The Infamous Miss Ilsa Read online

  “I . . . ” He hadn’t thought about this part, in Morse’s suite. Having to face Ilsa. Feeling like a coward.

  Her chin lifted a fraction, and she uncrossed her arms and brushed her palms briskly down her faded blue skirt. “That’s all I wanted to know. Have a nice evening, Dr. Whitacre.” She turned for the door. His hand darted out to touch her elbow before he could stop to think better of it. She went very still.

  “Ilsa, don’t. I’m sorry.” She breathed in, deeply, and turned to face him.

  “You’re sorry. For cancelling the appointments?”

  “Yes. And for—for lots of things.” She was so close, she had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes. Her eyes were so blue. Had they always been that blue? The last time they had been this close . . .

  And then his lips were on hers. He wasn’t sure which of them leaned first, closing those last four inches, and he didn’t care. He remembered this. His body remembered this, how perfectly right they felt together. Her soft lips against his. The warmth of her breath. His hands skimmed her waist and that, too, felt right. He tasted her lips, and she made a soft sighing noise that sent pulses of warmth racing through him. It was as if an electric current made contact at every point where their skin touched, wherever her curves fit against the straight hard lines of his body. It had been so long, so goddamned long, since anyone had touched him like this. Held him. Wanted him. Not since he was sixteen, and Ilsa had—

  He pulled away with a gasp.

  “Christ. I shouldn’t have done that.” He jammed his hands into his pockets as he stepped back.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” he repeated. “Because . . . because it’s taking advantage.”

  She seemed sincerely surprised and still a little breathless. “It wasn’t, though. At all.”

  “It feels that way. It’s my fault you’re even here. That you’re . . . ” He had the good sense to not finish that sentence, at least. Even he knew enough not to tell a woman that she wasn’t respectable. He shrugged, hoping she’d let it pass.

  No such luck. “That I’m what? That I’m not working my fingers raw scrubbing muddy floors?” Damn. He’d angered her again, and they were right back where they’d been when she’d first barged in. Why couldn’t he get this right? “You’ve seen my work. Up close, even. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “No, of course not! I meant, you know, what you had to do in the past. Before you got this job.” God, he hoped she wasn’t going to make him say the actual, ugly word. Prostitute.

  Her blue eyes suddenly went wide, and Theo braced himself for tears, for shouting, for a slap.

  And then she laughed: a startled hiccupping sound at first that quickly swelled into a torrent of laughter she tried to hold in by covering her mouth with her hands.

  “Your face!” she gasped. “Oh Theo, really?”

  “What?” He was confused and a little offended. “What’s so damn funny?”

  “That’s what you’ve been imagining all this time.” She took a deep, shaky breath, steadying herself. “That I left your house under a dark cloud and became a tragic lady of the evening?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, you’re right.” Her grin broke through again. “But you do realize there are stages between housemaid and whore, right?”

  Of course he knew that. On an intellectual level.

  “Then you never . . . ?”

  “No! Lord, no. I got a job the very next day. In a dance hall. Dancing.” He must have still looked sceptical because she added, “With all my clothes on.”

  He had heard about dance halls, of course, although he’d never been inside of one. Workingmen spent their paychecks there on whiskey, music, and female companionship. But he had no idea how a woman could make an honest living as an employee in that kind of a place.

  “Dancing with men?” he asked cautiously.

  “It did tend to be men who wanted to dance with the ladies. And that’s the only thing they paid for, besides drinks. Some of them offered, of course. Or brought little presents. But if anyone got grabby, he got thrown out on his ear.” Ilsa smiled a little—apparently this was some kind of pleasant memory for her. Theo didn’t like it, not at all.

  “So you sold your time and your attention to any man who wanted to put his hands on you.”

  Her smile disappeared as if it had never existed.

  “Don’t. It wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t ashamed of it then, and nobody’s going to make me ashamed of it now. Especially you.”

  This time when she moved to leave, he simply got out of her way. In the space of ten minutes, he’d been called a coward, apologized for the worst mistake of his life, kissed Ilsa, and then effectively called her a whore. Twice.

  The entire evening had been, without question, a disaster. He was losing everything good about his time in Fraser Springs. Not just the time spent with Ilsa; now that he wouldn’t have it any longer, he realized that he was going to miss the camaraderie of the old-timers group. He’d finally found somewhere where nobody pitied him, where defects and pain and crookedness were old friends and not afflictions to be whispered about in hushed tones.

  Worse, he’d insulted the last person on earth he ever wanted to hurt. Again. He just couldn’t get out of the way of his own clumsiness and assumptions. He didn’t know how he could make this up to her. He didn’t even know if she’d let him try.

  He lowered himself down on the bed and rubbed his temples. His back throbbed again, and the pulsing pain only reminded him that Wilson’s and its treatments were off-limits to him now. The thought of anyone except Ilsa putting their hands on him like that made him flinch. So the knots would remain knotted. The tight muscles would still feel on the verge of snapping. And worst of all, without Ilsa, he was afraid that the hollow feeling in his stomach would stay that way.

  • • •

  Ilsa combed her fingers over her hair—everything still in place, still respectable. She couldn’t look like a woman who’d just been pressed up against a hotel room door and kissed. She touched her lips, which still tingled. Even in the moment, she had known that she would regret kissing Theo. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had been stupid for enjoying spending time with him, stupid for feeling safe with him, stupid for kissing him, for wanting to kiss him, for wanting to go right back into that room and kiss him again.

  She had run out of second chances a long time ago. From her very first house when she was fourteen, where the master had had yellow teeth and would pinch her chest and always seemed to be waiting for her in darkened hallways. That man’s wife had eventually hauled her back to the girls’ home, claiming that Ilsa had displayed moral turpitude. She hadn’t known what turpitude meant until she’d looked it up in a dictionary at the Whitacre’s house, but she’d gotten the general idea right away. Four more employers with wandering hands, and four more wives who sent her packing with outraged silence or lectures about how Ilsa was leading their husbands into temptation. It was always her fault. Her body simply provoked men to lewdness, no matter what ugly uniform she dressed in. Some women just gave off an air of coarseness that couldn’t be remedied.

  And now, finally, she had landed in the perfect place. She had respectability. Protection. Dignity. Friendship. Enough pay to save for her future. So why did she seem determined to endanger that by marching up to a bachelor’s rooms in a public hotel? And why had she wanted to kiss Theo so much? After years of attention from men who’d walk away from her the minute they got what they wanted, why did the one man she knew she should stay away from suddenly feel so irresistible? She didn’t learn.

  Theo was not the kind of person she could let down her guard for. Despite his bumbling and good intentions, he was dangerous. She knew exactly what rich people were like. They smiled and flashed those perfect manners at you, but they turned on you in an instant. And if you complained or fought back, you were only proving how inferior you were. Rich men especially seemed to be incapable of respecting any woman, espe
cially one from a lower class.

  Every time she had ignored this fact, she had paid for it. After her first kiss with Theo, she had resolved to end things before Theo’s mother returned home. But what harm was there in enjoying their last few days together? And then his mother did come home, and of course, Ilsa had wanted to say goodbye. So she snuck into his bedroom and he wrapped her under his warm covers, and the bed was so much softer than her own little cot. Their whispered grand plans were punctuated with kisses.

  “We’ll be found out,” she finally whispered. They lay facing each other, his strong leg over her thigh, his arms wrapped around her so her head was on his chest. Their bodies made sense pressed against one another. She was surprised to feel his erection pressing along her thigh, surprised that she wanted to feel it. “This is my last chance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the other places, the men were horrible. And their wives all thought it was my fault. That I liked it. But I didn’t.” Ilsa had to work hard to keep her voice to a whisper. “I didn’t.”

  Theo tightened his hold on her.

  “This is my last chance. The sisters sent me here because your father’s so old and because . . . ”

  Theo snorted. “Because the poor crippled boy could never molest you?”

  Ilsa laughed, despite herself. His erection pressed against her. His pajama bottoms hung low off his thin hips. It would take so little to tug them off. It would have been so easy: an inch or two here, a bit of fabric there, a man who was a little more insistent than Theo. Everyone from her parents to the sisters at the orphanage to countless employers had told her how dangerous this was, but here, with Theo, she could not summon any shame over it.

  “We just have to keep it secret for two more years, until I can go to university.” He paused. “We’ll find some way. They can’t get rid of you if I want you here.”

  But both of them knew that they could, and that they would, so he kissed her again.

  “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Even if she fires you, I’ll make sure you end up somewhere good. And then when I’m eighteen, I’ll move away. And we can be together. I’m already learning how to walk with a cane. It will work out.”

  His voice was so earnest. Ilsa nodded. Things had never once worked out before. But it was hard not to trust Theo when his arms were around her. Not when everything had been so very difficult, and this did not seem difficult at all.

  Except that it was. Ilsa shook the memory away. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change. He’d abandoned treatments that were helping him just because some rich so-and-so snapped his fingers. If he wouldn’t stand up for himself, he certainly wouldn’t stand up for her.

  Luckily, no one was lurking in the kitchen when she slipped in through the back door. She did not have to explain herself or make excuses to anyone. She’d skipped out on dinner, so she slapped together a cheese sandwich and headed up to her room with it.

  She was overworked, that was the problem. Her recklessness wasn’t really about Theo; it was about her. She was on the edge of starting a new life, and that was scary. When you were scared, you retreated into old habits. Theo was simply one of those old comforts, like a forgotten favourite doll or blanket.

  Still, every time she paused to look out the window, she found herself touching her lips, remembering how easily those inches of distance closed between them, how little their bodies had forgotten about each other. Kissing Theo was the first time she’d felt thrillingly alive in months. Perhaps in years. She deserved to feel that way more often. She would simply have to find a thrill that wasn’t attached to a man from the richest, most awful family in Vancouver.

  Her heart pounding, she retrieved the hatbox from under the bed. She took out her pencil and paper and began to write before she lost the nerve.

  Dear Mr. Hayley:

  I read your advertisement for brokerage services in The Vancouver World with great interest.

  No. She should get right to the point. She took out a fresh sheet of paper.

  As per your advertisement in the Sept. 1912 edition of The Vancouver World, I am writing to request more information about your brokerage services.

  That sounded awkward. Another sheet.

  I am writing in response to your advertisement for brokerage services, as advertised in the September 1912 edition of The Vancouver World. I plan to relocate to Vancouver to open a small sundries business. After much research, I believe that your prices are the most competitive, and I would like to meet with you to discuss this opportunity further.

  Would you be available to meet

  She paused. Jo’s baby was due in late November, just two weeks away. Should she try for early December or around Christmas? Maybe January. No, if she didn’t do it now, she would never do it.

  Would you be available to meet in early December?

  Yours most sincerely,

  I. Pedersen

  She wasn’t sure what Mr. Hayley thought about women opening businesses, so she decided to remain on the safe side by using her initial. There. Done. She tucked the letter into the hatbox and shoved everything under the bed.

  The triumphant rush of stuffing the letter into an envelope and addressing it had gone a long way to overpowering the thought of kissing Theo, and it was much more productive in the long run. Once she moved back to Vancouver and answered only to herself, she could daydream about kisses any time she liked.

  Chapter 9

  Theo spent a night of broken sleep and nightmares. In one, he was sixteen again, in a carriage with his father, traveling through the snowy Vancouver streets. They pulled up to the brothel. He cried out, tried to leap from the carriage, but it was no use. And then he was in the hotel room, kissing Ilsa, only this time he lowered her down onto the ridiculous velvet bedspread. Their bodies fit so well together, the knots and hooks of her dress seemed to fall away, and the rising sun cast shades of red and gold over her pale skin. She was so beautiful. But just as he reached out to touch her, she was yanked out of his bed by Dr. Greyson. Theo tried to pull her back, but he was frozen in place, paralyzed as if he were trapped in amber.

  He woke up thrashing in the tangled sheets. The dream had seemed so real that he was surprised to realize he was, in fact, alone in the room. He took a few deep breaths. No Dr. Greyson. No Father. And most of all, no Ilsa.

  That last one was his fault. He had chased her away. Every time things seemed to be growing easier between them, he found a way to make them difficult. He sat up in bed and fumbled for his spectacles. The blur of shadows and dim, early dawn light crystallized into the shapes of his wardrobe and dressing table. He took another breath.

  The dreams tugged at the edge of his vision. He could almost see her by the door as she had been last night, closing the few inches between them, raising her chin up to meet his lips.

  If he stayed in this room, he would never have to stop imagining how her lips felt, how they tasted, the little sigh she’d make when his hand brushed her waist—

  No. Enough. He lurched out of bed and stumbled across the room to the sink. He splashed cold water on his face and dressed as quickly as he could.

  As he descended the stairs for breakfast, the porter met him.

  “You’re up bright and early, Dr. Whitacre.” The porter lowered his voice. “Mr. Enderby took ill yesterday evening. Dr. Greyson says it’s the flu but,” he hesitated, and then hurried on, “that recipe you gave me before, with the salt and the sugar—can you write that down for me? It worked such wonders on Mrs. Deighton. Mr. Enderby seems to be getting worse and worse, you see, and he’s such a frail old man to begin with.”

  Well, then. Dr. Greyson had been seeing patients without him, sending him to tend to the rashes and headaches and taking the most serious cases for himself. He knew he should defer to the senior physician, but Theo’s first oath was to his patients: to do no harm. If Mr. Enderby had the same illness Mrs. Deighton had, the dehydration could be fatal.

  “Do you have a
pencil?” The man fished a yellow stub and a scrap of paper from his pants pocket. Theo spoke as he wrote: “One quart of water to a boil for several minutes, add six tablespoons of sugar and half a tablespoon of salt, then let it cool. Get him to drink as much of it as he can. Have there been any other cases?”

  The man looked nervously down the empty hallway. “You didn’t hear this from me, right?”

  At that moment a stout, balding man wrenched open the door that led out to the stairwell. “You there! Call the doctor.” The man’s thin white moustache quivered, and he was sweating profusely.

  Theo raised his hand in greeting. “I am the doctor. What seems to be the trouble, sir?”

  “My wife is ill. Very ill.” The man grabbed Theo by the arm so roughly that it almost knocked him over.

  He shook himself free, stepped back, and straightened his coat. “Calm yourself, please. What room is she in?”

  “Room 315. She was perfectly well last night, and now she can’t even keep a sip of water down.”

  “I’ll get my bag and meet you there in five minutes.” The man opened his mouth to object. “Five minutes,” Theo repeated firmly. The man nodded curtly and headed back to the stairwell.

  “You’d better double that recipe,” he told the porter quietly. “Mr. Enderby first, then meet me in 315. We can talk after.”

  When Theo entered Room 315, the woman in the bed seemed to be a carbon copy of Mrs. Deighton: same ashen skin and cracked lips. Same unresponsiveness. Theo put the back of his hand to her forehead. No fever. He pinched the skin on the back of her wrist. She, too, had terrible dehydration.

  “When did this start?” Theo asked her husband.