My Darling Gunslinger (14 page)

Ty didn’t miss her hesitation, wondered if she’d been about to say at court.

She was raised at court…with princes and dukes and the like.

Not just a lady but a Lady.

“Since the day Nanny took a razor to my head, I have not allowed more than the occasional trim, perhaps half an inch twice yearly.”

Ty said nothing, his mind filled with her, with the vision of her, with the feel of her straddling him, with the glimpses she’d given him into her past.

“Ty?” she whispered, her hands fluttering up to brush the long, unruly curls back behind her shoulders.

He gently caught her wrists and returned her hands to his chest before reaching up to delve his fingers into her hair, lifting handfuls. He held the silky soft mass of it away from her body and then released it to drift around her in a cloud of golden curls that settled on her back, on her shoulders, down her arms and over her breasts. The ends bushed against his thighs behind her, against his abdomen before her.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Ty breathed. “Never, ever, wear it down around the hands.”

“No, of course not,” she agreed with a laugh.

“Or any other man, for that matter,” he ordered gruffly as he traced one long strand from her shoulder, over the swell of her breast, his eyes following the movement. His finger stopped just above her nipple poking through the honey curtain. He hesitated there and Charlotte sucked in a trembling breath, pushing the pink peak through the golden curtain.

“Did he ever see you like this?” The question was out before he could stop it.

“George?” she asked with a nervous giggle. “No, why ever would he? He was never injured, necessitating a curative tincture.”

Ty arched a brow.

“A medicinal ointment,” she clarified.

“I knew what you meant,” he muttered. Did she really not know what she was doing to him? He could feel the heat of her low on his belly, just above the base of his hardening cock, the length of her thighs pressed along his sides, and her fingers idly combing through the hair around his nipples.

“Sometimes it’s hard to determine whether you are asking for a translation or merely mocking my speech,” she admitted with a shrug of one dainty shoulder.

“I’ve never mocked you,” he replied in surprise.

“No?”

“Not with the intent to offer insult.”

“You’ve a quick mind, Mr. Morgan,” she drawled.

“But little in the way of schooling,” he admitted.

“How little?”

Ty hesitated, not sure he wanted to begin down a road that might force him to lie to her. Or worse, to reveal the truth. “None.”

“None at all? How is that possible? You’re an intelligent man. You know how to read.”

“One of the whores taught me,” he replied carefully.

“Oh,” she squeaked. “I… That is… Did you pay her as you would for…” She waved a hand between them and Ty smiled despite his discomfort.

“I didn’t pay her.”

“For the tutoring?” she asked with a gleam in her eyes. “Or for the lovemaking?”

“It’s not love making when a woman must be paid to spread her legs.”

“Did you pay her for the fucking?” she persisted.

“I was seven.”

“Seven? What on earth were you doing with a prostitute at the age of seven?”

Ty saw the horror on her face, felt it in the way she shifted above him as if she might rise to her feet.

He clamped his hands to her thighs, pressing them against him, and met her wide eyes.

“I was raised in a brothel.” His words were rushed, his voice raspier than he would have liked.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“My mother was a working girl.”

“And your father?”

Ty said nothing.

“Oh, of course,” she murmured, covering his hands on her thighs with her own. “And it was one of your mother’s friends who taught you to read?”

“Josie would allow me into her room between customers,” he replied. “She’d gotten hold of an old primer from somewhere and decided to teach me my letters. When I’d mastered my letters, she taught me to read and write. Sometimes she’d give me books she’d bought at a secondhand store.”

“Where was your mother?” she whispered.

“Down the hall on her back. If she wasn’t beneath some cowpoke or gambler, she was staring off into space, making plans that never happened, dreaming dreams that never came true.”

Charlotte did not respond, not with words anyway. Instead she leaned forward, her hair falling around them, cocooning them. Her lips met his, warm and trembling.

Ty understood she meant to offer comfort, to soothe him, but desire slammed into him, stealing his breath. With shaking hands he cupped her face, his fingers tangling in her hair, and deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth.

She murmured something against his lips, something so quiet he felt the vibration of her breath but could not catch the words.

“Hmm?”

“You were just a boy,” she whispered, leaning back, the ends of her hair trailing over his chest. “I can see you. All gangly limbs and a gap where you’d lost a tooth. You had red hair and big, curious gray eyes. I bet you used to sneak down to the kitchen for ginger biscuits.”

Ty smiled at her fanciful notions. He’d never been a boy and there’d sure as hell never been ginger biscuits in the cramped little kitchen behind the brothel.

“What did you dream of being when you grew up?” she asked.

“Dream of being?” he repeated in confusion. The only thing he’d ever dreamed of was finding a way to take his mother away from that brothel, from a life that even as a child he’d known was slowly killing her.

“Yes. Did you dream of being a cowboy? A soldier charging into battle? A porter on a train? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“A gunslinger,” he answered for lack of any other response.

“A gunslinger?”

“A hired gun, a bounty hunter,” he clarified just to be difficult.

“Hush.” She swatted playfully at his chest.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” he asked, hoping to deflect her curiosity.

“Oh, but I never…” she began in apparent confusion.

“You never…” he prompted when she fell silent.

“There was never any question. I always knew I would marry well and set about gifting my husband with an heir.”

“That’s it?”

“There are few choices available to ladies,” she replied with a frown. “We begin training when we are barely out of the nursery.”

“Training to marry well?”

“We are trained to run a large household, to host dinners and balls, to dance and flirt, to make polite conversation, to ignore those things beyond our control and instead concentrate our efforts upon those very few things within our power.” A shadow, perhaps of remembered pain, darkened Charlotte’s eyes. “And to please our husband in all things.”

“So he’ll give his mistress her conge?” Ty asked in an effort to tease the shadow away.

“So he might please us with a jeweled headband or a smart, little curricle,” she replied with a breathless laugh, leaning down to brush a kiss to one corner of his mouth.

Ty ignored the fission of warning skating up his spine, only too pleased to allow Charlotte to distract him with her warm lips and nimble tongue.

A man’s pride is a fragile thing and woe betide to the woman who reveals him for the fool he is.

Nanny Bettelheim

Ken Chang waited until the remnants of Akeem’s curried chicken and spicy tandoori had been cleared, the low table removed from the center of the parlor, and the inhabitants of the house sprawled around the room on velvet and brocade pillows.

“We’ve a blessing to share,” the small man, resplendent in a turquoise robe embroidered with brightly colored dragonflies, announced as he pulled his wife snug against his side.

Ethel leaned her head against his shoulder, a smile lighting up her angular face.

Charlotte forced her gaze to remain on the couple while she sought and found Sebastian’s small hand resting on the carpet beside her. She laced their fingers together and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

“We are in anticipation of a wondrous event,” Chang said.

“We’re to have a baby,” Ethel added with a giggle.

“A baby!” Daisy jumped to her feet and clapped her hands together.

“Allah be praised,” Akeem offered, gracefully rising to stand beside the housekeeper, one huge hand going to rest on her back.

“Lord Almighty, it’s a blessing to be sure,” Magnus bellowed as he lumbered to his feet. He shot Charlotte a look as Sebastian released her hand and scrambled to his knees to crawl across the floor, launching himself at Ethel who opened her arms wide to embrace him.

“A baby!” he cried. “A little baby of your own! Will it be a boy, do you think?”

Then everyone was crowded around the Changs offering congratulations.

Charlotte rose slowly, aware of Ty’s eyes on her from where he stood just outside the circle of well-wishers. She avoided his gaze, instead forcing her lips to curve, sifting through her anxiety to find a measure of joy for her friends’ announcement.

She’d known of course. But to actually hear the words made it real. She could no longer pretend the two stalwart warriors would forever be at Sebastian’s side protecting him. They had another life to protect now.

Ethel stepped away from the others and crossed the room to join Charlotte. “It is a surprise, yes?”

“A very happy surprise,” Charlotte agreed, finding a genuine smile for the taller woman who had been both friend and guardian to her and Sebastian. “I am truly happy for you, for both of you.”

“We have time.”

“Of course, babies aren’t born overnight.”

They both knew they talked of more than the coming baby.

“Ken has heard of a man in San Francisco,” Ethel continued. “A half-breed rumored to be skilled with a knife.”

“We needn’t worry about that just yet,” Charlotte replied, her eyes darting to Ty as he turned and walked from the room, his steps slow and measured.

Ethel followed her gaze. “Even with the gunslinger at your side, you’ll need another at your back.”

“I don’t know that Mr. Morgan will be at our side.”

“Have you not spoken with him, asked him to help you?”

“Mr. Morgan wishes to retire from that life, to put away his gun and devote himself to the Zeppelin.” As she spoke the words, she felt the weight of their truth.

Tyler Morgan had been saving, likely since the day he’d left the whorehouse, putting away every bounty and reward he’d earned in hopes of leaving a life of bloodshed and death behind him.

Could she ask him, beg or bribe him to give up his dream, to strap the pearl-handled revolvers on his hips and step back into that life?

Sebastian chose that moment to launch himself against her, his thin arms wrapping around her waist and his blond head tilted back as he gifted her with a gap-toothed grin.

“We’re to have a baby about,” he proclaimed, too young, too innocent to understand the Changs would be gone from their lives before the babe was born.

Charlotte looked down into her son’s beaming face, her gaze drifting over his bright eyes and flushed cheeks, over the square chin so like his father’s. In that moment she knew she could and would beg, bribe or bully Ty until he agreed to trade his dreams, his hopes and wishes, for a life of hiding, of packing up and running on a moment’s notice, of traveling the globe like a gypsy, with only an old railway car to call home.

“It is a blessing,” Akeem said as he joined them, Magnus lumbering along behind him.

“Champagne!” the Scotsman roared. “Champagne to celebrate a new life.”

From across the room, Daisy’s head rose, a blush sweeping over her cheeks as she met Charlotte’s eyes.

She held out her hand to the shy girl who’d once been a whore, who’d known Ty Morgan perhaps as intimately as she herself now knew the man.

Daisy hurried forward, a smile trembling around her lips.

“Perhaps Akeem might help you to reach the champagne flutes,” Charlotte suggested, fighting to answer the smile with one of her own.

“Your wish is my command.” Placing his hand on Daisy’s back, the gentle giant ushered her out of the room.

“Ach, and if it comes to fleeing again, we’ll be taking the lass with us,” Magnus said, ruffling Sebastian’s curls. “Akeem’ll not be willing to give her up.”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed, wondering, not for the first time, if Akeem saw the harem girls when he looked at the housekeeper, if he’d recognized her wounded soul from the very beginning.

“Time for your bath, Sebastian,” Magnus said as Ethel wandered over to join her husband across the room. “You’ve a big day ahead of you on the morrow.”

“Am I truly to go to school with the other children?” Sebastian asked his mother, and she could not help but see the joy and hope and doubt mingling in his eyes.

“You truly are,” she assured him, bending down to brush her nose against his. “But you must remember the rules.”

“Magnus and Akeem are to escort me into the schoolhouse each morning and wait for me until school lets out in the afternoon. I am not ever to go wandering off where they cannot see me. I am not to tell anyone my true name, nor mention my travels or where I was born.” Sebastian ticked off the rules on his fingers.

“What else?” Charlotte prompted.

“I am always to have my derringer in my saddlebag,” he continued, squinting in concentration. “I am never to show it to the other children, never to make mention that I have it. If I see anyone suspicious loitering around the schoolhouse I am to immediately run to Akeem or Magnus screaming for all I am worth.”

“You’ve left off one very important rule,” Charlotte replied when he fell silent.

“I have?”

“You must always kiss your mother before you leave and again upon your return,” Charlotte whispered.

“Aw, Mother, must I really?” Sebastian teased.

“Yes, you must,” she answered before pulling him into her arms and planting a loud, smacking kiss on his lips.

Charlotte watched the young boy and old man walk from the room hand in hand, her heart near to bursting with love.

“Countess.”

At the single whispered word, a word she rarely had occasion to hear lest Magnus was in a snit, Charlotte spun around to find Ken Chang directly behind her, his customarily smiling countenance pulled into solemn lines.

“Ken,” she breathed, reaching out to take his hands. “I am so terribly pleased for you.”

“Terribly,” he repeated, squeezing her fingers, and she grimaced at her poor choice of words.

“Truly, my heart is filled with joy,” she insisted.

“And yet there is room for worry.”

“Yes.” Too much room for worry and fear and rage.

“Ethel has told me you have not spoken to Mr. Morgan yet. Perhaps I might talk to him, explain the situation.”

“No, Ken, no,” she replied quickly. “I shall speak with him.”

“That would be best,” he agreed. “You’ve a way about you.”

“I don’t intend to bat my lashes at the man, if that’s what you mean,” she answered with a huff.

“You’ve no need. You’ve only to explain the life you’ve been forced to lead, and he will see the right of it and offer you his services.”

“I hadn’t thought to tell him the entire tale just yet.”

“If you doubt his honor, his integrity—“

“I don’t,” she interrupted. “Magnus said that you see him for who and what he is, that Uncle Jasper was careful in his choice of man to help us. I trust you all, trust your instincts and your love for Sebastian.”

“And you,” he whispered.

Charlotte blinked against the sting of tears.

“And still you doubt,” Ken said, not unkindly. “I will leave for San Francisco on the morning train. With luck I will return in two, perhaps three weeks with Kim Windsong.”

“The knife-wielding Indian.”

“Ah, not just any knife-wielding Indian. He is a tracker and a medicine man as was his father before him. His mother was born in the east, near my homeland, so you can imagine the way he is shunned by both tribes and by the white man.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“I do not think it will be hard to convince him to replace me, and once he is here you will win his loyalty and make him a part of your family.”

Your family. Already Ken had placed himself and his wife outside the little group of warriors who had devoted themselves to protecting a single boy.

“No one could ever replace you,” she whispered. “Nor Ethel.”

“We will always be in your heart,” Ken answered with a smile. “As you and Sebastian will always be in ours.”

Akeem and Daisy returned, the giant carrying a tray of delicate crystal glasses and two bottles of champagne from the crate the travelers had been lugging around since their last trip through France.

After glasses of the effervescent wine had been raised and innumerable toasts, both sentimental and bawdy, had been offered to the parents-to-be, Charlotte’s housemates wandered from the room, Ethel and Chang taking the stairs together hand in hand, while Akeem and Daisy disappeared into the kitchen.

Magnus found Charlotte some minutes later standing at the window, staring out at the night with sightless eyes, contemplating her options and wishing she knew how to go about asking Tyler Morgan to step into the breach that would form when the Changs left the Zeppelin.

“So, lassie,” Magnus greeted, catching her gaze in the reflection of the glass. “You had the right of it.”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“Ach, I know it’s a blow, but we’ve weathered worse blows.”

“I want to be happy for Ethel and Ken.”

“I know you do, sweetling. And you will be, it just wants some time,” the gruff Scotsman replied gently.

“We haven’t time,” she answered, fighting to hold back her panic.

“Course we do,” he argued. “The devil hasn’t found us yet, and with a bit of luck he won’t.”

“What if you are wrong?”

“Now, Ken’ll be back with that Windsong fellow in a jiffy.”

“One man with a knife cannot replace Ethel and Ken.”

“We’ve Ty now,” Magnus replied. “He’s taken with this land, and unless I miss my guess, he’s taken with you. He won’t allow any harm to come to you or the boy.”

“And if we are forced to flee?” she whispered. “Will he give up the land, forsake his own dreams to flee with us?”

“Land sakes, lassie, haven’t you asked him?” Magnus bellowed.

“Lower your voice,” she hissed, turning to face the blustering man. “I have not yet broached the subject with Mr. Morgan.”

“What in blazes were you doing in that railcar all day if’n you weren’t bargaining for his bloody gun?” he roared.

Face flaming, Charlotte raised her chin, met his eyes and held them.

“Well hell, lassie,” he groused with a shake of his head.

Charlotte remained silent, waiting for whatever words of wisdom her old friend might offer.

“I suppose you’d best go talk to the man.” 

“I rather thought I would wait until tomorrow,” she replied, suspecting her emotions were too tangled for eloquence just now, and if ever there was a time when true eloquence was required, surely this was such a time.

“Trust me, Countess, he’ll be amenable right about now.”

Not entirely comprehending his words, but trusting him regardless, Charlotte lifted onto her toes to press a quick kiss to his weathered cheek.

“Then I will speak with him now,” she said, stepping back to give him a smile that felt stiff. “Wish me luck.”

When she left the parlor and turned into the hall, she saw the door to Jasper’s study was ajar, a shaft of yellow light spilling across the floor.

Tyler Morgan’s study now, she reminded herself. He owned the majority of the ranch, and while she trusted him never to toss her family from their home, and after today imagined he rather liked the idea of having her about, she knew there was a very real possibility he would refuse to join his gun with Akeem’s deadly hands, Magnus’s crafty mind and lackluster aim, and her own meager skills.

Even so, she owed him the truth, if for no other reason than he deserved to understand the threat that loomed over the Zeppelin as long as Sebastian resided within the shelter of her mountains and fields and streams.