Kristine Grayson
“She looks like trouble,” Roz Donnelly whispered as she dragged the heavy box of glass photographic plates across the floor of her studio, narrowly avoiding the overstuffed sofa she had placed near the fringed lamp.
Her husband Jack peeked through the red velvet curtains. “So?”
Roz slapped his fingers and he dropped the curtain, turning to face her. He was tall, his muscles rope hard, and his body lean from too many years on the back of a horse. His brown hair brushed against his collar—new and perfectly starched for the first time since she’d known him—and his brown eyes held a trace of humor in them.
“Jealous?” he asked, leaning into her.
“Of that baby?”
He shushed her. “That baby might hear you and leave.”
Roz shook her head. “That baby has a plan, Jack, believe me. And we’re probably its victims.”
“What are you afraid of, Roz, my darling? Afraid I’ll trade you in for a younger model?”
He was so close, she could smell the tobacco on his clothing. It mixed with the scent of her own specially made soap, and something undeniably Jack. Ever since she had met him, she had been under his spell.
“If she’s the model, you wouldn’t last a day,” Roz said. “She may be ten years younger than I am, but she’s older in spirit.”
He ran his thumb along her jaw, sending a shiver through her. “My cynic.”
She knew he felt the shiver; his eyes crinkled as he held back a smile. But she didn’t want him to feel as if he had an advantage. “That cynicism has saved you a hundred times in the last ten years. You should respect it.”
“Oh, I do,” he said, this time letting the smile out. “But I wonder why it appears now.”
“This city has decency laws, doesn’t it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “The law is not something I specialize in, darling.”
“You should.” She bent down and tugged at the box of glass plates. It weighed as much as she did, and she could use his help, but she wasn’t going to ask for it.
She glanced up. He was peeking through the curtain again.
“Well?” she asked. “Will she be artistic enough?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “I don’t think the decency laws matter anyway. No one has applied them to photography.”
“It’s only a matter of time, thanks to you,” Roz muttered, but she did so with a smile. Her husband’s schemes had allowed her to own this photography studio for two years—the longest they’d been in one place since they got married.
He hadn’t said a word about moving on. But Roz was starting to feel restless. He disappeared for weeks at a time, following one scheme or another, but she had to stay to take portraits of people she didn’t even like.
Somehow she had a hunch there was more to photography than spending her days in a musty studio, even if it did have a secret and shady side.
A side the young woman in the other room had somehow figured out.
Roz had a feeling about this girl, a feeling she didn’t like. Jack had a feeling too, and he liked his. Roz couldn’t tell what part of his anatomy he was thinking with. She knew her husband well enough to know that, while he never touched any other woman, he didn’t mind a long healthy look.
“We’ve got to hurry,” he said, letting the curtain drop one final time. “The girl’s getting cold.”
“I suppose you know that for sure,” Roz said, pushing the box all the way into the corner.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He grinned at her. “So let’s move it, Rosalind.”
“Then pick up the damn box,” she said. “I can’t move it any farther.”
He bent down and lifted it as if it weighed nothing. “I thought you would never ask.”
He kicked the curtain open with his foot and stepped into the small theater they had built in the back of the photography studio. The theater did not hold an audience—there was no room for seats or aisles. Instead, there was floor space wide enough for several cameras, all set up at strategic angles.
The stage itself was narrow, and even though there were curtains behind it, the curtains opened onto a wall. The theater had no windows, and the front curtains were the only way into this area.
Roz had insisted on double curtains with openings in different parts so that no one would stumble onto this back area. The curtains themselves were part of a formal furniture grouping in the main part of the studio and to date, one year since they’d added in the theater, no one had discovered it.
Roz waited a moment before going in. She had to be in the right frame of mind to confront her artistic subjects. Usually when she took photographs, she asked questions, drew people out. When she took her art photographs, she never even learned the subject’s name.
It was easier to deny that she had done anything if she had no idea who she was photographing.
Finally, Roz pulled the curtains apart. She let the curtains swish closed behind her before she looked at the girl. The girl was clearly an adult, although she was no more than twenty-one. She was full-breasted and wide-hipped with enough heft to suggest wealth. Her eyes were big and brown, her mouth curved in a slight smile. She hadn’t put on the drape that Roz had left for her, and Jack had been right—the girl was clearly cold.
“Cover yourself up,” Roz said, nodding at the drape.
“I thought the point was to take nude photos,” the girl said.
“The point is to take artistic photos,” Roz said through gritted teeth. That some people found the artistic photos erotic was not her problem.
The girl did not move toward the drape. She stood there in all her goose-pimpled glory, staring at Jack, almost daring him. He, bless him, was ignoring her and not because Roz was in the room. He didn’t like contrary females.
Then Roz frowned. That wasn’t entirely accurate—he did like Roz—but he claimed he hated her contrary nature, even though it had gotten them out of a thousand scrapes.
Roz checked out the first camera. Jack continued to hold the box of plates, waiting for her to tell him what to do with them. She could have let him continue to hold them until he complained, but she wasn’t in the mood to torture him, even if he had brought her the girl.
“Set them next to this camera,” she said, “and then get me the other box of plates beneath the developing counter.”
“Roz, this is enough plates—”
She turned toward him, nearly knocking the camera. “We’re taking three kinds of photographs—daguerreotypes, portraits and Talbotypes. They require different plates.”
And different papers and different cameras and different skills, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Why so many?” the girl asked.
“Some for us and some for you. It was part of our deal.” Then Roz squinted at Jack. “You told her about the deal, right?”
He nodded and looked at the girl for confirmation. She nodded too, even though Roz had a hunch the girl had heard nothing about the different types of portraits before now.
The girl walked to the edge of the stage. She hung her toes over the lip. Her toenails had turned blue. She didn’t look seductive or even comfortable, although she was trying.
Jack gave her an uncomfortable glance and hurried out of the theater.
Roz stuck her head through the first camera’s curtain. The girl looked even more provocative when framed by the lens.
Time to talk to the girl and make sure Jack had followed the rules. Even though Roz was taking artistic photographs, she wasn’t one of society’s predators. She never took destitute women and photographed them—at least not on purpose. Jack had brought one or two in early on, but Roz had figured out early what he was about. Most of those women were malnourished and therefore too skinny for art photography.
Men didn’t like to fantasize about women so skinny their breasts had sunken into their chests. Men liked women who were big in front and in back, women whose flesh jiggled as they moved. Roz never fit in that category either—her life (mostly on the run) had left her slender and muscled—the antithesis of modern beauty.
“So,” Roz said, “Jack didn’t make any agreement with you.”
“He said we’d settle it later.”
Roz clenched her right hand, but kept it hidden behind her thick black skirt. What he had meant was that Roz would settle it later—and apparently he had been right.
“Are you paying us?” Roz asked.
“No,” the girl said. “He said that would take care of itself.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, was what Jack called an agreement. Roz shook her head.
“All right. Before we go any further….” She paused. She really couldn’t take it any longer. “Put on the damn drape. You’re not here to seduce me.”
The girl’s lower lip jutted out. “So? He’s going to take the photographs.”
“I’m going to take the photographs,” Roz said. “I’m the photographer. He’s just the front and the money man.”
How she hated calling him that. He really was the money-slipping-through-the-fingers-like-water man.
“Oh,” the girl said and backed away from the edge of the stage. She picked up the sheer drape and wrapped it around herself, then shivered. “It doesn’t cover up much.”
“It’s not supposed to. There’s a robe behind the curtain over there.” Roz gestured toward the curtain at the side of the stage.
The girl followed her direction, grabbed the robe, and slipped it on. “How come it’s so cold in here?”
“It makes better art,” Roz said sarcastically.
The girl sat on the edge of the stage and tucked her feet under herself.
“Here’s the deal,” Roz said. “For the next two hours, we will take as many photographs of you as possible.”
“I thought you were only doing a few portraits.”
“There are different kinds of photography,” Roz said, not willing to go into too much detail.
The last thing the girl needed to know was that she had treated a ream of paper with salt and silver nitrate so that they could reprint the Talbotypes as many times as they liked—or to put it more accurately—as many times as they could afford to do.
“This is an artistic session,” Roz said. “I’ll put you in different poses and take as many portraits as possible. You will get half the portraits—” Technically, she would get half of the number that Roz told her were portraits, which in the past had been less than a fourth—“and a quarter of the daguerreotypes—” actually, only about one sixteenth because artistic daguerreotypes brought a large sum from soldiers heading out to the frontier. “I hope that’s acceptable.”
The girl was picking at her robe. Roz wasn’t even sure she was listening.
“In exchange for that, we will keep the rest and sell them to cover our expenses.”
“Sell them to whom?” the girl asked.
The “whom” threw Roz. She hadn’t expected good grammar from a girl who wanted to pose nude.
“Anyone we please,” Roz said. She wasn’t going to negotiate with this girl. It would be Roz’s way or no way at all.
The girl smiled. “All right.”
Roz felt a shimmer of unease. She had been right; this girl was planning something.
“What if I tell you I only want one portrait and you can keep the daguerreotypes?”
“I would tell you not to change the deal,” Roz said.
“Hell, hon, let her change the deal if she wants.” Jack was coming through the curtains, the second box of plates in his arms.
“No,” Roz said.
“I made my initial agreement with him,” the girl said, not looking at Roz. She was smiling at Jack instead. Jack, the bastard, was smiling back.
“Fine,” Roz said, uncertain whether she was more irritated at the girl or at her husband. “He can take your portraits then.”
“Roz.” Jack set the plates down hard. They clanked together and Roz prayed that none of them were broken.
“All right,” the girl said. “I’d rather be photographed by a real photographer anyway.”
“Doll.” Jack took a step toward the girl. “If you want a real photographer—”
“Then Jack’s your man.” Roz smiled sweetly at him. “You remember how to work the camera, don’t you, dear? The one you’re used to is the one in the middle. Don’t touch the two on the sides. The process is different for those. And the one near me is a camera obscura. It is nothing like anything you’ve ever used before.”
“Can’t you control her?” the girl snapped at Jack. She looked so fierce that Jack took a step backwards.
“Um.” Apparently Jack didn’t have a good lie ready. “No, doll.”
“Pity.” The girl pulled her robe tighter. “Well, I’m here, I’m naked, and the price is right. Let’s do this thing.”
Roz didn’t move. “Why do you want your photograph taken like this?”
The girl stood, shook her head like a horse about to run free, and let the robe fall away from her shoulders. “I appreciate art,” she said.
***
The session took two hours. The girl was a natural. She even managed to get the drape to hang as if the wind were blowing around her—and she sustained that pose for a good five minutes.
Roz went through every one of her plates.
Jack, whose attention wandered mid-way through, took care of the three customers who came to the main studio. His voice would filter in, and Roz felt a stab of envy. She didn’t want to be alone with this girl. She would rather be taking sedate portraits of matrons who believed it was time to step in front of yet another infernal machine.
Roz had asked him to put out the closed sign, but of course he hadn’t. Jack had a penchant for risks, particularly unnecessary ones. They made his heart beat faster. Risks also excited other parts of him, which Roz didn’t mind.
She almost wished the girl had held his attention, instead of being such a flinty manipulative little shrew. The girl had questioned each one of Roz’s orders, but performed with a smile whenever Jack spoke to her.
Jack tired of this first and left. Roz had to endure it for the entire session.
“Get dressed,” Roz said.
“Are we done?” The girl seemed almost disappointed.
Roz nodded. “If I wait much longer, some of this work will be lost. I have to process these plates quickly. They can’t sit.”
“I thought they’ve come up with a new process, one that allows the plates to be shipped without being developed.” The girl had grabbed the robe.
Roz frowned. The feeling that she was being used rose again. Most people knew nothing about the current state of photography. The dry plate system intrigued her, but she hadn’t seen it yet.
“The process has made its way to New York City,” Roz said. “It won’t come to these parts for months, maybe years.”
And she didn’t even want to discuss the cost. The new process would require a new camera, new and different plates, and time to learn how to use them. All things she did not have.
The girl slipped off the stage, leaving her clothes behind. She held the robe closed with one hand. “I don’t suppose you have a chamber pot down here.”
The only chamber pot in the entire building was upstairs, in Roz and Jack’s bedroom. She wasn’t going to let that little minx in there.
“You’ll have to go out back,” Roz said. “I suggest you put on your clothes first.”
“There isn’t time,” the girl said and slipped through the curtains.
Roz cursed under her breath. From now on, she was going to pick the subjects for the art photography. Jack might claim he had a better eye—and he probably did for the female form—but Roz could spot a fellow con artist a lot quicker than Jack could.
She set the last plate in the box, wondering how long it would take before she had to rescue her husband from the girl’s unwanted attention. Maybe she would let Jack get himself out of it. After all, he had found the girl attractive at first.
But not in the end. In the end, he had been as disgusted with the girl as a man could be.
Roz took pity on him. He was no match for that girl, and Roz didn’t to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the theater.
She was reaching for the curtain, when a female voice cried out, “What is the meaning of this?”
That voice did not belong to the girl. Roz parted the curtain ever so slightly, careful not to let the ripple make itself noticed inside the studio.
A stout, middle-aged woman in black bombazine was standing on the woolen rug. She had both hands on her ample hips and she was staring at Jack.
Roz stared at Jack too, and suppressed a grin. He looked terrified.
But the girl on his lap—the naked girl on his lap—arched her back, shoving those glorious breasts in his face. Only she wasn’t looking at him. She was smiling at the woman.
“Hello, Mama,” the girl said. “Care to join us?”
“Emmeline!” the woman in black bombazine said, unwittingly giving Roz information she didn’t want. “Put on some clothing.”
“But Mama,” Emmeline said in a voice that purred. “I can’t have fun with my clothing on.”
The woman’s face turned red, then purple. Roz had seen people have apoplexy before. Some had even died of it. She resisted the urge to race out from behind the curtain and calm everyone down.
“Ma’am.” Jack sounded panicked. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“That’s right, Mama,” Emmeline said. “We only just got started.”
“No!” Jack started to stand.
Emmeline rolled sideways, and Jack reached for her, but if he grabbed her, his hands would have landed on those massive breasts. He must have realized that because he jerked back as if he had been burned. Somehow Emmeline managed to catch herself and remain on his lap all at the same time.
“Ma’am,” he said, trying desperately not to touch Emmeline, “I’m a happily married man. Right, Roz?”
Roz didn’t answer. She couldn’t rescue him this time. They’d lose a lot of money in plates and equipment if she did. He would have to come up with something on his own.
The girl on his lap stroked Jack’s chin.
“Roz?” Jack looked toward the curtains.
Roz cursed under her breath.
“His wife doesn’t seem to mind sharing,” Emmeline said.
Roz cursed again. The girl was even more manipulative than Roz had originally thought.
The woman in black bombazine had turned an alarming shade of puce. She started forward. She had an umbrella in her right hand. Roz hadn’t seen it before because it had been hidden behind the wide and unfashionably hoop skirt. The woman was brandishing the umbrella as a weapon.
“Roz?” Jack’s voice trailed off. He seemed to realize that she wasn’t coming to his aid.
He glanced around the room. Emmeline snuggled closer to him and that seemed to decide him.
Jack stood.
This time Emmeline fell to the floor, banging her elbow against the wood and letting out a string of epithets that made Roz blush.
“Ma’am,” Jack said, holding up his hands to ward off any umbrella blows. “Your daughter made advances to me, just a moment ago. You see, initially, she had come in here to have her portrait taken.”
“You make innocent girls take off their clothing for portraits?” The woman brandished the umbrella over her head. But Emmeline froze. Roz stared at the girl. Something was changing here.
“Um, no,” Jack said, and to Roz’s surprise, he was blushing. She had never seen him con anyone with a blush. She was the one who could do that. Jack’s blush had to be real.
Or maybe it was simple panic. She’d never seen him panic while standing still before. Usually his full-blown panics happened on the run.
“Actually, ma’am,” Jack was saying, “she came in here asking me to take an artistic portrait.”
The woman paused, holding her umbrella over her head like a scythe. “An artistic portrait?”
“Yes, ma’am. You know. The kind that French portraitists paint.”
“Naked portraits? You create naked portraits?”
“For married women only, ma’am. Often they take such portraits for their husbands to enjoy. In private.” Jack was finally getting into the spirit of this.
Roz glanced over her shoulder at the plates. She was running out of time. She had fifty wet plates of a naked manipulative girl drying in a box behind her, wet plates that had to be developed soon or they’d be ruined forever. Thank heavens Jack had already taken another box-load of them into the development room to start the process.
“What kind of man would take naked photographs of his wife?” the woman asked.
Every man who could get away with it, Roz thought. As if that old biddy didn’t know.
“Soldiers, generally, ma’am. Men who are heading out on the frontier. They need something to remember home by so…so…” Jack was casting about for a reason. His gaze darted toward the curtain. He still wanted Roz to rescue him. “So that he won’t go astray.”
Roz rolled her eyes, but the woman eased her umbrella down. She looked at Emmeline, who was now cringing on the floor. Roz had no idea why the truth—or the partial truth—would cause Emmeline to be frightened, but there it was.
“Is this true?” the woman asked Emmeline.
Emmeline grabbed the robe, then held it in front of her. Jack could still get a good look at her backside, although he wasn’t even trying. That proved to Roz that he found the girl unappealing.
“Well?” the woman asked.
Emmeline swallowed. “I thought maybe this time Father would notice me.”
Roz gasped. Jack looked stunned. The woman swooped down and grabbed Emmeline by the arm. Instead of finishing the sentence, the girl let out a loud yell as her mother pulled her upright.
“I have had enough of you,” the woman said in a low tone. “You will get your clothing and get dressed. I will take care of you at home. As for you, young man—”
And as she turned to Jack, her voice rose. She still hadn’t let go of her daughter’s arm.
“—you will take me to your so-called art portraits and we shall destroy them. Together.”
Jack’s mouth dropped open. This time, he looked directly at Roz who slipped even farther behind the curtain. Her fists were clenched. All that money, gone.
“Um, ma’am,” Jack said, his voice trembling. “I’m out time and money—”
“I will pay your expenses plus a handsome sum more so long as you never refer to this incident again.”
Roz leaned toward the crack in the curtain. A handsome sum more?
“How much is handsome?” Jack asked.
“Five hundred dollars. In gold.”
Roz clasped her hands together. They were rich!
“Over my expenses.”
“Yes,” The woman sounded angry. Roz prayed Jack wouldn’t anger the woman further. He had a talent for ruining a good thing.
“All right.” Jack almost—almost—smiled. He caught himself just in time. Roz started to step away from the curtain so that he could bring the woman into the theater, but he didn’t. Instead, he went into the development room.
The man was smarter than she gave him credit for.
Roz sprinted back toward the cameras. She took the drape and tossed it over the box of wet plates (please let them last a few moments longer!), and then grabbed Emmeline’s clothes. They were made of silk. Roz should have noticed that before, but she’d been concentrating on the girl’s face—on that look of triumph and manipulation.
Roz hurried out of the curtains, then caught them with her free hand so that they wouldn’t wave and draw attention to themselves. Emmeline was still sitting in the middle of the floor, clutching her robe. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Roz tossed her clothes at her. Emmeline opened her mouth and Roz put a finger over her own lips. Then she ran to the main door, opened it, and slammed it as if she had just come in.
“What’s this?” she asked as loudly as she could.
“Um, n-n-nothing.” Apparently, Emmeline didn’t have to pretend to sound frightened.
“I come home to find a naked woman in my studio,” Roz said, and then caught herself. All of her nouns and pronouns were wrong. Home was upstairs and as far as the city was concerned the studio belonged to Jack.
“Mrs. Donnelly, I’m really sorry,” Emmeline said.
“Get dressed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The sound of breaking glass stopped both of them from play-acting. Anger shot through Roz. She’d spent two hours getting those portraits. The old biddy had no right to destroy them.
Emmeline bit her lower lip. Roz took a step closer to her and whispered, “Don’t say anything about that theater.”
Emmeline’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really.”
To Roz’s surprise, Emmeline hugged her. “Thank you.”
“Thank—?”
The door to the developing room opened and Emmeline dropped out of the hug as if it had never been. She grabbed her clothes and was halfway into her shift before her mother came out of the room.
The scent of chemicals followed her, and the anger threaded through Roz again. Who was this woman that she felt she could just destroy anything that got in her way?
“You are this man’s wife?” the woman asked in that preemptory tone.
Roz wanted to retort with You’re this creature’s mother? but somehow didn’t think it appropriate.
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you know that he takes nudie photographs in this studio?”
Roz faked a blush. She felt the heat rush through her face and she whirled on Jack who was standing directly behind the old biddy and grinning.
“You what?!?” Roz made herself sound as indignant as possible.
“Honey bunch,” Jack said in his best fake hen-pecked husband voice. “It was an accident…”
He continued to make up his false excuses as Roz walked toward him. Emmeline’s mother grabbed her daughter, flung the dress over Emmeline’s head, and then dragged her from the studio. Emmeline’s shoes and stockings were on the ground where Roz had dropped them.
“…so I hope you’ll forgive me, darling,” Jack said with the biggest grin Roz had ever seen. He held out both hands. They were filled with gold coins.
Roz bent over to touch them. She had dreamed of holding wealth like this, but the dream had never come true.
The door opened back up and Emmeline walked in. Her dress was on backwards and her face was tear-streaked. Her mother stood in the doorway.
“You promised,” she mouthed to Roz, then she bent down, grabbed her shoes and stockings and hurried out of the studio.
“Promised what?” Jack asked as the door closed.
“That I’d develop the rest of the photographs,” Roz said.
Jack leaned forward and kissed her. “Roz, sweetie,” he said when he was finished, “you really are the brilliant one in this relationship.”
Yet that comment didn’t make her feel brilliant. Jack was still up to something, and she didn’t know what that something was.
***
When she finally got to their upstairs apartment, tired, aching and stinking of chemical washes, Jack was waiting for her in the living room.
Naked.
“Jack, I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m a bit annoyed at you. This is not the time—”
“Baby, I had a naked girl on my lap, breasts shoved in my face, and you were watching the entire time. Besides, that old biddy could have shut us down and instead, she made us rich. Any of those things would have excited me, but all three together….” He pulled her close. “This, my love, is an opportunity you do not want to pass up.”
He kissed her, and she leaned into him, as she always did. He was right; the afternoon had been oddly erotic. She had just forgotten about it in her haste to develop those photographs.
It had always been this way with them—from the moment she saw him, she had wanted him, even though she had not understood the feelings at the time. She had eloped with him, and learned that instead of growing weaker, that pull had grown stronger.
Afterwards, they lay on the quilt on top of their bed, spent and exhausted. Roz had no idea how they’d made it to the bed, only that they had ended up there.
Jack had been right. This had been an opportunity she would have regretted missing.
“Who would have thought,” Jack said, his head tilted back, eyes closed, “that Norma Trager would have had five hundred dollars in gold on her person?”
Roz blinked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who carried that much money with them. Do you think she knew what Emmeline was about and planned to pay us off? Maybe she had more money. Maybe I settled too soon.”
“Norma Trager?” Roz asked.
“Oh, yes. She probably has more than she needs. After all—”
“Norma Trager?” Roz’s voice rose. “You knew her name?”
Jack propped himself on one elbow. “Didn’t you recognize her? You’re the one who specializes in the gossip columns.”
He was lying. She could always tell when he was lying. His voice smoothed out and he got a slick little smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“No,” Roz said. “I didn’t recognize her, and neither did you. You knew who Emmeline was before she came into the studio. In fact, you planned this little scam, didn’t you?”
“Roz, I would never plan anything without you.”
Another lie, as they both knew. “This time you were scamming me, weren’t you?”
He sat up. “Roz, it’s not like that.”
“Oh?” she said. “Then why didn’t you tell me in advance?”
He slipped off the bed, moving out of her reach.
Roz pulled the quilt around her and took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Tell me everything, so I know just how much trouble we’re in.”
“We’re not in trouble,” Jack said as he put his clothes back on. He wasn’t looking at Roz, and she knew which part of the sentence he had left out.
They weren’t in trouble yet. But they would be. Roz wasn’t sure how, but she knew they would be.
He didn’t say anything.
Roz sighed. “Damn,” she said. “Now I’m going to have to destroy a whole day’s work. You could’ve told me before I saved the plates.”
“Don’t destroy them,” Jack said.
Emmeline had asked her not to destroy all of the wet plates either. Finally Roz was getting to the heart of the matter.
“Why not?” Roz asked. “We can’t sell them. Norma Trager bought your silence for five hundred pieces of gold.”
“She didn’t say we couldn’t sell them.” He looked innocent. “She just said we couldn’t talk about them.”
That was true. Norma Trager had said that, thinking all of the portraits of her daughter were destroyed.
“What’s the scam, Jack? Tell me now or I swear, I’ll find that little con artist and have her tell me herself.”
“No.” He looked even more panicked at that thought. “Roz, believe me, this is a good thing.”
She stood and went into the living room in search of her dress. This was not a conversation to have naked.
“I do not believe,” she said as she picked up her shift, “that anything you call a good thing is, indeed, a good thing.”
“Please, Roz.”
She slipped on the shift and dropped the quilt, then grabbed her dress. It was fine, although the buttons from the waist down had fallen off. She was lucky she hadn’t stepped on any of them.
“Roz.” He had come into the living room. His pants were buttoned, but he still hadn’t put on a shirt. His flat and muscular chest, lightly dusted with hair, made her want to touch him again.
She turned her back on him and fingered the ruined dress.
“All right,” he said. “I met Emmeline a few days ago—”
“Oh?”
“Don’t start, Roz. You know I don’t do that sort of thing.”
She brought the dress up to her face to hide her smile. It was hard to be mad with him when he was being sincere.
“Anyway,” he said, “she knew I was a photographer. She waited for me outside. She asked me if I took artistic photographs.”
The girl had studied her subject. Roz picked up her stockings and her shoes, which had toppled together like drunken sailors.
“I told her I did. Then she asked me if I knew of Robert Millard. Well, who hasn’t heard of Robert Millard, I said. She gave me a strange little smile and said that he was her father.”
Roz set her shoes, stockings and ruined dress on the sofa, and walked past Jack into the bedroom. She made sure she didn’t brush against him. If she had, she would have had to touch him, and at this moment, that would have been wrong. He had to think she was mad at him.
Jack turned and watched her, arms crossed, his muscles standing out in sharp relief against his naked skin. “I laughed. I said everybody knows that Millard has five sons and no daughters.”
Roz raised her eyebrows. If Jack knew it, then indeed, everyone knew it. Jack was right; usually she was the one who read the gossip rags. He ignored them.
Although, she supposed, he knew about Robert Millard because of his wealth. Jack always knew who the richest and most influential people were in any town.
“She nodded. She said that her mother had been his mistress and when she got older, he cast her off like an old shoe. They still got money from him, but she wanted love.”
“Love?” Roz grabbed her dove gray day dress out of the closet. “She expects love from her father because she poses in the nude? This is one sick family, Jack.”
“She gave up on love a long time ago,” Jack said. “She really just wanted him to acknowledge that she was his daughter. She figured that if she forced the issue, he’d have to acknowledge her.”
“She was going to blackmail him?” Roz asked.
“I think so. Acknowledge me or I’ll tell everyone who I am.” He waved a hand. “Or maybe she’s just going to ask him for money. I don’t know.”
Roz shook her head. People did not know how to run a proper scam any more. “She’s impulsive and dumb. This plan is guaranteed to get him to ignore her. Why would he acknowledge a daughter who acts like that?”
“That’s why she wants me to sell the remaining photographs. I’m her leverage,” Jack said. “You did make one more portrait, right?”
“Yes.” Roz slipped the dress over her head, then mentally cursed the choice. It buttoned in back.
Jack came over to help her. His deft fingers brushed her shift.
“Well, I’m supposed to make sure he gets a photograph and knows who it is.”
Roz slapped his hand away. “You won’t do any such thing.”
She turned. He was frowning at her.
“Some day you’re going to have to acknowledge that I’m the brains of this operation,” she said. “If you go in there with that portrait, he’ll have you arrested on some kind of charge. Pandering or something. Forcing women into prostitution. You can’t do her dirty work.”
“Well, she can’t,” he said. “He won’t even let her near his bank. She’s tried. He’s thrown her out before.”
In spite of herself, Roz was thinking about this. Dammit, Jack always did this to her. He gave her a puzzle and, if she caught him in time, she got to solve it in ways that benefited both of them.
“Jack,” she said, turning her back on him again so that he could finish buttoning her. “How do you feel about the City of Kansas?”
“It’s a nice city.” He’d been saying that from the beginning. But he never sounded thrilled. Jack was a rover. He had only settled because of her and her studio.
“Would you be broken-hearted if we left?”
“I always want to be with you, Roz.” He patted her back, his signal that he was done buttoning her up.
“I mean it.” She turned again, and found herself trapped between his arms. “What if we left Missouri altogether?”
“And go where?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. New Orleans, maybe. We have a lot of artistic photographs that we haven’t sold. And if we pack up our equipment, we might be able to start anew somewhere else.”
His eyes lit up. “But you like it here.”
“Not really,” she said. “The locals aren’t that interesting. Everyone else is just passing through. Besides, I’m getting tired of taking portraits of matrons and their broods. I’m not cut out for the working life.”
“I could have told you that, babe,” he said, brushing her lips with his.
“I had to learn it for myself,” she said.
“I trust you have a new plan?”
“No,” she said, “but I’ll have one soon.”
***
Roz wasn’t a crusader, and she really hadn’t liked Norma Trager. The woman pretended at morality when in reality she had been some man’s mistress and borne him a child out of wedlock. Of course, Roz might have misjudged her. A woman usually didn’t want her daughter to make the same mistakes she did—and Emmeline Trager was on the road to making if not the same mistakes, then some that were even worse.
But there was one thing that Roz really liked in a man and it was the one thing that Jack had. Loyalty. He loved her, he respected her, and even though his eye wandered, his heart didn’t. She was the center of his life.
As it should be.
Obviously, Richard Millard had no center to his life. Casting off a mistress was one thing (and not really one that Roz approved of), but casting off a child was another thing altogether.
If Roz could get him to acknowledge his daughter, then her work was done. If she made a small profit in the bargain, she wouldn’t complain.
So that was how she found herself outside the First Pioneer Bank of Missouri, wearing a new gray morning dress and a hated corset beneath it. Her hair was in a bun at the back of her skull, and that bun was hidden beneath a black lace net. She wore gray gloves on her hands and gray boots on her feet.
She looked as prim and proper as she could, considering that inside the thick embroidered bag she carried was a portrait of Emmeline Trager in the nude—a portrait that Roz had carefully constructed to be as…artistic as possible.
She took a deep breath, knowing that anyone watching would think her nervous. What she was trying to do was work herself into a state and time her blush so that she looked angrier and more grief stricken than she was.
Since the third man in a row held the large oak door open for her, Roz decided it was time to go inside. She nodded at the man, thanked him in a tone that perfectly imitated Norma Trager’s sounds of indignation, as she stalked through the door.
Men seemed to have a finely tuned sense of when to avoid a woman. The bank’s customers moved out of her way as if she were Moses and they were the Red Sea. The town’s newspaper editor watched her from his position near the polished table. Two cattle ranchers hurried out the door. A third settled into a chair near the back as if getting ready to watch a show.
She clutched the embroidered bag to her chest and approached one of the gilded cages. The teller leaned backwards as if he could avoid her
“I would like to see Robert Millard,” she said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the teller said. “Mr. Millard sees people only by appointment.”
Behind the teller, another man—this one rotund and officious—watched with ill-disguised interest.
“He’ll see me,” Roz said.
“Ma’am—”
“Tell him it’s about his daughter.” She said that last loud enough for the entire bank to hear it.
The teller frowned at her and was about to tell her what everyone knew: that Mr. Millard didn’t have a daughter. But the officious man in the back understood a problem when he saw it.
“Come with me, ma’am,” he said as he let himself out of the cage.
He led her through a carpeted hallway, past oak doorways with names emblazoned in gold letters. She had to work to keep the smile off her face; the buzz of conversation behind her convinced her that the first part of her ploy worked. The bank’s customers hadn’t been aware that Millard had a daughter, but they were now. Even if they thought the daughter was hers.
The man stopped at the last door, held up a finger, then disappeared inside the room. She heard a faint shout, a word that most men would have considered imprudent when spoken around a lady (fortunately for Millard, she was no lady) and then the officious man appeared again.
“He’ll see you now.”
No announcing of her name, no asking of her name. Just a simple invitation inside. The officious man held the door for her, then left the room so quickly that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a foot on his nether regions, propelling him forward.
The man behind the desk was standing. He was tall and imposing, with a shock of gray hair and bushy gray eyebrows. He glowered at her and she resisted the urge to grin at him. But she had a role to play.
“Mr. Millard?” Again, she used the tone she had learned from his former mistress. Deep, formidable, and disapproving.
“What is this about?”
“Mr. Millard,” she said, “my name is Rosalind Donnelly. My husband owns the photography studio on A Street.”
“I have never been to that studio,” Millard said, making it very clear what he thought of photography and her Irish last name.
“No, sir, you haven’t, but your daughter has.”
“I don’t have a daughter.”
There it was. The hypocrisy she had been hoping to avoid. She felt the outrage she had been pretending only a moment before. Roz reached into her bag, grabbed the portrait, which she had had the forethought to frame and slammed it on his desk.
“My husband tells me this is your daughter. Is that true?”
Millard looked down and his face flamed red. “Where did you get this?”
“I found my husband developing it.” She crossed her arms. “Mr. Millard, we both understand that men will be men, particularly when provoked. I want you to keep your daughter away from my husband. If you do not, I’m sure I can find other portraits of her. My husband said she was quite eager to be photographed—as he puts it—artistically.”
Millard grew redder as she spoke. Sweat ran down the side of his face. He continued to stare at the portrait as if he couldn’t believe it existed.
“My husband is a God-fearing man, Mr. Millard. He has sworn off this practice before. It is the reason we moved to the City of Kansas which, we were assured, was a moral and decent place to make our home. Instead, we discover that young women prefer to be photographed in a state of undress.”
Millard’s mouth worked, but he said nothing.
“I have it on good authority that your daughter approached my husband. He did not approach her. She has led him back down a path of sin, which is between him and his God. But between you and me, Mr. Millard, is this young woman yours? Because if she is—”
“What do you want?” He forced the words out as he reached for the portrait and turned it over.
“Only your assurance that this girl will not venture near our studio again.” Roz took a step forward, looming close to him, as his former mistress had done to Jack. “You do have control of your daughter, do you not?”
“She, um. She…” He reached into his breast pocket, removed a carefully folded linen handkerchief, and dabbed at his forehead. “She lives with her mother.”
Roz froze as if she were in shock. “You and your wife no longer share a home?”
“My wife and I are quite happily—blast, woman! You’ve put me in a delicate position.”
Roz’s chin went up. Her entire body straightened and she forced the flush into her own face. “Are you telling me, sir, that your daughter is illegitimate?”
Maybe Roz had pushed that statement too far. But she couldn’t take it back. Besides, all the morally righteous women she’d ever met were given to melodramatic turns of phrase.
“Ma’am, it was a youthful indiscretion and she—”
“Are you telling me you have had no hand in raising that child?”
“My wife knows nothing of her,” he said and she could actually hear pleading in his voice.
“Well, I can assure you, Mr. Millard, that will change.” Roz grabbed the portrait. She made her hand shake. “This girl is a menace to decent society. Someone must control her before she does even more damage.”
She shoved the portrait into the bag and headed toward the door. He wasn’t stopping her.
Dammit. He was supposed to stop her. Now what was she going to do? She couldn’t very well go back to the studio. Jack had sold it just that morning.
“What do you expect me to do?” Millard’s voice was soft. She almost didn’t hear it.
She stopped. “Apparently nothing, Mr. Millard. Don’t worry. I shall take care of this.”
“I am worried, Mrs. Donnelly. A man of my reputation—”
“Should think things through before he makes a mess of them.” Now she turned, slowly, hoping he would take the glee in her eyes for anger. “After all, we both know men will be men.”
His gaze met hers. He seemed to be appraising her. “Yes,” he said, “I guess we do.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, his gaze returned to the desk, where the portrait had been.
“What, exactly, can I do, Mrs. Donnelly, to prevent you from talking with my wife?”
Roz straightened. “You should control your daughter.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But of course you will not. So this will happen again. And my husband seems to be the person she has chosen to lead down the path of inequity.”
Too thick. She was going to have to stop frequenting vaudeville.
She touched her hair with a shaking hand. “My husband and I have relocated because of this problem before. I’m afraid we’ll simply have to do so one more time.”
She turned, hoping—praying—Millard would stop her again.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I’ll pay you for the portrait.”
“What?” She put that frosty tone back in her voice. “My husband and I have agreed not to sell these evil things any more. If he discovers that I have done so—”
“I can’t expect you to give it to me to keep it out of the wrong hands. I’ll buy it from you. Call it a loan. So that you can restart your business in—”
“The West,” she said. “We will be taking the next train out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I do not take bribes, Mr. Millard.”
“It’s not a bribe, Mrs. Donnelly. I would like the portrait, and I am certain that you will need funds to make your fresh start.”
She bowed her head. “I did not come here for this.”
“I know that, ma’am.”
Roz had a hunch he had done this before, paid money to keep talk of his former mistress and daughter quiet. He would do it again if he could.
“I will take your loan,” she said, walking back toward him, still clutching the bag. She wouldn’t relinquish that until he gave her the money. “But I will repay it as soon as I can.”
“I’ll draw up a note, then, ma’am,” he said.
It took all Roz could do not to look at him in surprise. Apparently, he had believed her.
***
“So we have to pay him back?” Jack sounded indignant. He was leaning on the railing, staring down at the water of the Missouri. The paddlewheeler had left port an hour ago, with all of Roz’s camera equipment, some new clothes, and a lot of money in gold coins sewn into her shift and Jack’s vest.
“No, silly,” Roz said. “He thinks we’re heading west. I even told him what train we’d be on.”
“We need new names again, just in case,” Jack said.
“We need them anyway,” Roz said. “I trust you’ve been selling the daguerreotypes.”
“Not yet,” Jack said. “Someone might know her. She doesn’t need that stigma.”
As if Jack were worried about Emmeline. “Still afraid of her mother, huh?”
“For a former sexpot, she wields a mighty umbrella.”
“Well,” Roz said. “She won’t come after you. She’ll come after me.”
Jack turned toward her. “What did you do?”
Roz shrugged. “On the way out, I saw the editor of the local paper. I gave him one of the daguerreotypes and told him that the portrait was of Mr. Millard’s daughter, that she had it taken so that the entire town would be scandalized and he would have to pay attention to her.”
Jack seemed shocked. Roz had never seen Jack look shocked before. It gave her a heady sense of power.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
“It’s what Emmeline wanted,” she said.
“Roz, you hated Emmeline.”
Roz moved away from the railing. No sense standing so close to the water when she was weighted down with gold coins, coins she hadn’t—technically—stolen.
“Of course I hated Emmeline,” she said with just a hint of a smile. “But she’s an adult. And she did want her father’s attention. Now she has it.”
Jack shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for because Roz might give it to you.”
She took his hand. “I’ll give you what you wish for, big boy.”
“All I want, my darling Roz,” he said with a rakish grin, “is a little bit of your attention.”
“A little bit?” she asked.
“Forget what I just said.” He bundled her in his arms and lead her to their stateroom. “I don’t want a little of your attention. I want all of it.”
“Mmm,” she said, opening the stateroom door. “What a demanding husband.”
“Be happy,” he said. “I could be like Millard.”
“No, you couldn’t,” she said, pushing the door closed and grinning at her husband. “Not if you want to live.”