My Darling Gunslinger (19 page)

“Christ on the cross,” Magnus murmured.

“I want Frederick Grenville dead.” Charlotte’s gaze swung back to Ty. “So, what’s it going to be, Mr. Morgan? Do you truly intend to be a part of this or must I find myself another gunman?”

A wise man begs forgiveness for his sins. An honorable man atones for them.

Akeem Faharazad

Charlotte watched Tyler Morgan pace the length of the Pleasure Palace until he came to the wall where little more than a week previously he’d had her pinned to the tapestry.

As he turned and stalked to the rear of the car once more, Charlotte returned her gaze to the view outside the window. Stockyards had given way to wide streets flanked on both sides by warehouses and factories. In the distance, the city of Chicago spread out, an odd patchwork of squat older buildings that had escaped the Great Fire, tall new buildings constructed of brick and steel and iron skeletons of structures not yet completed.

“There ought to be a wire from Chang waiting for us at the hotel.” Magnus lowered his bulk to sit beside Charlotte on the settee, one hand pressed to his thigh and a grunt falling from his lips. “We’ll have a better notion of what’s what when we know if Windsong will be traveling with us.”

Ty made another pass through the car, his boot heels silent on the plush carpet before tapping across the leather mat. Dressed in black from the hat pulled low over his eyes, to the shirt worn beneath a leather vest, to the tightly fitted trousers over scuffed boots. With the pearl-handled revolvers strapped to his hips, he was every inch the gunslinger for hire.

Charlotte’s gunslinger for hire, his services bought with her body, just as he’d accused in Uncle Jasper’s study.

Only it was Ty’s study now. The Zeppelin belonged entirely to him. Charlotte had signed over her quarter of the ranch and tucked the bill of sale and a small fortune in gold into the top drawer of the old desk for him to find when he returned.

Though he’d scoffed at the idea there was any benefit to owning a ranch that had never shown a profit, surely now he recognized it had never been intended to provide an income, but rather a refuge for a boy and his guardians. Ty would make the ranch a success, make it a home for himself and perhaps for some lucky woman and a couple of children.

Maybe then he would be able to find it in his heart to forgive her for playing upon his guilt and tarnished honor, for dragging him across the land to fight one last battle that wasn’t his own.

“Ach, lassie, you aren’t even listening to me,” Magnus grumbled.

She hadn’t been but she dutifully turned to face him, to give him as much of her attention as she could manage to wrestle away from with the dark angel prowling around the Pleasure Palace. “I’m listening.”

“To my way of thinking, if the half-breed don’t make the journey with us we might be left in a bit of a bind.” He looked to Ty, his bushy brows lowering. “Could be we won’t be able to make use of your gun, not and get away clean. You fair with a knife?”

“Fair enough.”

“I am more than fair with a knife,” Charlotte said. “If it becomes necessary, I am prepared to plant my knife in Frederick’s back.”

“It won’t become necessary.” Ty’s softly spoken words were the first he’d spoken directly to Charlotte since he’d towered over her in the kitchen, his face flushed beneath two days’ worth of whiskers and his eyes flashing like quicksilver.

Charlotte could not make out Ty’s eyes now, not with his hat brim pulled low, and she felt an almost overwhelming urge to jump to her feet and knock the darned thing from his head. “You don’t think I can?”

“I am entirely cognizant of your ability to annihilate a man,” he drawled. “Even eviscerate him, but I’m wondering how you plan to get close enough to him to see the deed done.”

Charlotte could only stare at him, her mouth falling open in surprise, but no words forming as she realized he was mocking her.

“Planning to sneak up on him while he’s at his morning ablutions?” he asked, his lips twitching.

Not mocking, Ty was teasing her. The revelation only further surprised and confused her.

“If everything Magnus has said of Grenville is true,” he continued, his humor falling away as suddenly as it had appeared, “he’ll know we’re heading his way before the ship docks.”

Charlotte finally found her wits, gathered them up, and sorted them into something approaching cohesion. “He’ll know it long before then if everything goes according to plan.”

“Just what are you planning, lass?” Magnus barked.

Charlotte looked toward the back of the railway car, to the door separating the main room from the two small sleeping berths and the cramped little lavatory. Beyond those doors Akeem’s baritone could be heard mingling with Sebastian’s high-pitched laughter as they played cards on one of the bunks.

Without a word, Daisy tossed her knitting into Ethel’s lap and disappeared into the narrow passageway, pulling the door closed behind her.

Ethel tucked the yarn and needles into a basket on the floor and rose to her feet, swaying with the motion of the train as it rolled along a curve in the track. She fell into a chair upholstered in crimson velvet directly across from the settee. Light streamed in through the windows, showcasing the rather putrid green of her complexion.

“Are you unwell?” Charlotte asked, alarmed by the sheen of moisture dotting the other lady’s brow.

“The morning malaise has stretched to encompass the afternoon,” Ethel replied with the dignity and poise that was as much a part of her as her flaxen hair and angular cheekbones.

“Perhaps you should lie down for a bit,” Charlotte suggested.

“It will pass,” Ethel demurred.

“What’s this plan you’re mulling over in that pretty head of yours?” Magnus prompted, his impatience evident in both his voice and the tapping of his fingers over the old wound on his thigh. “I thought we was to sneak into London and off him before he even knew we were there.”

Charlotte watched from the corner of her eye as Ty positioned himself behind Ethel’s chair, leaned one shoulder against the wall, crossed his ankles and looked out the window. “Mr. Morgan is correct. The probability we might surreptitiously arrive in London is so miniscule as to be nonexistent.”

Ty let loose a rusty chuckle and Charlotte imagined he would be thumbing through his dictionary the moment the train pulled into the depot.

“Rather than make an attempt that is doomed to fail, we’ll send wires to all the major papers in London announcing our imminent arrival,” Charlotte said, finally putting words to the thoughts that had been swirling around in her mind while the train had traveled east. “I intend to assure our arrival in London is heralded, perhaps not with fanfare and trumpets, but certainly with broadsheets and gossip.”

“Ach, lass, why not send a cable to Grenville inviting him to meet our ship,” Magnus grumbled.

“Oh, he’ll be there to meet our ship, never doubt it,” Charlotte assured him. “He will not be able to resist the opportunity to manipulate the spectacle to his advantage.”

“The common people will be out in droves to catch a glimpse of the lost lord and the adventuress who’s traveled the globe,” Ethel said with a decisive nod. “Grenville and the rest of Society will have no choice but to welcome you back, if only to whisper behind their fans and silk gloves.”

“Let them whisper,” Charlotte replied tartly. “It’ll take weeks before their whispers rise to a dull roar, and in that time there will be dinners and balls and an invitation to Windsor Castle. The queen is a distant relation after all.”

“And Grenville will be in attendance at every dinner, every ball and reception,” Magnus added, finally seeing the plan unfolding.

“We’ve only to seize one fortuitous moment,” Charlotte said, reaching over to lay her hand over his, to still the almost frantic tapping on his injured leg. “Perhaps we’ll find just such a moment in the crush of a ball. With people shifting and jockeying for position, a knife to the back might go unnoticed long enough for escape.”

“A pistol at close range as he rides along Rotten Row t’would be fitting. Damn me, I’d give my left nut to see the look in his eyes when he realizes he won’t live to be the tenth Earl of Westlockhart,” Magnus mused with relish. “But I suppose a rifle shot from the battlements of one of the towers at Windsor Castle when he exits his apartments would be better, less risky.”

“We’ve only to keep Sebastian safely hidden until it’s done,” Charlotte added unnecessarily. Sebastian would be kept far away from any danger. She would not allow herself to contemplate failure, nor would she abandon England until the threat that was Frederick Grenville had been eliminated. But if the worst happened and they were caught, if she never saw her son’s smiling face, felt his little hand warm in hers or watched him sleep curled onto his side with one hand tucked beneath his cheek, at least she would know he was safe.

“Your plan just might work,” Magnus said. “Except you’ll be the only one of us invited to the balls and whatnot.”

“There isn’t a chance in hell you’ll be going anywhere without me.” Ty didn’t raise his voice, didn’t so much as turn away from the view outside the window. There was no need. Charlotte was fully aware he was her best, and perhaps only, chance to save her son. She would not break the wary truce that had settled between them since they’d left the Zeppelin.

“Whither thou goest,” Charlotte murmured, an image of the gunslinger prowling around a London ballroom, ladies and gentlemen hurrying to remove themselves from his path, taking shape in her mind. Oddly enough it wasn’t nearly as absurd as it ought to have been. Was rather delightful, in fact.

“I will go,” Ty returned softly. “Where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”

“Ah, is that the way of it, then?” Magnus asked with a chuckle. “I told you weeks ago you ought to marry the lad, but I never thought you’d given my advice more than a passing fancy.”

Ty went still, his long, lean frame completely rigid but for the fingers of his left hand clenching into a fist.

Charlotte could not hold back an inelegant snort, nor the raw laugh that followed in its wake.

“Well, hell, lassie, how else are you to planning to explain Ty’s presence at your side day in and day out?” Magnus demanded. “Akeem and I will pass for servants but Ty sure as hell won’t.”

Charlotte might have explained there would be no need for Akeem and Magnus to pass for servants but she’d decided to put that quarrel off for another time.

She also might have debated whether Ty would be at her side day in and day out.

The only trouble with that argument was the fact he would be at her side until this terrible task had been completed.

“You can’t be thinking to stay at Westlockhart House,” Magnus continued, either unaware or intentionally disregarding the tense silence filling the railcar. “Grenville might keep quarters at Windsor Castle but still Westlockhart House is a den of vipers. Grenville’s vipers. The wee lord won’t last a night under that roof. Nor will you.”

“I thought to take a suite of rooms at the Clarendon.” Charlotte chose to focus on their upcoming living arrangement lest she lend her mind to contemplating the wisdom of her old friend’s suggestion.

“Word’ll spread like wildfire you’re sharing rooms with a man,” Magnus replied. “Hell, it wouldn’t matter if you slept on different floors, the gossips will have Ty sneaking through the halls and into your bedchamber and any hope you have of being invited to all the best places would blow away like so much London fog.”

Charlotte watched Ty’s fingers unclench and his stance relax until he was once more leaning against the wall as if he were deaf to the conversation going on around him.

Charlotte wasn’t fooled. She’d wager Ty was formulating an alternate solution to the dilemma, one that certainly would not involve marriage to a woman he considered a whore.

“And what if them old rumors are still being bandied about? So long as Grenville’s your nearest male relation, he can use them to do you harm. No, marriage is the only answer and there ain’t no sense in arguing with me, Countess,” Magnus groused, though Charlotte had yet to actually argue the point. She fully intended to leave any arguing to Tyler Morgan.

Seconds ticked by, seconds measured by the ornate clock bolted to the table she’d found in Istanbul, a pretty little piece with graceful lines and a floral pattern carved into the top.

“We’ll be married before we leave Chicago.” Ty finally turned away from the window and flicked the brim of his hat, revealing pewter eyes above dark crescents as purple as an old bruise. His face beneath the shadow of whiskers might have been carved of stone, his lips a firm slash above his square chin and his jaw clamped tight.

Not only had he agreed with Magnus’s ludicrous suggestion, he looked as if he was fully prepared to quarrel with Charlotte until she agreed, as well.

“Magnus, perhaps we ought to take a stroll through the passenger cars.” Ethel came to her feet, noticeably steadier than she’d been only a few minutes previously.

“There is no need for you to leave,” Charlotte protested.

“We don’t want any surprises when we reach the depot,” Ethel retorted.

“Right you are, Mrs. Chang,” Magnus agreed with far too much cheer as he lumbered to stand. “After you.”

Charlotte watched the pair disappear through the forward door before dropping her gaze to her fingers twisting in her skirts. Peeking up from beneath her lashes she found Ty looking at her, an odd expression flickering over his features. If she didn’t know any better, she might read regret in his eyes, sorrow in the frown pulling at his lips.