Dancing with the Devil

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-One

"Ah, there be my mama's place now," Irish announced jovially as he rode atop the cart. Audrey had been surprised when he'd insisted on coming with them, though Irish had insisted it was only because he wanted to see the angel that gave birth to him and not because he was loathe to be away from Ance who was finally treating him with something less than hostility every once in a while. 

Audrey had noticed that Ance's normally quiet demeanor had been even more silent than usual today and he'd seemed surly and withdrawn. She glanced at him when she heard him grumble and he and his mare fell behind her on the mare he had purchased for her from Grandy. 

Audrey frowned. "Is something wrong with your horse, Ance?" 

"No, dammit, I just... aw hell.. Don't kill me, okay?" 

"Kill you?" Audrey laughed lightly. She turned her gaze back toward Irish's mother's home. "Why would I......" her voice trailed as several things caught her attention at once. 

This home or Madge's was here alone, by itself with no neighbors, no crops, no corrals... There was a hitching post with several horses hitched up front. The building was old but in good shape with two floors and balconies up top. The windows were covered by fine red satin with gold tassels and a wooden plaque on the balcony above the front door read, 'Madge's Irish Paradise'. 

But it wasn't those things that truly alerted Audrey to the fact that something was amiss. No, the tell tale sign that she'd been misled was the big busted brunette in nothing but a corset and a bustle leaning over one of the second floor balconies, waving a handkerchief as a smile lit up her heavily painted face--while a man wearing only his trousers nibbled at her neck. 

"Irish! Irish is back!" she exclaimed. "Oh am I happy to see you, darlin! It has been far too long!" 

Audrey was seething... boiling really.. As she turned to Ance. "A brothel!?" she exclaimed. "You left my daughter in a brothel!?" 

Ance's blue eyes widened. "You said Irish told you," he growled. 

"Of course he didn't tell me that!" Audrey shouted, not caring if she sounded hysterical. 

"I may have left out that wee little detail," Irish admitted sheepishly. 

"Little detail!?" Audrey was certain that the men beside her had gone completely daft! The little twit on the balcony hollered out for Irish again and Audrey laid her hand on the gun in the waistband of her skirt. "Shut her up, Irish, or so help me God, I will." 

"Audrey, calm down." Ance interjected before Audrey could succumb to her itchy trigger finger. "I had to think of a safe place for Penny to stay and I didn't have a lot of time to think about it. This is a safe place." 

"Safe?" Audrey was certain that Ance had been in the sun too long and his brain had been thoroughly fried. "You would consider a filthy brothel where drunkard men go to lay with dirty and diseased women a safe place for a little girl?" 

"Excuse me, lass?" Audrey whipped her gaze around to see a plump woman wrapped in crushed velvet cut low on her ample bosom. The woman had dark hair, sharp eyes and was tapping her foot with irritation as she glared at Audrey with that same emotion. "I'll forgive ya that off the cuff remark seein' as how ya have never been to my establishment before. But let me assure ya now that my home is anythin' but filthy, any man I suspect is lost in drink is not allowed past the front door and my beautiful girls are indeed quite clean and absolutely disease free, I promise ya that."

Audrey slid from her horse and approached the angry woman. "You'll have to excuse me if I lack respect for your chosen profession, ma'am," Audrey replied, meeting the woman's gaze head on as she came to a stop mere feet away.