The Duchess and Desperado

by Laurie Grant

  She stopped just inside the room, nearly causing Celia to collide with her.

  There was no disorder, but nothing was as she had left it. A book she had left on the bedside table to the left of her bed was now on the table on the other side of the bed. The ormolu clock that sat on the mantel now faced the wall. A framed picture of Kathryn, which Sarah always kept on her bedside table, was lying facedown.

  Feeling the hair prickling at her nape, she strode forward and peered into the chest of drawers where Celia always laid out her clothing in the precise order Sarah preferred—gloves and handkerchiefs in the top drawer, chemises in the second with her stockings, petticoats in the third, nightgowns in the fourth, corsets and corset covers in the fifth.

  Everything had been changed. The gloves were now in the bottom drawer, the corsets in the top. Her chemises were now where her nightgowns should be.

  “Celia...” she murmured as she crossed the room to look into the wardrobe where her gowns hung and her shoes were kept. “Did you rearrange things in my drawers while I was taking breakfast this morning?”

  Her dresser blinked at her. “Why, no, your grace. I folded your nightdress and dressing gown and left the room.”

  A glance into her closet confirmed Sarah’s expectation. Here, too, garments had been moved around. And Sarah’s shoes and boots, always precisely arranged, had been matched up with different mates, so that a kid slipper was now placed next to a riding boot, a brown high-buttoned shoe with a black one.

  “Uncle! Donald! Morgan!” she called. “Come in here!”

  Morgan led the other two at a run. She explained what she had found. “Uncle, was aught amiss in the other rooms when you and Donald returned?”

  Lord Halston, his face grim after Sarah’s announcement, shook his head. “Actually, Donald returned ahead of me, didn’t you, Donald?”

  “Oh?” Morgan, who had been peering into the wardrobe, was suddenly alert. “And why didn’t you come back with him, your lordship?”

  Lord Halston glared at him. “I remained behind to chat with Jerome Chaffee about possibly investing in one of his mines, Mister Calhoun. What on earth are you implying?”

  Morgan’s gaze was steady. “I’m not accusin’ you of anything, your lordship, so don’t get your feathers ruffled. Do the hotel maids have access to this room when no one’s here?”

  “No,” came Halston’s prompt reply. “The rooms were cleaned under my watchful eye after her grace left this morning, before Mr. Alconbury and I departed.”

  Morgan looked thoughtful. “And nothing was out of order in your rooms, gentlemen?”

  Sarah saw her secretary shake his head. “Nothing, Mr. Calhoun. Everything was just as I had left it.”

  “Not that I noticed,” muttered Halston. “Perhaps I’d better take a second look.” He turned on his heel and left the room.

  Sarah watched as Morgan went over to her bed and ran his hand over the coverlet, then pulled the coverlet back and felt the pillow. Even from where she stood she heard the crackle of paper. Morgan’s hand dived into the pillowcase and came out holding a folded piece of paper.

  “Give that to me, please,” she said, feeling an icy fist squeezing her heart.

  Morgan handed it to her, still folded. Inside was the same nearly illegible, misspelled scrawl she had become all too familiar with: “Ive bin this close, duchiss. Walls and locks cant keep me out. That guard cant save you neither. And it dont matter wher you go. I will git you. A patriott.”

  Sarah read it through once, then tried to read it again, but her hand was shaking too badly. She gave up and handed it to Morgan.

  She raised her eyes to her bodyguard’s after he had read it. “Well, so much for the theory that all I had to do was leave Denver to be safe,” she said, attempting a wry tone and failing miserably.

  “He might be bluffing about that part,” he observed.

  “But we can’t be certain, can we?” she retorted.

  “No,” he admitted. “We can’t be certain.”

  “In that case it seems to me I might as well go ahead with the social events scheduled,” she said, meeting his gaze.

  His lips compressed to a thin line, he said, “I reckon I’d better go have a talk with the hotel manager. Lock the door behind me.”

  Peering through a window in the attic of Mayor John Harper’s residence, he watched them arrive. The hired bodyguard rode up front with the coachman, as he had the evening before. This time he had a rifle cradled in his lap. The watcher saw the bodyguard’s eyes scan the area thoroughly before he hopped down and went to open the coach.

  He knew the bodyguard couldn’t see him watching from the darkened room. No, my would-be white knight, you will not see me aiming my rifle from this window, or from a rooftop, this time. I am not one to keep trying any tactic repeatedly. I am more deadly now because I am even more invisible.

  As he continued to stare at the coach below, the duchess alighted. To look at her, one wouldn’t think Sarah Challoner had a care in the world, he thought, much less that she had received several assassination threats. Dressed in a gown of midnight blue, with a low, square-cut neckline edged in lace that was echoed at her wrists, with a matching blue band threaded through her golden curls and pearls around her neck, she was blindingly beautiful, like a goddess come to earth.

  Did her American bodyguard think so, too? he wondered. From what he had seen of Calhoun’s face, it did not look as if he betrayed his feelings easily.

  Just then the watcher saw Sarah Challoner give her bodyguard a dazzling smile and murmur some pleasantry, and he saw the bodyguard’s lips curve slightly in response.

  The duchess’s smile sent a dagger of jealousy straight through the secret witness’s vitals.

  I knew I could not trust you not to betray me. You will die for that smile—painfully, tonight. Calhoun is but one of many, I am certain, but I will take my revenge on him separately.

  “Oh, there you are, Pierre,” said a voice. She pronounced it “Pee-air,” as if it were two separate words, which irritated him even though it was but an assumed name. “What’re ya doin’ up here in your room spyin’ on the guests when I need ya in the kitchen? You promised t’make me that special sauce to go over the venison.”

  He smoothed his features before turning around, and when he spoke his voice was bland and deferential. “I am coming now,” he said. “I just had to glimpse the beautiful duchess, before I am busy cooking for her, yes? Like a fairy-tale princess, is she not?”

  The rotund black woman eyed him stolidly. “I dunno about that, but you better hustle yo’ French behind on down to the kitchen, Pi-erre, or ya won’t get the chance to cook for no duchess. I bin the mayor’s only cook fer a long time and he didn’t need no special Frenchie cook before this duchess-woman come, and I don’t have time to go lookin’ fo’ ya every time I need ya.”

  Muttering a curse in French under his breath at the cook, he followed the servant down the narrow attic steps that led from the servants’ quarters. What he would achieve tonight before he suddenly disappeared from the mayor’s house would make these minor irritations more than worth tolerating.

  Sarah was more than ready to leave. Her head was throbbing unmercifully and she longed to get out of the tight stays that made eating more than a minimum of the excellent meal an impossibility. There had been numerous and interminable toasts to Anglo-American relations, to future statehood for Colorado Territory, to Lord Halston’s investing in the Chaffee Mining Company. Good Lord, there was still the dessert course to endure, and probably after that she would have to go into the drawing room with the mayor’s wife and make polite conversation with the other ladies while the gentlemen lingered over port and cigars.

  “Delicious, wasn’t it, your grace? I was so fortunate to find this Frenchman to cook for us just in time for your visit,” John Harper was saying into her right ear. “Of course, my regular cook’s nose is thoroughly out of joint because I hired him, but Maisie sure can’t make sauces like w
hatever that was on the venison.”

  “It was excellent. Sauce au poivre, I believe. The entire meal was the best I’ve had in America, without a doubt,” she praised. “Please pass along my compliments.” Harper had bored her to death boasting of his French chef.

  “Ah, but you haven’t tasted dessert yet. Pierre has promised something special, ‘fit for a duchess,’ as he says.”

  Sarah forced herself to smile and murmur something polite.

  “But I’m sure your grace has sampled the finest French cuisine before,” opined the man on her left, a barrel-chested old real estate speculator named Ellis Edwards, who at least offered an alternative to Harper’s boasting, even though he was very hard of hearing and called her “your grace” in every sentence he uttered.

  She’d never been your-graced so many times in her life. If she ever got done with this interminable evening, she was going to reward herself in the morning with a few hours of horseback riding, and nothing Morgan Calhoun said was going to change her mind. Surely she’d generated enough goodwill with the prominent men of Denver and their wives that she had earned a little pleasure. If Morgan wouldn’t go with her, she’d go alone, Sarah thought rebelliously.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Calhoun still standing between her and the wall, as if he were but another of the liveried waiters hired for the occasion. He’d been there throughout the meal. Without her hated spectacles, she couldn’t tell for sure, but she was fairly sure he didn’t move a muscle in acknowledgment of her look.

  The mayor had offered to seat him at the far end of the table just as if he were a guest, but Morgan had declined—much to Harper’s regret, Sarah guessed. John Harper wanted to pretend nothing untoward had happened during the duchess’s visit to his city, and would have been happier still if the duchess’s bodyguard had consented to eat in the kitchen.

  She wondered if Morgan was hungry, standing there watching everyone eat like that. She’d have to make sure the kitchen sent something up for him when they got back to the hotel.

  At least William Wharton was sitting just on the other side of Edwards, and she could see and be warmed by the commiserating rolling of his eyes. Sarah wanted to wink back at him, but duchesses did not do such vulgar things, even in the wilds of America, and she settled for smiling down at her plate, knowing he would see and understand.

  What a nice man Wharton was, Sarah thought as the waiters cleared the table of the dinner course. She was quite looking forward to their evening at the theater two nights from now.

  “And now for the pièce de résistance,” the mayor announced, his French accent exaggerated and incorrect as a waiter brought in an elaborate pastry and set the first one in front of Sarah. Behind him other waiters were bringing in more of the pastries and setting them in front of each diner, until finally all of the powerful and influential guests at this dinner in Sarah’s honor had been served.

  “What is this, some kinda fancy Frenchie cake?” the real estate speculator asked her in a stage whisper, and immediately plunged his fork into his and shoveled an enormous amount into his mouth.

  “D’lishus,” he mumbled through a mouthful of pastry. “Tashte it, Dushess.”

  Sarah glanced at Harper and saw that he was speaking to another guest.

  “Actually, Mr. Edwards, I find I cannot eat another bite, especially of something so rich looking. You would be doing me quite a service if you ate it for me,” she said appealingly, with a meaningful glance at Harper’s back.

  Edwards chuckled. “I could be your knight in shining armor, huh? No sooner said than done.” He winked, and scooped her éclair à la Martinique onto his plate, leaving just a bite so it would appear that she had eaten most of it. “Scrumptious,” he muttered, jabbing his fork into what he’d taken and eating it with gusto.

  Amused, Sarah turned back to the mayor, who, fortunately, had missed this little byplay. “It was so kind of you to have this dinner party in my honor, Mr. Harper. I don’t know if you ever plan to visit Britain, but you must visit Malvern Hall if you ever—”

  A high-pitched cry from the left cut into her words. It was Edwards, she saw as she whirled around. He was clutching his neck, his face purpling above the tight starched collar. His eyes bulged in terror as he turned them on her, as if imploring her to save him.

  “P-p-p...” he managed to sputter, his voice squeaky as if it was forced past spasming vocal cords. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell backward, tipping the chair with a mighty crash.

  Chapter Nine

  Mayor Harper’s new French chef, “Pierre,” smiled to himself in the kitchen when he heard the muffled thud and the first screams, imagining the sight of Sarah Challoner’s limp, lifeless body, still clad in its fancy gown and jewels, collapsed in a heap on the floor. Her uncle would doubtless be slapping the face that was rapidly turning a dusky blue, trying in vain to bring the dead duchess to her senses. Pandemonium would soon break out as they realized she was beyond help.

  “Lord Gawd, whuss happenin’ out there?” cried the cook as one of the waiters ran into the kitchen.

  “One of the guests just keeled over dead, that’s what!” shouted the man, his eyes wide with horror. “It was the old man sitting next to the duchess—you should see him, Maisie! His face is purple as a grape!”

  “Pierre” jumped to his feet, ignoring the chair he’d just kicked over. “But how is this possible?” he demanded. He’d specifically told this very waiter to place the first serving of his éclair at the duchess’s place, not in front of the old sot beside her!

  “He ate his, then hers, too—the duchess gave it to him, said she couldn’t eat it. It was awful—I was watchin’ him when he took sick! He’d eaten about half of it when all at once his eyes got all bulgy an’ he just clutched his neck and tried to say somethun’, and then fell over backward, dead as a six-card poker hand! Now everyone’s all runnin’ every which way, and the guests is leavin’, and the mayor’s apologizin’ to them Britishers for Ellis dyin’ like that an’ spoilin’ the party....”

  “Merde!” growled “Pierre,” but there was no one to hear him, because the cook had followed the waiter out to the dining room to gape at the spectacle. He had thought his idea of a poisoned pastry was foolproof!

  Frantic to salvage victory from this debacle, he ran unnoticed up to the attic where the servants had their quarters and grabbed his rifle from its place of concealment under his bed. He shoved open the window through which he had gazed upon the arriving Sarah Challoner and her bodyguard, refusing to worry about how he would escape after the deed, just praying that he would get a second chance to kill her this evening.

  “The poor man,” Sarah was saying as Morgan hustled her and Lord Halston out of the mayor’s house, not through the front door, but via the French doors that led from the dining room into Mrs. Harper’s rose garden at the side of the house. From there they made their way to the carriage turnaround at the back, where Ben waited with the landau. “To be taken like that so suddenly... I wonder what he was trying to say?”

  “Unfortunately, we’ll never know...but I’m certain it was an apoplexy,” her uncle said in soothing tones. “Not unexpected in a man of his age. It’s just terrible that you had to be a witness to it, niece.”

  Morgan allowed himself a snort of disgust as they reached the carriage. “Apoplexy, my foot,” he said, scrutinizing their surroundings as he assisted the duchess into the carriage. “The man was poisoned—only he wasn’t meant to get that dessert, the duchess was!”

  He saw Sarah’s jaw drop, heard Lord Halston tut-tutting.

  “Really, my good man, I know she’s received threats, and there was that gunshot, but—poison? That’s too much like a bad stage melodrama, Calhoun!”

  He expected no better from Halston, but Morgan was astonished to see a smile of amusement lurking on the duchess’s lips as she settled her skirts on the padded cushions. “Really, Mr. Calhoun! I think the Borgias and their ilk have been dead for centuries It’
s sad that Mr. Edwards is dead, but I cannot imagine it could be anything but natural causes.”

  “I don’t know who the Borgias are, but you don’t think it’s suspicious that Harper just happened to hire some foreigner who claims he can cook?”

  “Good God, man, you don’t mean to accuse Harper—” began Lord Halston.

  “No, of course not,” Morgan answered without looking at him. “I’m talking about the foreigner.”

  He saw Sarah begin to chew on her lower lip and uncertainty cloud her eyes.

  Morgan shifted his gaze to Lord Halston, but the duchess’s uncle’s face just looked skeptical. Try as he might, Morgan could see no trace of guilt there, but the man might just be a hell of an actor, as he’d thought before. Damn it, he stood to gain too much if his niece died.

  “We’d better get going,” Morgan announced, shutting the carriage door and ending the conversation. He wanted to get the duchess safely back to the hotel, and then, by God, he was going to come back and question every one of the mayor’s staff.

  If none of them acted guilty, then Lord Halston had to be behind the threatening notes and assassination attempts on his own niece. Sure, he’d cooperated, and encouraged the duchess to do so, too, but what better way to look innocent than to go along with the bodyguard?

  Hours later, Morgan rode back from the mayor’s house to find a lamp left dimly burning in the main room. The duchess and her entourage had obviously gone to bed. Just as Morgan had suspected when he’d gone back to question the mayor’s staff, the new French chef was inexplicably missing, along with all of his belongings.

  Morgan had then asked if he could see the remains of the pastry Edwards had been devouring, only to be told it had been thrown out. On a hunch, he’d gone to the trash heap beyond the barn where the cook said they dumped scraps. There he found an already stiffening carcass of a pig who’d been out scavenging, confirmation of his suspicion that the pastry had been poisoned.