Free Fatal as a Fallen Woman by Kathy Lynn Emerson

taking in laundry, trusting him to invest what little they didn't need for mere survival. Then he left her with nothing."
    "Except this hotel."
    "Except this hotel," Jane agreed. "There are three parlors on the first floor, together with a dining room and kitchen. On the upper floors are fifteen bedrooms, plus this suite. And in the basement you'll find a wine cellar and servants' quarters."
    "Tell me about the boarders. Who are they? Where do they come from?"
    "We don't ask. Most use working names. You met Red Katie and Honeycomb last night. And Long Tall Linda, Strawberry Sue, and Big Nose Nellie."
    "What about the cold-eyed brunette?"
    "She goes by Maryam. There are two others, Maybelle and Chastity."
    "They all seem to dress well. Who provides the costumes?" In a theatrical company, they were sometimes the property of the troupe, sometimes owned by individual actors.
    "They buy their own gowns," Jane said. "That's common practice, though some madams advance their girls money. Your mother has accounts at all the best stores in Denver, if you need anything for yourself, but since some shopkeepers charge us more than they do a respectable customer, you might do better not to let on who you are."
    "Mother might have done better to stay behind the scenes, but she obviously chose not to." Jane said nothing. "Do you know where she is?"
    "No."
    Diana tossed her napkin aside and pushed her empty plate away. "And you wouldn't tell me if you did."
    "Probably not. She's been good to me. To everyone here. She insists on baths once a day and monthly visits to a doctor." A flicker of amusement danced behind the spectacles. "But she is cruel in one respect. She won't allow any of us to wear perfume."
    Diana's lips curved into a faint answering smile. Now that did sound like her mother. Diana could remember hearing her wax caustic on the subject of ignorant women who thought the application of a strong sweet scent could hide the stench of an unwashed body. Far too many people in the mining camps, men and women both, had gone weeks without a visit to either bathhouse or laundry.
    "She might if it smelled like lemon furniture polish," Diana murmured, inhaling deeply. She should have realized right away that someone else now lived in the mansion on Broadway. There had been a foreign smell to it. Frangipani. Miranda's choice, she supposed, although it did not really suit the delicate blonde.
    "How does Mother feel about the use of laudanum?"
    "She permits it. How could she stop it when anyone can buy it by the quart at any drugstore?" Jane waited a moment and when Diana made no further comment, added, "She is stricter about Swiss-S. She has forbidden any of the girls to drink that. It is a concoction made from absinthe, sometimes with a few drops of laudanum added."
    "Why would anyone want to take something that strong? In the wrong dosage, absinthe alone can kill." For that matter, so could laudanum.
    Deadpan, Jane said, "They say Swiss-S makes a body feel awfully good from the waist up and lively as hell from the waist down."
    A chuckle escaped Diana before she could contain it." I suppose I can understand the appeal, then, but it seems a dangerous choice of libation all the same."
    "That is why your mother doesn't allow it here."
    "Yet she permits her boarders to sell themselves." The risks were enormous. Disease. Pregnancy. Mistreatment, even death, at the hands of violent customers. The National Police Gazette was full of such tragic tales.
    "They're better off in this house than on their own. The girls in the cribs live poor and die young."
    "And these girls?"
    "Can save enough to go into business for themselves, if they're frugal. Don't look so surprised. The usual charge to go up to a bedroom is five dollars for a quick date. Those who want to stay the night pay fifteen. It adds up. And some girls end up marrying their steady customers. There are worse ways to get on in the world."
    Fascinated and repulsed at the same time, Diana could