Bonds of Matrimony (4 page)

           
Now,
her grandmother and Reese wanted to return to their cabins to relax, but Chase
was far too energized for such ladylike activities.
 
Instead, she strolled slowly around the deck of the ship
with her hands in her pockets.
 
She
nodded politely to other passengers as they greeted her, only truly interested
in one passenger.

           
The
sun set fire to the sky as it lowered, casting orange and heliotrope flames
across the darkening horizon.
 
Chase
leaned against the railing and reveled in the view, wondering if all sunsets
were always so beautiful, or if she was merely projecting her own excitement on
nature’s routine.
 

           
Two
men walked behind her, talking of a card game in the lounge.
 
One was puffing on a cigar, and she
suddenly longed to join them.
 
She
had always enjoyed cards, and this masculine freedom that she had recently
acquired was intoxicating.
 
And of
course, she also secretly hoped to run into Colton Webb in the lounge.
 

           
She
followed the two men across the ship and into the dark, masculine lounge.
 
Unlike the golden oak woodwork in the
dining saloon, the lounge incorporated mahogany woodwork and dark green
accents.
 
Even at this early hour
of the evening, a light haze of cigar smoke began to fill the lounge.
 
Chase walked slowly through the room
and found a couple of open seats at tables.
 
Unfortunately, Colton Webb wasn’t anywhere to be found.
 
She became convinced that he wasn’t
traveling first class after all, and her disappointment threatened to ruin her
mood for cards.

           
To
cheer herself up, she finally decided to sit at the loudest table.
 
Two large blond men with beards and
heavy accents berated each other and challenged each other without pausing to
drink from their mugs.
 
They were
evidently brothers.
 
A slender man
with dark hair and a mustache sat with them laughing at their camaraderie.
 
He reminded Chase of the despised
fiancée she had left in London.
 
But then his kind invitation for her to join them quickly erased any
resemblance she might have seen to Jett Stockton.

           
After
three quick hands, all of which were won by Ian Korvan, one of the blond
brothers, a short and stocky man approached the table and asked to join them.
 
He had small beady eyes, a large red
nose, and a full brown beard.
 
His
voice was slightly scratchy, and his smile seemed stiff and forced.
 

           
“Absolutely!
 
What’s your name, man?” Korvan asked
him, certainly figuring that this was another man with money to lose.

           
“Richards,
Henry Richards,” he offered stingily.
 
He pulled up the chair beside Chase, and the other Korvan brother dealt
him into the game.

           
“Richards,
I’m Ian Korvan, this is my brother, Jack, the mustache there is Thompson, and
this beardless young chap is Cochrane.”

           
He
nodded in acknowledgment and examined the cards in his hand.
 

           
Six
hands later, Ian Korvan was certainly regretting his warm invitation to Mr.
Richards.
 
The scratchy-voiced
stranger had won every hand.
 
With
each win, his stingy smile would flicker above his beard as he plucked his
winnings out of the middle of the table.
   

           
Chase
was pleased to get a winning hand next.
 
She held three kings and was confident that she would take this
hand.
 
Her confidence was shaken,
however, when a deep manly voice drawled, “You cleanin’ everyone out again,
Cochrane?”

           
She
didn’t have to turn toward the voice to know who it was.
 
Instead, she dropped her kings and
collected her winnings from the center of the table.

           
Webb
moved from behind her toward the empty seat directly across from the table.
 
“Y’all have room for a slow Texan?” he
asked.

           
Thompson
invited him to join the table, and Chase took the liberty of making
introductions.
 

           
“Hell,
Cochrane, ain’t you drinkin’ tonight?” Webb joked.

           
“Not
yet,” she grinned.
 
Lord, he was a
treat for the eyes.
 
Not a single
one of her fantasies had done him justice.
 
He was ten times more handsome than she remembered.

           
“Well,
let me help you with that,” he offered with a grin.
 
Chase couldn’t help but notice the laugh lines around his
confident smile.
 
Fearing that she
would get caught admiring him, she turned her attention to the other passengers
in the lounge.
 

A waiter passed by, and Webb
ordered a round of drinks for each man at the table.
 
Chase made note that not only was he able to afford a first
class ticket, but he could also afford to pay for a round of drinks for his new
friends.
 
It was just one more
impressive detail to add to the man’s dossier.
 
“You men should know that this young man here, this
Cochrane, he may look sweet and boyish, but he will rob you blind at the card
table,” he volunteered with a wink in her direction.

           
Since
she didn’t yet have a mug to hide her flushed cheeks behind, she merely smiled
and lowered her eyes to the table.
 
“We all have our run of luck at one time or another,” she said quietly.

           
“Modest,
too.
 
He cleaned me out just last
night.”

           
The
Korvan brothers laughed heartily.
 
“Judging by his performance tonight, Webb,” Jack argued, “his luck ran
out sometime between then and now.
 
Richards is the one taking all of our money tonight.”
 

           
“Well,
let’s see it then,” he suggested.
 
And the game continued.
 

           
Jack
Korvan had been correct.
 
Chase’s
luck had certainly run out.
 
She
was quickly running out of money.
 
Thompson had quit and left the table nearly thirty minutes before.
 
And she was preparing to fold her
hand.
 
She had a pair of threes,
and judging by the expressions on the faces of Webb and Richards, she would not
be able to compete with the two of them.
 
When the two men made their wagers, Chase was glad that she had folded.

           
Five
hundred pounds lay in the center of the table, and the two men were preparing
to reveal their hands.
 
Richards
would have to lay his hand down first.
 
The corner of his mouth twitched in pleasure as he lay down his four
eights.
 
He dropped his hands into
his lap and watched Webb’s face, expecting to see disappointment.
 
Instead, Webb grinned and had the gall
to wink at Chase as he dropped his straight flush on the table.
 

           
“That
was damned lucky,” Webb said with a shake of his head.
 
He stood to retrieve his winnings, and she
turned to see the redness of Richards’s face deepen.
 
The hands, which had been resting in his lap moved quickly
under the table, and a gun suddenly appeared in his hand, pointed directly at
Webb.
 

CHAPTER 3

Both Korvan brothers pushed
back suddenly from the table, startled by the surprising response from Henry
Richards.

           
Webb
looked up and pulled his hands away from his winnings.
 
“Hey now,” he replied softly.
 
“There’s no need for that kind of
thing, Richards.”

           
“You
lying cheat!” he spat, his scratchy voice sounding even more menacing than it
had before.
 
“I saw you winking at
the boy here!
 
Telling us about his
streak of luck to distract us.
 
So
we won’t notice your signals.
 
Your
cheating ways may be acceptable in Texas, but nobody cheats Henry
Richards!
 
Nobody.”
 
He spoke the last word barely above a
whisper, and his finger tightened on the trigger of the weapon.
           

           
Chastity
didn’t have time to think about what to do.
 
She simply lunged for the man from her seat.
 
Her chair flipped over noisily, drawing
attention to their corner of the lounge.
 
She hit him in the belly, and his arms were knocked upward.
 
The gun went off, and the bullet went
into the ceiling nearly directly over their heads.
 
Plaster dust showered down upon them while men cried out,
still not aware of what was transpiring.
 
The Korvan brothers were quick to leap to her rescue, joining her in the
attack of Henry Richards.
 
The two
landed on top of her and wrestled the gun away from the man.
 

By the time Jack pulled Chase
to her feet, one of the ship’s officers was pulling Richards to his feet.
 
The officer assured everyone at the
table that Richards would be locked up for the duration of the passage, and no
harm would come to any of the passengers.

           
“Dammit,
Cochrane, you could have been killed,” Webb scolded her.

           
The
very thought had just occurred to Chastity, and her hands had begun to
tremble.
 
It also occurred to her that
as she and the Korvan brothers wrestled Richards for the gun, any one of the
three men might have noticed her bound breasts or feminine hips.
 
These unfortunate features were
well-hidden with men’s clothing.
 
But piled on the floor as they had been, it was surprising that nobody
had noticed.
 
She could only
suppose that
the
men were more focused on getting the gun.
 
She certainly had been.

           
“You’re
shakin’ like a leaf, boy.
 
Let’s
get you another drink.
 
My treat.”

           
“I’m
fine.
 
Really,” she assured him,
bending to pick up the chair she’d overturned.
 
Dizziness assaulted her while she was bent over, and she
grabbed the chair to steady herself.
 
Colton Webb wasn’t kind enough to pretend he didn’t notice.

           
“The
hell you are.
 
C’mon.”

           
She
left the chair on the floor and followed Webb shakily to the bar.
 
Sitting on the stool beside him, she
rested her head in her hands, deliberately burying her face so he wouldn’t see
the womanish shock.

           
“That
scared the hell outta me.
 
I won’t
lie.”
 

           
Chase
raised her face and watched Webb run his large tanned hand over his forehead
and into his hair.
 
He dropped
money on the bar for the barkeep and pushed a pint toward her.
 

           
“It’s
been a long while since a man pulled a gun on me.
 
But at least the last time, I had deserved it.
 
Hell, I even expected it.
 
Not this time, though.”

           
“He
was a bloody twitchy bastard,” she commented before taking a long drink of the
cool ale.

           
Webb
grinned at her and answered, “Sure was.
 
Thanks for your quick response.
 
I owe you my life, you know.”

           
“You
owe me nothing,” Chase assured him.
 
“We were lucky, that’s all.”

           
“I’m
the lucky one.
 
I’m especially
lucky that you have good instincts.”

           
Right
at that moment, she was fighting to keep from looking at Webb’s devastating
profile.
 
Her instincts were
telling her to drink up quickly and head back to my cabin.
 
Suddenly, Chase recognized the very
danger that James was trying so hard to protect her from.
 
And she knew that it was necessary to
put as much distance as she could between herself and Colton Webb…right after she
finished her pint.