Wanton Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

you want a dancin’ job! I shoulda figured, with looks like yours, that you weren’t no pot-tender’s woman. Mr. Durrant’s down at the Brass Eagle most times—hardly ever comes in here.”
    In addition to her nausea, Bonnie now had a headache. “I don’t wonder,” she answered, turning to leave. Now she knew, at least partially, why Genoa had skirted all her questions about the store, pretending to the vapors every time the subject had arisen.
    “Fine piece like you could earn a pretty penny down at the Brass Eagle!” the shopmistress called after her, in a burst of jubilant generosity.
    The bell made a tinny clatter when Bonnie slammed the door behind her. She stormed along the street, barely glancing at the Pompeii Playhouse across the way, a place that would have intrigued her greatly at any other time.
    She walked rapidly down the hill, passing Earline’s boardinghouseand the undertaker’s place, her face hot with rage. She’d known, of course, that Forbes Durrant managed the smelter works and mining operations at Northridge—he’d been plucked out of Patch Town and groomed and educated for the job by Josiah McKutchen’s own hand—and she’d never thought to question the choice. Now that Bonnie had seen Forbes’s neglect of the mercantile, however, she had opinions aplenty.
    Reaching the bottom of the hill, Bonnie turned to the right, passing the marshal’s office and the courthouse, which shared a framework building of minuscule proportions. She hurried past Webb Hutcheson’s newspaper office lest he see her and come out to speak—better to meet with Forbes without delay, while her ire was running high enough to provide impetus for the confrontation.
    The Brass Eagle Saloon and Ballroom stood alone on the very border of Patch Town, a huge place built of white limestone. Blue velvet curtains trimmed with gold braid and tassels showed at every window, both on the upper and lower floors, and the steps beneath the double front doors were made of rich gray marble. A beautifully wrought eagle of shimmering brass was inlaid along the front of the top step.
    Furious that such a place could have been erected within a stone’s throw of dismal poverty, of tar-paper huts and seeping sewers, Bonnie stomped up to the doors, tried one shining knob, and walked in. One did not knock at the door of a saloon, did one?
    Inside she found herself in an entryway that could only be described as grand. There was an Aubusson rug on the floor, and a cherrywood clock stood to one side of the carpeted stairs leading up to the second story. Bonnie did not want to think about the things that probably went on up there.
    To her right was a beautifully appointed saloon with a carved mahogany bar and dozens of round, felt-topped game tables. She caught glimpses of good paintings and polished mirrors. To the left was a ballroom, as large as any Bonnie had seen in New York. The orchestra platform was carpeted in plush sapphire blue, and there were brass fixtures on the walls between mirrored panels that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
    While Bonnie was still full of righteous wrath—people were all but starving within shouting distance of all this luxury, after all—she was intrigued, too. For a moment she even imagined herself wearing one of the fine gowns she had left behind in New York, whirling around this smooth oaken floor in Eli’s arms. How dashing he would look in his cutaway coat and tails, his tailored trousers with their black satin strips down each crisply creased leg …
    “We don’t need no more dancers right now, sweetie,” a female voice announced.
    Bonnie turned in the doorway of the ballroom, startled. Just behind her stood one of the fancy women she had seen at the train depot the day of her arrival—the red-haired one who had been flirting with Webb.
    Bonnie squared her shoulders. “I am not here to inquire after—after a position. My name is Mrs. Eli McKutchen and I want to see Mr. Durrant