The Duchess and Desperado (27 page)

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Authors: Laurie Grant

Tags: #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Nineteenth Century, #American West, #Protector

BOOK: The Duchess and Desperado
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“You're about to take my
life,
and you're boasting that you didn't take my
honor?”
she asked, fighting the urge to laugh hysterically. “Forgive me, Thierry, but if that's the case, I'm glad I have known the love of a man before I died—a man
worth
loving,” she added, not caring for that brief moment if they were her last words.
To her satisfaction, the pistol he held began to shake. “You must be done with questions,” he growled, “if you are lowering yourself to insults, Sarah. Prepare to die.”
Her will to live had flickered only for a moment. Now it was a strong flame again. “You won't get away with this, you know,” she told him, praying she could make him believe it. Thierry was insane, but he hadn't lost his self-interest. “The hotel is full of guests, from what I saw. If you shoot me, a crowd will come running at the sound, and you will be trapped before you reach the stairway. You don't want to hang, Thierry.”
“Hang? Oh, I won't hang. True, the stairway is far from this room. But there is always the balcony window, and below it, another balcony,” he said, pointing to it with his free hand. “We are but three stories from the ground. I can reach the side street before anyone ever reaches this room—and you, my dear, will be lying here quite dead. They will never catch me, for I am a master of disguise. You didn't see me among the Mexicans lounging in the plaza yesterday, did you? But I was there, my sweet. And there are Frenchmen—o!d cavalry comrades of mine—who are prepared to swear I have been on holiday in Italy with them these few months.”
There was a silence while each stared into the other's eyes. “Very well,” she said, forcing herself to shrug as if resigned to her fate. “But even a man facing a firing squad is allowed to have a cloth tied over his eyes, Thierry. Surely you have a handkerchief that I could use? For chivalry's sake?” she added wryly.
He appeared flustered, and his eyes darted around the room. “No, I—let me think, Sarah. Perhaps one of the pillowcases, torn to fit...”
Only Thierry would pride himself on his chivalry when he was about to kill a woman, she thought. She might just succeed, if she was quick.
Sarah made a negligent gesture. “Oh, don't trouble yourself. I had as soon get this over with. I have a handkerchief right here in my reticule, if you will permit me?”
Beads of moisture had begun to spring out on Thierry's high, noble forehead. “Yes, yes, of course. Go ahead,” he said, nodding toward the reticule she still held.
“Th-thank you, T-Thierry...” she said, letting her voice tremble while she steeled her heart. Hoping she looked like a woman resigned to dying, she locked her gaze with his and, holding her reticule with her left hand, reached in with her right. She muttered, “Now, where has that thing gone?” as she pretended to dig around for it, until Thierry was visibly fidgeting.
“Forget the handkerchief, Sarah. Just shut your eyes!”
“No, wait, I have it here,” she said Then Sarah removed her hand from inside the reticule, and she was holding Morgan's single-shot derringer, the one he had called his “boot gun.” She had a split second to see Thierry's eyes widen, and then she fired.
 
Once freed, Morgan, who had paused only to demand directions of the dazed Sheriff McElroy, had easily passed the marshal as he ran through the streets of Santa Fe toward the Exchange Hotel. Even so, he was still only running up the entrance steps when he heard a muffled shot from somewhere on the upper floors. Oh, God, was he too late?
When Morgan thundered into the Spanish-style lobby with McElroy and Stoner pounding at his heels, he found the desk clerk staring up at the ceiling, along with several other inhabitants of the lobby.
“The Frenchman!” Morgan yelled as he ran up to him. “What room?”
The desk clerk blinked owlishly at him, then consulted his ledger, flinching as Morgan pounded the desk again.
“What room, damn you!”
“Three-o-eight! Down at the end of the hall,” he added, but Morgan was already dashing to the stairs, flanked by the two lawmen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
 
 
M
organ had just reached the third floor when he heard the second shot. Lord God, was he already too late? If he opened the door and found Sarah lying lifeless on the floor, he wouldn't need the gun McElroy had returned to him—he'd kill the damned Frenchman with his bare hands!
Later he couldn't remember running the last few yards from the stairway to the room at the end of the corridor, or throwing himself against the door until at last it gave way before him. He could only remember seeing Sarah, wonderfully, miraculously
alive
in the cloud of gunsmoke, standing there holding a gun on a man who could only be Thierry de Châtellerault.
“S-Sarah!” he gasped. “Are you—are you all r-right? We heard shots—”
“Morgan!
Oh, thank God you're here, Morgan! He was going to kill me!” she cried. She backed rapidly toward Morgan, still holding the gun on Thierry, until Morgan could put an arm around her trembling shoulders and pull her against him. He raised the pistol Stoner had given him until it was aimed at the Frenchman's head. Behind him, Stoner and McElroy stumbled into the room, their guns drawn, and for a moment the only sound was the winded breathing of the three men.
“It's—it's okay, honey, I've got him,” Morgan said into her hair, and she allowed the hand with the pistol to fall to her side as she collapsed in tears against his chest.
Holding her, Morgan was finally able to study the man who'd been trying to kill Sarah Challoner. Though shorter and a bit stockier than himself, de Châtellerault was nevertheless handsome enough to attract any woman, with his trim soldier's figure, his fair hair and curving mustachios—or at least he probably would have been when his lips weren't curled in a snarl and his dark eyes weren't snapping with hatred. He was pale as bleached buffalo bones, however, and when Morgan looked more carefully, he saw why.
The Frenchman was clutching his bloody right wrist with his left hand, and even from where he stood, Morgan could see the crimson hole.
“She is a monster, this woman!” Thierry growled to no one in particular.
“I shot him, Morgan, with the derringer you gave me yesterday,” Sarah said against his chest. “I had to...he was going to kill me.”
“But the derringer only holds one shot. I heard two. And I've never seen the pistol you're holding,” he said, staring at the ornate carved ivory butt of the gun.
“It's—it's Thierry's,” she managed to say through her tears. “My shot knocked his pistol from his hand, but he started to dive after it with his other hand. I—I got to it first, and fired a warning shot with it. I told him if he made another move I'd shoot him right in the heart. I—I meant it! But oh, Morgan, it was awful. I've never shot a man before!” she cried, breaking into fresh sobs.
“Easy, honey,” he said, running his free hand through her hair in an effort to soothe her. “You did just right. All that practice—and wearin' your spectacles—paid off when it counted, didn't it?” His heart was too full of thankfulness that Sarah was alive to be more than minimally aware of McElroy informing the Frenchman he was under arrest, then handcuffing him and leading him out of the room Stoner remained.
“But... but how did you—all of you—” she gestured toward the marshal “—know about Thierry?” she asked in a bewildered fashion.
Stoner then explained about the telegram, and added that her uncle was on the way from Denver to Santa Fe.
Sarah smiled through her tears. “That was the one good thing I heard out of all the shocking things Thierry told me—that my uncle wasn't the one who wanted me dead. I confess I'm rather eager to see him again, now that I know that. But how did you happen to be with the sheriff and the marshal, Morgan? Have you...?
Oh, Morgan! Have the charges been dropped?”
He hated having to shake his head and watch the joy die from the blue eyes behind the ovals of glass.
“No, I'm afraid I'm still in custody, Duchess. I just...well, convinced the two lawmen to let me help. I—I reckon it's time to give this back, though,” he said, holding his pistol butt-first toward the marshal. Seeing that Sarah was about to protest, he added, “I have to, honey. I gave my word as a Southern gentleman. Besides, it's time to stop running and face the music.”
Stoner took it solemnly, with the dignity of a general accepting an enemy officer's sword.
“I'm real glad your uncle's coming, Duchess,” Morgan told her. “Why don't you wait for him to get to Santa Fe, and let him take you on home?”
She raised her chin and set her jaw, always a warning that duchess-style stubbornness was about to follow.
“If he gets here before you and the marshal leave for Austin, fine, he can come along if he wants. I'm going with you, Morgan, my love, so you may as well save your breath and stop trying to convince me that I should go home!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
 
 
“W
e ought to reach Austin by noon, your lordship,” Jackson Stoner announced, leaning down from his horse to speak to Sarah's uncle while the stagecoach team was being changed at Round Rock.
“Thank God for small favors!” exclaimed Lord Halston, fanning himself vigorously enough that the breeze fluttered some of the few strands of gray hair left on his head. “When God made hell, he certainly must have had in mind the heat of Texas.”
Celia, looking decidedly wilted, heartily agreed.
“Oh, this is what a Texan would call a mild October day, sir,” Morgan, who had just led his pinto and Sarah's mare away from the watering trough, remarked in an amused tone “I reckon you wouldn't want to be here in August, then.”
“Indeed I would not, Mr. Calhoun,” Lord Halston retorted with asperity. “I believe at this moment I would sell my soul to see the cool green of England.”
“Careful, uncle, the devil might be listening,” Sarah teased, but her look was sympathetic. Poor dear man, the journey had been hard on him, sitting in the lurching, jolting Concord coach for the nine-hundred-mile journey between Santa Fe and Austin. But he
had
been bound and determined to accompany her, she reminded herself.
Lord Halston and Celia, her dresser, had arrived in Santa Fe three weeks after the arrest of de Châtellerault, just the day before Sarah was due to leave for Texas with Morgan, the marshal and their cavalry escort.
After hugging his niece with an uncharacteristic emotionalism, he'd repeated, “Thank God you are safe! I've been so worried!” for five minutes straight. He'd told her how Alconbury, her erstwhile secretary, had disappeared shortly after confessing to Lord Halston all about the conspiracy, including his part in keeping Thierry informed about her movements. Alconbury had fled to avoid arrest as an accomplice, naturally, but her uncle had hired detectives and they were presently searching for him.
“I'd never have suspected Donald,” Sarah had commented. “He never seemed capable of so much as swatting a fly. Apparently he minded being a penniless younger son more than we realized.”
Uncle Frederick had then listened grimly as Sarah told him about the capture of de Châtellerault. She downplayed her own part in it, of course. Uncle Frederick had aged visibly since she had last seen him, and she wasn't sure his heart was up to hearing that Morgan had taught her how to shoot a pistol during the course of their overland trek from Denver, let alone that she had shot her would-be murderer in the wrist.
Judging by the terrible expression on Lord Halston's face when the full extent of the French count's treachery had been discussed, Sarah thought it was fortunate for Thierry that he'd already left town, in the company of another marshal and a pair of deputies, to stand trial in Denver for the murders he had committed there
“But where is your stalwart Texan? I'd like to thank him personally,” Uncle Frederick had remarked then, and Sarah had had to tell him about Morgan's arrest, and the fact that she was going to Texas with him to help him clear his name.
His face had gone pale, then purple.
As she had expected, he'd informed her in no uncertain terms that she must forget such a ridiculous idea. He was taking her straight home to England so that she could put this unfortunate affair behind her and get on with her duties to her duchy.
She had, of course, refused. He'd been appalled when she had explained that she loved Morgan Calhoun, and that if they succeeded in winning his freedom, she wanted to marry him—if she could only persuade him to accept her.
But after Lord Halston had blustered and pleaded with his niece for hours without changing her mind, he'd finally informed her that if she was insistent about accompanying Morgan and his escort to his trial in Texas, he would, of necessity, come with her, as would Celia, her dresser. The Duchess of Malvern could not travel alone with such men as her outlaw, the marshal and the cavalry escort! And she'd see the sense of returning to England with him after Calhoun was convicted, he told her. After all, them was her sister to think of.
“We shall have to see what happens, uncle,” Sarah had said.
She would have to go back to England at some point, she knew, if only just to judge for herself whether her sister had been truly innocent.
Whenever she thought of Kathryn, Sarah's heart grew heavy. While she had been relieved to hear Thierry admit that Kat had not actually
known
he intended to murder Sarah, it hurt, nevertheless, to think that Kathryn had been harboring such envy of her. By not realizing the extent of that envy before, Sarah felt she had failed her younger sister in some vital way. But was Kathryn free of other major character flaws? Sarah knew she could abdicate her title in favor of Kathryn only if Kat was worthy of being duchess. And would Kathryn's becoming the Duchess of Malvern be enough to bridge the gulf that yawned between the two sisters?
First things first, Sarah thought, preparing to remount Trafalgar for the last leg of the journey to Austin. First she must do everything in her power to see that Morgan's name was cleared and he became a free man once more. Then she had to convince him that despite her aristocratic upbringing, she and he belonged together as husband and wife. Then she—and, she hoped, Morgan—could return to England and deal with Kat.
“Niece, I think perhaps it would be best if you rode in the coach for the remainder of the trip,” Uncle Frederick said. “It wouldn't do for the Duchess of Malvern to be seen riding
astride.
”
Before leaving Santa Fe, Sarah had made a concession to her uncle's sense of propriety by purchasing a divided skirt so she could ride without showing too much of her limbs, but
this
was too much to ask. “Oh, no, uncle, I have no intention of getting into that swaying monstrosity today,” she said. She'd ridden in the stagecoach some of the time, just to keep her uncle company, or once or twice at Morgan's insistence when a thunderstorm threatened, but she'd spent most of the miles on the old Butterfield stagecoach route on horseback.
The hours she'd spent in the saddle, sometimes on Trafalgar, sometimes on one of the soldiers' remounts to spare her thoroughbred, had been arduous, of course, but she could at least spend them riding next to Morgan. Morgan had given the marshal his promise not to attempt to escape while he rode unshackled, and so she could almost pretend he was not on his way to a trial that might result in the loss of his freedom for years, if not forever.
“Your grace, maybe you'd better listen to your uncle,” Jackson Stoner said. “The less people see of you as you arrive, the more your reputation can be protected during the trial.”
Stoner had been decent and fair to Morgan throughout the long journey, and now she realized he was tactfully trying to suggest something in her best interest. But she'd never cared overmuch about what people thought of her, and now she cared even less. She might not have forever to ride by Morgan's side, so every moment was precious.
“I'll be riding next to Morgan, Mr. Stoner,” she said, and the cheeky grin Morgan shot at her was reward enough.
Stoner shrugged. “Have it your way, Duchess.” Then he turned to Morgan. “Sorry, Calhoun, but I'm going to have to cuff you and lead your horse the rest of the way.”
“I figured you would,” Morgan said quietly.
“Why?” Sarah cried, outraged by the sight of the handcuffs.
“Morgan hasn't given you a moment's trouble all the way from Santa Fe! He's been a man of his word! Why should you shackle him now? Is it just to humiliate him? You're not some Roman general parading a captive in ancient Rome!”
Stoner looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I don't know anything about generals or ancient Rome, your grace, but—”
Morgan's voice cut in. “He's just doin' his job, Duchess. It doesn't matter to me.”
Sarah shut her mouth. But it made her heart ache to see Morgan hold his wrists out.
 
The metallic rattling of keys woke Calhoun one afternoon three days later, just as he finished what passed for a prisoner's dinner in the Camp Austin brig.
“Visitors, Calhoun,” the soldier on duty announced, pushing open the cell door. Sarah glided in, followed by a man he'd never seen before.
“Hello, Morgan,” she said. “How was your luncheon? Never mind, I'll bring you a wonderful supper. This is Matthew Quinn. He's been good enough to agree to be your attorney.”
“With your consent, Mr. Calhoun,” the other man said quickly, with a trace of nervousness.
The nasal New England accent automatically set Morgan's teeth on edge, but he forced himself to smile. “Oh, I reckon I'm agreeable, all right, if the duchess vouches for you,” he drawled, “even if you are a Yankee.”
The other man's gaze never wavered. “Yes, from Maine. But I think we can still work together for your benefit, don't you?”
Morgan shrugged. “I reckon, as long as you believe in lost causes. But where'd she find you? From what I've heard, being my lawyer isn't all that popular a job.” The judge had refused to allow Sarah the extended time she needed to get him a certain prominent attorney from New York.
“I—I met Mr. Quinn at a reception the governor of Texas gave for us at his residence the second night we were here,” Sarah explained “It seems the local gentlefolk are eager to entertain a duchess and a marquess, even if the duchess has been consorting with a desperado,” she added with a mischievous gleam in her blue eyes. “I wasn't exactly in a mood to be entertained, but I figured I didn't have any other way of meeting someone who could help us, so I went, and was delighted when I learned Mr. Quinn was an attorney.”
“So what's a Yankee like you doin' in Texas, Quinn?”
“I, uh, had to move here for my wife's health,” Quinn said, still looking as if he was afraid Morgan might shoot him if he ventured any closer. “Libby has a rather weak constitution, and she suffered so from the harsh northern winters. She's felt much better here,” he added cheerfully.
“Well, that's real nice. I'd hate to hear you came because you were just another carpetbagger.” Morgan was aware he sounded surly, but he didn't think this nervous greenhorn could defend him from a horsefly, let alone the United States government. In an effort to sound more pleasant, he added, “Duchess, why don't you and Mr. Quinn sit down?” He stood and smoothed the blanket over his bed. It was the only place to sit in the cell.
“No, I won't be staying, for I think you and Mr. Quinn will get a better start alone,” Sarah told him. “Goodbye until this evening, then,” she said, coming over and very unself-consciously giving Morgan a brief kiss on the lips. “Oh, Morgan,” she said just as she reached the cell door again, “which direction is Calhoun Crossing from here, and where is the Flying C Ranch in relation to the town?”
“But the ranch isn't mine anymore, remember? Why do you want to know, Duchess?”
“Oh, I thought I might like to see it.”
The thought of her riding onto his land had him crossing the space between them in two quick strides.
“Duchess, it's too long a ride from here,” he said, taking her by the arms, “and I don't want you crossin' paths with Carl Tackett, the rattlesnake who stole the Flying C. He's a scoundrel, Sarah, and he can't be trusted around a lady.”
“Oh, don't worry, Morgan, I won't go alone,” she promised. “I'll take Uncle Frederick with me. I think he's getting a bit tired of fending off reporters who'd like to interview nobility, anyway.”
“But I don't want you tanglin' with Tackett, hear me, Duchess?” he said, pinning her gaze with his.
Sarah smiled and held up her hands in surrender. “All right, all right! I'd be happy just to see it from the fence, if that's your wish, Morgan. I just want to go and see the land you grew up on....” She looked so wistful, he didn't have the heart to argue anymore. These days of waiting for the trial to begin had been as hard on Sarah as it had been on him,
he
thought, even though she wasn't behind bars as he was. But how would he pass the hours while she was gone?
She smiled again. “Morgan, that ranch
will
be yours again some day, I promise you.”
He sighed. “I wish I had your faith, honey.” Lord, what had he done to deserve the love of a woman like this? Her belief in his future, even in the face of impossible odds, humbled him.
She turned back again at the door of his cell. “Oh, Morgan, what was the name of the lady you were with that night—the night the payroll was robbed?” He saw her blush to mention such an indelicate subject, but her eyes never left his.
He shook his head. “Sarah, you go ahead and ride down to Calhoun Crossing tomorrow, if you want. It's a pretty road, and it'll give you something to do. But there just ain't any point in telling you her name,” he added. “She's probably not livin' there anymore, anyway. But if she is, it'd be a waste of your breath. She wouldn't say anything the next morning when they came for me, so why should she ruin her good name for me now? Not every woman, Duchess, is as good and honest and true as you.”

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