by Laurie Grant
His lips curved underneath her fingers. “All right, Duchess, I’ll tell them we’ll stay,” he said, starting to rise, but she caught at both sides of his still-unbuttoned trouser fly.
“Don’t go, not yet, Morgan...I don’t think we’ve properly said good-morning,” she breathed, letting his shirt fall away from her breasts.
He closed his eyes. “But you said...just this one night....”
She rose to her knees, facing him. “We’ve just been given another week, Morgan. Let’s not waste it, shall we? While we’re here with the Apaches, let us belong only to each other.” Surely a week was long enough to bind him to her forever!
He grinned down at her. “Duchess, your wish is my command,” he murmured just before he lowered his mouth to hers.
“What do you mean, she was here?” the man demanded of the same hotel manager who’d been dazzled by the French Nightingale. “Are you saying she is not here anymore?”
“That’s right, she’s been gone for...I‘see, three days now. She was only here for the one night, Mam’selle Fifi was, but she put on quite a show down at the Arkansas River Saloon. You another Frenchie, like her? Ya talk jes’ like she does,” the manager babbled on inanely, until the man who’d been hunting Sarah Challoner wanted to reach across the polished pine counter and choke him.
“I am her husband, that is who I am, you fool, and the man who is with her has stolen my wife,” the would-be assassin lied, lacing his voice with righteous indignation. “Would you mind telling me where she and her, ah, paramour went from here?”
The man scratched his chin for a moment, then said, “Naw, I wouldn’t mind, since she’s yore wife—not iffen I knew, that is. But I don’t. They waited for the mercantile to open, then they lit out. Appearances shore can be deceivin’, cain’t they? Why, she an’ her mister—ahem—the man she was with, they seemed like right nice folks. I’m shore sorry t‘hear ya missed catchin’ her, mister.”
Not as sorry as he was, certainement! He’d learned about Sarah’s masquerading as “Fifi” when he’d reached Castle Rock early yesterday morning, as well as the fact that her highbred mare had been lame when they’d arrived there. He’d managed to board the nine-o’clock train south just minutes later, hoping that the mare’s lameness would keep them here, at the railroad’s terminus, long enough for him to catch up.
Ah well, there was no use crying over spilled milk, as the Americans said. He would merely have to keep trailing them. Sooner or later they were bound to make a mistake, and if he did not overtake them on the way to Santa Fe, he would trap them there. He could still make her death look like a random killing by an unknown murderer, as long as he was careful.
As hard as he rode in his effort to catch up, however, he caught no sight of his quarry. Even when he struck the Santa Fe Trail, where trading traffic was much more frequent, he could find no one who had seen the two, or their distinctive horses. One grizzled old mule skinner even opined that Apaches had probably gotten them.
Perhaps. But how would he know? The assassin did not like loose ends. He wanted to be certain that Sarah Challoner was dead before he went home to tell her sister that she had inherited the title.
At last he decided it would be best to go on to Santa Fe and wait for Sarah to appear. If she did not show up within a month, he would write to Malvern Hall and tell Kathryn Challoner he was making inquiries, but that her sister was feared dead from an Indian attack suffered when she eloped into the wild country with her bodyguard.
Santa Fe lay ahead, a city nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It was time to say goodbye to the four Apache men who had ridden with them all the way from their stronghold in the mountains on the Colorado-New Mexico border.
“Naiche, I don’t know how to thank you and these other men enough,” Sarah said with a sigh of genuine regret. “You’ve been so good to us.” Their very presence had often deterred trouble, she knew, that might have come from outlaws or other Indians lurking in the rock formations that sometimes flanked the trail. Sometimes, when their scout had reported the approach of parties of “bluecoats” or convoys of freight wagons that might have fired on the Apaches, they would melt into the surrounding countryside, but they always reappeared soon afterward.
Once Morgan had finished telling them what she had said, Sarah was surprised to see Naiche grin, dismount and kiss her hand in a manner that would have done credit to a royal prince.
“Calhoun teaches me this,” he said in passable English, and laughed at her expression of delight.
Morgan added in an amused drawl, “He asked me what a warrior in your country would do to say goodbye to you.”
Naiche said something else to Morgan, then looked back at Sarah, still grinning.
“He was speaking of the foal that will be born to your tall mare. It will be spotted like Rio, he says, but tall and fleet like Mare-With-Big-Name. He wishes he could see it someday.”
Sarah was startled, having scarcely thought about Morgan’s stallion mating with Trafalgar since the day it had happened. So Trafalgar was in foal to Rio....
She hesitated, not knowing what to say. Unless things worked out between her and Morgan, there was no way she could make such a promise.
“Tell Naiche,” she said to Morgan, “that it would make my heart glad to see him again and show him the foal, but I will be thousands of miles across the ocean, and will have no way to bring that about.” Her voice was neutral, giving no clue, she hoped, of the way her heart was breaking. Thus far she had been unable to persuade Morgan he had a future with her, and there would be nothing left for her, once she had met with Thierry in Santa Fe, but to return to England.
“It makes Naiche’s heart sad, too, to know that we will be so far away.”
“We?” she said, a wild hope humming to life within her breast.
His next words dashed that hope before it was fully formed. “I...I let him believe that I was going also,” he said with a shrug. He looked away. “I didn’t try to explain the situation, Duchess. It’s too complicated, and besides, then we would have to admit we were never married to start with.... He said he is glad that I will be out of the bluecoats’ reach,” he added with a bitter twist to his mouth.
She looked away, too, feeling tears stinging her eyes. “Tell him we enjoyed their company on the trail, and will count them as friends always.”
After Morgan did so, Naiche held a hand upright in farewell. Then he gave a hoarse cry to the other three. The Apaches wheeled their ponies, and soon they were lost in a cloud of dust as they galloped back up the Santa Fe Trail toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“Well, Duchess?” Morgan prompted after the Apaches were out of sight. He gestured to the city that lay ahead, just visible over a grove of piñon pines. “I reckon we oughta hurry on into Santa Fe and find your dashing Frenchman,” he drawled with a lightness he was far from feeling. He felt like a man proposing to hurry his own walk up the stairs to the gallows, where a noose waited just for him.
He and Sarah hadn’t made love since leaving the Apache encampment, for there had been no privacy while they traveled. And now the thought of handing Sarah over to this faceless Frenchman, knowing that she would belong to this man, that she would be sharing his bed, receiving his amorous caresses and inevitably, someday, bearing his children, stabbed his heart like a bowie knife. The very thought of what—who—he was about to give up was enough to make Morgan want to go off somewhere lonesome and, like a wolf, howl his pain at the moon.
It had to be done, though. He’d gone over it and over it in his mind, worrying the idea like that same wolf chewing the last bone that stood between him and starvation. There was just no way around it. He had to give her up, not because he didn’t love her enough, but because he did love her, and because he loved her, he had to want what was best for her. And Morgan Calhoun was about the farthest thing from what was best for her that he could possibly imagine.
“Morgan, please,” Sarah said, reaching ou
t to grasp his wrist as he started to urge Rio onward, her voice one of entreaty that was agonizing to his self-control, “can’t we talk about this? How many ways can I tell you that I love you? I can’t marry Thierry de Châtellerault now. I don’t love him—I didn’t know what love was until I began to love you!”
He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t let himself see the love shining in her eyes, so he closed his and rubbed his knuckles wearily over them. “Sarah, it’s not unusual for a woman to feel that way....” He hesitated, wanting to find the right words, and there were no right words. “That is, a lady who gives herself to a man ..for the first time...well, she usually fancies she’s in love with that man ..at least for a while But that doesn’t mean he’s the man she should marry up with, to spend her life with.”
“Morgan! Are you saying you don’t love me? That what we shared was just...passion? Lust?” Her voice thrummed with disbelief and pain.
The knife twisted deeper into his own heart. He took off his hat and raked his hand through his hair. He knew what he ought to say—Yeah, Duchess, that’s all it was. I’m a normal, healthy man and I wanted you, but don’t try to fool yourself that there’s any happily-ever-after waiting for us But he couldn’t say it.
Instead, he turned to her, letting his eyes meet hers. “No, Duchess, I can’t lie about it, not to you, not to myself—though you’d be better off if I did. I love you, all right, and that’s forever. I’ll still love you when I take my last breath. I have nothing to give you, Duchess, but love, and it ain’t en—”
“Yes, it is enough, Morgan!” she cried, her voice breaking at the end. “If we love one another, we’ll find a way—”
“No, we won’t, Duchess, and that’s the end of it,” he said in a voice that, for all its quiet, brooked no argument. “I won’t let you follow me on the outlaw trail, you understand?” Then, hearing her start to sob, he softened his voice and reached across the distance between the two horses to take hold of her hand. “It’s because I love you and always will that I want you to be safe and happy, Sarah, not on the run with me, with the fear of me bein’ caught makin’ you old before your time. I won’t do that, and that’s final.”
She jerked her face away from him and was silent for a long moment. “Very well, Morgan, we’ll speak no more of it.”
Her chill, precise voice was like the drumroll that was played right before they sprang the trapdoor on the gallows, dropping the man into hell.
“Fine,” he managed to say. “Now suppose you tell me just what the plans are for meetin’ up with your Frenchman.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“When we made the plan to meet in Santa Fe, we didn’t know, of course, what hotels were available there,” Sarah said as they urged their horses forward. “So Thierry, knowing he would likely arrive before I, hit upon the idea of leaving a message at the local constable’s office, a message saying where he was staying. If I arrived and found no message, I was to leave one saying where I was staying, you see?”
He saw. “So we need to find the local calaboose. The jail—the sheriff’s office,” he added when Sarah looked confused at the term.
“Oh, right.” She squared her shoulders. “Before we go there, I shall want to secure a pair of rooms—and stabling for the horses. And after we see if Thierry has left a message, I need to visit a telegraph office.”
“And look up your Frenchman after that?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Not today, I’m afraid. It’s already noon By the time we have finished our errands, it will be much too late.”
He stared at her, suspecting her motives, suspecting the feeling of relief, of reprieve, that had flooded his soul. “Why are you dallyin’, Duchess? If it’s because you think one more night will make a difference in what I said—”
She uttered a mirthless little laugh. “No, it’s nothing like that, I assure you. You’ve quite convinced me that your mind is made up. Didn’t you notice I said rooms, not room? Naturally, I shall want to bathe away the dust of the road and change my clothes,” she said with a gesture toward the dusty, travel-worn masculine attire she still wore. “I shouldn’t want to present myself to my fiancé dressed like this. I shall wait until morning, when I have been refreshed by a good night’s sleep.”
“Naturally,” he echoed, her casual use of the word fiancé eating like acid into his heart. If only his suspicions had been right! Instead, she wanted to delay so she would look beautiful for her damned Frenchman. Damn it, if she only knew how beautiful she had looked to him on the trail, even dusty and wearing men’s clothes! The thought of being with her for another full day was exquisite torture, yet he would not have forgone it at the cost of his salvation.
“Well, if you’re determined t’ get gussied up for your fancy Frenchman,” he drawled, “surely you aren’t plannin’ on puttin’ on that wrinkled gold dress again, or that plain ol’ skirt an’ blouse? I think we ought t’ go shoppin’ an’ see if we can’t pick you up some eye-poppin’ ready-made dress to wear. And I reckon you won’t have your spectacles on for that meetin’, will you?” His mocking words rang in his ears like counterfeit pennies.
She stared at him, and Morgan caught a glimpse of a suspicious brightness in her eyes. “What a fine idea, Morgan,” she said in a brittle voice. “Indeed, I think I would like a new gown, if you think Santa Fe affords such a luxury.”
“What were you sayin’ about a telegraph office?”
She looked amused. “Have you forgotten our arrangement, Morgan? You took on this job with the understanding that I owed you four thousand pounds—I forget what that amounted to in dollars—at the end of the journey. I have to arrange a transfer of funds from the bank in New York City, the one I set up a relationship with when I arrived in the States. We’ll have them send the money to the bank in Santa Fe.”
The idea of being paid such a vast sum, which had pleased him initially, held no charm for him now. In fact, he hated the thought of it.
“Naw, forget that, Duchess. I don’t want your money.”
She look surprised, even touched. “But you’ve earned it, Morgan Calhoun, and this duchess pays her debts—that’s final,” she said with an ironic quirk to her brow as she repeated his own words.
He decided to argue no further He’d just have to find a way to give her back her money without her knowing about it.
They threaded their way up the narrow, oxcart-crowded streets, and he could tell that Sarah was charmed by the quaint old Spanish-American town. She exclaimed over its adobe buildings, with their ristras of drying peppers hanging from exposed rafters, and the Indians and Mexicans selling their wares. She didn’t even seem shocked at hearing the colorful curses the mule skinners leveled at the obstinate beasts pulling their wagons.
The trail ended in the plaza, at one end of which lay the long adobe building that was the historic Palace of the Governors. The shenff’s office and jail lay diagonally across the square from it.
“I was here in Santa Fe last spring,” Morgan told her, “and I stayed overnight in a little posada, an inn, around the corner. It had a livery right next to it. You want to stay there?”
Sarah inclined her head. “Lead on, Macduff,” she said with a sardonic curve to her mouth.
Once they had settled the horses and paid for their rooms, they returned to the plaza.
“I’ll wait over yonder,” Morgan told her, indicating the side of the square adjacent to the palace side, but farthest from the jail, “where the sheriff won’t see me. You go ahead on in and inquire,” he added, pointing at the jail, barely visible through the low-hanging boughs of shady cottonwoods.
Her mouth formed an O as the realization dawned in her magnified blue eyes. “You think there might be a Wanted poster with your likeness on it in the jail office?”
He nodded. “It’s likely, Duchess. But we won’t run into any problems if I wait over here.”
He waited until she’d gone inside, then went over to where an old Indian sat in the shade of one of the
trees. Morgan figured Sarah would be safe enough for a few minutes, especially in the presence of a lawman. The Indian had spread out silver jewelry on a blanket in front of him. Morgan still had some coins jingling in his pocket, and he had a notion about buying something for Sarah. Something to remember him by.
As Calhoun and Sarah stood talking, one of the serapedraped men dozing under the trees raised his sombrero from over his face just enough so that he could see the two, yet not reveal his decidedly un-Latin features.
So they had come. He had been clever to wait here in the plaza, where every traveler to Santa Fe came sooner or later. His fingers tightened around the long-barreled pistol whose bulge in his white cotton trousers was concealed by the colorful serape. For a moment he considered whipping the pistol out and shooting each of them in the back as they walked their separate ways, but only for a moment. He would enjoy watching them fall, dying, the blood drenching the backs of their shirts, and hearing the screams of the others who frequented the plaza in the noonday sun, but it was just too risky to shoot them with the blue-coated soldiers lounging under the overhanging roof of the palace porch nearby.
He had waited this long—he could stand to wait just a little bit longer. It would be enjoyable to just watch and see what happened after Sarah identified herself at the jail. The duchess—now nothing better than a common putain—and her Texan lover were about to get a big surprise. Then all he had to do was wait until Sarah sought him out in his hotel room.
He remained in his place, watching surreptitiously as Calhoun strode over to the sleepy-eyed Indian selling jewelry nearby. After a few minutes’ perusal and some good-natured haggling, he saw Calhoun purchase a necklace of chased silver with interspersed nuggets of turquoise.
The assassin’s lips curved upward as he slid the sombrero back over his face. He wondered if Calhoun would have time to give the present to his whore before the trap was sprung.
