Chapter 4

He took the first step, then another, gaining confidence and losing dread as he trotted up the front steps and knocked on the still-closed door. Unlike Wild Rose's, it seemed they were not yet open for the day. That assured him slightly. The madam here didn't seem intent on working her girls all hours.

A porter opened the door, still rubbing sleep from his eyes despite already being dressed in a sharp white uniform that contrasted vividly with his deep ebony skin. He looked at Jason with mild irritation.

"What d'ya want?" he demanded. "We're closed. Not open fo' another two hours."

"I'm sorry," Jason began, "but I was invited here by one of your girls. She's expecting me."

When the man made to close the door in his face, Jason shoved his boot against the jamb, earning himself a dirty glare. "Not for business," he emphasized, adding hastily, "or pleasure. Which is the same here, I guess." He realized he was beginning to ramble from nervousness, so he kept his mouth shut and silently pled with a hopeful expression.

The porter hesitated, and looked over his shoulder at a figure coming down the stairs.

"Samuel, who is it?"

"Some gen'man who wants to see one of the ladies, ma'am."

The door opened wider to reveal a tall and statuesque woman of middling years, though obvious care had been taken to keep the advances of age at bay. The undertaking had been done with taste and restraint, Jason noted appreciatively. No garish powder and rouge to hide the fine wrinkles that had set up house at the corners of eye and mouth, but a subtle application of what smelled to be lotions and oils. He thought he detected the scent of rose water from her artfully arranged hair, a pile of auburn tresses that reminded him of burnished copper.

If she's just come from bed, Jason thought, then she slept standing up.

"I'm Madam Bess," the woman said. "What's this you're asking about? You have a special girl in mind? I can make sure you're the first one she sees today. They're all still asleep. I guarantee my customers well-rested sportin' girls."

After the soft, insinuating invitation to pleasure from the prostitute in the window next door, this woman's brisk manner was refreshing and disconcerting all at once. "No. I mean, yes. I want to see her, but as I was telling Samuel here, it's not for the usual business."

Madam Bess looked at Samuel and gestured for him to leave, which he did with a shrug of his shoulders. She opened the door fully and said, "Come in, Mr….?"

"Jason Nichols."

"Hmm….Nichols. I suspect that you're here about Emma?"

Jason couldn't mask his surprise. "Why yes!" He paused, hesitant about further revealing anything.

"She's a fine girl. One of the best I've ever had work for me. Come along."

She turned and Jason saw that her morning robe, a deep emerald green satin affair, was embroidered with hummingbirds of ruby and silver. It was cinched in tightly at the waist, but her figure revealed no sign of laces or stays. Her walk was slow yet full of grace, and he was not immune to the tantalizing sway of her hips with each step.

"We'll sit in the parlor for a spell while Emma sleeps a bit longer," she said, twirling to face him as she gestured up the stairs with a flick of her wrist and fingers. "She did well last night and earned this place a devoted customer, though I think she might have grabbed that brass ring of finding a swain for herself. He was quite taken with her as soon as he saw her."

Jason found himself speechless at the woman's casual chatter. If she knew who he had come to see, just from learning his name, surely she was aware that such talk would skewer him like a knife.

She led him into a richly furnished parlor off the darkened entry hall. In contrast, the parlor benefited from three large windows that faced the eastern sky, and the gold damask curtains shimmered brilliantly in the light. Jason was suddenly aware of a rug beneath his feet, thicker than most quilted bedcovers, and still clinging to a scent from the factory.

"You haven't been here long, have you?" he asked, taking in the fine wallpaper and paint on the walls, the furniture with nary a rip or worn patch.

"As I am now, only three weeks," was the reply. Madam Bess joined him in a sweeping gaze around the room. "I used to work upstairs several years ago, just like the other girls, but the old madam died of consumption more than a month ago. No family of any kind, and no one here capable of running it, so she left her business to an old veteran friend who had the best head on her shoulders." The satisfied smile that curved her generous mouth made it plain who that most able heir was.

"Emma's been here all that time?"

Madam Bess smiled slightly, almost to herself. "I think I should probably wake her. What I had hoped would be a nice, social chat isn't going to turn out very well, I'm afraid. Your mind is certainly not in this room. Here." She placed a hand over his and gently steered him towards a two-seat sofa. Her slender fingers were bedecked with several rings, but the metal wasn't cold at all. In fact, she was all sorts of comforting warmth; her smile, her coaxing hold, the way she leaned slightly against him as they walked to the other side of the room. Madam she might now be, but her deft touch as one of the second-floor girls was alive and well.

Had it been another day with his mind not so preoccupied by other matters, he would have likely let the older, experienced woman lead him to her private chamber and learned a thing or two himself.

The twinkle in her eyes indicated she knew where his thoughts lay, and those richly jeweled fingers traced a delicate web of confident entrapment along his palm, wrist and arm.

"I—I really can't," he said, shaking his head in slow, regretful refusal.

Madam Bess's hands traveled to lay flat against his chest, her eyes fixed languorously on his mouth. He noticed for the first time that she was a small woman, now that they were in intimate proximity to one another, and it would be of small effort to envelope her in his arms.

"Can't?" she whispered. "Or…won't?"

"Shouldn't." He broke away from her and sat down hurriedly on the two-seater. He found himself trying not to perch awkwardly on the stiff cushion seat. Not only was his groin intensely uncomfortable, but the horsehair, dyed a blood red, was slippery beneath his worn denim trousers. He braced his feet against the rug in an irrational fear that he would slide off onto the floor. Realizing he still wore his hat, he snatched it from his head and laid it across his lap.

"That's right gallant of you, Mr. Nichols," Madam Bess said, turning to the sideboard where several decanters stood among a sea of clean, upended crystal tumblers. "Would you care for something? Brandy? Whiskey? Milk?"

Jason shot her a confused look, and Madam Bess laughed. "Forgive me. I was only teasing. You're no stranger to our little establishments, I'm sure, but there was something about you just now, from this angle, that had me thinking of my little boy Nathan."

Her assured expression crumbled slightly, and vanished with such seamless ease that Jason began to doubt he had even seen it.

"Nathan would be your age now," she finished with a tight compression of her lips in a bid to master whatever emotions threatened beneath. "What a dear, sweet boy he was."

"I'll—I'll have that glass of whiskey," Jason said.

Madam Bess reached for the decanter, the large rings on her fingers clinking against the glass. She poured the amber liquid into a tumbler and replaced the stopper with a flourish that, from his position behind her, Jason thought went oddly close to her eyes. It didn't take him long to conclude that, from the glassy sheen of unshed tears, she had tried to wipe away a tear unseen.

"Here," she said, holding the whiskey out to him. "Enjoy this, and I will let Emma know you're here."

She turned gracefully and left the room, the short train of her satin robe sliding along the carpet behind her like that of a queen. She was one of sorts, Jason knew. Madams ruled their homes in a way that wives never could.

The minutes ticked by on the large wall clock, a fancy confection of deep mahogany and stained glass. His posture grew more tense, and twice he had to lay a hand on his knee to keep it from pedaling an invisible sewing machine. He drained the whiskey and laid uncertain eyes on the decanter, but eventually thought better of it. Bad enough that he would have whiskey on his breath so early in the morning, but he doubted Emma would mind. She had always been generous and trusting, and where had it gotten her?

He strained an ear towards the open door that lay near the stairs Madam Bess had ascended what seemed so long ago. He heard a strange scuffling, but Samuel soon appeared with a bucket and mop.

Jason leaped to his feet, the last shreds of patience completely unraveled. He was halfway to the door when he heard a scurry of footsteps along the hallway above. He raced to the foot of the stairs in time to see Emma round the corner, a slender arm held out to her side as her hand gripped the polished cornerpost.

Before he could say a word, she fluttered down the stairs in a ripple of sea-foam green chiffon and muslin. The last three stairs were forgotten as she leaped into his open arms with a cry that struck his ears as either laughter or weeping.

Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and he swung her down off the stairs, his embrace strong and solid. For what seemed like a long time, they stood there in the corner, their heads resting on each other's shoulders.

"Oh, Jason! Where to begin?" she finally whispered, her head tucked snugly against his neck.

He rubbed her back in comforting strokes and tilted her chin upwards. His eyes met hers, a deep brown that mirrored his own.

"It's alright, Em. Your brother's here."