Free The Ballad of Emma O'Toole by Elizabeth Lane Page B

clean and was searching vainly for a matchbox when she heard a discreet knock on the door, followed by a boyish voice.
    “Breakfast, Mrs. Devereaux. May we bring it in?”
    Mrs. Devereaux?
The name sounded like some stranger’s, certainly not her own. “I—I didn’t order any breakfast,” Emma stammered. “There must be some mistake.”
    “No mistake, ma’am. Your husband ordered it sent up before he went out this morning. May we open the door and bring it in?”
    Emma had never been served breakfast in her adult life. She called out her assent and stood by the unlit stove as the door swung open. A young man whose long face and bony build reminded her of Billy John entered with an apple-cheeked girl in a maid’s uniform—he with a tray similar to the one Emma had seen last night, she with a smaller tray bearing a steaming pewter coffeepot and an elegant silver service set, complete with cream, sugar, salt and pepper shakers, molded butter and a pot of jam.
    “Have a seat, ma’am. We’ll just set this upfor you.” They moved with stunning efficiency, setting the trays down, whisking the covers off the hot food and pouring the coffee. While the girl spread a snowy napkin in Emma’s lap, the young man produced a match and lit a blaze in the stove.
    “Did my husband say when he’d be returning?” Emma forced her mouth around the unaccustomed words
my husband
.
    “I wasn’t the one he spoke to,” the girl replied, “but I did notice he’d ordered lunch for you.”
    “I see.” So Logan had planned to be gone all day, frittering away his time in the saloons most likely. But at least he’d been thoughtful enough to see that she didn’t go hungry.
    “I can make up the room while you eat,” the maid said as the boy left. “Would that be all right?”
    “Yes…certainly.” Emma inhaled the savory aromas of bacon, eggs, toasted bread and coffee, grateful that she’d suffered so little from the morning sickness that plagued most expectant mothers. She was ravenous.
    For the past three years she’d awakened before dawn to fire the stove and boil a huge kettle of steaming oatmeal mush. The mush was scooped into bowls and served with breadand coffee to the thirty miners who lived at Vi Clawson’s boardinghouse. If time allowed, Emma could breakfast on any leftovers after she’d laid out the boiled eggs and mutton sandwiches for their lunch boxes. She’d known better than to complain. Vi would only have reminded her how lucky she was to have a roof over her head.
    Now here she was, feasting like royalty in a room fit for a duchess, all because Billy John was dead and she’d married the man who killed him. It was up to her to put things right and use her position as the man’s wife to get her revenge. Otherwise, there’d be no justification for the decadent way she was living.
    By the time Emma was through eating, the maid had finished tidying the room and changing the linens. She carried the tray out and closed the door.
    Alone now, Emma stood at the window. Veiled by the lace curtain, she gazed down at the busy scene below. By now the storekeepers had opened their doors. Foot traffic, shoppers, workers and idlers, moved along the boardwalks. Two pretty girls primped and posed, admiring their reflections in the windowpane of a dry goods store.
    Buggies and riders moved aside for a mule-drawnore wagon, rumbling down to the Marsac Mill at the lower end of town. Even here, two floors above the ground, the pounding of that mill was a steady pulse, like the beat of a monstrous mechanical heart.
    A movement on the far side of the street caught her eye. Her fists clenched as she recognized Hector Armitage in his checkered coat and bowler hat. The man was standing in a doorway, his eyes on the hotel. Either some source had told him she was here, or he’d seen Logan leave earlier. Now he waited like a hungry coyote, hoping, no doubt, that she’d come outside and he could catch her by surprise. She drew back,