My Darling Gunslinger (25 page)

“Atwitter?” Ty repeated, just to unravel her nerves a bit. The woman was strung up tighter than a drum. “I don’t remember atwitter in my dictionary and I’ve gotten through the As twice.”

“You didn’t recollect audacious either,” she reminded him with an arch of one brow. “Perhaps you ought revisit your lexicon and peruse the As once more. Be sure to linger awhile on aggravating and apparent. As in your desire to aggravate me is quite apparent, husband.”

“What’s a lexicon?” Sebastian asked.

Ty smiled and rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “A fancy word for dictionary.”

“Mother is partial to fancy words.”

“So long as she isn’t partial to fancy men.”

“I don’t know, you look quite fancy to me, Tyler Morgan,” Charlotte retorted as they came to a stop a dozen feet before a row of guards holding long pikes.

Their retinue of protectors masquerading as servants came to a halt just behind them, an impenetrable wall at Sebastian’s back.

A short, rotund man hurried forward, his bald head gleaming and his white mustache bobbing. “Countess Westlockhart, a pleasure to see you after so many years away from us.”

“Baron Cleves,” Charlotte greeted with barely a nod. “I abhor the necessity to correct so august a personage, but I am to be addressed as Lady Charlotte Morgan. Permit me to present to you my husband, Mr. Morgan, and my son, the Earl of Westlockhart.”

Her cool tones might have given the man frostbite had he not been distracted by the sight of Sebastian rising from a bow to stand proudly between his mother and Ty.

Baron Cleves’s mouth dropped open as he stared at the boy. “By gad, he has the Grenville chin. And there is undoubtedly something of your late husband in his eyes.”

“I can assure you there is something of Westlockhart in more than my son’s eyes,” Charlotte drawled. “I have been absent from court for some time, Lord Cleves, but I believe it is still customary to show a peer of the realm the courtesy due to him by right of birth.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the fat man stammered as he bowed before Sebastian. “I beg your pardon, Lady Westlockhart.”

“Lady Charlotte Morgan,” she corrected. “And it is not my pardon you ought to beg, sir.”

“Quite right,” he agreed, bowing yet again. “My humblest apologies for any offense I might have caused, Lord Westlockhart.”

Sebastian shot a quick, confused glance at his mother, smiling when she winked.

“I believe Her Majesty is expecting us,” Charlotte prompted when Cleves continued to look at Sebastian, a frown pulling his bushy eyebrows low. “Why don’t you run along and announce us.”

Baron Cleves flushed and hurried away, disappearing behind the doors as they closed on silent hinges.

“A friend of yours?” Ty asked.

“A friend of Mr. Grenville’s,” she answered. “And a member of the queen’s household who couldn’t keep from spreading gossip if his life depended upon it.”

“Does it?”

“Does what?”

“Does his life depend upon it?

Charlotte blinked, a slow smile curling over her lips. “Where were you when I needed you eight years ago?”

Ty rested a finger on his lips and pretended to ponder the question for a moment, surprising a giggle from his wife.

Beneath the welcome sound of Charlotte’s amusement, Ty caught a woman’s laughter, low and spiteful, followed by a whisper intentionally pitched loud enough for everyone within a dozen feet to hear. “Countess Bestcockhard.”

Deciding he couldn’t have heard right, Ty started to turn toward the voice somewhere behind and to the left of where they stood.

Charlotte reached across Sebastian’s head, her fingers curling around Ty’s upper arm as she looked up, her face as red as Magnus’ coat. “You’ll only encourage her to further mischief if you acknowledge her nonsense.”

“I’ll give her a bit o’ mischief, and make no mistake.” Magnus’ voice was a low rumble at Ty’s shoulder.

“Do you know the woman?” Ethel asked.

“Mrs. St. Germaine,” Charlotte murmured.

“Another friend of Grenville’s?” Ty guessed.

“A friend of Westlockhart’s actually,” she replied after a slight hesitation.

Ah, the mistress who’d been given her conge only to start a ruckus at the funeral. “Sour grapes.”

“Something rather like,” Charlotte agreed as she looked back over her shoulder. “Her Majesty does not allow servants beyond the hall.”

“You’re to go in there alone?” Magnus hissed. “Like a lamb to the slaughter?”

“Even Frederick would not be so bold as to make a move in the queen’s presence.”

“I can’t like it,” the Scotsman groused.

The doors opened and Baron Cleves motioned their party inside with a stiff bow.

The queen’s reception chamber was a wonder, a vast rectangular space with marble floors and fancy gilded scrollwork on the walls. Huge chandeliers dropped from the ceiling, candlelight flickering over all that gold until it was near to blinding. Delicate chairs and settees lined the walls, ladies in voluminous skirts seated on them while gentlemen decked out in their finest lingered about the cavernous space.

Ty took in the splendor with one part of his brain while he scanned the crowds on either side of a long red carpet leading to the raised dais. On a heavy, intricately carved throne at the end of that carpet sat a plump woman dressed all in black but for a white lace scarf draped over her head.

At the queen’s back, stood a long line of men wearing the red and white uniform of the Queen’s Guard, each with a sword strapped to their hip and a feathered hat on their heads. Grenville was positioned smack dab in the middle of those men.

As their eyes met, Grenville’s lips lifted into an arrogant smile, his square chin jutting out from his pasty face. Ty had seen that look on countless faces, just before a man too stupid to know better challenged him.

Grenville broke ranks and stepped forward to stand just beyond the queen’s shoulder.

Charlotte dropped back behind Sebastian and curled her fingers around Ty’s arm. “Ignore him entirely. No matter what he says, what anyone says, keep your eyes on Her Majesty and do not react.”

Ty squeezed her hand against his side and gave a quick nod in acknowledgment.

“The Earl of Westlockhart, The Lady Charlotte Morgan, Mr. Morgan,” a portly man to the left of the queen announced, his voice echoing around the cavernous chamber.

Charlotte released his arm and dropped into a curtsy while Sebastian and Ty bowed low, holding their poses until a soft, feminine voice ordered them to rise.

Ty looked up to find the queen looking at Sebastian with sharp blue eyes. “Welcome to our court, Lord Westlockhart,” she said, her voice surprisingly warm. “You have been sorely missed by us these many years.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Sebastian replied in a strong, steady voice that did not so much as tremble. “It is an honor to offer you my obeisance.”

“You’ve the look of your father.”

“It’s the chin, Your Majesty,” Sebastian replied with a grin.

“So it is.” Her Majesty gave a regal nod of her head before turning her gaze to Charlotte. “Lady Charlotte, I understand you are recently married.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Charlotte replied, her voice soft and sweet. “Might I be allowed to present my husband to you?”

“Mr. Morgan.” The queen barely spared him a glance, and yet he had the distinct impression she’d sized him up completely.

“Your Majesty.” Ty held himself still, his gaze fixed on the queen.

Grenville bent down as if to whisper in the queen’s ear only to be forestalled when Charlotte dropped to her knees, her skirts spread out around her like spilled moonlight.

“I most humbly beg your pardon, Majesty. As mother to a peer of your realm, as widow to another and daughter to yet another, as great niece to your dearest cousins, Her Grace the Archduchess of Dresdenstein and Her Majesty the Princess of Hargoeth and Lowenstein, I recognize I ought to have sought your approval to marry.”

There was a beat of charged silence before the queen said, “Rise, Lady Charlotte.”

Charlotte rose to stand before her queen. “I offer no excuse beyond love, Your Majesty.”

The queen tilted her head to the side and studied the younger woman.

“Your Majesty, surely love does not excuse such blatant disregard for protocol,” Grenville argued, his voice strident.

“We don’t recall giving you leave to speak, Mr. Grenville.” Her Majesty waved one hand over her shoulder in a shooing motion.

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty.” Grenville fell back in line with his fellow guards, his face flushing an angry, mottled red.

“If it pleases Your Majesty, I have taken the liberty of having a copy of our marriage certificate delivered to Her Royal Highness, Princess Beatrice,” Charlotte said into the awkward silence that followed. “Should the Princess desire to add our union to the annals of marriages, births and deaths within the royal family, however distant the connection.”

“Your humility does you credit, Lady Charlotte. As does your adherence to protocol, however belated.” With just over a dozen words the queen managed to gently chastise both Charlotte and Grenville.

Ty was struck with the notion his wife had come by her knack for a well-placed, well-timed word naturally. Same as she’d inherited her sometimes haughty manners and her loyalty and fair-mindedness from generations of royalty.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Charlotte replied, exercising a measure of that same humility as she carefully walked backward from the queen’s throne, Ty and Sebastian following suit.

In the crowded hall, the young earl’s faithful guardians waited.

“It’s done then?” Magnus hurried forward, his gaze sweeping over Sebastian as if expecting to find some hidden injury.

“The queen acknowledged both Sebastian’s right to the earldom and my marriage,” Charlotte replied, and Ty realized the entire business, the dressing up in pantaloons and bowing and scraping, had been yet another play to keep the boy safe.

“So we can stop all this lollygagging and get on with it?”

Now, see here, old man, you can’t bet your ranch, not against a cardsharp.

Eastern Boy

Magnus McDonough might not have been so quick to hope for an end to the lollygagging had he been privy to Charlotte’s plans.

“The hell you say!” The Scotsman paced across the narrow sitting room tucked between two bedchambers on the third floor of Westlockhart House. His limp was more pronounced than usual, what with the rain pouring from the sky and beating against the windows.

“Calm down before you take a fit,” Charlotte admonished.

“I’ve never in all my days taken a fit.”

“Well, then calm down lest you wake Sebastian,” she hissed, shooting a look at the closed door behind which her son slept. “It took me more than two hours to get him settled to sleep.”

“Damn it, Countess,” Magnus groused. “I can’t like taking the boy away and leaving you behind.”

“You don’t have to like it. You only have to do it without question or complaint.”

“When have I ever meekly followed your orders, lass?”

“Now would be a perfect time for you to change your stubborn ways.”

“Ach, that’s rich, you naming me stubborn.”

“I’ve a few other choice names to call you. Beginning with aggravating and obstinate.”

“Cantankerous,” Ty offered as he came to stand in the open doorway to their bedchamber dressed in nothing but a pair of low-slung dungarees. His dark hair was sleep tousled, his eyes heavy-lidded, and his jaw shadowed by night whiskers.

“That’s an apt one,” Charlotte agreed.

“I wasn’t speaking of Magnus,” Ty said with a wry twist of his lips.

“Oh, I like that.” Charlotte couldn’t suppress a tired smile at his teasing.

“Was it your idea to send the lot of us away?” Magnus demanded of the younger man.

“It wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree.” Ty rested his shoulder on the doorframe and crossed one bare ankle over the other.

“How the hell can I keep the lass safe from Norway?” Magnus roared.

“It was never your job to keep me safe,” she reminded him.

“It’s been my bloody job since you first walked into the stables with your arm in a sling and a madman on your trail,” he countered. “That boy weren’t but a distant hope when I pledged to help you. You, not some bairn what wasn’t even born yet.”

“Magnus, please.”

“You know I love the boy, I’d give my life to protect him.”

“I know you would, that is precisely why—“

“But you’re like a daughter to me,” he interrupted, waving one hand in the air in agitation. “The only daughter I’ll ever have. How can you ask me to leave you?”

Charlotte blinked away the sting of tears. It had been difficult enough holding her worry and sorrow at bay while explaining to Sebastian why she must send him away. She would not fall apart because a stubborn old man had chosen this, of all times, to turn up sentimental.

“I’ll keep Charlotte safe.” Ty spoke with the quiet conviction that was as much a part of him as his love for his long dead mother and his desire to live out his future in peace.

“Well, hell, son, I know you would die trying,” Magnus grumbled. “But you don’t know how Grenville thinks.”

“Charlotte knows how he thinks and I’m not so stupid I won’t listen to her,” Ty replied. “Shit, I let her dress me up in pantaloons and parade me around, didn’t I?”

“It ain’t a matter of dressing up and putting on airs.”

“No, it’s a matter of trust. Charlotte trusts you to keep Sebastian safe so she can concentrate on out-flanking Grenville. I trust Charlotte to keep her wits about her, to use her good sense to advise me so I can do what needs doing. It’s that simple.”

***

Only there was nothing simple about the days that followed.

“You’ll come for me?” Sebastian had her neck in a stranglehold, his warm little body pressed tight to hers as she knelt before him on the wet grass behind Westlockhart House.

“I’ll join you as soon as I possibly can,” Charlotte promised around the lump that had taken up permanent residence in her throat.

“And we’ll go home?” he asked, sniffling against her neck.

“Oh, darling.” Charlotte pressed a kiss to his temple, breathing deeply of his scent. “I’m not certain where home is except to know it’s wherever you are.”

“The Zeppelin is home.”

“Dawn’s not far off,” Magnus muttered from beside the second of three carriages ready to depart from the mews. “We’d best be off.”

“You mind Magnus, Ken and Akeem,” Charlotte ordered, giving her son one last desperate squeeze. “And try not to take Ethel’s sharp tongue to heart. She’s in a bad way and likely the motion of the ship will only make it worse.”

“How long before you come for me?” Sebastian asked.

“We’ll be no more than a few weeks behind you.” Ty came up beside mother and son and laid a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “Let’s get this show on the road before we lose both the cover of dark and the element of surprise.”

Forcing herself to release Sebastian, trailing her hand through his curls, she allowed her husband to help her to her feet. While Sebastian and his guardians piled into the second carriage, Ty helped Charlotte into the third in the line.

Neither spoke as the first carriage, an empty decoy, moved through the alley. The jangle of the harness and the pounding of the horses’ hooves were as loud as thunder until the conveyance turned onto the lane and disappeared.

The second carriage started forward and Ty reached for her hand. “We’ll follow along a ways behind them to make sure they aren’t being tailed by Grenville’s people.”

Their carriage gave a lurch and Charlotte pushed the curtain from the window, her gaze finding the other conveyance’s lantern light swaying and dipping up ahead. They traveled through streets deserted but for the occasional reveler returning from late-night entertainments and those poor souls who must rise before the dawn to start their day.

When the other carriage turned onto the road that would take them to the docks, disappearing from view, Charlotte gasped, panicked by the sudden loss, by the terrifying thought she’d never again see her son.

Ty scooped her off the seat and onto his lap, his arms going around her. “Shh, he’ll be safe.”

She couldn’t manage a single word in agreement, gave him a jerky nod, bumping her head on his chin.

“They weren’t followed,” he said, his voice pitched low and soothing as he pulled the curtain across the window. “How’s about we promenade around the park.”

“People promenade,” she retorted with an inelegant snuffle. “Carriages drive.”

“That’s what I like about you. You’re always teaching me something new.”

“You aren’t going to attempt to cheer me up, are you?”

“Do I strike you as the cheerful sort?”

“You aren’t as stern as you like to pretend.”

“You don’t think so?” Ty ran his hand down her back, his touch light and comforting.

“Sometimes you’re even amusing. Charming, too.”

“Who, me?”

“And kind.”

“There goes my reputation,” he said, shaking his head, his jaw brushing her temple.

“Do you suppose they went after the first carriage?”

“Either that or Grenville didn’t have anyone watching the house.”

“I cannot believe he would be so foolish as that,” she replied. “Not after sending Eustace Johnston and his henchmen trailing after us all these years. To have us so near and not watch our every move makes no sense.”

“This Johnston is the man who hired Jimmy’s father to track you?”

“Johnston is Frederick’s lackey. He is also a dark-haired foreign gentleman with a mustache.”

“Damn me to hell,” Ty growled, yanking off his hat and tossing it to the opposite seat.

“What is it? Are we being followed?” Charlotte scrambled off his lap, twisting to look out the back window. The road was empty but for an old woman pushing a small cart before her.

“Christ, I am a fucking idiot. How did I not see it?”

“See what?” Spinning around, she dropped back onto the seat beside her husband.

“I was distracted. Hell, I been nothing but distracted since the moment I woke up on the Zeppelin.” Ty ran a hand through his hair, lifting the dark locks. “If it’d been a bullet, I’d be dead.”

“Ty, you’re scaring me,” Charlotte said, clutching his hand and dragging it away from his hair. “What didn’t you see?”

“I think I might have led them to you,” he muttered.

“What are you saying?”

“The night I won the Zeppelin from Jasper, there was another man playing cards with us.”

“A dark-haired man?” Charlotte felt faint, her breath hitching in her lungs.

“I thought he was an eastern fellow, all fancy manners and clothes, but there was something off about his speech.”

“As if he were trying to disguise an accent?”

“Yeah.” Ty pulled his hand from hers and reached for his hat, settling it low on his brow. “He didn’t want Jasper to bet the ranch ‘cause he wanted to get a good look at the deed and he knew he wasn’t holding the winning hand.”

“Did he inflict your injuries?” She didn’t want to believe Ty had nearly been killed because Jasper had chosen him to protect Sebastian.

“In a roundabout way.” Ty’s voice was so low she barely heard it over the rattle of the carriage wheels on cobblestones. “He tossed a room at the Alabaster Hotel and a whore into the pot. I caught her going through my saddlebags after…When she thought I was sleeping.”

“She found the deed and discovered the location of the ranch,” Charlotte guessed, ignoring the sharp pain in her chest at the thought of Ty making love to another woman. “And she stabbed you in the leg?”

“She was aiming for parts north.”

Charlotte couldn’t help dropping her gaze to his lap. “She was aiming for your…your…”

“Phallus of copious proportions,” he supplied.

“Well, thank goodness her aim was off,” Charlotte huffed.

“The deed was in her hands when I grabbed her. I never should have taken her with the rest of my winnings. Maybe I wouldn’t have if she didn’t remind me of you.”

“How can that be? We’d yet to meet.”

“I saw you get off the train in Mystic.” Ty looked away, his voice lowering to a whisper. “I’d been carrying you around with me for more than a year before I landed at the Zeppelin.”

Charlotte couldn’t think what to say in response to such a startling revelation.

“I had this idea of you, this fantasy I’d concocted in my head,” he continued, his words tumbling forth, rushed and rather disjointed, and so unlike his customarily clipped and sparse speech. “I made you into my dream woman, my Lady Blue. Soft and sweet, Lady Blue was so damn sweet. Kind and gentle, funny and quiet, shy and innocent except when she welcomed me to her bed, everything I ever dreamed a woman could be.”

“Goodness, how disappointing the reality must have been,” Charlotte whispered on a fractured laugh, her heart hammering. “No wonder you disliked me so.”

Ty whipped around to face her once more, his hands reaching for her, wrapping around her arms. “Never. I never disliked you.”

“How could you not?” she asked, resisting the urge to push back his hat for fear of what she would see in his eyes. “Carrying around the epitome of femininity for so long, dreaming of such a paragon only to awaken to find your perfect Lady Blue was nothing more than a prickly widow with a sharp tongue, fighting skills no lady ought to possess, a madman on her trail and a dire need of a dark angel to slay him. When all you wanted was to hang up your wings and your gun belt, to live the quiet life of a rancher with the sweet and gentle woman of your dreams.”

Ty’s lips twitched and his hands gentled on her arms, sweeping down to grasp her clenched fingers. “I won’t lie and say I wasn’t thrown for a loop when I awoke to find a prickly widow with a sharp tongue standing over my bed looking just like my Lady Blue.”

“I wish I could have been the sweet, soft, gentle lady you dreamed of,” Charlotte whispered. “You deserve such a woman.”

“That’s just it, Charlotte, she never existed,” Ty replied, squeezing her hands. “Lady Blue was nothing but a dream.”

Charlotte tried to smile but could manage only a bitter twist of her lips.

“Ah, hell, you know I’m not much good with words,” Ty muttered. “I saw a beautiful lady on the train platform and just wove this fantasy about her, giving her all the qualities I thought a lady ought to possess. But what I knew about ladies would fit on the head of a tack pinning a wanted poster to a wall. And what I knew about women I learned in brothels where, for a few coins, a whore would be whoever I wanted her to be. So I conjured an easy companion, sweet and biddable. It was a puny dream, prosaic even. But how could I dream of more when I never even imagined a woman like you existed?”

Charlotte drew in a shaky breath, let it out on a soft sigh. She was fluent in five languages yet she could not manage a single word in response to so eloquent a speech. Instead she crawled onto Ty’s lap, twisting and yanking at her skirts until she straddled his thighs. Slowly, giving him time to resist, knowing he would be glad of the cover it provided just now, she removed his hat and placed in on the seat. Winding her arms around his neck, her fingers sifting through his hair, she kissed him, soft and sweet and gentle.