The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  “It’s not,” Sarah said. “It’s the bloody middle of the night.” She shut her eyes again, hoping she could go back to her dream.

  But Morgan wouldn’t allow it. He shook her again, but gently. “It’s nearly dawn, Duchess, and you need to wake up and eat some breakfast. It’s going to be a long day, so we need to get started.”

  It seemed he wasn’t going to give up, so she muttered, “Perhaps just some coffee.” The air around her was chill, and the grass she pushed against in her struggle to sit up was drenched in cold dew. She clutched the blanket about her and struggled to open her eyes.

  “Good morning.” By the light of the crackling fire—well, at least that had been true enough in her dream—she watched Morgan crouching next to the flames, ladling fried eggs and bacon onto a tin plate. He poured steaming coffee from a pot sitting on a rock in the middle of the fire, dropped a lump of sugar into it from a nearby sack and handed the plate and cup to her.

  “No, really, Morgan, just coffee. I’m not nearly awake enough to eat all this.” She was more used to a gradual start in the mornings, sipping tea until later, when she was awake enough to nibble on something.

  “Eat it, Duchess,” he insisted as he scooped bacon and eggs onto his own plate and sat down next to her. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast in the saddle yesterday, and Lord knows that was little enough. This’ll stick to your ribs.”

  She took a sip of the coffee. The brew was strong, but the bracing warmth spread through her stomach, and suddenly she realized how very hungry she was. She picked up her fork and began to eat, and in no time at all the plate was empty.

  “You’re not a bad cook,” she commented wryly, thinking this breakfast surpassed all the broiled kidneys and kippered herring she’d ever consumed. Perhaps it was the open-air atmosphere. “Want a job in the kitchen at Malvern Hall?”

  “Tomorrow it’s your turn, Duchess,” he retorted. “You know how to make biscuits?”

  She had to admit she did not Her experience at cooking had been limited to scrambling eggs on midnight kitchen raids after Cook was asleep, or making toast and tea for Kat when she’d been ill. And there were no more eggs, and certainly no bread.

  “Maybe I’ll teach you tonight when we stop,” he said. “Soon as you finish, do what you gotta do, ‘cause we’re breakin’ camp and leavin’ as soon as the sun’s up.”

  His reference to her taking care of the demands of nature made her blush, but he appeared not to notice. This morning, unshaven and rumpled, he looked even more the desperado than he had before. Putting down his plate and cup, he went to saddle the horses.

  It didn’t take her long to get ready, since she hadn’t undressed the night before. After emerging from behind a clump of bushes, she brushed out her hair and rebraided it, then donned the hat he’d obtained for her at Socrates’ store.

  “What can I do to help?” she called to Morgan, who was just lifting the heavy saddle onto his stallion’s back.

  “Take those plates down to the creek yonder and wash ‘em out. Rub ’em good with sand,” he told her.

  Sarah did so, feeling a ridiculous sense of well-being now that she’d eaten and had a good night’s sleep. She was pleased that he was treating her as a capable equal on this journey and not as the pampered noblewoman that she was. It must be very akin to the camaraderie men experienced on their hunting trips....

  Suddenly she had the sensation she was being watched. Lifting her head from her task, she stared downstream, but all she could see was a blurry figure standing by a horse about a hundred yards away from her on the opposite side of the creek. She couldn’t make out what sort of person it was, or the expression on his face, but it seemed he was facing her direction. Friend or foe? Oh, God, was it the assassin—had he caught up with them?

  Cursing her nearsightedness, she backed up. “Morgan?” she called, then broke into a run. “Morgan!” She ran back over the rise to the camp.

  He was beside her in a moment. Evidently her tone had alerted him, for he had drawn his pistol. “What is it, Duchess?”

  She pointed downstream. “There’s someone standing down by the creek with a horse, down that way.”

  She watched as he crept down to the creek, using the cover of the cottonwoods to the left of where she had been washing the plates.

  He was back in a moment. “It was a Ute Indian,” he said. “He saw my gun and decided to take off. I hope to thunder he’s by himself. The Utes haven’t bothered the whites around here lately, but you never know what they’ll do when it’s just two of us, especially when they know one of us is a woman. You keep that hair up under your hat today, you hear, Duchess? And where in hell are your spectacles? I want you wearin’ ’em every minute the rest of this trip, you understand?”

  She opened her mouth to acquiesce, but he never paused.

  “Vanity be damned, Duchess—like I told you, this ain’t no pleasure jaunt. It’d be nice to see if someone’s about to fire an arrow at you, don’t you think? Go put your spectacles on right now!”

  Had she really just been savoring the feeling of camaraderie between them? Surely she must have been dreaming once again!

  “It isn’t necessary to harangue me, Mr. Calhoun,” she said with icy hauteur, and stalked off to dig the hated spectacles out of her pack. Thank God she’d had them in her reticule at the theater.

  He must have realized how harsh he’d sounded, for when she came back, wearing her spectacles, he said, “I’m sorry, Duchess. I reckon I just got scared for you, thinkin’ what could’ve happened just then. Here, I want you to carry one of my pistols in your belt. I don’t want you goin’ outa my sight without havin’ this with you. It ain’t enough to see the danger, you gotta be able to shoot it, if need be.”

  Sarah stared at the Colt he was proffering. “But...don’t you need a spare?”

  “I’ve got the Winchester. And,” he said, tapping his boot, “there’s a little derringer in here—had it in my pocket at the theater. It’ll do in a pinch. Here, take it,” he said, offering her the pistol again.

  “I—I’ve never shot one of these...I’ve never fired any sort of weapon....” Of course she hadn’t. To have participated in the shooting parties that were so much a part of country weekends, and grouse-shooting expeditions to Scotland, she would have had to wear her hated spectacles. She stuck to foxhunting instead, trusting Trafalgar to judge the jumps over fences and fallen logs.

  He sighed and stuck the pistol back in his holster. “All right then, for the time bein’. But as soon as we get somewhere safe, maybe tonight, we’re gonna start you on target practice, Duchess,” he promised grimly. “Even before you learn to make biscuits.”

  The assassin had spent the previous morning visiting the police, and the mayor’s and the governor’s residences, posing as a foreign newspaper reporter, but whether their ignorance was real or feigned, the assassin was able to gain no new clue as to where the duchess and her protector had gone. It was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth. He’d even gone to the railroad station, even though he’d doubted earlier that the duchess would use this obvious escape route, but the ticket taker could remember talking to no one with a foreign accent, female or male, “except for yourself, of course, sir.” Nor had he seen anyone fitting Morgan Calhoun’s description.

  By noon he’d decided to trust his original guess that the duchess and her bodyguard had fled southward on horseback, and had spent the afternoon purchasing a horse and provisions for himself. Once done, he pondered starting out that very afternoon and riding till it was too dark to go farther, but decided against it.

  The fact that his quarry would have a whole day’s head start did not overly dismay him. They wouldn’t be able to travel as fast as he would, for Sarah was a lady and unused to hardship, while he had been hardened by his years in the cavalry. And while the sturdy cow pony he’d purchased this morning wasn’t his usual choice of a mount, it had stamina Sarah’s thoroughbred wouldn’t have. In addition, he’d
learned much in the way of tracking lore from the scouts he’d worked with, and knew that with just a little luck, he’d find his quarry.

  It was going to be an arduous journey, so he decided to treat himself well his last evening in Denver. He bought himself a steak dinner and a bottle of the best red wine that could be had in this benighted corner of the world. When he finished the bottle, he decided it had been too long since he’d had a woman, and inquired of the waiter where he might find a willing whore.

  The waiter, assessing him as a refined gentleman, did not send him to the nearest crude crib, but to Madame Hortense’s Parlor House, where he was assigned a blond whore with breasts that strained at the bodice of her garish red dress.

  “Hey, you’re a furriner, ain’t you? We had a furriner in here last night, but she was a woman. She was with some man, though—sounded like a Texan, he did—and Hortense kicked me outa my room fer them! Kin you imagine that, bringin’ yore own fancy woman to a parlor house fulla them? But the madam give it to them fer the nite, so I had to cool my heels down here in the parlor. I still got a crick in my neck from fallin’ asleep on this here sofa,” she babbled on, pointing to the couch.

  What a happy chance—he’d come to the very brothel in which his quarry had passed the night!

  He smiled beatifically down at the whore as he took her arm and started for the stairs with her. “What a coincidence,” he purred. “I have been looking for that very woman. I fear she is my long-lost, erring wife, you see. By any stroke of fortune, did you overhear them talk about where they were going this morning, or perhaps see the direction in which they departed?”

  The whore blinked, clearly dazzled by the foreigner’s charming smile and the lilt of his accent. “Naw, I never did. They was long gone when I woke up and checked my room.”

  “Never mind,” the assassin said, giving the whore his most courtly bow. “We will pass a good time anyway, yes? I need you very much, my dear. It has been long since I have enjoyed...the comforts of a woman....” He winked, and the whore tittered.

  He would enjoy her “comforts,” all right—and then he would pretend she was Sarah, Duchess of Malvern, and practice how he was going to punish the duchess.

  Before dawn he arose and took the coins he’d paid for the whore’s services the night before. She wouldn’t be needing them anymore, he reasoned as he stole down the back stair way and out into the street.

  Luck continued to stay with the assassin that morning.

  He’d been about to head out onto the plains, away from the creekside path he’d followed out of Denver, when he encountered a trapper bringing a packhorse full of skins into the city to trade. The trapper hadn’t seen anyone fitting the duchess’s or the Texan’s description, but he did recall seeing a pinto and a bay tied up in front of the Cherry Creek Trading Post yesterday morning. The trading post lay about five miles downstream—“Just keep on follerin’ the creek and ya cam’t miss it, friend.”

  He didn’t miss it. Socrates, the black man running the store, was a veritable fount of information—he didn’t even have to resort to a bribe. Yes, there’d been a foreign woman here. “Just yesterday mornin’, one wit’ pretty yella hair and the funniest way o’ talkin’, an’ real purdy, too. Yassuh, she was wit’ a Texan who give his name as Morgan Calhoun, though wit’ these Texans, a body could never tell iffen that was their true handle or not. Where’d they go? Why, suh, they headed up yonder inta th’ mountains, goin’ straight west, they did. Said they was tryin’ t’ lose somebody who might be trailin’ ’em.”

  The assassin deciphered the black man’s molasses-thick drawl with difficulty, then decided to ask one more question. It sounded as if Calhoun had spent a fair sum buying provisions here. Just why was Socrates so willing to give away the direction the Texan and the lady had taken, after the man had even admitted they feared pursuit?

  “Well, mister,” the black man had answered with a grin, “I figger from yer talk, you prob‘ly wouldn’t understan’ it, but I used ta be a slave, an’ I belonged to a Texas massah what whupped me all th’ time. So I don’t owe nothin’ to no damn Texans.”

  “I see...” the assassin had murmured, grateful for the ill feelings that lingered because of slavery. And how fortunate that he had stopped here instead of heading out onto the vast plains! His instincts were as clever as those of a hunting wolf!

  So Calhoun had taken the duchess up into the mountains? The fool! Sarah’s horse would break a leg and they’d have to ride double! Then it would be child’s play to catch up with them. After all, he had campaigned in the Alps! Thanking the smiling black man profusely, he left the trading post and headed west toward the Rockies.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Late that afternoon they made camp in what Sarah would have described as a narrow gully; Morgan called it a “draw.” It had obviously been used as a stopping place before, for a pile of empty whiskey bottles and tin cans lay in a heap under the sparse shade of a pair of cottonwood saplings. On one side of the draw, the bluff overhung the dry, flat ground. They’d put their bedrolls there, Morgan said, for they’d be less visible to wandering Indians or white rascals that way. Sarah guessed he was particularly thinking about the assassin who might be trying to follow them.

  Surely all Denver was abuzz with the news of her disappearance, and perhaps the local newspaper had even printed a story about it by now, so her would-be killer would surely be aware that his quarry had flown. Was he somewhere behind them, even now? Was he that determined to see her dead? The thought was on Morgan’s mind, too, she guessed, for he frequently stopped to look back over his shoulder. Thank God for Morgan’s keen vision—he’d be able to see the glint of the sun off a gun barrel or field glasses that would betray the fact of another rider following them. So far, he’d seen no sign of pursuit, but his action caused her to frequently glance over her shoulder, too, even though she couldn’t hope to see as well, even with her spectacles.

  Sarah, you’ll run daft if you imagine yourself the hunted hare all the time, she admonished herself. Vowing to put the thought aside, she looked longingly at the shallow trickle of a stream running through the draw as the horses lowered their heads to drink.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes on her.

  “Oh, just wishing the water were deeper,” she admitted with a rueful chuckle. She bent over, upstream of the drinking horses, and splashed some water on her face. “You’ve no idea how I’m longing for a bath, but it’s hardly deep enough to get my ankles wet.” She blushed at the admission, for a lady did not mention any part of her legs, let alone that she longed to wash her entire body! But a lady did not go fleeing into the wilderness with a man, or wear trousers while she did so, either.

  He looked away, but not before she saw his green eyes darken with—what? Could it be desire?

  “Oh, I reckon you’d see plenty of water if we were to get a sudden cloudburst. In fact, we’d have to run for high ground—this draw could be full to the rim in nothing flat,” he said, pointing in the direction from which the flood would come. “I wouldn’t even consider camping here if there was a cloud in the sky, but there’s isn’t, and I can’t smell any rain, either. But we can jaw about the weather later. Soon’s I get the horses unsaddled and secured, you got a shootin’ lesson to attend, Duchess.”

  She groaned. “Can’t we cook dinner first? I’m famished,” she admitted. “I could have my cooking lesson,” she added hopefully.

  He grinned. “All this fresh air’s good for the appetite, isn’t it? But no, we’ll shoot first, while the sun’s still high.”

  “Impossible man,” Sarah grumbled, but it was a good-natured grumble. She was beginning to realize that she enjoyed doing just about anything with Morgan, though she’d never have said so. She helped him unsaddle their mounts, staggering a little with the weight of Trafalgar’s stock saddle, then, seeing him picking up his stallion’s feet to check for stones, she did likewise with her mare.

  “How’re you holding up, old girl?�
� she murmured, pitching her voice so it was low and soothing to distract the mare while she picked up each hind foot. Trafalgar hated having her hooves fussed with, but she suffered Sarah’s ministrations with no more than a toss of her proud head. “You miss Ben, don’t you? So do I—but he’d be so proud of how well you’re doing, I just know it. You’re showing that gaudy painted stallion of Morgan’s just what a British horse is made of, aren’t you? Stiff upper lip and all that.” She stroked the mare’s back, looking for sore spots and feeling the dampness of the hair where the saddle and blanket had rested all day. Was Trafalgar thinner already? She’d have to see about getting her some oats as soon as they came to a town—the thoroughbred, wasn’t used to a diet of grass only.

  “How’s she doing?” Morgan said, right behind her.

  How did he manage to move so quietly, as if he were barefoot instead of wearing boots? She hoped he hadn’t seen how he’d startled her. “Fine!” Sarah insisted, trying not to sound shocked.

  “Since we’re going to be shooting nearby, we’d better tie her extra well,” he said, slipping a loop of rope around the mare’s neck and securing it to one of the young cottonwood trunks. “Don’t want her running off down the draw in a panic.”

  After unbridling the thoroughbred, Morgan, carrying an armful of the empty tin cans from under the mesquite, led her back up onto the plain by the path they’d used to descend into the draw. After lining up the tin cans on rocks, he motioned for her to follow him and strode several yards away from them.

  “Here,” he said, handing her one of the Colts. “Time to get friendly with this—it just might save your life.”

  She took it and was amazed at how heavy it was, for he handled it as if it weighed nothing. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood grain of the butt, praying she’d never have to use this against anything human.