Daughter of the Demimonde will be the first of three books set in the Red Light District of Butte, Montana in 1910. The first book will follow Cat Ainsley, the daughter of a high-end parlor house madam. She has grown up in the face of disdain and disapproval of the respectable citizens in her town. And when federal agent, Kane Malone, shows up to investigate allegations of human trafficking in the Demimonde, Cat joins forces with him to prove her own mother's innocence.
I'm including the prologue as an early teaser. (I don't expect to have Daughter of the Demimonde released until this Spring.)
August 1910
Nobody who knew him would have
dared call Kane Malone a romantic; and yet nobody was more surprised than he to
realize that after a mere twenty-four hours, he was in love with a woman whose
name he didn’t know, whose voice he’d never heard, and who—much to his regret
and exhilaration—was a prostitute.
He had arrived in Butte, Montana
earlier that morning and first spotted her through the storefront window while
he fingered a bolt of expensive silk.
She moved confidently down Mercury Street, her eyes straight ahead and
her chin lifted proudly. Her
copper-colored hair chased after her, an indication of her brisk pace that
somehow added to her air of assuredness.
The bell over the door of Hum
Yow’s Chinese Goods and Silks had Kane reaching for his holstered weapon before
he could stop himself. His hand halted only
inches from the handle of his pistol as he froze and guiltily watched the young
woman stroll into the store. She moved
purposefully toward the cash register.
She must have spoken, as the Chinese man behind the counter looked up
and smiled at her, but from across the store, Kane couldn’t hear anything that either
person said. She carried a basket on her
arm and placed it delicately on the counter in front of her.
Even as he studied the curve of
her hip and wondered if her breasts were equally full, he tried to remind
himself that he was not here in Butte to enjoy himself with some attractive
woman. He glanced back toward the window
to briefly assure himself that all was well on Mercury Street. No evil villainess lurked in the doorways of
the large and ornate Victorian building across the street. No women or children raced down the street,
fleeing a horror worse than death. All
appeared fairly normal, even in the midst of the high-end red light district of
a town reputedly overwhelmed with powerful mining tycoons and equally powerful
parlor house madams.
Having assured himself that all
was well on Mercury Street, he turned his attention back to the mysterious copper-haired
woman at the cash register. The Chinese
man was accepting the basket from her and passing a bolt of fabric to her in an
apparent exchange. He could see her side
profile and the curve of her lips, which were full and red. But unlike some of the women on Mercury
Street, hers were naturally red rather than painted. The woman was an artistic embodiment of
curves, from her hips to her lips and even her well-shaped eyebrows.
She shifted from one foot to the
other, and he watched the hem of her steel-colored dress brush the wooden
floors of the shop, swaying lightly for a brief moment before coming to a
stop. She had him absolutely
captivated.
And when she turned to leave, her
eyes fell upon him and caught him openly admiring her. The corner of her mouth twitched in amusement
even as her brows lowered over her flame blue eyes in imitation of disapproval. Seeing her face, he could admit that while
attractive, her forehead was a little too high and her cheekbones a bit too
broad. And that curve of her full lips
and the arch of her russet eyebrow were too enticing for him to look away.
In the end, he did look away, but
only when his hand fell heavily to the table of silks, knocking one bolt to the
ground. Embarrassed, he knelt to pick up
the fabric and started again when the bell above the door rang in warning. Too late, he realized that she had slipped
away.
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