Reverend Scott’s eyes rolled theatrically. “This is none of your business, Devereau,” he said as he stood up, “so Charity and I will be on our way tomorrow. I have no reason to accept your ridiculous offer. I didn’t ask you to pay that savage off.”
Dillon rose and looked him squarely in the eye. “Fine. By the time you’ve boarded the boat, I can telegraph everyone I know along the Missouri River—plus some influential statesmen in Jefferson City. And when your congregation hears that your gambling drove Marcella to adultery, they’ll shun you like you were Satan’s twin. Is that how you want your illustrious career to end, Reverend Scott?” he asked pointedly. “And how will you explain it to Charity?”
The preacher glared at him for several seconds, but Devereau could see the argument was over. “Why are you doing this?” Scott demanded.
“I have my reasons. Go console your daughter—she’s been worried about you all day.”
With a final scowl, the preacher walked slowly toward the hotel’s stairs. Dillon watched him until he felt the surge of disgust ebbing and rational thought returned. Why had he launched such a crusade, entangling himself in the private affairs of a couple he neither liked nor respected? When Charity answered her father’s knock, throwing her arms around his waist, he had part of his answer.
But the rest of his motives had nothing to do with the willowy redhead who’d so quickly captured his fancy. As he headed for the livery stable, he considered the bizarre facts that had presented themselves today. Any woman who would patch two photographs together to deceive her family, and then fake her own death, had undoubtedly hoodwinked Erroll Powers as well.
Hoodwinked . . . Dillon chuckled at the Reverend’s term. Marcella Scott was as slippery a character as he’d ever encountered, and she probably had designs on Erroll’s fortune—perhaps planned to kill him for it and continue west, where she’d never be traced. And now that Powers had surfaced again, Devereau had no intention of letting a preacher’s wife prevent him from getting the revenge he’d wanted for half his life.
A pair like Erroll and Marcella would be hard to track: they could be anywhere in Kansas, as the photographer had said, or they could be amassing another crooked fortune along the Transcontinental Railroad. His only advantages were that Marcella wasn’t expecting her husband and daughter to be on her trail, and that Powers couldn’t resist a beautiful woman or the chance to swindle somebody.
Charity’s unstudied loveliness came to mind, and as Dillon saddled a horse and cantered along the moonlit streets, he knew his mission would be an adventure if not a success, as long as she was beside him.
Charity sighed as she slipped into her gingham dress. The first glow of dawn was lighting the edges of the curtains and she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Papa had shaken her awake and was shaving hurriedly. He’d said little when he returned last night, except that they were leaving this morning. He’d prayed long and loudly for Mama’s soul and God’s guidance, and then he’d gone to bed.
Her heart sagged, because she’d seen the last of Dillon Devereau. He’d returned only a few minutes ago, and she could hear him splashing over his basin. Then he crossed his room several times—packing, probably—and she wondered how he moved so quickly on so little sleep ... or perhaps he’d slept elsewhere. He had several friends in Leavenworth, and she’d be foolish to think some of them weren’t women.
Sighing again, Charity glanced at the green dress, which was hanging on the bronze door hook. She’d had some of the happiest times of her life in that gown, but it was probably best to let the dapper rogue who gave it to her fade into a pleasant memory. Dillon Devereau was long on flattery and short on answers—the way he’d evaded her question about love and Jackson Blue’s comment about marriage proved that plainly enough.
It was senseless to mope about a man who was so far out of her league anyway. Since Papa had no patience for packing, she began to fold their clean clothes into the suitcases, so she wouldn’t annoy him by not being ready on time. She had the feeling she’d spend the next several weeks avoiding his moods.
As a single, sorrowful tear dripped down her cheek, someone pounded so loudly on the door that Papa cursed when he cut himself. Charity answered it, and saw Dillon’s dimpled grin.
“Pack your bags, sweetheart,” he said with a mischievous chuckle. “Our train to Abilene leaves in an hour.”
Chapter 9
The train was nearly a mile from the station before Charity stopped studying her surroundings to flash Dillon a smile full of wonder. She was seated across from him, her jade eyes asparkle as she gazed at the car’s stylishly papered walls and padded seats. It was obviously her first ride on the rails, and Devereau enjoyed watching her peer at the passengers across the aisle, and smile shyly at a man in a tattersall suit who was glancing her way. Beside her, Noah glowered. It was obvious he was aboard only because his reputation and career were at stake.
“Isn’t this fun?” Charity breathed as she looked out the window. She was fascinated by the rapid passing of amber wheat fields and telegraph poles as the train hurtled along the tracks.
“Ridiculous,” her father muttered. “We’re chasing across Kansas after a—”
“Well at least Mama’s not dead! We have a chance to straighten things out and bring her back home.”
Charity’s voice pulsed with a mixture of shock and hope and duty, and Dillon’s heart went out to her. She was trying to make sense of a situation that defied every moral and spiritual principle she’d been raised with, a task Reverend Scott had already deemed useless.
“Your mother’s been pulling the wool over our eyes for many, many years, daughter,” he replied with a pointed look in Dillon’s direction. “She won’t be found if she doesn’t want to be. And who’s to say she’ll be in Abilene?”
Both of the Scotts looked at Dillon, their faces expectant, as he decided which details of his answer to leave out. The passenger car was nearly full, and if Noah became irritated, every person on board would bear the brunt of his rantings. “I went back to the Powers estate last night,” he began quietly, “because I figured the maid might let something slip, even if she wouldn’t tell me Erroll’s itinerary straight out.”
“And she asked you in?” the preacher demanded.
Recalling how the barrel of the colored woman’s rifle had glistened in the moonlight, Devereau smiled. “Not exactly. It was late, and rather than answer the door in her nightgown, she leaned out the window above me,” he said. “I told her how urgently we wanted to talk to Maggie—that you were family, and needed to find her immediately.”
“What did she say?” Charity whispered earnestly.
‘Even if I knowed where she was, nobody—not President Grant nor Jesus Christ hisself—could drag that from me at this hour’ were her exact words, but he couldn’t admit that to the Scotts. “You can understand how she’d be afraid of losing her job for divulging such information,” he replied with a shrug. “But she did mention that Mr. Powers intended to conduct some Kansas Pacific business at each major station along its route. Which means Abilene is the first logical place to start tracing them.”
“It’s unlikely they’ll still be there, and you know it,” Scott muttered. His voice was rising with his color as he glared at Devereau. “Marcella’s long gone, and it’s a waste of my—”
“Where do you think she is?” Dillon challenged. “We don’t have to stop in Abilene. We’ll keep right on going to wherever you’d care to look for her.”
Up to this point, Charity had been too fascinated by the passing countryside to think about anything else, but the animosity between Papa and the gambler sitting across from them was now too heated to ignore. Once again her duty to her father pulled her in one direction while her infatuation for Dillon Devereau tugged her in another. “It sounds like a boring trip, traveling between dusty old cowtowns to conduct railroad business,” she said, her voice barely audible above the clackety-clack of the train. “Not the sort of excitement Maggie Wallace must be accustome
d to. Not worth leaving her home and family for.”
Could she possible suspect the truth? Dillon studied her sorrowful expression, but saw only the pain of being abandoned in her glistening eyes. He vowed that when they caught up with Marcella, she would answer to her daughter—a vow he hoped they wouldn’t arrive too late to keep. For Charity’s sake, and because Noah Scott would call off the journey in a rage, Dillon couldn’t tell them the one piece of new information Erroll’s maid had revealed in their midnight conversation. With a white-toothed grin, she’d exclaimed, “I cain’t rightly say when they’s to be back, Mr. Devereau. I’s just pleased that Miss Maggie and Mr. Erroll’s finally gonna quit their carryin’s on—and on HIS money, they might be honeymoonin’ for a long, long time.”
“I can’t imagine why she’d leave you either,” Devereau replied gently. “But you wanted to hear her reasons for yourself, and I’ve agreed to help you find her. That’s a promise I’ll keep for as long as you want me to.”
“You’ve been very generous, what with leaving your casino and now buying our tickets,” she mumbled. “We’ll never be able to repay you, Mr. Devereau.” A sharp elbow in her side made her look at Papa, whose fierce glare appalled her. She tried to think of an appropriate response, but all she could gasp was, “What’s the matter? Don’t you want Mama back?”
Her father scowled and looked away. “You’ve no right to ask such an impertinent question, daughter. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss it.”
In the twinkling it took for Noah Scott to formulate his rebuff, Dillon’s suspicions were confirmed: the Reverend had already known that Marcella wasn’t the invalid she pretended to be. But why would a man—especially a man of the cloth—allow such a lie to tear his family apart? And how could a stern, self-righteous husband tolerate a wife who strayed so flamboyantly?
Devereau realized now that he’d seen the answers to these questions when Noah’s eye was blacked in Kansas City, and last night when he’d rescued the preacher from Jackson Blue: compulsive gambling. The circumstances didn’t dovetail perfectly—Scott had been genuinely shocked at the details of his wife’s charade, and humiliated by her legendary antics—yet Dillon sensed the preacher’s own secret vice had driven Marcella away years ago. That Charity was the victim of both her parents’ self-serving obsessions only made Devereau more determined to see that she got the explanations she deserved, and to protect her when Noah and Marcella finally confronted each other.
For several minutes the three of them sat in oppressive silence. The train’s rhythmic clatter seemed to intensify the strain between Papa and the dapper blond across from them, and his silent indignation gnawed at Charity, too. Her father had sent Mama to live at her sister’s—claimed it was Maggie’s Christian duty to care for her, and that they would make do at home without her—yet now that Mama had assumed the identity of Maggie Wallace, Papa seemed all too ready to let Erroll Powers have her. Her mother’s behavior was inexcusable, even though Charity understood why she wanted to escape Papa’s domineering ways. But why was Papa just letting her go? Was he too proud to face a woman who’d gotten the best of him, or did his grudging acceptance of the situation point to problems she didn’t know about—problems Papa didn’t want her to know about?
Charity was glad when a uniformed conductor came by. “Morning, folks,” he said as he punched their tickets. “Everything all right here? There’s a newspaper or two and some magazines at the front of the car, if you’re interested.”
“We’re fine,” Noah answered stiffly.
Charity smiled at the man, and couldn’t help noticing how he gave Dillon a quick, appraising glance and then reached into his jacket pocket. When he returned their punched tickets, there was a slip of paper on top of them. Curious, Charity leaned closer to Papa to read the note as he unfolded it: BEWARE OF PROFESSIONAL GAMBLERS AND CARD sharps on the train. She giggled quietly, despite Papa’s obvious annoyance.
Dillon tucked his punched ticket inside his coat, pleased to see her smiling again. “Let me guess,” he said. “The conductor just warned you about unscrupulous characters and their cards. I suppose since we’re riding with so many cowpokes and farmers, my clothes were a dead giveaway.”
Charity had been admiring the gambler’s deep green frock coat all morning; his ruffled shirt and tapestry vest, crisscrossed with an elaborate gold watch fob, did indeed set him apart from the rest of the passengers. “But why—”
“Once the railroad started transporting people who used to ride the riverboats, gamblers began traveling by train as well,” Devereau explained. “I used to earn my keep on the river, and even dealt a few hands along the Transcontinental Railroad. But I was too honest—got hustled myself, by bloodthirsty sharps with bigger bankrolls than mine. So when I won the Crystal Queen from Abe Littleton, I knew I’d be foolish not to stay put for a while.”
Charity’s eyes widened. The fact that he’d been crossing the country by water and rail as a professional card sharp, probably when he was her age, made the handsome man across from her seem even more exotic.
Her father grunted. “Hardly a past to be proud of, Devereau. You’ve been cheating people for more than half your life.”
With a chuckle, Dillon reached inside his vest pocket. “Not quite. I left home when I was sixteen, and I’m now twenty-eight,” he replied as he riffled a deck of cards between his nimble fingers.
Her father let out a snort, yet he was as mesmerized by Dillon Devereau’s quick, dexterous movements as Charity was. The whole deck was in constant motion, slender sections turning in opposite directions between his hands before suddenly falling into place with a shiffling sound that brought them into a single pack again. “Did you meet Mr. Clark and the others during your travels?” she asked quietly.
“I first met Sol Goldstein on the Mississippi. Rumley and Clark wandered into the saloon where I was dealing faro, in Abilene,” Dillon replied.
“And left without their money?”
“Precisely,” he said, wishing the adoring grin she now wore would grace her face forever. “And we’ve been trading small fortunes ever since.”
Charity laughed, and she couldn’t resist asking a few more questions, even though Papa might interrogate her about where she’d spent yesterday afternoon. “I...I think I understand how they were using those holdouts to gang up on you,” she began cautiously, “but what was it you said about the duplicate queen Enos slipped into the deck?”
Seeing that the Reverend was interested enough not to chastise Charity for such a query, Devereau reached over to the wall and pulled a narrow wooden table down between himself and the Scotts. They immediately scooted closer to it, so he used the situation to his advantage. “If you recall, I mentioned that the queen in question had a pocky complexion,” he explained with a smile. “She was marked with a card pricker, which is a small metal device that embosses the surface with however many dots you care to make, according to your marking system.”
“I suppose you own such an instrument,” Noah commented dourly.
“Every professional has his box of tools,” Dillon replied. “Most of them contain prickers, corner shavers, loaded dice, a holdout or two—devices that aid Lady Luck when one’s opponents are cheating. I’d be happy to show you my collection of gadgets, but it’s packed away.”
“So I’m to conclude that you’re too honest to use such devices?” the preacher asked sardonically.
Devereau laughed. “They’re not something I pull out in public, sir. And unless I’m playing other professionals, I don’t need them. Plenty of ways to play a square game and come out ahead of a tinhorn.”
Charity watched him slide three cards from the deck and flip them face up in front of her.
“One game, called three-card monte, is particularly lucrative,” Devereau was saying, “and as long as you have agile hands, you win every time. For this round, we have a queen, a ten, and a deuce, so we’ll call the queen the baby, because she’s high. Watch carefully, so
you can pick her out when I tell you to.”
She felt Papa stiffening beside her, but Charity was too intrigued to look away from what Dillon was doing. Could this possibly be gambling? He’d flipped the cards facedown, and was doing a flat juggling act, moving each card around the others in a pattern that made keeping track of the queen very easy indeed. When he stopped, she pointed to the center card. “That one.”
“Absolutely correct.” Devereau grinned at her as he showed the red queen’s angular face. “Had you bet money on it, you would’ve won.”
“That was too simple. There must be more to it.”
With a furtive glance at Noah, whose face registered an ill-concealed loathing, Dillon shuffled the three cards back into the deck and dealt new ones. “Monte dealers usually let their customers win the first round or two, and they sometimes act clumsy or simple-minded, so people believe they’re incapable of any sophisticated trickery. Ace of clubs, jack of hearts, and a four. Which one’s the baby, Charity?”
“The ace.”
“You’re quick,” he said with a grin. “But not as quick as the dealer. Never forget that.”
The gambler followed a slightly different juggling pattern with the three cards, but at a speed that astounded Charity. She quickly lost track of the ace and gaped at his fingers, which were moving so fast they seemed to blur before her eyes. When the cards came to rest, she shook her head. “I’ve no idea. The left one?”
Devereau smiled craftily. “Would you care to hazard a guess, Reverend Scott?”
Papa shifted, making a disgusted noise in his throat. “I’ve been told that dealers resort to sleight-of-hand, so the ace probably isn’t even on the table. Trickery of the lowest sort.”
Stifling a laugh, Dillon turned over the card on Charity’s left. “Once again, your daughter’s instinct has served her well. Here’s your ace, Charity.”
Her low laugh made him wish he had no more serious pursuit in the days ahead than entertaining Charity Scott. She tilted her head, her auburn waves brushing her shoulders as she gave him a teasing grin. “You can’t really switch cards that way, can you? Nobody could shuffle them around that fast.”
Gambler's Tempting Kisses Page 11