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“The Baptist church is having an ice cream social Sunday afternoon,” he said. “I’d love to escort you.”
“Sunday is my busiest day here. I can’t get away. Maybe some other time.”
He looked disappointed. “Okay, but I plan to call on you soon. Wanted you to get used to me being around first.”
“I’d like that.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“I will.” Eddy climbed the steps to the porch and went inside still wondering what his secret would turn out to be.
“So, how are you and Zeke getting along?” Sylvia asked after coming home and finding Eddy in the kitchen peeling the oranges she’d purchased that morning.
Sylvie took a seat at the table.
“He’s a nice man. We haven’t spent much time together but I enjoy his company. He asked me to the church ice cream social on Sunday but I had to decline.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s quite all right. My duties here come first. That’s why you pay me.”
“And Rhine Fontaine?”
Eddy paused. “What about him?”
“It was hard not to notice him standing over you the way he did.”
“True, and I took him to task about it. He seems intent upon—I’m not sure what.” Eddy didn’t want to confess how she and Rhine had been dancing around each other, for fear of how Sylvia might respond. “Is he known for dallying with women outside his race?”
“Not to my knowledge, which is why I found his actions so surprising.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Other than the fact that he’s rich as King Midas and is a kind man, not very much. He came to Virginia City a few years after the war. Not sure how he made his fortune though.”
“You were here then, correct?” Eddy got out the grater and began working on the now peeled oranges.
“I was. My late husband Freddy and I arrived just after the first big Comstock strike in ’fifty-nine. Freddy worked in the mines and I did a bit of nursing and minded the tent that served as a boardinghouse.”
“Mr.Rossetti said his first store was a tent, too.”
“The entire city grew from tents—the banks, the stores, the saloons. After I lost Freddy in a mine accident, I took some of the money he’d left me and began buying property. I originally owned the Union Saloon. It was much smaller back then of course.”
Eddy remembered Rhine mentioning that fact, but she was saddened to learn that Sylvia had lost her husband in the mines.
“Once the city began growing by leaps and bounds, I decided I didn’t want to be a saloon owner dealing with drunk miners anymore and put the place up for sale in ’sixty-eight. Rhine bought it. Paid me in gold and stocks. Between Freddy’s estate, Rhine’s gold and the stocks, I’m pretty well set for a Colored woman.”
Eddy wanted to ask about her and Doc Randolph but decided not to. In truth, she was more interested in Rhine. “So does he own other places?”
“Yes, he’s funded many of the Colored businesses and owns a number of other property, too, like Lady Ruby’s Palace.”
“He owns her whorehouse?”
“And the plot that will soon anchor the Baptist church. Right now the congregation meets on the open land while they raise the money for the church to be built. He’s a good man. He’s done more for our community and its people than all the other Whites here combined.”
Eddy thought on that for a moment. “Is he well-liked by his own people?”
“He is, although they whisper about him because of his Union clientele, but they don’t turn down the money he gives to their charities, and he’s invited to all the fancy balls and social events. Even if they don’t like who he associates with, they like his money and influence. Now that he and Natalie are no longer engaged, he’s going to be overrun with invites from mothers with eligible daughters. He’ll be quite a catch.”
