Coming Up Roses

by Duncan, Alice

  She patted his shoulder. “Calm down, H.L. I’ll speak to the colonel as soon as possible.”

  He subsided but was still worried. It also occurred to him that while Rose was doctoring his head, Pegleg was probably busy escaping. He let out a groan as he settled back onto her bed. He wished she’d join him there, but knew there were more important things to think about at the moment. Damn it, he wanted to make love to Rose. He didn’t want to have to heal first.

  Hell. First things first. He looked up at Rose as he obediently pressed the poultice to his sore spot again. After the first appalling seconds, during which the moistened herbs inside the calico bag felt as if they were eating the skin off his head, the spot actually began to feel sort of better. Cool. It felt cool. “So, you managed to escape from the burlap sack. Did you run away from him, or what?”

  “What?” Rose had gone back to the table upon which she’d prepared

  H.L.’s poultice. It looked to him as if she were getting another one ready for her own use. He hoped she’d apply it where he could see her do it. “Oh, you mean the men who kidnapped me?”

  “Men? There was more than one of them?” H.L. frowned. “Oh, of course, there was more than one of them. There had to be, or I wouldn’t have been beaned from behind, would I?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So. They didn’t just let you go, did they?”

  Her sudden wicked grin tickled him. “Not on purpose, they didn’t.”

  As she told him how she’d escaped, H.L. felt a swelling in the area of his heart. He’d never experienced its like, and he didn’t know whether to be pleased or aghast, because he feared it meant something he’d never even contemplated happening to him.

  Yet could it be happening? Could H.L. May, who’d always considered himself above such things, actually—he swallowed as the thought smote him—be falling in—he could hardly bear even think the word—love with Rose Gilhooley?

  “So,” Rose said as she tied up another calico bag into which she’d stuffed moistened herbs. “That’s how I escaped from the man you call Pegleg. As far as I know, he’s still out cold, but I have no idea what happened to his friend. Wherever he is, I expect his jaw is pretty badly swollen.”

  She looked about as proud of herself as H.L. expected she could look, and he gave up the struggled. He was too weak to fight any longer. Dammit, he loved her. He allowed his eyes to drift shut, still pressing the poultice to his lump, and waited for the dread to strike him. He couldn’t imagine falling in love and not dreading the consequences of such a damn-fool happenstance.

  “I’m going to turn down the lamp,” Rose told him.

  H.L. opened his eyes to slits and glanced over at her. “All right, I guess, but don’t you think we ought to wait for the police?”

  She sniffed, reminding H.L. of a grand lady objecting to something one of her servants had done. He grinned in spite of the state of his emotions.

  “They’ll get here eventually, I’m sure, especially when the colonel gets involved. As for waiting for them . . . Well, what have the police ever done for us?” Rose asked coldly. “If they want to talk to us, they can do so after we take care of our bruises and bumps. If they even care.”

  H.L. grinned as he allowed his eyes to close again. “Oh, they’ll care. After Cody gets on their case and they read my article about this night’s work, they’ll care, all right.”

  “Fine,” Rose said. “Let them care, then. My . . . leg is beginning to stiffen up, and I need to get this poultice on the bruise.”

  H.L. felt sort of dreamy. “I don’t suppose you’ll come here and lie beside me, will you? I won’t be able to do anything to you, unfortunately.”

  “Unfortunately?”

  She sounded shocked, and H.L. considered this reaction to his comment disingenuous, considering they’d been about to consummate their passion until those two bastards showed up and kidnapped her. Tried to kidnap her. He chuckled. “Fudge, Rose. If I try anything, you can just bop me like you did those two crooks, and push me off the bed.” Straining his eyes open one last time, he added, “Besides, where else can you do it? There’s only one place in here to lie down.”

  Rose stood in the middle of her tent and glanced around. She was looking, unless H.L. missed his guess, for some other, less disreputable, place to apply her poultice. She gave it up after a few moments. “You’re right. Very well. Move over.”

  He moved over. Rose winced as she lowered herself to the bed. “Close your eyes,” she said.

  H.L. sighed, but he closed his eyes. “It won’t matter, you know. I’m going to see you in the altogether one of these days.”

  “H.L.!” Again, she sounded shocked.

  This time, he found her reaction funny. “You don’t really think I’m going to let you get away, do you, Rose? If you do, you’re daft.”

  “Be quiet, H.L.” Her voice sounded strained. “You need to rest now.”

  “All right.”

  “Are your eyes closed?”

  He sighed. “Yes, Rose. My eyes are closed.”

  She wriggled the bottom half of her costume down her pretty legs and kicked it off. H.L. knew she had pretty legs, because he watched, having lied about his eyes being closed. He felt a smile spread through his entire body as she curled up next to him. She made sure her back was to him, but he didn’t mind. He decided that from the way she lay on her poultice, it was her right thigh that had been bruised.

  “There,” she muttered after a few minutes. “I think that will do it. Try to sleep, H.L.” She sounded very stern, as if she wanted him to think she was a toughie. Hell, she was a toughie, when it came to crooks and criminals. With H.L. May, if she tried acting tough, he’d see it didn’t last long. H.L. was an expert. He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her up close to his chest.

  Rose gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Holding you so you can’t get away.”

  “For heaven’s— Really, H.L., you shouldn’t be doing that.”

  “Hush, Rose. You’ve been through enough tonight. I won’t hurt you. Hell, I can’t even move, much less consummate a ravishment, damn it.”

  “H.L.!”

  “Hush,” he said again, laughing softly. “Go to sleep, Rose. We both need to rest up from our battles. Besides, we probably won’t have much time to rest before the world interferes and starts asking us all sorts of questions.”

  She tried to sit up again, but H.L. found the strength in his body somewhere to prevent her. “Stop it!”

  “But the colonel can’t see us like this!”

  “The colonel won’t give a rap. He’ll be happy you’re tending to our wounds, Rose. Besides, we’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” she muttered.

  He felt her internal struggle because it had stiffened her body. He also felt when her struggles ceased. Happiness suffused him when she relaxed.

  “If anyone comes in here and sees us like this, I’ll be embarrassed to death,” she muttered after a minute.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll hear them coming in time for you to get up.”

  “I hope so.” She didn’t sound satisfied.

  H.L. was almost asleep. “Hell, tell ‘em we’re getting married, and they’ll go away again.”

  Her body went tense for a second. H.L. wondered if he’d lost his mind. He was too worn down to care much, and when Rose relaxed after a second, he did, too, and unconsciousness claimed him a moment later.

  # # #

  Rose frowned into the dim light of her tent, wishing she could go to sleep with the ease H.L. May demonstrated. But she was too on edge to succumb to the healing powers of sleep. H.L. could say whatever he wanted to, but it would be mortifying to be discovered in such a compromising situation. And, as she’d sent messages to Colonel Cody, the Columbian Guard, and the police, she expected their privacy to be interrupted any second now.

  Fiddlesticks. She had to get up. She didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was bask in the comfort
ing pleasure of lying here with H.L.’s arm around her.

  Suppressing a groan as her bruised bottom slid across the cot, Rose glanced back to see if she’d disturbed H.L. Her heart pinged painfully. He looked ghastly. And it was all because he’d tried to rescue her from the hands of villains.

  As she brushed a lock of dark brown hair away from his poor battered head, she felt a swell of tenderness toward him. She also wanted to take a sandbag to the other side of his head. Tell them we’re getting married, her hind leg.

  She huffed softly as she pushed herself to her feet. H.L. May, the decadent, cynical newspaperman might think such a statement funny, but Rose Ellen Gilhooley didn’t. To Rose, marriage was a serious topic, and his flippant remark made her heart hurt.

  Which was nothing compared to the spears of pain the bruise on her bottom was sending down her right leg. “Oomph.” Again glancing at H.L., Rose was glad to see her unexpected groan of pain hadn’t disturbed him. She limped over to the hat rack she used as a clothes hanger, lifted her robe down, and slipped it on. She supposed it was improper to receive guests, or even policemen, in a robe, but Rose didn’t care. Her insides were still in a turmoil over H.L.’s casually spoken Tell them we’re getting married.

  As she tied the belt to the pretty yellow brocade satin robe she’d bought in London, Rose glared at H.L. He looked so innocent lying there, pressing that poultice to his lump even as he slept.

  Rose knew better. He was an insidious, lecherous creature who had almost succeeded in having his way with her this evening. If it hadn’t been for Pegleg and his crony, Rose would no longer be a virgin right now.

  The muffled sound of worried voices reached her, and Rose sighed heavily. She figured it was another lamentable indication of moral laxity on her part that she regretted having been spared defilement by H.L. May. Because the whole thing was too depressing to think about, she ducked through the opening of her tent to greet the newcomers and ask them to keep their voices down so as not to disturb H.L.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Don’t you even think about your act for at least a week, young lady. You’ve got to get yourself well.” The colonel spoke severely, but Rose saw the concern on his face, and she sniffled, touched by his goodness.

  “Thank you, sir.” She felt foolish when she had to wipe a tear from her cheek.

  Annie put an arm around her. “Oh, Rose, I can’t believe those awful men tried to kidnap you.”

  The women glared at the awful men, both of whom appeared to have lost their self-confidence. Any hint of the swaggering bravado Rose had detected upon her first encounter with them had been knocked out of them. The two men stared morosely at their own booted or pegged lower appendages and didn’t utter a sound.

  Rose’s tent was awfully crowded. Generally speaking, the only person it ever contained was Rose herself and, sometimes when Annie visited, Rose and Annie. At the moment, Rose, Annie, H.L., Colonel Cody, Little Elk, a Columbian Guard representative, two burly policemen, Pegleg, and Pegleg’s friend filled it. Her usually orderly and emptyish tent now reminded Rose of a tin of sardines. She huffed softly, wishing the police would take the villains away.

  The two men had their wrists manacled behind their backs, and they looked dejected. Not to mention thrashed. Rose eyed their bumps and scrapes with satisfaction. While she knew she’d administered one or two of those injuries, and H.L. had delivered several others, she suspected representatives of the Chicago police force, goaded at last into doing their duty, had taken their resentment out on the two men, as well. Rose considered such tactics only fair.

  The two criminals had been dragged to the Wild West in order to facilitate their identification by Rose, H.L., and Little Elk. Rose had been delighted to comply, since she didn’t feel like visiting the police station. H.L., after he’d more or less come to his senses, also identified the two men.

  Rose would have resented it when he’d spat on the floor of her tent after he’d fingered the villains if she hadn’t felt much like doing the same thing herself. Anyhow, he’d apologized, so she guessed she couldn’t hold his lack of good manners against him.

  A burly policeman licked the point of his pencil and painstakingly wrote a few words in the notebook he held. “Right. And you say the big feller’s the one what took the Injun kid the other day?” He jerked a thumb in Pegleg’s direction.

  “Yes.” Rose lifted her chin. “You might have caught him then and spared Mr. May and me these injuries if you’d bothered to take our report seriously,” she reminded him.

  The policeman grunted, frowned, and wrote some more.

  “The lady’s right,” H.L. said. He’d regained a good deal of his bounce and fighting vigor, even though he claimed his head still ached. “We had to get the kid back ourselves; Miss Gilhooley and me. You can read all about it in Wednesday’s edition of the Globe.” When the policeman shot a scowl in H.L.’s direction, the reporter grinned.

  Rose admired his gumption, even if she didn’t understand it. Her whole aim in life was getting people to like her; she couldn’t comprehend H.L.’s indifference to public opinion. She chalked it up to his being a reporter.

  The colonel, who stood beside Rose and Annie, who were sharing seats on one of Rose’s trunks, laid a hand on Rose’s yellow brocade shoulder. “I should say so,” he boomed, his big voice filling the tent with sound as well as bodies. “I can’t believe you folks didn’t rush right out and try to get that little boy back.”

  Annie said, “Hmph.”

  Rose said, “Indeed.”

  The policeman hunched his shoulders slightly, as if he were warding off blows. Feeling indignant, Rose offered a “Hmph” of her own. If he’d done his job in the first place, he wouldn’t have to be doing that, would he?

  “Right, well, the kid’s back now, and Miss Gilhooley’s all right, I reckon.”

  “No thanks to you,” Rose reminded him haughtily.

  The policeman cleared his throat and forged onward. “I think that’s about all the information I need from you right now, Miss Gilhooley.” He lifted his head as if he didn’t want to, and looked at H.L., who sat on the edge of Rose’s bed, still holding the poultice to his head. He was grinning the way Rose imagined the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland might have done.

  “Listen, boys, Miss Gilhooley and I really need to rest. If you want more details about what happened tonight, you can read all about them in the Globe. The article will be in the paper in a couple of days.”

  The policeman sighed heavily. He didn’t respond to H.L.’s flip comment, but turned and scowled at the two criminals. “And you two say you were hired by Arapaho Al?”

  Pegleg looked mutinous for approximately three seconds. His mutiny ended when the second policeman gave him a vicious whack on the back of the skull with his nightstick and growled, “Speak up, you.”

  “Cut it out,” Pegleg grunted. Before the second policeman, who lifted his billy club in a threatening gesture, could administer another whack, he hastened to add, “Yes. Yes. Arapaho Al.”

  The first policeman asked Cody, “You know anything about this Arapaho Al, Colonel?”

  Cody shook his white head. “Can’t say as I do, although I’ve heard there’s a fellow calls himself Arapaho Al who’s touring Europe at the moment. He operates a cheap imitation of the Wild West. Reckon he staffs his show with folks he kidnaps.” His grim visage told everyone what he thought about that.

  The police, the Columbian Guard, and the prisoners left first. Rose didn’t think her tent would ever be her own again. It seemed to her that folks intended to remain and discuss the excitement, if that’s what you could call it, for the rest of her life. Eventually, however, with many words of condolence, encouragement, and support, they left Rose and H.L. alone in the tent. Rose practically had to shove Annie out into the night, since she seemed determined to stay as long as H.L. did. She did it for propriety’s sake, Rose knew.

  The colonel finally took Annie by the arm. With a chuckle, he said, �
��Let’s go, Missie. These two want to be alone.”

  Rose felt her neck get hot. Annie muttered, “Well, really!” But she went.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Annie,” Rose called after her. “I’ve got to get some rest now.” She heaved a sigh of relief when Annie gave up trying to chaperone Rose and H.L. and marched off with the colonel. As for Cody himself, he started whistling a popular love tune and didn’t release Annie’s arm. Rose appreciated him a lot.

  Behind her, H.L. murmured, “Thank God for privacy.”

  Rose turned around, frowning and feeling shy now that he and she were alone in the tent once more. She hugged her robe tightly to her body.

  “Yes.” She sighed.

  “You don’t have to stand all the way over there, Rose.” H.L. patted the cot at his side. “I don’t bite—very often.”

  Rose wrinkled her nose. “Do you think you can get home, H.L.? Or do you think you’d better sleep here. I don’t suppose anyone would think anything of it, considering you’re such a mess and all.”

  “Thanks heaps, Rose.” He laughed.

  Rose didn’t. “You know very well what I mean, H.L. It’s improper for you to stay here, but I’ll allow you to do so since you’ve suffered such a bad blow to your head. Anyhow, I’d probably better keep an eye on you to make sure you aren’t going to suffer from a delayed reaction to that sandbag.”

  “Absolutely. I need you to keep an eye on me.”

  She knew he was making fun of her, and she didn’t appreciate it. “I’ll have you know that it sometimes takes hours for the full extent of a head injury to be manifested. Mr. Lovelady’s uncle got kicked by a horse, thought he was fine, and dropped dead two days later from a blood clot. At least, the doctor thought it was a blood clot. So it’s not funny.”

  “Good God.” H.L.’s insouciant grin faded.

  Rose took some satisfaction from having rattled him.

  “In that case,” H.L. went on, “You can’t keep an eye on me as well from across the tent as you can from over here.”