Lady X's Cowboy

by Zoë Archer

  Most girls were kept ignorant of what transpired between men and women in the bedroom. She had been somewhat lucky in that one of the girls at the boarding school had stolen a few of her brother’s racy novels and they were circulated secretively. In the pages of those anonymously written books, Olivia learned about a whole world of erotic experiences that she longed to have for herself. When the time came for her to marry, she was excited, eager, to put into practice that which she had read about.

  After a few months of austere lovemaking, she had shyly suggested to David they attempt a few of the postures she had read about in school. He had been horrified by the suggestion. Such actions were solely limited to loose women and debauched men, and as a respectable married couple, they were neither of those things. Further, he questioned the morality of the school she had attended. So she grew used to their routine, but never found the carnal inferno she had been anticipating. On nights when David did not visit her bedroom, she gave herself pleasure, but it was not as satisfying as sharing it with another person.

  What a revelation Will was! The way he touched her, the way he made her feel—those French novels barely did justice to the experience. A whole world had been opened to her.

  And closed just as quickly. She and Will could never give in to their desire again. What liberty they had tasted in the Kentish wilderness had to be ruthlessly shoved aside, buried underneath the strict codes of propriety that governed every aspect of her life. It seemed an impossible task. How could anyone look at her and not know what she had experienced, and with whom? Most of what had made last night so unforgettable was the fact that it was Will, inside her, around her. She couldn’t think of any other man she wanted that way.

  “Here’s the road,” he said, and in a remarkably short amount of time, they were cantering back towards the hops farmer’s home. She couldn’t decide if she was glad to see the pointed bells of the oast house, or if she felt like weeping. Civilization and its constraints lay in their path. She made herself sit upright, her body not touching Will’s, as she slipped on the tight garments of propriety.

  As they rode up, the farmer came running out with a dog at his heels. He looked relieved to see them, but before he could speak, Will swung quickly down from the horse and grabbed the man’s shirtfront.

  “What part did you play in all this?” Will demanded, giving the farmer a shake.

  Frightened, the man answered, “Nothing.” Will only shook him harder, causing the dog to bark in alarm, but with a look and snarl from Will, the dog slunk away. “All right!” the farmer cried. “I was told to keep you here as long as I could.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s all! I swear! I didn’t know about the cab driver until I found a man knocked out in my barn, and a horse missing. You have to believe me,” the farmer insisted, turning pleading eyes to Olivia.

  “I still want your hops harvest,” she said coolly. She could hear in her own voice the strict elocution lessons she had learned, the enforced gentility. She sounded so different than she had in the woods. But which was her real voice? “At half the original price.”

  The man nodded readily, and Will let him go, so he went stumbling back. She slid down from the horse and attempted to adjust her dirty, wrinkled dress.

  “My wife will fix you breakfast, if you like,” the farmer offered.

  Olivia discretely pressed a hand to her growling stomach, recalling that it had been many hours since her last meal, and she had exerted herself quite a bit since then. But she also knew that she and Will had to return to London as quickly as possible to see after her brewery. Lord only knew what George Pryce was planning next. With the introduction of this new mercenary, one who fired a gun and had no scruples to kidnap a woman, she understood that the fight had gone past simply acquiring Greywell’s and was now about destroying her. She shuddered thinking what this man might have done with her if Will had not rescued her.

  And she was even more appalled thinking what he might do with the knowledge that she and Will had given in to temptation.

  “We need a ride back to the train station,” she said. “Have your wife pack up a basket and take us on your wagon into town.”

  The natural authority in her voice contradicted her bedraggled appearance, and with a ready nod, the farmer ran inside to shout directions to his wife. Oh, I can be a fine lady, all right, she thought sardonically. Even after a night of fiery lovemaking in the wilderness.

  She turned to Will, who tethered the horse to a fence. His hat was low over his eyes, but the square line of his jaw above the collar of his duster drew her gaze. A man with no history, no place but the one he made for himself, hard but capable of abundant tenderness—all combined to make one man. Will Coffin.

  Her transitory cowboy. Destined to slip through her fingers. She missed him already.

  Maddox left George Pryce at a music hall, sitting by himself as the piano crashed and the girls danced to comic songs. He smiled to himself as he stepped into the busy street. There was something so damned amusing about seeing that swell toff rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi—that’s why Maddox kept arranging their meetings at lower-class establishments. Let the bastard see how the other half lives, get him good and uncomfortable.

  He liked to keep his clients uncomfortable. It helped preserve a sense of balance, of power, and they were more amenable to his demands. Pryce had been angry that the American had managed to elude Maddox’s bullets, and even angrier that Lady Xavier wasn’t either dead or trussed up in a shack somewhere. But Maddox knew this was only the first round. He needed to feel out the terrain, understand who or what he was up against.

  Though the American and the woman had gotten away, Maddox had learned quite a bit. The American had a weakness, and all weaknesses needed to be exploited.

  Sidestepping a fast-moving cart, Maddox continued his walk. He had to make a few purchases this afternoon before heading south of the river, to Wandsworth. To Greywell’s.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The fuss that met them at the brewery could have woken a cemetery. Will and Olivia came straight from Victoria Station, and no sooner had they gotten down from the cab than two dozen Greywell’s hands came running out to shout at them.

  “We’re all right,” Olivia assured them, as calm as Sunday morning. Aside from her missing bustle, she looked neat and tidy. No one would ever guess that she’d spent the night on the ground, or just what she’d been doing on the ground, and with whom.

  Will was both relieved and disappointed. Making love with Olivia had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced before—he hadn’t felt like grabbing his boots and sneaking off the way he usually did after a night of female company. Waking up next to her had been one of the best moments of his well-traveled life, but it hadn’t lasted long. It couldn’t. She was a lady with everything to lose, and he was just a cowpuncher. For a few hours last night, all that hadn’t mattered. Now it did. And it hurt like hell.

  “Lady Xavier,” Huntworth cried, shouldering his way to the front of the group, “everyone was so worried when you and Mr. Coffin didn’t return last night. I was on the verge of notifying Scotland Yard.”

  “Mr. Coffin kept me safe,” Olivia said with a reassuring nod. “Please tell me what happened in my absence.” She began to walk inside, with the brewery employees all following like ducklings, and Huntworth chattering and reading off of his ever-present clipboard. Will walked behind them, scanning the yard for suspicious characters.

  Goddamn this country. He’d never felt so fenced in. Here he was, having spent the most amazing night of his life with the most wonderful woman he’d ever known, and they both had to pretend it had never happened. But what were his other options? Walk into Greywell’s, bold as brass, his arm around Olivia’s waist to signify that they’d become lovers.

  That’s all they had been to each other. He be damned foolish to think otherwise. Back home, he stayed away from ranchers’ daughters. He knew he wasn’t a good prospect; he was just
a hired hand, not even the trail boss. He didn’t have the ambition ranch daughters wanted, and he drifted around too much. The girls he sparked with were fast, town-dwelling women who weren’t looking for husbands. And there were always the soiled doves, willing to satisfy a man’s more basic needs without asking for more than the going rate. For a long time, Will had been satisfied with this arrangement.

  Sometimes he envied the boys in the bunkhouse who got letters from sweethearts. But soon enough those letters began to make demands—when was the wedding, how big was their spread going to be, what about churching and schooling the children? If the sweethearts stayed true, eventually the cowpuncher sold his saddle and went off to take their bride and leave the freedom of the trail behind. That loss of independence was something Will never coveted from his fallen compañeros.

  He moved into the brewery. Olivia was carefully examining the equipment with Huntworth. They checked the dials on some tanks and made notes. She was completely focused, shutting out everything but the health of her business, including, he noted grimly, himself.

  That was good. She had to be able to walk away, protect herself. There would come a time when he’d have to leave, and it wouldn’t do either of them any good if she mooned and pined for him.

  But would it kill her to look even a bit bothered by it?

  He felt a little bump against his leg. Looking down, he saw a large orange tabby cat rubbing its face along his trousers. Probably the Greywell mouser, and judging by the size of the cat, he’d caught whole herds of mice.

  “Howdy, feller.” He hefted the cat in his arms, and scratched under its chin. His reward was a rolling purr. “Did you miss Liv, too?”

  The cat wasn’t talking, but was content to lay in Will’s arms. He’d never had any kind of pet—never stayed in one place long enough for it to make sense—but over the past few years on the trail, he’d started to grow restless with his wandering ways. He hadn’t known what he wanted, what would make his nerves stop jangling like spurs. He’d thought maybe he needed a wife, but the idea of being shackled to one woman the rest of his life made him itch. The same with having a spread of his own. Nothing felt right. Nothing could pin him down.

  And then Jake had died. It took his old friend and sometimes father’s death to finally make Will take out the burnt letter and find his family.

  “Folg mich. Don’t be like me, Will,” Jake had said just before the end. “Don’t let yourself blow around like an oysvorf.”

  “I’m not an outcast,” Will had answered.

  “Zei nit kain golem. You make yourself one. But you’re too much of a good man to become a forgotten bocher like me.” Then the coughing, which eventually killed old Jake, had taken over, and it was a long time before he spoke again. “Find something, someone, to anchor you,” he eventually gasped. “Farshtaist? Otherwise you’re just the lost boychick I found in the mountains.”

  He’d died not long after that. Will had spent the whole seasick voyage across the Atlantic thinking about what Jake had said. It still made him smile, even now, that Jake kept referring to Will as a boychick, a little boy, even though Will grew to be taller than Jake by half a head. But the rest of Jake’s words haunted him.

  Will thoughtfully pet the orange tabby, whose eyes had closed happily. Lost. Was he lost? He’d thought he’d come to England to find that anchor Jake had wanted for him, yet he’d never felt more at sea than he did right now.

  Damn. He wasn’t used to living in his head like this, and it was downright nettlesome.

  “So you’ve met our fearless mouser,” Olivia said, coming to stand beside him. She ran one hand through the cat’s striped fur, sending the animal into new heights of purring. “He prefers sleeping under the warm mashing tanks to killing rodents.”

  Will looked at her. She really was the loveliest woman he’d known, but the past few days left her face pale and drawn. Her violet eyes were ringed with bruises of exhaustion, color had leeched out of her lips and she seemed to sway a little as she stood near him.

  “Everythin’ seems up to scratch,” he said. He wanted to get her home so she could sleep.

  Olivia nodded. “Mr. Huntworth and I couldn’t find anything damaged or tampered with, but I’m hiring some extra men to stand watch.” She sighed, and Will felt it in his bones. “I just don’t know what Pryce is going to do next. I wish there was some way to take action against him instead of reacting all the time.”

  “I’ll think of somethin’,” Will said.

  She gave him a watery smile. “We will think of something. In the meantime, we had better go home before Mordon sets up his own search party, complete with hounds and torches.”

  Why did that sound so good to him, the words go home?

  Once they returned to Princes Square, Will was going to insist that Olivia go straight up to her room and get some rest, but they were met at the door by a furious Graham Lawford.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Graham,” Olivia murmured, slipping past him into the entryway of her house.

  Will didn’t care for the possessive tone in Lawford’s voice. “She’s fine,” he growled. Ignoring the butler patiently waiting to take his hat and coat, Will stood toe to toe with Lawford, silently daring the man to take just one swing. Will wanted to clean somebody’s clock, since he hadn’t been able to get the son of a bitch who’d kidnapped Olivia yesterday, and this pompous horse’s ass would nicely fit the bill.

  “Where’s her bustle?” Lawford snarled right back, low.

  “Right up your—”

  “Enough!” Olivia stepped between them, hands raised to beat them back. Will and Lawford each took one pace back, like roosters readying for the next strike in the cockpit. “I am bone weary, and don’t feel like officiating a pugilistic bout in the foyer of my home. So unless either of you want to be thrown out into the street, I suggest that you both cease hostilities. Now.”

  Lawford grumbled as much as Will, but they didn’t argue with Olivia. Instead, glaring at each other, they followed her upstairs into the drawing room. A servant brought in some tea and sandwiches, and though Will was hungry enough to eat rancid bear meat, he didn’t want to let his guard down around Lawford, so the sandwiches went untouched. He stood by the window, watching the street, as Olivia told Lawford quickly about what had happened the day before—leaving out the part about Will and she making love in the forest.

  Will stuck his hands in his pockets. Even with Lawford glaring at him, Will’s mind went back to last night. He could still feel Olivia around him, hear the little husky gasps she made as they moved together, taste the warm musk of her skin. His stared at the street as though he could tear it apart with his eyes alone, trying to shut those thoughts away. Trouble was, his memories were as wild and rowdy as unbroken horses, kicking at anything that tried to fence them in.

  “God damn it,” Lawford cursed loudly behind him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Will saw Lawford stalking back and forth, his dark face tight with rage. Olivia, more resigned, sat and sipped from her cup of tea.

  “I could kill George Pryce,” Lawford continued. “I should arrest him.”

  “On what charge?” Olivia asked. “We have no evidence linking him to what happened yesterday. I’m sure that the farmer would be paid handsomely to lie.”

  “Or he’d be picked off before he could say anything,” Will added grimly.

  Olivia paled, but nodded. “The man who tried to abduct me shot at Will.”

  Lawford cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at Will. “He looks fine to me.”

  Riled that Lawford would even question him, Will rolled up the sleeve of his coat to reveal the bandage on his arm. A faint rusty blood stain had seeped through the fabric.

  But Lawford still didn’t look impressed. “It’s just a scratch,” he scoffed. He pulled up the leg of his trousers and pushed down his sock, exposing a long white scar on his calf. “Got this from a Zulu chieftain’s sp
ear.”

  Will tugged at the collar of his shirt, and pointed to an old injury along his collarbone. “Apache arrow,” he challenged. “Had to pull it out myself.”

  Lawford started to remove his jacket. “Let me show you the souvenir I picked up in Kashmir.”

  “You two are insane,” Olivia cried, interrupting them. She glanced back and forth at Will and Lawford, appalled. “Have you forgotten what we are discussing here? The possibility of murder.”

  Both Will and Lawford readjusted their clothing sheepishly. But Will felt for the first time that maybe Lawford wasn’t such a stiff.

  “Tell me again about this man,” Lawford said.

  “Dark. Mustache,” Will answered. “A touch smaller than me, but looked like a bruiser. He knew what he was doin’ with that gun.”

  “He had a Liverpudlian accent,” Olivia added.

  Will didn’t know what that was exactly, though the hired gun had sounded different from the people he’d met so far in England, even the lowlifes. “There’s a gap in his left eyebrow, like an old boxin’ scar.”

  Lawford looked grim. “He matches the description of a man my people have been tracking for a long time. An underworld professional by the name of Maddox. Cold, dangerous, willing to do anything for money. He’s smuggled opium, sold guns to Fenians, and murdered several men.” Lawford cursed under his breath when Olivia turned even more white.

  “And now he’s on Pryce’s payroll,” she breathed.

  “With all the power at my disposal, I can’t get to that bastard,” Lawford said.

  “Will and I are thinking of something,” Olivia said, and damn if he didn’t light up inside like a prairie sunrise hearing those words.

  Lawford looked at him, hard and piercing, so Will kept the brim of his hat low over his eyes. Olivia had told him it was considered rude to wear your hat indoors in England, but he didn’t care much for politeness right now. He had a good poker face. He could out-bluff most boys in the bunkhouse, and even some of the ace gamblers in town. So he used that stony face on Lawford, urging the man to call his bluff.