when she hurried in. Evie suspected the other woman's stack of golden tresses was not only artificially enhanced with lemon juice, but plumped up with a roll of fake hair. Nobody had that much hair.
Nobody should have that much bust, either, but the revealing cut of Starr's gown made it obvious that portion of her anatomy was real. Evie tried not to think of Tyler touching Starr there. She tried not to think of Tyler at all. He was gone, out of her life. He had nothing to do with anything.
"Evie! What on earth are you doing here tonight? The school board would fall flat on their faces if they saw you here now."
Every rustle of Starr's silk produced a heavy waft of perfume. Evie tried to choke back her nausea, but something must have shown in her face. Starr hurried to pour her a glass of brandy.
"Here, drink this. It will steady your nerves. I heard about your little brother. Is there something I can do?"
Starr was tall and strong and older than Evie. She would know what to do. Evie took the glass but the smell of strong spirits made her even more nauseated. She set it aside and offered up the package in her hand.
"I don't need this anymore. There's more where this came from. They were made by a couturier from Paris. They probably won't suit you, but Rose and Peachie might like them. I'm very good at alterations, if they need any."
Starr looked suspiciously from Evie to the newspaper-wrapped package she held out. Evie had dressed carefully in a gray foulard walking dress with a matching hat perched atop her intricately looped and braided chignon. She knew she looked the part of proper society matron, but inside, she felt like a frightened little girl.
With a nod, Starr opened the package and drew out the pink foam of a silk evening gown dripping in lace and ruffles with a train that would sweep the floor. She wouldn't know a Paris design if she saw one, but she knew a gown that would floor any man that encountered it. This was such a gown. And it was obviously designed for the woman waiting nervously for her response.
"You wish to sell it?" Starr asked, perhaps a little too harshly.
Evie flinched but nodded. With an offhand gesture, she tried to recover her poise. "Daniel will need a lot of doctoring. And I won't be returning to St. Louis. What use has a schoolteacher for the likes of that?" She tried to sound contemptuous.
"You have others? I can't offer this to one of the girls without having something to offer the other. I'd have war."
Evie didn't relax but nodded stiffly. "I thought the green might look good on Rose, but I couldn't carry both at once."
Starr stroked the silk thoughtfully, then impulsively took a seat. They would be having a riot downstairs if she didn't show herself soon, but Evie had gone out of her way to be kind when there wasn't a woman in town who would even look at her. There was more here than readily met the eye.
"I'll take them both." Mentally, Starr made a calculation of how much Evie and her brother would need to live on for the next month. She might never have learned arithmetic, but she knew dollars and cents. She quoted a figure that made Evie's face light.
"Now tell me why you came here tonight instead of waiting for a proper hour when there aren't a dozen men standing in line downstairs."
Evie tried to calm herself, to look Starr in the eye, and make the announcement as one woman to another. Instead, her gaze drifted off to a square, claw-legged table with a vivid scarf draped across it. She clenched her fingers and let the words tumble out of their own accord.
"I'm pregnant. I need to know what to do about it."
She heard a harsh intake of breath, and the voice that replied was heavy with scorn. "I should have known. I should have known that a proper lady and a schoolteacher wouldn't have made friends with the likes of me for nothing."
Starr rose and walked toward the door. "Bring the other dress tomorrow morning. I'll pay you then. But there'll be a charge for what you want done. I know how to do it, but you'd better think long and hard about it first. It isn't pretty, and it isn't pleasant, and you're going to regret it for a lifetime."
She slammed