“Get away from me!” Eden hissed and turned, only to bump into Damon as he departed the restaurant.
“What’s going on here, Bert?” Damon’s greeting was affable enough, but his eyes held a warning. In a proprietary gesture, he took Eden’s arm and led her to one of the two horses he’d hired early that morning.
Bert scurried behind them. “I’m tending business here, Damon. You ain’t got no right to interfere.”
“I’ve every right.” Damon helped Eden onto the chestnut mare and stood alongside the animal like a protective mountain. “This woman is my uncle’s widow. You’re dishonoring his memory with what you’re doing.”
Bert chuckled and thumped Damon on the shoulder. “Hell, man, you mustn’t know what she is.” Bert shot Eden a telling look, but Eden didn’t deign to glance in his direction. “She don’t look like much now, but Damon, I’ve seen her in her gaudy finery at LaRue’s. One night I was there, and she was sitting with Shamus like she was a perfect lady. But, well … she ain’t one. Ladies don’t work at a place like that. Shamus didn’t seem to mind, and hell, I wouldn’t have minded, either, if she’d paid me some attention. After all, we all have to have our fun.”
Eden stiffened her back, unable to look anywhere but straight ahead. “Go on, ask her if she don’t remember me,” she heard him say. “I know she does, ‘cause I went to the table and introduced myself like the proper gentleman I am. Even offered for her, but Shamus wouldn’t hear of it, told me he’d kill me first before I insulted her again. She knows me, don’t you, honey?”
Damon glanced at Eden. The muscle in his cheek began twitching. “Is that true?” he asked her.
She found the courage to speak. “Yes, I remember you, Mr…”
“Carruthers, duck,” Bert told her and doffed his hat, seemingly pleased with himself. “Must be kind of hard to remember every gent’s name.” He grinned, displaying his uneven teeth.
Eden flushed. The insufferable man thought she’d been one of LaRue’s girls. There was no point in denying it; he wouldn’t believe she’d been a bookkeeper. Neither would Damon. But she’d scratch and claw any man who thought he had a right to her because he had money to pay her. Still, it hurt a great deal for Damon to come face-to-face with a man who believed she had sold herself.
Damon climbed onto his horse. His hands captured the reins. From his lofty perch, he cast a derisive grin in Bert’s direction. “Mrs. Flynn is no longer in LaRue’s employ, Bert. Don’t come sniffing around the mine for her, or I’ll have to carry out my uncle’s threat. You got that, duck?”
Eden couldn’t help but notice Bert’s sudden pallor and the way he immediately lost his cockiness, seeming to be no longer interested in her. “Yeah, Damon. You won’t get no trouble from me.” He doffed his hat to Eden. “Good day, Mrs. Flynn.” Then like a scared jackrabbit, he took off.
Damon urged his horse along the dusty street, filled with miners leading mules, loaded down with mining gear. Eden cantered alongside him, and it was only when they were outside the town that he finally spoke. “I hope there’ll be no further need for me to have to defend your honor, Mrs. Flynn. I don’t relish having to shoot a man simply because he wants to pay for your favors.”
Eden bit down on her lower lip. So, they were no longer on a first-name basis. She should have expected Damon’s scorn, but somehow, she hadn’t. She’d thought he’d put his judgment of her past behind him and she was touched by his defense of her honor. But then, he was only doing what was expected of him, what Shamus would have wanted as her due. Her heart lurched in her chest at the unfairness of it all. Her honor and maidenhood were both intact and Damon continued to believe the worst.
Eden’s voice held a trace of bitterness. “Please, Mr. Alexander, don’t feel obligated to defend me. I can handle pesky men. I’ve handled you quite well so far.”
“Aye,” he admitted, chuckling mirthlessly. “But that’s because I haven’t had to try too hard to break down your resistance. Each time I kiss you, you melt like a piece of taffy, so where’s the challenge in it?” His eyes held a bewitching and vexing blue light when he rode on, seemingly forgetting her presence. Eden blushed to the roots of her hair at his words because they were true—undeniably true.
~~~
The ride to Thunder Mine was accomplished more quickly than Eden anticipated. For a number of miles they’d followed a trail that led alongside the Shotover River. Dark forests lay beyond, and every so often Eden would hear strange, warbling sounds from within the hidden depths.
Once Damon stopped to speak to men who waded knee-high in the sparkling waters, their tin pans clutched tightly in their hands. She watched as one man shoveled out a small portion of the river’s bottom and placed it in his pan. With a swirling motion, he allowed the water and mud to fall over the pan’s edge before dipping into the river again.
“He’s panning,” Damon explained, causing Eden to jump as he broke the lengthy silence between them. “He’s getting rid of all the water and rocks. If there’s gold, the pieces will sink to the bottom of the pan when the other debris is cleared away.”
The man’s measured movements fascinated her. Would he find what he sought? Sure enough, when he finished, the pan’s bottom was lined with shiny yellow particles.
“Oh, how easy it is! No wonder people become obsessed with gold fever.”
Damon made a snorting sound. “Might look simple, but panning is hard, backbreaking work. Sometimes a man finds a little, sometimes he doesn’t. More than likely, he doesn’t. It took Shamus years to make his first strike, and he was one of the lucky ones. Not everyone becomes rich.”
Eden let out a long sigh. Damon always managed to quell her enthusiasm with realities. “Maybe it isn’t the gold which keeps them coming back,” she found herself saying. “Perhaps it’s the challenge of finding it. Sometimes the journey can be more interesting than the destination, Mr. Alexander.”
She didn’t miss his penetrating assessment of her and was somehow warmed to her toes by his blue-eyed probe.
Half an hour later they cantered past a cluster of small houses at the foot of a large mountain. A dark opening in the mountain yawned before her and a sign which proclaimed Thunder Mine hung above it.
Damon rode past a small house, telling her it belonged to Tom and Miranda. He named the owners of the other five houses, but they meant nothing to her. They headed onto a winding road which led away from the ramshackle dwellings. They halted before a gray-colored dwelling which appeared sturdy enough but was in need of a new coat of paint. “This is my place,” he said without a trace of pride in his voice. “Don’t expect too much,” he warned her when he opened the door.
Eden quickly discovered Damon’s warning was accurate. The interior, lighted by the afternoon sun through a dirty-paned window, left much to be desired. There was one large room, consisting of a small table and two rickety chairs, a washtub, pot-bellied stove, and an oven on one side. On the other side stood two cots with a chest between them and a wall mirror.
This had been Shamus’s home, the place he’d loved so dearly, the place he’d spoken about in such glowing terms? Eden could barely believe it. She’d expected something grander. From what Shamus had told her, she had received the impression of a much larger house, complete with Maori servants. This was far removed from her imaginings, and once again she felt Shamus had betrayed her, but was quickly consumed by guilt. No doubt his illness had caused this delusion, but she could have sworn he’d been lucid till the end.
Her disappointment must have shown on her face. “I told you not to expect much,” Damon said.
“It’s fine,” she tonelessly responded. “Rather rustic decor, however.”
Her reaction apparently amused him. “You’re a one, you are, Eden Flynn.”
Eden’s hackles went up, immediately sensing a confrontation in the offing. But she granted him an innocent and guileless smile. “Explain yourself, please.”
“Because you lie so damned well. Here you
are, fancy lady that you are, in a place barely fit for the pigs, and you’re pretending it’s to your liking. We both know you’re used to better than this.”
“You know no such thing!” she spat. “You have no idea about my life, how I’ve lived. Oh, yes, I could tell you stories about my past, but I won’t bore you with them. I could make things up, too, and you’d never know if I was lying or not. So, I’ll tell you nothing except one thing: don’t attempt to judge me or believe you know what I’m thinking or how I feel. I can guarantee that you’d be very wrong.”
Eden didn’t know what caused this outburst. She was dirty and exhausted, tired of Damon’s nasty comments. Why couldn’t he just let her alone for the time being?
“I’d really appreciate if I could wash this dust off and take a nap,” she admitted after the retort she expected hadn’t come.
“I’ll get you some water from the pump,” Damon told her and went to the door. He stopped and looked at her. “I assume you’ll rest and then be leaving.”
Eden smiled a tight, weary smile. “Need you ask?” From his baffled expression, she knew he waited for a different response, but that was all the answer he’d get for the moment.
~~~
Bert Carruthers swallowed his whiskey at one of the many drinking establishments in town. A dance-hall girl who would have been pretty except for three blackened front teeth smiled at him. Her invitation was obvious, but Bert wasn’t interested. The altercation with the Widow Flynn and Damon Alexander still smote his pride. “Uppity bitch,” he mumbled under his breath, and he didn’t mean the black-toothed girl.
He got up and had his glass refilled by the bar keep, oblivious to the piano music and the other patrons, whom Bert considered rowdy and of an inferior social class. Certainly he’d been one of those dirty-clothed miners a few years ago, but now he had some money and was a fine gentleman. So why had a whore like Eden Flynn refused him? It didn’t make sense to Bert.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Jock Sutherland nursing a drink. Now, Sutherland was a gentleman through and through. That was obvious to anybody who saw him. Sutherland’s sheep station, High Winds, was the most prosperous in the area, located a short distance from Bert’s own home. Sutherland could have come into town in his work clothes, but each time Bert had seen him, the man was dressed like a real swell.
His light blond hair was always neatly trimmed, as was his mustache. The only flaw to his face was the long white scar running the length of his right cheek. It was a known fact Damon Alexander had cut him during a fight over a woman when they were younger.
Bert envied the fine cut of the man’s coat, which was lined in real satin and not sateen like his own coat. Bert glanced down, embarrassed to notice the fresh whiskey stains on the coat. He’d bet Jock Sutherland never spilled anything.
Bert nearly turned away when Jock glanced in his direction, not expecting the man to acknowledge him. Many times he’d dropped by High Winds to visit Sutherland and his crippled sister, but Sutherland hadn’t seemed interested in conversing, and Bert always left with the impression he’d intruded. But now the man actually grinned at him and waved him over to his table.
Sutherland stood up, surprising Bert further with the offer of his hand. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, Carruthers. Join me for a drink.”
Such a friendly greeting from an important man as Sutherland was too much to be believed. Bert sat down with a silly grin on his face, too complimented by Sutherland’s attention to wonder at the sudden friendliness.
For a few minutes they exchanged small talk. Bert tried to emulate Jock’s proper manners and refined speech. No doubt about it, Sutherland was a real gentleman—not like some of the scum who lived around here, Damon Alexander for one, who protected a whore he’d brought to Thunder Mine. He could learn a great deal about being a gentleman from Sutherland.
“How is Miss Sutherland?” Bert finally asked, his nerve sufficiently raised after a few more whiskeys. He would have liked to court Marjorie Sutherland, despite her infirmity. It didn’t matter to Bert if the young woman limped or that she was as plain as cake batter. She was wealthy and her name meant a great deal in the area. Just being associated with a Sutherland could open doors of opportunity.
“My sister is well, thank you. She wondered why you haven’t visited High Winds lately.”
“Naw! You don’t mean it. Miss Marjorie actually said that?”
Jock nodded. “Perhaps you’ll take tea with us on Saturday?”
“I will, I will,” Bert declared, excitement reddening his face. “I’ll look forward to it.” This was more than Bert had ever dreamed of. Marjorie Sutherland wanted to see him! He barely heard Jock speaking to him, and was brought back to reality by a hard thump on his elbow from the man. “What you said, Jock?”
“I asked you if what I heard about this morning is true. Did you have some sort of altercation with Alexander and Shamus Flynn’s widow? The whole town is talking about it.”
Bert reddened, embarrassed by the incident and the way he’d backed down before Damon Alexander. Alexander was known to be tough, easy with his fists, just like Shamus had been. He hadn’t liked tussling with either of them. “I guess I got carried away by Mrs. Flynn. She’s a real beauty under all that dirt on her face, and I know she ain’t really a proper lady ‘cause when I was in San Francisco—”
“I don’t care about that!” Jock snapped, bestowing a warm smile upon Bert even though his brown eyes didn’t hold any remnants of warmth. “I need to know if it’s true about her being Alexander’s partner. Did she inherit Shamus’s portion of the mine? Does she intend to live at Thunder Mine?”
“I don’t know.”
Jock made a tent out of his fingers and perused Bert at such length that Bert fidgeted. “Find out for me. I’d appreciate the information.”
“But Damon told me not to snoop around Mrs. Flynn or the mine. You know his temper if he’s crossed.”
Jock’s face darkened and his finger lightly traced the scar on his cheek. “Find out for me. If you can’t, I believe my sister shall be otherwise engaged and forced to cancel the tea.”
Bert gulped hard. He knew what that meant. “I’ll find out for you, Jock.”
“Good, Bert. I knew I could count on you.” Jock rose and left the saloon, leaving Bert to ponder just how he was going to discover Mrs. Flynn’s plans.
Chapter 6
Nick arrived at sunset just as Damon was pouring himself a large brandy. He placed the crystal decanter on the mahogany sideboard after offering Nick a drink, which the man readily accepted. “Shamus always did have the best taste in spirits,” Nick complimented. Nick gingerly sat upon the peach-and-green damask Louis Quinze sofa, uncomfortably aware of his dust-covered clothes. He couldn’t wait to bathe, but for the last part of his journey, his mouth had been watering for some of Shamus’s fine brandy and when Hannah, a Maori servant girl, passed through the room, he eagerly extended his glass for a refill.
“Yeah, I’ll say one thing for old Shamus, he sure did know how to live.” Nick cast an appreciative eye around the parlor, letting his attention wander to the marbled terrace which spanned all three sides of the room to overlook the valley below. Nick knew the mine was visible from here; that was probably why Shamus had built the house on this spot. He’d wanted a bird’s eye view of the entire operation.
Shamus’s managerial ability had been one of his greatest attributes. The man had had a way of making people work for him and not mind it. Because of that ability, Castlegate existed. The house was a small-scale replica of the grand manor Shamus’s family had owned in Ireland before the Potato Famine and hard times drove them away.
Nick remembered the way Shamus had labored on it, joining the Maori workers he’d hired. It had been a tiresome undertaking, but Shamus had loved every moment of it and probably had known the position of each stud. Indeed, Castlegate was one of the finest homes in New Zealand, with its Georgian architecture and four Doric columns i
n front. There were five bedrooms and indoor plumbing, a luxurious oddity considering the primitive way most people lived. The furnishings had been specially made to emulate those in the original Castlegate and shipped from the finest furniture makers in Paris, London, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Nothing was too good for Castlegate.
And now there was a beautiful and intelligent woman to grace its elegant rooms. Nick wondered what kept Eden. He knew it must be near suppertime, for he could smell the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen and hear the clink of the expensive china as the housekeeper set the table in the dining room. Minutes later, he joined Damon at the Queen Anne-style table. “Will Mrs. Flynn be joining us?” Nick asked innocently before digging into the mouth-watering pork served on a mound of rice and peppers.
“Eden is resting,” was Damon’s terse reply.
“That’s good. I’ll bet she was tired. Will she come down later? I want to tell her I brought her trunk.”
“I doubt she’ll be coming at all, Nick.”
Nick’s ears picked up on something in Damon’s tone of voice. He didn’t joke with him, as he usually did. Instead, he appeared subdued, but Nick sensed an undercurrent of moodiness within Damon. And the food was practically untouched on his plate, a most definite sign that something was amiss.
“If you’ve got something to tell me, lad, then you better get on with it. I have a feeling your moodiness has to do with Eden. Why isn’t she eating with us? Why haven’t you fetched her to tell her I’ve brought her trunk? I’m certain she’d like to change her clothes.” Nick cocked a wary eyebrow. “Or has Mrs. Flynn already departed Thunder Mine? Did you run her off, Damon? Dammit, man, if you did…”
Damon held up a hand. “No, I didn’t run her off. She’s quite safe. She’s staying at the old cabin.”
Lynette Vinet Page 6