Wild Star (Star Quartet 3)

Bile rose in her throat and she stuffed her fist into her mouth. She saw Ira’s white body rise, saw Irene’s parted legs.

She heard Irene gasp for breath when Ira covered her.

They were lovers. No. Irene was his half-sister! No, it couldn’t be. No.

Their bodies were entwined. They were one.

Michelle had the look of the Butlers. No, she looked like Ira.

Byrony clutched her arms around her stomach as the truth burst into her mind. Dear God, no wonder Ira didn’t want her as a real wife. He already had a wife and a child.

Slowly she backed through the doorway. She gently pulled the door closed.

Michelle was their child. He’d married her to save his half-sister, to keep her and their child in his home. She was only for appearances. For show.

She was going to be sick. She ran back down the stairs and jerked open the front door. She fell to her knees in the thick mud and vomited.

She shuddered with dry heaves. Finally she quieted. Her body felt battered, her mind blessedly numb, but just for a moment. I can’t go back, I can’t go back.

She staggered to her feet, clutched her cloak about her, and started running. She saw the lights coming from downtown and kept running toward them. Across Market Street. She stumbled into deep pockets of mud, pulled herself up, and kept going, doggedly. She felt the rain soak through her cloak, to her skin.

I can’t go back there. I can’t.

Her mind focused on the lights. The new gaslights, installed just last month. Hazy lights with the fog shrouding them. She stumbled past saloons, past men who didn’t realize she was a female until she was well beyond them. She heard men calling to her but didn’t slow. She had to keep going. Ke

ep going.

Some part of her mind knew exactly where she was going. To the Wild Star. To Portsmouth Square. To Brent Hammond. She wondered, briefly, why she didn’t go to Chauncey. Chauncey was her friend, she would take her in. But her feet didn’t slow. She saw Brent in her mind’s eye, and knew deep down that despite everything, he would take care of her. He would protect her. And she wanted his protection, no one else’s. God, she just wanted to see him, have him hold her, have him make the awful nightmare go away.

Her breath was jerky, she had a painful stitch in her side. Her head pounded in time with her heart. Her teeth chattered until her jaws ached.

She heard her shoes clattering on the wooden sidewalk on the east side of Kearny, a soggy, hollow sound. She wasn’t aware of time passing. She was conscious only of putting one foot in front of the other. Conscious only of escaping.

The Wild Star was brightly lit. Men gambled and whored in all kinds of weather. Suddenly she heard a man’s gruff voice, felt herself pulled to a stop by a strong arm about her shoulders.

“Jesus, Chad, lookee what I got. A little bird. A very wet little bird.”

“Let me go,” Byrony screamed, but the words were only a hoarse whisper. She didn’t have her derringer.

“I should say you’ve got yerself a prize, Neddie. What are ye doin’ out of bed, honey? You need yerself a warm man for the night?”

They were drunk and they were going to hurt her. “Please, let me go.”

She jerked away from the one man, but the other caught her and pulled her against him. She felt his hot, whiskey breath against her mouth.

She screamed, a thin, wailing sound that was muted by the pounding rain.

“What the devil is going on?”

“Help me. Please, help me.”

Brent stared at the bedraggled woman in the grip of the two drunks Nero had just assisted bodily from the saloon.

“We just found us a little whore out for a stroll,” Chad said, tugging Byrony against him.

“She doesn’t look particularly willing to me,” Brent said, watching the struggling woman with growing anger. “Let her go. Now.” Damnation. All he’d wanted to do was go to Celeste, and now this. He felt the rain trickling down the back of his neck, and strode forward.

“Lookee, Hammond, it ain’t none of yer business.”