The Silver Queen

Book summary

In 1876, Liberty Shaw is determined to rebuild her life in the rough town of Creede, Colorado, after being banished from Denver. As she revives a run-down café and finds new friendships, her past begins to threaten her new start. Can Liberty and her allies protect what they've worked for?

THE SILVER QUEEN is a historical western romance.

Excerpt from The Silver Queen

CHAPTER ONE

Liberty Shaw woke with her head aching and every muscle in her body screaming. Her eyes fluttered open and she recognized Doc Murphy’s sparsely furnished office. What was she doing here? She heard Doc speaking to someone.

“She’ll be all right, Tom,” she heard the old doctor say, “but wait until she has her next cycle before you spill your seed into her,” he cautioned, “because you’ll want to be certain any child she carries is yours and not the by-product of this unfortunate encounter with those men.”

Men? Liberty’s head swam and then the memory of what had happened returned to her with a vengeance. There’d been men in the street. Strange men she didn’t know who’d ridden into down, whistling and shouting lude terms at her as she’d come out of Blanche’s Place, the finest dress shop in Denver. They’d jumped from their horses and ripped the packages from her arms, flinging the new dress she’d purchased to wear to a special dinner with Tom’s business associates into the dirty alley. One of the men had taken the new hat and put it on his head and danced around comically perched before they’d dragged Liberty into the alley and done all manners of depraved things to her.

Liberty squeezed her eyes shut as the memory of what they’d done to her in the alley came back to her. “Oh, dear lord,” she groaned as she remembered the hands on her in places no man’s hands save her husband Tom’s should ever go.

“Liberty?” Doc said softly as he came to her side where she lay in a narrow bed. “Mrs. Shaw?” Doc said again. “Can you hear me, Liberty? How many fingers am I holding up?”

She forced her swollen eyes open and saw Tom there. She reached for him, but he turned away. “Tom, honey?” she mumbled with her arm out, straining toward him.

Doc turned to Tom Shaw. “Talk to her, Mr. Shaw,” Doc instructed. “She’s going to need your support in the aftermath of this terrible ordeal.”

Tom glared at Doc as Liberty attempted to sit up in the bed. “She’s going to need support?” Tom shouted, surprising Liberty as well as the doctor. “She whored herself out to a dozen men in that alley and then came staggering out half naked for all of Denver to see.” He glared down at Liberty. “I’ll have no whore in my house, woman,” he shouted, “so when this old goat says you can leave, don’t expect to come back to my house. Maybe your father will take you back, but I’d bet not … especially if you have a bastard welp in your belly after you refused to give me one to carry on my good name.”

He took a breath as Liberty trembled beneath the thin blanket on Doc’s bed. “You’ll also stop using the name Shaw,” he growled. “I’ll not have that name used by a two-bit whore who gives away her favors to drunken scum in an alley.” Tom stormed out of the tiny room and plowed past Emmett and Polly Turner, Liberty’s parents.

Polly rushed to her daughter’s side while Emmett spoke with the doctor. Tears of shame, rage and frustration streamed down Liberty’s face as her mother took her into her arms to try and comfort her.

“Oh, Mama, it was so terrible.” Liberty sobbed as she gulped air. “And now Tom …” She wept but couldn’t continue speaking and sobbed on her mother’s shoulder.

The doctor prepared a glass of water mixed with laudanum and gave it to Liberty to drink. The tincture calmed her and soon Liberty slept. When she woke again, her father sat beside the bed in place of her mother. He wore the same stern look on his face Liberty recalled from her childhood when she was about to be disciplined.

“You certainly made a spectacle of yourself today, young lady,” her father scolded.

“I didn’t do anything, Papa, “Liberty said in her defence. “Those men attacked me. I didn’t even speak to them or acknowledge them in any way before they were on top of me, dragging me into that alley.”

Emmett Turner raised a hand to stop his daughter. “The doctor told me what he thought those men did to you, daughter, and it’s disgraceful.” He scowled at Liberty. “I’ve spoken with your good husband, and I fear I’m in agreement with him.”

Liberty’s mouth dropped open in shock. “What?” she stammered as tears stung her eyes again. “Why?”

“You’ve caused irreparable damage to Tom’s business, as well as the reputations of your mother and I.” He took a bag of coins from his lap and placed them on the bed beside her. “I understand whores receive a dollar every time they service a man,” he said. “You’ll find two dozen silver Eagles in that bag as I’ve been told there were approximately two dozen men in that alley who took their turn with you.”

Liberty’s mouth dropped open. “Papa, I …”

Emmet cut her off with his big, work-worn hand in the air. “I’m in agreement with Tom about the use of our good name as well,” he continued sternly. “You will not call yourself Liberty Shaw or Liberty Turner when you leave Denver.”

“Leave Denver?” she muttered. “Where will I go? This is my home.”

“That’s just it, girl,” her father snorted. “You no longer have a home here and everyone in town knows how you whored yourself to those men, so I’d suggest Crede as your next destination, where there are whores aplenty and you’ll fit right in.”

Liberty gasped at her father’s words. “But Papa …”

Her father stood and moved toward the door. “Your mother collected some of your things from Tom’s house before he could burn them and they’re in the trunk in the hall here.” He grimaced. “I understand whores travel from town to town with their things in a trunk, so I suppose you are all set.”

Emmett Harper walked out the door and left his daughter weeping in the bed. Liberty knew in her heart that she’d never lay eyes on the man again and she thought she couldn’t care less.

CHAPTER TWO

The walk to the stage depot had been difficult. Women she’d known all her life shunned her and moved their voluminous skirts aside when she passed them and turned their heads away.

Patsy Douglas even spit on her. “Get your whorin’ backside out of Denver, slut,” she spat as Liberty passed her. “We don’t need more of your kind here to pollute the minds of our young men. You’re a disgrace to womanhood, Liberty Shaw, and should be booted out of our good town.”

Liberty wanted to snap back with something hurtful to the woman she’d once considered a friend, but words escaped her, and she continued to the depot where Doc had sent her trunk the day before.

Uneasily, she stepped up to the counter where Damon Harvey stood to sell tickets. “How may I help you, Mrs. Shaw?” he asked politely as he stared at her bruised face and blackened eye that had as yet not returned to normal.

“I need a ticket,” she said, staring at the board on the wall behind the clerk that listed destinations and price.

“Where to, ma’am?” the skinny clerk asked.

The ticket to Crede was the least costly at four dollars and Liberty swallowed hard, remembering Tom’s words about how she should travel to the rowdy mining town filled with whores.

“Crede,” she told him and rummaged in her reticule for the coins to pay for the ticket.

Damon raised a brow. That stage leaves here in an hour,” he said, “and makes two stops along the way, where you’ll be responsible for purchasing your meals and the bed for the night.” He glanced behind Liberty. “Will Mr. Shaw be joining you, ma’am, or another chaperone?”

“I’ll be traveling alone,” she said to the man’s surprise.

“Most respectable ladies such as yourself generally travel with a chaperone, ma’am,” he said.

Liberty smiled. “Haven’t you heard?” she sneered. “I’m no better than a whore now and I believe those ladies travel unchaperoned all the time.”

Damon filled out the ticket, handed it to Liberty, and took her money without speaking another word to her. She took a seat on a wooden bench to await the stage and used a handkerchief to dab the tears of frustration from her eyes. What was she going to do in Crede? She couldn’t lower herself to becoming a whore, no matter what Tom and her father thought of her.

At least her mama still had faith in her. Liberty recalled her mother’s visit to the doctor’s office with fondness. “Oh, my girl,” her mother had wept when she’d made the secret trip into town and snuck into the doctor’s office to visit her injured daughter.

“Does Papa know you’re here, Mama?” Liberty had asked in concern.

“Lordy, no,” her mother had replied, rolling her blue eyes rimmed red from weeping. “He forbade it, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Polly Turner said with a feeble grin.

“I’m not worried about anything hurting that old bastard,” Liberty swore. “I worry about him hurting you. The last time he lost his temper, you ended up with a broken arm and that was just because you made fried potatoes with the chicken and not mashed.”

Polly waived her hand dismissively. “I’ll deal with your father, Liberty,” she said with a deep sigh. “How are you, child? The doctor says you didn’t sustain any major injuries to your body, but I’d imagine there are other injuries you’ve suffered the doctor has no way of seeing.”

Liberty took her mother’s hand. “I’ll manage, Mama,” she said. “Have you seen Tom? Is he still angry with me?”

Polly shook her gray head. “That fool doesn’t have the sense the good lord gave a pissant,” she said in a lowered voice, glancing around to make certain nobody was close enough to hear her minor vulgarity.

“I know, Mama, but he’s still my husband.”

Polly bit at her lip and squeezed her daughter’s hand tighter. “Not for long I fear,” Polly said with her eyes downcast in shame. “He’s filed for divorce on the grounds you whored yourself in public and soiled his good name after refusing to give him children.”

Liberty’s mouth fell open. “How can I give him children if his seed won’t sprout in my womb?” she demanded to know.

“The world is probably better without a reproduction of that fool man in it.”

Polly had rummaged in her bag and brought out a container Liberty recognized. It was where her mother kept the money she made from selling extra eggs and the quilts she and Liberty made together. She took twelve dollars worth of coins from the box and handed them to her daughter .

“I can’t take your money, Mama,” Liberty said and pushed the hand filled with coins away. “Papa gave me some money, so I’ll be fine for a while.” Liberty had balked at taking the money her father had left with his horrid implications but her sensible nature had gotten the better of her when she tried to figure out what she was going to do when she left the safety of the doctor’s office.

Polly dropped the coins onto the bed. “Well, you’ll be even better now,” she said and patted her daughter’s hand. “Write to me at the post office when you get settled, Libby, so I know you’re safe somewhere.”

“I will, Mama and thank you for the money.”

They heard voices in the doctor’s office and Polly stood. “I’d best be getting back to the farm before your Papa misses me,” she said before hurrying out the door.

Liberty scooped up the coins and counted them. “Twelve more silver Eagles to add to my stash,” she muttered to herself as she found her reticule and dropped the coins inside. Thirty-six dollars was a lot of money and though it had come to her by way of sad circumstances, she was happy to have it as she was about to set out upon a new phase of her life—that of an independent woman.

What did that mean for her? She’d lived with her parents until age nineteen, when she’d married Tom Shaw and had spent the last sixteen years as his wife. She could sew and could probably get work as a seamstress in a shop but what she truly loved was cooking and her pies had won blue ribbons every year at the fair. Perhaps she could get work in an eatery somewhere rather than lowering herself to the oldest profession in the world.