Much Ado About Madams Read Free Page B

Travel-weary but full and clean, she needed a nap. “Pie sounds wonderful, but I think I’ll go to my room now.”
    Sadie scooped a huge piece on a saucer. “You look a might scrawny.” As Lucinda rose, Sadie handed her the pie. “Take this here with you. You can eat it later.”
    It looked delicious, and Lucinda thanked Sadie as she left for her room. If Sadie cooked like this every day, she thought, she wouldn’t be able to fit into her clothes before a week had gone by.
    She closed the door to her room and placed the pie plate on the dresser. Not to worry, she wouldn’t be here over a day or two. Surely the school district wouldn’t house their schoolmarm in a whorehouse!
    Lucinda slept the rest of the afternoon and into the night. She awakened to the tinkling of a honky-tonk piano. All too familiar rhythmic grunts in the next room took her back eight years, when her mother had hidden her in the whiskey room while the ladies “entertained.”
    Her throat tightened and tears came to her eyes as she remembered the little girl she once was. Shunned or taunted by the school children by day, and hiding in the stench of the whiskey room at night, her only respite had been found in books. She had escaped to Shakespeare’s time, and cried with Ophelia and swooned with Juliet.
    By the time she’d been sent to live at Miss Hattie’s School for the Refinement of Young Ladies at the tender age of eleven, she’d read all of Shakespeare’s works, the only books available. Miss Hattie, while disapproving of Lucinda’s lack of manners and personal hygiene, had marveled over her reading and comprehension abilities, and her insight into characters. In Miss Hattie, Lucinda found her very first friend.
    Now, after nearly eight years of hard work, Lucinda could call herself a lady. She could walk down the street with pride. She deferred to no man or woman.
    A masculine roar of relief echoed from the next room and coins clanked into a dish. Cigar smoke filtered through the walls. She buried her head in the pillow to avoid the sickening smells and noises. The suffragists had it right, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
    Men were truly vile creatures.
    * * * * *
    Reese McAdams felt pretty damned lucky as he rode up to the Comfort Palace. He’d been able to conduct all his business over the wire and hadn’t needed to go to Wichita after all. Thanks to the full moon, he’d ridden late into the night to make his way home with money in his pocket and arrangements for a herd of cattle to be delivered to his new ranch.
    Ranch land . Somehow, he had to find the time to build a bunkhouse, at least, so he could hire some cowhands. They’d need a place to stay, but he could live in the Comfort Palace another year before he built a house.
    He dismounted, legs wobbly after the twelve-hour ride, and led Buster to the stable where he fed the exhausted roan stallion an extra ration of oats. Even though Reese’s fondest desire was to soak in a hot bath and crawl into his soft bed, he took extra care rubbing Buster down. The old boy deserved a little special attention.
    With one last effort, Reese threw his bulging saddlebags over his shoulder. They were loaded with small things for the women—cheap jewelry and a few lotions—and the freight wagon due in the next morning would bring the other things he’d bought for the ladies.
    He’d hated his father’s gambling and whoring, and hated more that he’d ended up inheriting a brothel. His first inclination had been to sell it, but he couldn’t bear to see the faded whores turned out. Where would they go? More than likely most of them would end up in the cribs. Instead, he vowed not to take money from their labors, except for selling the building when the time came.
    Reese willed his tired legs up the back stairs that led directly to his room. Guilt nagged at him for not greeting Fannie and the girls before he went to his room, but they’d just have to forgive him this time. The need