CHAPTER1
Pearl Tuttle loved to gamble. And most of the time she was very successful. But for the last month, she’d lost every time she played. She’d lost to the point she owed the Charleston Gambling Hall over one thousand dollars.
Tonight she entered the hall and glanced around, trying to decide which table would be her lucky one, where could she make back the money she owed.
“Miss Tuttle, Mr. Wiggins would like to see you in his office,” the dealer told her.
“What for?”
“I have no idea, ma’am,” he said not looking at her.
A shiver went up her spine. She was broke. Penniless. Barely surviving after losing her family to the war and illness.
Now she feared the gambling hall wanted their money back. And no matter how much she played, her luck had not changed for the better.
“I’ll take you to his office,” he said as another gentleman stepped up to take his place as the dealer.
The tables were loaded with wealthy men and even some poor men trying to make money. She was one of the few women in the place besides the whores.
They walked up the elegant stairs into the area of the gambling hall known for housing women. She’d never been up here before and her stomach tightened in knots. What could they do to her? She’d already lost her plantation home to carpetbaggers and she had survived on what little money was left from her papa’s accounts and gambling.
Until her run of bad luck. Now, she would need to find a husband or a job very soon.
The man knocked on a large wooden door.
“Come in,” a deep voice called.
He opened the door, pushed her in, and then shut it behind her.
“Miss Tuttle,” a finely dressed man said, standing and taking her hand. “James Wiggins, owner of this establishment.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“This is Miss Champe,” he said. “She runs the bordello side of our establishment.”
Pearl licked her lips, her nerves tightening like a vise in her chest. What was she doing here? The woman was dressed even fancier than Mr. Wiggins. What did they want with her?
“It’s come to my attention that you owe the house more than one thousand dollars.”
“I’ve borrowed one thousand, is all,” she said.
“But with interest, it’s now almost two thousand dollars,” he said with a grin.
“What? That’s outrageous. It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
“No one said borrowing money from the gambling saloon was cheap. We make it quite expensive to keep our gamblers from not paying us. In your case, you have no way of paying it back. So I’m calling the note due right now. Can you pay us back?”
Her stomach clenched. Why had she borrowed from him? She had been doing so well and then suddenly her luck just dried up. Suddenly it was as if every hand the dealer won.
“No, I can’t pay it all back at once. I was planning on paying it back a little at a time.”
“At thirty percent interest, it’s going to take you years to pay us back,” he said, grinning at her. “So I sold the note to Miss Champe. She now owns your debt.”
Why in the world would this woman want to hold her debt?
A stern-looking, gorgeous woman with fake red hair who she guessed to be about forty stood to the side of her, gazing at her with a sour expression on her face.
“I’m calling the loan due. Since you are unable to pay it back in full right now, you will be required to work for the brothel. Are you a virgin?”