Ruby's Song (Love in the Sierras Book 3) Read online

  “Stop it,” he said. “I’ll never call you that. Never. But I do wish…”

  “What, Dalton?” she asked softly.

  “I wish you knew what it was like to be loved for who you are outside of a bedroom.” Her lips curved slightly, sadly, and he reached out to touch her knee, looking her straight in the eye. “You’re worth more than that, Mother.”

  Her eyes bore into his with a brightening sheen and she covered his hand with hers. “I was wrong when I said I didn’t have any pride.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s sitting right across from me.”

  Dalton’s throat crowded with emotion and he swallowed as he sat back to survey the cityscape passing by the carriage windows. Four months had crawled by since he left Virginia City, and he was itching to get back. The trip abroad had proven three things. The first was that the only travel he enjoyed was done through mountain ranges on horseback. The second was that he considered himself wholly American, despite his English parentage. And the third was that he cared very little for large cities, like London and Boston. He’d seen enough. Too many people. Too many noises and smells. Too many rules. He wanted to return to the place where life was real and raw.

  The rush of excitement upon stepping foot on American soil under American sun was invigorating, but he still had a long way to go to feel a western wind at his back, the gentle glide of a tamed mustang beneath him and the wide dawn breaking over a landscape sculpted by the Creator. Four months away from the place where he belonged seemed interminable, and he wondered how Marlena had managed five years in Boston.

  “I’m curious to see how Marlena’s grown, how she’s changed,” he mused aloud.

  “She was a little gem of a child,” his mother said. “If she favors her sister, she will be a raving jewel, no doubt.”

  Dalton nodded in agreement, but he wondered most about her demeanor. He’d seen moments of boldness in her as a child, mostly when it involved defending or protecting her sister, but he had also noticed how quickly she’d retreat into silence when she received any attention or praise. She’d been on the verge of fainting the one time he’d asked her to dance at the spring festival, and then had not uttered a single word during it. He’d been reduced to telling jokes to elicit something more than the doe-eyed expression she’d pinned on him.

  The thought of that same personality gracing the stage of an opulent opera house, the focal point of hundreds of critical eyes, intrigued him. The girl he once knew couldn’t command an audience’s attention. Not like the actress he’d discovered at The Museum months ago when they’d traveled through Boston en route to London. A hot bolt of lust moved through him as he thought of the woman with sleek, long legs and a voice dripping with honey.

  He’d first seen her dressed as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She’d pranced around, singing lines from the original, unedited Shakespeare, wearing a mask and headdress that looked like weeping tree branches full of leaves. He never saw her face. But he saw her legs, and the way the tight white hosen clung to her derriere. Her hair was long, wavy, blond and swished about her waist as she danced and sang.

  Her delivered lines had him and the other patrons shaking with laughter, and his eyes clamped onto the graceful movements of her body as she bounded and danced, but that wasn’t what solidified her place in his thoughts. It was the way she possessed the stage, the charismatic and arresting presence she exuded. He couldn’t take his eyes off her that night, or the other two times he’d seen her perform, always in some costume that obscured her face.

  He’d sent her notes backstage, praise really, but she’d never acknowledged them and he’d gone on to London with visions of her haunting his sleep. Always in his dreams, he’d lift her constant veil and see a beautiful young woman with wide expressive eyes, porcelain white skin and soft pink lips, ready for his kisses. She’d be a passionate lover, he knew, for anyone who could fill each performance with such vigor was sure to be full of passion when it came to lovemaking.

  “Are you going to The Museum again tonight?” his mother asked, seeming to trace the path of his thoughts.

  He nodded. “Care to join me?”

  “No,” she released with a wave of her hand. “I’ve had my fill of entertainment for the evening. You go on without me.”

  The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the inn and Dalton leapt out to help his mother out of it. Once tucked safely in her room, he went to his and changed clothes. Black trousers, a pressed white shirt and a black coat. He threw the top hat across the room and snatched up his familiar headwear, a wide-brimmed, black felt hat designed by the hatter, Stetson, himself. It looked out of place in Boston, gaining its usage on the western plains, but he was ready to feel more at home, so he settled it onto his head, smiling at the snug feel.

  He made his way down the stairs, through the dining room and back onto the bustle of Boylston Street. If he hurried, he’d be able to catch the last act. The thought filled his innards with heat and he broke into a jog until he reached the front entrance of the theater. It had been two months since he’d seen her, and his only hope was that she was still there.

  He hurried through a lobby filled with cases of artificial relics from Revolutionary War battles. Once through a back door, the space became a large open warehouse-turned-theater with bodies crowding the ground level. He went straight for the staircase that led to the balcony and found his familiar spot in the back.

  If she hadn’t spoken, he would have never recognized her. She was dressed like a middle-aged man, her hands clasped behind her back as she paced the stage with a straight back and a stiff gait. A foamy white wig hugged her scalp, and a bushy mustache of the same color obscured her mouth. The rest of her face was made up in white with bright red cheeks, giving them a shiny, ruddy appearance. His chest shook with silent laughter.

  She began to sing, lifting that enchanting voice of hers until it filled the entire room. It wouldn’t matter what lyrics she sang. He was enraptured. The contrast between the two women he’d heard sing that night was blaring. When the performance ended, his robust applause joined the rest of the audience and continued long after the others faded away. Bodies cleared the area, anxious to dispel the heat with the cooler night air, but he didn’t move.

  Finally, his persistent applause won him the reward he sought. Just before she slipped behind the closed curtain, she turned and locked eyes with him. A surge of intense heat moved through him, and he wondered if she felt it, too. She bowed once more, a gesture for him alone, and then she disappeared. He pulled a folded note from his pocket and made his way outside to the back entrance, hoping this would be the night he’d come face to face with the actress who had caught his eye.

  Marlena’s skin itched from the layers of sweat and grease paint lathered across her face, not to mention the mustache glued to her upper lip. Her bodysuit created the large belly of the figure she was impersonating, none other than Elijah Winthrop, and only added to her discomfort. The white, fluffy man’s wig tied over her bundle of blond hair made sweat slide down the back of her neck. But it was worth it. She looked and acted every bit the part, and no one could play him better. She’d heard his righteous spiel several times, and it had contributed the fodder for the song she wrote and prepared to perform.

  The back doors of the theater were propped open to admit a breeze, but it did the actors little good. The wooden stage arced toward the standing audience, and its entire u-shaped perimeter was lined with lamps at full glow emitting one giant ball of heat.

  She scowled at her counterpart in the scene, a young man dressed as an aristocratic woman, his hoop skirt rising now and again to reveal long legs wrapped in stockings and pantaloons. His wig of beribboned dark brown ringlets bounced around as his head lashed from side to side while he spoke his lines in a high-pitched drawl.

  “But father,” he whined. “Why mustn’t I go to the theater? Why can’t I see the play?”

  He aired his rouged face with a lacy fan and Marlena felt a pang of jealous
y. She screwed her features into a frown.

  “A play?!” she bellowed, her voice a deep gruff. “Do you want the devil to take you on the spot? Plays are horrible displays, full of…” she turned to the crowd and her tone became mocking, “immorality.” The audience cheered. “Rebelliousness.” They cheered again. “Unwholesomeness.” She leaned down, as if sharing a secret with the onlookers and widened her eyes. “Lasciviousness.”

  The people hooted and raised their fists, erupting into fits of laughter when the young “lady” on stage fell into a faint. Marlena paced across the wooden planks as the piano player’s fingers danced over the keys. She began to belt out an anthem she’d composed.

  Expose the rabble cause. Defund the canker blossom.

  Such debauchery, idolatry. It must be banned in Boston!

  When ye see parades of renegades, don’t stand and watch. Accost them.

  Let ring the cry, lest evil rise. They must be

  BANNED IN BOSTON!

  The song ended, and the crowd continued to chant in mockery, in rebellion, against the yoke of censorship. “Banned in Boston! Banned in Boston!”

  Soon, their words gave way to applause as the players came back on stage for a final bow. The strength of cheering rose higher when the company stepped back to leave Marlena in center stage to receive the praise as the lead. She bowed and nodded until the noise died down. As the people dispersed, the clap of one pair of applauding hands echoed down to her and she looked aloft at the balcony in the back of the theater to find a familiar male form.

  “He’s back,” one of her fellow actors muttered behind her.

  It had been months since she’d seen him and the familiar feeling that had needled through her chest and stomach before came again. It was only his silhouette, as the theater was dark inside, but she could make out his form and the distinct outline of something she’d not seen since the last time he was there. A hat style worn in the west.

  He stood applauding, begging for acknowledgement, just as he had in his notes. This time, she gave in and offered him a deep bow before slipping behind the stage curtain and ripping off the sweat-soaked headpiece and mustache. Her body temperature cooled instantly and she blew out a sigh of relief. Once inside her private room, she untied the bulky body suit, continuing to strip down until she stood in her chemise and bloomers.

  A knock sounded on her door and she opened the portal for Monkey, who entered with a knowing grin. He handed her the note she’d been expecting.

  “Thank you, Monkey,” she said, leaning toward a lantern to read.

  We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

  She smiled as she folded it back into its tiny square and stuffed it in her coin purse. All of his notes had been quoted from Shakespeare and pertained to her role in the social rebellion. On his first visit, he’d quoted the Merchant of Venice. With his second visit, he had written Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. The third had brought, How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. But tonight’s note carried a different implication. At least, she allowed herself to imagine so. We know not what we may be? Her lips curled in a sideways grin.

  “What does he look like, Monkey?” she asked. He flinched, a blank look washing over his features.

  “He looks like a man.”

  She sighed and chuckled. “I already assumed that, silly, but what kind of man? Is he burly or lanky? Does he have an honest face or…or hooded eyes you can’t trust? Is he handsome?”

  Monkey’s face scrunched in distaste. “He looked like a man. I didn’t take in all that other stuff. But I can tell you this: he is most definitely not from Boston.”

  “Is he old or young?”

  “He’s not as old as I am.”

  She relaxed at that. “Is he still around, do you think?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Go run and see for me, please? If he’s here, tell him to stay put. I wish to write a reply.” Monkey’s shoulders sagged and he eyed her with a slant of his head. “Please?” she begged.

  With a roll of his eyes he strode off to do her bidding.

  “You’re so good to me!” she shouted after him, laughing as she searched for a pencil. With one in hand, she leaned over her vanity and scribbled out a quote from Shakespeare in return.

  It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves. Come again two nights hence.

  Her chest shook with silent laughter as she folded the note and tasked a young stagehand with delivering it to Monkey.

  Chapter 4

  The hour was late by the time Marlena disembarked a block away from her residence and strode briskly down the cobbles of Beacon Street to scramble up the old oak. She fell asleep quickly and dreamt of Virginia City on a starry night; a raucous festival with roasted pig and candied apples; her first glimpse at Sarah Jeanne, The Opera Queen; her dance with Dalton. His hands, large and calloused, swallowed her thirteen-year-old palms as he twirled her around in time to the music. He told jokes that made her laugh and drew a blush to her cheeks with his smile.

  A heady sensation of giddiness overwhelmed her and she awoke the next morning in its hold. As soon as she left the bed she opened the top drawer of her nightstand, smiling when the tiny wooden horse stared back at her. Every time she held it in her palm she felt closer to home, and though her newfound friendships at The Museum were a salve to her loneliness, they could never replace the friends she had in Virginia City.

  When she entered the dining room, Sarah was already seated in her usual place, nibbling on a buttered pastry.

  “Good morning,” Marlena chirped as she fixed herself a plate at the sideboard before joining the table.

  “You’re unusually chipper this morning,” Sarah returned, massaging her temples. “Almost as bad as the birds outside my window every morning at the crack of dawn. Ugh, it’s one of my least favorite things about summer. And about being a singer.” Marlena raised a questioning brow and Sarah shrugged with a knowing grin. “The rest of the females of our acquaintance happily drink themselves impenetrable, but we singers don’t get that luxury.”

  Marlena tightened her lips against the laughter pressing to come out. Sarah had never uttered an ill word against her peers, at least not in her presence. When Sarah allowed a soft chuckle to escape her lips, Marlena comfortably joined in, ignoring the oddity of the two of them laughing together. When the moment passed, an awkward silence descended and Marlena cleared her throat.

  “How did last night go?” she asked.

  “Oh, fine. Fine,” Sarah waved absently, but there was an air of preoccupation about her that Marlena had never seen before, an unguarded distractedness. Her eyes fixed across the room and out of the window. “Do you know what it’s like to feel everything shift in your life? Like suddenly everything that meant something no longer has any value?”

  The unusual question brought with it the familiar tang of sadness and Marlena studied her tutor. “Are you all right, Sarah?”

  “Yes, Sarah,” a deep, male voice called from the doorway and Marlena turned to see Elijah standing there, looking exactly as she had depicted him only hours before. His cold gray eyes bore down on his sister across the room. “I’m quite curious for you to elaborate on your little epiphany as well.”

  It took a full minute for Sarah to lock eyes with her brother, and the tension between them, the hate, was thick enough to raise the hairs on Marlena’s arms. She looked from one face to the other, waiting to hear Sarah’s response. For a moment, it appeared Sarah would engage in a verbal match, but the fight faded from her eyes and she shrugged casually.

  “Just making conversation, brother.”

  “Really? Because it sounded to me like you were suggesting you might be somewhat dissatisfied with your life here? That you’d rather...drink yourself impenetrable? I would hate to hear that kind of talk coming from anyone in my household.” He faced Marlena. “Anyone indulging in any immoral behavior or espousing that sor
t of ungrateful attitude may find themselves turned out. Or worse.”

  Sarah’s eyes dropped to the tablecloth and there was a noticeable sag to her shoulders. Elijah’s white mustache twitched upward in a smug grin and Marlena’s hands curled into fists on her lap. She’d seen this kind of manipulation and oppression before. She’d been silent then, but she promised herself never again.

  “If a person were truly unhappy here, I would think turning them out would be a blessing, not a punishment,” Marlena said in an even tone, drawing Elijah’s tight-lipped purse and frosty gaze.

  His beady eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to a menacing tone. “You forgot the ‘or worse’ Miss Beauregard.”

  The warm press of the gun strapped to her calf was a comfort, but even still, she had no fear of Elijah. He ruled by the power of threat. There was meanness of manner in him, but not in deed. Not yet, anyway.

  “I assure you, I didn’t,” she said, and the sides of her mouth curled in a grin. He flinched, surely not expecting such a response from her.

  “Just remember who has financed your little opera enterprise all these years, my dear. Remember whom you owe.”

  He turned and left the room.

  Sarah slammed her teacup into the saucer, and glowered at her. “Are you out of your mind? For years, you hardly speak a word in this house and when you finally do, that is what you say? What were you thinking, provoking him like that?”

  Marlena felt her forehead scrunch indignantly. “I defer to Elijah out of respect for him and his home, but I’ll not cower before him as you and your family do. He doesn’t own me and he certainly doesn’t frighten me. I’ve been through worse than he can inflict.”

  “Don’t underestimate my brother,” Sarah returned with a warning shake of her head. “You don’t think Elijah owns you, but he does. He owns us all. Believe me, I know from experience he always makes good on his threats. There’s no way you’d be able to repay the funds it’s taken to turn you from little more than a street urchin to the lady you are today. He’ll see your family in financial ruin, no matter how much silver is in Nevada. Is that what you want?”