A Dangerous Man

by Connie Brockway

  “Yes,” she said, her green eyes wide in her winsome face. “He hired a gunslinger!”

  “Whatever was he like?” It was Beryl again. Lord, if she leaned any farther out of her chair she would fall out of it.

  Mercy sat back. She shrugged. “Nothing special,” she said in a bored voice.

  “Oh, come now,” prompted Beryl. “A man like that! You actually knew him! What was he like?”

  “Dirty.”

  “Oh, do tell us more,” another lady pleaded.

  Again, Mercy shrugged. “He was tallish, flat flanked and hungry-looking, like a flea-bitten old mountain lion. He had long, lank, greasy hair and a dark skin, whether from the sun or from some questionable bloodline, I never knew.”

  “What else? What was he like?” the Dowager Duchess asked. Really. The entire family exhibited an immoderate interest in lurid tales.

  “Harsh,” Mercy said. “And cold. And merciless. And ruthless. And heartless. Without compassion or gentleness or wit or humor or—”

  “Oh, for Chrissakes!” Hart muttered. Mercy stopped in midrecitation to fix him with a wounded look.

  “Forgive me for going on so, but I was asked.”

  “And we appreciate your kindness in relating what must have been a painful episode,” said Beryl, shooting him a look of dismay at his outburst. The Dowager Duchess sniffed in his direction.

  “Excuse me, madam,” Hart choked out. No matter how unfortunate her manners, he would not lower himself to being rude. He would not.

  “Please continue, Miss Coltrane,” Hillard prompted, once more hovering near Mercy’s shoulders.

  “If you insist. Well, early one day I decided to go out riding. It was just before dawn. The dark sky stretched overhead, clouds unfurling like scarlet banners on the horizon.”

  “How lovely!” Beryl breathed.

  Mercy looked at her approvingly. “Yes. I thought so too. I saddled my pony and rode toward a way station a few miles west of our ranch house. There I intended to view the sunrise.”

  “Was that wise?” Hart asked. “I mean, considering your father’s situation and all.”

  Mercy contrived to look sad and lovely in her consternation. “No, Lord Hart. It was not wise. But I was no more than a child and a girl child at that and I had been so long from home. Children and women are impulsive, sentimental creatures, you know,” she said modestly and apologetically—not that he believed she was either. Not for a minute.

  What a pile of— Several of the men in the room glowered at him.

  “We do not always act with the strength of purpose and single-mindedness you men do,” she said.

  “Just so,” huffed Major Sotbey.

  “I know now it was ill advised of me, but I went. There, while lost in a moment of divine reverie, I was set upon by a loathsome brigand!”

  Reverie. Hart’s jaw muscle started to work reflexively. The bold-faced little liar. She’d sneaked off to smoke a cigar she’d stolen from her daddy’s office.

  “The Lord alone knows what he might have done had I not been able to fight him,” she said in low tones. “Several times I nearly made it to my stalwart little pony. But each time the monster managed to take hold of my person and haul me back.

  “My strength was waning, but not my will. Whether I would have prevailed, I am not sure, though I venture to say that a woman’s reverence for her chastity is a mighty impetus.”

  “Hear, hear!” bellowed Sotbey. Mercy smiled at him modestly.

  “Our struggle was intense, we were locked in mortal combat, time was suspended. And then”—her voice dropped even lower—“the gunslinger appeared!

  “The outlaw pulled me in front of him, fearful of the great multinotched revolver in the gun-slinger’s hand.”

  “Multinotched?”

  Mercy gravely nodded her head. “One notch for every man he’d killed.”

  “And this gunslinger had many notches?” the Duchess asked.

  “The handle was ready to drop off, the thing was so scored with notches.”

  “Jesus!” Hart muttered. She was incorrigible! To his astonishment he found himself suddenly hard pressed not to laugh. He hadn’t heard such a heap of rubbish in years, and that it was being spoon-fed to this sophisticated company by a brat from Texas …! His lips twitched.

  Mercy’s glance darted to meet his. There was an unholy amusement in her green eyes. Unholy and horrible … and horribly inviting.

  “Exactly,” she said piously. “I prayed, too, Mr. Perth. I had to, because I knew the gunslinger had no conscience. Like a dog set on a scent, he was single-minded in his course. He wanted only one thing. Blood. And I wasn’t at all sure he cared whose blood it was.”

  He closed his eyes. If he listened to much more of this he would either laugh or swear.

  “I know, Perth, it is horrible,” she said, her eyes dancing. “It gets even worse.”

  His eyes snapped open. She’d called him “Perth”—without mockery or sarcasm. His name on her lips was disarming.

  “Oh, no!” gasped the Dowager.

  “Yes.” Mercy’s attention turned back to the others. “The monster who held me started backing out of the cabin, holding me in front of him, using me as a shield. I could tell he was afraid. And well he should have been. I have never seen a more frightening sight than that gunslinger’s eyes as he looked at us.” Abruptly, her voice lost its theatrical tone, trailing off.

  She had been frightened, thought Hart, feeling the old familiar chill creep back into his heart. And she was reliving that fright now. No amount of playacting could bleed the color from her cheeks like that.

  Had she really thought he would have killed her just to ensure he would collect a bounty? The thought ate at him. He fought the impulse to stand up and deny it.

  “What was it like?”

  “Like he found us … interesting,” Mercy said in a soft, pensive monotone. “That’s why it was so frightening. He did not look angry or fierce. He looked like he was trying to work out the pieces of a riddle and was not overly concerned whether he found an answer.”

  What a prime fool he’d been the other night, thinking she’d sought him out because of his reputed dispassion. His manner frightened her, disgusted her. And yet for her brother’s sake she’d still sought an interview.

  “And then?” someone asked.

  “And then?” Mercy echoed. Her lips had parted a bit. She looked pensive, as though staring into the past. “He shot me.”

  “Dear God,” someone murmured.

  “Was he trying to kill you?”

  “No.” Her answer was prompt. The breath Hart hadn’t even been aware he was holding left his lungs in a low whoosh. “No. He was saving my life. If he hadn’t shot me, the man who held me would have dragged me from the cabin, still using me as a shield. Once to his horse, he would have got his own gun and shot the gunslinger and—and taken me away.”

  He stared at his white-knuckled fists braced on the chair’s arms.

  “Then the blackguard was simply saving his own life,” Hillard said, once more grazing her shoulder with his gloved fingertips. A small yearning rose in Hart.

  Mercy revived herself with a little shake of her head. “Perhaps,” she allowed, and after a glance at him added, “Still, the Lord works through mysterious agents. Perhaps he was my guardian angel.” She smiled and suddenly the chill he always lived with retreated, shrinking back, leaving him free to return her smile.

  “What happened next?” Beryl asked.

  Mercy laughed. “Does there need to be a next?”

  Beryl blushed.

  “The gunslinger shot the man who held me and then he rode off. I believe he went after the rest of the gang. I do not know if he found them or arrested them or drove them off. Whatever, we were never threatened again.”

  “He just left you there?” Acton asked, appalled.

  “He went back to the ranch for my father, who arrived shortly thereafter with a wagon and took me away. It was a slow rec
overy, but luckily the shot missed any bone and vital organs. So”—she sat back—“that is my tale and how I have come to bear this scar. I pray, do not look so distressed. No permanent injury was sustained.”

  “No permanent injury! But, m’dear, you have been marred,” the Duchess said.

  “No, Lady Acton,” Hart said under his breath. “She has been wounded, but she has certainly not been marred.”

  Beryl was the only one who heard him.

  Chapter 10

  Hart came awake with a gasp. He heaved himself halfway up, bracing himself on his forearms. For a moment he knelt, head bowed, lungs working like bellows. He sank back on his haunches, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

  He should have expected this. He’d learned the hard lesson long ago; whatever peace he counterfeited was subject to violation. For eleven years he’d struggled to obliterate the bitter trophies he’d garnered in long-dead wars.

  Someday he would, he resolved grimly. In the meantime he would not succumb to these nameless horrors. He would purge this rank cowardliness from his soul.

  He stumbled to his feet, looking blindly around the dark room, searching for something to focus on, something he could use to regain the rudiments of self-possession.

  “Control yourself, you flinching coward,” he muttered, half in self-condemnation, half in pleading. More than simple humiliation striped his soul. Someday he feared he would succumb to his panic and scream. And once he began screaming, he would never stop.

  He stared at the gray patch of illumination on the far wall, forcing himself to mentally measure the window’s frame, to give a name to the frost in the corner of the glass panes. He refused to acknowledge his spasming muscles or the invisible fist clenching around his bowels or the constriction in his throat.

  He could, after all, still breathe. The thought offered some small assurance and he fell on it gratefully. Control. It was the only weapon he had.

  After years of practice he should, he thought with a splinter of the blackest humor, be an expert at self-domination. But it was impossible to obliterate something without an image or a sound, but which was instead a maelstrom of impressions commandeered from his history, the featureless essence of every demon he’d ever known.

  He pressed his head between his palms for a instant before angrily snatching them away. He was craven, giving in to such despicable weakness. Especially now, he jeered, when he could least afford it. For God’s sake, these were nothing more than nameless phantasms.

  He spun around and jerked his clothes from the tallboy. He hauled on his breeches, thrust his arms into the sleeves of a cambric shirt, and noosed his throat with a cravat. Grabbing his traveling coat from atop his trunk, he headed out the door, knowing from the rhythm of his bootheels on the thick Aubusson carpet that he was running.

  The sky was a featureless gray blanket. Fog slipped between rain-slicked tree trunks and nestled in the low places along the trail. Hart leaned over the withers of the green broke hunter, racing him forward, shredding the tranquil pools of mist. The gelding sawed at the bit, its breathing harsh and labored in the stillness, fighting Hart for control.

  He fought back. He spurred the horse, pushing it until foam flecks from its open mouth splattered his jacket and sweat from its sides soaked his thighs. Only then, only when he felt its huge muscles trembling more than his own, did he relent, dropping his hands and allowing the beast to stumble into a walk. He groaned suddenly, sinking forward on the saddle and pressing his forehead against its great sodden neck.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  The horse blew gustily, tossing its head and rolling its eyes as it skittered on its rear legs.

  “Evil creature,” Hart muttered. “I’ve half killed you and still you’d rather run yourself to death than be thought a simple pleasure mount.”

  Grimly, he waited, staring at the dark line of trees ahead of him, steeling himself for the anxiety to return. There was no running from demons that rode pillion.

  And then, amid the silence of anticipation, as his heart thudded in a thick, stilted cadence, he heard a soft swishing sound. He peered forward.

  A short distance away, just cresting the rise of the trail, a feminine figure limped toward him, slashing irritably at the grass with a naked branch. The first spangles of sunlight crept along her shoulders, backlighting her tumbled hair and turning it into a molten nimbus about her shadow-obscured features. He cocked his head, listening. A tuneless little hum wafted to him on the chill predawn breeze.

  Mercy Coltrane.

  She lifted her head and spied him. Humiliation drained the blood from his lean cheeks. Would that God had spared him this, at the very least. But God did not spare weaklings.

  “Have you seen my horse?” she demanded, stepping forward. Immediately she stopped, wincing.

  He sucked in a lungful of air, concern for her well-being harrying the gibbering phantoms that crowded his thoughts. “Why are you limping?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, no,” she assured him. “I’m fine. Mostly. But these wretched riding boots were not made for walking. I am sure I will have blisters the size of guineas. Have you seen my horse?”

  He relaxed visibly and she grimaced, a wry, puckish contortion of her lovely mouth and dark straight brows. She looked so damned innocent, standing there with her head tilted and her hair loose on her shoulders, unaware of the demons that roiled beneath his surface calm, clamoring for voice. He ironed his face of all expression.

  She tapped her foot, gazing at him in exasperation. He hadn’t exasperated anyone for a long time. Frightened sometimes, intimidated on occasion, antagonized perhaps … but not this simple exasperation. It was novel to be treated so casually. It was soul healing.

  “Well? Cat got your tongue? Or have you seen so many riderless horses this morning you are trying to determine which one was mine?” She impudently cocked a brow.

  And as he stared at her, saw the negligent manner with which she accepted his appearance—though he knew his hair was rumpled and his face stained with tension—every remnant of the boy Hart had been answered the siren call of her youth and ease, even as the man he was responded to her profound and uncontrived womanliness.

  Why, he asked himself, why now must he admit to a desire that had grown from the first moment he’d seen her? Perhaps, he allowed with a sad inward smile, he was simply too exhausted to deny it anymore. What did it matter if he could no longer do himself the kindness of a lie? It changed nothing.

  She was studying him, a touch of concern coloring her expression. Or was it wariness? Perhaps their isolation was just now occurring to her. The thought scored him with bitter amusement. Too late, Miss Coltrane, he thought even as he asked, “What happened?”

  Her consternation disappeared, replaced by chagrin. She sighed and tossed her branch away. “I wish I knew. I was …” She peeked up at him and drew a deep breath. “I lost my seat and fell off.”

  He laughed, amazed not only that she’d wrung laughter from him—now, of all times—but that amusement could coexist with desire, not superseding it but instead augmenting it, adding piquancy to his carnal thoughts. And carnal they were.

  His hooded gaze traveled over her, noting the jacket molding the swell of her breasts, the way her riding skirt cupped her pert bottom. Thank God, she could not know the course of his thoughts, or how his body tightened in response to her low, delicious laughter.

  She grinned, pleased she’d made him laugh. So easily, he mocked himself, did she shred each tether of the self-control he’d plaited to tie himself to sanity.

  “I don’t expect you’ll keep this a secret, will you?” she asked impishly.

  He smiled lazily and dismounted. Impossible not to tease her.

  “I didn’t think so.” She tossed her head and her hair rippled across her shoulder, thick and glossy.

  He wanted to take a silken fistful and roll it in his palm. He wanted to feather a flake of mud from her cheek and then t
race the sweet curve of her throat with his finger.

  He wanted to taste her.

  His desire confounded him. He had never used sex as an analgesic. In North Africa, in New Mexico, in Texas, he had known men who celebrated their survival in the most elemental fashion. He’d never been one of them.

  Death, whether served or avoided, left him feeling overwhelmingly empty, with nothing left in him to give and, more, nothing within him capable of receiving. But now, as he looked at Mercy Coltrane, desire surged through his body, splintering the still, cold center he’d kept such vigilant guard over.

  He tore his gaze from her quizzical gold-green eyes. He would touch her if he looked any longer. He would do more. He did not need to test his control. He was tested enough as it was. Though, he realized with astonishment, the gibbering panic had receded. It was no more than a low thrum of anxiety now. He looked about, anywhere but at her, and finally realized what he saw.

  “What about your groom?” he asked. “Where is he?”

  “What groom?” she mumbled, averting her eyes.

  “What—?” He frowned. “Are you without an escort?”

  “I go riding every morning.” She spoke defiantly—to the ground. “Without a groom. I couldn’t stand to have someone shadow my every move.” She glanced up and immediately waved an ungloved hand at him, forestalling his protest. Her fingers looked raw. They would be cold. “Lady Acton knows, so you needn’t look so disapproving. She’s accepted it as part of my American eccentricity.”

  He must have made some disapproving sound, lost in contemplation of her hands, for she sniffed. “I have been discreet. I slip out a bit early so I’ll be back, safely decked out in a morning gown, by the time your exalted friends awake.”

  “A bit early?” Hart demanded, angry that she had so little care for her person, let alone her reputation. “It’s not yet six o’clock. If I hadn’t chanced upon you, you would be walking for hours yet. Though this may not be Texas, there are still dangers awaiting foolish, impulsive, and unattended young women.”