It hadn’t been easy. She’d awaited her chance with a patience she’d never before utilized until she’d slipped out the door while the household staff were in a flurry preparing for one of her mother’s parties, this the first since Laura had fallen ill. And then the gate—she would have been foiled right there, except the guard had been distracted by an attractive kitchen maid who, Laura was pretty sure, was supposed to be peeling rutabagas.
Mrs. Bossidy had caught her five minutes down the road. She hadn’t listened to a single one of Laura’s pleadings, and she hadn’t been all that gentle while she hauled her home.
But she hadn’t told Laura’s parents, either, something which, Laura knew, would have garnered her two burly guards in the guise of “nurses” around the clock until she was, oh, ninety or so.
“I love you,” she told her now, as Mrs. Bossidy hustled her into their car and flicked on the gaslights. “But you’ve gotten a lot more annoying over the past few years.”
“I could say the same about you,” Mrs. Bossidy returned without pause. “It’s a normal part of a female’s maturation, but it would have been better if it had happened when you were fourteen. I thought it fortunate that we’d skipped it at the time. Now it seems it was merely delayed.”
Hands on her hips, she surveyed the beautifully finished car and sighed. “I wish you would have consented to move to the hotel.”
“Why?” Laura untied the wide silk ribbons that secured her bonnet. “It seemed more trouble than it was worth to move. And Father went to such trouble to out-fit this car.”
“We’re going to be heartily sick of it by the time we reach Sacramento.” She shot an impatient glance over her shoulder. “And I thought the whole idea was for you to experience and see as many different things and places as possible.”
“Oh? And that’s why you shoved me away from the bridge as if it were dangerous?”
“It was.”
“I hardly think it was likely to collapse at any second. Or perhaps it was who was on the bridge you found threatening?” She tsked. “I wouldn’t have thought a mere man would scare you off.”
“He didn’t!” she protested, offended. “It can’t be coincidental, how often the man keeps showing up.”
“I didn’t really believe that it was,” Laura said, smiling despite her best efforts to hide it.
“Laura.” Though it was quickly masked, Laura caught the flash of pity in Mrs. Bossidy’s expression, and her smile faded.
“Are you trying to imply,” Laura said, trying to make light, to prove it didn’t matter, while an ache settled behind her breastbone, “that the man might have ulterior motives?”
“What man doesn’t?” Mrs. Bossidy replied. “Laura, if you were just another girl—another girl exactly as you are, with your face and your smile and your sweetness—I am certain that many men would fall victim to your charms. But the bald truth is you are Laura Hamilton. And a man could no more ignore that fact and ensure that his heart was not influenced by it than he could miss noting if you had a blemish the size of a grapefruit on your nose.”
“Point taken,” Laura said, determined to ignore the remains of that stubborn ache. It was not as if that hadn’t occurred to her before Mrs. Bossidy pointed it out. She had just enjoyed…overlooking it for a brief time.
“Laura—”
“I’m fine,” Laura said, and found that it was true. “Fine.”
Mrs. Bossidy shot a glance at the door—for at least the third time since they’d returned.
“Is something the matter?”
“I need to go shopping.”
“Shopping? Now?” It had to be after nine o’clock.
“It’s somewhat of an emergency.” Her hands fluttered. “Female items. Things tend to get, um…erratic, after a certain age.”
Hmm. If Mrs. Bossidy was on the far side of forty, Laura would eat her brushes.
“Nothing you need to worry about for a while—”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No!” She was going to leave Laura alone? Without being dragged away by a full-grown buffalo? “You stay here. Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.” She grabbed her bag and dashed out the door.
Mrs. Bossidy was a reasonably good liar, Laura reflected as she pulled away the heavy drape of lush green velvet and peered out the window. The shadows in the train yard were too deep for her to follow Mrs. Bossidy’s black-clad figure, but a few minutes later a light in the other car winked out.
She could do with putting a bit more effort into believably planning the lines she delivered with such aplomb, though. For while there was not a store in existence that had ever been closed to Laura Hamilton, she was not unaware that they typically kept particular business hours. Business hours which likely ended sometime ago.
Female problem, my easel, Laura thought, and let three minutes pass before she slipped out the door.
She found Mrs. Bossidy quickly enough, waiting—and not patiently—on the other side of the tidy brick station. She should have chosen to do her nefarious business farther from the train to ensure that there was no chance of any sounds alerting Laura. But Mrs. Bossidy was not the sort to go wandering around in the dark by herself.
There was little light. Only a soft sheen of moonlight that glanced off the tracks and was swallowed up in shadows and the faint, brassy wash of light from the saloon across the street that didn’t quite make it all the way there.
Mrs. Bossidy didn’t wait well. She paced, quick, impatient steps that grew more agitated with each passing second. She didn’t wait quietly, either, punctuating the night with words that would have made Mr. Hoxie proud.
But it didn’t really take that long. Laura hadn’t expected it to be that easy for them. He’d handled himself on the train so well. She knew her father hired only the best, that Mr. Hoxie and Mr. Peel guarded her because he considered them fully qualified for the job. But still…it surprised her when three figures crossed the street no more than perhaps ten minutes after she’d first leaned against the cool, rough brick wall. One short, powerfully compact, another tall and broad. And one between them, just as tall as Hiram but leaner, his steps graceful beside Peel’s lumbering tread.
“What took you so long?” Mrs. Bossidy met them at the edge of the street, drawing all four of them into a thin, cool slice of moonlight.
Laura swallowed a gasp. They had a gun to his head—no, two, one apiece, lethal glints of metal.
Not a flicker of emotion showed on his face: not fear, not anger, not even impatience at being dragged away from wherever they’d found him. Not even surprise or curiosity, as if being accosted by armed gunmen was as routine a part of his day as being offered a cup of coffee.
He certainly wasn’t protesting. He moved along with that predator glide as if the guns to his head had nothing to do with it, as if he was going exactly where he wanted.
Mrs. Bossidy met him toe-to-toe. Given the same situation, Laura didn’t think she’d have that much faith in the guards and their guns. He just looked too much at ease. And it couldn’t have just been that the bandits were that inept, could it? Hiram had had enough trouble with them.
“What do you want with Miss Hamilton?” Mrs. Bossidy’s voice was clear and sharp, and Laura was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear the answer, whatever it was.
Years of sneaking around her house served her well. She slipped up behind Mrs. Bossidy without any of them noticing.
“If you wanted to talk to him,” she said over Mrs. Bossidy’s shoulder, “you should have told me. I venture he would have come along without nearly so much trouble if I’d asked him.”
His hands flashed out—a quick spike of movement like a cobra strike, without his gaze wavering in either direction. Moonlight flickered over the metal of the guns, then he had them, one in each hand, pointing at his captors instead of himself, in less time than it took for Laura to suck in a breath.
“Christ!” Peel swore. Mr. Hoxie stood frozen, eyes crossing as he tried to focu
s them on the barrel an inch from his nose.
“Now then,” he said, settling his gaze on Laura. He didn’t seem the least bit worried about the two men, not even glancing their way. But Laura suspected if one so much as twitched, he’d have them down just as efficiently as he’d stripped their guns from them. For obviously they’d brought him here so easily because he’d chosen to go along with them; he could have stolen their guns anytime he wanted.
“What do I want from Miss Hamilton?” he mused. Laura’s heart stuttered into uneven rhythm. She didn’t even know what she hoped he’d say.
Nothing? Everything?
“I want to do my job,” he said. “Her father hired me to keep her safe.”
Chapter 5
“What?” The word burst from her, an echo of the hurt that erupted in her chest. She wasn’t sure what spurred it the most: the fact that her father, who she’d believed had finally, finally, trusted her enough to allow her this small venture into freedom clearly didn’t trust her; or that her lovely stranger was, after all, arranging himself into her life only because he’d been paid to do so.
The first should be no shock. She’d even wondered at the time, hadn’t she, about whether when it came right down to it her parents would be able to let her go. She’d even joked about searching the train car to see where he’d hidden his spies.
And the second…well, Mrs. Bossidy had warned her. Heavens, Laura had even warned herself. And so the pain was not so much true hurt as it was a wistful regret, she told herself now. Hurt required things such as trust and intimate knowledge. The capacity for betrayal necessitated that there be a relationship to betray. What she mourned right now was not so much him but the loss of a fantasy she’d nurtured even as she understood it was unlikely: that someday, in some way, she would find a man who could look at her without immediately thinking: Laura Hamilton, the Baron’s daughter.
Foolish girl.
He studied her closely. Predatory eyes, cool and dark. He did not miss a detail, this one, his focus intense as a hunting cat on its prey. Except she was not his prey.
She was merely his assignment.
“I said that—”
“I know,” she interrupted, wincing at her rudeness but unwilling to listen to him say it again, laid out bare. She forced a laugh; she could not allow this to be important. “It just took me a moment for my brain to catch up with my ears.”
She stepped around Mrs. Bossidy. It brought her close to him, far too near for either propriety or wisdom, until the warm, dark scent of him entwined with the smell of the night, her nose level with his chest. She tilted her chin up, made her smile go cool and reserved. She had never been able to pull off haughty for any length of time, but it was an effective weapon in her mother’s arsenal, wielded when her warmth and charm had been perhaps too effective. But in this case Laura far preferred being thought the spoiled rich girl than one wounded by her own ridiculous yearnings. It was not as if he’d courted her. He’d merely…been there, and her own imagination supplied the rest.
“For heaven’s sake, Laura, he’s got their guns, you’ve no idea if he’s telling the truth. Get out of here until I can investigate the matter.” Dimly, she heard Mrs. Bossidy speak behind her, felt her tug at her waist in an attempt to pull her away. But they were minor inconveniences, only barely registered, as if his nearness overwhelmed all else.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Laura said. “Not until I’ve had the opportunity to get to know my new…bodyguard.”
The last word came out with heavy emphasis, a seductress’s purr of innuendo she’d never used, surprising herself. His teeth flashed, a quick smile that vanished a second later but left an impression just the same, so strong she momentarily forgot everything but that fleeting power. My, my, she thought. It really is a good thing he rarely does that. It’s too potent a weapon to be unleashed on the world on a regular basis.
He flicked his wrists, spinning the guns in his hands so they were butt forward. They hung there in the air until he glanced briefly at his would-be captors. “Well? Don’t you want your guns back?”
Hiram grunted, Mr. Hoxie yelped, scrambling to grab their weapons with such belated haste that Laura worried they’d go off in the process.
Once they’d retrieved them, Peel and Hoxie held their weapons awkwardly, as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with them. Did they aim them back on him? Holster them?
He addressed Mrs. Bossidy. “Feel better now?”
“Not particularly, no.” She was still behind Laura, her hands at Laura’s waist as if she was prepared to throw her to the ground and cover the girl’s body with hers at the slightest need. “Who are you?”
Laura sucked in a quick breath. She’d wondered a hundred times since she’d first seen him. And yet there was a part of her that didn’t want to know. The more she learned of him, the more real he became, the less the fantasy man that she could build into anything and anyone she wanted.
“Sam Duncan.”
Erastus Hoxie gasped, his arm slumping to his side. Afraid the gun would drop to the ground, Laura bent and rescued it. Then, realizing what she held, she turned and thrust it into Mrs. Bossidy’s hand.
“Good move,” Duncan said.
She refused to be flattered by his approval. Her father was paying him; she must not forget that.
“Are you really Sam Duncan?” Mr. Hoxie asked, as much awe written on his face as though President Garfield had just popped up in front of him.
“You want a demonstration?”
“I’d say we just had one,” Hiram said, frowning, as he checked the loading of his pistol before holstering it.
“What am I missing here?” Laura asked. “Who are you?”
“I just told you—”
She impatiently waved off the rest of his answer. “Yes, yes, Sam Duncan. What are you, then. Why is Mr. Hoxie still standing there with his mouth open, looking as if he might start curtsying at any moment?”
“He’s almost as famous as you, Miss Hamilton,” Mr. Hoxie informed her.
“I don’t know as I’d go that far,” he said.
“Don’t be so modest,” Erastus told him. “Miss Hamilton, Duncan here’s the most famous gun in the West! I read about him in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. They say all he has to do is show up in town and all the penny-ante crooks go scurrying like cockroaches in the light. They say grown men, hard-hearted and battle-hardened, weep when they discover he’s signed on for the other side.”
Mr. Duncan rolled his eyes. That he could laugh at such nonsense rather than be puffed up by it was one point in his favor.
Unfortunately, it was a very minor point. He sold his gun, his honor, to the highest bidder. She’d heard of such men. Their scruples were nonexistent, their allegiance bought and paid for, as fickle as a whore, always drawn to the heaviest purse. If he were the most famous of his kind, then he was, by logic, the most villainous, for surely one did not achieve such a reputation by kindness and adherence to high principles.
He had lied to her by omission. He had flirted with her to gain access to do his job. No man spent as much time warmly listening to a woman’s chatter as he had in the square without there being at least a bit of flirting in it.
“You could have told me the truth from the first,” she said.
“Could I?” he replied, his voice low, pitched as if he made an intimate declaration. But there was no emotion in his eyes. “I learned long ago to hold my cards close, Miss Hamilton. I suppose I could have, but I didn’t have to.”
Well, that should be a good warning to her, shouldn’t it? Never to assume he’d reveal anything of himself that he wasn’t absolutely forced to?
Not that there’d ever be the opportunity to need to remember that.
She stepped yet closer, forcing herself to look steadily up into his face. Her palms were damp. Her heart thudded. Grown men might quail before him, but Baron Hamilton’s daughter did not.
“I have no need of your services,�
�� she said.
“Your father doesn’t agree.” He smiled at her then, a smile filled with charm but devoid of any real warmth, calculated to lure her into compliance.
“A hired gun, are you?”
“Sometimes a man must undertake whatever employment is offered,” he said mildly.
“Interesting. A man sells himself out to the highest bidder and they laud his deeds in newspapers and novels. A woman does the same, and the name for her is very different.”
His smile vanished. Good. It looked patently false on him anyway. If he ever smiled at her again she wanted it to be genuine.
Not that she ever wanted him to smile at her.
“Some of us, Miss Hamilton, have not had the luxury of parents who are able to indulge us. Sometimes necessity does not allow us to be so…whimsical in our choices.”
“Whimsical?” He thought her spoiled? “You know nothing of me. You assume much.”
“You mean that I drew conclusions of what and who you are by what was written and said rather than what I’ve witnessed by my own experience?”
Her retort died before it made it out of her mouth. “Point taken.”
Mrs. Bossidy recovered her wits. “We don’t even know for certain if your father did hire him, Laura. Let me cable before we leave Kearney.”
“No kidding, Miss Hamilton,” Hiram added. “It’s not like me and Hoxie need the help, y’know. Another fellow in the way’d probably just muck things up.”
“Apparently you do,” the man said. “Or you wouldn’t have lost your guns. You should hire me if he hadn’t already.” He shrugged. “Go right ahead and cable. If you don’t mind bothering Mr. Hamilton with such things, that is. For obviously if I’d had wicked designs on Miss Hamilton, or anything of hers, I could have carried them out already, anytime I wanted.”
A Wanted Man Page 6