The Duchess and Desperado (15 page)

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Authors: Laurie Grant

Tags: #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Nineteenth Century, #American West, #Protector

BOOK: The Duchess and Desperado
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Moments later Sarah emerged, clad in the unfamiliar garments. It felt distinctly odd to be walking without skirts and petticoats swishing about her ankles. She had left her chemise and pantalets on, but the shape of her breasts was illconcealed. The trousers, of course, had not been fashioned to be worn by a woman; they were loose at the waist, then clung lovingly to her hips.
Morgan took one look, then became very busy looking over what Socrates had laid out on the counter. “She needs a belt,” he said, growling as if the fit of the trousers was the black man's fault. “We'll need coats, too.”
Within minutes the supplies had been loaded onto a scrubby brown packhorse Socrates had brought from a leanto barn in back of the trading post.
Trafalgar showed the whites of her eyes as the unfamiliar, heavier saddle was lowered onto her back, and sidled away when her mistress approached in her strange clothing.
“I know, dear girl, nothing's as it usually is, is it?” Sarah murmured soothingly. “'Twill be different for me, too, you know,” she reminded her as she swung a leg over the bay mare's back. “I haven't ridden astride since I was a schoolgirl.”
Socrates had gone inside, but he returned and handed Sarah a leather pouch from which a savory aroma of bacon and biscuits arose.
“Here, ma‘am. I reckon that ol' rebel yore ridin' wit' ain't remembered t‘feed you nothin' this mawnin'.”
“But that's your breakfast,” she said, remembering having seen the food sitting on the stove in his living quarters. “We can't take your breakfast, Mr. Smith.”
“I'm just Socrates, Miss Duchess, and doan' you worry, I'll just make some more. Y'all be careful, now,” Socrates admonished. “Morgan, you take care of this lady. You do right by her.”
“I mean to,” Morgan replied, and there seemed to be layers of meaning to his words. “You take care of yourself, ol' friend.”
 
Morgan sat by the campfire, listening to the coyotes howl in the distance and watching Sarah sleep.
They had traveled all day, covering miles of rolling land covered mostly by buffalo grass, pausing only to rest the horses. The thoroughbred mare had done surprisingly well, not only adjusting to the unfamiliar saddle but keeping up with Rio, and she had even stopped laying her ears back when the pinto ventured too close. She'd even decided she liked the patient brown gelding packhorse.
Sarah had not uttered a word of complaint the entire day. She hadn't mentioned stopping for the night until Morgan said they should. Morgan had seen her wince when she dismounted, though, and watched her stiffly moving about as she helped him lay out their bedrolls and gather what little firewood there was to be found. But still, she said nothing of how sore she must be. Once the fire was burning well, he'd set her to cooking the beans while he saw to the horses.
He'd come back from the horses only to find her sitting by the fire clutching the spoon, her head sunk on her chest, fast asleep. Fortunately, the beans hadn't boiled dry, but they were just about to. She'd muttered something incomprehensible when he'd picked her up and carried her over to her bedroll, but once he'd laid her down and wrapped her in the coarse woolen blanket Socrates had provided, her regular breathing told him she was deeply asleep.
He shouldn't be surprised. Neither one of them had slept a wink last night, and his eyelids felt as if they were full of sand. But he was used to such things. Many times over the past few years, when he'd been running from a posse or some particularly persistent bounty hunter, he'd gone for two full days without sleep.
Poor little duchess. Too exhausted to stay awake for supper—such as it was, he thought wryly as he rested his tin plate full of beans in his lap and took a sip of the hot black coffee. Sarah hadn't eaten a thing since the breakfast Socrates had provided. She'd be hungry in the morning, for sure.
Finishing his meal, he laid the plate aside, too weary himself to go down to the creek and rinse it.
She had placed his bedroll on the opposite side of the fire from hers. No doubt it would never have occurred to her to do otherwise, for propriety's sake. But as deeply as she was sleeping, she'd never know the difference, so he got up and moved his bedroll until there was a scant foot between his and hers.
He lay wrapped in his blanket, staring at her lovely, unconscious face, until at last sleep claimed him, too.
Chapter Fifteen
 
 
S
arah was dreaming of hot tea and delicious buttered scones, enjoyed in front of a crackling fire in her sitting room at Malvern Hall. Her sister, Kat, was there, and was smiling instead of pouting, as she had last seen her. Morgan Calhoun sat by Sarah's side. The Texan, oddly enough, was dressed in tweeds as an English lord might be on a country weekend, but he seemed completely at his ease. Amazmgly, both Lord Halston—who looked happy to be taking tea with his niece and her bodyguard—and Ben were there, too. She was just wondering where Thierry was, and pondering how weird it was to see the dead groom and the uncle who was trying to kill her—as if nothing were amiss—when the earthquake struck. Surely only an earthquake could be shaking her body so insistently.
“Rise and shine, Duchess,” a voice drawled in her ear. “It's time for breakfast.”
Morgan's face swam into fuzzy focus as he bent over her, shaking her shoulder. A blurred wedge of moon hung low behind him, and the sky still seemed inky black.
“It's not,” Sarah said. “It's the bloody middle of the night.” She shut her eyes again, hoping she could go back to her dream.
But Morgan wouldn't allow it. He shook her again, but gently. “It's nearly dawn, Duchess, and you need to wake up and eat some breakfast. It's going to be a long day, so we need to get started.”
It seemed he wasn't going to give up, so she muttered, “Perhaps just some coffee.” The air around her was chill, and the grass she pushed against in her struggle to sit up was drenched in cold dew. She clutched the blanket about her and struggled to open her eyes.
“Good morning.” By the light of the crackling fire—well, at least that had been true enough in her dream—she watched Morgan crouching next to the flames, ladling fried eggs and bacon onto a tin plate. He poured steaming coffee from a pot sitting on a rock in the middle of the fire, dropped a lump of sugar into it from a nearby sack and handed the plate and cup to her.
“No, really, Morgan, just coffee. I'm not nearly awake enough to eat all this.” She was more used to a gradual start in the mornings, sipping tea until later, when she was awake enough to nibble on something.
“Eat
it, Duchess,” he insisted as he scooped bacon and eggs onto his own plate and sat down next to her. “You haven't eaten since breakfast in the saddle yesterday, and Lord knows that was little enough. This'll stick to your ribs.”
She took a sip of the coffee. The brew was strong, but the bracing warmth spread through her stomach, and suddenly she realized how very hungry she was. She picked up her fork and began to eat, and in no time at all the plate was empty.
“You're not a bad cook,” she commented wryly, thinking this breakfast surpassed all the broiled kidneys and kippered herring she'd ever consumed. Perhaps it was the open-air atmosphere. “Want a job in the kitchen at Malvern Hall?”
“Tomorrow it's your turn, Duchess,” he retorted. “You know how to make biscuits?”
She had to admit she did not Her experience at cooking had been limited to scrambling eggs on midnight kitchen raids after Cook was asleep, or making toast and tea for Kat when she'd been ill. And there were no more eggs, and certainly no bread.
“Maybe I'll teach you tonight when we stop,” he said. “Soon as you finish, do what you gotta do, ‘cause we're breakin' camp and leavin' as soon as the sun's up.”
His reference to her taking care of the demands of nature made her blush, but he appeared not to notice. This morning, unshaven and rumpled, he looked even more the desperado than he had before. Putting down his plate and cup, he went to saddle the horses.
It didn't take her long to get ready, since she hadn't undressed the night before. After emerging from behind a clump of bushes, she brushed out her hair and rebraided it, then donned the hat he'd obtained for her at Socrates' store.
“What can I do to help?” she called to Morgan, who was just lifting the heavy saddle onto his stallion's back.
“Take those plates down to the creek yonder and wash ‘em out. Rub 'em good with sand,” he told her.
Sarah did so, feeling a ridiculous sense of well-being now that she'd eaten and had a good night's sleep. She was pleased that he was treating her as a capable equal on this journey and not as the pampered noblewoman that she was. It must be very akin to the camaraderie men experienced on their hunting trips....
Suddenly she had the sensation she was being watched. Lifting her head from her task, she stared downstream, but all she could see was a blurry figure standing by a horse about a hundred yards away from her on the opposite side of the creek. She couldn't make out what sort of person it was, or the expression on his face, but it seemed he was facing her direction. Friend or foe? Oh, God, was it the assassin—had he caught up with them?
Cursing her nearsightedness, she backed up. “Morgan?” she called, then broke into a run.
“Morgan!”
She ran back over the rise to the camp.
He was beside her in a moment. Evidently her tone had alerted him, for he had drawn his pistol. “What is it, Duchess?”
She pointed downstream. “There's someone standing down by the creek with a horse, down that way.”
She watched as he crept down to the creek, using the cover of the cottonwoods to the left of where she had been washing the plates.
He was back in a moment. “It was a Ute Indian,” he said. “He saw my gun and decided to take off. I hope to thunder he's by himself. The Utes haven't bothered the whites around here lately, but you never know what they'll do when it's just two of us, especially when they know one of us is a woman. You keep that hair up under your hat today, you hear, Duchess? And where in hell are your spectacles? I want you wearin' 'em every minute the rest of this trip, you understand?”
She opened her mouth to acquiesce, but he never paused.
“Vanity be damned, Duchess—like I told you, this ain't no pleasure jaunt. It'd be nice to see if someone's about to fire an arrow at you, don't you think? Go put your spectacles on right now!”
Had she really just been savoring the feeling of camaraderie between them? Surely she must have been dreaming once again!
“It isn't necessary to harangue me, Mr. Calhoun,” she said with icy hauteur, and stalked off to dig the hated spectacles out of her pack. Thank God she'd had them in her reticule at the theater.
He must have realized how harsh he'd sounded, for when she came back, wearing her spectacles, he said, “I'm sorry, Duchess. I reckon I just got scared for you, thinkin' what could've happened just then. Here, I want you to carry one of my pistols in your belt. I don't want you goin' outa my sight without havin' this with you. It ain't enough to
see
the danger, you gotta be able to shoot it, if need be.”
Sarah stared at the Colt he was proffering. “But...don't you need a spare?”
“I've got the Winchester. And,” he said, tapping his boot, “there's a little derringer in here—had it in my pocket at the theater. It'll do in a pinch. Here, take it,” he said, offering her the pistol again.
“I—I've never shot one of these...I've never fired any sort of weapon....” Of course she hadn't. To have participated in the shooting parties that were so much a part of country weekends, and grouse-shooting expeditions to Scotland, she would have had to wear her hated spectacles. She stuck to foxhunting instead, trusting Trafalgar to judge the jumps over fences and fallen logs.
He sighed and stuck the pistol back in his holster. “All right then, for the time bein'. But as soon as we get somewhere safe, maybe tonight, we're gonna start you on target practice, Duchess,” he promised grimly. “Even before you learn to make biscuits.”
 
The assassin had spent the previous morning visiting the police, and the mayor's and the governor's residences, posing as a foreign newspaper reporter, but whether their ignorance was real or feigned, the assassin was able to gain no new clue as to where the duchess and her protector had gone. It was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth. He'd even gone to the railroad station, even though he'd doubted earlier that the duchess would use this obvious escape route, but the ticket taker could remember talking to no one with a foreign accent, female or male, “except for yourself, of course, sir.” Nor had he seen anyone fitting Morgan Calhoun's description.
By noon he'd decided to trust his original guess that the duchess and her bodyguard had fled southward on horseback, and had spent the afternoon purchasing a horse and provisions for himself. Once done, he pondered starting out that very afternoon and riding till it was too dark to go farther, but decided against it.
The fact that his quarry would have a whole day's head start did not overly dismay him. They wouldn't be able to travel as fast as he would, for Sarah was a lady and unused to hardship, while he had been hardened by his years in the cavalry. And while the sturdy cow pony he'd purchased this morning wasn't his usual choice of a mount, it had stamina Sarah's thoroughbred wouldn't have. In addition, he'd learned much in the way of tracking lore from the scouts he'd worked with, and knew that with just a little luck, he'd find his quarry.
It was going to be an arduous journey, so he decided to treat himself well his last evening in Denver. He bought himself a steak dinner and a bottle of the best red wine that could be had in this benighted corner of the world. When he finished the bottle, he decided it had been too long since he'd had a woman, and inquired of the waiter where he might find a willing whore.
The waiter, assessing him as a refined gentleman, did not send him to the nearest crude crib, but to Madame Hortense's Parlor House, where he was assigned a blond whore with breasts that strained at the bodice of her garish red dress.
“Hey, you're a furriner, ain't you? We had a furriner in here last night, but she was a woman. She was with some man, though—sounded like a Texan, he did—and Hortense kicked me outa my room fer them! Kin you imagine that, bringin' yore own fancy woman to a parlor house fulla them? But the madam give it to them fer the nite, so I had to cool my heels down here in the parlor. I still got a crick in my neck from fallin' asleep on this here sofa,” she babbled on, pointing to the couch.
What a happy chance—he'd come to the very brothel in which his quarry had passed the night!
He smiled beatifically down at the whore as he took her arm and started for the stairs with her. “What a coincidence,” he purred. “I have been looking for that very woman. I fear she is my long-lost, erring wife, you see. By any stroke of fortune, did you overhear them talk about where they were going this morning, or perhaps see the direction in which they departed?”
The whore blinked, clearly dazzled by the foreigner's charming smile and the lilt of his accent. “Naw, I never did. They was long gone when I woke up and checked my room.”
“Never mind,” the assassin said, giving the whore his most courtly bow. “We will pass a good time anyway, yes? I need you very much, my dear. It has been long since I have enjoyed...the comforts of a woman....” He winked, and the whore tittered.
He would enjoy her “comforts,” all right—and then he would pretend she was Sarah, Duchess of Malvern, and practice how he was going to punish the duchess.
Before dawn he arose and took the coins he'd paid for the whore's services the night before. She wouldn't be needing them anymore, he reasoned as he stole down the back stair way and out into the street.
Luck continued to stay with the assassin that morning.
He'd been about to head out onto the plains, away from the creekside path he'd followed out of Denver, when he encountered a trapper bringing a packhorse full of skins into the city to trade. The trapper hadn't seen anyone fitting the duchess's or the Texan's description, but he did recall seeing a pinto and a bay tied up in front of the Cherry Creek Trading Post yesterday morning. The trading post lay about five miles downstream—“Just keep on follerin' the creek and ya cam't miss it, friend.”
He didn't miss it. Socrates, the black man running the store, was a veritable fount of information—he didn't even have to resort to a bribe. Yes, there'd been a foreign woman here. “Just yesterday mornin', one wit' pretty yella hair and the funniest way o' talkin', an' real purdy, too. Yassuh, she was wit' a Texan who give his name as Morgan Calhoun, though wit' these Texans, a body could never tell iffen that was their true handle or not. Where'd they go? Why, suh, they headed up yonder inta th' mountains, goin' straight west, they did. Said they was tryin' t' lose somebody who might be trailin' 'em.”
The assassin deciphered the black man's molasses-thick drawl with difficulty, then decided to ask one more question. It sounded as if Calhoun had spent a fair sum buying provisions here. Just why was Socrates so willing to give away the direction the Texan and the lady had taken, after the man had even admitted they feared pursuit?

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