Laurie Grant - The Duchess And The Desperado

“Then eventually we’ll have to walk back to the hotel,” he told her. “But I reckon the wild eyes on that jackass Wharton will convince him.”

His contemptuous tone ignited her anger, burning away her traces of fear. “How dare you speak of a gentleman like that? And what about you? I saw you standing there all cozy with his bold-eyed tart of a sister when you should have been—”

“Should have been what, Duchess?” he demanded. She could barely make out his eyes glittering in the darkness. “You wanted me to leave you alone, remember?”

She was silent, trying to rein in her temper. Her heart felt as if it was pounding in her ears. “I—I just won’t have you speaking of Mr. Wharton like that. He—he was very pleasant company, that’s all.” She could feel him staring at her in the darkness.

“You’re the boss ”

“Indeed.” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of protesting too much, but pleasant company was all Wharton had been. He’d been entertaining and complimentary and clearly awed to be speaking to a duchess. And he was one of the few men she’d met this evening who hadn’t been staring down the front of her dress, asking sly questions about her wealth, or offering to be her duke, as if that were possible. She hadn’t felt any tug of attraction to Wharton, though she’d agreed when he’d asked to escort her to the theater.

It wasn’t as if she were looking for an American man to replace Thierry, she assured herself. And it wasn’t like being with Morgan Calhoun, whose very presence seemed to demand much of her. Maybe too much.

Wharton had meant nothing improper when he’d asked her to take the air with him, she was sure of it. But she’d seen the look in Calhoun’s eyes when he’d stopped them, and guessed how it had looked to him. Good Lord, what if he’d known she was secretly engaged? Would he have an even worse opinion of her for wanting to go out on the balcony with Wharton then?

By God, she was a duchess, and not about to let a man dictate to her, especially a man whose salary she paid!

Then she heard a soft clip-clopping, which grew louder, stopping just down the street.

Calhoun peered around the broad trunk of the tree. “There’s the landau,” he said. “Come on.” He seized her hand and pulled her into a zigzagging run to the coach. Sarah would have stopped to explain to Ben, but Morgan thrust her almost roughly into the coach and followed her inside, calling out, “Get on back to the hotel! I’ll explain once we get the duchess back safe in her room.”

Sarah held herself rigidly erect on the way back to the hotel, hoping Calhoun would see that she was furious with him, but he didn’t even seem to remember she was there. He kept lifting the curtain and peering out the window. Neither of them spoke.

Back in her suite at the Grand Central, Sarah gave her dresser and her secretary a terse explanation of their early return without Lord Halston, watching out of the corner of her eye while Calhoun checked windows and looked behind curtains and under furniture.

“Well, thank God for Mr. Calhoun, I say,” Celia muttered as she knelt before Sarah to examine the dirt-stained rent in the skirt of Sarah’s gown. “Better to have ruined a dress than to be shot at again. Isn’t that right, Mr. Alconbury?”

But Sarah’s secretary, hovering at Sarah’s elbow, could only stare at her, white-faced.

“Cheer up, Donald,” Sarah said bracingly, patting him on the shoulder. She was touched that her secretary cared so much. “I’m unharmed, as you see. Do you suppose you could sit down with me and help me quickly compose a note for Ben to take to the governor when he goes back to pick up my uncle? I owe the poor man some explanation for disappearing from his reception! We shall have to tell him the truth, I suppose. Whatever will he think?”

“Why not tell him you’re leavin’ Denver tomorrow while you’re at it?” Morgan suggested.

“Because I shall not be leaving, Mr. Calhoun,” she told him. “Do me the favor of not bringing it up again.”

Calhoun sighed and looked away.

Donald managed to pull himself together, and within moments the missive was ready and the secretary was taking it down to Ben, who waited at the landau.

“Now, your grace, why not let me help you out of that ruined thing and into your dressing gown?” Celia said practically. “You can wait in your bedroom for my lord’s return. I’ll have hot milk sent up from the kitchen.”

Calhoun stopped his pacing long enough to growl, “You can go fetch it. I don’t want to wonder if it’s really a hotel employee knocking on this door.”

“Very well, Mr. Calhoun,” Sarah’s dresser fairly snarled back at him. “I will be happy to ‘fetch’ it. But I will assist her grace first. Come, my lady.”

The two women headed for Sarah’s bedroom, which lay directly off the main room, only to have Sarah stop in amazement at the cot that lay in front of its door. “What on earth—?”

“He directed it be put there,” Celia informed her archly with a nod toward Calhoun, who’d begun prowling about the room again. “He says he’s going to sleep there.”

“Is he? How very medieval,” Sarah murmured, then allowed herself to titter. She hoped Calhoun heard it.

The next morning she had Donald escort her down into the stable through an entrance in the back of the hotel. Her secretary had told her Calhoun had gone there to check on his horse.

Uncle Frederick had been beside himself when he’d returned last night and received the full report on what had happened. Once again he’d begged Sarah to leave Denver immediately, not even waiting till morning. But when Sarah had once again adamantly refused to go, he’d proceeded to give her a stern dressing-down for her display of temper at the reception.

She found Morgan Calhoun in a stall, currying a tall, skewbald horse.

“Mr. Calhoun, if I might have a word?”

Calhoun whirled as if he’d been shot. Clearly he’d been deep in thought and hadn’t heard her approach.

“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

“What are you doin’ here, Duchess? I thought I told you not to leave your room without me.” His eyes were like green icicles.

“It’s all right, Donald came with me,” she said, indicating her secretary standing behind her “Donald, why don’t you go and post the letters I dictated? Oh, and don’t forget to take the note I wrote my sister—I left it on the tea table.”

She waited, staring down at her feet, feeling his eyes on her, until they were alone. “I—I’ve come to apologize,” she said at last. “I realize, after talking to my uncle, and doing some thinking, that I behaved rather badly last night.” She would not tell him that she had tossed and turned last night, and had even contemplated leaving her bedroom in the middle of the night to apologize right then and there. The only thing that had stopped her was the impropriety of waking him. “My attitude at the party, when you were only trying to counsel me for my own safety...and when we returned here...did me no credit,” she went on, then darted a glance upward to see how he was receiving her words.

She saw surprise flicker across his face, but nothing more.

“I’m afraid arrogance...and a dislike of being told what to do...are failings of mine. I want you to know that while I may not always agree with you, I shall not be discourteous again. I will cooperate as fully as possible.” There. She’d said it.

A trace of a smile made his lips curve the least bit upward. “Well...maybe you’re not arrogant, but you do put me in mind of a horse’s long-eared relative sometimes,” he admitted, mischief dancing in his green eyes. “But I reckon we can start over from here, Duchess.”