Read Online Midnight Star by Catherine Coulter - Free Book Online Page B

masks—Papa insisted.”
    Delaney nearly spilled his tea. Masks! How could the girl and her mother be so ill-informed? Mr. Stevenson wanted everyone in San Francisco to attend his wife’s ball, and that would necessarily mean that many of the ladies who would grace the function weren’t ladies at all, but the men’s mistresses. But Mrs. Stevenson did know, he silently amended to himself, watching the older woman shift uncomfortably in her chair as her daughter gibbered on. Anything, he thought, to fill the Stevensons’ ballroom.
    At last Delaney heard the Stevensons’ carriage pull up in front of the house. He did not call for Lucas, but saw the ladies out himself. He returned Penelope’s exuberant wave, walked back into the house, and made for the kitchen. The door was partially open, and he paused a moment at the sound of Lin Chou’s giggle.
    “I tell you, Lin,” Lucas was saying to the slight Chinese girl, “the old behemoth couldn’t say a word about the rice cakes. Mr. Saxton spiked her guns again, having her admit how marvelous they were before she took a bite.”
    Delaney could picture Lin nodding her head ina quick birdlike movement. “Rice cakes are very delicacy, Lucas. Are you certain you not try another one?”
    Delaney heard her laugh sweetly again, a sound he would not have heard from that of the silent, terrified girl he had rescued six months earlier from a filthy crib on Washington Street. He had bought her, as a matter of fact, at an auction. He had no idea if she had already been prostituted on her voyage from China. And of course he couldn’t ask her. It would result in a loss of face that she could not endure. Thank God, Lucas had taken her under his mighty wing. Delaney grinned, remembering the gibe from Sam Brannan about Delaney taking in outcasts. “A chink whore and a one-legged pirate, Del! Jesus, man, don’t you fear waking up with your throat cut? Or contracting some vile disease to rot off your privates?”
    Delaney turned away from the kitchen and made his way to the library, his favorite room, built exactly to his specifications. It was a smaller model of the Duke of Graffton’s library in London, replete with heavy dark leather furniture and three walls lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases. A thick red Aubusson carpet made the room less austere. It made it elegant. He tried for a moment to picture Penelope in this room and failed utterly.
    For God’s sake, man, he told himself silently, you’re twenty-eight years old! You’ve got to marry someone, and Lord knows there are slim pickings in San Francisco. It occurred to him as he sat down behind his massive desk that if he did marry Penelope he would not give up MarieDuchamps, his French mistress. He spent several moments in vivid imagery of Marie, soft, beautifully white, lying naked on her bed, her arms open to receive him, her dark eyes dreamy with anticipation. She was faithful to him, at least he hoped she was, for the last thing he wanted was to contract the pox. He could already see her petulantly tossing her thick black mane of hair when he told her he could not take her to the Stevensons’ ball. He shrugged, thinking he would have one of his employees escort her. Jarvis he could trust. Jarvis didn’t like women.
    He pulled out his stationery, dismissed both Marie and Penelope from his mind, and bent to the task of writing to Paul Montgomery in London.

6
Aboard the Eastern Light, 1853
    It was an overcast day, chill and damp, but Chauncey was too excited to notice the weather. She stepped off the sidewalk onto the wide street, a bright smile on her face for an old woman who was selling apples on the corner. Suddenly she was alone on that street in Plymouth, watching a carriage race toward her, its high wheels bouncing on the sharp cobblestones. What is the fool doing! She saw the driver vividly, his face swathed in a black handkerchief, an old felt hat pulled over his forehead. She heard his hoarse voice yelling