The Duchess and Desperado
Page 1
“I want you, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, giving him the full force of her compelling gaze.
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Dedication
Books by Laurie Grant
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Copyright
Welcome to the world of
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Western from Mary McBride
THE COURTSHIP OF IZZY McCREE—
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FIRE SONG—a dramatic medieval novel
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“I want you, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, giving him the full force of her compelling gaze.
His groin tightened as the words echoed in his head. I want you. Lord, what he’d give to hear a woman like her saying such words with a more intimate meaning!
“And you’ll be handsomely paid, I do assure you—with no backbreaking work.”
“No, no backbreaking work,” he agreed. “I could live real easy, bein’ your bodyguard—and get killed with an easy bullet.”
Her face paled. “Yes, there is a risk, as you saw this afternoon. But I don’t want to die, either. Perhaps all it will take to discourage this scoundrel is the presence of a strong, intelligent man prepared to defend me.”
“You don’t know me,” he told her, locking his gaze to hers. “You don’t know anythin’ about me, Duchess. Everythin’ I’ve told you could be a lie!”
Dear Reader,
Next month, Harlequin Historicals® turns ten years old! But we have such a terrific lineup this month, we thought we’d start celebrating early. To begin, award-winning author Laune Grant, who is known for her stirring Medievals and gritty Westerns, returns with a delightful new story, The Duchess and the Desperado. Here, a rancher turned fugitive inadvertently becomes a bodyguard to the very visible Duchess of Malvern when her life is threatened during a goodwill tour of the American West. Don’t miss it!
In The Shadowed Heart by Nina Beaumont, set in eighteenth-century Europe, a beautiful young woman on a quest for vengeance unwittingly falls in love with the man she thinks may have harmed her sister.... Also out for revenge is Jesse Kincaid, of MONTANA MAVERICKS: RETURN TO WHITEHORN fame, when he kidnaps his enemy’s mail-order bride in Wild West Wife by popular Silhouette® author Susan Mallery.
Rounding out the month is A Warrior’s Honor, the next Medieval in Margaret Moore’s popular WARRIOR SERIES. In this tale a knight is tricked by a fellow nobleman into abducting a beautiful lady, but, guided by honor—and love—seeks to rescue her from his former friend.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical®.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U S.: 3010 Walden Ave., PO. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
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THE DUCHESS AND THE DESPERADO
Laurie Grant
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
To Mary Jo Putney, for teaching me the joys of letters
patent, and, as always, to Michael.
Books by Laurie Grant
Harlequin Historicals
Beloved Deceiver #170
The Raven and the Swan #205
Lord Liar #257
Devil’s Dare #300
My Lady Midnight #340
Lawman #367
The Duchess and the Desperado #421
LAURIE GRANT
combines a career as a trauma center emergency room nurse with that of historical romance author; she says living in two worlds keeps her sane. Passionately enthusiastic about the history of both England and Texas, she divides her travel time between these two spots. She is married to her own real-life hero, and has two teenage daughters, two dogs and a cat.
If you would like to write to Laurie, please use the following address: Laurie Grant, P.O. Box 307272, Gahana, OH 43230.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank the Denver Historical Society for
their invaluable assistance regarding the home of
Territorial Governor McCook and the hotels of the time.
Chapter One
Malvern Hall,
Herefordshire, England,
1872
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Sarah heard her sister, Kathryn, mutter as she watched Sarah selecting dresses from her wardrobe and directing the maids in their packing.
Sarah Challoner, Duchess of Malvern, looked over her shoulder at Kathryn and was touched. She thought her younger sibling looked wistful. She smiled. “Going to miss me, are you, Kat?”
Kathryn made a moue of disgust. “Don’t call me that. Thierry says it isn’t dignified.” She turned and gazed out the window that looked over the Malvern Hills in all their glory. “And yes, I am going to miss you. It sounds as if you’ll be gone forever.”
“I cannot call you Kat anymore?” Sarah said in mock dismay, struggling to hide her amusement. “But you have been my little sister Kat since you were born ! Ah...yes, Tilly, I believe I will take the blue foulard,” she said, pointing at a gown the maid held out for consideration.
“But not any longer, if you please,” said Kat with stiff dignity. “I shall be out next year, and Thierry say a nickname is not at all comme il fuut,” she added in an admirable French accent.
Sarah allowed herself to appear impressed. “I see. Well, if Thierry has decreed it, Kathryn it is, then.” Thierry says this, Thierry says that. She suspected her sister, who at seventeen was barely out of the schoolroom, had a bad case of hero worship for the dashing French count who was secretly Sarah’s fiancé. It probably wouldn’t be going too far to say she was infatuated with Thierry de Châtellerault.
Ah, well. That’s all right. She was just glad that Kathryn liked Thierry. It would be so awkward if her sister hated the man Sarah was going to marry. And it wa
s perfectly normal for young girls to have these infatuations, after all. Sarah could remember a couple of her own-embarrassing, painful things they had been! Once she and Thierry returned from America as man and wife, though, Kathryn—Kat, she insisted to herself—would gradually learn to let go of her feelings and concentrate on finding her own special someone.
“Sure you wouldn’t like to change your mind and come with me?” Sarah inquired of her sister, who still had her back to her. “Wouldn’t you love to see America?”
“No,” came the uncompromising reply. “I can’t think I would enjoy racketing around the States in carriages and on trains, living out of suitcases for months on end! Besides,” she said, lowering her voice so that the servants wouldn’t hear, “once Thierry joins you in Santa Fe and you get marned, I shouldn’t like to be the gooseberry.”
“Gooseberry?” Sarah repeated, mystified. Kathryn was forever picking up servants’ cant.
Kathryn whirled around, her face sullen. “You know, the odd man out. I’d be superfluous.”
Sarah suddenly understood. She let go of the gown she was examining and rushed toward her sister. “Nonsense, dear...”
“But of course I would,” Kat cried. Her face was a study in disdain, her posture rigid, saying as clearly as if she shouted it that Sarah was not to embrace her. “I can’t think of anyone more useless on a honeymoon than one’s younger sister.”
Sarah stopped short and pushed her glasses back up on her nose. Perhaps she had been spending too much time with Thierry, and Kat was feeling left out. The girl’s wounded feelings were almost palpable.
“But it isn’t as though you’d be alone with just us, darling,” she said, low-voiced. “Uncle Frederick is coming along, and Donald, and Celia.... Think of all the sights we’d see, going from New York to California to Texas Just imagine, the Wild West!” If only she could infuse Kat with some of her enthusiasm!
Kat turned her back to Sarah once again. “Yes, but once you join Thierry, I can’t imagine anything more boring than spending time with our uncle and your secretary and your dresser while you’re off billing and cooing with him,” Kat said, her voice thick, as if she were fighting tears. “I’m not going, and that’s final. I just don’t understand why you have to go, Sarah.”
“If I were a man no one would question it,” Sarah observed. “Why should I not get to take a Grand Tour just as if I were a man? I’m duchess in my own right, after all, and I want to do it.”
“But men do their Grand Tour in Europe,” her sister noted.
Now it was Sarah’s turn to make a face. “We went to Paris with Papa, did we not, and on to Italy? The Continent doesn’t interest me. No, I want to see America—especially the vast open spaces of the West, Kat—ah, Kathryn. It must be so exciting to live there—not like tidy old England, with its manicured lawns and ponds, and quaint little towns several hundred years old. I need to see that before I settle down as ‘the duchess’—and as Thierry’s wife, as wonderful as I know that will be,” Sarah said. She willed Kat to face her, but Kat remained rigidly staring out the window. “And besides, it’ll give me a little breathing room away from Her Majesty’s incessant demand that I marry the boring Duke of Trenton, who’d be my equal in rank. Come, Kathryn, you must agree it’s delicious to imagine Victoria fuming when I return home married to the Count of Chatellerault instead?”
Kathryn slowly turned to face her, her lips reluctantly curving upward. “Yes...I can just imagine the queen wringing those plump hands. All right, I suppose you will go no matter what I say. But tell me—are you going to wear your glasses when you’re touring?”
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief that her efforts to mollify Kat had finally succeeded enough that she had turned to teasing. “Hmm...I suppose it depends if it’s just us—Uncle Frederick, Donald, Celia and I. You know how vain I am about being seen in my spectacles.”
Kat smirked. “I can just imagine—you’ll come back and we’ll ask what the most impressive sight was and you’ll wave your hand and say ‘I don’t know. It was all just a blur.”’
Sarah didn’t mind the sisterly taunt, for she’d always admitted vanity to be her worst failing.
“I’ll see you at dinner, Sarah,” Kat said, moving toward the door.
“All right, but where are you going in such a hurry?” Sarah asked, picking up the gown she’d discarded only moments ago. It wasn’t her favorite, but it would be good for traveling.
“Oh, Thierry said he’d take me riding while you were busy packing,” Kat murmured over her shoulder, her hand already on the door. “Since he won’t be meeting you in New Mexico right away, he’s rather at loose ends, too, you know.”
Sarah smiled and bade her sister enjoy herself. It was good of Thierry to keep Kat occupied, but perhaps she should speak to her fiancé later this evening and warn him that her younger sister had conceived a tendre for him. She knew she could count on Thierry to let Kat down easily.
Chapter Two
Denver
Colorado Territory
July 1872
“Oh, Celia, do look,” Sarah breathed, gazing out the window as the train wheezed to a stop. She pointed at the distant Rocky Mountains, still snow tipped even though it was midsummer. The sight was enough to make Sarah forget the discomforts of the journey. “Are they not magnificent? Even the Peak District has nothing to compare with them!” She felt the headache that had plagued her all through the jolting, swaying ride slipping away.
“Yes, your grace,” her dresser muttered, though she only glanced momentarily at the magnificent mountain range that stood sentinel over Denver. “We’ve been seein’ them for the past two hours.” She was nervously watching the motley throng on the station platform from the other side of their luxurious private railway car that had brought them all the way from St. Louis.
“But we can see them so much more clearly now. Just one moment, Celia, and I’ll be ready to disembark,” Sarah said, folding her spectacles and putting them safely away in her reticule. Not for the world would she have appeared among strangers wearing them. “Carry this, would you please, dear?” she said, handing her servant the reticule. No doubt she’d need her hands free for greeting those who came to welcome her.
The crowd gaped and pointed at the Duchess of Malvern and her entourage as they disembarked from the train at the Kansas Pacific Depot, but to Sarah, minus her spectacles, they were a buzzing blur.
“They’re so rude, the way they stare. You’d think they’d never seen a duchess before.” her dresser muttered to no one in particular.
Sarah chuckled, saying, “I’m sure they haven’t, Celia. This is America, after all. They do not have duchesses here.”
“Nor manners, your grace,” her dresser retorted as one gawker came even closer and, after blowing his nose noisily on a dirty handkerchief, pointed at the Paris creation on the duchess’s head.
“Oh, do stop grumbling, Celia, and take a breath of the fresh, bracing Western air—that should clear out the cobwebs!” Indeed, her own headache was fast diminishing, and she felt almost human again.
“I believe that is Pikes Peak in the distance, your grace,” Donald Alconbury, her secretary, murmured in her ear, pointing at the high peak in the distance. “Indeed, the air is very clear here, or we should not be able to see it.”
“Ah... beautiful...” she murmured, though of course Donald had forgotten she could not distinguish it from the others without her spectacles.
“I can’t imagine where the welcoming committee must be,” fretted Lord Halston. “I telegraphed the time of your arrival, and I was promised no less than the mayor and the territorial governor on hand to welcome you to Denver. But perhaps they await us inside the depot,” he said, motioning toward the large, two-stoned brick building behind them.
“Then go and fetch them, uncle,” Sarah said serenely, turning and heading for the rear of the train. “I intend to see Trafalgar properly unloaded.”
“But, your grace, your groom will see to
that,” her dresser fussed. “Come inside, do. Look, there’s another of those noisy monsters pulling in, and it’ll blow soot all over your clothing!”
The second train’s whistle shrieked, splitting the air as it wheezed to a stop a little behind and on a track parallel to the one that had just brought the duchess and her party from St. Louis Just as Celia had predicted, the locomotive’s huge smokestack belched a cloud of smoke.
Sarah paid no heed to the down-drifting particles of soot, however. The train had almost immediately begun disgorging its human contents, and as she passed the open space between one car and another, her attention was caught by a particular passenger who was just stepping down from the other train onto the ground.
With just a few yards between them, she could see him well enough. He was tall and lean and wore a wide-brimmed hat, denim trousers, boots and duster coat. A saddle was slung over one shoulder; he carried a pair of saddlebags in the other hand. His hair was a shade of brown so dark it could pass for black except in bright sunlight, and he needed both a haircut and a shave. He might be handsome once properly groomed—though very different from Thierry, of course—but at present he just looked dangerous, Sarah decided, watching as he narrowed his eyes in the direction of the station house, then started striding toward the rear of the train he had just left.
A sudden wind blew the side of his unbuttoned duster backward, exposing a pistol riding in a holster on his hip. The presence of the pistol confirmed the air of danger he carried with him. A desperado, thought Sarah, remembering the lurid covers of the cheap novels she’d seen on sale not only in America but in London, too. Perhaps he was an outlaw! But no, surely outlaws did not travel on trains like normal, lawabiding folk. He was probably just an ordinary cowboy, she told herself. Standards of grooming were not the same here as at home. But she was not convinced.