by Craig, Emma
“Oh, but I’m sure Mr. Caine would never take two ladies into a less-than-refined place, Sophie dear.”
“And I’m sure you’re wrong about that,” said Sophie, who believed she knew Gabriel Caine better than did poor Juniper, and prevailed.
When at last she shut the door in Gabriel’s face—rather more sharply than Juniper thought proper—Sophie breathed a deep sigh. The hour of reckoning had come. By the time the night was gone, she’d have fulfilled her dream.
She rushed across the room, wriggled out of her dinner frock, flung it on the bed, and stepped into the dark shirtwaist she’d laid out before dinner.
“What are you doing, Sophie?” Juniper’s voice held an edge of worry. Sophie gave her aunt her most serene smile.”I’m going to take the air with Dmitri, Juniper. He feels more comfortable after the sun sets because of his stature, and he enjoys a little company since he’s always hiding away from the world during the daytime. There’s no reason for you to fret. I enjoy a little walk after dinner, you know”
Juniper knew no such thing, because Sophie had never been inclined to take walks after dinner. Sophie knew how much Juniper hated to face unpleasant truths, however, and she suspected her dear aunt wouldn’t protest. She was almost right.
“Oh, Sophie, you mustn’t!” Juniper cried. “You said yourself that Tucson is a crude town. I’m sure you shouldn’t be walking out at night.”
“Dmitri will be with me,” Sophie reminded her gently as she tugged at the buttons on her skirt. Drat! She must have gained more weight. She’d have to let the buttons out again. She gave a thought to Gabriel Caine, and despised herself for it.
If any man disapproved of her because she was the least little bit plump, then Sophie wanted nothing to do with him. Not that she wanted anything to do with men anyway. And particularly not with Gabriel Caine.
Of course, no man would want her, even if her position on the subject of men were to soften enough to allow one to get close enough to realize she liked food a trifle too much.
She perceived her thoughts were tangling up in a knot, and swore softly.
Juniper whispered, “Sophie!”
“I beg your pardon, Juniper. I’m having trouble with these silly buttons.”
“I’ll fix them, dear. Why don’t you take your skirt off and let me do it now.” She bustled over hopefully.
Sophie grinned at Juniper, whose hands were clasped in front of her and whose face held an angelic smile. The little minx. “Not tonight, Juniper. I’m going to take a walk.”
Juniper let out a soulful sigh. “Oh, Sophie, your personality is so forceful. I wish it weren’t so, dear. You’re such a beautiful young woman. I fear no man will care to take up with a young woman of your strength of purpose and self-will.”
Sophie felt herself gape at her aunt for a second before she found the wit to respond. “I should hope not! I want nothing to do with men, and you know it, Juniper Madrigal.”
Sadly shaking her head, Juniper murmured, “Sophie, I do wish life hadn’t treated you so harshly.”
“It wasn’t life,” Sophie growled. “It was a man.”Remembering Ivo Hardwick, she amended, “It was men.”
Juniper’s head continued to shake. “So sad. So unfortunate.”
“Balls,” muttered Sophie, although she generally refrained from using such words in front of Juniper, who abhorred unladylike behavior in her niece. Juniper blanched, and Sophie wished she’d controlled her tongue. It was probably the wine. Which had been ordered by Gabriel Caine. Who was a man. Which proved her point.
Without saying another word, she picked up her handbag, opened it, and lifted out her Colt Lightning revolver. Although she knew good and well she’d loaded it earlier in the day, she checked to make sure.
Satisfaction flooded her. All was well. She grabbed her cloak and walked to the door.
“Sophie . . .”
Sophie turned. “Yes?” She smiled sweetly at Juniper, even though she knew full well that Juniper had seen her handling the gun.
“Please don’t go out tonight, Sophie. I—I feel you shouldn’t. The cards are against it. Recall the Devil, Sophie. I’m sure of it.”
The cards. Sophie restrained her mocking laugh. “Don’t be silly, Juniper.” She schooled her nerves. She was ready, and she sounded crisp and efficient. She felt crisp and efficient. She was going out to do an important job, and she aimed to do it right.
“But Sophie . . .”
On impulse, Sophie hurried to her aunt and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She had to lean way over to do it. “Please don’t worry, Aunt Juniper. I’ll be fine. Dmitri will be with me, and everything will be just perfect. I’ll be back soon.”
Or she wouldn’t. At this point, Sophie didn’t care if she died, too, as long as she took care of Ivo Hardwick first. Since she knew her own death or imprisonment would hurt her aunt deeply, she hoped neither of those things would transpire, but she didn’t care a whit on her own account.
She heard Juniper moan pitifully right before she shut the door.
Sophie’s heart was almost light when she walked down the hall and tapped on Dmitri’s door. Emerald Huffy opened the door, and he and Dmitri joined her. They walked silently through the night. Mr. Huffy knew where they were going. Sophie knew what to do after they got there.
* * * *
“He’s in there,” Emerald Huffy said, his phlegmatic voice emotionless. “I’ll point him out and then I’ll be off. I don’t want no part in this.”
“I understand.” Sophie had hired him to find Ivo Hardwick and that was all he’d been hired to do. She was looking forward to finishing the monster off all by herself. Dmitri said nothing, but glanced around nervously.
Huffy pushed the batwing doors and, taking a huge breath, Sophie preceded her two companions into the place.
Saloons were appalling places. Sophie didn’t understand how men could stand them, although entering this particular saloon and glancing around confirmed her already low opinion of the majority of the masculine gender.
Men were scattered everywhere, leaning against the bar and sitting at tables. They were drinking and gambling, and aping other typically manly behaviors. Sophie scorned them all. Here and there she spied painted women, some of whom looked much younger than she was, and she felt sorry for them. What an awful life they must live, at the mercy of the basest of men’s basest urges. Sophie knew good and well no woman would sell herself like that unless she was desperate.
“Ugh,” she muttered.
Dmitri nodded. He looked pretty gloomy. Sophie understood his distaste for mingling with full-sized men, because men often teased the little Dmitri, but she couldn’t allow herself to become distracted by pity. She knew better than to rush this job, so she stood still and tried to adjust to the gloom and the poisonous atmosphere.
Tobacco smoke was as thick as a fog in the room, and it was intermingled with the stench of spilled alcohol and masculine sweat. Wrinkling her nose, Sophie pulled Dmitri over to a corner of the room where there weren’t so many people. Huffy followed at a leisurely pace. She saw to her misgiving that she had been spotted by several men who noticed her, appeared startled, and then began ogling her, some lasciviously, some suspiciously. She ignored them all.
“Is he here somewhere?” she asked Huffy under her breath.
Huffy nodded and jerked his head to the right. “Over there. At the table with the man in the straw hat. He’s the one sitting and looking on.” Huffy squinted through the haze.”Looks like he’s laid down his hand.”
Sophie squinted too. “Where? Oh, yes, I see him.” Her heart gave a huge spasm and she almost forgot herself, reached into her handbag, and hauled out her Colt then and there. She controlled the impulse with difficulty. She wasn’t going to risk making a mistake now. Not now that she’d run her quarry to earth. If she shot an innocent person by accident, she’d be no better than her prey.
“Hey, looky there,” came a slurry voice from out of the smoky fog.
&nb
sp; “It’s a li’l guy with a big girl.” The voice laughed thickly.
Sophie muttered, “Ass.”
Huffy said, “Reckon I’ll be going, Miss Sophie.”
“Fine.” Sophie didn’t care. Huffy had done his duty well.
“Hey, little guy!” the slurry voice said. “C’mere. Bring your friend. She’s big, but she’s purty.”
Dmitri shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. Huffy strolled off toward the batwing doors.
Damn and blast, now everyone in the whole awful place was staring at them. Sophie frowned fiercely. “Dmitri, I’m going to approach Mr. Hardwick. Try to remain inconspicuous.”
Which was already impossible. With a resolute squaring of her shoulders, Sophie told herself it didn’t matter and, leaving poor Dmitri to fend for himself, walked firmly to the table at which Ivo Hardwick sat, staring stupidly at the poker game proceeding around him. Huffy was right, Sophie saw with some relief: He had already laid down his own hand. He’d undoubtedly be more difficult to dislodge from the game if he were still in the thick of it. The four men at the table, including Hardwick, glanced up at her and stared.
He didn’t recognize her. Sophie could hardly believe it.
Steeling herself, she pasted on a smile she hoped was seductive and went straight up to Ivo Hardwick, whose Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he goggled at her. Other men at the table sniggered and made rude comments—at least, Sophie presumed they were rude. She paid no attention.
“Hello,” she said to Hardwick in a low, silky voice. “Want to come outside with me for a minute?”
Hardwick gulped audibly and pointed to his chest. “Me?”
She nodded and inclined her head toward the door.
“Sure thing, lady.” With amazing alacrity, considering the circumstances, Hardwick popped from his chair and took Sophie’s arm. He aimed a broad wink at his companions.
“When you’re through, come back and give me a treat, lady,” one of them said.
Sophie didn’t respond, but guided Hardwick out the swishing batwing doors. Fresh air, although still warm this late in the day, felt like heaven after the polluted atmosphere of the saloon. Sophie had already investigated the streets and alleyways surrounding the Oriental, so she knew exactly where the best place was to exact her retribution.
“Come with me,” she whispered huskily into her enemy’s ear.
“Sure thing.” He was beginning to pant lasciviously. Sophie was disgusted, although she wouldn’t have expected anything better from this specimen.
The alley was dark as the Pit itself. Which seemed fit and proper to Sophie. The faint sounds of rinky-tink piano music and men’s voices accompanied them as she guided Hardwick to a spot in the very back, against another building. Faint lantern light from windows above them gave a ghostly aura to the scene, which was replete with trashcans, rubbish, and dirt. What an appropriate setting for Ivo Hardwick’s last moments on earth. He belonged in the rubbish heap of life.
When they’d gone as far as they could, Hardwick reached for her. She anticipated him. She’d been fishing in her handbag for the past several seconds, found the Colt, and now jammed it against his stomach and shoved him backwards. She was as tall as he, and weighed more—and he was in a state of drunkenness coupled with complete sexual befuddlement—so he stumbled and thumped against the building with an “oomph.”
“There now,” Sophie said with satisfaction. “This is exactly the way I want it.”
He blinked at her. “You got real strange taste, lady.”
Chapter Five
Gabriel followed the sounds of strife with some irritation. Dammit, he’d wanted to sleep and pick up Ivo Hardwick in the morning when the villain would certainly be sleeping off a hangover. But the noise from the saloon below was keeping him awake. Not to mention the combined effects of Sophie Madrigal and that damned prediction of hers. Was it really a family curse? He wouldn’t put it past her to lay a curse on him.
Not that he believed in such idiocy. Gabriel Caine knew full well that the nation’s current love affair with occultism was silly, mainly because mysticism—Juniper Madrigal and her absolute honesty notwithstanding—was pure hogwash. People couldn’t be cursed any more than they could achieve eternal salvation. He mentally asked his late father’s forgiveness for thinking such a thing, no matter how much he believed it.
So why did he still feel itchy and uncomfortable every time he thought about that damned prediction? It was all trash, and he knew it. Somehow, however, knowing it didn’t much help. Shoot, maybe he was just going crazy.
In the meantime, he was irked as hell at all the noise. He stopped dead on the stairs when he saw what the clamor was about. Then he pelted down the last of the staircase and strode with purpose over the cluster of men harassing Dmitri in a corner. Gabriel hated bullies with a passion.
He positioned himself with his back to a wall so nobody could shoot him from behind. He didn’t like violence, and he sure as the devil didn’t aim to become a victim. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked in his deepest, loudest, and most dangerous voice.
One of the bullies, a big man with whiskers and a large belly, staggered a little, looked up with bleary eyes, and said, “Huh?” He held Dmitri’s right arm in a ham-like hand. Poor Dmitri was struggling valiantly, to no avail, to get his arm back under his own control.
Gabriel rolled his eyes at this. Maybe Sophie was right about the preponderance of men. This crew sure seemed to be a worthless lot. “Step away from Dmitri, fellows.” He smiled as he said it.
“Who’s Dmitri?” asked the potbellied individual.
“Who says so?” another man, larger and darker than the first, asked in something of a growl.
Gabriel sighed, pulled his revolver, cocked it, and said, “I do.”
Potbelly dropped Dmitri’s arm immediately and took a step back, nearly falling over a chair in his haste. He lifted his hands, palm out. “Hey there, fella. I ain’t doin’ nothin’.”
“Right,” said Gabriel. He made a gesture to the large dark man. “Back up, friend.”
“I ain’t your friend,” muttered the dark man.
“True,” agreed Gabriel.
Another two men, who had been laughing and poking at Dmitri, backed away, evidently not relishing the prospect of gunfire. Thank God. Gabriel didn’t relish it either.
“What right you got to inter’up our fun?” asked the dark man, and he hiccupped.
“The same right any man has to interrupt unfair play,” Gabriel said reasonably. “Hell, man, what fun is it to pick on somebody that small? Find somebody your own size and make a fair fight out of it.”
The dark man hitched up his trousers and leered evilly.”Like you?”
“I’d rather not,” said Gabriel, hoping the idiot wouldn’t charge.
His hopes came to naught. With what looked like it was supposed to be finesse, the large dark man lunged at him. Gabriel stepped aside, caught the man by the back of his shirt, hauled him upright, and tapped him behind the ear with his revolver. The man sank to the floor like a stone.
Gabriel, having never stepped away from the wall, asked obligingly, “Anyone else?”
Nobody answered him, but several of the men who had been harassing Dmitri held up their hands and backed away.
Gabriel kept his gun poised and ready. “You all right, Dmitri? Any damage that needs a doctor’s attention?”
Dmitri was pulling himself together, tugging at his overalls and searching the floor for his cloth cap. He found it, whacked it against his trouser leg, and said, “No. I’m good.”
“Glad to hear it. Want to get out of here? I’ll walk you home.” He kept his back against the wall and never once stopped scanning the saloon’s occupants. Gabriel didn’t fancy unpleasant surprises.
He was surprised when Dmitri shook his head. “Nyet. Miss Sophie. She go outside with a man.”
“She what?” So startled was Gabriel by this intelligence, rendered in Dmitri’s deep guttural
Russian accent, that he took his attention away from the men in the saloon for a second. It was just long enough for one of his adversaries—the dark one—to lunge at him. Gabriel foiled his attempt to throttle him with a lift of his right leg, catching the lout in the stomach with the flat of a hard boot sole. The creature doubled over, clutched his midsection, and started retching.
Wrinkling his nose, Gabriel said to Dmitri, “Come with me. We’ll see what she’s up to.” He wasn’t altogether sure he wanted to know. If he discovered Sophie outside reading the man’s palm, he’d be pleased. He anticipated nothing of such a nature, however, and he felt a little sick at the thought of Sophie in another man’s embrace.
But that was stupid. If she were engaged in amatory activities, why would she seek and find her lover in this squalid saloon? Gabriel didn’t understand anything about Sophie, really, but he thought he knew her better than that.
Sidling against the wall and keeping his revolver trained on the company, he headed toward the door, Dmitri a stolid and morose accompaniment. Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief when they left the stale atmosphere of the Oriental. He didn’t dare holster his revolver yet, but his nerves no longer shrieked.
“Do you know where she went?” he asked his small companion?
“Yah. In the alley.”
In the alley? Good God. Gabriel could scarcely believe it of the magnificent Sophie. If she were no more than statuesque tart in disguise, he’d be terribly disappointed.
Gabriel heard her before he saw her. He also heard her companion, whoever he was, and what the two of them said made his nerves commence jumping again, worse even than before.
“I do believe I’ll shoot you in the stomach,” Gabriel heard her say. “Then I’ll have the pleasure of watching you die slowly and in great pain.”
“Jesus,” Gabriel whispered, appalled. What in the name of glory was she talking about. Her voice sounded funny, an eerie blend of pain and exultation.