Savage Thunder (21 page)

Elliot’s hands itched to get around her neck, but he wasn’t so far immersed in that fantasy that he didn’t notice Angel’s movement. The man now stood partially in front of the duchess and was very casually folding back his coat to allow easy access to the gun on his hip.

The significance of that was not lost on the older man, but it didn’t worry him in the least. Angel was only one man in eight, after all.

Elliot should never have taken him on in the first place, but it was rather late to concede that point. He’d been aware when he met him that he might have trouble with this one, a man so different from the others. But he was the tracker Owen had found in Benson, and he’d picked up the duchess’s trail almost immediately, enabling them with some hard riding to catch up with her.

There was really no need for trouble now. Elliot was, in fact, grateful to Angel for distracting him. To end this glorious triumph in a burst of rage was not the least bit fitting, nor what he had envisioned. The duchess deserved much more than that. So if the lad wanted her, if that was the reason for his subtle challenge, he could have her. They could all bloody well have her. And when they were done with their sport,
he would slowly choke the life from her while he had her himself.

Elliot smiled, savoring that thought, and was further delighted to see the duchess disconcerted by it. Good. Her previous audacity had been unexpected and not at all appropriate. He wanted to see her fear, needed to see it.

“You have a bizarre sense of humor, Your Grace. I trust it won’t desert you too soon.” And then Elliot dismissed her for the moment, asking Angel, “Was there any difficulty with Mr. Dryden?”

“None to speak of.”

“Excellent. I was beginning to wonder about him, but he’s done his part admirably and will now further aid us by buying us time.”

“How’s that?”

“By sending her people to look for her in the wrong direction, of course. After all, it’s to his benefit now, as well as ours, that she isn’t found.”

“It ain’t gonna matter much to him,” Pete volunteered at that point. “Angel killed him.”

There was a long pause before Elliot said, “I see,” then another long moment before he added, “Well, so much for the additional time element. I assume you at least made good time getting back here?”

“Good enough,” Angel drawled. “Now you answer me one. Why is it you never said she was a good-looking woman?”

“Because that fact is quite irrelevant.”

“Oh, it’s relevant, all right. Very relevant. A pretty thing like this shouldn’t ought to be wasted.”

Jocelyn slapped his hand away when his finger grazed her cheek to the accompaniment of those words. So that was what he had meant by saying she wouldn’t die today. It was almost dark. No one was going to find her in the dark. These men would have all night long to rape her, and Angel undoubtedly meant to be the first.

Longnose must have thought so too, for he was smiling again. “There’s time enough for that, certainly. I would have suggested it myself. Just be careful with her. The privilege of killing her is mine, after all.”

If Jocelyn were prone to swooning, those words would have had her collapsing. As it was, she was overcome with panic. Sir George was her only chance now. If she could just get to him, she’d earn a swift, merciful bullet in the back, for that would be the only way they could then stop her.

But Angel must have read her thoughts again. His hand clamped on her arm like a vise, keeping her at his side. She would have killed him in that moment if she had the means. She was in fact reaching for one of her hairpins when his quiet voice arrested the movement.

“It don’t sound to me like you took my meaning,” he was telling Longnose. “I’ve decided to keep her—until I get tired of her.”

“That’s out of the question!”

Angel’s voice turned softly menacing. “I wasn’t asking your permission, Englishman.”

The older man’s face mottled with color again. He even raised his cane, which was a mistake.

What ensued was becoming quite familiar to Jocelyn, seeing guns drawn at the blink of an eye. She only jumped slightly when the shot was fired, but to her everlasting disgust, Longnose was still standing there. Angel’s bullet had merely shot the cane out of his hand.

But the man didn’t have the sense to calm down even then. “Mr. Owen!” he bellowed.

That gentleman apparently had more sense. “Ferget it, boss. I ain’t tanglin’ with the likes o’ him.”

And when Longnose glanced at the others, he found pretty much the same opinion. One by one, gun belts were slowly being dropped to the ground. It was only when Jocelyn noticed that Angel’s gun was pointing from man to man that she realized why. Not one of them cared to try their luck at disarming him, even though they so outnumbered him. Incredible. But then she wasn’t the only one who had witnessed how swift he was, or how accurate.

“Bring that horse over here. Saunders,” Angel ordered, indicating Sir George.

The boy quickly complied. Jocelyn almost smiled, her relief was so great. Until she recalled that she wasn’t actually being rescued, but was merely exchanging one bad situation for another. The odds were better now, though, and her life was no longer in imminent danger, so she supposed she had reason to be grateful to her unexpected savior.

She changed her mind about that, however, at his parting words to Longnose. “For your purposes, man, you can consider her dead. Her people won’t find
her where I’m taking her, and when I’m done with her…”

“You’ll kill her?”

“Why not?” Angel replied with a shrug. “I’ve got Dryden’s money as payment in advance.”

J
ocelyn had assumed she would be put on Sir George, even if Angel was to ride behind her again to assure she wouldn’t take off with the stallion. There was a need for speed to quit the area, after all. But after walking both horses up the rise so that he could keep his gun trained on the group below, Angel mounted his own horse and pulled her up in front of him again. Her stallion was merely led along, as Saunders had done before.

There was one surprising moment, however, just as they took off, when he asked her, “That rifle you carried, did you know how to use it?” Since she didn’t feel like talking to him then, she gave him no more than a curt nod, only to be amazed when he placed his rifle in her hands with the order, “Shoot anything that appears over that rise.”

“I’d rather shoot you.”

“Really? Well, save that urge for some other time, honey.”

She saw the sense in that, and after resting the rifle on his shoulder to steady it, did fire off a few shots. Whether it was heads or rocks she shot at, though, she didn’t know. The deep rose light of the setting sun was too misleading for her to tell. But there
had
been answering shots that continued long after they were out of range.

She didn’t feel that they were safe, however, until Angel took the rifle back. And then he frightened the devil out of her by swinging her around to the back of the horse, without any warning. He rode faster then, forcing her to hold on for dear life. Not once did she consider letting go of the fist-holds she had on his slicker. Even if she could hide with the oncoming dark, with the way her luck had gone today, she likely would break her neck in the fall.

But he did slow up when full dark was upon them, and even when the moon appeared later to give him enough light to avoid shrubs and large rocks, he kept to the slower pace. She had to wonder about that, until it occurred to her that anyone following wouldn’t risk a faster pace either, at least not until morning.

She had no idea where they were going. He’d been riding toward the mountains in the east before he changed her position on the horse, but he didn’t seem to keep to any direct line. And once the sky blackened, she lost her sense of direction. If there were mountains ahead of them, she could no longer see them.

“How long do you think that guard of yours will look for you tonight?”

Jocelyn was surprised by the question, coming after such a long silence. Was he worried? She certainly hoped so. She certainly wasn’t going to volunteer any information that might aid him.

“I’d be more concerned over the Englishman if I were you,” she told him. “You don’t think he’s going
to trust you to keep me from escaping, or to kill me when you’re done with me, do you? No, he’ll be the one to follow, but now to kill us both.”

He said nothing to that, nor did he ask his question again, leaving her rather deflated that he didn’t give her another opportunity to be uncooperative. But about twenty minutes later he did, when he reached back to try and grab her hands to force them around him. She resisted that quite nicely.

And gained his anger, if his tone was any indication as he snarled over his shoulder, “I’d be nice to me if I were you.”

Jocelyn was not impressed. “You don’t intimidate me, Mr. Angel. You might as well kill me now, because I will
not
be your mistress or your whore.”

“What about my wife?”

That threw her. “
You
want to marry me? But money means nothing to you, as I recall.”

“What has money got to do with it?”

What an absurd question. “Very well, suppose you tell me why marriage has entered your mind.”

“Besides the obvious reasons, a man’s got the right to beat his wife.”

“That isn’t funny!” she snapped, realizing by his sudden laughter that he had only been teasing her. “Odious man,” she muttered to herself.

“Where’s that sense of humor you antagonized the Englishman with?”

“Gone to sleep, obviously, which is what I’d like to do. Are you going to ride all night?”

“You want me to stop and wait for my friends to catch up?”

His humor was getting on her nerves. “Don’t forget my own people.”

“Your guards are probably lost in the hills, honey. There’s no trackers among them. ’Course, there’s that half-breed guide of yours,” he added in a speculative tone. “Would he bother to look for you?”

With the abominable way Colt had been treating her lately? “No,” she said without thinking, then realized she should have lied. “But I wouldn’t discount my guard so easily.”

He chuckled in answer, which was really too much. Jocelyn started to give him a serious volley on what she thought of him, when she heard the horse approaching. With a gasp she looked behind her to see a gray blur racing toward them at a breakneck speed. Her heart nearly lodged in her throat.

“We’re about to be overtaken!”

“I know.”

“You—well, do something!”

He did. He stopped, turning his horse about. He even dismounted and pulled her down with him. But he didn’t draw his gun, didn’t reach for his rifle. She stared at him as if he were mad. She didn’t wait around to see if he was. She started running, and got about fifteen yards before she was yanked off her feet. Her frightened scream blasted across the countryside, only to be cut short when she was slammed down on another horse.

“Are you all right?”

Jocelyn blinked, doubting her ears, but it really was
his
voice. She looked up to confirm it, saw his fierce, beautiful face, and wailed, “Oh, Colt!”

She burst into tears for some foolish reason, burying her face against his chest. He came to a stop, and then his arms wrapped more fully around her. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, she was squeezed so tightly. The man obviously didn’t know his own strength.

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I don’t know!” And she cried louder—until she heard Angel laughing in the distance. She stiffened then and demanded, “Where’s your gun?”

“What for?”

“I’m going to shoot that wretched man!”

“No, you’re not,” Colt said laconically. “I might, but you’re not.”

With that he jerked his mount around and trotted back to where Angel was waiting—and still chuckling. Jocelyn didn’t understand the man’s humor, but she was infuriated by it. Didn’t he realize she had been rescued, and this time
really
rescued? And then it dawned on her. It truly was over, now that Colt was here. He wouldn’t let anything else happen to her. He might not like her anymore…who was she kidding? He had
never
liked her. So he might like her even less now, but he would still protect her. And no one could make her feel quite as safe and protected as he could.

She almost felt sorry for Angel, who didn’t realize his danger yet. Her annoyance with him dissolved with that thought. After all, he hadn’t hurt her, had in fact kept her from harm. Colt might have gotten there in
time to prevent Longnose from killing her, but he wouldn’t have been in time to prevent the other…Angel had done that.

She had to tell him, especially after that remark about his possibly shooting Angel. “Ah, Colt—”

“Not now, Duchess.”

“But, Colt…”

She was too late. He dropped off his horse before it even stopped and only then, watching him, did she realize that he was furious. Angel must have realized it too. She’d seen both men draw before, and couldn’t actually say who was faster.

And then Angel was being lifted off the ground, a good half foot. “If you were a little bigger, you son of a bitch, I’d beat the shit out of you!”

“Ah, come on, Colt, I did what you asked.”

“Like hell you did!” That with a shake. “You were supposed to be there to help out if she was brought in, not be the one to
bring
her in.”

“I had it covered!”

“You’re damn lucky I had
you
covered!” Colt growled before he let Angel go with a shove.

“I figured that was you drawing their fire. When’d you get there?”

“Not soon enough to stop you from taking her over that rise,” Colt said in disgust, but then sounded almost anguished when he added, “Damn you, Angel. If I’d found out about that stunt afterward, I’d probably kill you now. To put her in danger like that…I still ought to beat the crap out of you.”

“All right,” Angel said on a conciliatory note. “Maybe it wasn’t the smartest move. But it wasn’t
that dangerous either, Colt. I’ve been with that bunch long enough to know what to expect of them. Half are nothing but cowards, and the rest wouldn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”

“But why the hell did you do it?”

“So she’d know her enemy. Everyone’s got that right, Colt. He’s had the advantage all this time because she wouldn’t know him if she passed him in the street. Now she knows him.”

“You should have just killed the bastard and saved me the trouble,” Colt muttered.

“You didn’t ask me to do that.” Angel grinned. “Besides, I figure that’s her right too.”

Colt’s anger burst again, hearing that. “Who the hell do you think she is, another Jessie? She’s a damned duchess, for Christ’s sake! They don’t go around killing people when they can hire someone else to do it.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Colt Thunder,” Jocelyn said in a tightly controlled voice. “Would you care to offer me your gun to find out?”

They had both obviously forgotten about her during their discourse, if their expressions were any indication. Angel flinched. Colt swung around, scowling. But damned if he didn’t toss her his gun. The least she could do was cock it and point it at him.

“I ought to, you know.” She was seething with anger, not enough to shoot him, but enough to shout, “Why the devil didn’t you tell me you had sent someone into that nest of vipers? Do you know that your blasted friend didn’t once let on he was there at your request? A
favor
, he mentioned, but he let me think
it was owed to Longnose. And do you know what he assured Longnose he would do with me? I was to be used until he tired of me; then, of course, he would kill me.”

“Whaaat?” Angel complained innocently when Colt’s scowl came back to him. “I had to tell him something to make him think twice about coming right after us. Did I know you were there to hold them off?”

“So why didn’t you set her straight once you were out of there?”

“Well, shoot, Colt, I figured she knew it was just a bunch of hogwash I was feeding him. I teased her enough about it. I told her she had nothing to worry about. And she wasn’t afraid of me. The only time she was upset at all was right after I sent that two-faced Dryden to his Maker. He really turned my stomach, handing her over to us the way he did.”

Colt’s gaze came back to Jocelyn then, and she had the feeling his anger changed direction too. He was now furious at her for some reason, but she couldn’t imagine why.

“Well, splendid,” she said on a sigh. “So now I’m at fault, am I? Care to tell me why?”

“You have to ask? You let that bastard work his lies on you, and then you have the gall to be upset over his death. I seem to recall you didn’t even bat an eye when I killed one of those scum for you.”

She still didn’t understand what he was objecting to. “I didn’t
know
that chap you killed. I’d never set eyes on him before. Besides, you killed to protect me.
Angel killed in cold blood. I hope I know the difference.”

His lips thinned out, letting her know she hadn’t appeased him. Angel was frowning now, too, at her allegation, but didn’t care to argue with her about it with Colt there. Colt was too touchy by half about her. But he felt the need for justification. Cold-blooded, hell.

“Did you know about Dryden, Colt?” he asked, drawing his attention away from the duchess.

“Not everything, obviously,” Colt replied brusquely. “When was he recruited?”

“When you all were laid over in Silver City. He agreed to bring the duchess to us, which is why there was no need to get close enough where you could spot us. They said he killed rich old widow women…after he married them. You blame me for taking him out?”

“I’d have killed him myself just for handing her over to you. Christ, I wasn’t expecting that. I’d finally remembered where I’d seen him before, though. He was run out of Cheyenne a few years back for getting caught cheating at cards. I seem to recall there was a widow preparing for a wedding who was a mite upset at his leaving.”

Jocelyn’s eyes flared for a moment. “And you didn’t bother to tell me that, either?”

“And ruin your little romance? I didn’t think you’d appreciate that too much.”

Was that
jealousy
snarling at her? The thought was so incredulous it…it dissolved instantly. Of course he wasn’t. He was likely ticked off because he hadn’t
known all the facts about Dryden. But she’d had too exhausting a day to put up with his surliness another moment, or Angel’s humor. That miserable wretch was grinning again!

“Bother this,” she said in disgust, and tossed Colt’s gun back to him before the temptation became too great. She ignored him then to address Angel. “Protocol demands that I thank you for your assistance, sir, no matter how despicable the manner of it.” He grimaced, but she wasn’t quite finished with him. “So allow me to wish you a long and uneventful life—and may you drop dead from sheer boredom. Good evening, gentlemen.”

Without another look at either of them, she hooked her leg over the uncomfortable horn of Colt’s saddle. She didn’t even try to locate the stirrup for support, since it was adjusted to his long legs, not hers. But the precarious perch didn’t change her mind. She rode off.

Colt didn’t move, prompting Angel to comment casually, “She’s going to break her neck sitting that horse sideways like that.”

“It’s the way she rides.”

“Not on a Western saddle, it ain’t.”

Colt swore beneath his breath before he shouted, “Come back here, Duchess!”

Of course she ignored him. But he still didn’t move to follow her. He let out a yipping yell instead, then waited to hear her give out a curse or two herself when his horse turned around. The horse did stop and turn, but instead of cursing, the duchess calmly slid off him. And then Colt heard that shrill whistle he’d
heard once before but forgotten about, and was nearly knocked down by her stallion as the animal took off in answer to her call.