These Golden Pleasures Read online

  IT WAS A SCENE FROM HELL ITSELF.

  She lay rigid and wide-eyed as the tornado’s hollow tower of fire wavered overhead. It passed over them; and as the sobbing breath came back to her strained lungs, the tornado slammed down beyond them, and with a hammer blow that shook the earth, dug a ditch five feet deep across the Kansas prairie.

  Roxanne screamed and clung to Buck; and suddenly a new, ungentle Buck was ripping her clothes from her body.

  “No!” she screamed, though he could not hear her in the mighty holocaust around them. But he held her fast, taking her with a desperate urgency.

  In Roxanne’s trembling body something savage and tumultuous was awakened. Something elemental and fierce, born of the storm and of new wild desires. In pain and terror and in splendor, too, she had become a woman . ..

  And in the aftermath of the tornado, she became a wanderer, initiated into the magic of love but searching for its reality.

  Warner Books

  By Valerie Sherwood

  This Loving Torment

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  WARNER BOOKS P.O. BOX 690 NEW YORK, N.Y. 10019

  THESE GOLDEN PLEASURES

  by Valerie Sherwood

  WARNER BOOKS

  A Warner Communications Company

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1977 by Valerie Sherwood All rights reserved

  Except for obvious references, all characters and events in this novel are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 0-446-82416-X

  Cover art by Jim Dietz

  Warner Books, Inc., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019

  A Warner Communications Company

  Printed in the United States of America

  Not associated with Warner Press, Inc. of Anderson, Indiana

  First Printing: November, 1977

  10 987654321

  Table of Contents

  THESE GOLDEN PLEASURES Prologue San Francisco

  Book I The Reckless Girl

  Part One: Kansas 1895

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part Two: Baltimore 1895—1896

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Book II The Reckless Woman

  Part One: Augusta, Georgia1896-1897

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Two: The Race for the Gold Seattle to the Yukon 1897-1898

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Book III The Adventuress

  Part One: The Departure

  Chapter 31

  Part Two: Singapore 1900—1903

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part Three The Indian Ocean1903-1904

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Four: San Francisco 1905—1906

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  To high adventure and wild romance— long may they endure!

  Prologue

  San Francisco

  Wednesday, April 18, 1906

  The great clock on the Ferry Building stood at just after five o’clock, and horse-drawn milk carts clattered about in the early dawn, making their rounds. Soon San Francisco’s seven hills would be bathed with light, and the sun would shine on the mixed fleet of steam and sailing vessels that rode the glittering waters of the Bay.

  In the fabulous Grand Ballroom of the Golden Palace Hotel, tired musicians played a last waltz while two couples in full evening dress gamely danced the night away. At a table in an alcove beneath the impressive beamed ceiling sat three people—two men and a woman, intent upon what they were saying to each other and oblivious to the scene about them.

  The woman was beautiful, sought after, and much talked about. Her name was Roxanne Barrington. Across from her the shoulders of the two men moved restlessly, each man distractingly aware of the inviting sweep of white bosom her artfully low-cut dress displayed under the light from the crystal chandeliers, and the impudent forward thrust of her delicately molded bust beneath her lavish glittering white ball gown.

  One of the men was handsome and one was rich—perhaps the richest man on the West Coast—and it was clear that the woman could have either man she chose. The handsome one in the rented suit, the broad-shouldered man who gazed at her so yearningly, had crashed the party—which was being held in Roxanne’s honor—without invitation.

  Roxanne’s fingers toyed with a crystal goblet of champagne as she studied them—these two men who had so shaped her life for good or ill—and a shadow of pain passed over her lovely face, deepening the sapphire of her eyes. She looked down for a moment, perhaps because tears had frosted those thick dark lashes resting now against peachbloom cheeks—which needed no makeup to make them beautiful. Sheer and lovely and celebrated was her fair complexion, her lithe figure so temptingly displayed, her crown of sun-streaked dark-blond hair, piled in Gibson Girl fashion atop her head.

  In her brief, wild lifetime Roxanne had been many things. A child of the Deep South, she had faced scandal in Kansas and heartbreak in Baltimore. Alaska had known her as Klondike Roxie; in the South Seas she had appeared an American adventuress. Here in San Francisco she was known as “that Barrington woman,” about whom scandal swirled . . . and spiteful glances followed her as, perfumed and bejeweled, she rode round the city in her handsome carriage behind a matched team of thoroughbreds—so thoughtfully furnished by the wealthy gentleman sitting opposite her.

  But underneath the silks and the diamonds, underneath the many selves who had lingered in the arms of so many men, was another woman. A woman of raw and flaming emotions, who suffered and shook and knew love’s lavish heights and burning depths. And now something of the pain and torment she had known was in her voice as she said, “I . . . heard you,” her voice suddenly soft and slurred.

  “Then you can give me your answer,” said the keeneyed, aggressive older man across from her. He leaned forward, a distinguished figure in his tuxedo.

  The next words spoken at the table might have been heard only by her, for she paled and sat thunderstruck. Then, as if jerked upright, she rose to her feet with a single motion that sent her gilt chair skittering.

  “You!” she cried in a choked voice. “You—”

  Her cry was lost in a sudden grinding roar. The very earth shook. The musicians, just packing up their instruments, grabbed at the bandstand to keep their footing, and one of them, thrown off balance, fell heavily on the polished floor. Among the departing dancers, a woman in a long pink boa screamed in terror. Both men at Roxanne’s table sprang toward her.

  At the lower end of Market Street, the clock on the Ferry Building registered fourteen minutes after five.

  The great San Francisco earthquake had begun.

  As the ceiling collapsed and the great
polished beams—now instruments of death—came crashing down about them, both men leaped forward to save her. At that moment, Roxanne’s life rushed past her in a mad flash. It seemed to her that everything important began on a day in Baltimore in 1896. But of course disastrous events cast their shadows before them, and so it all really had begun much sooner, on a summer day in Kansas in 1895.

  Roxanne had been fifteen years old.

  Book I

  The Reckless Girl

  Part One:

  Kansas 1895

  Chapter 1

  In the hot summer night the tinkle of the banjo swirled around the dancers, who moved like shadows against the light from the lanterns in the Smiths’ big barn. On the outskirts of the dance floor a few spectators lounged against the barn’s plank wall and clapped their hands and stamped their feet in time to the music. Swing your partner! Do-si-do! The girls in their long dresses whirled around; the boys stomped and pranced. They were young, and the night was sultry, laden with the smell of new-mown Kansas hay.

  Visible through an upper window of the barn, a yellow slice of moon beamed down and reflected in Roxanne Rossiter’s eyes. Face alight, feet skipping lightly, she seemed to be having a better time than anyone else. For tonight Roxanne was unmindful that her stockings were much mended, her shoe soles worn nearly through, her yellow calico dress somewhat out of fashion and faded from many washings. Tonight her laughter tinkled with the banjo. In her tapping feet was the joyous release from a harsh, snowbound winter and a back-breaking spring. What did it matter that she was an extra girl at the dance? That strict Aunt Ada allowed her no beaux, no gentlemen callers? She was young, she was dancing, the night air was soft—and who knew what might yet happen on such a night?

  “Let’s go outside!” cried someone. “Moon’s bright!”

  Outside they trooped, a half dozen couples and a handful of watching wallflowers. The music struck up again, the catchy tune “Skip to My Lou,” and Roxanne, the prettiest of the girls, found herself swung from one partner to another in the bright moonlight. Around the dancers in the barnyard, past the rail fence as far as the eye could see, stretched the undulating Kansas prairies.

  Roxanne’s partner slapped at a night-flying insect, and she laughed. It was a light and reckless laugh, as reckless as her challenging sapphire eyes under their sooty lashes.

  “Buck,” she chided. “You missed a step!”

  The young giant grinned and swung her around again, his brown eyes kindling with a hot new light that said he had finally noticed her as a woman.

  As she looked up into those eyes. Roxanne’s cheeks grew warm with more than the exertion of the dance. Half the girls in the county were crazy for Buck, she knew, and here she was, fifteen-year-old Roxanne Rossiter, dancing with him—and holding his attention!

  From the sidelines, where she stood leaning against the unpainted barn wall, black-haired Julie Smith watched the laughing pair—Roxanne who, as she stamped and twirled in time to the music, thrust her delicately molded breasts forward temptingly, tautening the yellow calico of her bodice above her slender waist. And Buck—Julia’s own Buck, to whom she’d been engaged for more than two years now—swinging Roxanne around, his eyes never leaving her face. He was just being nice to the extra girl, Julia told herself, nice to Roxanne, who had no fellow. Julie’s gaze rested lovingly on Buck’s giant frame. His coat laid aside in the hot summer night, he looked so handsome. A lock of his ruddy brown hair fell over his brown eyes as he danced. His striped shirt sleeves were turned up to reveal heavily muscled forearms, bronzed by the Kansas sun; his strong farm-boy thighs strained against his dark trousers. For a moment, watching them, Julie’s thin hand shook as she smoothed the folds of her new blue linen dress, and a shadow crossed her normally candid gray eyes.

  Roxanne didn’t notice. It had been so long since she’d danced with anyone—and this time she’d had to sneak away from Aunt Ada, who thought she’d gone to bed early. Instead, she’d put on her one good dress, her best mended stockings, and her only respectable pair of shoes—and had tiptoed from her tiny stuffy room at the back, past the big front bedroom where Aunt Ada and Uncle Josh snored lustily. On downstairs she had crept, careful not to let the stairs creak, and out the unlocked front door—nobody locked their doors in Kansas: Horse-thief law still held good here, and prowlers were apt to get a load of buckshot.

  Then Roxanne had run down the rutted dirt lane to the wide plank gate where the young Bonners—Charlie and his sister Jane—were waiting for her in a buckboard.

  The Bonners thought it was fun helping Roxanne slip out at night. After all, Roxanne’s Aunt Ada was the strictest woman in the county and didn’t “hold” with dancing—square or round. Roxanne had arrived in Kansas less than a year ago to live with her Aunt Ada and Uncle Josh, but in that time there’d been few parties, and Aunt Ada had successfully scared off all the young fellows who came around “shining up” to good-looking Roxanne in the churchyard on Sundays. Pretty Roxanne, who had overheard herself variously described in the churchyard as “that high-steppin’ Southern gal” and “that pretty little blond from Savannah,” walked alone.

  She knew boys would have to come courting and make formal calls to please Aunt Ada—but even formal calls were prohibited till Roxanne turned sixteen. Aunt Ada was very definite about that. Roxanne would be sixteen next month, and then she could put her hair up instead of letting it tumble down over her shoulders like a little girl. Next month she could receive gentleman callers in Aunt Ada’s stiff front parlor. And maybe even have permission to go to square dances at neighboring farms such as this one at the Smiths’.

  That being weeks away, Roxanne, with her vivid face and her restless nature, had decided to pretend she was sixteen now. To dance now. So, in whispers, outside the church in Wichita last Sunday, it had been arranged. And here she was—dancing with Buck Wentworth, the most popular boy in the county, to the catchy strains of “Skip to My Lou.”

  From the sidelines some of those who were stamping their feet and clapping their hands joined in the song. And as he swung his dance partner, Madey MacKenzie, near them, Charlie Bonner—who’d courted Julie Smith before Buck cut him out—leaned over close to Buck’s head and with a significant look at Roxanne warbled loudly, “Can’t get a bluebird, a yellow bird’ll do!”

  Buck’s face reddened. Roxanne cast an involuntary glance down at her yellow dress and then looked swiftly at Julie’s blue one. Compassion flared up in her eyes. Poor Julie! Engaged to Buck, wedding plans made—and then to come down with the dreaded consumption. Dr. Owens had advised Julie against marrying just now, saying she needed rest to recover her health. So pretty Julie had postponed the wedding, but everybody whispered she’d never be well, never be Buck’s wife.

  The thought chilled Roxanne.

  “Let’s stop dancing, Buck,” she said impulsively. Seizing his hand, she ran over to where the fragile brunette was standing.

  “Why did you stop?” Julie, who couldn’t dance because it brought on a paroxysm of coughing, asked wistfully. “I wouldn’t have, if . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked down.

  Roxanne didn’t say, I brought Buck back to you.

  She said instead, “It’s so hot, I stopped to get my breath.” And Julie said in her soft voice, “Buck, why don’t you get Roxanne a glass of lemonade?”

  Buck ambled away toward the white frame house where the punch bowl sat on the porch, and Julie turned to Roxanne. “I don’t want you to stop dancing because of me.” The words came out in a rush. “I—I don’t want Buck to stop dancing because—because I can’t.”

  “Oh, he was already tired of dancing,” lied Roxanne, remembering that Julie was the only girl who had been really nice to her since she’d arrived in Kansas almost a year ago.

  “Isn’t he handsome?” Julie murmured almost to herself as she watched Buck’s retreating back. “So strong. So—so manly.”

  Roxanne studied that sturdy farm-boy figure with its well muscled arms and leg
s. “Yes,” she agreed. “He certainly is.” She frowned as she saw Julie’s thirteen-year-old sister Nadine skip along and join Buck. Nadine threw back her head coquettishly and laughed at something he said. “You and Buck make a lovely couple, Julie,” Roxanne added to distract her friend’s attention.

  Apparently oblivious to her flirtatious younger sister’s behavior, Julie sighed. “I used to think so, Roxanne. But now I’m so thin, my clothes just hang on me.”

  “Come on now,” chided Roxanne. “Don’t be so sad. This is your party, remember? You’ll be dancing yourself at the next one. Why, the first time I met you was at a corn husking, and you were the life of the party then!”

  Julie looked away. “I didn’t know then that I was so—so sick. I thought I’d be married in a month, living in my own house before the snow blew, and expecting a baby in the summer.” She sighed.

  Roxanne turned her head and looked out across the moon-silvered prairies and remembered the first time she’d seen them, from the windows of the westbound Pullman car that had brought her to Kansas. As the sound of the train whistle had drifted through that alien corn, homesickness had swept over her. She had scrunched down in her seat and promised herself silently that if she didn’t like it in Kansas, she wouldn’t stay. She’d run away.

  Still, when she’d arrived on her uncle and aunt’s quarter section, she’d made a determined effort to like it. All that lonely windswept fall, when the main diversion was going to church on Sunday, she’d tried. She’d tried all that long, lonesome winter with blizzards that made her teeth chatter. Clad in Aunt Ada’s worn-out ill-fitting castoffs, she had made valiant efforts to feed the snowbound chickens, fighting winds that cut right through her thin clothing. Then hard-working spring had come and with it the promise of summer and fun—like tonight, and she had almost been reconciled to it all.