"You got me there."
Jazi giggled and reached for a powder puff.
"You can call me Maisy."
"Maisy?" the child repeated uncertainly, the powder puff pausing half way to her nose. "You sure?"
"Uh-huh."
Jazi shrugged, making space so Sadie could fit on the bench beside her. "Mais well." Now she really did sound like Wilma. "Freckles are the worst, aren't they?" She was gazing wistfully at her reflection again. "Mama doesn't have freckles," she confided. "Not a single one! So she doesn't know how to hide them."
Removing the hat shadowing her face, Sadie let Jazi gaze fully at her complexion. "Now why would you want to hide something that makes you so beautiful?"
Jazi's mouth formed a perfect "O" as she craned back her head to stare at the pesky red dots on Sadie's nose. Naturally, the beaver hat slipped, plunking down to block her view.
"Hey!" She shoved the beaver back to her brow, leaving powdery fingerprints on the fur.
To her amazement, Sadie realized she didn't care about her soiled hat. She wasn't sure why, since her headgear and ruined gown had cost a small fortune, and she had to justify the purchase of every new gewgaw to Pinkerton.
Maybe the part of her that mourned her drowned twin, Maisy, liked the idea of playing dress-up with Jazi.
Or maybe a desperate, lonely side of her wanted to relive the innocence she'd lost after Daddy had been lynched as a Yankee spy.
Of course, Sadie hadn't known about Roarke Michelson's secret work as a Pinkerton at the time. Back in '68, all she'd known was that she and Mama had become pariahs in a very small town. Tossed into the gutter—presumably for lack of coin—13-year-old Sadie had tried to find lodging for her bereaved mother. Trudging the streets during a torrential rain, she'd been rejected at boardinghouse after boardinghouse, until she'd plowed headlong into Pilot Grove's new marshal.
The tin-star had seemed like a friend, despite his northern sympathies. He'd offered her and Mama shelter in his hayloft, mainly because he'd liked the sight of Sadie's shivering curves beneath her sodden gown.
But the grunting pig had soon grown bored with humping a child who hadn't known the first thing about pleasing a man. Within the week, he'd abandoned Sadie and her grief-shattered mother on a brothel doorstep. Two days later, unable to face the shame, Mama had thrown herself out a third-story window.
Sadie hardened her jaw at the memory.
Now as she sat looking at the freckle-faced innocent sitting beside her, a child who'd been borne to a whore, and who'd probably wind up becoming a whore, Sadie's inner Tigress roared. She wanted to protect this impish cub from the desperate life prostitutes were forced to live. She couldn't help but wonder if the gris-gris Wilma had fashioned for Jazi was to keep away men who preyed on children for sex.
As if on cue, a light bloomed overhead, and the wooden stairs shuddered, sloughing off dust. Sadie spied the curly dark hair of Wilma as the brothel's proprietess descended, holding her lantern overhead and illuminating the sweating limestone of the cave's walls.
"Boo! Where you at? What did I tell you happens to petite gagas, eh?"
Jazi squirmed at Wilma's scolding.
A rapid-fire discussion ensued. Thanks to Sadie's study of arias written by Bizet, Offenbach, and Berlioz, she was able to follow bits and pieces of the argument. But Cajun French, as it turned out, was virtually unrecognizable as a by-product of the European language that Sadie's music tutor had taught her.
"Allons!" Wilma ordered in a tone that would not be disobeyed.
A sheepish Jazi hastily shed Sadie's clothes, kicking off the slippers and thrusting the hat into her hands.
Wilma was tapping her toe under the scandalously high slit of her tangerine taffeta. "And the gewgaws. Or you'll be making do-do without supper."
Sadie hid her smile. To make do-do was a term she did understand. In Cajun, it meant to go to sleep.
Sulking, Jazi surrendered the pearl necklace, a matching bracelet, and (to Sadie's amusement) a red satin garter. Then she scampered up the stairs in her own faded, thrice-turned calico, ducking Wilma's lantern and fleeing for the upper stories.
Affection crept across the Mambo's exotic features as she watched Jazi's petticoats flounce out of sight. "Even a house as fancy as this one is no place for the chirens," Wilma said wistfully. "I told Mira to leave Jazi with the nuns. But she dotes on the child. Wouldn't hear of being separated."
"And Mira would be—?"
"A protégé. She arrived yesterday afternoon. Between the tourists, the convalescents, and the Farmers Alliance, the hotels have no vacancy. I could not turn her away. Not with a sick child."
Sadie frowned. "Jazi looked healthy to me."
"And yet her cough lingers. From a bout with swamp fever last spring. She does not yet have the stamina to run and play, like other children. I fear her lungs are scarred. But she makes up for it in other ways. Jazi is wiser than her years. She has the sight."
"That would explain how she bypassed the lock," Sadie said dryly.
"Ca va. I shall speak to her. Boo understands the importance of secrets. You need not worry. Mira won't be staying here for long.
"Now then, chere." Wilma's cagey brown eyes locked with hers. "Why are you here? Were you not planning a seduction tonight?"
Sadie grimaced. Admitting Cass had foiled her plans would only prove to Rex and Wilma that she couldn't handle her ex-lover. Sadie didn't need that headache.
"Change of plans," she answered breezily.
"Oh?"
Wilma crossed the uneven limestone in a graceful strut, one which Sadie knew took hours to master, even though Wilma made it look as natural as breathing. When the Cajun finally halted beside the vanity, she arched a finely brushed eyebrow at Sadie's reflection. "Did you lose something?"
Sadie's neck heated at the reminder. Wrenching open the top drawer, she displayed her tiny, leather pouch of reeking herbs. "I... uh, just took off the gris-gris. There it is. See? Evil Spirits don't stand a chance around me."
"You are a pitiful liar."
"Wilma, be reasonable. I can't seduce Baron smelling like garlic!"
"Rosemary," she retorted testily. "And unless your snake senator has started rutting with bearded grangers, you've been nowhere near his bed tonight. You know the rules of my house. Put on the gris-gris, or it's back to the hotel with you."
Sadie scowled, draping the leather cord over her head. "What I need is a gris-gris full of echinacea," she grumbled. "And maybe some chamomile. That way, I'll have the ingredients of a nice tea to ward off a cold."
"You bear a death mark. How can you jest?"
"Humor keeps me sane."
The truth was, Sadie had damned near peed her pants the night she'd fled Galveston and arrived in Lampasas. Wilma had greeted her at the boardinghouse door with a shriek, lots of arcane gestures, and entreaties to Loa Eshu to protect her and the girls in her care. Apparently, Wilma had glimpsed the personification of Asrael, the Angel of Death, peering over Sadie's shoulder.
"Can we change the topic to something else?" Sadie said irritably. "Anything else?"
"Oui." Wilma propped her derriere on the vanity top. "How goes the battle for the button?"
Sadie shot her friend an exasperated look. "Any topic except him."
Wilma chuckled. "You always were a sore loser."
Sadie scowled. Letting Cass win at poker was another reason to be pissed at herself. "A temporary setback, I assure you. Cass won the battle, not the war."