Angel (Bartered Hearts 1)

Chapter 1

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New Orleans, 1874

Melisande draped a shawl over her head and wrapped it around her shoulders. With a glance in the small round mirror that hung on the back of her door, she tugged the blue wrap down to her forehead to protect herself from the bite of the winter air. That was what she told herself, anyway. Mostly the shawl would help shield her face from view. It might be Christmas morning, but that didn’t mean folks were feeling any more generous, especially not to a woman like her.

She’d donned her most respectable gown, a serviceable gray wool that would likely do more to disguise her than the shawl would. No one would look at the street pigeon colors of her clothing and wonder if she was a whore, not unless they saw her leaving the brothel. But it was early and it was Christmas. This part of town would be quiet as church.

Smiling at the folly of that comparison, she left her tiny room and tiptoed down the hall to keep from waking the others. She hoped some of the girls would get the extra sleep they’d earned. Some she simply didn’t want to deal with.

In a few establishments where she’d worked, a holiday was cause for a celebration, however brief. The maids and the whores would work together in the kitchen to prepare something special for their midday meal, and for a day or two, those scents would fill the building and make it smell like a home. A girl could close her eyes and imagine she was back with her mother, safe and sound.

But this house wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the worst place she’d worked, but it wasn’t the warmest. The girls here competed with each other for every last dime, and they locked up the food they’d bought for themselves like treasure. No one was going to chip in and help make jambalaya or a bûche de Noël, so the kitchen was empty when Melisande reached it, just as she’d hoped. In a whorehouse, breakfast wasn’t served until noon.

She unlocked the back latch and slipped into the alley, closing the door softly behind her. Finally free, she took a deep breath, shocked by the ice of it. It’d been cold for three days, but she hadn’t been outside in two. The clean air filled her up as she inhaled. Not even a hint of cigar smoke or sweaty bodies here. Her breath steamed out when she sighed in relief.

Just as she began to relax, she heard a scuff against the alley stones and spun toward the sound with a gasp, throwing a hand up in alarm.

“I’m sorry,” a man said as he stood from the seat he’d taken on a crate next to the door. “It’s only me.”

Me? The rising sun shone behind him, and all she could make out were wide shoulders on a big frame, a hat pulled low on his head in the cold.

“It’s Bill,” he said, and she recognized his voice then, quiet and deep as it was. “Bill Donnelly.”

“Bill,” she repeated, her tightened muscles losing some of their tension. Many of the customers she took to her bed scared her, but Bill wasn’t one of them. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d always been kind, as gentle as if she were his sweetheart. “I’m not…” She swallowed the last of her alarm down. “I’m not working right now.”

“Of course not.” He stepped away from the wall and she could finally see his face, the broad planes and high cheekbones, skin ruddy from the wind. “It’s Christmas,” he said. Despite the cold, he doffed his hat, dipping his blond head in greeting.

“Yes, well. It’ll be busy enough later.”

“Tonight?” His frown of confusion charmed her. Part of the reason he made her feel safe was that he saw the good in the world. And in her.

She smiled tiredly. “Plenty of men find all that time with family tedious. Tonight won’t be much different than any other night, holiday or not.”

“I thought sure you’d have the day off.”

It was her turn to be confused. “Then what are you doing here?”

The red of his cheeks deepened. “This,” he said, and when he held out his hand, she saw a small box in the middle of his palm.

Melisande stared at the wooden square until she was aware of the cold seeping through her boots and into the soles of her feet.

“I knocked at the front door, but no one came. I figured a kitchen maid would be up and about soon enough.” When she didn’t respond, he raised his palm a little. “It’s a present.”

“For me?” Melisande held her gloved hands close to her chest, fingers curled tight. She did not reach toward the box. “But why?”

“I…” He shook his head. “Because I thought you’d like it. When I saw it, I thought of you.”

A present for her. That made no sense. She watched it warily. “I don’t know if I should accept it.”

His fingers lost their flatness then and curled in, shielding the gift. “Why?”

Because it felt like a trick. She shook her head.

“You need to think about it?”

She took a step back, watching him. She couldn’t think what to do or why the decision felt important. “I’m on my way to mass, so I can’t stay longer.”

“Whores go to church?” he asked, his eyebrows flying high.

Melisande ducked her head, shoulders hitching up in shock. “Some of us do,” she bit out.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said before she’d even finished her words. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Didn’t mean what? That I’m a whore? Or that God can’t love me?”

“Melisande…I’m sorry. Just take this.” He grasped her hand and turned it over to set the gift there. “Last time I was here, you said your family’s gone, and I worried there’d be no one to wish you a merry Christmas. That’s all. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

She looked down at her hand and the box he’d brought for her. Had she told him she didn’t have family? She must have, lying in bed with him after sex. He had that effect on her. She couldn’t guess why, but she liked him. He wasn’t like the others.

The truth was that her mother was still alive, but Melisande had walked away from her years ago. Her mother had turned Melisande into a prostitute at age thirteen. It had taken her until seventeen to realize she’d rather have no mother at all than one who’d made her into this.

She had an aunt somewhere, and cousins, but they were respectable folk, too clean for a girl like Melisande.