A Touch of Camelot (13 page)

Dreams.
Her mother had been nothing but dreams.
Reach out
, Emmaline had so often told her daughter when Gwin had still been young and blindly adoring of her beautiful mother.
Close your eyes and reach out. Wiggle your fingers, Gwinnie, and imagine that you can touch Camelot.

In his own peculiar way, Silas had been a dreamer, too. Hadn't he gone for years pretending everything was fine between him and Emmaline? Gwin had grown up watching both of her parents fail to touch Camelot, and so, as far as she was concerned, dreams had only one place in life, and that place was sleep.

Gwin tried to inject a light note into her voice. "And so, what is
your
dream, Cole Shepherd?"

"I suppose my dream is to be doing exactly the kind of work I'm doing right now."

Gwin smiled at this. "What work? Sleeping next to a strange girl in a cramped berth on an express train?"

"Hmmm ... I never actually expected it to be so ..."

"So, what, Shepherd?"

"Never mind." He tightened his hold around her waist and squeezed gently. "In the interest of safety, I think we should both get some sleep."

*

San Francisco

It was past midnight. A new day.

Sidney Pierce rose from his bed, being careful not to disturb the woman as she slept. He plucked his silk robe from the carved mahogany headboard and slipped it on. Silently, he crossed the darkened master chamber, his bare feet scuffing the plush nap of an imported Persian carpet.

Jasper's dispassionate words played over in his mind: "
The Round Table has met on the subject. It's already too late."

He frowned as he turned the silver knobs of the double doors that led out onto the balcony. Too late. But was it?

Sidney inhaled the salty night air and felt inside his pocket for the cigar he had decided to forgo earlier in the evening.
"One of our people has been dispatched and will be boarding the eight forty connection at Promontory."

Sidney bit off the tip of the cigar and spit it out before striking a match on the stone balustrade. It flared, bathing his face in a ghostly orange glow as he lit the cigar. He shook out the match and tilted his head back, exhaling in a long sigh.

Today
, Sidney thought, surveying the clear, glistening night sky. It would happen sometime today. By tomorrow, it would be over. And then what? Sidney raised his cigar to his mouth  contemplatively.
Return to business as usual
.

Below him, the echo of a distant gunshot rent the air. The unintelligible lyrics of a sailor's drunken song wafted on the night breeze. Sidney found it ironic that from up here on Nob Hill, among the Victorian palaces of the silver kings and San Francisco's wealthiest nabobs, the raucous late-night revelry of this town's most depraved neighborhoods should be so clearly audible.

But there was a time, many years ago, when he had called the Barbary Coast home. Fresh off the boat and with a chip on his shoulder, he had gravitated to that section of town like steel to a magnet. Barlett's Alley, Dupont Alley, Bull Run, Deadman's Alley, Murder Point. Those were lost years, during which he had nearly allowed his own bitterness to devour him alive.

Still, a part of him yearned to return to those days, to start over with a blank slate, to hustle those filthy streets down by the old Bella Union. Back then, he'd had nothing to depend on but his own wits.

Direction.

Tonight, he’d finally put his finger on part of what had been bothering him ever since Silas had shown up so unexpectedly on his doorstep. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost his direction.
But you can get it back
, a voice whispered.
Maybe it's not too late, not if you send a telegram to the Pinkerton operative that's with them. You might be able to save Silas's children.

Sidney's mouth curved in a mirthless smile. No doubt he would also get himself killed for his trouble. His unscrupulous associates watched his every move and had little patience for those who stepped out of line.

Looking out over the darkened courtyard below, he thought back to the days when he and Silas had roped for McDaggert's skinning house in New Orleans. Sidney had frequented the saloons and hotels, Silas the railroad stations, and between the two of them, not a night had gone by that they hadn't befriended some poor, hapless out-of-town gent with the express purpose of inviting him to come play at their club.

Sidney chuckled now at the memory. Oh, how that sucker's eyes would nearly pop from their sockets at the sight of Emmaline dealing from behind the faro table. Ivory flesh swelling over a scooped neckline of scarlet satin, diamond droplets flashing at her ears, flaming red hair spilling over bare shoulders.

"Place your bets, gentleman," she would purr, her green eyes glittering like gems in the lamplight.

"Is she available?” the sucker would ask in a hushed whisper.

"Only to whet your appetite," Sidney would reply with a conspiratorial wink. "Later, I'll take you to a little place around the corner where the ladies are discreet."

But, of course, there would be no later for that poor sucker. By the end of the night, he would be sent on his way, dazed and dispirited, his pockets turned inside out.

Those had been good times, the best of times now that Sidney had the perspective of years to look back upon, but he'd been too impatient to see it then. He'd always been looking ahead to the next conquest.

California,
he had urged Silas time and again. "The West Coast is the New World now, and we have the chance to be in on the start of it."

But Silas hadn't listened. Or hadn't wanted to. "We're doing fine where we are, Sidney. Why rock the boat?"

Why rock the boat indeed? That was precisely what kept Sidney awake this night. He was forty-six years old, too old to be rocking the boat, too young to be giving up the ghost. He still had many years ahead of him, and if the election went as they all hoped, those years promised to offer new and exciting challenges.

Well, I have it, Emmaline. Camelot. Right here in the palm of my hand. And you want to know the truth? It's not anything like what we thought it would be.

"Can't sleep?"

Sidney turned to see Jasmine leaning in the doorway behind him, her green eyes luminous in the moonlight. Her thick red curls, disheveled from sleep, tumbled over her shoulders and down her back to her waist. She wore a sheer black peignoir of Turkish silk.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he said, turning his back, stabbing out the cigar and flicking it out onto the flagstone walk that ran through the courtyard below. The gardener would take care of it in the morning.

"Certainly you did, love," Jasmine said, approaching him, "you always mean to wake me."

Her talented fingers brushed lightly over Sidney's shoulder blades, trailing down to play at the sash of his robe."You are so solemn this evening, love. Can I help?" She reached around his waist from behind and tugged at the sash, pulling it free. "Is it that woman?"

"What woman?"

Jasmine's fingertips played down the column of his flat belly. "The woman in the paintings. The one who looks like me."

Sidney took a deep breath, feeling the first stirrings of arousal. "The woman in the paintings is dead."

"Ahhhh, how sad." Jasmine pressed the swell of full breasts up against him from behind. "Is that why you never married?"

"Is that what I pay you for?" Sidney asked tightly. "To ask questions?"

"No, this is what you pay me for." Jasmine laughed as her hands played lower ... and still lower.

Sidney allowed Jasmine's ministrations to nudge all troubling thoughts from his mind.

"Do you want me to leave?" she inquired.

Sidney turned and reached back to wrap one hand around the nape of her neck. He pulled her to him, entangling his fingers in the rich thickness of her hair and lowering his mouth to hers. "No," he whispered, "tonight you stay. Tonight you stay until morning."

Chapter Eight

Central Pacific Express 420

The third day on the line was tedious and exhausting. Late in the afternoon, they switched from the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific line at Promontory, Utah. Before that, at Ogden, they had lost many of the tourists in their coach to another connecting line that ran to Salt Lake City.

Since then, they had taken on far fewer passengers than they had lost, and so their coach, a Silver Palace, although not as luxurious as the Pullman they had traveled in since Topeka, was much less crowded. This suited Gwin just fine, especially since one of the passengers they'd lost was that annoying blonde tart across the aisle.

As Gwin bent to retrieve her soap, towel, and toothbrush, Cole and Arthur set about rearranging their seats and pulling down the upper berth for the night. Cole was in good spirits, no doubt because Gwin had done nothing to antagonize him all day. She wondered if he had reconsidered their sleeping arrangements. Part of her hoped he had, part of her hoped he hadn't.

Arthur unfolded their bed linens. "Hey, Cole! I'm not tired at all. You want to play a couple more games of rummy?"

Cole pushed down on the upper berth, testing its sturdiness before he replied. "Arthur, if we were playing for stakes, I'd already owe you my life savings and my firstborn son." His words were stern, but his tone was good-natured.

Arthur's whole face lit up as he beamed at Cole. By now, Gwin was convinced that her brother believed the Pinkerton man could do no wrong.

"I have to use the convenience," Gwin interrupted, displaying her wrapped towel as if in proof.

Cole had removed his coat earlier, and he hadn't shaved since yesterday. Now hatless and with his sleeves rolled carelessly to his elbows, he looked considerably less starched than he had when they'd first started out together from Caldwell. It was clear that the long trip had begun to wear on him as much as it had on Gwin.

Has it been only three days?
Gwin had lost her sense of time. She felt as if she had known Cole Shepherd a good deal longer than that. Spending every minute of every day with a person would tend to distort anyone's sense of acquaintance—and that was not to mention sleeping in the same bed. Then again, she
had
known him for a long time—ever since that day in Abilene—in her dreams, if not in reality.

"What is it about you women, anyway?" he asked, appearing amused but baffled. "Weren't you just in there thirty minutes ago? How much time can you spend in there in one day?"

"Do you think I get this beautiful by accident?"

"No." He shook his head and frowned. "I mean, yes. Wait. What?"

"Wrong answer, Shepherd." Gwin attempted to push past him to get to the aisle, but he wouldn't budge.

When she looked up, she saw that he wore just about the most heart-stopping smile she had ever seen in her life. And that included her dreams. "Five minutes, Miss Pierce."

Gwin felt something low in her belly go soft and fluttery. With effort, she squared her shoulders. "Don't wait up for me." She pushed by him without waiting for a reply.

Having grown accustomed to the constant rocking motion beneath her feet, Gwin threaded her way down the narrow aisle with no difficulty. She worried that Arthur was getting too attached to Cole.

She supposed that after losing Silas and Clell so suddenly, it was natural for Arthur to latch onto an older male figure, but just because it was natural didn't mean it was good. Cole Shepherd would soon be out of their lives forever, and then what? Gwin was Arthur's sister, sometimes even acting the part of his mother, but she could never make up for the lack of a father, could she?

Gwin passed a well-dressed Chinese gentleman in the aisle, their bodies brushing up against each other so intimately that, in any other environment, it would have been considered scandalous. Gwin was used to it by now.

The Chinese tipped his bowler hat just as she caught a whiff of something peculiar, something medicinal that reminded her of a doctor's office. Funny, a Chinese riding first class was not unheard of, but it was unusual enough to catch her notice. She glanced over her shoulder to see the sleek, braided pigtail that swung at his back. Dressed as he was in a pinstriped frock coat and matching trousers, it was an odd sight, that pigtail.

Gratified to find the ladies' washroom vacant, Gwin pulled the door open and locked it behind her, savoring these few moments of privacy in a coach full of passengers. She pumped some cool water into the marble washbasin, wet the cake of soap, and washed her face and neck. She peered into the mirror. Her hair was frazzled from the heat, standing up in crazed curls around her face. Her eyes looked haunted from lack of sleep.

Her first night's sleep aboard the Union Pacific Express had been short, thanks to her unsuccessful foray into the male confines of the saloon car, and last night, well, she had slept fitfully, not at all used to sharing her bed with a man. She had awakened frequently, thinking foggily that she had to be dreaming his strong arm encircling her from behind. And then she had come awake early this morning, not with her back to him, but with her cheek resting on his warm, breathing chest and her legs carelessly entangled with his.

Gwin reached into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew a bottle of lilac-scented toilet water. She dabbed some on each wrist and behind her ears. It was time she admitted to herself that maybe Arthur wasn't the only one getting attached to Cole. The truth was, ever since boarding their train at Topeka, Gwin had been stalling. She had been putting off making her escape, telling herself that she had plenty of time to come up with a workable plan. Well, her time was running out.

She pointed a finger, lecturing her own reflection. "Wise up, Gwin. Kick that Pinkerton man out of your dreams for good. Tomorrow, you and Arthur set sail on your own."

She had made up her mind. Today, she had examined the train schedule and decided that Reno was the place to jump ship. Virginia City was close by. It was a gambling town, and if there was one thing Gwin knew how to do, it was raise stake money in a gambling town.