The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  There—he’d said it. Now he opened his eyes and raised his head enough that he could look down into her eyes.

  Sarah opened her eyes, too, and stared back up at Morgan, her fevered brain fumbling to form an answer. How to tell him all that surged within her heart, without making him feel trapped or obligated to her for more than this moment, this night? She knew now she could never marry Thierry, but knowing that did not mean this man who held her owed her a future with him, whatever kind of future that could be. And Thierry, charming, dashing Thierry, who had made her laugh and thrilled her heart with his seductive smiles and enchanting manners, did not deserve to wait in vain for her in Santa Fe, never knowing why she failed to appear. Not after crossing an ocean to be with her! He deserved to know the truth, and hear her apology.

  She hesitated for a moment while she chose her words. “Yes, of course, I’ll still want to meet Thierry in Santa Fe. I must—”

  But Morgan never allowed her to finish. Suddenly he was releasing her and stepping back, his green eyes glittering with frustrated fury.

  “Never mind, Duchess. I reckon I’m good at askin’ silly questions. Forget it.” He started to back away from her. “I—I’ll be back, come mornin’. You lock this door behind me and stay put till I knock, you hear? And be ready to go when I do.” Now he had turned around and had his hand on the door, and was turning the knob.

  “But wait, Morgan!” she cried, desolate at the idea that he could leave her now, and furious, too, because she knew he was going to go ease his frustration on that blowsy whore at the saloon. “Don’t go! You can’t go—you haven’t heard what I was going to say.”

  He gave her a twisted, humorless grin over his shoulder. “Oh, I reckon I have a pretty good idea.” And then he was gone.

  Sarah stared at the closed door, listening to his retreating footsteps.

  She wanted to run after him, to force him to listen to her. She wanted to explain that she only had to see Thierry long enough to tell him that she couldn’t marry him because she had realized she loved Morgan. Then she would follow Morgan to the ends of the earth if he would have her, or if he would not, she would board a ship at Galveston and go back to England, and treasure the memory of their passion till the day she died.

  But she had her pride, she thought as she heard the sound of the door below open onto the street. And pride would neither let her run to the window to confirm that he was returning to the saloon nor allow her to run down the stairs after him, throwing herself at his feet and begging him to listen while she bared her soul to him. For how could she survive if he refused her then?

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the same time as Sarah had been giving her impromptu concert to the customers at the Castle Rock Saloon, the assassin was staring into his campfire, his hands curled around a cup of coffee. He’d ridden hard for two days now, after learning the duchess and her bodyguard had ridden into the mountains. He’d used the most likely trail to the Rockies from the trading post, counting on the fact that by riding a fast horse and traveling light, he could easily catch up with Morgan and the duchess. Yet he’d found no trace of Sarah and Calhoun, nor talked to anyone who had seen them. Momentarily he considered they might have taken another, longer mountain trail, but that didn’t make sense. The logical conclusion stared him in the face—he’d been given false information.

  He cursed himself for ignoring his instincts and listening to the black man. Sarah and her bodyguard must have fled south, just as he had originally guessed. Therefore he would reverse his direction, and ride his horse into the ground, if necessary, to find them.

  For a moment he pondered stopping at that trading post and killing Socrates Smith for lying to him. causing him to lose two precious days, but then he thought better of it. He could ill afford the time he’d waste exacting his revenge, and it was always possible that Calhoun and the duchess had lied to the black man about their destination, too.

  The assassin was sure the duchess and her protector would board the tram as soon as they could south of Denver. But he didn’t know the country, or where train stations were situated, so the simplest thing to do was to follow the tracks south out of Denver.

  Sarah might well be traveling disguised as a man, but he knew her well enough to know she’d never willingly leave her precious thoroughbred behind somewhere. So he’d ask about the horse—someone around the railroad station was bound to remember the mare, if not the humans with her. It wasn’t common to see such a highbred piece of horseflesh in the West.

  “Enjoy your dream that you have eluded the hunter, my precious little rabbit,” the assassin murmured aloud, picturing Sarah. “Like any dream of the hunted, it will not last forever.”

  “All aboard!” the conductor cried, precisely at nine in the morning.

  “We can sit wherever you want,” Morgan said in a gruff voice, gesturing at the rows of bench seats as they entered the passenger car of the Denver and Rio Grande southbound train. He remembered not to call her “Duchess,” even though she was once more dressed as a woman rather than a boy.

  Morgan had been forced to change his mind about Sarah’s disguise when the hotel proprietor had come up to their room that morning.

  “Look, I don’t know what kind of game you two are playing, arrivin’ here with her dressed like a boy, then havin’ her showin’ up at the saloon all gussied up,” he’d said, eyeing Sarah with beetling brows, “but I do try t’ run an honest establishment here. A word t’ the wise, though, that pack o’ men loiterin’ outside is expectin’ t’ see Fifi, not some boy.”

  The proprietor’s information had led to Sarah’s hasty purchase of a serviceable calico skirt and white waist from his wife, for the low-cut gold gown was obviously unsuited to travel.

  The adoring half-dozen men who had shown up at the hotel for one last glimpse of “Fifi” had escorted Sarah and Morgan all the way down the dusty street to the train station, and were now waving goodbye from the station platform. Fortunately, all of them were headed north, rather than south, so none had followed Sarah and Morgan onto the train.

  “You’re leaving behind a trail of broken hearts,” Morgan growled as he joined Sarah on the seat and saw her waving back to the men. He realized he sounded mean as a javelina with a sore tusk, but he was stiff and sore from sleeping on the hay in an empty stall between Rio and Trafalgar at the livery.

  He saw her arch a brow at him as the seats began to fill up around them.

  “You’re in a rather nasty mood for someone who did what you did last night after you left me,” she hissed at him in an undertone. “Isn’t that supposed to make a man cheerful?”

  Morgan made no comment. He knew she thought he’d gone back to the saloon to avail himself of Dixie’s services, and he wasn’t about to tell her he hadn’t. He couldn’t even explain to himself why going to seek out the saloon girl to finish what he and Sarah had begun had held no appeal for him. Aching with unsatisfied desire for the woman who now sat next to him, he’d tossed and turned on the hay for hours before falling asleep, only to be tortured by dreams in which he made love to Sarah again and again.

  A nattily dressed man carrying a silver-topped cane sat down on the seat across the aisle from them, tipping his hat at Sarah as he did so. As the locomotive whistled and began to pull out of the station, Morgan acknowledged him with a polite nod, then turned back to looking past the duchess out the soot-specked window. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

  “Are you certain one of us shouldn’t have ridden back with the horses?” Sarah asked as Castle Rock began to recede into the distance. “I know you said Trafalgar’s leg seemed better this morning, and she certainly wasn’t limping as badly, but I just feel nervous having her in that open cattle car, with no one there if she becomes frightened.”

  “Sarah, we’ve been over this a half-dozen times already, and there’s no way I can get into that car while the train’s movin’ anyway,” he said. “She’ll be fine, just like she was when she rode to Den
ver. She’s tied right next to the packhorse and she’ll be able to scent Rio in the car ahead of her, so she won’t be scared. We can check on her every time the train makes a stop.”

  Sarah looked as if she might give further argument, but just then the nattily dressed gent on the seat opposite them spoke up.

  “Excuse me,” he said in an impeccable British accent, leaning into the aisle and looking past Morgan to Sarah, “but I couldn’t help hearing that I was traveling with a fellow countryman—ahem!—countrywoman,” he corrected himself. “Forgive me for being so bold, madam, but your voice makes me homesick for my native country. Allow me to introduce myself. John Sharpton of London—Southwark, to be exact.”

  “Mr. Sharpton, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Sarah said with a smile before Morgan could quell her friendliness with a meaningful glance. “I am Sarah—” she paused uncertainly for a moment, then went on after a quick glance at Morgan “—Sarah Faulkner, and this is my husband, Jacob Faulkner.”

  Morgan, relieved that Sarah had remembered to use the alias and had not revealed her true identity as a duchess, gave Sharpton no more than a perfunctory imitation of a smile, but it didn’t discourage the dandy.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner, it’s a pleasure indeed,” replied Sharpton, leaning on his silver-topped cane. “And where is your home in England, madam, if I may inquire? You are obviously a gentlewoman, but do I detect Herefordshire in your voice?”

  “You do indeed, sir,” Sarah replied. “The Malvern Hills, actually.”

  “And what brings a lady of Herefordshire to the wilds of Colorado, if I may continue to be so bold?”

  Sarah looked down and smiled demurely, as if slightly embarrassed, then, fluttering her lashes, she favored Morgan with a look so full of adoration that Morgan’s heart would have done flip-flops—if he hadn’t known she was only acting. “Why, a wife’s place is with her husband, is it not, so I suppose one could say love brought me to America. We have been in Colorado for a time, and now we are returning to Texas,” she said. “And now it is my turn to ask. What brings you from England, Mr. Sharpton?”

  “I’m a real estate speculator, my dear madam. I’m returning from Denver, having purchased an acre in what promises to be the premier business district of that up-and-coming city one day. As well, I own property all over Texas, which should be of interest to you, Mr. Faulkner. Are you in the market for some prime land around Austin, sir?”

  “No, can’t say as I am,” Morgan replied, making his voice purposely curt. Sarah could talk to the dandy if she wanted, but the topic of Texas real estate was a sore one with him. He’d had prime ranch land of his own once, the Flying C, and he’d had to leave it behind, knowing that scalawag would take it.

  “Ah, then you must already possess your little slice of heaven,” Sharpton concluded, “so I won’t trouble you, sir. I trust you have no objections, however, to my exchanging reminiscences about England with your missus? It’s so rare one finds a fellow countryman—countrywoman—” he corrected himself again with an ingratiating smile, “in this wonderful United States of yours.”

  “No, I don’t mind,” Morgan muttered, and even got up and changed places with Sarah so that she could talk to Sharpton without having to talk past him. It wouldn’t hurt for Sarah to have something to distract her from the swaying, lurching ride. They might reach the end of the line at Pueblo by midmorning tomorrow if all went well, but it was apt to be a hell of a long day. As for him, he was going to try to get some shut-eye.

  The train stopped at Palmer Lake a couple of hours later, and Morgan sent Sarah, accompanied by the loquacious John Sharpton, into the station café to get something to eat while he went to check on the horses.

  The thoroughbred mare was still jumpy and wide-eyed from the earsplitting train whistle that had sounded when the locomotive had pulled in to the station, but other than that, it looked as if Trafalgar was surviving the trip as well as his stallion and the packhorse were. He gave Rio a friendly pat before he left, then strode into the café.

  The food was just as miserable as he’d feared. Sarah and Sharpton had just been served bowls of a thick, greasy-looking stew, and there was another bowl waiting for him.

  “What is it?” he asked as he sat down next to Sarah.

  “Chicken stew, I’m told,” Sarah said, taking a wary bite with a bent tin spoon.

  Morgan figured she’d digest her meal better if he didn’t tell her the thin slivers of meat in the broth were probably prairie dog. He washed his first bite down with his coffee and found it as watered-down as the stew was greasy. By some miracle, Sarah had been able to order tea and she gamely pronounced it satisfactory. They were still eating when the train whistle sounded, but no one regretted leaving the sorry meal behind.

  When they were once more settled on the train and it was screeching its way out of Palmer Lake, Morgan was surprised to see Sharpton pull out a deck of cards.

  “Care for a game to pass the time?” he inquired. “We could probably interest those gents who just got on at our last stop, too, if you’re so inclined—with Mrs. Faulkner’s kind permission, of course...”

  “Why, I have no objections if my husband wishes to pass the time playing cards,” Sarah said with suspicious sweetness. Only Morgan saw the warning look she cast him.

  “Why, thank you, sweetheart,” he drawled, then, turning back to Sharpton, asked, “You play poker?” He imagined he could learn some English game if that was what the Englishman had in mind, but he could empty this tenderfoot’s pockets so much faster playing poker. The prospect of fleecing this Englishman at cards—as well as the other fellows who’d gotten on at the last stop—made the rest of the day’s journey suddenly tolerable.

  “I’m acquainted with that American game, yes,” said Sharpton with a genial nod. “Shall we say a dollar a hand?”

  “I reckon that’d be fine,” Morgan drawled. “Why don’t you go ahead and ask those other gents?”

  While Sharpton went forward to invite the other men to join them, Morgan flashed a grin at Sarah. “Don’t worry, I won’t lose against this tenderfoot,” he whispered. “And I promise I’ll leave your ‘fellow countryman’ his shirt.”

  “See that you do,” she commanded him in a tart tone. “And remember, ‘pride goeth before a fall.’”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He couldn’t wait to show her that his confidence had not been in vain. He didn’t know a lot of things, but he did know poker.

  Sharpton was beckoning to him to come forward.

  “It’s all arranged, Mr. Faulkner. These fellows would be pleased to join us.”

  Morgan rose from his seat, then bent over to Sarah. “A kiss for luck, sweetheart?” Morgan said, knowing the duchess, in her guise as his wife, would not be able to refuse, though giving him a kiss while believing he had spent the night in the arms of a saloon whore would be the last thing she’d want to do.

  She closed her eyes and lifted her lips, puckering slightly, and her lips were cool, but he would not let her get by with a perfunctory peck. As soon as his mouth touched hers, he deepened the kiss, caressing her lips slowly and thoughtfully with his, tracing their soft fullness with his tongue. For a moment he forgot all about the card game, or the men waiting to be fleeced, and he sensed by the soft sigh that escaped her she had forgotten her resentment, too.

  A hoot from where the other men waited for him brought him back to the present.

  “Mr. Faulkner, you didn’t tell me you were on your honeymoon,” John Sharpton teased as Morgan sat down to join them.

  “We’re not,” Morgan said with perfect honesty, grinning, then added in a tone loud enough to carry to the duchess, “What can I say, gentlemen? I’m a lucky man to have a wife as beautiful as my Sarah, aren’t I?” He chuckled as he dared a glance back and caught a glimpse of the duchess’s dazed face.

  By the time they pulled in to Fountain, a little wide spot in the road past Colorado Springs, Morgan’s hopes had more than been fulfilled. He’d let
three of the other men win a couple of hands, and then he’d casually suggested raising the stakes to five dollars a hand. Now the pocket in which he kept their money was fatter by fifty dollars than when the game had started, for Sharpton had been no better a poker player than Morgan had guessed he would be, and the other men had been no match for Morgan’s skill, either. And to make matters even more agreeable, it looked as if none of them were going to be sore losers, either.

  “Mr. Faulkner, I bow to your superior skill,” Sharpton said as he arose. “I’ve enjoyed myself tremendously, but now it is time to bid you and your delightful English rose goodbye.”

  “You aren’t leaving?” Morgan said. He’d assumed the Englishman was traveling on to Pueblo, just as the rest of them were. “Why would you want to stop in a place like this?” he added, gesturing out the window. It didn’t look as if there was much to the town of Fountain but the train station itself.

  “Ah, but my business partner is meeting me here—he lives in these parts, you see.”

  “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Sharpton,” Morgan said, extending his hand. He’d grown to genuinely like the dapper little Englishman.

  Sharpton shook his hand, then, moving into the aisle, murmured, “Mrs. Faulkner, it’s been my pleasure encountering you and your good husband on the train,” before taking her hand in his and kissing it.

  While Morgan was enjoying the bemusement playing over the duchess’s face at this courtly gesture, Sharpton clapped him on the back with bluff bonhomie. “Mr. Faulkner, you are indeed a lucky man.” Then he was moving down the aisle toward the door of the passenger car.

  “What a delightful fellow,” commented Sarah, who had put on her spectacles and was watching through the window as Sharpton descended the steps onto the station platform.

  “A durn good loser, too. Wait’ll I tell you how much...”

  Morgan’s voice trailed off as he saw a bearded, roughlooking man hail Sharpton from the open grassy area next to the train station. The man was mounted on one rangy horse and leading another, already saddled.