The Scandalous Mrs. Wilson Read online

  After he left, Jo daubed water on her face and the back of her neck. Even after the scrubbing, her palms still buzzed with the mint and friction of the massage. She splashed more water on her face, trying to clear her blurry thoughts by concentrating on the view from the window. Summer was beginning in earnest, and soon Fraser Springs would be thick with mosquitos and a mineral-laden fog of humidity. In the summer, the mountains that loomed over the town made her feel as if she were stuck in an enormous soup tureen.

  Ilsa bustled in to collect the towels and bowls for cleaning. “Well, then. Does he feel as good as he looks?” she teased.

  Jo shot her what she hoped was a bland, utterly unruffled glare. “Ilsa, can you air out this room? It is impossibly stifling. I suspect the summer heat will be settling on us sooner than expected.”

  Isla did not even bother to hide her grin. “Of course. We will talk about the weather. Whatever you say, Miz Jo.”

  Jo’s retort, however, was cut short by the sudden sound of breaking glass. Without thinking, both women ran down to the front parlour. The floor was strewn with shards of clear and blue glass, smashed into an almost lovely wave on the floor. Broken window glass, broken bottles, and in the center of the glittering mess sat a brick wrapped in paper like a gift. It even had a ribbon tied around it.

  “Be careful.” Ilsa touched Jo’s shoulder. “They could still be here.”

  She brushed off the hand. “Those cowards couldn’t look me in the eye, let alone hurt us.” She bent down to pick up the brick when Nils came running through the front door.

  “What happened?” he asked, looking between the two women. Jo silently gestured to the brick, and Nils went very still. Then he nodded and turned back towards the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Nils, don’t.” The man’s knuckles clenched at his sides, but he stopped where he was. “All you’ll do is earn yourself a few nights in the lock-up and your name in the paper. ‘Bathhouse Thug Commits Unprovoked Assault on Upstanding Citizens.’”

  Nils’s jaw jutted forward. “But they’ll have time to think twice about terrorizing women while they’re nursing their broken faces.”

  Jo approached him, skirting the broken glass as best she could, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Even if you caught them, you know it will only make things worse. We need you here, Nils. We can’t afford to have you locked up.”

  He gave a long, frustrated sigh. “I can’t just stand by.”

  “Then help us clean up. And come with us to the meeting. Then you can stare these cowards straight in the eye and call them out in front of everyone.”

  As she spoke, Jo untied the ribbon from around the brick, brushed the crumbs of glass off the paper, and read:

  “For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Proverbs 5:3-5.”

  She refolded the letter neatly. “Hypocrites. Blasphemous, cowardly hypocrites.” She tucked it into her smock’s pocket.

  Another love letter for her collection.

  Really, though, what she had told Nils was nothing but the truth. Right now, anger was less helpful than industry.

  “The men will be here for supper soon,” she announced as much to herself as to her employees. No, to her friends. “We need to get this mess sorted.”

  Ilsa nodded and collected brooms for them from the hall closet. Jo began to sweep, but almost immediately something caught her eye among the splintered window glass. She bent down and picked up a shard with the letters W I L written in gold paint. Wilson’s. If Albert were still alive, there’d be no discontent in the town at all. He’d have soothed it away in an afternoon. “Oh, Mrs. McSheen, we all know it’s the Lord’s work to reform fallen women by setting them to honest, meaningful labour. Now, tell me how young Emma is coming along with her piano lessons—” He’d lead her away for a cup of tea, and before long, she’d be trumpeting that Wilson’s Bathhouse was a righteous establishment fulfilling a higher purpose. Jo sighed. Maybe she had brought this on herself. She was too inflexible, unable to talk sweet.

  The glass made a rasping, tinkling sound as she and Ilsa swept the pieces across the floor and into piles. Nils returned with wood to board up the window. As the daylight gradually dimmed and then disappeared from the parlour, Jo had the brief, panicked sensation of being buried alive. Oh, she would miss the light the window brought in. No one in town made glass panes of that size. A new window would have to be shipped up from Vancouver. How would she even begin to find the money?

  In the middle of her sweeping, Ilsa looked up and stared at the space where the window had been.

  “What’s wrong?” Jo asked.

  “Do you think Mr. Wister had anything to do with this? He just left from his treatment, and all of a sudden there’s a brick through our window.”

  “Aww, he’s a good sort,” Nils said.

  Jo paused. His racing pulse, the cords of tension in his neck and shoulders. All that time she was massaging him, was he reciting Bible passages to himself and imagining her face when she saw his handiwork? “I ... I don’t think so. No. The handwriting matches the other notes, so unless he’s been here for months ...”

  “Or unless he’s working with someone,” Ilsa said.

  “Why bother sending in a spy if he already had his mind made up enough to smash my window in broad daylight? And he wasn’t gone five minutes before this happened. Why throw the brick right after he left if he wanted to avoid suspicion?”

  Jo had never seen Ilsa angry before. Now, however, a flush spread across her cheeks and throat, and her wide blue eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you’re defending him. You said yourself he’s hiding something. We caught him prowling around our house last night!”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” said Nils, bristling.

  “Do I think he’s hiding something? Yes. Do I think he spent all day here, found absolutely nothing, and then wrote a Bible verse on a brick he just happened to have on his person so he could throw it through the front window? No. We need to be calm and rational about this.”

  “I don’t think he means to harm anyone,” Nils said after a silence. “But you do need to be careful.”

  Ilsa swept the floor with such force that the broom looked like it was about to snap, avoiding everyone’s gaze. “

  Jo wanted to tell her that it would be all right. They’d replace the glass. They’d get through the season. But the words felt like dust in her throat when she tried to speak them. Instead, she doubled her cleaning efforts. Was Ross Wister behind all this? Could he really be trying to hurt her?

  Chapter 8

  Owen didn’t clearly remember his walk back to the St. Alice. His brain was still buzzing loudly enough that when he entered the bright, echoing hotel he wouldn’t have noticed if it had contained a brass band at full volume. He asked for his key at the desk and crossed the gleaming lobby. The smell of mint and talc clung to him, the odors indelibly linked to the friction of soft palms sliding against his naked back, his shoulders, his neck. The sluicings of cold water he had been subjected to afterwards had restored him to enough decency to leave the room with his dignity intact, but the effect seemed to be short-lived.

  He marched up the stairs to his room, taking them two at a time. He tried to be fascinated by the carpet pattern. The colour of the wallpaper. It was ridiculous wallpaper. She was a ridiculous, intolerable woman. At last, he was through the door to his room. He locked it behind him and leaned his forehead against the cool, solid wood. He could still smell mint. With a groan, he released the door handle and stripped off his strangling tie and his coat. He walked across the room to the washstand, where the smooth heft of the porcelain pitcher reminded him impossibly of her cool hands.

  It was no good. No matter how fervently he instructed his thoughts to turn their course, he could only recall the images that had flooded his imagination in that claustrophob
ic little room. Her hair escaping its pins, curling down the back of her neck. Her lips, pale pink and soft, parted ever so slightly as she leaned over him. The sweet, curving flare of her hips as she swiveled and bent, calling out for him to place his hands there and pull her to him.

  He was fully hard now, straining painfully against the restriction of his trousers. The curtains were drawn. There was no one to see him. And there was no use at all pretending that he had the willpower to keep from addressing this madness directly.

  With a deep sigh, he set down the pitcher. He retrieved his handkerchief, unbuttoned his trousers, and finally let himself visualize the things he wanted to do to Josephine Wilson in that quiet, private room. No reason to be gentle. He imagined turning her around and bending her over that cold, tin tabletop. She’d gasp as he rucked up her petticoat and pushed her thighs apart. Her hips would press against his groin as he pushed into her. He settled into the familiar rhythm, and everything fell away except the illusory sensations of her body tensing and arching beneath him.

  He let his release wash over him. When, after what felt like years, it was over, he slumped weakly against the footboard, his head hanging, fingers of his right hand still curled loosely around his lightly pulsing cock. His breath came in shallow gasps. He refused to feel ashamed. There was nothing wrong with this, not after the torture he’d been through this afternoon. Nothing at all.

  And he was going back for more tomorrow. Jesus Christ. He freed himself from the rest of his clothing and collapsed onto the bed.

  • • •

  That night, Jo brought out the other love letters the town had sent her. She had been storing them in a chocolate box in her desk, all the anonymous notes, Bible verses, letters to the editor signed “A Concerned Citizen.” If nothing else, the Society Ladies had excellent penmanship. Sometimes she marveled at what ugly words could be written in such a beautiful script.

  Jo spread the letters on her bed and let her eyes wander between them until the words blurred together like voices in some angry, silent choir. She knew what her father would say. “Don’t wrestle with a pig, sweetheart. You’ll just get dirty, and the pig will enjoy it.” But how else could she defend herself? It wasn’t easy to turn the other cheek when she was sweeping up broken glass.

  She smoothed the most recent letter. What advice would her father or Albert give? She could not conjure their voices. If the two men were still alive, she wouldn’t be in this situation. Had her father been cured, they’d likely be living in Vancouver or Victoria. Maybe she’d be married. Maybe she’d be working as a pattern maker. After so long in the country, the only noise of civilization she could still imagine was a train whistle. If Albert hadn’t taken a heart attack, the townspeople would have been forced to at least tolerate her.

  The only place she truly felt safe was in the bathhouse. Wilson’s had problems, but they were problems with clear solutions. If fresh meat was scarce, she stretched what she had into a stew and served it to hungry customers along with loaves of fresh bread. If the roof leaked, she patched it. She trusted her girls and Nils, and they trusted her. Within the walls of the bathhouse, she was in control.

  But the broken window was a problem she didn’t know how to solve. She didn’t know where to get the money for more glass, and even if she came up with the money, there would be another brick, another letter. Leaving was out of the question. Where else would she go? And what would happen to the girls if she left? Try as she might, she couldn’t see herself anywhere but where she was: alone, with the fury of Fraser Springs directed against her. She would have to come up with her own solution.

  Chapter 9

  Owen woke with a start the next morning. Usually, nothing stood between him and supper, especially not sleep. Sleep was such a waste of time. All the men he knew and admired slept no more than six hours a night. Still, aside from a growling stomach, his mood had improved considerably. Not many people got paid to enjoy the professional ministrations of a beautiful woman, let alone with the chance to make a real difference in the world while doing so. He whistled tunelessly as he attended to his morning toiletries. Ahead of him lay a hearty breakfast, a soak in a steam bath, and ... he refused to let his mind wander. Regardless, it was shaping up to be an excellent day.

  “Sir, a moment of your time,” a woman’s voice piped behind his shoulder just as he placed his hand on the lobby door handle.

  Owen turned, startled. Before him stood a woman supplied with an armful of leaflets and a sour expression. She was one of those people born perpetually looking fifty, even though he guessed by the small child whose hand she was holding that she was no more than thirty. A heavy scent of rosewater filled a three-foot radius around her.

  “Forgive me, I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” she said, inclining her head slightly in a careful nod; her heavily plumed hat must have weighed at least ten pounds. “I am Mrs. McSheen. This is my daughter Emma.”

  “Ross Wister,” he said, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. And you, too, Miss Emma.” Both McSheens smiled, though the elder fought hard to retain her dour expression. “It’s a lovely town you have here.”

  “Yes. That is precisely what I wished to speak with you about.” She offered him a leaflet. Deliver Fraser Springs from the Jaws of Sin! its headline read. “Fraser Springs is a lovely town, but it deeply saddens me to tell you that some of the local establishments are ... less than savory. I am the president and co-founder of the Society for the Advancement of Moral Temperance. Which is why it falls to me to caution you.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been informed by concerned parties that you have patronized Wilson’s Bathhouse. In ignorance, surely.”

  “I was told it was the best.” He shouldn’t be surprised that his comings and goings were common knowledge in this small town.

  “You were, unfortunately, very badly misinformed,” she said, her disapproval barely hidden behind her sweet tone. “I’m not sure if you noticed—I’m confident you would not intentionally venture into such a place—but Wilson’s Bathhouse is ...” she put her hands over her daughter’s ears, “a house of ill repute.” Her voice was a melodramatic hiss now.

  Owen was caught between the pleasure of finally having his suspicions confirmed and the sinking feeling that he might have found the source of the rumours that had brought him to Fraser Springs. “I can assure you, ma’am, I haven’t seen anything of that sort going on,” he said. “But I appreciate your concern.”

  She leaned towards him; the combination of his empty stomach and her rosewater was nauseating. “I would simply hate for your time here to be tainted by an error in judgment,” she said. “You probably confused the St. Alice with Wilson’s. Any good Christian would understand. This leaflet contains all the information you need to set you right.” She thrust one of her papers at him; he took it reflexively. “We’re holding a meeting tomorrow, and it would be of great help to our cause if you could testify on what you saw in that pit of vipers.”

  “Ma’am, I haven’t—”

  “It’s one thing for those miners and loggers to succumb to sin. They’re half-wild. You can’t expect anything else from that sort. But we must stop the spread of contagion before it reaches the virtuous.” She lowered her voice and jabbed at line in the leaflet. “See here? I explain right here that when a foot is infected, the doctor must amputate to save the patient. If we think of the town as a body, then it’s clear that certain parts of Fraser Springs have become gangrenous. We must cut them off at the source and allow Christ to cauterize the wound.”

  Good Lord. Amputations? Gangrene? What were these demented people planning?

  “Your leaflet contains lies and slander.” A woman’s voice rang down the boardwalk as the pale young lady from the bathhouse, currently carrying a string sack of potatoes in her clenched fists, muscled her way between Mrs. McSheen and him. Mrs. McSheen positively recoiled. “If you were the Christians you claim to be, you wouldn’t be trying to ruin the livelihoods of innocent peop
le. Not to mention damaging their property! What happened to ‘let he without sin cast the first stone’?”

  Mrs. McSheen looked as if she would desperately like to swoon for dramatic effect, but she settled for placing her palm on her chest and swaying slightly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “We are simply trying to rid this town of ... of impure influences.” She recovered herself long enough to produce a formidable glare. “Like yourself, Ilsa Pedersen.” The little girl stared at the young lady more in fascination than in fear.

  Ilsa ignored Mrs. McSheen to finally acknowledge Owen’s presence. “And you! I knew you were in it like thieves with this lot. Jo and Nils may defend you because you can throw some silly knife into a stump, but I see your stripes.”

  Mrs. McSheen grasped at her daughter’s hand and began to pull her past Ilsa in the direction of the boardwalk, startling the child. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to you make wild accusations.” She brandished her leaflets in the bathhouse girl’s direction, as if trying to ward off evil spirits. “The devil is here, sir, right here in our town. And we won’t stop until we cast him out.”

  With that, she tramped down the boardwalk toward the safety of the other Society Ladies, who had been pointedly pretending not to listen to the entire conversation. The blond young woman spun on her heel and marched away in the opposite direction, leaving Owen standing alone in front of the hotel steps. There was nothing quite like the machinations of a league of women to set a man on his ear.

  He looked around: faces peeped out of the hotel windows, admiring the lake with a quite singular focus. Another cluster of onlookers gazed from the bank’s steps, seeming unusually interested in the clouds over the trees. An entire town of studious nature lovers. Whatever was going on at Wilson’s Bathhouse, it was a miracle that Jo was able to hide it.