late.”
The words had barely slid off her tongue when she broke into a fit of coughs.
Beau pressed a white cloth against her mouth, afraid each cough wrenching through her fragile body would tear her flesh from the bone. After the bout ceased, Beau pulled back the cloth now filled with the red stain of blood.
Blood from her damaged lungs.
Another moment passed in utter silence.
Beau’s heart pounded so hard with anguish for her, for what she’d become, he thought he might choke from it. Now that the stage was no longer a viable prospect, Jane Goodwin had chosen to earn her money in the most hideous way imaginable. It hurt to see how far she’d fallen.
A shudder racked through him. If only she would accept God’s grace and Beau’s charity.
“Dear, sweet Beau.” Jane turned her head and blinked her dazed, drugged eyes up at him. “My sins are too many to wash clean now. Why else would I be here?”
She waved her hand in a gesture that seemed to say, Look where we are.
The heartsick tone of her voice took him aback. Beau glanced around the tiny room decorated purposely for sin. In the bright light of day, beneath the expensive silk and satin, hung a shabbiness that spoke of the years of hard, ugly work that had acquired the worldly trappings. And yet the room had a sad, unkempt feel. Once brilliant, now forgotten.
Just like this woman.
Just like the rest who shared residence in this…house.
Too many for one man to help.
He closed his eyes, once again praying for wisdom. A small, still voice inside said, One at a time, Beau. Start with this one.
All right. Yes.
Beau asked God for the words to convince her to leave, but behind his confident demeanor he was soul-sick with the hollow feeling of defeat. “Miss Jane, please reconsider my offer. The sanatorium is only a day’s train ride away.”
He tried to capture her stare, but her gaze darted around, eventually locking on to his left shoulder. “I…No, it’s impossible.”
He reached out and cupped her hand in his, staring fiercely into her eyes. “All things are possible through Christ.”
“Not for my kind.” Her voice was uneven, shaky, the underlying disgust at herself no longer hidden behind false bravado.
She’d given up then, resigned herself to die thinking she’d turned so far away from God that she could never find her way back, had convinced herself she deserved this sort of hell on earth.
“God forgives all sins, even the seemingly unforgivable ones.” He spoke with the conviction of his heart. “You need only to ask.”
“You don’t understand.” Jane tugged her hand free, the sharp gesture at odds with her infirmity. She struggled to speak, her lips moving frantically while words seeped out in a soft wispy whoosh. “I have a daughter.”
Beau studied Jane’s vulnerable expression with mingled pity and horror. He hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized. But he should have. He’d seen it often enough. The unbearable chain of sin continuing from one generation to another. “She is here? Living in the brothel?”
“Megan is at Charity House. If I leave, if I don’t work, I cannot continue to pay her board.”
Charity House. Of course. Beau knew all about the special home where children born to women of ill repute were welcomed without question. Marc and Laney Dupree, the owners, never turned a child away. No matter the financial circumstances. Jane was worrying over something that would not be a problem, ever.
“But if you don’t leave, you will make your daughter an orphan. How is that any better?”
Another fit of coughing was her only response.
Beau shut his eyes for a moment. He must not quit on Jane. He must not. God had called him to minister to the ones with no more dignity, no identity, no…hope.
He knew firsthand what it meant to be an outcast, never fitting in the world around him. Although he adored his family, without their passion for acting, the constant years of traveling from stage to stage had left him feeling alone and separate from the rest of his siblings. Even in seminary his modern ideas of preaching and evangelizing had never truly meshed with the more traditional views of his professors.
He had yet to find his place in the world. Thus, he traveled from mining camp to saloon to brothel, ministering to the outcasts of this world. Outcasts such as women like Jane.
But soon, if the vote went his way, he would have his own church in Greeley, Colorado. It would be a place where he could put down roots and begin a normal family with a traditional wife by his side. Her soft, compassionate nature would temper his overly bold, often impudent personality. He hadn’t found her yet, but he would and then his days of traveling across the territory and ministering to the forgotten would come to an end.
Well, not completely.
All would be welcomed in his new congregation. No matter their past sins or current ones. His church would be a safe haven for the lost. For the—
The door flung open with a bang. In swept a whirlwind of angry female and bad attitude. “Beauregard O’Toole, you know your kind isn’t welcome in this establishment. To think. A minister, here, in my brothel.” Her voice was incredulous. “It’s just plain bad for business.”
Beau rose and turned to face the new occupant of the room. With her outrageously buxom figure, unnaturally blond hair and overly painted face, Mattie Silks looked far older than her reported twenty-nine years of age.
She took two steps into the room, and then relaxed into a pose that spoke as much of her profession as her vanity.
Notorious. Legendary. With her own unique flair for the dramatic. Even without formal training, she could hold her own against any stage actress Beau knew. His lips pulled into a wry grin. Clearly, the woman had missed her calling.
Nevertheless…
If there was one thing his childhood had taught him, it was how to appease a dramatic woman in a fit of theatrics.
“Now, Miss Silks.” He gave the surly madam a smile so filled with O’Toole charm that even his rogue brother, Tyler, would envy the result. “I am only here to visit my mother’s dear friend.”
“No.” She switched poses, thrusting out one hip and slamming her fist onto the other. “You are here to talk my best girls into leaving.”
Perhaps. But if Beau didn’t try, who would? The Bible had taught him to look past the outer wrapping of a person and see into their heart. Well, Beau had done that sort of looking in the past weeks he’d held vigil by Jane’s bedside. Not a single “girl” in Mattie Silks’s employ wanted to be in the notorious madam’s…well, employ. Not even one.
But without a concrete alternative, most had no other means of supporting themselves.
Beau considered the situation to be an opportunity straight
