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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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Once, his flowery written lovemaking would have thrilled her, but now she only felt sad to know that she was going to have to disappoint this man who had come so far to marry her. She wondered how he would take it. Would Thierry fly into a verbose fit of French despair, or fall into a sullen pout? And she wondered what he would say when she informed him that she suspected her uncle of trying to have her assassinated. Would his sense of chivalry come to the fore, making him insist on escorting her safely back to England? Lord, what an uncomfortable sea voyage
that
would be! But if she were unable to persuade Morgan to give up his foolish sacrifice of their love, what other choice would she have but to go home?
Looking up, she saw that Jackson Stoner was staring at her with narrowed, speculative eyes. She guessed he had been studying her the entire time she had been reading. Wanting to avoid meeting his gaze, she felt her eyes being drawn back to Morgan's Wanted poster, but she dared not look at it.
“Well, ma'am, the Exchange shorely is a fine place,” McElroy was saying. “Why, it's been here as long as Santa Fe's been a town, though it's been called other names. Might I offer to escort ya there?”
“Thank you, Sheriff, but no, I do not plan to go there directly. I—I have some business to take care of before I can join the count. But I'll find it, never fear.” She tucked the letter in her shirt pocket. “Mr. McElroy, I wonder if you could first direct me to a telegraph office?”
“Why, there's one just about five minutes' walk from here. You just go down this street, make a right and walk straight on until you see the sign.”
“That sounds easy enough. Thank you both, gentlemen,” she said, turning to go.
“Just a moment, your grace,” called Stoner, striding forward. “Forgive my curiosity, but surely you didn't come this far all alone? Surely a lady like yourself—a duchess—has servants with her? Armed men?”
She forced herself to smile. In a moment she would be away from here, away from this man's probing gaze. Should she tell Morgan how nervous he had made her? She'd decide that later. For now she had to frame a suitable reply that would not make Jackson Stoner suspicious.
“Of course I have an entourage, Mr. Stoner,” she said, relieved that Morgan had had the foresight to wait where they could not see him. “But I'm afraid I have become very independent in the course of the journey. Most unduchesslike, I know,” she said with a flirtatious laugh. “I've sent them to arrange stabling for our horses and a place where I can refresh myself before going to meet my fiancé. You can imagine I would not want to greet him looking like
this,
can you not?”
“I understand, ma'am,” Stoner said, apparently satisfied. “My felicitations to you and your fiance.”
Sarah felt his eyes on her all the way out the door. Crossing the plaza, she caught sight of Morgan standing in the shade of a cottonwood tree.
“You find out what you were hopin' to in there, Duchess?” Morgan asked as she drew near.
She nodded. “Thierry is staying at a hotel called the Exchange,” she said, forgetting all about Jackson Stoner as she wondered how she was ever going to learn to live without this man standing in front of her. She drank in the sight of his lean, weather-bronzed features. His eyes looked even greener in the hot New Mexican sunlight.
She thought about the night ahead. Once she had bathed, she was going to go to him, still damp and smelling of soap, and make love to him as if her life depended on it Her happiness did, at any rate. And if she couldn't change his mind, then she would at least have the memory of one more night with Morgan Calhoun to treasure.
“Let's take care of the errands, shall we?” she said. “The sheriff was kind enough to inform me where we might find a telegraph office ”
“Okay. But Duchess.. I—I bought you somethin' while I was waiting,” he said, holding out a closed hand, fingers downward.
Surprised, she held out her hand, too, staring as he opened his fingers and a cool coil of silver and turquoise untwined into her open palm.
“I know you have plenty of jewelry that's worth a lot more,” he said, his usual smooth drawl curiously hesitant and shy, “but I hope you like it...an' that your husband-to-be doesn't object t'you havin' a gift from me.”
She wanted to cry, wanted to throw her arms around Morgan and kiss him, right here in the middle of the plaza, in spite of all the people strolling around it and lounging in the sun and shade. But she couldn't just now—not after she had let him think her resigned to their parting.
“It's beautiful,” she breathed. “Oh, Morgan, thank you! And I don't give a fig what Thierry thinks!”
Because I'm not marrying him,
she wanted to shout.
If
I
can't have you I shall marry no one.
“Please, help me put it on?”
She turned, and shivered as she felt the cool metal links slide down around her neck as he fastened the clasp in the back.
“And there's something else I think you should have,” he said, leaning over and pulling his derringer out of his right boot. “It'll fit in your reticule.”
She took the tiny pistol from him, surprised. “But Morgan, why? And what will you do without it?”
He shrugged. “Aw, I can get another some time, Duchess. But now that I taught you how to shoot, you ought to keep in practice. And your Frenchman might not want me escortin' y'all to the coast, so I thought you ought to have it.”
“But of course you shall escort us,” she said firmly. “Thierry will respect my wishes, I'm sure. But thank you, Morgan,” she added as she tucked the derringer into her reticule. “I shall treasure it always, just because it was yours.”
They went in the direction McElroy had specified, but just after they turned the corner, they came to a shop called Manuela's Dresses and Alterations. Ah, the very sort of place she had been looking for! She pondered going in now or after they had been to the telegraph office, and decided she wanted to look for a dress first.
“Good day. Do you have anything in the color turquoise?” she asked the little Mexican woman who sat hemming a skirt. “I thought it would be nice to have a dress to go with this necklace,” she said, picking up a portion of it from her neck with a finger so that the woman could see it.
“Ah, that is Victorio's work,
sí?
He sells necklaces and rings and hair combs in the plaza?”
Morgan, beside her, nodded in affirmation.
“No,
señora,”
the woman said, her large brown eyes sorrowful “Regretfully, I do not think I have a dress in that color, but I could have one ready in two days' time.”
“Oh, I'm afraid that won't do. We expect to be gone by then,” Sarah said, disappointed.
“Perhaps I can interest you in something in a different color—ah' But wait!” the proprietress exclaimed, brightening “I have just thought of a dress I made for a
gringa
—an Anglo lady, you understand—that is the very shade you require. It weel even feet you, with a little sewing....” She glided behind a doorway covered by a Mexican blanket.
“But what of the Anglo lady?” Sarah called after her.
The woman was back in a moment, her brown face creased with smiles as she held out a gown in the very same hue as the turquoise nuggets in Sarah's necklace.
“It ees
perfecto, sí?
And do not worry about the other woman. She ees late to peek it up, you understand? I shall make her another before she comes again.”
Sarah reached out and touched the gown, glorying in its rich hue. “I love it‘” she cried. “Such a vivid hue' Most unduchesslike,” she added, shooting Morgan a mischievous look. “But do you think this will fit me?” she asked the Mexican woman. “It looks a bit large in the bodice.”
“Ah, but I can fix that, if you will but try it on first, and then come back in an hour or two. Come this way,
señora,”
she said, motioning toward the back room she had gone into a moment ago. “I weel keep your wife but a few minutes,
señor,”
she called over her shoulder to Morgan, who was leaning against the door.
“He's not—” Sarah began, then shut her mouth It was none of the dressmaker's business, after all. “That is...he's very patient—he won't mind waiting.”
A half hour later Morgan and Sarah emerged from the shop and continued on their way to the telegraph office, unaware that they were being followed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
 
 
S
tanding next to Morgan in the telegraph office, Sarah handed back the piece of paper the telegrapher had provided, now inscribed with her instructions to the Eastern bank. “I'd like this message sent to this bank in New York, as I've indicated on the top line,” she told the telegraph operator.
Sarah heard the door to the street open behind them, and saw the operator look up at the new customer, but she didn't turn. She wanted to make sure he understood the importance of sending the telegram immediately.
“Yes, madam, right away. I—” The telegrapher had paled and was staring at Morgan.
Good lord, had the man recognized him?
Then she looked behind Morgan and saw Jackson Stoner holding a gun at Morgan's back.
“Just raise your hands nice and easy, Calhoun,” he murmured. “We wouldn't want any trouble, would we?”
Horrified, Sarah grabbed for the pistol still tucked into her waistband, only to hear another voice coming from the doorway to the back room of the office.
Andrew McElroy stood there, his rifle aimed right at her. “Now, ma‘am, don't do nothin' foohsh,” he urged. He had his rifle aimed right at her. “We really don't want t‘have t'shoot Calhoun, especially right in front o' you. Now just lay that pistol right down on the counter, real gentle-like.”
Looking to Morgan for direction, she saw him nod coolly toward the counter, directing her to do as the sheriff ordered.
For a moment she hesitated, remembering the derringer in her reticule. But even if she could retrieve it fast enough, it only bore a single shot. Trembling, she laid the pistol on the counter. The telegrapher took it and leveled it at Calhoun.
“Just what is the meaning of this?” she demanded, sick at heart. “This man is my bodyguard! He's done nothing wrong!”
Stoner ignored her. “Cover me, boys,” he said to the other two men as he reached into his pocket with his free hand and brought out a pair of metal handcuffs, then holstered his own pistol. Jackson reached up and pulled down first one, then the other of Morgan's wrists, fastening them efficiently into the handcuffs before taking the Colt from Morgan's holster and sticking it between the Texan's shoulder blades. Then he turned to Sarah.
“Your grace, I might believe you didn't know your bodyguard is an outlaw if I hadn't seen the way you looked at that Wanted poster,” he told her grimly, his gray eyes cold. “You know who he is, all right. But I'll be willing to overlook that,
and
the fact that you were going to draw on the sheriff and me, if you don't cause any more trouble. You came to Santa Fe to meet your fiancé, didn't you? With all due respect, Duchess, why don't you go do just that?” he suggested, nodding toward the street.
Filled with shock and despair, she pretended not to hear, and turned to McElroy. “Sheriff, do you always let your
deρuty
mastermind the arrests?” she asked in a voice laced with scorn.
“Oh, he ain't no deputy, ma‘am,” Andrew McElroy told her with a incongruously amiable smile. “He's a U.S. marshal, and he's been waitin' here spe-cifically to arrest Calhoun.”
His words chilled Sarah. “But...but how did anyone know Morgan would be coming to Santa Fe?”
“Lord Halston, your uncle, told us, ma‘am—excuse me, yer grace,” McElroy explained. “We had a telegram from him in Denver, tellin' us he thought you an' Calhoun might be headed here. Wanted us to be of any assistance to you that was needed. 'Course, I don't figure he knew about Calhoun bein' a desperado an' all, but it just so happens his information came in handy by lettin' us know Calhoun was headin' this way. Marshal Stoner's been after Calhoun for a long time, ain't ya, Stoner?”
“That's a fact.”
“But my uncle, Lord Halston, he's the one who's been trying to kill me!” Sarah cried. “I don't suppose he mentioned that? That's why I fled Denver with Mr. Calhoun! Calhoun saved my life, Mr. McElroy! Doesn't that count for something m his favor? As far as I know, I'm still in danger! How do I know my uncle hasn't contrived to follow me here? You can't arrest the very man who was keeping me safe!”
Stoner looked unimpressed, but McElroy's brow furrowed. “Now, ma‘am, he
did
mention someone had been tryin' to kill ya while y‘all were in Denver, and he sounded real worried about ya. Said you'd disappeared without a word, and he'd been 'sick with apprehension,' I b'lieve he said.”
“Oh, I can well believe he said that,” Sarah snapped, knowing her irony was lost on McElroy. “But he's not telling you the whole truth—he's only apprehensive because he failed to kill me!”
“Ma‘am, I don't know nothin' about that,” McElroy said. “All I know is Calhoun's a wanted man, and he's now in custody.”
Sarah's shoulders sagged as she realized the futility of arguing with these two lawmen.
Now Morgan spoke for the first time. “Go on, Sarah. Don't worry about me. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Yon go ahead and find your Frenchman—you'd better go ahead and do it today, so you won't be alone. Don't worry, you're beautiful even in men's pants,” he said, and the love, mixed with sadness, in his eyes broke her heart. “Oh, and you go ahead and take Rio with you. I'm givin' him to you,” he added. “I know you'll take good care of him.”
“But what will happen to Morgan?” she asked Stoner, feeling hot tears spilling down her cheeks.
“He'll spend a few days in the jail here, until I can arrange transportation back to Texas, where he'll stand trial,” Stoner told her, but the coldness had vanished from his eyes, and his voice was surprisingly kind.
“I'm going with you when you take him back to Texas,” Sarah said.
“Your grace, I don't think I can al—” Stoner began.
“Sarah, now don't be foolish,” Morgan interrupted. “There ain't a thing you can do for me, and there's a man who's come all the way from England just for you. He loves you, doesn't he? Go to him, Duchess, and forget you ever heard of me. I mean it.
That's what I want you to do.”
“Nevertheless, I shall be going with you and the marshal, Morgan,” she told him. “I only intended to see Thierry long enough to tell him I could no longer consider marrying him, anyway. As I told you once before, I have the means to hire you the best lawyer in the United States, and that's what I intend to do. There's no use arguing with me, Morgan.”
She shifted her gaze to Stoner. “Mr. Calhoun will be in one of those cells I saw? When can I visit him?”
“Any time tomorrow, your grace.”
She nodded. “Very well, then, I shall plan to stop by in the morning. I expect him to be treated well, is that clear, Mr. Stoner?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Stoner said, touching the brim of his hat with ironic courtesy.
 
The clock on the wall indicated ten the next morning when Morgan saw Sarah enter the jail.
Gone was the hoyden who'd ridden across the plains, over the mountains and down the Santa Fe Trail with him. In her place was a lady who was every inch the Duchess of Malvern, her golden curls done up in an elegant chignon. She wore the turquoise dress she'd purchased yesterday, and the color brought her sun-kissed features gloriously alive. The necklace he'd given her decorated her neck, emphasizing its slenderness. All she needed was a pair of wings to look like an angel.
He watched through the bars as she sailed by the sheriff and the marshal and glided gracefully to his cell.
“Hello, my love,” she said, laying down the reticule she carried and reaching through the bars for his hands.
He couldn't help but give them to her. Lord, it felt good to be touching even that little part of her. She smelled good, too, like roses. She must have found somewhere to buy scent.
“Mornin', Sarah.” There were a million questions he wanted to ask her, a million things he wanted to say, but he was all too aware of the sheriff and the marshal sitting within earshot.
“Oh, my poor love, were you able to sleep?” she asked, looking past him into the corner of the cell where his cot with its lumpy mattress covered by dingy, threadbare sheets stood.
“Aw, Duchess, after so many years of sleepin' on the hard ground, I reckon I could sleep anywhere,” he said with a grin. “The food ain't bad, either. McElroy missed his callin'—he shoulda been a cook.”
Then he realized what
hadn't
changed about her. “You're still wearing your spectacles,” he said, surprised. “You leave your vanity behind on the trail somewhere, Duchess?”
“Ah reckon ah did,” she said in a teasing rendition of his drawl. “Actually, Morgan, I found I've gotten rather used to seeing clearly these last few weeks, so you see, you
have
taught me something,” she said with a wink. “I started to leave the posada without them, but I was afraid I'd get lost, so...” She shrugged.
“The posada? Why didn't you stay at the Exchange with your Frenchman?”
“I haven't seen Thierry yet,” she said. “I decided I still wanted to have a bath and a good night's sleep first, so I went back to the posada. But I'm on my way to see Thierry now, Morgan.”
This was the last time he'd see her, then. The fact that she'd taken such pains with her appearance convinced him that no matter what she had said, she was at least considering the folly of her promise yesterday to go back to Texas with him and the marshal. Once she saw her dashing Frenchman again, she'd put her love affair with a Texas outlaw behind her. That was for the best, he told his aching heart.
“Goodbye, Duchess.”
I love you, Sarah Challoner.
“Oh, I'll be back to see you later today, Morgan. I'll want to...after I've told him it's over. Now, don't give me that rubbish about forgetting about you, and your not being good enough for me, and all that rot. I don't want to hear it,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Until then...” she said, blowing him a kiss before she turned and walked out the door. She had already shut it behind her when all at once he felt the prickling at the back of his neck, the same feeling he always got right before something bad happened.
“Sarah! Sarah, come back!”
he yelled, but apparently she didn't hear him. It was too late.
“Stoner, call her back. Somethin'...somethin' doesn't feel right,” Morgan said, shaking his head as if that would clear it of the troubling notion. “Please, Stoner, for the love of God, bring her back here!”
Stoner, lounging again on the chair tipped against the wall, looked at him curiously.
“What ails you, Calhoun? Haven't you been tryin' to convince the lady she needs to forget you for her own good? It just so happens I highly agree with you on that—she
should
forget she ever met you. So shut up. I'm not gonna help you talk her out of doing the right thing.”
 
The door opened, and she heard a familiar, French-accented voice cry, “Sarah,
ma chère, enfin!
Finally you are here!”
It was a corner room, and the curtains of both windows had been left open, so all she could see was Thierry's form silhouetted against the doorway. Before Sarah could say a word, or her eyes, used to the gloom of the corridor, could adjust, he had pulled her inside and was kissing both her cheeks, and then her mouth.
His lips were warm and persuasive, and she remembered their touch, but she felt...
nothing.
Only an eagerness to get the painful meeting over with as quickly and gracefully as she could.
“Thierry, I—Let me look at you,” she said, pulling back slightly, to give her eyes time to focus on him and her brain time to think, to frame the words that would tell him she was not the same woman to whom he had bidden adieu in England.
He was shorter than she remembered, and stockier. She had forgotten what a pale blue his eyes were, and how his elegant blond mustache with the carefully waxed ends emphasized the sensual fullness of his lips.
“Sarah...it has been so long,” he said, smiling at her and still holding her hands in his. “You surprise me—you are wearing your spectacles! You look like a...how do you say it? A schoolmistress! And you are brown as a wild Indian,” he added. His tone was faintly disapproving. “Where is your uncle? I cannot imagine him letting you ruin your complexion like that.”
“Yes...yes it has been a long time,” she said, choosing not to respond to his other comments for the time being. She hadn't seen this critical side of him before, and she didn't like it. “Did you...did you have a pleasant sea voyage to America?” She knew she was stalling. But one couldn't just blurt out, “Thierry, I no longer love you and won't marry you,” could one?
“It was abominable. But it is over, and now I am here with you.”

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