by Zoë Archer
“Thank you,” she said again, blushing. She had heard greater compliments, of course—ornate phrases covered in gilding and polished until they took on the sharp brightness of a blade—but it was this American’s simple statement that suddenly gave her an intense rush of pleasure unlike anything she had experienced before. Perhaps because it had been so honestly rendered, and by a man who probably didn’t give compliments very often. He looked too rough, too rangy and lean for such nonsense. But it didn’t feel much like nonsense to her right then.
The American suddenly narrowed the space between them by reaching down and picking up her discarded novel. She took an involuntary step backwards. “This yours?”
She looked down at the book in his large, calloused hand. Its yellow paper cover looked faintly ridiculous contrasted with the foggy industrial streets of Wandsworth, and infinitely fragile and transitory compared with the weathered strength of his hand. Across the front of the novel was the title, as well as an illustration of a maiden tied to a post with a cowboy riding to her rescue, guns drawn and ready for action. The cowboy on the cover wore a long duster coat, a Stetson, and sported a giant, untamed mustache. Olivia looked back and forth between the cover and the man now holding the book and felt herself grow hot and shivery at the same time.
He’s a cowboy.
“I...I...” she heard herself stutter.
He peered closer, and for the first time, she saw his eyes. They were a bright azure blue, the blue of Montana skies, the Rio Grande reflecting the Texas sun, and any number of places she had only read about but never seen. Until now. Slowly, she took in the details of him. His hat was a battered tan Stetson, stained from exposure to the elements, with a braided leather hatband, its brim wide enough to shield him from the sun and rain. His long brown canvas coat looked equally worn, its bright blanket lining patched in places. At his neck, he had knotted a red kerchief, and he wore a shirt of soft blue cotton flannel with horn buttons, and a plain black vest with pockets. She sensed rather than saw that he filled his clothes with lean, hard muscle, the kind gained from honest work under hard conditions rather than an expensive gymnasium or useless sport.
She could not help it...her gaze trailed lower.
“Where’s your gun?” she managed to ask.
“My what?” He looked down. “It’s in my room. Didn’t think I’d be needin’ my rig. I thought England was supposed to be civilized.”
He had a gun. A gunbelt. Oh, my.
“You sure you’re all right?” A crease appeared between his eyebrows. She saw his other hand come up, as if he meant to touch her face, but he stopped himself and let his hand drop to his side. She wanted to tell him it was all right, even though it wasn’t, but she was pierced with a powerful longing to feel the rough hitch of his skin against hers, sliding down the smooth curve of her cheek.
“Yes,” she managed. “A little shaken up, is all.”
The American straightened to his full height, and Olivia took stock of the width of his shoulders and the natural grace with which he carried himself. “It ain’t smart for a woman like you to be alone in a place like this,” he said gruffly. “Where’s your husband?”
“Gone, I mean, dead, I mean…” She could not understand where her poise had gone. Though she was a bit rattled from her encounter with the toughs, it still couldn’t explain her muddled thoughts and complete inability to speak coherently. She was thirty-two years old, for goodness sake. Far too old to stutter like a girl fresh from the schoolroom.
The American removed his hat and looked solemn. “My condolences, ma’am.”
“It’s all right.” She sounded terribly breathless. In the twilight she saw that the American had sandy hair, a bit unkempt but clean. There was no way to tell how old he was. His jaw was square, and she followed its line into the strong column of his neck. She clenched her hands into fists to keep from pressing her palms against the skin of his throat. She wanted to feel the energy of him. He had the strength and power of someone quite young, not to mention the enthusiasm for violence, but in his gaze she could see more than a lifetime’s experience. She wondered what he had experienced. “It was years ago.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said with a wry, almost boyish smile.
“You are the first to say so,” she answered back smartly, without offense.
He broke into a wide grin. “You’re full of pepper.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Ma’am, it’s a great thing.”
She felt spellbound, liquid, but intensely aware. He still held her novel, but she wasn’t prepared to claim it just yet. She wasn’t completely sure whether everything that was happening—everything that had happened—wasn’t some dream from which she would be roused in a moment by Sarah, her maid, who would pour her some chocolate and give her a stack of the day’s correspondence as morning sunlight filled her bedroom.
And then the strangest image sprang into her mind. In her vision, she wasn’t alone in her bed. The American was there, too, without a scrap of clothing. Come to think of it, she was naked, too.
She prayed that he could not read her mind, but she thought she detected the faintest trace of a flush in his tanned cheeks.
The clatter of carriage wheels broke her reverie.
“My lady!” Arthur cried. “I am so terribly sorry to have kept you waiting—”
“Where the hell have you been?” the American demanded before Olivia could speak.
Her coachman blinked in astonishment and the footman jumped down.
“I should haul your ass down from there and beat you five ways ’til Sunday,” the cowboy continued to rant.
Arthur shrank back on his post and looked at Olivia with questioning, terrified eyes.
“Some men tried to accost me,” she explained.
“They would’ve done a lot worse if I hadn’t shown up,” the American snarled. “And on account of you,” he pointed an accusatory finger at Arthur, “bein’ too busy polishing your forehead.”
Arthur gingerly touched a finger to the offending brow. “The carriage threw a wheel, my lady. And we could not fix it for love or money.” He looked extremely upset. “I will understand if you want my resignation—”
“Damn right!” the American interrupted.
“You will not swear in the presence of Lady Xavier,” Arthur insisted haughtily.
“I’ll cook up your guts and serve ’em for church supper,” the American shot back. “With cornbread and greens.”
“Enough!” Olivia said, stepping forward with outstretched palms. She first turned to Arthur. “You ought to have checked the wheel before you left.” The coachman bowed his head in acknowledgment of his failure. “Don’t let it happen again. I was fortunate that Mister...” She looked at the American, realizing that she didn’t even know his name.
“Coffin, ma’am,” he supplied. “Will Coffin.”
A flutter moved through her throat. What an unbelievably appropriate name. “Yes...Mister Coffin. It was quite fortunate that you happened to come by. Most providential.” Everything seemed to be turned upside down. Cowboys in London. Impossible. “And what are you doing here, Mister Coffin?” It felt nice to say his name, a bit dangerous, sharp and exotic in her mouth.
“I’m stayin’ across the river,” he said, not fully understanding. He tilted his head east. “I think they call it Wapping.”
“You came here all the way from Wapping?” she asked, amazed. “That’s quite a distance.”
“I like to know what I’m dealin’ with when I go to a new place.” He was so large, so unlike anything or anyone she had ever known, he continued to amaze her. “I’m in some flophouse they got down by the docks. I was gettin’ the lay of the land when I heard the doin’s over here and thought I’d see what was what.”
“I’m very glad you did hear the doings.” She smiled at him and she realized that it was one of the first genuine smiles she’d given anyone in a long time. And she didn’t even know this man. “I fee
l I must offer you some kind of reward for your kindness to me.”
“Reward?” He frowned.
She considered where he said he was staying—a “flophouse,” which did not sound particularly pleasant or accommodating. And Wapping certainly wasn’t known as one of the finer neighborhoods. So she did what she had been trained to do: throw cash at people. “Of course, a reward. Some money, perhaps. Arthur?” she asked, since her few shillings were lying in the street.
“Yes, my lady.” The coachman reached into his pocket. She would reimburse him later, since she never traveled with more than a sovereign. Everything was on account, and everyone accepted her credit. She was the widow of a businessman, a successful business owner, and more likely to pay her bills than a peer’s spouse.
“Keep it,” Will Coffin said.
She looked at him with surprise. He was angry. And angry in a different way than when he was fighting the thugs. This was a deep, personal anger that vibrated off of him like inaudible sound.
“But—”
“I don’t want your money.”
“I’ve insulted you.”
Will Coffin put his hat back on, and what she had seen of his face became obscured. She suddenly felt very foolish and gauche, younger and more awkward than she had felt in years.
“Ma’am.” He stepped back. “I’ve got to get back before this damned fog turns me blinder than a mule in a mineshaft.”
“Really, Mister Coffin, can I not—?”
“You get on home, and don’t go walkin’ by yourself in mean territory.”
Before she knew it, her footman was helping her into her carriage. “Can I at least give you a ride?” Again, she was violating the rules of propriety by inviting a man into the carriage with her.
She need not have worried. Even as the words were leaving her mouth, Will Coffin tipped his hat, a definitive dismissal. But courtly, in its way. Like him, a strange amalgam of coarseness and chivalry. Once more she felt his eyes on her, one final, measuring gaze that swept over her in a warm tide. She kept one hand braced on the open carriage door as Will Coffin turned and, in the arc of his coat, disappeared into the foggy London evening. Strange how such a big man could vanish so completely. She strained, and could just make out the fading sound of his boots against the pavement. In his wake, the commonplace and often irritating fog became a spectral coda, an annoyance turned enigmatic through his presence and absence.
“We really ought to go, my lady,” Arthur said worriedly.
She barely noticed when the footman closed the door after her and the carriage began to move north, across the river and back to Bayswater, back to everything familiar. She kept staring out the window, hoping to catch another glimpse of Will Coffin, but finding in his place only fog.
Chapter Two
George Pryce entered the Three Graces Pub on the Strand looking for his failed henchmen. He was furious, more furious than he had been since they’d tried to throw him out of Cambridge for cheating. His father’s authority had kept him ensconced at university for two more years, but the outrage remained.
He slid into an empty booth at the back and ordered a beer.
“Greywell’s or Bass, sir?” the publican asked.
“Bass,” Pryce snarled. His mood blackened even further. It always came back to that damned brewery. He still lived with his parents, the last remaining son at home. His three older brothers had all married and set up their own prospering households. They had taken up mundane responsibilities such as sessions of Parliament, arguing bills, and calculating interest. But as the fourth son of an earl, Pryce did not desire the things his brothers had been so eager to claim. He loved his life of leisure, the only true life of a gentleman as far as he was concerned.
But still Father would fix him with his piercing, critical glare and demand to know what his youngest son was doing with his life. Apparently, being a gentleman wasn’t enough of a profession for Henry Pryce, fourth Earl of Hessay, nor his sons.
His Bass arrived and he took a deep drink. Bass was one of the most profitable breweries in all of England, with warehouses in Edinburgh, Paris, London and Dublin. He could only dream of such wealth now. George Pryce often bemoaned the fact that he wasn’t born a hundred years earlier, when the thought of a man of his station actually working was considered vulgar and beneath him. But now everyone in society was possessed with a mania for practicality and usefulness—Pryce blamed sober Victoria and the ink-stained captains of industry that now held the reins of the kingdom.
So he cast about, seeking the easiest way to make some money of his own. It was a bit galling that at thirty five he still drew an allowance. One morning, after reading the cricket scores in the Times, he saw an article trumpeting the fortune that could be effortlessly made in breweries. And he had his answer. All he had to do was find some little brewery and buy its owner out.
Trouble was, the brewery he wanted was owned and operated by a presumptuous widow who wouldn’t see reason. He wasn’t accustomed to people saying no to him. In fact, his father’s money and influence made sure no one said no. If there was one thing he learned about the rise of the disgusting merchant ranks, it was that they respected money.
He remembered his days at Eton and how the sons of those merchants would receive lavish presents from home on their birthdays, or when they performed well on their examinations, or at just about any bloody time their revolting parents thought to pet and praise their noxious offspring. Pryce received nothing from home except angry letters from his father when, yet again, his son failed to live up to expectations. On his birthday, he was always sent the same present: a Bible covered in Spanish leather, the passages about filial duty underlined in his father’s bold hand.
Pryce came to hate all those boys, and their families, too, the upstart class that struggled so hard to show themselves worthy. Of course their marks were better than his—they had something to prove. As the son of a nobleman, he didn’t need to struggle and strain to distinguish himself. He was already distinguished by birth. It was his responsibility, his duty, to show Britain and the rest of the world that those born into the aristocracy cherished and embodied the ideals of gentility. This meant that he must elevate himself above the muddy roads of commerce. His income—such a sordid word—ought to arise from the land, the lifeblood of England, not banks and machinery. But this didn’t seem enough for his critical father. Knowing that he could never please Henry Pryce with his academic or business triumphs, his son George made sure that he excelled at living the proper and genteel life of a gentleman, a life of cultured idleness.
Yet everywhere he went—at the races, the opera, balls, even the club, for mercy’s sake— he was forced to interact and rub shoulders with the new, purchased titles or, even worse, those who relied solely on their pocketbooks to gain entry and never bothered with titles at all. He was, at best, coolly polite to these men and their over-decorated wives, brash sons and grasping daughters. All the while, he nursed a growing and poisonous hatred of those whose fortunes had brought them into the closed world of the British aristocracy.
So Lady Olivia Xavier’s refusal was particularly infuriating. But he was confident that the men he hired yesterday would help make up her mind at last.
And then he’d received word from his men. When the scribbled note arrived that morning, his confidence fell and his outrage grew.
“What the hell happened to you?” Pryce demanded as a trio of bruised and swollen faces sat down opposite him. “Don’t tell me Lady Xavier did that.”
“She didn’t,” Bill Dunsby mumbled. “Some daft American did.”
“American?”
The publican hovered nearby to take their orders.
“Greywell’s,” the three men chorused.
“I’m not buying you drinks, you idiots,” roared Pryce. “Piss off,” he said to the publican. Dunsby and his companions looked disappointed.
“He came out of nowhere,” he said, “an’ beat the stuffing out of us.”
/> “Pathetic,” sneered Pryce. “One man defeating three? What do I pay you for?”
“You didn’t see ’im,” whined Davey Stoke. “As big as an ox, and four times as strong. All the time laughing, just laughing at us, like he was stepping on ants.”
The beginnings of a sharp and unrelenting headache stabbed behind Pryce’s eyes. “Get out.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What about the rest of our money?” Dunsby complained. “You said you’d give us half before and half after.”
“I didn’t anticipate you failing so spectacularly. You’ll get only what I’ve paid you.” When the men started to object, he added softly, “I have many friends of influence at the Metropolitan Police, and just one word from me could see you three scum on the treadwheel for the rest of your lives.”
Muttering and cursing, the three men pulled themselves out of the booth and left the busy pub. Once alone, Pryce ordered a stiff glass of whiskey. Beer was not enough.
Lady Olivia Xavier would have to see things his way, American or no American. Eventually, she would learn that it was impossible to say no to George Pryce.
Will knew something about fog. And snow, and rain, and sandstorms, and just about every other weather condition that nature sought fit to bedevil a cattle drive. After a life spent almost entirely out of doors, a little thing like the heavy yellow fog rolling of the Thames didn’t bother him much.
But here he was, wandering around London, more at sea than he’d been during that hellish two weeks crossing the Atlantic. Partly because of the fog, partly on account of the twisting, bewildering streets that defied logic and had strange names like Middlesex, Houndsditch, and Threadneedle. He’d been to Denver and, briefly, New York City, and at least those cities had the good manners to be laid out on a grid. And the streets were numbered. London could try any man’s patience when it came to figuring out the lay of the land. But he knew that given time, he could learn London as well as he learned the Goodnight Loving trail. That wasn’t his goal, though.
