Hell's Belle Read online

  "Faithfulness and trust," Sandy repeated slowly. He shrugged. "Seems to me she's keeping her end of the bargain. And if she's…adventuresome when the lamp's out, I don't see what you're griping about. Unless you want to change the terms of your deal. That case, you'd best strike a whole new—"

  "Change the terms? No, I still want what I asked for. It's just that—"

  "You want her to love you, Del," Sandy snorted, taking a long pull from his drink. "Sooner you face that, better off you'll be. You know that saying your pa was so fond of…Some horses are for saddles, some are for draft. If you wanted a saddle horse, you shouldn't have set out to buy a draft mare to pull your wagon."

  "Aw, hell! I might've known you wouldn't understand." Del rose from the rickety chair and scowled back at Sandy. "I'll go fetch Jordan. We got to be heading out. Be dark before you know it."

  "Yessir, and you got to rush home to get your wagon yanked," Sandy quipped.

  Del resisted the urge to shove the whiskey tumbler down his foreman's throat. Son of a bitch thought he knew everything. His arrogance was tough to face, especially because he was generally right, and life had a way of proving it.

  He was wrong this time.

  However, Del reasoned, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a second opinion. So Del cornered Jordy and told him to come have a last drink together before they set out for home. He waited until Jordan was nice and mellow, then casually let talk drift in the direction of Twila. "You know, I never did thank you for that last dare you threw at me. A real humdinger. Look at me now, an old married man because of it."

  Jordy rose to the bait, belching. "You two settled in together like pretzels and beer."

  "Well, for the most part. But she's a little cool sometimes. Guess it's just her nature."

  Jordy jerked his head back around from ogling a pretty waiter gal and frowned at Del. "Come on, Delancy. I've seen her with her hair down around her shoulders and you staring like you're craving to wrap yourself in it. Your eyes get all hot and intense when she walks by. Seen her get a funny wistful look on her face when you're not paying attention, too. Ain't no lack of physical chemistry between you two. Know it's not polite to point out about another man's wife, but her nature strikes me about as cool as a July afternoon."

  Bombs bursting in air…

  Del seized on one thing Jordan said, something about a funny look…"What wistful look?" he demanded.

  Jordy slapped Del's shoulder. "If I didn't know exactly when you two took up together, I'd figure her for giving birth to twins any time now. Hey, how is that? She going to be knitting them little infant things soon?"

  Del couldn't believe he'd overlooked something that apparently others already saw. Was he as dense as Sandy around Minerva?

  "I got to take a leak," Del said. "Meet me in front of the livery stable in about ten minutes. We need to head on homeward."

  Only Del didn't go to the livery. He went to a whorehouse and paid the madam for ten minutes of her time, clothing on. She took him to a private room and sat on the edge of the bed.

  "Honey, I've had every sort come through here. You one of those men who wants to think he's staying decent by keeping his his duds on, fine by me. You looking to tickle my tonsils?" She motioned toward the buttons on his fly.

  He vehemently shook his head, noting the irony even as he did it. This whore wasn't in her prime any longer, but she was buxom, undoubtedly knew how to please. Not so long ago, Del would have had his pecker wearing some of her lip rouge before she'd even finished asking the question.

  "I just want some female advice."

  "Oh?"

  "My friends say my missus has this funny look on her face. They say we both got eyes for each other and how they can tell we must be taken with each other. But when I married her, a couple of months back, we were strangers. I mean that. I'd talked to her twice."

  "Twice. You move fast, huh?"

  "She was in a bad situation. I wasn't going to take her home and have her living under my roof like a—" He paused just in time, changed his tone. "She was a nice girl," he stressed. "Pure. Had to marry her."

  "All right. So where's the problem?"

  "I can feel so worn out at the end of a day's work, I just want to eat some grub and go die. Until she comes sliding onto the mattress, all soft and smelling like powder, and it's like…Honestly, the damned best coitus I've ever had."

  The madam frowned at him like he'd just grown another nose. "You don't have a problem. Unless you want it and she don't, or she wants it and you won't. But it sounds like you both do and you both do, plenty."

  He nodded, sighing. "Other times. In the day time…ordinary encounters, like supper and such. It's like she barely knows I'm alive. "

  "She raised proper and genteel?" He nodded. "She the shy sort?" He nodded again.

  The madam burst out laughing, slapped him on the back harder than Jordy had, and told him to get out. "Go home, loverboy. Just give her a little more time. There ain't nothing wrong except you fret too much."

  So everyone else seemed to believe, Del brooded on the ride home. He seemed to be the only person capable of looking at the situation objectively and seeing there was some kind of void in his life with Twila. Something was missing. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

  But he felt it again when Twila merely smiled and said she was glad they'd all shown up in time for supper. She noted the lining that dangled from the back of Del's heavy winter coat and promised to sew it before the snows came. Then she proceeded to take her meal along with everyone else, barely glancing in Del's direction other than to pass the salt.

  She'd adjusted. The wranglers had adjusted. Talk in town no longer included whispers about hexes or spells. His business was running along…Things had actually worked out better than he had any right to expect when he'd brashly eloped with her.

  Yet he was restless. There was something amiss. No matter what anyone else said, Del knew it. And just as soon as he figured out what the problem was, he'd work on a way to correct it.

  * * *

  Twila nervously read over the letter again. She couldn't believe she'd actually received it, after all this time. Henry had come to the house after going to collect the mail that day. At long last, an answer came to one of their advertisements. The Vogels, it turned out, were not in San Francisco at all. They'd settled in Sacramento.

  Now all Twila had to do was figure out how to broach the subject of a visit there to her husband. She'd be tremendously relieved to get the necklace back to its owners, and wasn't taking any chances. She'd quickly written out a brief reply to Hilde Vogel, couching her phrases about the confused satchels and their respective contents. Especially after the incident at the Bell Emporium, she worried that divulging too much information could be risky.

  Del had gone into town one day last week and come back with a strange report of a suspected robbery at the new store. He said both Fletcher and Lucius were safe and unharmed, even though they'd probably been present, upstairs asleep, during a break-in of some kind. The oddest part was that neither seemed to be able to give the sheriff solid information as to what might have been taken. Nothing was obviously missing.

  Despite evidence that someone had wanted access badly enough to break in to the place, what little cash had been in the till was still there when the Bells arose the following morning. Their merchandise had been disturbed, but seemed intact.

  What sort of thieves broke into a store and then took neither goods nor money? The Washoe sheriff had no answer. Neither did anyone else in town. Everyone was a bit nervous, but since nothing of value had been taken, the sheriff merely called the incident a prank of some sort and didn't spend time investigating. He seemed to think it had been kids on a lark.

  Twila couldn't resist a wicked little smile as she signed her letter and went out to find Henry. The robbery incident was indeed peculiar, but it had occurred after she'd moved out to Del's ranch, as everyone well knew. Uncle Fletcher must be spitting buttons, she told her
self. Aggravated by the disturbance, but even more furious that he was unable to blame this bit of ill luck on his niece. His scapegoat was gone.

  She found Henry and asked if it would be an imposition for him to take her reply to the post office. As it happened, he planned to have supper in a saloon and spend his evening playing poker, so he doubted it would be a problem to depart a little earlier than usual. He should just be able to catch Postmaster Stanislaus before he closed up for the evening.

  Twila watched Henry ride off a short while later, then headed back to the ranch house, surprised to find Del waiting on the porch. "What was that all about?"

  "Henry agreed to mail a letter, since he was heading into town. I didn't think you were planning to go any time soon, and why make a special trip?"

  "You and Henry still cozy, eh?" This was asked with a scowl.

  Twila couldn't believe the implication of that question. Considering what they did together in his big bed…She blushed at the thought. Of what Del did. What she asked him to do. What she did to him, without hesitation or embarrassment. How could he possibly resent her friendly association with any other man?

  Then she remembered that Del had worked late on his books the night before, and she'd been tired. The evening before that Del had spent the whole night in the barn, overseeing one of his mares who'd given birth to a new foal a couple of hours before dawn. Maybe he was grouchy because they hadn't been so intimate recently. She decided to overlook his cross tone.

  "Yes, we're friends. And the whole town is being nicer to me. I owe you gratitude for that, Del. I'm happier than I've ever been. Here," she stressed.

  He pulled her forward, studying her eyes. "You mean that?"

  "Of course I do."

  He scooped her into his arms and began striding for their bedroom. "Reckon we might be a little late for dinner tonight, Mrs. Mitchell."

  "Oh, Del," she laughed, allowing him to deposit her in their room and start undressing her. She never balked when he wanted to get physical. She enjoyed it thoroughly herself. But she kept her eyes closed or her face turned away from his when it was still light in the room. She didn't want him to see how being so naked and honest about lusty desires was also painful for her.

  She'd heard of marriages arranged for the sake of bloodlines or property, or for the sake of noble titles in France or England. This was America. There was nobility here, too, of a different kind. The kind where a man who'd always been known for courting disaster actually married one. Because he'd felt sorry for her.

  Del must never know how she felt, what she yearned for. She was careful to be civil, congenial, and keep her darker emotions to herself. So far it had worked. Things were peaceable and predictable. Nobody noticed a few more tears in a river.

  * * *

  Lucius Bell cautiously glanced around the saloon, scanning the card tables and the dark stairs leading to the tiny cribs where the fallen angels plied their trade. He'd become convinced the two Englishmen from the train were here in Wadsworth. He could have sworn one was following him one day last week as he came back from a delivery.

  Much as his father fought the notion initially, Lucius had convinced Fletcher to invest in a horse and wagon. They often needed to pick up goods in Reno at the train depot. Wadsworth and its outlying farms and homesteads sprawled over a wide area. Not every customer could walk the equivalent of a couple city blocks, as patrons had in Omaha. Here in Nevada, having their own rig allowed them to compete successfully with the dry goods store. So they'd established delivery service for a modest fee.

  Lucius had happily volunteered for delivery duty. Anything was preferable to standing behind a counter all day. Fletcher enjoyed waiting on customers, so the division of work suited them both. The recent break-in had been confusing, and the sheriff had nothing new to report. But then Lucius believed he'd spotted someone who didn't belong in town. A fellow he'd recognized. And he began to wonder.

  Not that it was impossible those English fellows might migrate here from some other locale. He just didn't understand why they'd want to. They'd been headed for Oregon, or maybe the Yukon territory, the way he remembered the conversation on the train. So why would they turn up here, months later? And why would either of them skulk around in his wake?

  He had the uncomfortable suspicion he knew the answer. They might still believe there was a gold mine and a map, even though he'd confessed the tale had been invented purely as a joke. He wasn't laughing now. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he'd actually seen both men. Several times. First in Reno near the depot, then in Wadsworth.

  If they were holed up here in town, a saloon was the logical choice. From what Lucius remembered of them, they dressed well and seemed cultured, educated. But they weren't registered at the tiny hotel near the post office. Lucius had checked, asking the postmaster if he'd seen two gentlemen fitting their descriptions. Stanislaus was pretty much the local busybody and generally knew everything that went on. He hadn't seen them.

  Their delivery service having increased store profits and Twila's departure reducing overhead costs for the household, Fletcher Bell had turned his attention to a certain local widow. He no longer kept such a tight watch on his grown son. Lucius made a point of visiting bawdy houses and drinking establishments. He'd already been to several, including Minerva's, the most infamous of the lot.

  They weren't hiding away in Minerva's.

  But then Lucius spotted one of them at a table far in the back of Jacob's Ladder.

  He might have guessed. They seemed like gents who appreciated a touch of irony. Jacob's was the only house of ill fame which tried to disguise the fact, feigning some nobler purpose. The stairway to depravity was well hidden at Jacob's, and the local jest was that a fellow needed a ladder to get back down to the gaming parlor when he'd completed his other business. Honest women were told the upstairs rooms were for storage and emergency shelter. This was usually proclaimed with a wink.

  Lucius wondered what kind of "shelter" the English fellows were currently obtaining. He paid a strumpet who'd had her eye on him earlier to get some information. She didn't mind a bit curling into his lap and laughing while he pretended to drink and fondle her charms.

  "They've been here a month or so," she murmured into his ear. "Have a couple rooms way up in the back."

  "Girls say anything about them, anything odd?"

  She gave him a suggestive snicker. "There's odd, and then there's unnatural. Which sort do you mean, sugar man?"

  "I've seen those two somewhere before. There was a robbery then. There's been a break-in at my store now. I'm wondering if it's pure coincidence."

  The trollop sat up straight and stared Lucius in the eye. "You saying they're confidence types or thieves, or something? I heard whoever got in didn't even take anything from your emporium."

  "If these men are who I suspect they are, they didn't find what they were looking for. But they haven't left town, which means they could be back. I just want to know, so I can be ready."

  She thought for a minute. "Maybe. They flash a bit of coin now and again. But they don't seem obnoxious about it, you know? A lot of fellas, after hitting big in the gaming hells or striking it rich, come through here and brag. These men are pretty quiet. But they do have unusual tastes."

  "Like what?"

  Her open palm waited. Once Lucius dropped another folded bill into it, she tucked it into her corset and snuggled closer to whisper in his ear. Lucius knew he'd flushed bright red at her description. He'd gone pretty stiff himself, which was even more embarrassing.

  "Well," he choked out, clearing his throat as if casual and unimpressed.

  "We could try that too sometime," she purred, stroking the bulge in his pants. "You obviously like the sound of it. Want a little taste? I'll give you a sample up in my room."

  As much as he wanted to say no, to keep himself focused on the investigation behind the scalawags, Lucius was only human. And actually a goddamned virgin to boot. Looking on
the bright side, he didn't need any more money for drinking and gambling, searching the town. He'd found his quarry.

  So he followed her upstairs, determined to find out at least part of what his quarry knew that he didn't.

  CHAPTER 11

  Twila reviewed the second missive from Hilde Vogel. As Twila had suspected, the girl hadn't realized she'd accidentally swapped their look-alike satchels. She'd tucked what she thought was her brown satchel into the far back of her sleeping berth, and had never seen it again after the robbery. She was very sorry Twila's possessions were gone.

  And beyond relieved to hear that her own were safe in Twila's care.

  She'd be thrilled for Twila to pay them a personal visit, perhaps plan to stay over a night or two. Her grandfather was anxious to play host to Twila and whomever would escort her to Sacramento. Surely someone must—for as they all knew too well, a woman shouldn't risk traveling alone in these dangerous times.

  No, Twila reflected, she couldn't do that.

  First of all, she was sure Del would never permit it. She knew how closely he monitored daily routines at the ranch. He knew each chore assigned; Sandy Thayer, his foreman, seemed to know every time someone went into town. Twila knew Del himself had gone alone to town more than once to confront people like her uncle, and that he surreptitiously watched how people treated her at church or anywhere in the heart of Wadsworth when she was there with him.

  She'd have to tell Del about the necklace and ask him to take her to Sacramento for a few days. Henry had done all he could. She couldn't reasonably ask more of him—like make a personal delivery out of state. And Twila didn't want the foreman or anyone else knowing there'd been a secret she'd shared with Henry Dobbs. It was nothing disgraceful, but she knew only too well how people hereabout talked. A secret between her and one of the wranglers would only provide fodder for more speculation and rumors. She didn't need more of that. Neither did Henry or Del.