The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  “There, you see? I’d look like a big ol’ fish outa water, wouldn’t I?” he said with a grin. Then, as she continued to laugh, he pretended to be offended. “Hey, it’s not that funny. It’s not like I couldn’t learn those highfalutin’ manners if I wanted to.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Morgan,” she said, “you always know just how to tease me out of taking myself too seriously, don’t you? You’re such a dear,” she said, and before she could give herself time to think, she leaned down across the blanket and kissed him on the cheek.

  He looked startled, and his green eyes widened from their usual narrowness for a moment as he propped himself on one elbow and stared at her. She saw him grow pale, then flush with color on his high cheekbones.

  She had embarrassed him! “I’m sorry, I’m afraid impulsiveness is one of my biggest faults,” she said, reaching out to touch that rough cheek as if to wipe away the kiss.

  Morgan’s eyes had gone a deeper, darker green, and his smile put her in mind of a great hunting cat who has suddenly spotted his prey. His gaze shifted to her lips. “The only reason to be sorry, Duchess, is if you aren’t gonna continue bein’ impulsive like that,” he said.

  Afterward she remembered a split second of fear as she realized how utterly alone she was with this man out here in the wilderness, how completely vulnerable she was to his will. She watched as his mouth came closer, not to her cheek, but to her lips.

  And then he was kissing her, and the world swam away in a blur, and with it her fear, as she began to return his kiss, allowing him to deepen the pressure as he slanted his mouth across hers. Sarah could feel the hunger in him. As if in a dream, she opened her mouth to him and felt his tongue sweep inside, claiming her mouth as his possession, and instead of alarming her, it only made her want more. She felt a rising of her own hunger, a hunger that until this moment she hadn’t known she owned, but she didn’t know how to satisfy the heat building inside her. Boldly, as if she were a woman experienced in passion, she allowed her tongue to tangle with his, and was rewarded with a growl of satisfaction from Morgan.

  The sound excited her, made her want to get closer still, but it was impossible as long as she was leaning down into his kiss, still propped up one arm. So she put her other arm around his neck and allowed herself to drift downward, still kissing Morgan, until they were lying face-to-face.

  “Oh, Duchess,” he groaned, and kissed her again. “You taste like champagne.”

  “It’s Sarah—Sarah,” she whispered between kisses, and then his lips began to nibble at her ear, her neck.... The hand that had splayed out over the small of her back was inching around her rib cage now, but the advance didn’t frighten her. It only served to stoke the flames building within her at a frightening pace.

  “Sarah,” he repeated, the way he said her name a caress in itself. Then his hand closed over her breast, cupping it, and she gasped at the unfamiliar jolt shooting through her, like liquid fire burning its way straight to the center of her being.

  “Oh, Sarah,” he murmured as his thumb found her nipple unerringly through the thick cloth of her bodice and the chemise she wore, and made lazy circles over it that made her moan and clutch at him, wanting she knew not what.

  But he knew, it seemed. He unbuttoned the bodice of her riding habit, and then he was suckling her breast right through the thin lawn of her Belgian lace-edged chemise. The feeling of his warm mouth pulling at the exquisitely tender flesh made her want to cry out loud, but she couldn’t seem to produce more than a whimper.

  With his free hand he pulled her closer against him, and suddenly she felt the hard ridge of flesh straining against the confines of his trousers and the skirt of her riding habit.

  “Morgan, please,” she begged, and didn’t know if she was pleading with him to continue or stop the delicious torture.

  Again, Morgan knew. He pushed his pelvis against her, all the while continuing to stroke her breast, and then all at once she knew what she wanted, too. This man. Making love to her. Inside her, and as soon as possible.

  “Yes, Morgan. Yes, please. Oh, please hurry,” she moaned.

  “Your wish is my command, Duchess,” he said, and she giggled and smiled up at him, only to go still as she felt him reach down for the hem of her skirt and begin to inch it upward.

  Just then a twig snapped, and one of the horses nickered. Sarah had barely registered the sound before Morgan was rolling away from her, and in one smooth motion grabbing the pistol he had laid on the rock.

  “Morgan, what on earth...” Even as she spoke, he was lunging between her and the noise, and at the same time bringing the Colt up to fire.

  But he did not shoot. “It’s just a damn deer.”

  As she strained to focus on the brown shape a few yards away, the deer reversed its direction and bounded back down the slope.

  Morgan’s back sagged and he raked a hand through his dark hair. “Damn it all to hell.”

  “And what did you think it was?” Sarah, trembling, dazed, asked. Her body was still clamoring for more of him, yet all had changed for him. She could see it in his rigid posture.

  He lowered his head, looking everywhere but at her. “I don’t know...something dangerous...like maybe the man who’s been trying to kill you. My job is to protect you, but here I was, tryin’ to...” He seemed unable to finish his sentence.

  “Trying to make love to me?” Sarah supplied gently.

  “Yeah, damn me for a bastard and a fool.”

  His words made her sit bolt upright, and she began to hurriedly pull on her chemise, trying to ignore the sensation of the moistened cloth against the breast he’d been suckling only minutes before. “Why, what do you mean, Morgan?” she asked carefully.

  “Hellfire, Duchess, I’m your bodyguard. If that had been someone gunnin’ for you—”

  “But it wasn’t, Morgan,” she noted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was I who kissed you first, you know.” What she said seemed sensible and obvious, even though she was feeling anything but sensible. Her breasts, and the area between her legs, still ached for his renewed touch.

  “But it could have been, don’t you see? You could’ve been murdered because I forgot what I’m supposed to be there for and instead I was trying to...oh, hell.”

  “Morgan,” she said, trying to ignore the chill creeping up her spine at his words, “no harm was done, and you certainly weren’t doing anything that I wasn’t en—”

  He interrupted, “Well, it isn’t gonna happen again, Duchess, you hear me? You hired me to protect you and that’s just what I’m going to do.” He stood up and turned his back as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her.

  All at once she was aware of how she must look to him— her face flushed, her lips swollen from his kisses, her bodice still unbuttoned to the waist and her hair falling out of its neat chignon over her shoulders. She had behaved like a wanton, as if she were no more than a tart in Covent Garden!

  But she wasn’t a tart, she was the Duchess of Malvem! And she was in love with the Count of Châtellerault. She had promised to marry her Frenchman, yet how terrifyingly close she had come to giving herself completely to this American, this comparative stranger.

  “I expect it was the champagne,” she said with chilly casualness as she finished buttoning her bodice and began setting her hair to rights. “I should be used to it, but perhaps at this altitude... What I am trying to say is, the blame is all mine, and I don’t hold you in the least responsible. But you’re quite right in that it must not happen again.”

  “It won’t, Duchess,” he assured her—too quickly.

  Sarah found his agreement perversely wounding. She’d be thrice damned before she ever so much as smiled at Morgan Calhoun again.

  “Yes. Well... perhaps we should be packing up and riding back. Uncle Frederick will be frantic about my absence, even though I left him a note.”

  They packed up the remnants of the picnic in silence, and in minutes they were riding back
toward Denver.

  Chapter Eleven

  The assassin peered around the corner of the building just in time to see his quarry and Morgan Calhoun dismount and begin to lead their horses back into the hotel stables. It was about time they returned!

  Lord Halston had not been the only one who’d been frantic and furious at the duchess’s disappearance this morning. The assassin had been beside himself when his spy told him that the duchess had been missing when the rest of the household had awakened this morning. She’d left a note, saying she was going for a ride.

  But what if she hadn’t really just gone riding? he’d thought. What if Sarah now suspected the identity of her would-be killer and had decided her only chance of survival lay in decamping with her thrice-damned bodyguard?

  After a few moments of panic, though, cool reasoning had gained control over his panic. He had decided to wait and watch. The odds were that the duchess had only taken one of those early-morning rides of which she was so fond. And now his guess had been proven correct, and his hours of loitering around the outside of the Grand Central Hotel, dressed as a down-on-his-luck prospector complete with a stuck-on beard and a low-brimmed hat, were about to be rewarded.

  Quickly he took a glance behind him, saw that the alleyway was still empty of witnesses, then inched forward, feeling for the pistol within his shapeless coat pocket. There would be no escape for her this time, he promised himself with a grim smile. First he’d kill her protector, then her.

  He studied the woman he was about to shoot, seeing the tendrils escaping at the nape of her neck, the slightly swollen lips, the way her eyes could not avoid the lean form of her bodyguard, especially when Calhoun was not looking at her. Oh, yes, Sarah had been a naughty duchess, he thought. It was obvious she had been dishonoring the proud name of her family with this American, this nobody. Sarah Challoner deserved to die.

  Just then Lord Halston stepped from the shadows of the stable into the sunlit stableyard.

  “So there you are, niece! I am owed an explanation, I think,” the marquess announced, advancing on her.

  The assassin froze for a moment, keeping his head low so his face could not be seen. It need not matter that Lord Frederick had appeared, he decided; what were three lives taken instead of only two? With the marquess slain, the path to his goal would be even clearer than before.

  “Oh? Can you not read, uncle?” Sarah coolly responded. “I left you a note, informing you that I would be riding with Mr. Calhoun this morning. I hope Donald is available to write a message for me? I have just conceived the most delightful plan to invite William Wharton and his charming sister for supper this evening—oh, I know it’s short notice, but perhaps they would consent...?”

  How very like Sarah Challoner, the assassin thought. Cool and self-possessed, trying to brazen it out, as if she were the master of her own fate, and not a mere woman who should be guided by a man!

  “Sarah, you are very cavalier with those who care about your safety,” Lord Halston began, his face purpling with obvious frustration.

  “Not at all. You knew I had my bodyguard with me. Could you have the hotel send up water for a bath, uncle? It’s been so long since I’ve ridden I believe I’d like to have a long soak before tea....”

  Damn her. Damn Sarah for making him imagine the sight of her relaxing in a copper hip bath, her breasts peeking impertinently over the bubbles, her special rosewater scent perfuming the air. A sight he had never seen, but only dreamed of. His hand, gripping his pistol within the coat pocket, trembled.

  Now. He should do it now. He should bring his gun out of his pocket and fire.

  “Hey, Clem, is that you? When did ya come down from yore claim?” bellowed a voice behind the assassin, and a heartbeat later he felt a heavy hand clapping him on the back.

  He whirled, furious at the interruption, to see another similarly dressed man about to buffet him once again. “I am not Clem,” he growled in a low voice, knowing he couldn’t let this interfering blowhard ruin his chance. “I think you mistake me for someone else. Now, go away.”

  The prospector squinted at him through bleary, red-veined eyes. “Ya look like Clem, though, even if ya sound like some furriner...” he muttered uncertainly. “Ain’t ya afeered of some claim jumper takin’ your mine while yore away? Les’ go have a whiskey, whaddya say?”

  He would cheerfully have blown a hole through the idiot if the shot wouldn’t have sent his quarry fleeing. Turning to put his back to the duchess, her bodyguard and Lord Halston in case they should look his way, the assassin hissed, “I am not your friend, curse you.” He brought the muzzle of his pistol just barely out of his pocket and made sure the old sot saw it. “Now, go away, or I will allow daylight into your liver, eh?”

  The prospector’s eyes focused with difficulty on what he could see of the pistol, and he backed away. “Well, okay, but I still say ya look like Clem t’me....”

  Merde. He would just kill all of them. He turned back around, but saw that in the brief seconds while the prospector had distracted him, the duchess, her uncle and her bodyguard had all disappeared inside the stable.

  It was unbelievable. For a moment he was tempted to murder the old prospector just to punish him for costing him his chance, then thought better of it. The old fool was not worth a bullet. He settled for flinging a lump of manure at the shambling figure.

  After turning the horses over to the duchess’s groom, Morgan followed Sarah and her uncle up the stairs, trying to keep his eyes off her gently swaying, riding-habit-clad posterior as she ascended.

  His head ached with tangled emotions. Damnation, it felt as if there was a four-way dogfight going on in his brain. One of the dogs was lust, for his unsatisfied body still clamored to complete what had been interrupted up in the foothills. It had been stopped by another dog, the dog of decency and common sense, who’d known that he’d had no business taking liberties with the British noblewoman who employed him, even if she’d encouraged him. Then a third dog bad shown up, shame, after he’d realized how easily both of them could have paid the price for his lack of vigilance. And now that the duchess was palavering with her uncle about inviting that young tinhorn Wharton and his sister to join her for dinner, a fourth dog had joined the fray: jealousy.

  When he’d been kissing Sarah Challoner and running his hands over her beautiful body, her innocent delight had had him thinking she was a virgin, but now he wasn’t so sure. He wouldn’t be the first man deceived by a woman of experience. Now he was sure her invitation to Wharton was a means of getting revenge for her own unsatisfied passion. Morgan hadn’t resumed making love to her, so she was going to show him how easily he could be replaced, wasn’t she? And, damn her blue eyes, she was going to go him one better by achieving the revenge with a man closer to her own position in life!

  Well, it wasn’t as if she could exactly invite the mining magnate to spend the night, not with Wharton’s sister along, and her uncle there as chaperon, he reminded himself, but somehow it was little comfort. Perhaps she was just warming up Wharton for the following night, when they were going to the theater? Afterward, would the duchess expect him to stand on guard outside some fancy private room in a restaurant while she and Wharton had a “late supper?”

  Once in the duchess’s suite, Morgan slammed the door behind him with unnecessary force. That fourth dog was winning the fight. Lord, but he wished he shared this bodyguarding job with some other man so he could go get drunk and find a woman, and not necessarily in that order.

  “Good night, dear Helen. So good of you both to come on such short notice. See you tomorrow night, William. Seven o’clock was it, for the theater? And then supper afterward?” With difficulty Sarah suppressed a yawn as she and her uncle stood at the doorway, bidding the guests farewell. Morgan stood just beyond them, on the landing, watching up and down the stairs.

  The last-minute supper party had been a delightful way to spend the evening, Sarah thought. These Americans were so flexible, so spontaneous! Ba
ck in England she could never have issued an invitation to supper with just hours to spare.

  They’d been amusing company, chatty and surprisingly sophisticated in spite of the raw new town they lived in. Through their dinnertime conversation she’d learned more about the mining magnate. Wharton had come out to Colorado Territory in the gold rush days, but instead of frittering his profits away on gambling, whiskey and women, he had saved his money until he could buy a mine, and with the profits of that, bought more mines. He’d brought his sister out from the East when he could afford to build a nice home for them. His wealth had not made him arrogant, though. Sarah thought it a great pity that more of the wealthy peers back home were not so genuinely kind and approachable. She looked forward to going to the theater with him tomorrow night. It would be her last night in Denver, and she meant to enjoy it.

  “You’d best go back in, your grace,” Morgan said, turning back to her as the Whartons’ footsteps died away and Lord Halston left the doorway.

  “A word with you first, Morgan,” she said “I know you’re angry at me for inviting Wharton to dinner tonight....”

  His face darkened. “How could I be angry? I got nothin’ to say about it, unless I think where you’re goin’ or who you’re goin’ with might be dangerous to you.” There was nothing remotely warm in his green eyes, let alone any trace of the heated gleam that had been in them this very morning when he had been touching and kissing her so intimately. Once more he looked the cold, wary desperado.

  “It must have felt like a slap in the face after...after what happened this afternoon,” she said in a rush, looking away from his set, guarded face. “But don’t you see? You were right...about what you said...you know, that we mustn’t—”

  “Yeah, I was right.”