would take care of herself.
She would go visit Maggie. Certainly it was too early for Maggie to be entertaining men. Her eyes narrowed as she walked toward Kearny Street. Where are you, Mr.