Page 108 of The Widow and the Wanted

He lifts his chin, peering down at me a moment. “At present?” he says. “To enjoy your company before some other fool in camp realizes he ought to compete for it.”

“And after that?”

“I find long-term intentions are best revealed slowly.”

Before I can answer, he lifts my hand from his sleeve and bows over my glove, his mustache brushing softly across my knuckles as he presses a kiss there.

I hold my face steady, resisting the deeply inconvenient realization that my mother’s company man was not an outwardly ugly creature.

His smile lifts as though he has seen me notice.

“Until tomorrow, Miss Eld.”

“Good evening, Mr. Everett.”

I turn before he can watch me watching him and step through the batwing doors into the Gemini’s heat and noise.

Inside, the room swells around me—poker chips clattering, glasses clinking, the melodic voices of the Gemini’s women earning their pay.

Pearl catches my eye from beside the bar and tilts her head toward the curtained hall.

Upstairs, then.

I slip past the tables and through the velvet curtain. Halfway down the hall, Mother’s voice carries from the blue parlor.

“I said six crates, and I meant six. If your boys miscounted, that is a problem for you. My end is my end.”

A man answers in a voice like gravel dragged over iron. “Ain’t my boys miscounted.”

I pause beside the door.

“It is a hard thing,” Mother says, “for a man to accuse me of lying in my own house.”

I edge closer and the floorboard groans beneath my boot.

Mother looks over, then raises her glass. “I wondered if Mr. Everett had swept you off entirely.”

The man turns, looking me over. He nods once. “Ma’am.”

“Good evening,” I say.

“Bill, this is my daughter. Mae.”

“Could be your twin,” he says.

My back teeth click together and I straighten. “So I have been told.” I address Mother. “I’ve returned. I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting.”

She holds my gaze, assessing me through cigar smoke before nodding her approval. “You can update me at breakfast.”

“At breakfast then,” I say, unable to dismiss myself fast enough. I leave Mother’s blue parlor with the taste of smoke sitting bitter at the back of my throat. The hallway feels warmer than before, close with perfume and the muffled roar of the gambling floor below. I ought to go to my room.

I turn down the hall, finding the Aces Suite, the door bearing its name in gold letters beneath the gas sconce. A room for high rollers to stay late into the morning hours making their wagers, no doubt. Voices drift through.

“You’re moving it.”

“Ain’t movin’ nothin’. That’s a haint.”

I push open the suite door without knocking.