The Marriage Agreement

by Carolyn Davidson

  “You can’t fight the law, Gage,” she whispered. “If Weston holds a warrant for my arrest, your hands will be tied.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” he said, his gaze turning cold. He knew he looked formidable when angered, and her words filled him with a wrath he could not contain. “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. The good colonel is dealing with an underhanded man here. I’ve learned all the tricks, Lily, and I’m willing to use them to my advantage.”

  “Well, I’m awfully glad you’re not out after my hide,” she said, sliding from his lap and crawling between the sheets.

  “Ah, but I am,” he said lightly. “In every possible way. I’ll take you on the bed, in a chair or against the wall, Lily. Any way I can get you.”

  “The wall?” She glanced at the far side of the room as if trying to imagine such a thing, and then she smiled. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? Trying to embarrass me.”

  “Shall I show you how it can be done?” he asked, leaning over her to rub his nose against hers, whispering the words as a seduction. And almost succeeded in his quest. But she shook her head after a moment, just when he’d thought he stood a chance of success.

  “I suppose I believe you,” she admitted, “but the wall and a chair are not my first choices.”

  “Well, one of these days, I’ll demonstrate, Lily,” he promised. “And remember, I always keep my word.”

  She looked askance at the chair that sat so innocently on the other side of the room, and then turned her gaze on him again. “Maybe the chair,” she whispered. “I think I can figure out how you might arrange for that to work.” And then she shook her head. “But not the wall.”

  She was an innocent, he decided. A woman who’d been used, but not courted. A female whose body had been exploited by men who were uncaring of her—who had used her for their own pleasure.

  And in that moment, he swore silently he would not join that line of male creatures who had combined to hurt his Lily. She would know no harm at his hands.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Morgan!” The sheriff’s voice called to him as Gage left the hotel, and he looked up to see the lawman hustling across the road, a scrap of paper clutched in his hand.

  “Just got a wire from New York. Our fella is on his way. Left four days ago. In fact, I can’t figure out why he’s not here already, as fast as those trains travel.” He looked down at his paper. “It says he’ll take a riverboat from Saint Louis and arrive here posthaste. Whatever that means.”

  Morgan smiled, a wolfish grin of satisfaction twisting his mouth. “It means he’s in a big hurry to catch up with my wife.”

  “If he’s carrying a warrant with him, we may be in trouble,” the sheriff warned him. “I can’t disobey the law. You know that.”

  “Does a warrant from New York hold water in your jurisdiction?”

  “Hmm…I may have to ask a judge about that. I could always find a reason to check up on it for a couple of days, couldn’t I?”

  “I’ll do it for you,” Morgan told him. “I know some of the ins and outs of these things. There’s always a way to block an opponent.” He felt a surge of anger at what the good Yankee colonel had done to Lily. “I’d give a whole lot to get my hands on him.” And then he shot the sheriff a look that silently promised his cooperation. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But I’ll stay within the law, no matter what.”

  “I want you to keep a sharp eye out today,” the lawman said. “I’ll check the dock and find out when the next riverboat will be going past. If the fella is headed here, he’ll no doubt come ashore in a skiff, if the captain isn’t planning on stopping here.”

  The sound of music from the Red Dog carried in the air as Morgan left the jailhouse and cut across the street. He took a hasty detour and pushed the doors open, halting on the threshold to allow his eyes time to adjust to the dim interior of the saloon.

  “Come on in,” May’s voice called from near the piano. “Lily’s not here right now, but she’d ought to be on her way over. We’ve got a couple of new songs to put together for tonight’s shows.” She eyed him as he approached. “Everything all right?”

  Morgan forced a smile and nodded, tipping his hat back a bit. “Right as rain,” he said. “Just biding my time while Lily fulfills her bargain with you.”

  May cut him a narrowed look. “Somehow I don’t think that’s quite the whole story, Morgan. I’d say you’ve got something on the back burner and it’s convenient for you to play this game a little longer.”

  He feigned surprise. “Why, May. Surely you’re not doubting my word?”

  She shook her head at his antics. “You’re a smooth talker from way back, Gage Morgan. You may have Lily bamboozled, but you don’t fool me.”

  “Lily’s not bamboozled,” a voice said from behind him, and Morgan turned his head to cast an admiring look on his wife.

  “I didn’t think you were.” He held out a hand and she stepped closer to his side, her eyes holding questions.

  “Anything I need to know?” she asked, and at the shake of his head, she spoke again, her words a quiet warning. “Don’t set me up, Morgan.”

  If there was any one thing that merited his full concern, it was Lily’s well-being. His arm slid to encircle her waist and he turned her aside, leading her to where the bar stretched the length of the saloon, empty now except for the bar keep arranging bottles twenty feet distant.

  “You’re part of my plan, Lily. You have to be for this to work right. But you surely know I’ll protect you. With my life—if it comes to that.”

  “But still, you aren’t going to let me know ahead of time, are you?” she asked. “I’m to be kept in the dark?”

  “Lily.” He turned her to face him, uncaring of the audience who watched. If May and her piano-playing friend wanted to be voyeurs, so be it. “Can you find it in yourself to trust me?” He bent to touch her lips with his, a soft kiss of persuasion, asking nothing more than her confidence in the bridge of faith he’d been attempting to form between them. He watched as her eyes opened, their dark depths still wary.

  “I trust you,” she said quietly. “Insofar as you’re able, you’ll protect me, Morgan. I know that. I just don’t know how far your arm reaches.”

  “I don’t, either,” he retorted, honesty alive in his words. “But, we’ll soon find out, if my hunch is right.” He released her from his embrace and turned her toward May. “Go on and practice your music, Lily. I’ll be around.”

  “There’s a riverboat passing this way in the morning,” the sheriff said, his voice an undertone as he stood behind Morgan’s chair. The saloon was filled with men who’d come to town on a Saturday night to celebrate the end of their workweek, giving them a chance to spend their earnings. Yet no one was near enough to overhear the sheriff’s words.

  “Will you be out there watching for it?” Morgan asked him. “Should I take an early walk to the dock?”

  “If you like. If our friend is on this boat, he won’t know you. He’ll be intent on finding me.”

  “I suspect he’ll head for the jailhouse.”

  “Yeah. I may beat him to the punch, if I’m on the lookout for him.” He was silent then, but Morgan felt his presence there. And then the chair next to him was pulled out from the table and occupied. “She’s quite a woman, ain’t she?”

  “I think so.” And wasn’t that an understatement, Morgan thought with a smile. If he’d ever wondered about the eventual end to his bachelorhood, it had never included a woman such as Lily playing a prominent part.

  He’d thought of returning one day to Texas, to the family holdings there, to the prosperous ranch his father and brothers ran. The place where he’d paid his dues and earned his first nest egg. The place that had stifled him until he’d fled its restrictions and sought instead a wider field in which to attain independence and a reputation that owed nothing to the family name.

  He smiled to himself. Now he was thinking long thoughts about returnin
g home. That’s what marriage does to a man, he decided. Makes him think about home and hearth, about settling down with a family. And Lily was just the woman he could envision himself waking up to every morning for the rest of his life.

  She sang on stage now, her gaze remaining distant from his, as if she put him from her mind when she performed. Would she be content, should he offer her the sort of existence he had in mind? He listened to the confidence she exuded as her voice rose to harmonize with May’s, saw the flash of a dimple in her cheek as she smiled at the men who sat almost literally at her feet.

  And knew a moment of jealousy so stark it took his breath. She’s mine. The words were alive in his head, resounding from his heart and piercing his soul. He would not, could not, ever give up the happiness she brought to him.

  As one, the audience rose, clapping and whistling as the two women bowed before the crowd. The song was finished and with its final note Lily and May left the stage. “That’s my cue,” Morgan said softly, then rose and tilted his hat at an aggressive angle. He meandered carefully toward the side of the room, where three steps fed into the saloon, watching for the door to open, searching for Lily’s slender form to appear in the dim light.

  She was not long in coming, flashing a smile over her shoulder to something May said, then lifting her blue skirts to descend the stairs. Her eyes took a slow survey of the room and he thought they flickered when she settled her gaze on him. Looking neither right nor left, she wove her way between the tables to where he stood, speaking a word to men who sought her attention, offering a gentle smile that did not encourage her audience to encroach on her person.

  “Nice,” Morgan said, his gaze sweeping over her as she stood before him.

  “Nice music?” she asked, tilting her head, looking up at him through long eyelashes.

  “Nice everything,” he murmured, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips.

  She flushed, a wash of color that spoke of her pleasure, yet her words were teasing. “You’re playing the gentleman tonight, Morgan. What brought this on?”

  “You seem to bring out the best in me,” he said, leading her to the door and out onto the wide porch. “Or the worst, maybe,” he added. “I know I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself. And I was silently daring every man in that room to wiggle one finger in your direction.”

  “I’ve never asked for that sort of attention from men,” she told him, waiting for his direction before she stepped off the wooden porch. “I think they look at me differently with this yellow hair on my head.”

  “I like your own better,” he told her sharply. “I’ll be glad to be shed of that wig.”

  She grinned at him. “Me, too. It itches my head. But it seems to give me leave to sing with more…” Her pause was thoughtful and then she spoke slowly. “It’s as if I’m a different person up there. Not the Lily Devereaux I was on the riverboat. Certainly not the woman I was when I left home.” She looked up at him and her eyes were soft, as if she asked his understanding.

  “I’m not that same woman, Morgan. I’ve been reborn.”

  “I know that.” His arm slid around her waist and he led her toward the hotel. The lights were dim in the lobby, the desk clerk’s position empty and only the guard who watched the place at night to wave a hand in their direction as they entered through the wide doors. Morgan nodded a silent greeting and then held Lily’s elbow as they crossed the carpeted lobby, then made their way up the stairs to the second floor.

  “How much longer, Morgan?” she asked as he unlocked their door.

  He would not insult her by a pretense. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “The sheriff thinks our man may be here on the early boat.”

  She stepped into the room ahead of him and as he would have lit the candle beside the bed, she halted him, one hand touching his arm. “No light,” she whispered. “Just you and me and the darkness for tonight. Please?”

  He covered her hand with his and then turned her from him, the better to unbutton her dress and rid her of the clothing she wore. “I aim to please, Miss Lily,” he said with a smile, and heard her answering laughter at his words.

  The morning boat indeed slowed as it neared Brightmoor, and as the sheriff watched, a small skiff was lowered to the water and two men stepped into it. One of them carried a small valise, the other wore a cap that designated him as an employee of the boat. With steady strokes, he moved the small skiff toward the dock, and in minutes the passenger was discharged and the ferry was on its way back.

  Tall, dark-haired and erect, the man looked to be military in his bearing. He adjusted his hat, then picked up his valise and strode from the dock in the direction of the center of town. The sheriff watched the visitor, and then pushed away from the post he’d been leaning on near the dock, and followed at a stroll.

  From the hotel another tall figure left the porch and crossed the road and the three men converged in front of the jailhouse. The visitor looked at Morgan, assessing him. “Are you the law here?” he asked, his words crisp, with the twang of New York touching each syllable.

  Morgan shook his head. “He’s behind you, mister.” And had the pleasure of watching as the Yankee turned abruptly to face the sheriff. As if he felt himself surrounded, the stranger glanced back at Morgan and his jaw set in a pugnacious arrangement of bone and flesh. His eyes darkened and his spine assumed an even stiffer position.

  “I fear you have me at a disadvantage,” he said to Morgan. “Do I know you?”

  Morgan shook his head. “You haven’t had that pleasure.”

  His nostrils flared as the visitor recognized the intended jab. And yet he held his temper well, Morgan decided. His hand extended, he introduced himself. “My name is Stanley Weston, of New York City.”

  Morgan ignored the outstretched hand, unwilling to touch the flesh that had caused Lily’s hurt.

  With an uplifted brow, Weston turned back to the sheriff. “I think you’re the man who sent the wire, aren’t you? I’ve come with a warrant for Yvonne Devereaux’s arrest.”

  “Have you, now?” Rocking on his heels, his thumbs thrust in his trouser’s pockets, the sheriff smiled. “How about letting me take a gander at it?”

  With suave assurance, Weston reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat, drawing forth an official appearing document. “It’s all there in black and white,” he said smugly. “The woman tried to kill me, and then she stole some of my mother’s jewels.”

  “Did she, now?” The lawman glanced over the warrant with a cursory look and leveled a sardonic grin in Weston’s direction. “You got any proof?”

  Stanley Weston lifted a wave of hair from his forehead, revealing an angry-looking scar. “There’s where she hit me with a weapon. If it had been a gun, she’d have killed me. Came damn close to it as it was.”

  “What’d she hit you with?” the sheriff asked, leaning closer to examine the scar.

  “A poker.” As if he felt chagrined by the revelation, Weston’s mouth drew up and he slanted an angry look in Morgan’s direction. “Who is this man?” he asked, his tone belligerent, as if he resented the third man’s presence. “What does he have to do with this? I thought you would have Miss Devereaux in custody, sir. And now I’m having to assume she’s still on the loose.”

  “What makes you think she’s not sitting in a cell right this minute?” the lawman asked.

  Weston ignored his query. “You don’t seem very concerned with the seriousness of these charges,” he retorted. “She tried to kill me. Attempted murder is a serious offense in New York City.”

  “Yeah, it is out here, too.” With a shrug, the lawman glanced at Morgan. “You know where your wife is, Mr. Morgan?”

  “What does his wife have to do with this?” Weston asked sharply. And then his eyes narrowed as he gave Morgan his full attention. “Don’t tell me you married her?” His head tipped back and he laughed, an ugly sound if ever Morgan had heard one.

  “Well, I hate to tell you this, Mr. Morgan, but y
ou’re about to see your wife led away in shackles.” His smug satisfaction was about all Morgan could stomach.

  “And where would you like to lead her off to?” he asked, aware that his words were adding fuel to the flame of the other man’s ire.

  “They have a very nice jailhouse in New York,” Weston said. “The company isn’t much, I understand, but then Yvonne should feel at home there. A lot of women of her caliber live in those cells.”

  The sheriff moved, placing himself between the two men, his eyebrows almost meeting over his nose as he pushed the newcomer against the wall of the jailhouse. “I think you’re asking for a whole lot of trouble, mister,” he said sharply. “Morgan is a man you don’t want to mess with. If you take my advice you’ll watch your step.”

  “If I hadn’t given the sheriff my word to behave myself, you’d be spread-eagled in the middle of the street right now,” Morgan said, the anger in his voice spelling out the words distinctly. “One of these days, Weston, you’ll find yourself—”

  “That’s enough,” the sheriff said harshly. “I think we need to go inside my office and talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Stanley Weston said, his words charged with disdain. “The woman will be leaving here in shackles aboard the next boat heading north. I have the paperwork that gives me the authority to find an escort and see to it she faces a judge.”

  “An escort?” the sheriff asked, sitting down in his chair and shooting a warning look in Morgan’s direction. “What sort of an escort are you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m sure I can hire a man willing to guard her. There must be a slew of gunmen in a town like this.”

  “Not one of them would go with you,” the sheriff said firmly. “The lady is highly thought of here, and you’d better realize that she’s not going anywhere until our judge shows up in a couple of days and takes a look at the paperwork you’re so proud of.”