McCrory's Lady (20 page)

Chapter Nine

      
“l want McCrory dead.” Win Barker's voice was controlled, the ice cold tone masking his fury. “How many men do I have to hire before someone succeeds?” He turned his heavy swivel chair away from the man standing in front of his desk and stared out the window. “Dammit, here in Apache country it isn't as if that man doesn't have enough enemies.”

      
“Hell, he'd make 'em on his own even if he wasn't a dirty Injun lover,” the gunman replied. “And now he's got that breed working for him, too,” he said, rubbing his whiskered jaw.

      
“Are you afraid of Blake?” Barker asked contemptuously. “You're pretty lucky to be alive, from all I've heard.”

      
“I'm not afraid of neither one of ‘em. I'll handle McCrory—and that damn breed, too.”

      
“See that you do. Jeb Settler has a couple of men who can back you. You know how to contact him.”

      
“Yeah, boss. This time nothing will go wrong. You'll see.”

      
“It'd better not. I want McCrory's meddling over and done with before that special investigator from Washington arrives in Prescott.” Barker made a dismissive gesture to the gunman. “Don't come back for your money until it's finished.”

      
After the door to his big, crowded office closed, Barker turned his chair to the side door from his private quarters. “You can come out now. He's gone.”

      
The elegantly dressed man slipped from behind the door and paced across the office, noting the clutter with distaste. “Are you certain you can trust that bungler?”

      
Barker snorted as he poured two glasses of excellent whiskey from a decanter. “Why the hell should you worry? You never let any of them see your face.”

      
His companion flushed angrily. “You know that my involvement, were it to become known, would ruin everything for you as well as me.”

      
Barker smiled genially. “Don't get your back up. Here, have a drink.” He handed the glass to his cohort, then raised his own in a toast. “To Colin McCrory's imminent demise.”

* * * *

      
Maggie stood by the front window in her big bedroom watching Colin and Wolf ride out. Fuchsia and gold rent the gray velvet darkness of the eastern sky as the horsemen disappeared down the long, curving trail. She scanned the magnificent view of the Verde River Basin spread around her, remembering the first time she had seen Colin's home.

      
Colin’s home.
But this magnificent ranch house would never be hers. How splendid it was, sitting in the center of the valley, all lush with spring grass and wildflowers. A huge porch surrounded all four sides of the frame edifice constructed in the Southern raised cottage style made popular by Anglo ranchers in the northern parts of the territory. The “cottage's” first floor was elevated six feet above the storage basements. There were eight rooms on the main floor. The dormer-windowed second story had six commodious bedrooms, including Colin's huge suite and her spacious adjoining quarters.

      
She stared at the door between the two rooms, a door that had never opened since they took up residence here ten days ago. What a splendidly beautiful prison she had wrought for herself. Rubbing her temples to forestall the pounding headache she knew was coming, Maggie chided herself, knowing it was not entirely fair or true. She did have a far more meaningful life here with Eden than she had with Bart in Sonora.

      
But the ranch house, of which she was the supposed mistress, ran like a precision-made clock without her help. Not that Eileen O'Banyon had not been most hospitable, welcoming Colin's unexpected bride and keeping her astonishment well concealed. However, after nearly twenty years of running the household, Eileen was used to making all the decisions. The housekeeper ordered the supplies, oversaw the growing, harvesting and preserving of food and the slaughter of steers, pigs and chickens for their table.

      
A small army of servants kept the house and grounds immaculate under Eileen's watchful eye. Maggie had learned their names and befriended them. Being fluent in Spanish was useful since most of them were of Mexican ancestry. She conversed with them in their native language, something neither the housekeeper nor Colin's foreman Riefe Cates could do. Even if the people at Crown Verde were a bit puzzled and in awe of her, everyone seemed willing enough to accept the new Mrs. McCrory—everyone except Mr. McCrory.

      
“Don't think of Colin,” she murmured to herself as she turned from the window and began her morning toilette. He and Wolf were riding east toward the reservation where Colin's lumber mill sat in the foothills. They were not expected to return for several days. The way her husband avoided her, she would scarcely be able to tell the difference.

      
Eden was an altogether different matter, but equally as troubling. If Colin wanted nothing to do with his wife, his daughter drew closer to her with every passing day. Maggie had bargained her way into this marriage because Eden needed her, and she had grown to love the young woman like her own daughter. But such dependence was not good for a lovely and bright girl whose body had been defiled by Lazlo's trickery and whose spirit was being demolished by the cruelty of her peers.

      
Sophie Stanley and Mariah Whittaker had spread Mrs. Simpson's tale of Eden's illicit elopement across the territory faster than a telegraph wire. Eden was “ruined.” All the town women snubbed her, and even the men at Crown Verde leered knowingly at her, with the exception of the kindly old foreman and a few of the longtime cowhands.

      
And Wolf Blake.

      
Maggie felt certain Blake was in love with Eden. There had been a spark of attraction since the first time he had seen the girl. The mutual fascination between them had grown ever since. But Eden viewed Wolf in the same light as she had Lazlo. So would her father if he had any inkling of Blake's interest in his daughter. A half-breed drifter who lived by his guns was scarcely the sort of husband a man of Colin McCrory's stature envisioned for his only child. Neither was Maggie Worthington the sort of woman he would have chosen as his wife, but she refused to dwell on that bitter fact.

      
As she walked down the long flight of stairs and smelled the yeasty aroma of fresh baked bread, Maggie considered the wisdom of playing matchmaker between Eden and Wolf. Best to go slow there and further take the man's measure. He was a loner, a man whom life had treated harshly. Often such men made less than ideal husband material.

      
“Sure and ye're lookin' glum, Miz Maggie,” Eileen said as her shrewd gaze swept over Colin's bride. “Missin’ him already and himself not two miles from the ranch house yet.” She wiped her flour-coated hands on her apron, then poured a cup of inky rich coffee and handed it to Maggie.

      
“Thank you, Eileen,” Maggie replied, trying to divert the scrutiny of the well-meaning older woman to a safer area. “I thought Eden and I might ride down to the spring roundup camp on the Verde this morning.”

      
A troubled look came over Eileen's plump, kindly face. “I don't know about her riding today. She got up early to see her pa off, then wouldn't eat breakfast. Said she was feelin' that bad. I coaxed a cup of warm milk down her and it was back to sleep she went. Not an hour ago.”

      
Maggie sighed. “Best to let her sleep then. Is there anything I could help you do today—besides the cooking?” she asked ruefully.

      
“I had been intendin' to start the upstairs spring cleaning before Miz Eden's troubles. If ye'd like to help with that, it's grateful I'd be.”

      
After Maggie ate a light breakfast, the two women started upstairs, with Eileen, loquacious as ever, leading the way. “I always like to do the deep cleanin' meself. The maids, they do as I tell them but it's not the same, I'm thinkin’.”

      
Armed with dusters and brooms, mops and buckets, they made their way down the long hallway. “Best to begin with the mister's room while he's away,” the housekeeper said, noticing that Maggie hesitated a second before following her into Colin's quarters.

      
Maggie looked at the rough-hewn pine furniture, so heavy and masculine, so like the man himself. “This certainly is different from the furnishings in the rest of the house,” she said as her eyes deliberately skimmed past the bed.

      
“Ye've niver been in here before, have ye?” Eileen asked gently.

      
Maggie felt the heat steal into her face as she formed an angry retort. Then, seeing the sympathetic light in the housekeeper's eyes, she bit back the words. “No, no I haven't. As I'm sure you know, Colin and I don't have a real marriage. He only married me for Eden's sake.”

      
“And what of yerself? Don't be tellin' me it was only for Eden's sake, no matter that ye do love her like she was yer own.”

      
Maggie picked up a feather duster and began to run it along the low open beams of the ceiling. “No, it wasn't only for Eden. I wanted to escape my past. Colin provided me with a way to do that.”

      
“Why is it I'm thinkin' Colin McCrory's a whole lot more than just a way of escapin' yer past to ye?” Her round, guileless face was openly curious now.

      
“I had quite a past to escape.” Maggie measured Eileen, then decided to gamble on honesty. “When Colin met me in Sonora I was half owner of a saloon and bordello.” She raised her chin a notch, waiting for the Irishwoman's reaction.

      
Eileen digested the startling information for a moment, then said, “Do ye expect me to be shocked right down to me bone marrow? I'm not. But ye sure don't look or act the likes of them scarlet poppies in town. It's good stock yer from. And, after what's happened to me little girl...her bein' led astray by that oily-tongued serpent. Well, I can only be grateful she was rescued from what ye must've suffered.”

      
“Thank you, Eileen,” Maggie replied quietly.

      
When Maggie volunteered no more, the housekeeper patted her arm in a motherly fashion and said, “If ever ye want to talk about it, it's a willin' ear I have.”

      
“There are certain similarities between mistakes I made and those Eden made. That's why Eden was able to convince her father that he should marry me and bring me here.”

      
“And of course ye came like a martyr, not wantin' to wed with the mister atall,” Eileen replied with a wry chuckle, noting the heightened color in Maggie's cheeks and the way her eyes could not keep from studying her husband's inner sanctum. In time, she might fathom the mystery of their relationship and help the two young fools to work it out.

      
Eileen O’Banyon was a patient woman. Changing the subject abruptly, she said, “Yer right about this furniture not fittin' with the rest of the household. Miz Elizabeth bought everything for the big house when the mister finished buildin' it for her. After she died in this room, he couldn't bear to sleep in the bed. He had a cabinetmaker in Prescott make this set for him. The dainty French furniture the missus favored is stored in the attic, along with the rest of her things.”

      
“He must've loved her very much,” Maggie said, feeling that now familiar tight ache forming in her chest as she picked up an old photograph of Colin as a younger man, standing beside a small, beautiful woman.

      
“Miz Elizabeth was tiny, a real fragile thing, all pale blonde. Miz Eden takes after her coloring and fine bones, but it's her pa's toughness that's seen her through lots of scrapes—even before this last one.”

      
They stripped the curtains and bed linens for the maids to wash, rolled the braided rug for beating, then removed everything from the tops of the chest of drawers and tables and began to polish the wood with lemon oil.

      
Some self-punishing instinct would not relinquish its hold on Maggie as her thoughts kept returning to the old picture. “Tell me about her, Eileen.”

      
The older woman sighed. “It's been so long ago.”

      
“And yet Colin still grieves. He never remarried all those years while Eden was growing up.”

      
“He blamed himself for Miz Elizabeth's death. A prime bit of foolishness. A man needs sons—especially one like the mister. Eden needed brothers and sisters, too. But it's a stubborn one he is.”

      
Maggie smiled grimly. “How well I know that.”

      
“I think his grief was part and parcel with his gratitude. He felt he owed everything to her.”

      
A puzzled expression spread across Maggie's face. Colin McCrory had always appeared arrogant, never humble to her. “But I thought he was a wealthy man when he married her.”

      
“Aye, and that he was, but he'd made his fortune with a strong back and a will of iron. He was as rough and unpolished as the likes ye'd see in any saloon. Could barely sign his own name on their marriage lines. Her family was from old money back east. I came west with them as her maid. Her pa had taken a commission from West Point and brought us to Arizona during the War Between the States. The first time Mister Colin went to the Army post to deliver a herd of horses, he was smitten. Her pa wouldn't have allowed the match if the mister hadn't been so successful, him bein' a foreigner with no fancy pedigree and no family.”

      
“I imagine Elizabeth had something to say about that,” Maggie said, gazing at the photograph of a young dark-haired Colin with an intense expression on his handsome face. How could any woman have resisted him? She still remembered his charm when they had teased and laughed together that first afternoon in the Silver Eagle.