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“Thank you.”
She told herself she wasn’t saddened by that news because it was exactly what she needed to hear to put herself back on an even keel, but inside, she knew it was a lie. Taking him in all his fancy glory, she imagined what it might be like to be the one he was escorting to the opera house, even though she knew how foolish the thought was. “You don’t want to be late.”
“I’ll see you when I return.”
“Have a good time.”
“What is this about you finding a Colored woman out in the desert?” Beatrice Greer asked Rhine as they sat at the table in the grand dining room of the Greer mansion.
He waited for the Chinese maid to set down his plate and leave the room before replying. “She’d succumbed to the heat, so Jim and I brought her to town and left her in Sylvie Stewart’s care.”
“Has she recovered?” her husband Lyman asked. Like Rhine, Lyman Greer was on the town council and an influential member of the city’s Republican party.
“Not yet, but I’m pretty sure Sylvie will get her back on her feet.” And knowing what he did of Eddy, he was certain it wouldn’t take long. Rhine had plans to travel to San Francisco the next day and he thought the trip would give him the distance he needed to get the determined little lady off his mind.
The next question came from Natalie. “Why on earth was she out there?”
“Apparently she was on her way to California, and the cad she was riding with robbed her, forced her out of the wagon, and drove away.”
“She’s not a whore, is she?”
Rhine stiffened. Natalie’s disapproving tone was mirrored on her face. When he proposed to her six weeks ago, he’d told himself marrying the twenty-year-old, blue-eyed brunette beauty would give him the legitimacy he wanted for the life he’d planned, but the more he was around her, the more her true self came to the fore, and the more he questioned their compatibility. “She said she’s a cook.”
“I hope she’s not lying. More whores is the last thing Virginia City needs.”
Her mother glanced up from her plate and said pointedly, “Natalie, let’s change the subject, shall we?”
“I’m only stating the truth, Mother.”
“But it isn’t something good women discuss, dear.”
The 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode with its rich veins of gold and silver brought miners to Virginia City from all over the world, and where there were miners there were whores. Eddy was a lot of things: fiery, stubborn, and hardheaded to a fault, but whore? No.
Rhine was glad when Lyman changed the subject by asking his wife, “Now, who are we going to see this evening again?”
“A singer named Herbert Gould.”
This was not the first time Beatrice had subjected them to one of her singing finds. Rhine just hoped he could sit through the performance without his ears bleeding.
Entering the opera house, Rhine saw that the auditorium was crowded as usual. All the well-to-do in the area were in attendance: mine owners, local politicians, and businessmen were accompanying their wives to their high-priced seats. Piper’s Opera House could accommodate an audience of fifteen hundred. It was one of the most esteemed venues in the nation and built its reputation by showcasing everything from Shakespearean acting troops to world renowned singers. Infamous actor John Wilkes Booth appeared in the play Apostate only a month before assassinating President Lincoln. Mark Twain lectured from its stage in 1866. A deadly real life drama took place in 1871 when a vigilante mob muscled a murderer out of the town jail and hung him from the stage rafters. Rhine doubted tonight’s offering would be that exciting.
He was correct. The singer he’d been planning to guard his ears against turned out to be a thin, mustached man reciting poems by Lord Byron. His high-pitched, nasal-toned voice and overly dramatic presentation resulted in many of the men in the audience quietly excusing themselves from their wives and making a beeline for the smoking room in the back of the theater. Rhine and Lyman Greer joined the exodus.
On the ride home, Lyman Greer said to his wife, “I thought he was supposed to be a singer.”
“He is. He’s all the rage back East but he has a case of the sniffles and didn’t want to risk his voice.”
“Men don’t get the sniffles, Beatrice,” he informed her drolly.
Rhine held onto his smile.
Natalie added in a petulant voice, “And I found it incredibly rude that you and Rhine left us, Father.”
“We didn’t want to catch the sniffles.”
Finding that to be a perfect response, Rhine drove on.
When they reached the Greer home, Lyman and Beatrice thanked him and went inside but Natalie lingered. “So, how long will you be in San Francisco?” she asked.
