Beaumont put the cigar in his mouth again and bit down on it. “Thank you, Brutus.” He held out a hand for Preacher to go first. “After you, my friend. After what you did, you’re the man of the evening, after all.”
That comment caused Brutus to give Preacher a narrow-eyed glance, and Preacher knew he had to be wondering what Beaumont was referring to. Preacher didn’t enlighten him. Instead, he followed Brutus down a hallway with an expensive rug on the floor. Paintings of nude women and various scenes of debauchery hung on the corridor’s walls.
Preacher felt a little leery about having Beaumont at his back, but the man seemed to have accepted everything that had happened tonight. Preacher had to proceed as if that were true, anyway. He was in too deep to back out now.
Brutus opened a pair of double doors and stood aside to let Preacher enter the parlor first. Again Preacher felt a twinge of unease. There was nothing dangerous waiting for him in the elegantly furnished parlor, however.
Not unless you counted more than half a dozen nearly naked women as dangerous, he corrected himself.
Behind him, Shad Beaumont chuckled and said, “What did I tell you, Jim? And this is only a sampling of the delights available to you here.”
The women were all good looking, all right, no doubt about that. Thankfully, all of them were grown, too. Preacher figured the youngest one was nineteen or twenty. The others were all within a year or two of that age. One had auburn hair flowing around her shoulders, two were blondes, and the others had varying shades of brown hair, from a light chestnut to a deep mahogany. Some were tall, some were short. All of them were well shaped, although there was variation in that, too, from slender and lissome to plush and rounded.
Each and every one of them wore a practiced smile of welcome that hinted at all sorts of carnal delights to come.
Beaumont draped an arm around Preacher’s shoulders and stood beside him, grinning and chewing the cigar. “What do you think?” he asked. “See anything that appeals to you? Nothing like that back on the farm, is there?”
Preacher swallowed hard. He didn’t have to pretend. And maybe this wasn’t going to be such a chore after all, he thought.
“I appreciate this, boss,” he said.
“Well, go ahead. Take your pick.” Beaumont laughed. “Hell, take two or three of them if you want. I’m sure they won’t mind.”
“No, I reckon one will do.”
Preacher ran his eyes over the women. Three of them sat on a divan, and the others had arranged themselves around it. The gauzy shifts they wore revealed just about all the details of their bodies. Preacher would have enjoyed romping with any of them, but his gaze was drawn back to one of the blondes. She was giving him the same sultry smile as all the others, but he thought he detected a trace of impishness in the expression. Her face was rounded and pretty. She had a scattering of freckles across her nose and a little dimple in her chin, which was a little too prominent for her to be classically beautiful. He lifted a hand to point at her and said, “I’d admire to make the acquaintance of that lady right there.”
She stood up from where she had been sitting on the divan and came toward him. Beaumont said, “Ah, you picked our little Cassandra. An excellent choice, Jim.”
Cassandra came to a stop in front of Preacher and held out her hand. “Hello,” she said. “Jim, is it?”
“Yes’m.” Preacher seized her hand and gave it an awkward shake. He knew that probably wasn’t what she was expecting, but “Jim Donnelly” was fresh off the farm and probably didn’t have that much experience with women. “I’m mighty pleased to meet you.”
“You will be,” Cassandra said. “Come with me.”
She started to lead him out of the parlor, but before they could leave the room, Jessie came through the door. She looked every bit as lovely as she had the day before, and the sight of her made Preacher’s heart slug a little harder for a second.
She stopped in front of him and smiled at him. “So it really is you,” she said. “When Brutus told me, I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. And you work for Shad now.”
“Yes’m.”
“Then you’re welcome here. Just behave yourself.” She gave him a stern look, and he could tell she wasn’t joshing. “No more brawling.”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a shake of his head.
Jessie’s smile came back. “Enjoy yourself, then. Cassandra, make sure Mr. Donnelly is well treated.”
“Don’t worry, Jessie.” The blonde turned her impish smile on Preacher again. “I intend to.”
With a swish of skirts and a whiff of some delicate perfume, Jessie moved past them. Preacher heard her say, “Hello, Shad,” and her voice had an intimacy in it that must have made his muscles react, because Cassandra laughed and said, “The way you’re squeezing my hand, Jim, you must be really eager to get upstairs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They were in the hallway now. Cassandra turned to him and leaned closer so that her breasts pressed warmly against his arm.
“By the time this night is over, you won’t be calling me ma’am,” she predicted.
Chapter 15
She was right. Sometime during the next couple of hours—Preacher was a mite vague about when it was, exactly—she told him to call her Casey, so that’s what he did from then on.
He was lying there in her bed, holding her as she dozed with her head on his shoulder, when a knock sounded on the door. The single candle in the room had burned down to where it cast only a faint, flickering glow. Casey stirred sleepily as the knock was repeated.
“Donnelly.” The hoarse rasp of Brutus’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Mr. Beaumont says for you to get your ass outta that whore’s bed and get downstairs. He’s ready to leave.”
Preacher would have been willing to bet that Beaumont hadn’t phrased the order quite so crudely. On the other hand, maybe he had. Preacher didn’t really know Beaumont all that well yet.
All he really knew was that the man was responsible for the deaths of a lot of people Preacher cared about.
Preacher threw back the sheet and started to get out of bed, but Casey woke up enough to clutch at him and murmur, “Don’t go, Jim. You’re so sweet, and it feels so good just lying here.”
Preacher knew better than to put much stock in whore-talk, but he had to admit, Casey sounded sincere. She snuggled against him with an urgency that seemed real, too.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he told her as he reached up to stroke a work-roughened hand over her blond hair. “When the boss says it’s time to go, I reckon it’s time to go.”
She sighed. “I know. It’s just that I . . . well, Jim, you’re not really—”
“You ain’t about to say that I ain’t like all the other men, are you?”
The words came out harsher than Preacher intended, and as soon as he said them, he wished he could call them back or at least soften them a little.
But it was too late for that. Casey stiffened, and even though a brittle laugh came from her lips, he sensed that he had hurt her feelings.
“Of course not,” she said. She rolled over so that her back was turned toward him. “Good night, Jim.”
“Casey, I didn’t mean—”
“You’d better go. You don’t want to keep Mr. Beaumont waiting.”
That was true enough. And Preacher had learned over the years that once a fella said the wrong thing to a gal, it was damned near impossible to fix it right then and there. It took a little time for her to cool down and stop being so het up.
But chances were that he’d be coming back to Jessie’s Place fairly often with Beaumont, so he’d have the opportunity to see Casey again. Maybe he could make it right with her next time.
He stood up and started pulling on his clothes. “I had a mighty fine time,” he told her.
She didn’t roll over and look at him as she said, “I’m glad.” She didn’t particularly sound like she meant it, either.