Lee Karr - A Twist In Time

Della wanted to sit down. Her legs felt too weak to hold her. Her knees threatened to buckle at any moment.

Maude waddled across the room and opened a door leading to a back hall. “Your room is past the kitchen, second door. The cook and housemaid have the other two rooms. I haven’t moved Vinetta’s things. We just buried her a week ago. You’ll find things just as she left them.”

Della’s stomach took a sickening plunge. She didn’t want to have anything to do with a dead woman’s room, didn’t want to be surrounded by Vinetta’s personal belongings. She sent an anxious look at Colin, pleading with her eyes for him to say something.

“The back wing of the house is off limits to males,” Maude snapped, having apparently intercepted the look they’d exchanged. “No danger of any of our gentlemen guests mistaking you for one of our ‘boarders.’ Not that you’d have to worry,” she added quickly as she gave Della’s slenderness a frank dismissal. “No man wants just a bag of bones in bed with him.”

Della was too dumbfound to respond, but Maude went on as if she was used to people holding their tongue in her presence. “You can make use of anything that’s in Vinnie’s room. She didn’t have much. Sent most of her earnings back to Chicago.” Maude pursed her broad red lips. “Told her she was a fool. You got family, Della?”

“No.” What would her sensible Aunt Frances have made of all of this?

“Nobody?” the madam demanded in a doubtful tone. “Your parents?”

Della swallowed back They were killed in an automobile accident. “They’ve passed away.”

“Anybody else? Brothers…sisters?”

“My sister died a couple of years ago. And the aunt who raised me passed away last summer.” She moistened her lips. “I’m alone.”

Maude nodded, looking satisfied. Obviously she liked her employees unattached, thought Della. She had goose bumps just thinking about working for this woman. No, she couldn’t do it. The whole idea of keeping track of johns and tricks turned her stomach.

Colin sent her another warning look. Stay calm. Don’t panic.

She drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. All right, she’d keep her promise to play along. Taking orders from this hard-nosed businesswoman would not be easy. She’d have to watch herself. How long would she be able to pretend to be something that she wasn’t? A subservient attitude was not part of her makeup.

Maude spent five minutes warning her about checking invoices and bills. “Damn grocers will cheat you at every turn. Charge you double if they get the chance. Check everything. You foul up…and it comes out of your wages.”

Della bit back a sharp retort and glanced at Colin. He was standing rigidly in front of Maude’s desk staring down at a newspaper. He pointed to a headline. “City Councilman Delaney Buying Market Street Property,” he read aloud.

“Your—” His pointed glare stopped her from saying “great-grandfather.”

Maude took the newspaper out of his hand. She snorted when she saw what he had been reading. “Shawn Delaney. Damn politician. Trying to get his hands on every business on the Row. Made a ridiculous offer for my place. I dealt with the likes of him in Chicago. Mob bosses, we called ’em, trying to move in.”

Colin’s expression was as dark as a mine pit. “Is that what he’s trying to do…move in?”

“Hell, yes,” she swore. “But he’ll find out soon enough that we know how to deal with his kind. More than one of them politicians have learned the hard way not to mess with people’s livelihoods.”

Colin’s great-grandfather had been killed on Market Street…on the doorstep of this very house. There had been no record of who had buried a knife in Shawn Delaney’s back. Della’s stomach tightened with apprehension. If the freak time warp continued, Colin might be on the spot to find out exactly who had murdered his great-grandfather. Did his dark brooding expression mean that he was thinking the same thing?

Maude eased her bulk into a huge chair behind her desk. “Now listen up, Colin. Tomorrow night, I want you walking around and keeping your eyes open. I want you to stop any fracas before it gets started. The girls get a cut on the drinks, so we don’t mind customers getting drunk as long as they don’t try to tear up the place. It’ll be your job to get a boozer out the front door before he causes any trouble.” She gave Colin’s strong Celtic features and muscular frame the once-over. She pursed her thick lips. “I don’t put up with anyone hassling my girls. And that means you, too. Got it?”

He nodded.

“Report to me in the morning. There’s produce to be picked up and furniture to be moved for the night’s entertainment.” She went on listing all the jobs she expected him to do that ran the gamut from daytime handyman and deliveryman, to nighttime bouncer and bartender.

“For a dollar a day?” He asked in disbelief.

“You want the job or not?”

Della watched the cords in Colin’s neck tighten. Being subservient was not in his nature, either. How long would he last under Maude’s callused thumb?

“I’ll take the job…for now.”

“Good.” Maude’s smile showed her satisfaction. “Gertrude Katz runs the boardinghouse next door. Tell Trudie to give you a room. Most people on Market Street do my bidding…police included. They don’t call me Queenie for nothing.”

“I can see that,” said Colin with an edge of sarcasm to his tone.

Maude didn’t seem to notice. “As for you, Della, you’d better get yourself some sleep and act lively tomorrow. The girls haven’t been paid for nearly a week. Usually, each night’s receipts is figured and pay envelopes slipped under their doors the next morning. Got it? I expect you to get the books in shape in quick order. I’ve got bills to settle. We’ll go over everything in the morning.”

Della clasped her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her flesh. She welcomed the pain. It was real. More real than anything in the room.

Maude lifted her ponderous body to her feet. “Have to keep a check on my guests. I keep a short rein on my boarders…and my help.” She added the last with a pointed look at Colin. “Remember, no men beyond this room. If you’re thinking about putting your shoes under her bed, you’ve got the wrong floor. I never allow pleasure to be mixed with business. Better hie yourself over to Trudie’s and get a room.”

“I will…in a minute,” Colin answered firmly. “I have a few things I want to say to Della.”

Something in his tone made Maude’s hard eyes swing from him to Della and back again. The bridge of her nose narrowed and her ugly nostrils flared. “Keep the rules or out you both go. Nobody plays free and easy with me. You try and fox me and you’ll be like a dog with his tail cut off behind his ears. Five minutes and then you git!”

With a swish of her taffeta skirt and hidden petticoats, the madam rolled out of the room like a frigate and disappeared down the hall. They could hear her raised voice ordering more food trays from the kitchen.

Colin turned to Della. “Are you all right?”

Her answer was a shudder that racked her slender body. He reached out and drew her against his solid chest. With a sob, she melted against him. He could feel her pulse beating wildly, and through the layers of clothing, the supple curves and lines of her body brought a fierce heat radiating through him. “It’s going to be all right, I promise,” he said in a husky voice.

“How could this have happened?” Hot tears spilled from her eyes. “What are we going to do?”

He touched her wet cheek. His embrace tightened. He had to get her out of this. He stroked her soft hair and allowed himself a fleeting fantasy of claiming every inch of her utterly feminine body. Then he gave himself a curt rebuke. Della Arnell wasn’t for the likes of him. Look what had happened because he had brought her into his life. It didn’t matter what happened to him, but he had to protect her at all costs. “The way things are set up we’ve got a good cover for as long as we want.”