The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  “Excuse me,” Sarah said, hoping her voice alone would be sufficient to wake the man who sat in the chair behind the cluttered desk, his head tipped back, snoring. Surely he was the man she sought, for he wore a tin star on his tobacco-flecked shirt.

  It was not sufficient The snoring continued unabated, but she did succeed in gaining the attention of another man, who lounged in a chair tipped against the wall, a cigar in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other.

  He sat up with a thump, then stood, narrowing his eyes in the gloom to study her.

  “Ma‘am? You wantin’ the sheriff? You’ll have to talk louder’n that—shout, even. Or reach over and shake him a little. Go on, you won’t hurt him,” he urged.

  Sarah stared at the man who had spoken, then back at the man he had called the sheriff. Just then the sheriff snorted in his sleep, startling her. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,” she demurred. “Surely there’s some other way to wake him?” Sarah thought the other man seemed to be studying her and listening to her voice with intense concentration, but perhaps it was only the odd combination of a woman wearing men’s clothes and speaking in an English accent.

  The other man grinned “Yes, ma’am, there is another way.” Stepping up behind the slumbering sheriff, he cupped his hands around one of the man’s ears and shouted, “Andy1 There’s a lady here to speak to ya!”

  The sheriff came awake with flailing limbs and widened eyes, and in his efforts to regain his balance, fell sideways off his chair, much to the amusement of the man standing in back of him.

  She was sure it would only further the sherift’s embarrassment if she shared in the other man’s amusement, so she forced the smile from her face and looked around the interior of the jail while the sheriff struggled to his feet.

  One side of the square, not overly large room was occupied by cells—three of them in all. The rest of the floor space was taken up by the sheriff’s desk and a couple of extra chairs—one of which the other man had been sitting in before she had spoken. A rack of rifles hung on the wall nearest the door. The other wall was plastered with Wanted posters.

  Since she was still wearing her spectacles, it took her no time at all to find Morgan’s picture among the gallery of assorted rogues and evildoers, for it held pride of place in the center

  The picture was crudely drawn, but Sarah could nevertheless tell who it depicted even without the words written in bold type beneath. “Wanted: Morgan Calhoun,” it read, “for Army Payroll Robbery in Texas, and Assorted Robberies of Stagecoaches and Individuals across the Southwest.” There was more in smaller type beneath the first sentence, but Sarah would have had to go closer to read it, and she did not want to appear to be interested in any particular poster, especially now that the sheriff had succeeded in standing up and was goggling at her in amazement.

  “Kin I help you, ma’am?” he said, his face dubious as he stared at her denim trousers as if he had never seen such a garment before.

  “Yes, I hope so,” said Sarah, extending her hand and giving him the sort of friendly, open smile that seemed to move mountains in America. “I’m Sarah Challoner, Duchess of Malvern—from England, you see. Please pardon my appearance, but I’ve been traveling overland, and it seemed more sensible to wear suitable clothes....”

  The sheriff blinked, then a light dawned in his red-rimmed eyes. “You’re her, the duchess? Yes, ma‘am, we shorely was expectin’ you, wasn’t we, Stoner?” He took her hand and shook it with enthusiasm. “M‘name’s Andrew McElroy, ma’am.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. McElroy,” Sarah murmured, watching the other man as he stepped forward, too, his hand extended. She had seen irritation flash across the other man’s eyes for the briefest of seconds when McElroy had agreed they were expecting her, and then a look was passed between the two men. A frisson of alarm passed down her spine, but then both men were smiling broadly as she shook hands with the second man.

  “Jackson Stoner, ma’am.” He was also wearing a badge, Sarah noticed, but it seemed slightly different from the sheriff’s badge. Perhaps he was a deputy? He said nothing to enlighten her.

  “Ah...if you’re expecting me, does this mean you have a message for me?” she prompted, eager to get out of the place. “A message from a Frenchman, Comte Thierry de Châtellerault?”

  “Yes, ma’am—”

  “You call her ‘your grace,’ Andy,” the other man prompted.

  “Ahem! Your grace, I meant to say!” the sheriff amended. “I shorely do have a message from the count. He—he wrote you a letter,” he said, bending over to rummage in the center drawer of his desk, which Sarah could see was cluttered with papers, balls of string and plugs of chewing tobacco. “Here it is,” he said triumphantly, holding out a folded sheet of paper. “But he told me where he was staym’. He says he’ll be waitin’ for ya in his rooms at the Exchange Hotel, just a short walk from here, yore grace. I understand yore t’ be wed?”

  Sarah nodded, taking the paper and breaking the blob of sealing wax on the back. She unfolded it and read the words written in Thierry’s familiar, ornate script.

  My darling, if you are reading this, you have come at last! How happy I will be to greet you, and to kiss you and hold you in my arms as my wife! I have arranged all for our wedding. I hope you have managed to reconcile your uncle, the estimable Lord Frederick, to the match, but no matter if you have not. We shall know a lifetime of bliss, ma duchesse, ma comtesse A thousand kisses until I see you.

  Thierry, Comte de Châtellerault.

  Once, his flowery written lovemaking would have thrilled her, but now she only felt sad to know that she was going to have to disappoint this man who had come so far to marry her. She wondered how he would take it. Would Thierry fly into a verbose fit of French despair, or fall into a sullen pout? And she wondered what he would say when she informed him that she suspected her uncle of trying to have her assassinated. Would his sense of chivalry come to the fore, making him insist on escorting her safely back to England? Lord, what an uncomfortable sea voyage that would be! But if she were unable to persuade Morgan to give up his foolish sacrifice of their love, what other choice would she have but to go home?

  Looking up, she saw that Jackson Stoner was staring at her with narrowed, speculative eyes. She guessed he had been studying her the entire time she had been reading. Wanting to avoid meeting his gaze, she felt her eyes being drawn back to Morgan’s Wanted poster, but she dared not look at it.

  “Well, ma’am, the Exchange shorely is a fine place,” McElroy was saying. “Why, it’s been here as long as Santa Fe’s been a town, though it’s been called other names. Might I offer to escort ya there?”

  “Thank you, Sheriff, but no, I do not plan to go there directly. I—I have some business to take care of before I can join the count. But I’ll find it, never fear.” She tucked the letter in her shirt pocket. “Mr. McElroy, I wonder if you could first direct me to a telegraph office?”

  “Why, there’s one just about five minutes’ walk from here. You just go down this street, make a right and walk straight on until you see the sign.”

  “That sounds easy enough. Thank you both, gentlemen,” she said, turning to go.

  “Just a moment, your grace,” called Stoner, striding forward. “Forgive my curiosity, but surely you didn’t come this far all alone? Surely a lady like yourself—a duchess—has servants with her? Armed men?”

  She forced herself to smile. In a moment she would be away from here, away from this man’s probing gaze. Should she tell Morgan how nervous he had made her? She’d decide that later. For now she had to frame a suitable reply that would not make Jackson Stoner suspicious.

  “Of course I have an entourage, Mr. Stoner,” she said, relieved that Morgan had had the foresight to wait where they could not see him. “But I’m afraid I have become very independent in the course of the journey. Most unduchesslike, I know,” she said with a flirtatious laugh. “I’ve sent them to arrange stabling for our horses and a
place where I can refresh myself before going to meet my fiancé. You can imagine I would not want to greet him looking like this, can you not?”

  “I understand, ma’am,” Stoner said, apparently satisfied. “My felicitations to you and your fiance.”

  Sarah felt his eyes on her all the way out the door. Crossing the plaza, she caught sight of Morgan standing in the shade of a cottonwood tree.

  “You find out what you were hopin’ to in there, Duchess?” Morgan asked as she drew near.

  She nodded. “Thierry is staying at a hotel called the Exchange,” she said, forgetting all about Jackson Stoner as she wondered how she was ever going to learn to live without this man standing in front of her. She drank in the sight of his lean, weather-bronzed features. His eyes looked even greener in the hot New Mexican sunlight.

  She thought about the night ahead. Once she had bathed, she was going to go to him, still damp and smelling of soap, and make love to him as if her life depended on it Her happiness did, at any rate. And if she couldn’t change his mind, then she would at least have the memory of one more night with Morgan Calhoun to treasure.

  “Let’s take care of the errands, shall we?” she said. “The sheriff was kind enough to inform me where we might find a telegraph office ”

  “Okay. But Duchess.. I—I bought you somethin’ while I was waiting,” he said, holding out a closed hand, fingers downward.

  Surprised, she held out her hand, too, staring as he opened his fingers and a cool coil of silver and turquoise untwined into her open palm.

  “I know you have plenty of jewelry that’s worth a lot more,” he said, his usual smooth drawl curiously hesitant and shy, “but I hope you like it...an’ that your husband-to-be doesn’t object t’you havin’ a gift from me.”

  She wanted to cry, wanted to throw her arms around Morgan and kiss him, right here in the middle of the plaza, in spite of all the people strolling around it and lounging in the sun and shade. But she couldn’t just now—not after she had let him think her resigned to their parting.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Oh, Morgan, thank you! And I don’t give a fig what Thierry thinks!” Because I’m not marrying him, she wanted to shout. If I can’t have you I shall marry no one. “Please, help me put it on?”

  She turned, and shivered as she felt the cool metal links slide down around her neck as he fastened the clasp in the back.

  “And there’s something else I think you should have,” he said, leaning over and pulling his derringer out of his right boot. “It’ll fit in your reticule.”

  She took the tiny pistol from him, surprised. “But Morgan, why? And what will you do without it?”

  He shrugged. “Aw, I can get another some time, Duchess. But now that I taught you how to shoot, you ought to keep in practice. And your Frenchman might not want me escortin’ y’all to the coast, so I thought you ought to have it.”

  “But of course you shall escort us,” she said firmly. “Thierry will respect my wishes, I’m sure. But thank you, Morgan,” she added as she tucked the derringer into her reticule. “I shall treasure it always, just because it was yours.”

  They went in the direction McElroy had specified, but just after they turned the corner, they came to a shop called Manuela’s Dresses and Alterations. Ah, the very sort of place she had been looking for! She pondered going in now or after they had been to the telegraph office, and decided she wanted to look for a dress first.

  “Good day. Do you have anything in the color turquoise?” she asked the little Mexican woman who sat hemming a skirt. “I thought it would be nice to have a dress to go with this necklace,” she said, picking up a portion of it from her neck with a finger so that the woman could see it.

  “Ah, that is Victorio’s work, sí? He sells necklaces and rings and hair combs in the plaza?”

  Morgan, beside her, nodded in affirmation.

  “No, señora,” the woman said, her large brown eyes sorrowful “Regretfully, I do not think I have a dress in that color, but I could have one ready in two days’ time.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid that won’t do. We expect to be gone by then,” Sarah said, disappointed.

  “Perhaps I can interest you in something in a different color—ah’ But wait!” the proprietress exclaimed, brightening “I have just thought of a dress I made for a gringa—an Anglo lady, you understand—that is the very shade you require. It weel even feet you, with a little sewing....” She glided behind a doorway covered by a Mexican blanket.

  “But what of the Anglo lady?” Sarah called after her.

  The woman was back in a moment, her brown face creased with smiles as she held out a gown in the very same hue as the turquoise nuggets in Sarah’s necklace.

  “It ees perfecto, sí? And do not worry about the other woman. She ees late to peek it up, you understand? I shall make her another before she comes again.”

  Sarah reached out and touched the gown, glorying in its rich hue. “I love it‘” she cried. “Such a vivid hue’ Most unduchesslike,” she added, shooting Morgan a mischievous look. “But do you think this will fit me?” she asked the Mexican woman. “It looks a bit large in the bodice.”

  “Ah, but I can fix that, if you will but try it on first, and then come back in an hour or two. Come this way, señora,” she said, motioning toward the back room she had gone into a moment ago. “I weel keep your wife but a few minutes, señor,” she called over her shoulder to Morgan, who was leaning against the door.

  “He’s not—” Sarah began, then shut her mouth It was none of the dressmaker’s business, after all. “That is...he’s very patient—he won’t mind waiting.”

  A half hour later Morgan and Sarah emerged from the shop and continued on their way to the telegraph office, unaware that they were being followed.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Standing next to Morgan in the telegraph office, Sarah handed back the piece of paper the telegrapher had provided, now inscribed with her instructions to the Eastern bank. “I’d like this message sent to this bank in New York, as I’ve indicated on the top line,” she told the telegraph operator.

  Sarah heard the door to the street open behind them, and saw the operator look up at the new customer, but she didn’t turn. She wanted to make sure he understood the importance of sending the telegram immediately.

  “Yes, madam, right away. I—” The telegrapher had paled and was staring at Morgan. Good lord, had the man recognized him? Then she looked behind Morgan and saw Jackson Stoner holding a gun at Morgan’s back.

  “Just raise your hands nice and easy, Calhoun,” he murmured. “We wouldn’t want any trouble, would we?”

  Horrified, Sarah grabbed for the pistol still tucked into her waistband, only to hear another voice coming from the doorway to the back room of the office.

  Andrew McElroy stood there, his rifle aimed right at her. “Now, ma‘am, don’t do nothin’ foohsh,” he urged. He had his rifle aimed right at her. “We really don’t want t‘have t’shoot Calhoun, especially right in front o’ you. Now just lay that pistol right down on the counter, real gentle-like.”

  Looking to Morgan for direction, she saw him nod coolly toward the counter, directing her to do as the sheriff ordered.

  For a moment she hesitated, remembering the derringer in her reticule. But even if she could retrieve it fast enough, it only bore a single shot. Trembling, she laid the pistol on the counter. The telegrapher took it and leveled it at Calhoun.

  “Just what is the meaning of this?” she demanded, sick at heart. “This man is my bodyguard! He’s done nothing wrong!”

  Stoner ignored her. “Cover me, boys,” he said to the other two men as he reached into his pocket with his free hand and brought out a pair of metal handcuffs, then holstered his own pistol. Jackson reached up and pulled down first one, then the other of Morgan’s wrists, fastening them efficiently into the handcuffs before taking the Colt from Morgan’s holster and sticking it between the Texan’s shoulder blades. Then he turn
ed to Sarah.

  “Your grace, I might believe you didn’t know your bodyguard is an outlaw if I hadn’t seen the way you looked at that Wanted poster,” he told her grimly, his gray eyes cold. “You know who he is, all right. But I’ll be willing to overlook that, and the fact that you were going to draw on the sheriff and me, if you don’t cause any more trouble. You came to Santa Fe to meet your fiancé, didn’t you? With all due respect, Duchess, why don’t you go do just that?” he suggested, nodding toward the street.

  Filled with shock and despair, she pretended not to hear, and turned to McElroy. “Sheriff, do you always let your deρuty mastermind the arrests?” she asked in a voice laced with scorn.

  “Oh, he ain’t no deputy, ma‘am,” Andrew McElroy told her with a incongruously amiable smile. “He’s a U.S. marshal, and he’s been waitin’ here spe-cifically to arrest Calhoun.”

  His words chilled Sarah. “But...but how did anyone know Morgan would be coming to Santa Fe?”

  “Lord Halston, your uncle, told us, ma‘am—excuse me, yer grace,” McElroy explained. “We had a telegram from him in Denver, tellin’ us he thought you an’ Calhoun might be headed here. Wanted us to be of any assistance to you that was needed. ’Course, I don’t figure he knew about Calhoun bein’ a desperado an’ all, but it just so happens his information came in handy by lettin’ us know Calhoun was headin’ this way. Marshal Stoner’s been after Calhoun for a long time, ain’t ya, Stoner?”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “But my uncle, Lord Halston, he’s the one who’s been trying to kill me!” Sarah cried. “I don’t suppose he mentioned that? That’s why I fled Denver with Mr. Calhoun! Calhoun saved my life, Mr. McElroy! Doesn’t that count for something m his favor? As far as I know, I’m still in danger! How do I know my uncle hasn’t contrived to follow me here? You can’t arrest the very man who was keeping me safe!”