by Laurie Grant
Stoner looked unimpressed, but McElroy’s brow furrowed. “Now, ma‘am, he did mention someone had been tryin’ to kill ya while y‘all were in Denver, and he sounded real worried about ya. Said you’d disappeared without a word, and he’d been ’sick with apprehension,’ I b’lieve he said.”
“Oh, I can well believe he said that,” Sarah snapped, knowing her irony was lost on McElroy. “But he’s not telling you the whole truth—he’s only apprehensive because he failed to kill me!”
“Ma‘am, I don’t know nothin’ about that,” McElroy said. “All I know is Calhoun’s a wanted man, and he’s now in custody.”
Sarah’s shoulders sagged as she realized the futility of arguing with these two lawmen.
Now Morgan spoke for the first time. “Go on, Sarah. Don’t worry about me. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Yon go ahead and find your Frenchman—you’d better go ahead and do it today, so you won’t be alone. Don’t worry, you’re beautiful even in men’s pants,” he said, and the love, mixed with sadness, in his eyes broke her heart. “Oh, and you go ahead and take Rio with you. I’m givin’ him to you,” he added. “I know you’ll take good care of him.”
“But what will happen to Morgan?” she asked Stoner, feeling hot tears spilling down her cheeks.
“He’ll spend a few days in the jail here, until I can arrange transportation back to Texas, where he’ll stand trial,” Stoner told her, but the coldness had vanished from his eyes, and his voice was surprisingly kind.
“I’m going with you when you take him back to Texas,” Sarah said.
“Your grace, I don’t think I can al—” Stoner began.
“Sarah, now don’t be foolish,” Morgan interrupted. “There ain’t a thing you can do for me, and there’s a man who’s come all the way from England just for you. He loves you, doesn’t he? Go to him, Duchess, and forget you ever heard of me. I mean it. That’s what I want you to do.”
“Nevertheless, I shall be going with you and the marshal, Morgan,” she told him. “I only intended to see Thierry long enough to tell him I could no longer consider marrying him, anyway. As I told you once before, I have the means to hire you the best lawyer in the United States, and that’s what I intend to do. There’s no use arguing with me, Morgan.”
She shifted her gaze to Stoner. “Mr. Calhoun will be in one of those cells I saw? When can I visit him?”
“Any time tomorrow, your grace.”
She nodded. “Very well, then, I shall plan to stop by in the morning. I expect him to be treated well, is that clear, Mr. Stoner?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Stoner said, touching the brim of his hat with ironic courtesy.
The clock on the wall indicated ten the next morning when Morgan saw Sarah enter the jail.
Gone was the hoyden who’d ridden across the plains, over the mountains and down the Santa Fe Trail with him. In her place was a lady who was every inch the Duchess of Malvern, her golden curls done up in an elegant chignon. She wore the turquoise dress she’d purchased yesterday, and the color brought her sun-kissed features gloriously alive. The necklace he’d given her decorated her neck, emphasizing its slenderness. All she needed was a pair of wings to look like an angel.
He watched through the bars as she sailed by the sheriff and the marshal and glided gracefully to his cell.
“Hello, my love,” she said, laying down the reticule she carried and reaching through the bars for his hands.
He couldn’t help but give them to her. Lord, it felt good to be touching even that little part of her. She smelled good, too, like roses. She must have found somewhere to buy scent.
“Mornin’, Sarah.” There were a million questions he wanted to ask her, a million things he wanted to say, but he was all too aware of the sheriff and the marshal sitting within earshot.
“Oh, my poor love, were you able to sleep?” she asked, looking past him into the corner of the cell where his cot with its lumpy mattress covered by dingy, threadbare sheets stood.
“Aw, Duchess, after so many years of sleepin’ on the hard ground, I reckon I could sleep anywhere,” he said with a grin. “The food ain’t bad, either. McElroy missed his callin’—he shoulda been a cook.”
Then he realized what hadn’t changed about her. “You’re still wearing your spectacles,” he said, surprised. “You leave your vanity behind on the trail somewhere, Duchess?”
“Ah reckon ah did,” she said in a teasing rendition of his drawl. “Actually, Morgan, I found I’ve gotten rather used to seeing clearly these last few weeks, so you see, you have taught me something,” she said with a wink. “I started to leave the posada without them, but I was afraid I’d get lost, so...” She shrugged.
“The posada? Why didn’t you stay at the Exchange with your Frenchman?”
“I haven’t seen Thierry yet,” she said. “I decided I still wanted to have a bath and a good night’s sleep first, so I went back to the posada. But I’m on my way to see Thierry now, Morgan.”
This was the last time he’d see her, then. The fact that she’d taken such pains with her appearance convinced him that no matter what she had said, she was at least considering the folly of her promise yesterday to go back to Texas with him and the marshal. Once she saw her dashing Frenchman again, she’d put her love affair with a Texas outlaw behind her. That was for the best, he told his aching heart.
“Goodbye, Duchess.” I love you, Sarah Challoner.
“Oh, I’ll be back to see you later today, Morgan. I’ll want to...after I’ve told him it’s over. Now, don’t give me that rubbish about forgetting about you, and your not being good enough for me, and all that rot. I don’t want to hear it,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Until then...” she said, blowing him a kiss before she turned and walked out the door. She had already shut it behind her when all at once he felt the prickling at the back of his neck, the same feeling he always got right before something bad happened.
“Sarah! Sarah, come back!” he yelled, but apparently she didn’t hear him. It was too late.
“Stoner, call her back. Somethin’...somethin’ doesn’t feel right,” Morgan said, shaking his head as if that would clear it of the troubling notion. “Please, Stoner, for the love of God, bring her back here!”
Stoner, lounging again on the chair tipped against the wall, looked at him curiously.
“What ails you, Calhoun? Haven’t you been tryin’ to convince the lady she needs to forget you for her own good? It just so happens I highly agree with you on that—she should forget she ever met you. So shut up. I’m not gonna help you talk her out of doing the right thing.”
The door opened, and she heard a familiar, French-accented voice cry, “Sarah, ma chère, enfin! Finally you are here!”
It was a corner room, and the curtains of both windows had been left open, so all she could see was Thierry’s form silhouetted against the doorway. Before Sarah could say a word, or her eyes, used to the gloom of the corridor, could adjust, he had pulled her inside and was kissing both her cheeks, and then her mouth.
His lips were warm and persuasive, and she remembered their touch, but she felt... nothing. Only an eagerness to get the painful meeting over with as quickly and gracefully as she could.
“Thierry, I—Let me look at you,” she said, pulling back slightly, to give her eyes time to focus on him and her brain time to think, to frame the words that would tell him she was not the same woman to whom he had bidden adieu in England.
He was shorter than she remembered, and stockier. She had forgotten what a pale blue his eyes were, and how his elegant blond mustache with the carefully waxed ends emphasized the sensual fullness of his lips.
“Sarah...it has been so long,” he said, smiling at her and still holding her hands in his. “You surprise me—you are wearing your spectacles! You look like a...how do you say it? A schoolmistress! And you are brown as a wild Indian,” he added. His tone was faintly disapproving. “Where is your uncle? I cannot imagine him letting
you ruin your complexion like that.”
“Yes...yes it has been a long time,” she said, choosing not to respond to his other comments for the time being. She hadn’t seen this critical side of him before, and she didn’t like it. “Did you...did you have a pleasant sea voyage to America?” She knew she was stalling. But one couldn’t just blurt out, “Thierry, I no longer love you and won’t marry you,” could one?
“It was abominable. But it is over, and now I am here with you.”
“Yes... Oh, Thierry, so much has happened, there is so much I must tell you...” she began. Should she tell him first about her uncle’s attempts to have her killed, which would lead into how and why her feelings for him had changed?
“Yes, my sweet, but first, first there is something I must show you, and tell you,” he said, stepping away from her and striding around a carved oak secretary until it stood between them.
“All right,” she said, relieved that he was no longer in physical contact with her, and because she wouldn’t have to dim the pleased excitement in his handsome face just yet.
Reaching down, he pulled open a drawer and handed her a sheet of folded paper.
“This was written by your sister,” he murmured.
“Kat sent a letter for me? How wonderful!” she said, taking it. The letter must not contain bad news, Sarah thought, for he was smiling as he handed it across the desk to her. “Oh, I’ve missed her! What with my traveling around, there was no way I could hope to receive mail from home, but I’ve been writing her regularly....” She hesitated. “But I can read it later, Thierry. You said you wanted to tell me something?”
“Read Kathryn’s letter, Sarah. It will explain much.”
He was still smiling, but something wasn’t right. She looked at him, hoping for some clue, but he only nodded toward the paper, until at last she bent her head to read it.
“My very sweetest darling Thierry,” the letter began in her sister’s familiar slanting script.
“But this is your letter!” Sarah said, handing it back to him even as she wondered why Kathryn was addressing Thierry in such a fashion. “You must have made a mistake and given me the wrong letter. There must be another in there for me.”
“I did not make a mistake, Sarah. That is the letter I want you to see,” Thierry told her, still smiling as he returned the sheet of paper to her. “Keep reading, ma chère. In fact, why not read it aloud?”
Sarah stared at him for a moment, sure she had misheard him, but he nodded toward the paper. She unfolded the paper.
“‘My very sweetest darling Thierry,’” she began again, aloud this time, “‘I wish I were there to kiss your lips, and tell you how much I love you, but I am sending this letter along to be of encouragement as you undertake the difficult task of telling my sister that it is me you love, and wish to wed, and not her. I am sure it will be painful for you, for my Thierry is not a cruel person, but upon your return I will be yours, body and soul. We shall live in wedded bliss, for you will have done the just and honorable thing by breaking the betrothal with Sarah, whom you do not love, to marry me...”’
At this point Sarah’s voice faltered, and she could read no more. “Oh, Thierry,” she began in dismay, not looking up at him yet. How had her sister gotten the muddleheaded notion that the French count loved her, a miss barely out of the schoolroom? Kathryn had always had a vivid imagination, fueled by the Gothic novels she read, but this was too absurd! Thierry had been smiling because he was amused, but she must make him see that learning the truth would be very painful for her younger sister. “Whatever are we going to do about Kat? Poor lamb, she has conceived such a tendre for you—”
She heard a click just as she looked up from the paper, and saw that Thierry was holding a gun, and it was aimed directly at her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sarah had been gone for perhaps three minutes when the door opened again. Morgan, hoping that Sarah had found a reason to return, propped himself up on his elbow to have a look, but he saw that it was only Benning, the telegraph operator, coming in from the street and handing Jackson Stoner a piece of paper.
“This just came, Sheriff, Marshal,” he said, “and I thought I’d better bring it right over. It’s addressed to you, Sheriff, but it’s about that duchess lady,” he added in apologetic explanation as he handed it to Marshal Stoner.
His words brought Morgan up off his cot like a shot. “What is it?” Morgan demanded, clutching the bars with both hands. “What’s it say about the duchess? Who’s it from?”
Stoner paused in the act of holding the paper up to his eyes and looked at Morgan with amusement. “Hold your horses, Calhoun, it ain’t likely to concern you.” Nevertheless, he read it out loud.
“‘To sheriff of Santa Fe from Frederick, Lord Halston, Marquess of Kennington,”’ he read, then added, as if to himself, “Lord, these foreigners have fancy big names, don’t they?
“‘Trust you received telegram,”’ he continued reading, “‘saying niece, Duchess of Malvern, arriving Santa Fe, stop. Duchess’s secretary Alconbury confessed part of assassination plot, stop. Thierry, Count of Chatellerault, engaged to marry duchess, to be apprehended immediately, very dangerous, stop. Coming to Santa Fe posthaste, stop. Signed, Frederick, Lord Halston,’ et cetera.” He raised his head from the paper and blinked at McElroy. “Now, what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’s the one who’s been trying to murder the duchess!” cried Morgan, still clutching the bars of his cell. “Marshal, you’ve gotta let me outa here! It was that Frenchman who was tryin’ to kill her all along, and she’s goin’ to him right now!”
Now both McElroy and Stoner were staring at him, dumbstruck.
Morgan threw himself against the bars now. “Marshal, listen to me! I thought it was the uncle, but I was wrong! It was the Frenchman I was tellin’ you about last evenin’, the one who was shootin’ at us in Denver. For the love of God, Stoner, let me out of here! I swear I’ll come right back just as soon as I blow that Frenchman to hell!”
Now Stoner had stood, and was approaching the cell “Now, hold on, old son. Not so fast. Why on earth should I turn you loose because of a damn telegram? I have no way of knowing if this is the truth,” he said, shaking the telegram in Morgan’s face. “Just sit tight, and I’ll check it out.”
Morgan felt a red mist of rage flooding his brain, but he forced himself to be calm. “Marshal, the duchess is on her way to meet that de Châtellerault fella at the Exchange Hotel right this very minute. It ain’t far from here to there, so every second counts. Who knows how long before he’ll try to murder her, once they’re together? It ain’t gonna look very good for either of you fellas if it comes out that you had a warnin’, but you dallied and the duchess got killed anyway.”
The marshal and the sheriff exchanged looks.
“Even if all that’s true, Calhoun, why should we let you out?” Jackson asked with maddening slowness.
“Because I reckon I can run faster than either of you and shoot better,” Morgan said evenly, “and because I love the lady we’re talking about. And because if she dies ’cause you were too slow, I’ll find a way to kill both of you. Let me out, and I’ll come back to the cell, word of a Southern gentleman. Now open the damn cell door, one of you!”
Stoner seemed to make up his mind all at once. Nodding to McElroy, he said, “Let him out—and give him his gun back until we see that the duchess is safe. I’m going ahead—you boys catch up.” And then he was running to the door, past the bemused telegraph operator.
Dropping the sheet of parchment, Sarah stared into the barrel of the gun, sure she was hallucinating despite the crystal-clear vision afforded by her spectacles. Then she raised her eyes to de Chatellerault.
“Thierry, what are you doing?” she whispered. Her blood had become ice water in her veins.
His face bore a smile, the smile of a predator who has trapped his prey. “Why, Sarah, I am eliminating the barrier to my marriage with your sister.�
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He wanted to marry Kathryn? She couldn’t allow such a monster near her sister ever again, but first she had to save her own life.
“But Thierry, you needn’t kill me to free yourself,” she said, trying to sound calm and logical. “If that’s what you want, I’ll give you your freedom quite willingly. In fact—”
She had been about to tell him that she was in love with another man when he cut her off. “Ah, but if you’re still alive, my sweet, your dear sister Kathryn does not become the Duchess of Malvern. And I had so counted on marrying a duchess,” he purred.
“Then why not me?” she inquired curiously, glad he had interrupted her before she could tell him of her feelings for Morgan. “Why not keep to your original plan to marry me? Why would you want to marry a young miss barely out of the schoolroom, when I am nearer your age, have had some experience of the world and know my own mind? Why, Kat’s a comparative child!”
“Oh, but my dear Sarah, it is your sophistication that’s precisely the problem, don’t you see?” he continued in his perfect, French-accented English. “You know your own mind a trifle too well to suit me. You always know what you want to do, for how long and when. You would not have changed when we were man and wife, this I know, and what man wants a wife who will not acknowledge him as her lord, her master? Your sister Kathryn, on the other hand, is willing to be guided by me, the man, as is the proper way of things.”
He was insane, she could see that now. Tears stung her eyes, tears of fury mixed with fear.
“But why did you pretend to love me? Why not pick some more biddable gentlewoman?”
He shrugged. “I did not see your stubbornness at first, Sarah. But when I did.. I was not willing to give up the fortune that the Challoner family possessed. Eh bien, if I could not be master with one sister, I could be with the other. Kathryn is young enough to think every word from my lips is the Gospel. She will not mind being duchess, either.”
