Two Brothers by Linda Lael Miller Page A

you!”
    Eugenie turned to look up at her. The lamp was burning low, and in that moment the night seemed especially dark, pressing at the window like some diabolical fog. “You’re a fine girl, Aislinn, and I confess I’m inclined to favor you over the others, just a mite. But I made them rules of mine for a reason, and I’ve got to see that they’re kept. You understand what I’m sayin’ here, don’t you? You’ll have to find yourself another place if you don’t behave yourself proper.”
    Aislinn nodded. Eugenie liked her, but she wouldn’t turn a blind eye again; it was a matter of principle. “I understand,” she confirmed. Then she hurried up the rear stairs, never bothering with a lantern, and let herself into the dormitory. The room was black, and the girls were all asleep, except for Liza Sue, who sat bolt upright on her cot, bathed in a single beam of moonlight, her arms wrapped around her knees.
    “She knows,” Liza Sue whispered.
    “Yes,” Aislinn answered, just as softly. “But it’s all right.”
    “You mean that?”
    “Eugenie will protect you. Now, go to sleep.” Aislinn snuggled down, and was just about to doze off, when Liza Sue spoke again, very softly.
    “You hear that racket, down at the saloon? A little while ago, there were some shots fired.”
    Aislinn hadn’t noticed the noise until then. The only law in town, Shay was almost surely square in the middleof the situation, whatever it was, and the realization was terrifying, now that she cared about him so much. She sat up again, listening. A popping noise punctured the night.
    “Was that a shot?”
    “I don’t know,” Liza Sue said. “Billy’s probably kilt somebody. Maybe that good-looking marshal, for making such a fool out of him in the street.”
    Some demon took Aislinn over in that moment. Tossing back her blanket, she scrambled got out of bed. “Where’s that dress you were wearing?”
    Liza Sue didn’t reply until they were both out in the corridor. “It’s behind that big crate in the storeroom,” she hissed. “Why?”
    Aislinn headed for the door across the hall. “Never mind. You just go back to bed.”
    The former prostitute stayed on Aislinn’s heels. “That’s my dress, and I have a right to know what you mean to do with it,” she insisted.
    Inside the small, stuffy room, Aislinn groped and searched until she found the crumpled gown. She shed her nightdress and wriggled into the garment, which was slightly too small and smelled of sweat, cheap perfume and stale whiskey. She suppressed a shudder. “In this instance,” she answered, however belatedly, “ignorance is most certainly bliss.”
    “You’re not actually planning to—to go down there, to the Yellow Garter? In that dress? Why, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb!” Liza Sue stopped, struggled to bring her rising voice under control. “Are you touched in the head? If you don’t get shot or beaten or arrested, you’re bound to be thrown out of this place once and for all!”
    Aislinn was well aware that what she was doing was pure lunacy, and she’d meant her implied promise to Eugenie, that she’d abide by the rules from then on and look for no special dispensation if she broke them, but she couldn’t ignore the very real possibility that Shay was in terrible trouble. She knew, everybody knew, about hisconfrontation with Billy Kyle that afternoon, out in front of the undertaker’s, and the rancher’s son had probably been fueling his indignation with liquor ever since. How could she lie there, in that stuffy attic room, throughout the night, wondering if the marshal was alive, or if he’d been gunned down?
    As for the dress, well, she was headed for a saloon, not a church social. By her reckoning, she’d have been a lot more obvious in one of her prim calicos.
    She made for the stairs, began a careful but quick descent. Liza Sue hovered at the top, like a disgruntled guardian angel, but she didn’t follow.
    On the