The Song Bird (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
The Song Bird
Avilon Chambert travels to the wild city of San Francisco to find her missing sister. All she has is a letter explaining she’s in terrible trouble and that she’s been working as an upstairs girl in a club owned by two handsome men, Eli Masters and Jason Braddock.
When she arrives at the club, the only way she can get to talk to them is by auditioning for the singing position, and she captivates them by her beautiful operatic voice. But the answers to her questions are vague and filled with holes, rousing her suspicions.
Her arrival at the club sets off a chain of events filled with danger. As she grows closer to Eli and Jason, the search for her sister unleashes the wrath of a madman bent of revenge, threatening to destroy everything and everyone she’s come to love.
Genre:
Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length:
49,337 words
Beth D. Carter
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
THE SONG BIRD
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-652-3
First E-book Publication: November 2012
Cover design by Christine Kirchoff
All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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The Song Bird
by Beth D. Carter from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
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It was exciting researching this period of history, and I tried to keep things as authentic as possible. Initially, the Barbary Coast in San Francisco had been known as Sydney Town, populated by the immigrants from the penal colonies of Australia. It was an area thick with corruption, prostitution, and gambling…a perfect setting for romance and mystery.
The Committee of Vigilance existed twice in San Francisco’s illustrious history, first in 1851 and again in 1856, and was the most successful vigilante organization in US history. Hundreds of citizens formed these temporary solutions to rein in corruption and crime throughout the city and government. The committee acted in policing, deportation, and investigations, as well as acting as a militia and serving as judge and jury through the hanging of several men.
I tried to incorporate as many historical figures as I could, including Sheriff David Scannell, US Marshal William Richardson, who was murdered by Charles Cora, and newspaperman James King of William, whose death sparked the committee’s second reorganization. The only liberty I took for the story was moving up the timeline of when James King of William became a newspaper editor, which actually was October of 1855.
Chinatown in San Francisco is the oldest Chinese settlement in North America, as well as the largest Chinese community outside Asia. I realize saying “Chinaman” is not politically correct in the modern day, but is accurate to the 1855 setting. I mean no disrespect and use the term only for its historical content.
The Song Bird
, along with my other historical novel,
The Scarlet Dove
, sets up two fictional cities that will be a basis for an upcoming contemporary series coming in 2013.
THE SONG BIRD
BETH D. CARTER
Copyright © 2012
1855, San Francisco
Avilon Chambert stared at the imposing building in front of her and bit her bottom lip. The bitterly cold wind snaked its way from San Francisco Bay to curl along the rolling streets, finally finding a way under her woolen skirts. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her body, although it proved to be hopeless against the April gust.
She stood on the corner of Montgomery and Broadway, in a section of the city nicknamed Sydney Town, notorious for its unholy den of prostitution, corruption, and crime. No decent person in his or her right mind would dare venture into the district at night, which was why she had waited until noon to search for her sister. Inside her reticule lay her sister’s letter, making her wonder again, for the thousandth time, what had driven Amelia to travel to such a wild city in the first place. They had grown up in a small fishing community in Louisiana, among a heritage steeped in Creole tradition. When fever had swept through their small town, the girls had been split. Avilon had gone to live with her great-aunt Verity while Amelia had gone to live with their cousin Odell in New Orleans. And at some point in the past five years, Amelia’s life had drifted drastically off course.
The conspicuous design of the building in front of her was proof enough of that. Amelia had called it a gambling hall, but its character looked a tad shady. The front of it reminded her of something from the Greek Revival, with four Corinthian columns holding up a pediment decorated with female figures barely clad in wispy, flowing clothes. The steps leading up to the heavy gilt-encrusted doors were lined with a marble balustrade topped with Tyche, the goddess of luck.
The entire street was lined with signs proclaiming all types of debauchery, including sex, drink, and gambling. She could only imagine what the place would be like once night fell. The whole area seemed to breathe with a collected gust of sin, and for a moment, Avilon had the strongest notion to cover her mouth and nose with her rose-scented linen square. She shivered, wishing she could return to her rented bed in the parish center off Vallejo Street where the nuns were kind enough to offer her shelter. But she quickly pushed the cowardly notion aside.
Amelia needed her.
Ever since she had set foot on the coal-dusted streets of San Francisco, a foreboding had settled inside her. The city held a black heart, cold and unfeeling. In the years since gold had been discovered in nearby Coloma, thousands of people had flocked to the area. Unfortunately, the infrastructure hadn’t been there, giving rise to out-of-control crime since California was still a new state. But the lure of riches proved too hard to resist, and Avilon was afraid her sister had turned into one more lost soul.
She looked skyward, drawing in a lungful of air. The sunlight seemed trapped behind a perpetual thick bank of gray, angry clouds. Coal dust and grime touched every open surface, leaving behind streaks of dirty water as well as a smell that hovered somewhere between rotten food and wasted bodies. And the people had a look of unbearable burden, as if they wore loneliness like a favorite cloak. She had arrived only yesterday, yet it had been enough time to see the effect of deterioration of hope into wretchedness and despair. Hordes of people had rushed to a city that hinted at wealth and gold, only to see those promises turned into lies and falsehoods.
And it seemed her sister had been one of those people
Avilon had to find out where Amelia was and what danger she was in.
Most would have written off a sister who had admitted to working at a gambling establishment. After all, it didn’t take a genius to deduce what type of work she would being doing in such a manner of employment. But Avilon could never abandon Amelia. They were all each other had left.
Avilon crossed the street and marched resolutely up the slick marble steps of the gambling house. She knocked upon the locked door and waited. Minutes passed. She knocked again. When another five minutes passed, she decided to head around back, to see if there was another entrance.
In the alley, she saw several men unloading wooden crates off a cart into the opened door of the gambling house. A tall, heavily muscled man was talking to the workers, giving them instructions in a lilting, accented voice. As she approached him, she saw that his hair was burnished gold, hanging over the lip of his collar. He wore suspenders holding up pants that molded to him like a second skin, showing off a backside of corded sinew and strength.
He stood next to a Chinaman dressed in the same attire as he. Their sleeves were rolled up, but neither of them seemed to notice the whipping wind.
“Excuse me,” she called, and when he turned around, her breath froze in her chest. He was breathtaking. Bright green eyes quirked down at her, raking over from head to toe, and she could only imagine what this handsome specimen of manhood must have thought of her Puritan clothing.
“Whatever you’re selling, we’re not buying,” he said, his voice sounding like rough silk. She couldn’t quite place the accent, though it definitely had some British inflection underlining the words.
“I’m not selling anything. I’m here to see Mr. Masters.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “You here for the job?”
“Job?”
“We lost our song bird a few days ago.”
“It’s a singing job?”
The man gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Interested?”
Aware that the workers had stopped unloading the cart, she looked over at them and found their interested gazes perusing her up and down. Taken aback, she pulled her black cloak more securely around her body.