“Your mustache. It tickles.”
Chuckling low in his throat, Dillon kissed her again and again, savoring her eager lips as he held her close. She kindled a need inside him, an undeniable desire that surpassed any he’d ever felt for women who’d lured him to bed with their practiced charms. “Charity,” he breathed, “honey, the straw’s much softer than this seat. Or the back of the wagon—we’d stay cleaner there, and no one’ll see us. Your father will never suspect anything. I promise.”
Even as he uttered the words, Devereau knew he’d said too much. The young woman in his arms stiffened as though the black-coated preacher were standing beside them, and her breathing became a rapid pant.
“Dillon, we shouldn’t—Papa will know, even though we don’t—”
“Shhh.” He silenced her fears with a gentle kiss until he felt her relax. Then he looked into her wide eyes, disgusted with himself for calling up her father’s image. “I’ve told you before I won’t force you, sweetheart. But my God, knowing you were on that sofa at Sol’s, wearing nothing under your dress, and now finally touching you, well it’s ...”
He turned her loose, raking his burning fingers through his hair to get control of himself. Then he gently tucked her breasts back into the bodice of her gown. “You’re a very enticing young lady, Charity Scott. It’s good I don’t require much sleep, because I won’t be getting any tonight.”
Charity looked away, torn between feeling like a guilty little girl and a desirable, desired young woman. Dillon Devereau was quick with a compliment, yet his wonderful words rang with a conviction her heart heard very clearly. “Thank you—I think,” she mumbled.
“You’re quite welcome;” He let out a long sigh, realizing that the heat of their embrace had left him smelling of her lilac soap—only slightly, but enough that it would drive him crazy all during dinner.
Chapter 8
“Thinking about your mother?”
Charity looked up from her dinner into Dillon’s compassionate eyes and nodded. “The chicken and new potatoes are delicious,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry I’m not being very good company.”
“Nonsense. You can’t help but feel bewildered after what you learned this morning.” Devereau reached across the table for her hand. “I won’t be the least bit offended if you don’t want to talk. But if you need an ear, I’ll be glad to listen.”
Laying her fork at the side of her half-empty plate, Charity sighed. Now that the truth about Mama had sunk in, she felt more alone and confused than ever. And where was Papa? Surely he knew by now that there was no Marcella Scott look-alike; he’d had all day to face the fact that Mama had duped them. As she saw the shadows stretching across the sidewalk outside, Charity was haunted by the uneasy feeling that he, too, had abandoned her. It was a childish fear, one she couldn’t admit to the handsome man whose lean, elegant hand was holding hers.
“I...I thought Mama and I were close,” she said in a tiny voice. “She always encouraged me when my letters hinted that Papa had been in one of his moods. I could tell her how worthless and homely he made me feel, and she wouldn’t write me a sermon about not respecting him.”
Dillon didn’t know who disgusted him more, Marcella or Noah, as he gripped her trembling fingers. “Charity, you are not worthless or homely,” he insisted. “I know living with your father won’t be easy, but you’re old enough—resourceful enough—to strike out on your own and—”
“Why didn’t she take me with her, Dillon? I wouldn’t have told Papa what she was really doing.”
Devereau’s throat clamped shut. Once her initial shock had passed, Charity would realize why a cunning, beautiful woman like Marcella chose to run off with Erroll Powers alone, so he gave her a sympathetic smile. “Only your mother can answer that, sweetheart.”
“And she should answer it—to my face,” she blurted. Then she turned away, embarrassed by her outburst. “I’m ruining this nice dinner. I’m sorry.”
Even as she blinked back tears, Dillon found her extremely attractive. The candles brought out honey-colored highlights in her cinnamon hair, accentuating fragile features that made him want to protect her from sorrow and disappointment forever. It was a damn shame their last hours together would be spoiled by two parents who ... he suddenly realized how he could make Charity’s wishes—and his own—come true. “What would you think if I—”
“Mr. Devereau? Mr. Devereau, you’d better come quick!”
Dillon looked up to see a husky boy rushing gingerly between the linen-draped tables, a lad who did odd jobs for B. C. Clark and other shopkeepers. “What is it, Billy? Miss Scott and I are.. .”
The boy glanced nervously at Charity and then cupped his hand to Devereau’s ear to whisper his message. She recognized Dillon’s card-playing face immediately, and sensed she was being excluded because something horrible was happening.
“What’s going on?” she demanded in a frantic whisper. “Is it Papa? Did they find him?”
Standing, Dillon gave her hand a firm squeeze. “Your father’s fine, and I’m going to see that he stays that way. Wait here, in case he gets back before I do.”
Charity was too stunned to argue. Dillon’s commanding voice and piercing gaze left no doubt about the urgency of his errand—or that she’d suffer the consequences if she was foolish enough to follow him.
Devereau strode through the hotel’s dining room and out onto the sidewalk, forcing himself to maintain the cool demeanor of his profession. Of all the idiotic, careless ways for Noah Scott to work off his anger—yet what the young messenger had whispered didn’t really surprise him. As they came to a saloon halfway down the block, he clapped the boy on the shoulder and handed him a tip. “Thanks, Billy. I appreciate your help.”
The boy’s eyes lit up like Christmas, but Dillon had no time for chitchat. He stepped inside the crowded saloon and found that the situation Billy described earlier had deteriorated dangerously. In the back corner, Jackson Blue was dealing three-card monte, a game only swindlers and suckers engaged in, and Noah Scott had succumbed. The reverend’s shirt clung damply to his back and his silver-streaked hair shook each time he jabbed his finger toward Jackson.
“You palmed the ace and switched it for that blasted deuce!” the clergyman accused loudly. He appealed to the crowd around him with outstretched hands. “You all saw it! The savage cheated, yet he won’t return my money!”
Blue let out a derisive laugh. “If you knew I pulled a switch, why’d you bet a thousand dollars you don’t have?”
“Because I’m on to your system! I caught you—”
“Mr. Scott, I’ll give you one last round to redeem yourself,” the buckskinned Indian said as he deftly shuffled the deck. “Three new cards—we’ve got a king, a four, and a jack, so the king’s the baby,” he sang out as he laid the cards on the table. “All new, all unmarked, but watch the baby closely because my hands are quicker than your eye, sir.”
Dillon let out an irritated sigh and eased between the customers who were watching the contest with avid glee. Jackson had flipped the cards facedown and was slipping them over and around each other with the adroitness of a carnival huckster, while Scott leaned on the table to follow the movement closely. “Noah, three-card monte was designed to relieve fools of their money,” he said as he came up beside the preacher. “And fools who can’t pay—”
“Shut up,” Noah snapped. “You’re distracting me so this piece of red filth can switch the cards when I’m not watching.”
Violence wasn’t a tactic Devereau resorted to often, but he was ready to strangle both Scott and Jackson. Charity had been fretting about her father all evening, and here he’d been throwing their money away in an attempt to regain his self-esteem—and Blue was taking advantage of him. Dillon struck like a snake, grabbing the Indian’s wrist so forcefully he dropped the cards. “Enough!”
“This isn’t your concern, Devereau,” Jackson snarled as he shook himself from Dillon’s grasp. “I’ve given Scott every chanc
e to break even—and he did about an hour ago—but he just wouldn’t quit. Which card’s the king, Preacher Man?” he jeered at Noah. “If you’re as good at bending God’s ear as you claim to be, you could transform all three cards to kings!”
“That’s trifling with the Lord’s—”
“And you’re trifling with my patience—both of you!” Devereau said as he snatched the cards off the table. “I’ll settle with you later, Jackson. And Mr. Scott, you’re coming with me. Your daughter’s worried sick, and I intend to return you to her in one piece, so you can explain your absence yourself. Let’s go.”
Noah Scott paled slightly and adjusted his spectacles. “You wouldn’t dare tell her I’ve been—this is the first time I’ve ever—”
“People go to hell for lying, Reverend,” Dillon muttered as he prodded the clergyman through the snickering crowd. “You were gambling the night you got your eye blacked, too—weren’t you? Didn’t need your glasses to read the cards, so when you’d lost all the donations you collected and couldn’t pay your wages, the bouncer slugged you to get rid of you. How far off am I?”
Scott grabbed his coat from the back of a chair on his way through the saloon door. “Men of the cloth often gamble,” he stated defensively. “Why, a friend of mine once won enough at poker to build a new church after a fire destroyed the old one.”
“That may be true, but he obviously had sense enough to quit a winner. How will you explain to Charity that you don’t have steamer fare?” Dillon demanded. “She won’t believe you were mugged twice in the same week.”
Noah Scott gripped his lapels, widening his dark eyes ominously. “If you breathe a word of this to her, you’ll shatter her ideals—tear her sheltered world and our poor little family apart. Do you want that on your conscience, Brother Devereau?”
He was about to ask how the hypocritical clergyman lived with his own conscience when Jackson Blue stalked out of the saloon, scowling. “We’re settling up. I’m not letting this sleazy preacher slip out of town before I’ve got my money.”
Devereau looked from the angry Indian to the man beside him and knew they’d be bickering all night unless he dealt with them separately. “Go back to the hotel, Noah,” he instructed as he reached for his wallet. “Wait for me in the lobby—and don’t let Charity see you, because we’ve got things to discuss that you won’t want her to hear. Such as how you’re going to reimburse me for getting Blue off your back.”
The clergyman stalked away, leaving him to deal with the towering scout who’d been known to lift grown men from the sidewalk and heave them through plate glass windows—with one hand. “How much did you stick him for?” Dillon demanded.
“Two thousand.”
“What? How’d you plan on getting blood from that turnip, Jackson? That man—”
“Which doesn’t include the round you interrupted,” Blue added as he crossed his arms. “All sport went out of it when I knew he was broke, but he kept coming at me for one more play to win it all back.”
Devereau didn’t doubt what his buckskinned friend was saying, but his motives irritated the hell out of him. “Here’s a thousand—no more,” he said in a low voice. “Next time keep your damn deck in your pocket.”
“But I won it fair and—”
“The only time you pitch monte is when you find a sucker so rank he sweats money,” Dillon pointed out. “And today you went after Scott to get even with me, after you made an ass of yourself at Goldstein’s.”
Jackson grinned slyly. “What the hell was that about, anyway? Those men don’t have the slightest suspicion that you and my flute and I are partners.”
“But having two spotters gets a bit obvious—and I was already on to them when you arrived.”
“Are you telling me ...” The Indian narrowed his piercing black eyes and leaned against the corner of the saloon building. “Since when do you let a woman in on your game? She would’ve given you away the first time Sol Goldstein looked at her cross-eyed.”
“Charity’s sharper than you think,” he replied proudly. “She spotted the holdouts under the table, and followed our plan without batting an eye. And without being insulting and obnoxious.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Blue retorted. “I came to offer my assistance, knowing those three jokers planned to clean you out, and—”
“And you made a nuisance of yourself. Had to dig pretty deep for that comment about marriage not being convenient, didn’t you?” Devereau saw the anger smoldering in his friend’s dark face and suddenly realized what was behind this entire argument. “You’re jealous! Of a preacher’s girl!”
“Well, you’re in love with her,” Jackson jeered, “and that’s a helluva lot more dangerous, Devereau. You bailed her old man out to protect her from what he really is—came to Leavenworth to be with her, because you couldn’t possibly give a damn about finding her mother. Am I right?”
Dillon saw no reason to dignify his friend’s accusations with a reply when he needed to be talking to Noah Scott. “What about Marcella—or Maggie, as you know her?” he asked. “Where would she and Powers have gone? I’m guessing they’re both up to no good.”
Blue laughed wickedly. “Why should I tell you? You owe me a thousand bucks, pal.” He straightened to his full height and looked smugly down at Dillon. “If Charity’s anything like her mother, you might not be man enough to handle her, Devereau. And I’ve got better things to do than speculate about where some preacher’s whore might chase off to next. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
It wasn’t the first time Jackson Blue had dismissed him with a cocky remark, and Dillon sensed the scout had not only cost him precious time but would also interfere with the plan he’d been considering at dinner. He watched until the Indian’s tall form disappeared around a corner, and then hurried through the twilight to find Noah Scott. His conversation with the reverend would determine his future—if he had one—with Charity, and he’d probably have to toy with the truth a bit to arrange things the way he wanted them.
To his relief, he saw Scott sitting in a wing chair in the Planters lobby, alone. Devereau wondered how such a worldly, intelligent man had remained unaware of his wife’s brazen affair for ten years—had presumably financed her stay at the Powers estate, but had never gone to visit her. Or was ignorance merely another of the complex clergyman’s acts? Dillon wasn’t surprised to see the preacher raise a whiskey glass to his lips, but he decided to forgo a drink himself until he could afford to relax. He slipped into the chair beside Scott, reminding himself to keep his aversion to the man under control. “I took care of Blue,” he said quietly. “He won’t bother you again.”
Noah glanced at him sullenly.
Devereau decided there was no point in skirting the issue when Charity might happen upon them at any moment. “What do you plan to do now? I’m sure it was a shock to learn that your wife—”
“I’m returning to my pulpit, where I belong. The woman’s made her bed and she’ll lie in it.”
Scott’s insufferable attitude had Devereau ready to black his other eye. “I just paid Blue a thousand dollars not to beat you to a pulp,” he said in a tight voice. “I’m considering it a loan, not a gift, so how do you propose to pay for your passage home? Or were you smart enough to keep some money in reserve for steamer fare?”
The preacher tossed the last of his whiskey down his throat. “Charity still has the money you paid her for singing—your idea, I believe,” he added with vinegar in his voice. “If that’s not enough, I’ll set up a revival. I can count on—”
“Your letter about Marcella’s murder won’t work anymore, Scott,” Dillon stated coolly. “You don’t have enough female followers here to fill the tent, and even if you did, their husbands will hear about today’s escapades and keep them at home. Your credibility’s shot.”
Noah scowled. “Are you implying I don’t have the wherewithal to support myself, just because my wife’s been hoodwinked by some scoundrel in a fancy suit? I’ll have
you know that for twenty years—”
It was useless to correct the preacher’s assessment of Marcella’s affair, so Devereau cast his first line. “I’m offering you a chance to reunite your family, Noah,” he began in a low voice. “I’m willing to help you locate Marcella, and I’ll finance the trip.”
The preacher let out a mirthless laugh. “Why would I want to find her? My parishioners assume she’s dead, and it’s just as well.”
It was obvious that Scott would never admit to his flock that he’d been cuckolded, so Dillon attacked his pride on another front. “I’d think you’d see it as your Christian duty to go after your wife—rescue her from Erroll’s wicked influence. Charity’s bound to wonder why you aren’t trying to save your marriage, since your whole ministry’s based upon the sanctity of the family.”
“You keep my daughter out of this. I don’t have to answer to her—or to you.”
In his mind’s eye he saw Charity’s forlorn, tear-filled eyes and could tolerate no more. Devereau leaned forward until his face was nearly touching Noah Scott’s, his voice a harsh whisper. “You are the most selfish, conceited—poorest excuse for a father I’ve ever seen,” he began, “and as though forbidding her my company wasn’t enough, you abandoned her this morning, because you were too damn proud to admit Marcella had plenty of reasons to run off with another man. Never mind that Charity felt betrayed and deserted when she found out about her mother’s—”
“She’s an obedient daughter. She went to our room to pray about it—unless you led her astray,” he added accusingly.
“That’s not the point,” Dillon spat. “When she needed you most, you left her. And because of you, her mother left her, too. Charity deserves better from both of you, and I intend to see that you at least try to bring Marcella back. I’ll pay for the trip, no matter how far we have to go, but unless you speak with your wife, the interest on that thousand-dollar debt’s going to add up pretty damn fast.”
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