LITMIR.BIZ

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Ham Scott stood before her, his eyes registering his displeasure with her appearance as she left the area where breakfast was being served. “You lose your red dress during the night?” he asked.

      “Mr. Morgan wouldn’t let me take it with me this morning,” she told him.

      Ham waved a hand, dismissing her words. “You’ll have to retrieve it before you go to work tonight.” He turned aside and issued a command she’d expected. “Come on inside. I want you to sing for me.”

      May Kettering stood on the stage, dressed in a simple cotton frock, and her gaze moved over Lily in a lazy survey as she sang the final bars of a song. “Thanks,” she murmured to the piano player. “You’ve got it down pat, Charlie.” And then she lifted her hand and beckoned to Lily. “Come on up here, honey.”

      Ham stood aside as Lily climbed the three steps to the stage and approached the woman. “I enjoyed your singing last evening,” she said quietly. “I fear I don’t have much talent compared to your ability.”

      May lifted an eyebrow. “We all have talent of one sort or another, Lily. I’d like to hear what you’ve got to offer.” Her nod at the piano player was barely perceptible, then she looked back at Lily and made a suggestion.

      “Do you know ‘I Dream of Jeannie’?” she asked. She hummed a few notes, and then sang a line of lyrics. “‘I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair—borne like a vapor on the summer air—’”

      “I know it,” Lily said quickly. Singing ballads was not new to her, for her voice was more suited to their simple melodies.

      Charlie allowed his fingers to move leisurely across the keys, his chords giving Lily the key he’d chosen. She focused on May, aware that her salvation lay in the woman’s influence on Ham Scott. Untrained, yet melodic, her voice rose in the first notes of the song May had chosen. It was guaranteed to make any wanderer homesick, she thought, and she was no exception.

      May smiled, her mouth quirking with approval. “You’ll do, honey,” she said as the last note faded. “Stephen Foster is your style.”

      Ham walked to the edge of the stage and cast a glowering look at his star performer. “That’s not what I had in mind for her, May. I wanted a contrast to your way of singing. You know, lifting her dress and showing her legs some. A fast song with words the men in the crowd will get a kick out of.”

      May snorted, a strangely inelegant sound coming from such a woman, Lily thought. “You don’t know diddly about what men want from a singer, Scott. Lily has a body that’ll show up well in most anything she wears. And keeping them guessing about her legs will have them on the edges of their seats.”

      “Well, she’s not wearin’ that rag,” Ham said bluntly. “I want her in the red satin.”

      “No.” It was a softly spoken denial, yet held a definite threat should it be ignored. “She won’t be wearing it again.” Morgan shoved away from the doorway and approached Ham, the red satin crumpled in his hand. “We’re docking somewhere today, aren’t we?”

      Ham nodded, his look at Morgan bordering on anger. Yet he held his tongue, as though he dared not argue with the man who faced him.

      “When the boat stops later this morning, I’ll find something for Lily to wear.” The glance he shot in her direction was eloquent, and Lily was silent. “She needs to wear something that makes a man wish he owned her, but at the same time establishes her unavailability to those in the crowd.”

      Ham’s eyes narrowed and he held up a hand in protest. “See here, Morgan. I’m not investing money in the girl so’s she can look like the picture on a box of candy and be just about as touchable. These men are willing to pay for the women they want.”

      Morgan straightened from his relaxed stance and tucked one hand in his trouser pocket. “I’m buying her company for the rest of the trip downriver,” he said mildly. At Ham’s grunt of derision, Morgan smiled and showed the edges of straight, white teeth. He resembled a wolf about to attack, Lily decided, and apparently Ham thought along a similar vein.

      “Long as you’ve got hard, cold cash, she’s yours,” the man said after a moment. “But you’ll pay a high price, Morgan. I’ve had several offers already.”

      “This isn’t the place for this discussion,” Morgan told him, his voice a low, menacing growl. And then he looked once more at Lily. “I think the lady needs to voice an opinion on the matter.”

      She looked down at the floor, wishing herself a million miles away, and was relieved to feel May’s arm around her shoulders. “Y’all need to leave the girl alone,” May said with a decided lilt in her voice. “She’s got more important things to think about right now. We’ve got music to work on.”

      She waved long, graceful fingers in a languid movement at the two men and laughed, a dark, smoky sound. “Go on now. Out with the pair of you. You can settle your business somewhere else.”

      Morgan nodded, his final look in Lily’s direction one of approval, she thought. At least his eyes warmed as they focused on her face, and she thought a small smile tilted his lips for just a moment.

      “He’s smitten,” May said bluntly. “You must have given him quite a night of—”

      “No.” The single word was a denial of May’s assumption, spoken softly but firmly as Lily met the other woman’s gaze. “I gave him nothing. Nothing but conversation and my company in his room until morning.”

      May looked dubious, but laughed aloud. “Well, keeping him dangling seems to be working, sweetheart. Just don’t let it go to your head. One of these days, or nights, he’ll expect payment for his protection of you.” She smiled and bent her head, the better to speak in Lily’s ear.

      “I’ve never heard of Gage Morgan buying a woman’s favors. You’re a first.”

      “You know him?” Lily’s eyes widened as she watched May’s smile. The woman’s dark eyes flashed with humor, and she smiled openly, yet Lily would lay odds that they held an abundance of secrets.

      “He’s been on the riverboat before, a couple of times in the past months.”

      “Is he only a gambler? Or does he have another occupation?”

      May shrugged idly. “Who knows? He gambles, but I have a notion he doesn’t need to, not for his spending money anyway. The girls would give their eye teeth to have him pay them a little notice, but he’s not that way.”

      Lily nodded, her thoughts spinning as she considered May’s remarks. The man was not poor, of that there was no doubt. And yet he seemed to her to be more ambitious than his occupation would indicate. “Maybe he comes from well-to-do people,” Lily surmised.

      “Well, it doesn’t matter much right now,” May said flatly. “This morning we’ve got a program to work up for you. Ham won’t let you sing center stage if the audience doesn’t take to you.” She motioned to Charlie, who had strolled back into the saloon from the deck outside.

      “Let’s try a couple of ballads, Charlie. How about ‘Swanee River’? Do you know that one, Lily?”

      “I think so.” In fact, it was a song she’d heard from childhood, one her mother had sung to her. “Let me try it.”

      May stalked her, pacing in a circle as she sang, and Lily finally closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on the words that appeared in her mind as Charlie’s talented fingers moved up and down the keyboard. “Now let’s try ‘A Soldier’s Farewell,’” May said, and Charlie obligingly changed keys and began a short introduction.

      Lily recalled the words as she waited for her cue to begin and then the music became merely a backdrop for her voice as Charlie played chords that supported the music she created.

      “Lift one hand a bit. That’s it,” May said quietly. “Now touch the skin beneath your eye

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