Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (9 page)

Sky stifled the urge to stamp her foot. "You can't fit. See?" she said when he stretched out—and his feet dangled so far over the end that they nearly touched the floor.

"Well, considering your height," he replied, his eyes sweeping from her head to her feet, "neither will you. I propose a simple solution. Share the bed."

She recoiled. "Are you deranged? We're supposed to get an annulment."

He arched one eyebrow and gave her a cheeky grin. "Does that mean you find me so irresistible you'd ravish me in my sleep, love?"

"Don't be absurd." She could feel the heat stealing into her cheeks and prayed for a cool breeze from the open window. "Far more likely you'd take advantage of me...or," she added grudgingly, "nature would take its course for both of us. I'll sleep on the floor." She pulled the bedding from the chaise and knelt to make a pallet beside the bed.

"Stubborn female," he gritted out, kneeling beside her. "I'll sleep on the floor. Now, get in that bed or I'll drag you onto it. Neither of us would want that...would we, love?"

The taunt worked. Sky leaped to her feet and practically bounded onto the mattress, then sat glowering down at him. "Please turn down the gaslight before you totally disrobe," she said primly.

Both of them lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling for hours, too acutely aware of each other to sleep.

* * * *

After breakfast, Clint had a business meeting down at the levee. When Rob's tutor sent a note saying he was ill, Max, against Delilah's better judgment, insisted he would spend the morning entertaining the boy while the maid wrestled with the two younger Daniels children. That allowed Sky and Delilah freedom for a ride into the countryside.

"There is a farm for sale up in the old Spanish Lake area, on the Missouri River bluffs. It would be a lovely place for a summerhouse. I'd like your opinion on where we should build," Delilah explained to Sky.

"A ride out of the city sounds heavenly. I haven't been on horseback in what seems like ages," Sky responded.

Soon the women were off, riding astride in split skirts, their gleaming hair and faces bare beneath the hot summer sun. The arbiters of St. Louis' highest social circles were scandalized by such behavior, but no longer surprised by it. Delilah Daniels had come to town as a professional gambler and then married a former bordello owner. She and Clint had first spent a summer making their fortune in the Fort Benton river trade. They did not require social approval, but lived as they pleased.

Sky, the daughter of a Sioux Indian chief, had found even less acceptance. She was not only of mixed blood but also Clint Daniels' adopted sister, a most unnatural female. University educated, she'd even read law under one of the most successful attorneys in the city.

The two friends set out on the warm breezy morning, riding two fine geldings from Clint's large stable of prime horseflesh. Patting the neck of the paint she rode, Sky said, "Max once had a beauty like this one. Named him Rembrandt."

"Rembrandt the paint instead of the painter. I like that. Your husband has quite a sense of humor. I like him, too." Delilah reached over and squeezed Sky's hand. "I confess I was worried when we received your wire about the marriage. After...well, after all the tragedy you've endured, I just want you to be happy. Now that we've met Max—a peer of the realm, no less—Clint and I are reassured…you are happy, aren't you, Sky?"

"His being the infamous Limey doesn't worry you?" Sky asked, evading the question.

"It did when Clint first had him investigated, but when he learned that you were in route to England, that the Stanhope name was so highly respected, well, that put a different light on matters. I know it's none of my business, Sky, but why did an English nobleman come to America and become a bounty hunter?"

Sky wished she knew the answer to that very question herself. She could only extrapolate and hope to convince Delilah. "He was a soldier in Africa. He doesn't want to talk about it, just as Clint never wanted to talk about what happened to him during the war of the rebellion," Sky added, knowing how bitter her brother's experiences, first as a Confederate, then as a galvanized Yankee, had been.

"So, he came to America to start over. Did his family approve?"

"He wasn't a remittance man, if that's what you mean."

Delilah smiled at Sky's knee-jerk defense of Max, finding it a good sign. "No, that isn't what I meant."
But there's something not quite right about your relationship.
"It's difficult to envision such a charming Englishman tracking killers through the wilderness for a livelihood," she said, fishing. "Considering Clint's past, I'm scarcely in a position to cast the first stone, Sky, but Max is so...please forgive me for saying this, but he's so utterly different from Will."

"Yes, he is," Sky replied at length. She'd anticipated that deceiving her family would be very difficult, but she'd never realized just how painful. Swallowing for courage, she said, "I suppose opposites attract. You and Clint certainly started out with nothing in common. At least Max and I already agree about the West. He prefers America to England." That much was true. She desperately did not want to lie to her best friend.

Delilah kept her reservations to herself. It was obvious that Sky did not wish to discuss her hasty marriage and unlikely bridegroom. She was not with child, for which Delilah thanked heavens. Most marriages made because of pregnancy did not do well. But she had an intuition that there was something amiss between the baron and his lady. Not a lack of physical attraction. The sexual tension hummed between them like a tuning fork hitting high C. No, it was something she could not put a name to...yet.

The sharp crack of a shot instantly put an end to her troubling reverie. A bullet tore through the sleeve of Sky's windblown shirt, leaving a smear of red on the pristine white cotton. Both women ducked low against the necks of their horses and kicked them into a gallop, veering off the wide open trail toward a stand of scrub hickory and oak a dozen yards away as a second shooter burst from the honeysuckle-choked underbrush and raised his rifle, taking direct aim at Sky.

Seizing the paint's mane in her left hand, Sky slid over the opposite side of her mount, using the heel of her boot to anchor her body while she pulled her .38 Merwin & Hulbert pistol from the pocket of her riding skirt. She fired under the neck of her horse. Even though she was out of range, the startled assassin dived for cover. His companion, hidden on a rocky hillside directly ahead of them, opened up once more and a second shot whizzed by her head.

Please don't shoot this beautiful horse!
Surely it couldn't be Johnny Deuce. Sky and Delilah reached the trees as both men continued firing. When the third shot narrowly missed Sky, it was apparent she was their target. Both women had freed the rifles from the scabbards on their saddles and knelt to return fire.

"We're lucky they're rotten shots," she said to Delilah.

"But they have the advantage of high ground and who knows how much firepower," Delilah replied, moving the muzzle of her rifle barrel slowly, searching for any telltale movements above them.

"How isolated is this place? Won't some farmer hear the shooting and investigate?" Sky asked.

As if answering her question, two more shots rang out, one immediately following the other. They could hear the guttural cry of a man mortally wounded. Then the ugly bearded fellow who'd burst through the brush at Sky crashed down the hill and rolled to the road, landing face-up with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. A second, smaller man, bald and pockmarked, tumbled after him. He, too, had been shot cleanly in the center of his forehead.

"What on earth is happening?" Delilah murmured, still holding her rifle level.

"Look, up there," Sky said, clutching her rifle but raising the barrel as she motioned ahead of them.

A diminutive woman dressed in an elegant gray traveling suit followed the two men down the hillside. Calmly, she stepped over the dead men's bodies, blowing smoke from the barrel of a large revolver. Her face was concealed by a gray veil hanging from the brim of her stylish hat. She tipped her head courteously toward Sky, as if acknowledging unspoken thanks, then turned around and sauntered away.

Close by, Sky and Delilah could hear approaching hoof-beats. Then an expensive closed carriage drawn by two perfectly matched black horses materialized from around the bend in the road. A small swarthy man with a heavy mustache and oiled black hair tied in a queue reined in the great beasts. Another virtually identical foreigner leaped from inside the carriage and held the door open for his mistress after she handed him her pistol.

Before Sky or Delilah could utter a word, their rescuer and her assistant climbed inside the vehicle and the driver snapped the reins smartly, sending the blacks off in a cloud of dust. The carriage vanished over the next hill before the women could lead their horses back to the road. Both animals shied at the smell of blood.

"Who were they and why were these river rats trying to kill you?" Delilah asked, looking at Sky as if she should know the answers.

"I have no idea," Sky replied, gazing down at the bearded thug and his bald companion. "I've never seen these men or that woman before in my life."

"She might have been English," Delilah ventured. "I think her style of dress was English, and her mannerisms were rather regal, especially considering the circumstances."

"Regal," Sky scoffed. "I've never seen a woman in a coach gown swagger before. I bet that female could strut sitting down."

In spite of their near brush with death, Delilah chuckled at her sister-in-law's description. "She was, er, a bit cocky."

But Sky was no longer listening to her friend. Instead she was remembering the bizarre attack in Central Park. After killing Max, might that killer from Five Points have turned his gun on her? An icy chill ran down her spine on the hot summer day.

"Sky, what aren't you telling me?" Delilah asked suspiciously.

Ignoring the question, Sky started walking toward the hill. "Their horses must be tethered nearby. They surely didn't walk from the city—and they don't have the look of good old country boys to me. We can tie them to their saddles and take them to the authorities for identification."

"Somehow I doubt we'll learn who our mystery lady is," Delilah said darkly.

* * * *

"Pete Griesner and Hammet Aimes would hire on to bushwhack a baby if the price was right—and their price was always cheap as rotgut whiskey," Clint said as the two couples sat in the gazebo that afternoon, out of earshot of the children.

"Thank God," Max said fervently. "If whoever hired them had paid premium price, Sky could well be the one lying dead in the road." He looked at her arm, clearly concerned about the shallow slash left by the bullet intended for her heart.

"I think it's about time you laid all your cards on the table, brother-in-law," Clint said, his pale blue eyes steady on Max. "This has something to do with that inheritance of yours, doesn't it?"

"You've obviously been talking to Delilah," Sky interjected. "She's convinced our rescuer was English. I have no idea who she might be, nor do the police."

Max leaned back and sipped from a tall glass of iced bourbon, then nodded. "Sky told me you were once a gambler by profession. Very well. I will lay my cards out, but don't expect to learn much from them." He sighed and combed his fingers through his hair. The tale had to be edited most carefully, not only for Delilah and Clint's benefit, but for Sky as well. "On our way to England we spent a night in New York..."

When he had finished telling them about the attack in the park and the situation with his distasteful but cowardly cousin Cletus, he concluded, "Much as he would love to see me dead and inherit the money, I can't imagine Cletus would bestir himself to come to America—or dare risk hiring someone else to do so. But now it would appear that someone wants both me and my wife dead. The attack was clearly on Sky, not Delilah," he said to Clint.

"You must've made a lot of enemies over the years," Daniels said neutrally.

"As I told Sky, an occupational hazard, I fear. But now that this enemy has decided to punish me by killing her, I intend to entrust her to your safekeeping while I find out who the devil—in America or England—the bastard is."

Sky set her glass down with a harsh click against the wooden table. "When, pray, did you intend to share this plan with me?" she asked sharply. "I won't have it, Maxwell. We need to watch each other's back." Her eyes communicated far more than she dared reveal to Clint and Delilah.

"I wouldn't sit at home and let Clint ride off with a target painted on his back," his wife said flatly, but her cool green eyes studied the interplay between Sky and Max. Whatever was going on, it had become apparent to her that Sky would not talk. Neither would Max. No, they certainly had not laid all their cards on the table. They were holding back all of the aces and half of the face cards.

Clint was not the only card sharp on the Daniels side of the family.

* * * *

Late that night, when the household was fast asleep, Sky and Max sat in their bedroom, glaring at each other across a small rattan table as they held a whispered argument.

"Flaming hell, Sky, your brother is Lightning Hand. He can protect you. You've already been shot once," he hissed in frustration.