This Fierce Splendor (9 page)

She picked her way carefully across the hard-packed dirt of the street. Several horses were tied at the hitching rail in front of the Nugget, and she caught a pungent whiff of liniment and manure as she passed. She was closer now, and the laughter and conversation pouring from beyond those swinging doors was much louder. Suddenly she heard a cascade of words that caused her eyes to widen in surprised recognition. It had to be Ben Travis. No one but the stage driver had both that volume and that raucous a vocabulary.

She paused outside the swinging doors. Panic was rising within her. If saloons were forbidden to ladies, surely there must be a good reason.

She took a deep breath and drew up to her full height. She mustn’t be such a coward. This was old thinking in a new world. She pushed open the swinging doors and stepped inside. The sights and the sounds of the room instantly struck her with such force, it momentarily banished her nervousness.

Smoke. Eddies of smoke curled around her and infiltrated her lungs. Scent. The sour odor of beer and whiskey and sweat mixed with the kerosene of the lamps in the circular chandelier hanging from a chain in the center of the room. Sound. The tinkle of a Chickering upright piano in the corner of the room and the roar of voices that had overflowed into the street. Men. So many men. The majority appeared to be unshaven miners in shirt-sleeves and coarse rough trousers crowding up to the long bar at the opposite side of the room and sitting at crudely crafted tables scattered around the room. She could see an occasional cowboy who was dressed in the same tight denim pants and boots as Patrick Delaney had worn. A very
few men wore the elegant longer coats and sported silk ties and high-necked fine linen shirts she could have seen on any street in Edinburgh.

She felt a swift surge of relief as she glimpsed one or two women sitting at the tables. In that first glance she had thought she would be the only woman in the room. The women had painted faces and lowcut satin gowns that revealed a shocking expanse of flesh. Hetaeras? she wondered with sudden interest.

Perhaps she could get closer to one of them and ask them a few tactful questions regarding their profession. It was seldom that a scholar of her sex was offered such an opportunity. A golden-haired young woman at the bar who was laughing with a man who looked as though he might be a prospector appeared to be approachable. Elspeth took an impulsive step forward and then skidded to an abrupt stop. Her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply. The prospector had plunged his big hand into the woman’s gaping bodice and was fondling her breast. She didn’t appear offended. If anything, she laughed harder. Still it might be better to wait until the saloon girl was less … busy, Elspeth decided.

“Miss MacGregor, what the hell are you doing here?”

She turned to see the square, ugly face of Ben Travis. It looked beautiful to her at that moment in spite of his scowl. “Oh, Mr. Travis, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Well, I’m not glad to see you. You just sashay out of here before you get into trouble.”

“I don’t mean to make trouble. If you would just find me somewhere to sit down, I’ll be very quiet and no bother to anyone.”

He made a sound halfway between a grunt and a growl. “The hell you say. There’ll be trouble aplenty without you even lifting a finger. Now, you go back where you belong.”

“I can’t do that.” She met his gaze with determination. “I have to stay here for a short time. Will you help me?”

“Goddammit, you can’t—” Travis broke off, his eyes narrowing shrewdly on her face. “Dominic Delaney? I’ve heard you’ve been trailing around after him like a calf does its mama. Is that why you’re here?”

“He
is
here tonight, isn’t he?” she asked, a touch of apprehension in her voice. It would be awful if she had suffered this situation for no reason.

Travis nodded toward a table in the corner of the saloon. “Over there. He hasn’t seen you yet. He ain’t going to be happy when he does, you know. You’ve been making things pretty uncomfortable for him.”

“I know.” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It’s not as if I’m a difficult woman, Mr. Travis. What I’m doing is necessary.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m afraid that’s a private matter between Mr. Delaney and myself.”

He was silent a moment, glaring at her. “That uproar you caused at Rina’s place wasn’t so damn private. Come to your senses and get out of here.”

She slowly shook her head.

He turned on his heel and strode to a table a few feet away occupied by two men. “Sam, you and Hiram belly up to the bar and let the lady sit down.”

“Let her sit on my lap,” the man named Sam said with a grin. “I’m not selfish about—” He broke off as his gaze traveled past Travis’s brawny shoulder to Elspeth standing by the door. “Christ, it’s the shadow!” He shot a look to the corner of the room and his grin became slyly malicious. “Sure, Ben, we’ll be glad to let the lady have our table. Come on, Hiram.” The two men rose, grabbed their foam-crested glasses, and strolled toward the crowded bar.

Ben held out a chair, motioning for Elspeth to sit down. “Well, if you want Dominic to know you’re here, you won’t have long to wait. Sam and Hiram will be sharing the joke with everyone at the bar.”

“Thank you, Mr. Travis.” Elspeth sat down and clasped her gloved hands together on the scarred surface of the table. She smiled tremulously. “I told Mr. Judkins, at the hotel, he had no reason to worry
about me. I knew I’d find someone as kind as you to help me.”

Travis glanced again at the smoke-wreathed table in the corner and his lips tightened grimly. “You may need more than kindness if you keep on pestering Dominic. He’s not a man who’ll stand for being made a fool of.”

“I have no intention of making a fool of him.”

“Then what do you …” He trailed off. “Never mind, I can see you’re not about to tell me.” He pulled out the chair opposite her. “I’ll just sit here and make sure none of the boys bother you.”

She shook her head. “No, I want him to see me alone. I have to let him know I’m not relying on anyone else.” She paused. “If you want to hurry events along, you might call his attention to the fact that I’m here.”

“From the sound of those snickers coming from the bar, I may not be able to get across the room in time to break the news first,” he said dryly. “Can I get you a glass of water or a sarsaparilla before I mosey on over there?”

“No, thank you.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “I’m quite comfortable.”

Dominic played the ten of hearts and leaned back in his chair, his eyes studying the face of the Russian. It required little effort to read Marzonoff. The man was as transparent as the empty whiskey glass in front of him, altogether a terrible poker player. It was a puzzle why he insisted on entering the game each night when he lost steadily and in no small amounts. Hell, why should he worry about the man, Dominic thought impatiently. If Marzonoff’s boasts were true, he could afford to lose much higher stakes without hurting.

“Dominic.”

Dominic glanced up and then smiled lazily. “You want to sit in on the game, Ben?”

Travis shook his iron-gray mane. “There’s someone here you should know about.”

Dominic tensed. One of Durbin’s hired guns? Durbin
himself? He kept his features expressionless. “Who?”

Travis nodded to a table near the door. “Her.”

For a moment Dominic couldn’t believe it. Elspeth MacGregor, prim and proper, black-clad as usual, sitting with meekly folded hands. Then, as if sensing his regard, she looked up and met his gaze across the room. There was nothing meek about that composed stare. It was direct and challenging behind those wire-rimmed spectacles.

Oh, he believed it then all right, and rage tingled through his veins. He looked around the room. The grin on each face disappeared as Dominic leveled his gaze at each man in turn. He knew the smiles and snickers would return as soon as his attention was engaged by a man down the line, and the knowledge chafed at him like barbed wire on unprotected flesh.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Ben said gruffly.

“You’re right. She shouldn’t be here.” Dominic’s murmur was velvet soft, as his gaze fastened on Elspeth. “It was a mistake for her to come to the Nugget.” He threw his cards facedown on the table. “I fold.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I believe I’ll call it a night, gentlemen.”

He didn’t look to the right or the left as he crossed the room toward Elspeth MacGregor’s table. He knew he would see only smiles of frank enjoyment at his discomfort on the faces of those he passed. They would think she had routed him. It didn’t matter. Not any longer. The only thing that mattered was the gauntlet that black-gowned witch had tossed down before him. His anger was so hot it was close to pain, and yet he was experiencing, too, a fierce satisfaction. She had once more stepped across the line and he could now retaliate. He would give her a last chance, but he knew he would be disappointed if she backed down.

He stopped before her table. Conversation had halted in the room and the only sound was the hollow tinkle of the piano. He lowered his voice to a level that
was inaudible to everyone but her. “Leave Hell’s Bluff. I won’t tell you again.”

He had spoken to her! Elspeth experienced a wild throb of hope that immediately turned to apprehension. His blue-gray eyes were so strange. Blazing fiercely, yet ice cold. Her throat tightened and her breath seemed to stop. It was a moment before she could force herself to speak. “No,” she whispered.

Then, incredibly, he smiled. It was a smile filled with joyous savagery, lighting his dark face with a wild, wicked beauty. “Good.”

He turned and in another moment had disappeared through the swinging doors of the saloon.

“Y
ou should not have come here.”

Elspeth looked away from the swinging doors to see Andre Marzonoff standing before her table. His plump face was sober and his hazel eyes concerned. “You made him very angry. For a moment, when he first saw you, he reminded me of my cousin, Nicholas. It is not safe to make such men angry.”

Elspeth tried to smile and found her lips were trembling. Her heart pounded jerkily with a queer sort of panic. Dominic’s eyes had been so … strange.

“Well, it’s done now.” She rose to her feet. “I can’t turn back the clock. We’ll just have to see what comes of it.” She glanced around the room and suddenly shivered with uneasiness. She couldn’t locate the reassuring face of Ben Travis in the crowd, but the other men in the room were looking at her with curiosity, insolence, even anticipation. There was none of the amusement she had recently encountered on any of the faces surrounding her, and she had a sudden memory of Dominic Delaney’s remark regarding the line no lady could venture to cross. She turned toward the swinging door. “I believe I’ll go back to the hotel. Good night, Andre.”

“I will accompany you. I have no further interest in this place at present, and you should not be on the streets alone.”

She would feel safer outside on those streets than in
here, she thought nervously. The atmosphere as well as the attitude of the men gazing at her held a vague element of menace. “Thank you, that would be kind of you.” She knew it was no real sacrifice for Andre to leave the saloon now that the object of his almost boyish hero worship had left the premises, but she appreciated the courtesy. She had no desire to be unescorted at this moment.

The hot stillness of the night hit her with renewed force as she went through the swinging doors. She heard a sudden release of conversation and laughter in the saloon behind her.

“He has been most patient with you,” Andre Marzonoff continued as he helped her from the wooden sidewalk to the dirt of the street. “You must realize a lady has certain limitations she must observe. In St. Petersburg a woman who acted as you have would be ostracized, not only by society but by her own family.”

“Then it’s fortunate that I am not in St. Petersburg, isn’t it?” Elspeth was beginning to be a trifle annoyed by Andre. The incident in the Nugget had been upsetting enough without having to contend with his sermonizing. Over the past few days she had developed a half-impatient fondness for the young Russian. He displayed an almost pathetic eagerness for acceptance from these rough westerners which touched even as it bewildered her. Why didn’t he go home to Russia where he belonged, instead of attempting to be accepted in a society that was so foreign to him? If he stayed a dozen years, he would never be a man of Dominic Delaney’s ilk, no matter how much he strove to emulate him. And it was more than obvious he was trying to emulate him in every possible way. He had discarded his elegant city apparel, and was dressed in the close-fitting trousers, white shirt, and black string tie that Dominic favored. Even his gray waist-length suede jacket was similar to the one she had seen Dominic wear when she first had been introduced to him.

“Why do you not go home?” she asked gently.
“You’re a man who is accustomed to a different way of life from the one they live here. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable with people and places and customs that are familiar?”

He shook his head. “I was never … comfortable in St. Petersburg.” He didn’t look at her. “You don’t understand. At home there was always Nicholas. He was everything I could never be. He is a dead shot, a magnificent horseman. He can drink any man under the table and lure any woman into his—” He altered the course of his words to finish lamely, “I mean, he gets along very well with the fair sex.”