Prologue
A Sunday in June
Maiden Falls, Colorado, 1895
ROSE ELIZABETH TATE was furious. It had been hours since she’d had that terrible argument with her father, slammed a few articles of clothing and some of her favorite books into a suitcase, spirited herself out through the servants’ quarters of the Tate mansion and boarded the train. Now here she was in Maiden Falls, still shaking with anger. But it was too late to turn back now. All she could do was put one foot in front of the other.
Dragging her heavy suitcase along the wooden sidewalk, Rose stopped for a moment to get her bearings. Maiden Falls didn’t look like much, did it?
“Who cares?” she asked no one in particular. “So the town looks a little seedy. Who cares?”
After all, she was a girl of the nineties and she could chart her own course, without her father’s help or interference. Or anyone else’s! And that included that cad, Edmund Mulgrew. Edmund might’ve stolen her virtue, but he could never kill her spirit.
“Stolen my virtue,” she said self-righteously, poking into her pocket for her wire-rimmed spectacles so that at least she could see where she was going. “Poppycock! I’m still plenty virtuous.”
As Rose began her search for a carriage to take her away from the dilapidated shack Maiden Falls called a train station, one of the ostrich plumes on her darling new hat drooped right in front of her eyeglasses. She suddenly realized that this might be the last new hat she’d have for some time.
“I’ll be fine,” she said bravely, ripping the feather off completely. “Fine! Once I’m working for Miss Arlotta, grateful men will be vying for my favors, competing against each other to give me every little thing my heart desires. Why, I’ll have a thousand beautiful hats.”
Mentioning the notorious Miss Arlotta earned her a strange look from a nasty man with a large mustache, but Rose ignored him. If she was really going to be a soiled dove, then she’d have to get used to disapproval, wouldn’t she?
She peered at the man with the mustache. He certainly wasn’t anyone important. Who cared what he thought, anyway?
After all, Father had already told her in no uncertain terms that she was ruined. So she would embrace that ruination, marching into her future as a fallen maiden with her head held high. “After Edmund, what other choice do I have?”
Edmund. It was galling to admit that her father had been right all along about him. But it wasn’t her fault. How was she supposed to know she couldn’t trust his sweet words and even sweeter kisses? How was she supposed to know that enjoying those kisses was wrong when it felt so right?
How was she supposed to know that a man who made you swoon might still not be a good man? Just very good at making you swoon.
She’d honestly never guessed it would be like that, and she had read every “sensation” novel written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and every dime novel by Laura Jean Libbey. They were wonderful books, full of passion and adventure and romance, but they told you straight out that the kisses of a bad man would taste like poison. As Rose now knew, that was a lie. Edmund’s heart might be black, but his kisses were…wonderful.
“It’s all Father’s fault,” she maintained. “If he’d only let me see Edmund in the clear light of day, I’d never have fallen for all the lies. I’d never have fallen under his spell. I’d never have…”
Fallen. Not that it made any difference at this point. Those few tempestuous liaisons had ruined her reputation. Now that both her father and her lover had washed their hands of her, she had two choices—to become a strumpet out in the open or the equivalent of a nun, cloistered in her father’s mansion, forcibly denied any contact with sinful books, diverting entertainments or interesting men.
She’d made up her mind today, after that last argument with her father. She’d decided to become a strumpet.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said brightly to the man with the nasty mustache, who was still hovering at her elbow. “Is there any sort of carriage I can hire to take me to Miss Arlotta’s establishment?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, narrowly missing her shiny patent leather boot as he shot a stream of tobacco out the side of his mouth. “You want to git to Miss Arlotty’s? What fer?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern. I simply…” She brought down her chin a notch. “Are there any carriages around here or not?”
“Not. Everybody here walks on the two feet God gave ’em. Unless they got a horse. Which I ain’t and you don’t.” With an unpleasant expression twisting his features, he ambled off, leaving Rose alone in the dust. But she jumped and almost fell off the boardwalk when a scruffy boy popped up behind her.
“Miss Arlotta’s is that way,” he offered shyly, crooking his dirty thumb toward the end of the street. “All the way to the edge of town.”
“Thank you,” Rose said politely. “I don’t suppose I could offer you a penny to carry my bag, could I? It’s very heavy.”
He ducked his head. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I ain’t allowed to go by Miss Arlotta’s. My ma says all the ladies there is painted. And dirty. Like the Queen of Sheba. And I ain’t to look at them, not even when they parade through town, all fancied-up, headed for their Sunday picnic down by the Falls. Ma says we should look the other way, just so they’re clear how much we don’t like ’em.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked.
“If you’re here next Sunday, you’ll see,” he said hastily. “They already done it today, but I reckon they’ll go again next Sunday right about noontime. But remember, if you see ’em, keep your head down and sneer.” After that last bizarre warning, the boy ran off.
“Keep my head down and sneer. I don’t think so.” Rose lifted her bulky suitcase in both hands and headed in the direction he’d indicated. “Who cares what that child’s mother thinks of the ladies at Miss Arlotta’s? She probably resents them for having nice clothes and jewels, and for all the fun they’re having!”
She was dusty and tired by the time she’d finally dragged her bag to the edge of town, but her spirit was unbowed. Her mood improved considerably when the dirt and dust gave way to a green, grassy lawn enclosed by a high, wrought-iron fence. A wooden sign, flapping against the fence, read Miss Arlotta’s Social Club.
Why, the house was positively lovely. It wasn’t just the delicate gingerbread wrapped around the big house’s Queen Anne curves or the pretty turret or the porch flanking the entire roof. No, what impressed her the most was that the house was pink. Pink! How very cheery.
As she let herself in through the gate and marched up the stairs to the front door, ready to grasp the shiny brass knocker, Rose took a deep breath. She didn’t want to faint dead away on the steps of a bawdy house, but she was definitely feeling skittish with nerves and excitement. She was determined to embrace this new, wicked life, and there was no turning back now. As she raised her hand to the knocker, the door suddenly swung open from inside. A large man wearing a bowler hat appeared in the opening.
“Hullo, ma’am,” he said gruffly. “Guess you’re lookin’ for work.”
“Why,
