Devon Monk - Cold Copper

“Just see that you don’t go out again, miss. It’s dangerous out there. Very dangerous.” He leaned down over her, smiling as if he were her best uncle, but his tone was hard and clipped. “As a matter of fact, if I were you, I’d make a point to stay right here the rest of the trip. Stay out of the cargo, forget your ‘friend’ back there, and stay out of things that aren’t your business. When you get off at the next stop, don’t look back.”

Then he straightened, his hand still on the gun in his pocket. “Do you understand me, miss?”

Rose nodded. “I promise to stay completely out of your business, if you’ll just let my friend go.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “It is not.”

He walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the door that would lead her down to the freight car, turning his back to the door so he could look down the aisle at her.

Thomas might not be dead yet. He was a smooth talker and seemed to keep his wits sharp. He might have talked his way out of the fight. Which could have left him wounded or tied up.

Or he might have talked enough that the men in the freight car shot him dead.

She couldn’t just sit here if there was a chance she could save him.

But how?

“Get tired of the tenderfoot and come back here for a real man’s company?”

A man’s shadow fell across the bench. Captain Hink stood blocking the light and the aisle, one hand up on the brass rail above the seat, the other tucked in his belt loop.

He still wore his hat, and, Rose thought, he smelled a bit of tobacco and whiskey.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

He raised one eyebrow, but did not smile. “On the train,” he drawled.

“I walked through the car. I walked through several cars. You weren’t here.” She pointed at the seat.

“Maybe I was. Maybe I was sending a wire to Seldom telling him where to meet me with my ship. Maybe your eyes were filled with that toff, Wicks.”

“He’s in trouble,” Rose said. “Three gunmen have him.”

“Three?”

“I don’t think he’s armed. You must help me save him.”

“Must? Don’t recall ever signing a waiver as that dandy’s protector. He get himself in a row? Fine by me. Might look better with a few less straight front teeth.”

“Paisley Cadwaller Hink Cage, I cannot believe you can be so heartless.”

“Heartless? I never threw my lovers in your face.”

“Lovers? So you did fraternize with those women!”

“No,” he said leaning down so that there was nothing to be seen but his tightly controlled anger. “I did not sleep with those women. Don’t,” he warned when she opened her mouth, “start talking. Listen. Just listen.”

He tipped his head slightly, waiting for her agreement.

“He could be dying right now. Or dead,” she said.

“If you sit there and listen to me, I promise to go look for the dandy. Agreed?”

“We go look for him.”

He considered for a moment, then nodded and sat down next to her.

For the first time, she realized how much he had been making it a point not to touch her. When he sat, he made sure his leg didn’t brush her skirts and deftly turned so his wide shoulders fit the space available.

“I haven’t been completely true to you about my…activities,” he began. “You’re right that I haven’t told you everything. Honestly, it’s such a habit to keep certain things…private. Things I don’t even share with my crew.”

Rose clenched both her hands together and resisted the urge to stare out the window to see if Thomas was bouncing down the track.

“You know how I was raised, what sort of business my mother was engaged in.”

“Yes,” she said. He had been raised in a brothel. He’d told her that was one of the reasons he had so many names. His mother believed in giving him one from each well-off man who had visited her bed, hoping to secure a father for him.

“As a younger man, I found myself feeling quite at home in such places,” he continued. “You may not believe this, but I made friends with some of the women over the years.”

“Years? Is this supposed to be making me feel more kindly toward you, Captain?”

“This is meant to tell you the truth.” He inhaled, held his breath a moment, then exhaled. “I’ve visited hundreds of brothels, dance halls, and parlors. Maybe thousands. And while I do not pretend to be a saint, the truth of it is, I visit such places for information.”

“Is that so?” Rose said with a smile clenched between her teeth. “So this is purely altruistic of you. Of course. You are only exchanging information with thousands of beautiful, available women of ill repute.”

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth and she glared at him. The man was maddening. The angrier she got, the more he seemed to enjoy the challenge of testing her temper. If only he wasn’t so frustrating, she might be able to ignore him.

But he made her blood heat up. In more than one way.

There was a roguish charm and power about him. Even with the eye patch, he still looked every inch the U.S. Marshal and airship pirate. And when he was this close to her, it didn’t take much for her mind to wander to the kisses they’d shared and…gentler moments.

“They are that, just what you say,” he said calmly, his voice a warm burr beneath her skin. “I’d expect a woman who plans to live her life adventuring to be more open-minded about women who are also trying to make their way in the world with their particular talents.”

“So you are just helping these women make their way. Lovely.”

“I am helping them, and they are helping me.”

“I am certain they are!”

He gave her that grin again, enjoying her reaction. “By spying,” he said. “They spy for me. Well, not just for me.”

Rose opened her mouth, then shut it fast.

“They spy,” he repeated, “for the American government. No better place to harvest a man’s secrets than between the sheets.” At her look, he added, “Not my secrets. Well, not always mine. There was this one woman…” He pulled back just a bit at her glare.

“Guess that’s a story for another time,” he said. “These women gather other men’s secrets. Important men, unimportant men. Rumors, brags, lies, pillow-talk truths. All gathered up by the doves, and given to me. For a reasonable payment. For money.

“Telegraphs can be intercepted, but a message by dove always comes through.”

“Spies? Do you expect me to believe the president of the United States would use women, those kinds of women, as spies?”

“Women like my mother?”

Rose closed her eyes. The man made her want to shout. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“All right,” she said. “I did. I just can’t believe a word coming out of your mouth, Captain Hink. Weeks. You spent weeks at that bordello. No secret takes weeks to hear.”

Hink looked down at his hands folded on top of his leg. “There are things happening, Rose, things I cannot tell you for fear of you falling in harm’s way. Those things take more than a week to piece together.”

“And you want me to believe that you alone, naked and sweaty on your back, are somehow saving the world?”

“Don’t have to be on my back, necessarily.”

“Is that all?” Rose asked archly.

He nodded and tipped a glance her way. “It is all I can say now. And it is the truth. Is it enough?”

“For what?”

“Forgiveness.”

Rose thought it over. She could lie to him, and tell him yes. But he’d know. For all he was a charmer and a man of lose morals, he had a keen eye when it came to reading people—her especially.