Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“Old Wilkes is gonna ask a fortune for her, I’ll bet.”

“He’d be a fool not to,” Saint said. He suddenly remembered the day he’d left Lahaina. Jules had stood on the dock waving frantically to him. He’d seen tears in her eyes even from that distance. Then he’d seen her father, the damned prig, pull her away roughly.

During the past two years, Saint had managed to buy four young Chinese girls from Ah Choy before they’d been debauched. But of course he didn’t have enough money to buy Jules. God, what was he to do?

He said finally, “Hoot, find out exactly what hour the auction starts.” He added quietly, “I think it’s about time I called in some favors.”

After Hoot Moon left as furtively as he’d come, Saint poured himself another whiskey and sat down again in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his fingers steepled. Until now he’d never involved his friends. There was always the chance of reprisals. Once before, two years ago, a friend had helped him, and had been recognized. He’d been found two days later with a bullet through his brain. But this time was different. He knew he could trust Delaney Saxton. After all, Del had saved his cook and housekeeper, Lin Chou, from one of those filthy cribs. Del, at least, cared. But Del was a new father. If he were recognized, there could be real trouble for him and Chauncey.

The criminal element in San Francisco knew no social boundaries. Some of the wealthiest men were utterly rotten, and it was impossible to tell who was involved in what. As for Hoot Moon and his sort, they were petty criminals in comparison. And, oddly enough, Saint trusted them.

He could borrow money from Del Saxton and buy Juliana DuPres outright. But the thought of paying, at the very least, a good five thousand dollars to that scum Wilkes made him want to howl. No, he didn’t want Wilkes to get a cent. He wanted to smash the man’s face into pulp.

Somewhere near three o’clock in the morning, Saint decided he wouldn’t involve any of his respectable friends. He’d call in the favors from the Sydney Ducks.

Jules felt calm. When Jameson Wilkes tried to auction her off, she’d scream, fight, tear the place down. Somebody would help her. Not all men were like him.

She was still a prisoner in Wilkes’s cabin. After she’d decided what she would do, she spent a good deal of time staring out the porthole at San Francisco. They were docked at the Clay Street wharf, Jameson Wilkes had told her.

He’d put a lock on the cabin door. “Just in case you get any outlandish ideas, my dear,” he’d said in that calm voice

of his.

She’d asked him two days before, “Isn’t there anyone you care about?”

Oddly enough, he’d stiffened alarmingly. But he’d said nothing, merely looked away from her as if seeing someone in the distant past.

It was dark now, and her nose was pressed against the porthole. There were so many lights, and she could even hear the shouts of men in the distance. She didn’t look around when she heard the cabin door open.

“Juliana, it is time.”

Jameson Wilkes drew back a moment at the hatred he saw in her eyes. But it was more than that, he realized. There was determination as well. It didn’t require a powerful intellect to realize what she planned to do. He shook his head, and there was a flicker of regret in his eyes. He felt a sudden burning pain in his belly and automatically began to rub his stomach.

He handed her a gown, no underthings or petticoats, just a gown that was of a filmy material and a garish crimson color.

Jules only stared at the gown. He’d forced her to bathe that afternoon and wash her hair. She was now standing before him, a sheet wrapped around her. She drew herself up and sneered. “Surely, sir, that gown is in dreadful taste. Won’t your gentlemen friends want to purchase a female who looks more a lady than a whore?”

He laughed. “Take the gown, my dear.”

“No, I won’t!”

“If you refuse,” he said, his voice as unruffled as always, “you will go before a roomful of men quite naked. It is your decision.”

He calmly laid the gown on the bed, turned on his heel, and strode to the cabin door. “You have fifteen minutes, Juliana, no more.”

She had no choice, none at all. She didn’t disbelieve his threat. As she struggled to cover herself as best she could with the bright red dress, the memories of that night some five days before again filtered through her mind. Vague images, but they bothered her. She saw herself, as if through a haze, lying on her back, feeling strange sensations, feeling as though she were floating above her body, a body quite separate from her. Until he’d touched her breast—then she’d become herself again. She shook her head. It had made no sense. None at all. She raised her chin and waited for Jameson Wilkes to return for her.

She would best him. Oh, yes, she would.

5

The Crooked House on Sutter Street stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, and was, Saint knew, for all its rumored satanic rites and sexual perversions, nothing more than a whorehouse. A fancy whorehouse with only rich private members.

Members, he thought, shaking his head. That was almost funny.

He thought of Juliana DuPres and what she must be feeling. Terror, no doubt. He wondered if she’d changed much from that pert little straggly girl he’d known five years ago. So bright, she’d been, as bright as her flame-colored hair. He remembered her waiting for him several times outside the Seamen’s Hospital on Front Street. If her damned father had known, he would have had a fit, of course, but somehow he’d never learned of those surreptitious visits. No matter how depressed Saint had been, the sight of her had always make him smile.

Saint came out of the shadows at the sound of an owl. Hoot, he realized, was in place, as were, Saint hoped, the other dozen Sydney Ducks. A villainous lot, the bunch of them, but he’d take them over the bastards inside the Crooked House any day.