Memory's Embrace Read Online Free PDF Page A

millworker,” said Derora dismissively. “Yes. Well, just move his things. I want Mr. Shiloh to have the room at the back.”
    That way, Tess reasoned bitterly, Mr. Wilcox wouldn’t walk through and see his landlady cavorting with the new tenant. “But—”
    “Tess, just obey me. For once, just do as I tell you. And don’t think I’m going to let that little matter ofyour coming home in a man’s clothes pass unchallenged, either.”
    “I’m—”
    “If you tell me that you’re eighteen, Tess, I swear by all that’s holy that I’ll snatch you baldheaded. A young lady does not comport herself in that manner, no matter what her age.”
    “I was caught in the rain, that’s all. And my bicycle wheel was bent. Mr. Shiloh merely—”
    Derora’s gaze was on the ceiling now, and her lush lips curved into an anticipatory smile. She took another chocolate and ate it in a fashion that Tess found oddly indelicate. “Mr. Shiloh presented no danger to you, I’m sure. It would be my guess that he takes little note of bounding schoolgirls with their hair tumbling down their backs.”
    “Schoolgirls!” Tess protested. “I’m not—”
    “Tess, really.” Derora, who prized her figure, put the lid back on the candy box, not even looking at her niece. “Just go and do as I told you, please. And after that, I’d like you to help Jumper with tonight’s refreshments. We’re expecting a number of women to attend the lecture.”
    Tess sighed. She wondered what her aunt would say if she knew that her dear niece planned to attend, also. “Has Mrs. Hollinghouse-Stone arrived yet?” she asked, poised in the fringed parlor doorway.
    “She has,” replied Derora crisply, smoothing her sateen skirts. “That tiresome sheriff is forcing her to apply for a permit to address us. Can you believe it? And in a country where free speech is so prized.”
    Simpkinsville, for all its brothels and saloons, had a conservative quarter. A certain segment of its population didn’t take kindly to some of the lectures that took place in Mrs. Derora Beauchamp’s front parlor. They hadn’t minded the spiritualist, though, or the round, earnest little man who had demonstrated the dying art of phrenology. Tess grinned, patting her hair, which she had carefully pinned atop her head in order to look more grown up.
    She supposed free love was quite a different kettle of fish from summoning the dear departed—to her great disappointment, none of that elusive group had shown up—or determining someone’s most intimate nature by feeling the bumps on their head.
    Yes, indeed, she thought, as she made her way into the “west wing,” there was an interesting night ahead.
    Mr. Wilcox had few belongings, fortunately, just a Bible and a shaving kit and a “bindle,” the bedroll carried by all itinerant timber workers. Tess moved all these things into the front part of the car, which had been partitioned off from the rear, hoping that he wouldn’t mind too much. Though Derora had been quite correct in referring to Arthur Wilcox as a “sweaty millworker,” he was still a very nice man, quiet and polite. He’d paid Tess two dollars to take his likeness with her camera and then mailed the sepia-tinted result back East, to a girl he hoped to marry.
    Tess smiled, stripping the sheets from his bed, remembering the shy, delighted way he’d posed. It was a shame to put him out like this, and all for a drummer who didn’t have any more sense than to stand in campfires and leap into creeks when he didn’t know how deep they were. Her smile faded and she worked with hasty, angry motions, putting fresh linen onto the bed that would be Joel Shiloh’s.
    That done, she dusted swiftly. She’d been very late getting back, thanks to that broken bicycle wheel and the rainstorm, and Juniper would be working herself into a state in the kitchen, trying to get dinner and prepare refreshments for the lecture guests as well.
    In the hallway, still lined with