“How is your saloon, sir? Where is it?”
“Near Portsmouth Square. The Wild Star.”
The sound of his voice made her feel incredibly warm. She didn’t want to leave him, not just yet, particularly when he was not insulting her.
“Is business good?”
“Quite. In a town like San Francisco, men have little else to do save gamble, drink, and whore. Of course, we are gaining culture by the day. By January, I hear we’ll even have some gaslights installed, to discourage thieves, of course. And realize, please, ma’am, that we have theater groups coming from all over the world to our fair city. Unfortunately, you missed Lola Montez. She’s living in the gold country now, I believe, in Grass Valley.” Why was he carrying on like this? Because you don’t want her to leave, you fool. She was staring up at him with such intensity that he wanted to rip her clothes off on the spot and ravish her. He laughed at himself. A woman who’d given birth as recently as she had couldn’t indulge in sex for a while yet.
“How is your child, Miz Butler?” He saw hurt in her eyes, and it angered him.
“Her name is Michelle,” Byrony said calmly. “She is quite well, thank you.”
“Does she look like you or your husband?”
“She has the look of the Butlers, I understand. Very fair with blue eyes.”
The look of the Butlers? Hell, she was fair; only her eyes were that soft green color, deep and mysterious. He wanted to ask her if her husband was good to her. Stupid thought. Her gown was expensive. Her doting husband probably gave her everything she asked for. And her husband probably understood well her promiscuous tendencies, else why would he have that huge Negro woman with her? To protect her or to keep her from making assignations with other men?
“Ah,” he said, “your protector.”
Byrony would very much have liked to dismiss Eileen with a magic wave of her hand. But she couldn’t.
She was gazing up at him with that lost, helpless look of hers, and he forced himself to shrug and say, “A pleasure to see you, ma’am. Do give my best to your husband.”
“Yes,” Byrony said, “I will.”
She listened to Eileen describe a bonnet she’d found, but her eyes remained on his tall figure until he was lost from her view.
NINE
Chauncey Saxton looked about the large dining table at all the other guests. Ira Butler had chosen well, she thought. The thirteen guests, for the most part, were kind people and were treating the new Mrs. Butler very well. Byrony looked lovely, gowned in yellow silk, a rich yellow that made her hair look like smooth honey and her eyes a vivid, sparkling green. A very nice girl, Chauncey thought, and understandably nervous. Her gaze turned to Irene Butler, seated now at her brother’s right. The little scene they’d been treated to upon entering the dining room still seemed to bother her. She was very quiet, speaking only rarely to anyone except her brother.
A ridiculous mixup, Chauncey thought, feeling compassion for Byrony, who’d tried to smooth it over. How could Irene have so improperly had herself seated at the foot of the table? Surely she was used to her brother’s wife by now. It was obvious that Irene hadn’t relinquished the mistress’s position to her sister-in-law, indeed, had taken for granted that it was her honored place. Poor Ira. It had been he who spoke quietly to his sister and removed her to his end of the table, leaving Byrony pale and smiling nervously.
Chauncey suddenly met the eyes of her nemesis, Penelope Stevenson, across the table, and gave her a sugary smile. A pity that the bouquet of flowers wasn’t just a foot to the left; then she wouldn’t have to manufacture that false smile. Bunker Stevenson, her wealthy father, was carrying on with a tale of his adventures in Panama. Chauncey’s eyes met Agatha Newton’s, seated on Byrony’s right, and Agatha winked. Bless Agatha. Chauncey had told her about Byrony, and that good woman was regaling her with her own special brand of charm.
“Do try the pork, love, I promise it won’t attack you.”
“I have and it didn’t,” she said to her husband.
“You look preoccupied, Chauncey. Is there some man I should begin to worry about?”
“Oh drat, I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice. But Bunker is so very—well, how can I put it?”
“Boring? Fatuous?”
“One of these days, Del Saxton, I am going to have the last word.”
She kicked him under the table.
“You’ve made no changes as yet I see, my dear,” Agatha Newton was saying to Byrony. “I’ve always thought that this room and the drawing room needed more of a woman’s touch. Of course, Irene doesn’t say boo without her brother’s approval.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Byrony said, her attention on Brent Hammond, who was flirting outrageously with a very lovely girl whose name Byrony wouldn’t soon forget. Penelope the Snob, Byrony had christened her, after the young lady had acknowledged meeting her with only the slightest nod of her head.
Agatha Newton, broad in the beam with a lovely, motherly smile, wished she could reassure the new Mrs. Butler. The girl was naturally nervous. After all, this was her first introduction to the people who counted in San Francisco. Pity that all of them counted, but what could one do? She followed Byrony’s gaze to the utterly delicious man next to Penelope Stevenson. She’d not met him before this evening, but had heard Horace speak of him. “Damned smart young man,” her enthusiastic husband had said on more than one occasion. “Old James Cora isn’t too pleased with the quick success he’d had with the Wild Star.”
What a handsome devil he was, Agatha thought, gently sipping at the very fine French wine from Ira’s cellar. She’d stare at him too if she were twenty years younger.