by Lee Savino
A grin danced around Lord James Sebastian Chivington the third’s lips. “Pleasure, my lady. Now, do allow me to escort you to dinner.”
*
Sebastian led a subdued and quiet young widow into the camp clearing.
Her man, Juan jumped to his feet and rushed to her side. “Francesca…Señora De La Vega.” He switched to more formal address in front of the people watching.
Sebastian noted that the young widow—Francesca De La Vega-also assumed a formal role. Despite the wild ride and her previous ignominious position over the log, not a black hair was out of place. In the forest, surrounded by men who’d just saved her from a horrible fate, she was as calm and collected as the Queen at tea.
“I am fine,” she murmured in Spanish, and then glanced at Sebastian and switched to English. “What happened?”
“There were men following you from the town. Whatever you did upset them. But Señor Cage and Chivington here happened to be on the trail and helped me stop them.”
“Is that so?” she asked dryly, shooting a glance back at Chivington.
“It’s true, ma’am,” Cage answered, whipping off his hat and showing a thick head of hair shot with silver. “We’re lucky we happened to be along.”
“These were Charlie the Red’s compatriots?”
“Yes, ma’am, far as I can tell. And if some of the items collected from the bodies tell truth, Red Charlie ran with the Royal Mountain Gang. Next time you shoot into a card game, make sure you get all the players.”
Chivington bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too hard. He’d spent that last few months since hiring Cage putting up with the greybeard’s mocking, and it was nice to see the guide treated all highborn folk with the same cheeky disrespect.
“Just the players? Not all the witnesses?” Señora De La Vega asked. She could give as good as she got.
“Fair enough,” Cage chuckled.
“Sit down, Señora.” Chivington couldn’t resist settling onto a log by the fire and patting the place next to him. “You must be tired after the ambush.”
“Yes, do take a seat.” Cage grinned.
With a haughty expression, the little Spanish wildcat stalked right over and seated herself on the log. She couldn’t quite hide her wince.
“That reminds me, Señora De La Vega,” Chivington said, holding out her pistol. “You dropped this in the woods. I will provide you with more bullets and powder, if you need.”
“Thank you,” Francesca said stiffly, and Juan’s eyes darted between the two of them.
They sat around the campfire and shared a meal. Sebastian played the gallant, seating himself close to Francesca and went out of his way to be kind to her. He offered her a drink of water and bowl of food, and smiled when he could practically see her gritting her teeth. If Juan guessed why Francesca’s cheeks were a bright, angry red, he said nothing.
Other than a few cracks in her imperious mien, she held herself like a woman of good breeding, with an air of easy working power. She was used to leading and having her will wrought.
In England she’d pass for a duchess or maybe even a princess in line to be queen.
“How far is it to your home?”
When Francesca ignored Sebastian, Juan answered for her. “A little more than half a day’s ride. If we can, I would prefer to leave before dawn. Ana and the rest of the ranch will be worried for us.”
“We will escort you there. If any more trouble rears its head, we will be with you.”
“I thank you,” Juan said. “It will be nice to have allies. Perhaps, if my lady agrees, you can stay with us for a time as our guests. The valley is lovely this time of year.”
Francesca’s dark eyes shot daggers at her man. “I’m sure Lord Chivington has other places to be.”
Sebastian was surprised at how much he enjoyed hearing his name on her tongue.
“Oh, not at all. You can ask Cage here. I was just waiting around, spending my father’s money. Escorting you home will be my good deed for the year.”
His Spanish lady glared at him with her lovely, dark eyes.
“We are grateful for the help,” Juan put in.
“Yes,” Francesca bit out, as if the words tasted bitter. “So very grateful.”
*
Before they rode out the next morning, Sebastian approached Francesca.
“Here.” He held out some balm he kept on hand. Not much, but it would soothe her backside. “You’ve suffered long enough.”
She just glared at him, and turned her back on him. She took out a packet from her own saddle bag and disappeared into the wood.
Juan watched the exchange and chuckled.
“My lady is a healer from a long line of healers. She has balms and potions the likes of which most have never seen.” If the laughing man knew why his mistress needed balm, he didn’t mention it.
Sebastian waited until the widow returned to the clearing.
“You got your gun?” He handed her some bullets and powder. She started to reach for it, and he drew his hand back for a moment. “If trouble comes for us, I’d prefer if you turned tail and ran.”
“I will not leave the fight to the men.” Her eyes flashed.
“Don’t worry, my lady. My first choice is also retreat.”
“So you are a coward?”
“I find it’s wiser to live to fight another day.”
She snatched the offering out of his hand. “I am a good shot.”
He scoffed and she looked furious.
“You laugh at me? Ask Charlie the Red. He is not laughing.”
“That was lucky,” Sebastian told her. “You caught him and all of us by surprise. You were lucky none of those drunkards had their wits about them this early in the morning.”
“You were in the saloon,” she shot back. “Are you a drunkard?”
“Only before eleven o’clock in the morning. I’m usually dried out by noon,” he assured her with a wink. He watched her reload her weapon and tuck it into her sash.
“I mean it, Lady De La Vega. From what I learned from Cage, the Royal Mountain Gang is not to be trifled with.”
She glared at him, then gave a stiff nod. “I understand.”
“Good.” Sebastian briefly wondered if he’d have to watch his own back in a gunfight, then dispelled the thought. This lady would have honor, even if she was angry with him. “I’m looking forward to seeing you home safely. Or, if the Royal Mountain gang resurfaces, dying heroically in your honor.”
Her face crinkled in appalled confusion.
Sebastian continued, tongue firmly in cheek. “If I do die, will you promise to find a few poets to laud my courage? Nothing fancy, a few sonnets perhaps.”
“Englishman,” Francesca said when she’d overcome her shock. “If it comes to a gunfight, I can only hope your bullets aren’t as scrambled as your brain.”
*
For the rest of the morning, Francesca wouldn’t look at him. She rode ahead of most of the group, and Sebastian took the time to study her. She was a competent rider, at ease in the saddle. The sun rose, but her body didn’t wilt, and she held her proud head as high as ever. She’d lost the mourning veil, but the hair tumbling down her back was as black as widow’s weeds. Black certainly became her, and he found himself imagining what her clothes would look like in contrast to more of her caramel skin.
After staring at his lady, thinking sinful, irreverent thoughts, Sebastian couldn’t keep from spurring his horse forward to fall in beside hers.
“Lovely day for a ride, isn’t it?”
She ignored him, and he got a chance to admire the front side of her. Her black brows and red lips added sensuality to the thin blade of her face. Even the dark circles under her eyes and slender body, a tad too thin, tempted him, if only because it spoke of her need for a protector.
Patience, Sebastian. You can’t jump into the first damsel in distress’ bed.
“Tell me about your ranch.”
Juan glanced back
at the two of them, and Francesca seemed to weigh whether she should exercise courtesy or dig her heels in and fight.
She chose the former. “My father started the ranch, and claimed the land. He always wanted to farm it, but did not know how until Cyro came along. My husband is…was…a military man. After his career, he wished to settle somewhere peaceful. He moved to the valley and befriended my father. They impressed each other so much, father offered my hand in marriage, and Cyro accepted.”
She seemed calm about such an arrangement.
“I take it your husband, Cyro, he was older than you?”
“By twenty years. My father was an old man, wished to see me settled before he passed away.”
Now this put things in a rather different light. A passionate young woman married off to a friend of her father’s.
“How long were you married?”
“Five years. I was young, but he was good to me.” She sounded very practical, talking about her husband as if he was a business partner or a guardian. Sebastian filed this away for later.
“He was a good man, señora,” Juan spoke up.
“He was,” Francesca agreed. “And then they shot him.”
She looked so beautiful and cold, as if her feelings were very far away and she was intent on keeping them there. Sebastian noted Juan’s worried glances directed at his mistress, but he let the matter drop.
As they rode on, the lush meadows of the valley turned into farmland. Many of the fields were bordered by what Sebastian first thought were natural streams, but came to realize were a system of manmade waterways.
“Do you like our acequias, Señor Chivington?” Juan asked when he noticed the British lord admiring them.
“Yes, jolly good. What are they?”
“Water trenches, dug by men,” Juan explained. “The first founders built them. Señora De La Vega’s father and husband helped with the layout and design. They channel the water running off the mountain to the land.”
“Fascinating.”
“For all our love of the Madonna, we Spaniards are quite civilized,” Francesca said with a biting smile.
“Quite,” Sebastian said, and she looked annoyed that he didn’t rise to the bait. “How close are we to your home?”
“Not far now,” Francesca said and spurred her horse forward.
At the sight of his lady riding hard, slender body working over the horse and long black hair tumbling down her back without any semblance of propriety, Sebastian couldn’t help kick his mount faster to follow. He chased her up one hill and down the other. Juan and Cage and the others might laugh at him, but it was worth it to catch the color rising in her cheeks as she realized she was the object of his hunt.
She rode well, but his own noble steed was of good breeding stock, and caught hers, pulling neck and neck.
The lord and lady shared a glance, her cheeks flushed and dark eyes dancing, distracting him to the point where he accidentally guided his horse to a bush and had to take a jump. As his horse leaped through the air, Francesca looked back with a sharp, satisfied curve to her lips. His heart leaped. It was the first time he’d seen her smile. He pantomimed surprise, waving his arms a little, and she turned away to hide her laugh. With his stallion well in hand, he rode closer to her, and she let him sprint beside her horse.
“There.” She pointed to the large, sprawling hacienda, built in Spanish style, surrounded by a few outbuildings, courtyards, fruit trees and gardens. The architecture looked a bit drafty for a Colorado climate, but lovely. Sebastian and Francesca slowed their horses as they filed through the orchard, enjoying the fragrant, flower filled world.
They hadn’t reached the first garden before a dirty-faced boy came running up. “Señora, we are glad you are here. There is trouble in the fields. A broken fence allowed the cattle to get into hay fields and trample all over the crops. We are trying to get all the cows out now.”
“Ay dios mio,” Francesca muttered. “I do not need this.”
Juan and the others arrived, and the boy explained again, this time in rapid Spanish.
“I will go,” Francesca said. “Juan, will you take our guests to Ana, and tell her I will be back as soon as I can?”
Juan gave his horse to the boy, and without another word, Francesca wheeled her mount to follow the lad.
“I’ll go with you,” Sebastian said, signaling his men to continue to the house. His stallion raced to catch his black-clad lady, and the three rode hard in silence on the roads between the fields.
“That’s the broken fence.” The young farm hand pointed and Francesca led the way, following another acequia that ran between the fields. As they approached the scene of the disaster, Sebastian saw the heart breaking sight: a well planted field, with rows and rows of tiny green plants broken by large swathes of cattle tracks. The animals roamed around, with a few riders trying to corral them.
Sebastian watched the young widow snap into action, calling orders to her vaqueros, directing their efforts to drive the cattle as she rode carefully between her crops. By dusk, the cows were banished and the fence repaired. About a third of the field was destroyed. Juan arrived; he and Francesca dismounted to walk along the rows, checking to see what could be salvaged or replanted.
“Hard turn, old boy,” Sebastian said to Juan as the two of them rode to check all the fences.
The vaquero grunted, but after a half hour working side by side, he opened up to the fair-haired English lord.
“This land is very fertile, but we’ve had a few bad years. Señor De La Vega, Francesca’s father, died with a few debts. Señor Montoya and my lady have been trying to catch up ever since. It is a hard life, señor.”
“I can see that.” Sebastian followed Francesca’s straight-backed form as she rode around the field’s perimeter. Hours of travel and work, and she hadn’t once stopped to rest.
“Señor De La Vega…she didn’t take her husband’s name?”
Juan shrugged. “It is not the way, though her children would’ve had her husband’s name.”
“Not a fertile marriage, then?”
“Cyro Montoya was old. He was closer to her father’s age than hers. But he was good to her. His death will bring trouble. It takes a strong hand to lead a ranch to profit.”
“The señora seems strong.”
“Yes. But she will need all the help she can get.”
Francesca met them at the fence. “Any other weak places?”
“Not that I can tell,” Juan said.
“If I may,” Sebastian said. “I examined the fence the cattle broke through. My thought is that it had been tampered with. Why would a cow press against the fence at just the right point?”
“They sometimes do, when searching for food or shade.” Juan frowned.
“Yes, but that particular spot had neither.”
“What are you saying, Englishman?” Francesca’s dark eyes swept up and down Sebastian’s face.
“Only that, if it were my ranch, I’d suspect foul play.”
Juan gasped, but Francesca only gave a sharp nod. “My lord Chivington, it is late. Perhaps you are ready to go back to the ranch?” I don’t need you meddling, her arched eyebrow said.
“I can stay as long as needed.” Sebastian made his gaze like a gauntlet thrown. You won’t get rid of me that easily.
Juan looked from one stone face to the other, then cleared his throat. “My lady, I will check the rest of the fences and set a schedule to repair any broken ones. You can escort señor Chivington back and get him settled as our guest.”
Francesca’s lips tightened, and for a moment, Sebastian wondered if she’d curse both him and her man. Despite his best efforts, she still didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Of course, he had bared her bottom and birched her within an hour of meeting her. He expected it would take a while before she enthusiastically invited him to tea.
“Come,” Francesca said, wheeling her horse around without another word.
Again Sebastian found himself chasing his dark lady over the fields.
“Rough afternoon,” he said when he caught up. “Those crops looked healthy. It’s a damned shame.”
“It never should’ve happened,” Francesca said. “The vaqueros should be more vigilant. If my husband was alive—” she broke off.
“Juan says you’ve had some trouble,” he said.
Francesca cursed under her breath. Sebastian thought of how much fun it would be to train her to be respectful, and had to hide his smile.
“Juan needs to hold his tongue,” she bit out. “But yes. The ranch has been in trouble for a while. Cyro’s death did not help.”
Sebastian started to ask another question, but she kicked her mount to ride faster.
They arrived at the hacienda in a cloud of dust. A round-faced woman was straining to pull a white goat out of a garden bed, but as they rode up to the gate, she gave up and ran to greet them, wiping her hands on her apron. “Señora, you have returned. We were so worried.”
“I am fine, Ana.” Francesca dismounted before Sebastian could come around and help her. “You have met our guests?”
“Yes, they are settled in the barracks.” There was a long, low outbuilding that Sebastian guessed was the barracks.
“This is Lord Chivington.” Francesca nodded to him. “He is to have the General’s room.”
Ana blinked. “That is our finest room, my lord. Welcome.” She curtsied. “If you will leave your horse for the boy and follow me.”
“Please,” Sebastian said. “I can take care of my stallion. And the barracks will be quite sufficient for me.”
“It is not too much trouble,” Francesca said. “You are our guest. I have not forgotten hospitality, not even with everything that has happened.” She turned to Ana. “A short meal, only, Ana, please. Our guests must be tired.” She spun on her heel and marched away.
“Señora De La Vega,” Sebastian called. “Thank you.”
The dark haired mistress threw up a hand to acknowledge his gratitude, but didn’t slow or turn around.
Ana’s eyes widened. “My lord, please forgive her rudeness, the señora is very busy…”
