The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  Then Carl Tackett made a desperate, unsuccessful attempt to break loose from his captors. The judge pounded and shouted for five minutes on end, trying to subdue the courtroom, until at last he motioned one of the soldiers to the front of the room, and whispered into his ear. The soldier then fired his pistol once into the ceiling.

  No one spoke again as plaster dust drifted lazily downward and the echo of the pistol died away. Sarah saw Morgan’s lips curve upward into a grin—the first one she’d seen in days—as he gazed up at the one-inch hole in the ceiling.

  “Mr. Calhoun, after hearing that...er... what I would have to call a posthumous statement from Nora Tackett, I believe I have no choice but to dismiss the case against you.”

  Sarah let out a most unduchesslike cheer, which earned her another grin from Morgan. Her uncle merely rolled his eyes.

  “And Mr. Tackett,” the judge said heavily, raising his gaze to where Nora Tackett’s husband sat, his tace now livid, in the back of the courtroom, “you may now consider yourself under arrest.”

  Tackett exploded out of his seat in spite of the guards that flanked him.

  “But, judge, you can’t arrest me based on a dead woman’s opinion!” he shouted.

  The judge raised a bushy eyebrow. “Just a few minutes ago you were demanding respect for that dead woman, Tackett. Now mind you, I don’t know at this point if we’ll be able to prove you committed murder and robbery, but we’ll see, Tackett, we’ll see. Take him away, boys.”

  Sarah saw Tackett glare at Morgan and then herself before he was pushed out of the courtroom by the soldiers. Then the prosecutor was rising, his face indignant.

  “Your Honor, may I remind the court there are several other robbery charges pending against Morgan Calhoun, charges from localities all over the West, from as near as Houston and as far away as western New Mexico Territory? I believe we are obligated to hold Mr. Calhoun until these other entities can press charges, charges that Calhoun will not so easily wriggle out of.”

  Sarah had known such a reminder was coming. When she had returned from Calhoun Crossing, Morgan had warned her not to be too jubilant at obtaining Nora’s statement He’d reminded her that while he had not murdered or taken the army payroll, he had robbed a few other stagecoaches and a handful of individuals. He appreciated Sarah’s generous offer to reimburse anyone who could prove that Morgan had stolen a specific amount from him, he’d said, but no judge in the United States would be willing to dismiss robbery charges simply because of that.

  “But wouldn’t your heroic protection of a foreign dignitary—me, of course, and at great peril to yourself—move a court to be lenient?” she had asked Morgan, determined to give him a reason for hope.

  “Lenient enough to make him give me nineteen years in prison rather than twenty,” Morgan had retorted, his shoulders slumping. “Face it, Duchess, even if we win this first case, I’m going to be an old man when I’m out from behind bars. Forget me, and go back to England where you belong.”

  Sarah made a desperate gesture to gain Quinn’s attention, and when she had it, she pointed to the clock on the wall, praying he would understand.

  He did, apparently, for he arose and said, “Your Honor, as the hour is late on a Friday afternoon, may we request a recess until the following Monday morning?”

  “I’ll grant that, Mr. Quinn, but your client will continue to be held until we can communicate with the other localities in which Mr. Calhoun has allegedly pulled robberies.”

  “I understand, Your Honor.”

  “Sarah, what do you have up your sleeve?” Morgan asked warily when she managed to reach his side at the front of the court.

  “I can’t tell you, darling. At least, not yet—I don’t know if it will work,” Sarah said. “But I’ve got to try, Morgan! I’ve got to try!”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “I’ll come to visit this evening, sweetheart,” she whispered as she embraced Morgan, heedless of the hundreds of curious eyes that watched the whole time. “Don’t forget I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Sarah,” he said in a voice so low only she could hear. “I just wish I knew what you were plannin’, honey. It isn’t anythin’ illegal, is it? I’m already in enough trouble, and there ain’t no use draggin’ you down with me.”

  She laughed. “No, did you think I was going to stage a jailbreak?”

  “Duchess, you’ve been readin’ those dime novels again, haven’t you?”

  “No, cross my heart,” she said, smiling up at him. “And don’t worry, it’s nothing against the law. And I can’t swear that it will work. But take courage, love—I’m betting it will.”

  He looked as if he wanted to demand an explanation from her, but just then a pair of soldiers approached and announced that it was time for him to go back to his cell.

  “All right, Sarah, what do you have up your sleeve?” Lord Halston, unknowingly echoing Morgan’s question, asked her once Morgan had been led away.

  “Wait until we may be private, uncle,” Sarah said, indicating the curious spectators that surrounded them as they waded their way through the throng at the back of the courtroom.

  Once they were shut in the landau Lord Halston had rented for their stay in the Texas capital, though, Sarah turned eagerly to her uncle.

  “Uncle, we need to stop at the telegraph office before we return to the hotel. I need to send a telegram.”

  “Oh?” There was a world of suspicion in Lord Halston’s voice. “To whom?”

  “To Queen Victoria,” Sarah said, and laughed at the look of utter astonishment on her uncle’s face.

  “But—”

  “Yes, uncle. To Her Majesty. The transatlantic cable’s been in place for six years now, and I think it’s time I used it,” she said. “I intend to throw myself on Her Majesty’s mercy and see if I can get her to help us work a miracle.”

  By Monday, neither Sarah nor the judge had received a telegram. A nervous Matthew Quinn was able to persuade him, though, to call another recess until Tuesday. Sarah haunted the hotel lobby, watching for the arrival of the message, heedless of the reporters trying to interview her.

  By evening she was frantic. Was Victoria going to remain silent because of her subject’s earlier rebelliousness?

  She was still pacing the floor of her hotel room when Monday turned into Tuesday and the telegram from Queen Victoria was delivered.

  “Wake my lord Halston, please,” she instructed Celia.

  “But...your grace, he retired hours ago,” her dresser protested.

  “Don’t worry, Celia. I rather think he won’t mind being awakened for this.”

  Lord Halston looked sleep-rumpled even in his brocade dressing gown.

  “What is it, Sarah? You’d better have a wonderful reason to have me awakened at midnight.”

  “Oh, I do, uncle, I do!” she cried, handing the royal message to him and struggling against her urge to dance around the room.

  He held the paper at arm’s length and read.

  “How did you accomplish this, niece?” he asked a moment later.

  Sarah grinned as she clutched her shawl around her shoulders. “In my telegram, uncle, I promised to marry the Duke of Trenton if he were still available,” she said. “How fortunate that he’s apparently wed some other young heiress in my absence!”

  “Yes...” He continued to eye her with suspicion. “You minx, you knew he intended to, didn’t you?”

  “Why no, actually I didn’t,” Sarah admitted. “It was a calculated gamble.”

  “Sarah, Sarah,” murmured her uncle, beginning to smile in spite of himself. “You’ll make an old man of me yet.”

  Bright and early Tuesday morning Morgan watched as Sarah seated herself at the front of the spectators’ rows. Dressed in the turquoise gown he hadn’t seen her wear since they left Santa Fe, Sarah Challoner was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. But it wasn’t the gown, or the turquoise-and-silver necklace she wore around her neck, or even the glow of her
golden hair that made the duchess lovely. It was the radiant glow on her face, the glow of a woman in love, a woman who had reason to hope that happiness was within her grasp. And there was something more, too, that only a man who loved such a woman would notice—there was a gleam of secret triumph in those eyes that were blue as a Texas sky What did Sarah Challoner know that everyone else was about to find out?

  Just then the judge entered, and all rose while he strode to his bench and settled himself, putting on his spectacles and pulling out a folded piece of paper.

  “Last night something truly extraordinary happened,” he began, looking out at the sea of faces over the half ovals of his lenses. “I am about to read to you a telegram, which I received from no less than the president of the United States. It concerns the fate of Morgan Calhoun.” He turned so he was looking directly at Morgan then, but his face gave no clue as to the content of the message.

  Morgan felt every nerve tense. Ulysses S. Grant had sent a telegram about him? Had he ordered him to be hanged at sunrise? Put in prison for the rest of his natural life? He looked to Sarah for a clue.

  The judge’s announcement had not seemed to discomfit her, though; on the contrary, her lips were beginning to curve upward to match the secret joy in her eyes.

  Morgan turned back to the judge, willing him to put an end to his agony of suspense, but the judge was enjoying the drama he had created and seemed in no hurry to end it.

  Finally, however, he bent his head, cleared his throat and said in a sonorous voice that had lost its bored, monotonic quality, “Ladies and gentlemen in the courtroom, I’d appreciate your silence while I read this message aloud. I’m going to leave out the word stop that one finds in place of periods at the end of each sentence.”

  His request for silence had hardly been necessary. Ever since he’d said the message was from the president it had been so quiet in the courtroom that all Morgan could hear was the pounding of his heart.

  The judge opened his mouth again. “The president writes, ‘I am in receipt of a telegram from none other than Her Majesty, Victoria of England, requesting that I issue a presidential pardon for the robberies committed by one Morgan Calhoun of Texas. She cites the outstanding and unselfish heroism exhibited by Mr. Calhoun in his extraordinary efforts to protect the life of Her Grace the Duchess of Malvern from the determined efforts of a would-be European assassin when she was visiting our American West. As I had the pleasure of meeting her grace when she and her uncle Lord Halston attended a reception in Washington, I am doubly grateful for Mr. Calhoun’s heroic actions, and am granting the pardon as requested. Judge Hanson, it is my wish that upon receipt of this telegram, you would restore Morgan Calhoun to the freedom he has so heroically earned. I would further add that Queen Victoria wishes to thank Mr. Calhoun personally, and requests that he accompany the Duchess of Malvern back to England, where he will be granted an audience with the queen at their mutual convenience.’ Signed, Ulysses S. Grant, president of the United States.”

  The ensuing uproar was loud enough to be heard all the way back to Washington. While Morgan was still staring at the judge, certain this was only a dream and he’d wake to find he was still behind bars in the army headquarters, Sarah had run to the front of the courtroom. Now she was in his arms, laughing and crying and kissing him all at once.

  “Order! Order!” the judge shouted, banging his gavel. “I have not dismissed this court yet, damn it!”

  The prosecuting attorney, his face aghast, had run to the front of the courtroom, too. “But, Your Honor!” Morgan was able to hear him say. “Are we certain this telegram is indeed from the president? What if it’s a hoax perpetrated by this outlaw and his—” he turned to glare at Morgan and the duchess “—and his influential foreign friends?”

  “Mr. Prendergast,” the judge said heavily, leaning on the desk before him with arms stiffened to support his massive bulk, and favoring the earnest young man before him with a basilisk stare, “I’m not sure why you should assume I was born yesterday. I have already sent a telegram to the president asking for confirmation, and have received it. In addition, Mr. Quinn has informed me that the Duchess of Malvern has received a telegram from Her Majesty, Queen Victoria of England, stating her royal intent to make this very request of the president. So I think you can indeed trust that this presidential pardon is the genuine article, son.”

  Soundly put in his place, the red-faced prosecutor slunk back to his desk and began gathering his papers.

  The uproar had died down only minimally. A cordon of soldiers held back the throng who wanted to rush to the front as Sarah had. After catching a brief glimpse of Sarah’s uncle arguing with the sergeant, Morgan became aware that the judge was calling his name.

  “Mr. Calhoun, it doesn’t seem as if it’s going to get quiet in here any time soon, and I’m loath to put another hole in the plaster to make it so. Consider yourself free, sir, but let me warn you, this pardon will not save you should you return to your former larcenous ways.”

  Morgan felt himself grinning. “I have no intention of that, Your Honor.”

  “Then get out of here, Calhoun. I believe you and the lady have things to talk about.”

  Morgan turned to Sarah. “I believe he’s right, Duchess.”

  It seemed an eternity before they managed to wade through the throng of well-wishers and return to the hotel, another eternity before Sarah was able to persuade both her uncle and her servant that she needed both of them to leave her alone with Morgan.

  Finally, though, Lord Halston bowed to his niece and announced his intention to seek some luncheon for himself and Celia Harris. Perhaps his niece could live on love, he said with a twinkle in his eye, but he and her servant could not.

  Sarah had never felt less hungry. Her stomach, it seemed, was full of waltzing butterflies as she turned to Morgan.

  “You are under no obligation to go to England, you know, in response to Her Majesty’s summons You’re an American citizen. It’s up to you.”

  He stood there, his face lit by the noonday sun streaming in the hotel window His eyes had never looked so green, or so unreadable, though a small smile played about his lips.

  “I know that, Duchess ”

  Her fingers clenched into fists at her sides. Damn the man, he wasn’t going to make this easy for her, was he? Nervously she pulled her spectacles off and laid them on a nearby table. Maybe she could steel herself to say what had to be said if she couldn’t see him clearly.

  But she was still close enough to see the amused gleam in his eyes that told her he knew very well why she was taking them off. So she turned, pretending an inordinate interest in the view from the window she was closest to, though of course all she could see was a blur of color.

  “I shall, of course, have to return to England myself. I have matters to settle with my sister. You know she had the mistaken notion that Th—that the Frenchman,” she corrected herself, not wanting to say the name aloud, “was coming to America simply to meet with me and break our engagement so he was free to marry her. I can forgive her for falling under Thierry’s spell, I think—Lord knows I was bedazzled by his charm myself, so much so that I wasn’t really aware of what sort of young woman my sister was becoming. I need to get to know her again, before...” She couldn’t finish that sentence, and allowed her voice to trail off, gripping her hands together in front of her so tightly that they hurt. Morgan, say something! Tell me you love me! Tell me you don’t want me to leave!

  He was silent.

  She whirled around, determined to make an end to the uncertainty that yawned before her, as wide as a Western canyon

  “I want you to know that no matter what happens between you and me—or what does not—”she began with a lightness she didn’t feel, “that, assuming my sister and I are able to achieve an understanding, it is my intention to renounce my title in favor of her. Kathryn will be the duchess.”

  “And then what will you do, Duchess?” he asked, his voice quiet as he came clo
ser, his gaze locked on hers.

  She shrugged. “Then I intend to return to the United States—to Texas, to be precise—and reclaim my mare.”

  He was now so close that she could not have fully extended her arm without touching him. Sarah felt her heart begin to pound as the look in those green eyes grew intense and focused.

  “Reclaim your mare?” he questioned.

  “Of course. One wouldn’t risk an ocean voyage for a valuable thoroughbred who’s in foal,” she said as he took another step closer. “I shall have to find someone trustworthy to care for her while I am across the Atlantic.”

  The air seemed to be sucked from the room as he put a hand on both shoulders.

  “And then what are you going to do, Duchess?” He was smiling openly now. Damn the man!

  She closed her eyes so she could no longer see his impudent face. “And then I am going to find the finest piece of land Texas affords, and raise the best thoroughbreds and thoroughbred-pinto crossbreds anyone has ever seen, Morgan Calhoun.”

  “All by yourself, Duchess?”

  She could feel his warm breath on her face, and his hands tightening on her shoulders. Opening her eyes just wide enough to see, she found his lips were but inches from hers.

  “No, of course not,” she said, opening her eyes the rest of the way. “If you’re not available, I shall just have to scour the countryside until I find another desperado knowledgeable enough about horseflesh to take on as a partner.”

  He grinned down at her. “But I am available, Duchess, and I wouldn’t dream of letting my wife return to England without me....”

  “Your wife?” she managed to say. “But—”

  “I wouldn’t mind seein’ the queen, either. But mainly I’m goin’ with you to keep you out of trouble and wearin’ your spectacles, Duchess. I love you, you know that. I can’t seem to make you see that you deserve more than a cowboy who’s a former rebel and outlaw, so will you marry me, Duchess?”