Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(41)

Guards pull open the iron gate to let out the carriage. Hardwick, dressed in a suit and top hat, offers his newest associate, Miss Helena Russell, a hand as she climbs inside and takes a seat.

“Henry, what’s an associate?” I whisper.

He looks puzzled. “Someone who associates?”

“No, I mean, is it a polite way of saying something else? Does it mean something like . . .”

“Business partner?” he suggests helpfully.

“Prostitute? Mistress?”

“Not as far as I know. Why?”

“When Hardwick introduced Helena Russell to me, he described her as his newest associate. I’ve been struggling ever since to figure out what that means.”

“You’re not the only one.”

Hardwick’s carriage pulls out of the gate and clatters down the street. Henry sticks his head out the door and tells our driver to follow, not too closely, and to stop when it does. Our carriage lurches forward. The road is not as smooth as I’d like, and I find myself grateful for the seat cushions.

“From what I can gather,” Henry says, “Hardwick has never been married, and never been publicly involved with any woman. It’s a common problem here, seeing as men have outnumbered women ever since the war. So a month or two ago, when Miss Russell showed up, everyone assumed that Hardwick had finally found himself a lady.”

I think of her strong arms and calloused hands. “I don’t think she’s a lady.”

“Lee! Are you being catty?”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that. I mean she’s not . . . refined. She’s . . . like me, I guess.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” he says sternly.

“I wasn’t fishing for reassurances.”

“Well, Miss Russell is an odd one, that’s for sure. She doesn’t accept lunch invitations from the wives of the other rich men and politicians. She’s not engaged in charitable work for the improvement of the city. She hasn’t hosted any parties.”

“What does she do?”

“She accompanies Hardwick to all his business meetings. She’s met every one of his partners and major clients and political allies. Some find her unnerving.”

It is unnerving, the way she always whispers in his ear.

The carriage rattles to a stop. Henry peers out the window. “Ah, the Eldorado. Miss Helena Russell is accompanying him to a gaming house.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Not lately. But before she arrived, Hardwick never gambled. Now he plays high stakes every night. Apparently he’s as lucky in cards as he is in business.”

The door opens, and Henry tips the driver as we step down.

The world shifts beneath my feet, and I grab Henry’s arm for balance. “Henry, there’s an awful lot of gold in there,” I whisper.

He gives me a sympathetic look. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

I take a deep breath, letting the gold sense surround me, pass through me. Things have been a whole lot easier since I learned not to fight it. “I’m sure,” I say, already steadier on my feet.

A huge crowd is gathered outside, and we start to push past elbows and cigars to reach the entrance. But the dress I’m wearing is like magic; men part for me and tip their hats like I’m a one-woman Fourth of July parade. And maybe I am. All the gold here is setting off fireworks right behind my eyes.

Inside is a high-ceilinged, smoky parlor. Eight gambling tables take up most of the space, and an excited mob surrounds each one. Lots of Mexicans here, in dusty serapes and more elaborate boots than I’m used to. White men in shirtsleeves and suspenders shout in a variety of accents, announcing their origins from the Yankee north, the cotton south, the Irish isle, and faraway Australia.

A long bar runs the length of the parlor. On the wall behind it are shelves with row after row of bottles. Lots of men and a very few women crowd against the bar, drinking and laughing. In a little balcony above, a pretty Negro woman plays the fiddle.

The room smells of sweat and booze and cheap tobacco, which I’d normally find distasteful, but this time I inhale deep, letting the scents ground me. Because otherwise I’d be overwhelmed by gold, not just by the amount of coins in play, but by their constant movement. It’s like a whirlpool of stars.

For a brief, fool-headed moment, I imagine calling all of that gold toward me. Part of me wants to do it. But this time, it wouldn’t be a cloud of soft dust, coating me, turning me into the Golden Goddess of miners’ tall tales. It would be a deadly hail of coins. Enough to bury me.

Or I could push it all away. It would be a relief.

I close my eyes. Sweat rolls down my forehead. My hands shake.

Maybe, with one burst of power, I could send every gold coin, every lucky nugget and pin and button in this room flying.

“Lee,” Henry whispers. “Lee? Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . not sure.”

“People are staring. Let’s keep moving.”

The size of the crowd makes it hard to see the players at each table, so we circle the room once, and then twice, looking for Hardwick and Russell. Henry pauses to talk to a number of people he recognizes, and then gets distracted by one of the games. A cherub-faced miner is on a winning streak, and the crowd cheers as he keeps doubling his bet and winning.