Kit watched them begin to walk away. Grayson turned slightly. “Did you want to join us?”
And witness what he would never possess? He shook his head. “No, I need to finish up here.”
Grayson nodded and pulled his wife more snugly against his side as they walked toward the livery stable.
Thank God, his friends had survived unscathed, although he suspected it would be several nights before either of them slept peacefully. Even when the action was justified, taking a life was not an easy burden to carry.
“What do you want me to do with ’em, Marshal?”
Kit turned to the mortician. “Pilfer their pockets, Mr. Dawson. See if you can determine who they are. Then use plain pine boxes and bury them at the back of the church cemetery. Fortune will cover the expenses.”
“I’ll handle the matter right away.”
Kit saw people cautiously leaving their shops. “Make it quick,” he said to Dawson. “This sight is not one people need to witness.”
He walked toward the boardinghouse, knowing he had other matters that needed his attention. The door swung open and Ashton burst outside, running across the lawn as though the demons of hell nipped at her heels. Tears dampened her cheeks. She flung her arms around him, and he could feel her body trembling violently.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
He gazed over her head to see Christopher standing on the porch. He turned his attention back to Ashton, slipped his finger beneath her chin, and tilted her face up. He captured a falling tear with his thumb. “Why are you crying?”
“You went to face death without even telling me goodbye.”
“I’d made arrangements to see that you were well cared for.”
She stepped out of his embrace. “Is that all you think I wanted?”
“Quite honestly, yes.” She closed her eyes and tears leaked from the corners. “Look beyond me, Ashton. I am Death. I am what you fear above all else.”
She opened her eyes to reveal limpid pools of sadness.
“For a while, with you, I was able to forget. You gave me moments of great joy that shall sustain me for the remainder of my life. But you’ll never be able to look at me again and not see the darkened shadows that hover inside my soul, and I shall see them reflected in your eyes, and that, sweetling, I cannot bear.”
“You can’t possibly know how I’ll look at you!”
“Yes I can, because you’ve looked at me in that manner since our first night in the cave.”
She looked as though she wanted to say more, but her eyes suddenly widened and she gasped. “You’re bleeding.”
He glanced at his throbbing shoulder. “Just a nick. Bullet went through.”
She grabbed his uninjured arm. “Where’s the doctor?”
“The other end of town.”
“We need to get your wound taken care of before infection sets in.”
The determination in her voice made him want to smile. He looked past her to Christopher. “I have some business to finish up, and then I’ll return so we can settle our affairs.”
Christopher nodded and walked into the boardinghouse.
“You’re shaking,” Ashton said as she strolled beside him, clinging to his arm.
“I always do after I’ve killed someone.”
She jerked her gaze to his. “You enjoy reminding me that you kill.”
“Not particularly, but it is a fact of my life, and it’s suddenly become imperative that you not forget it.”
“Do you ever count how many lives you might have saved?”
“No, because the count is inconsequential. I could not save the lives that mattered most.”
Ashton walked around the jail, taking note of its stark, drab appearance. Kit had told her that he’d needed to tend to some paperwork so they’d come here after the doctor had stitched up his shoulder.
She had so much to tell him and didn’t know where to begin.
She stopped inside a doorway and peered into a desolate room that she was certain had once been used for storage. It held a cot and a carton of books. Clothes hung on the wall beside a shaving stand. It wasn’t a place of solitude, but of loneliness. “Is this where you live?” she asked.
Kit glanced up from the papers strewn across his desk and met her gaze. “Yes.”
“It’s not very fancy.”
“I don’t need fancy. I only need useful.”
The front door opened and a tall, thin man walked in carrying a small box. “I was able to get some identification off a couple of ’em.” He set the box on the desk. “I don’t think these here things originally belonged to any of them.”
Kit pulled a watch out the box.
“The initials on that there watch is CS. I don’t think any of them had a name that matched the initials,” the man said.
She watched Kit nod and place the watch carefully back into the box.
“I think I’ve managed to identify them from the wanted posters.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “A shame I didn’t check the posters the night they were shooting up Harry’s saloon. Three innocent men might still be alive.”
“Can’t see the death of these outlaws as any great loss.”
Kit opened his eyes. “The ending of any life is a loss, Mr. Dawson. Even when that life was not put to good use.”
“Iffen you say so. Me, I say good riddance.”
Mr. Dawson turned and tipped his hat at Ashton. “We are surely proud to have your husband as our marshal, Mrs. Montgomery.”
“So proud that you all stood beside him.”
“We was there, we just wasn’t visible on account of him telling us—”
“Thank you, Mr. Dawson,” Kit cut in.
“It wasn’t our fight and we was to stay out of the way.”
“I think you’ve adequately taken care of the business at hand, Mr. Dawson,” Kit said. “Once I’ve finished completing the forms, I’ll see that you’re reimbursed for expenses.”
“’Preciate it, Marshal.”
Mr. Dawson walked out of the office, leaving a deafening silence in his wake. Kit cast Ashton a quick glance before he returned to scribbling on his papers.
“You told the townspeople to stay out of sight?”
Kit continued to write. “Wounded pride brought Jasper back to Fortune. His quarrel was with me.”
She studied the room where he lived. “It looks like a prison.”
“Of course it looks like a prison. It’s a jail.”
“I meant the place where you live. There’s not an ounce of comfort anywhere here.”
“I have my books.”
“You’re punishing yourself.”
She heard the scratching of his pen fall into silence.
“Other than irritating the devil out of me, what are you doing here, Ashton?”
She crossed the room and planted her hands on his desk. “Trying to figure you out. You couldn’t save Clarisse, so you try to save everyone else. You feel guilty for taking her life, so you place yourself in situations where you might lose yours.”
“Asinine assumptions.”
“But true.”
He tossed his pen aside, leaned back in his chair, and pinned her with his hardened gaze. “Your point being?”
“I love you.”
“You can’t possibly, after knowing all that you know.” He picked up his pen and began to write fervently. “I have details to which I must attend. So many details. Sometimes I can get lost in them…incredibly lost…that for a second or two I can forget the feel of her final breath whispering across my flesh. I can forget…I need you to leave. I have to fill out reports on the deaths that occurred today. Detailed reports. I can’t concentrate on the details with you standing there.”
Slowly, quietly, she walked around the desk and knelt beside him. She saw the tears welling in his eyes, and her own eyes began to burn.
“I must concentrate on the details. Will you please leave?” he asked.
“No,” she replied softly.
He jerked his head around and within the depths of his eyes, she saw the agony with which he’d lived for so long. Tears rolled along his cheeks. Reaching up, she cradled his face. “Oh, Christian.”
“A completely inappropriate name for me. One of life’s sick jokes.”
“I don’t think so.”
His fingers came incredibly close to touching her face before he curled them into a fisted ball.
“Giving Clarisse an abundance of pain medication seemed the right thing to do at the moment. She was in so much agony.” He released a wretched sob. She rose and slipped her arms around him, pressing his face to her bosom. “Then she was dead and the doubts and regrets slammed into me. And they have plagued me since. It was my suffering that I wanted to end. I could not bear to watch her valiant struggle when I knew the outcome. I wanted her to face death with a measure of dignity before her disease stripped it all away.” She felt the shudder rack his body. “Selfish, so incredibly selfish of me. She was not mine to love. Her life was not mine to end.”
She pressed a kiss to his neck. “I love you.”
“How can you now that you know what I am capable of doing?”
Leaning back, she trailed her fingers along the tears staining his face and held his gaze. “I love you more. You must have known the guilt you would suffer if you granted her wish.”
“My suffering is nothing compared to what hers had become.”
“But yours is eternal, and you knew it would be when you made your decision.”
He slammed his eyes closed. “Yes.”
“Will you take my life?”
He opened his eyes and captured her gaze. “If you ask it of me.”
She brushed her lips lightly over his. “I won’t.”
“That is easy enough to say before every second is measured by the depth of your pain.”
Standing, she took his hand. “Come with me.”
“I have things to which I must attend.”
“So do I.” She tugged on his hand. “Lie on your cot with me.”
He shook his head. “Ashton, bringing you pleasure will not solve our problems.”
“I only want you to hold me.”
“It is a very narrow cot.”
“Then hold me close.”
He stood and followed her as she led the way to a room she’d already come to despise. How could he have lived here all these years?
He stretched out on his side on the cot with his back against the wall. Gingerly, she lay down, pressing her body closely against his and wrapping her arm around his waist so she wouldn’t fall onto the floor.
“You see? I told you it was narrow,” he said.
She lifted her gaze to his. “How do you sleep here?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “On my side.”
“It has to be the most uncomfortable thing I’ve been on.” She unbuttoned the first button on his shirt. “You don’t wear a hair shirt, do you?”
“No, but I do give myself mental floggings every morning.”
“Why?”
He sighed deeply. “I took an innocent life, Ashton.”
“Christopher knows.”
His eyes darkened with fury. “You told him?”
“He told me.”
He raised up on an elbow. “What do you mean, he told you? He doesn’t know I killed Clarisse.”
“You told me that you know each other’s thoughts.”
“Not this one. This one I buried deeply inside myself. He couldn’t have found it with a shovel.”
She placed her hand over his heart. “He knows you, Kit, as well as you know yourself. Why do you think he sent for you?”
She watched the fury recede to allow in the doubts.
“He wanted me to kill her?”
She nodded. “Because he couldn’t bring himself to do it.”
He cradled her face. “He told you this?”
“Last night. I couldn’t sleep and I went to the kitchen. We shared some cocoa.”
Kit gazed at the far wall and nodded. “He has a passion for cocoa.”
He lay back down, and she could see within his eyes all the battles he waged. Disbelief, acceptance, understanding. But no anger. She had expected anger.
“He used you,” she pointed out, “because he was too weak—”
“Because he loved her too much.”
If Kit wasn’t going to get mad, she was. “Shouldn’t he have loved you enough not to ask or expect of you what he did?”
“You have to understand the bond between Christopher and me.”
“So if I asked you to end my life you’d send in Christopher to do it?” she snapped.
“No.” He shifted his gaze to her and trailed his fingers along her face. The depth of love reflected in his eyes was enough to make her want to weep. “No, I want to be the one to grant all your desires. Taking a life is not an easy task. I cannot fault Christopher for shying away from it. He did not hold a gun to my head. He simply gave me the opportunity to give to Clarisse what I could.”
“But at what cost to you?”
“At a price I was willing to pay.”
She felt deflated as she studied his face. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”
“You don’t have to. You only have to know that my love for Christopher is such that I would do anything for him.” He trailed his thumb over her lower lip. “Just as I would do anything for you.”
He eased his face nearer to hers. “Earlier, you said that you loved me.”
She nodded.
“And here we lie with our bodies pressed close.”
Again she nodded.
“When it was only last night that you asked me not to touch you.”
“Last night I didn’t understand,” she whispered.
“Why I killed Clarisse?”
She shook her head. “What it would feel like to lose you.” Tears welled in her eyes. “When Mrs. Gurney said you were going to face the outlaws—” A sob broke free and a shudder ran through her body. “Oh, Kit, I was so frightened! I didn’t want you to die!”
“So the tears you wept earlier were for me?”
“Of course they were,” she said.
“And if I were to press my lips to yours, you would welcome my kiss?”
“With all my heart.”
His mouth covered hers with a desperation that spoke volumes. She combed her fingers up into his hair, holding him in place, wondering how she had ever managed to doubt his motives, to distrust his actions. He had risked his soul for Clarisse, risked his life for the people of this town, and risked his heart for her.
Chapter 25
“By God, I cannot…believe how…wrong I was!”
Standing in his father’s room with Christopher beside him, Kit listened to his father’s slurred words, watched his face contort as he forced himself to speak. Kit felt the unbearable ache in his chest at the sight of his father trying to maintain his dignity.
“You instill loyalty in men…understand the true measure of responsibility…are willing to make the greatest of all sacrifices to protect those who have entrusted you with their care. Who would have thought it?”
He pointed a trembling finger at Kit. “You were born first for a reason, but I thought I was wiser.” His father shook his head. “I was a fool. You are the heir of Ravenleigh, and soon you shall bear its title.”
Kit crouched before him. “You have prepared Christopher for the role, and he has always expected to hold the title. It is not fair now to deprive him of it.”
“Fair?” his father croaked. “You talk of fair when you have been cheated since birth?” His father wrinkled his grizzled face and poked his finger, with no strength, into Kit’s shoulder. “You see? Again you prove my point.”
Kit resisted the urge to scoff. “I was also sent here for a reason. I am not a worthy heir, regardless of what you think. My reputation is scandalous.”
His father moved his finger in a circle as though he were stirring te
a within a cup. “No one will know. You need only switch names.”
Kit glanced up at Christopher. With usual British aplomb, Christopher had shuttered his emotions so his face revealed none of the inner turmoil with which Kit knew he was struggling. Emotions Kit battled as well.
Taking the black book that held his father’s sins, Kit stood. “Is this the only evidence we have that mentions what happened the night we were born?”
“Yes,” Christopher said succinctly. “The physician has since passed away.”
Kit tore a page from the book before placing the journal in the hearth.
“What are you doing?” Christopher asked.
Kit rolled the paper and inserted one end into the lamp until the flame reached up and set the paper alight. He removed it from the lamp, knelt, and placed it against one corner of the book. With fascination, he watched the flames lick greedily at his offering.
“That does not change the truth!” his father spat.
“No, but it removes the evidence.”
His father pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. “I want you to be the heir!”
Kit stood and faced his father squarely. Never had words been so difficult to speak.
“When you arranged for Christopher to marry Clarisse, knowing what I felt for her, you asked me to put Ravenleigh first. And I did. I held my silence and I put what I valued most—the heritage of Ravenleigh—above what I treasured most.
“When you feared I did not have the strength of character to keep my hands off my brother’s wife, you asked me to put Ravenleigh first and to leave the home that I loved, and I did as you bade.
“Now, you’re asking me again to put what I value above what I treasure.” He held his father’s gaze. “This time, Father, I cannot. I have always loved Ravenleigh. I thought no greater love existed, but I was wrong, for I love Ashton more. I will not leave her—not for all the earldoms in England.”
He watched his father’s jaws tighten. “Then bring her.”
“And condemn her to death? The English winters are harsh, wet, and cold. She might survive one, but I doubt she would survive two. Regardless, this time, I am placing what I treasure most above what I value.”
“You can’t!”
Never Marry a Cowboy Page 25
