“If you had loosened up in Morocco,” Vanessa reminded her now, “you could have had a nice little affair with that sheikh what’s-his-name who kept pursuing you. He didn’t know Edward, didn’t even know you were a widow, could barely even speak English, so it wouldn’t have made any difference. And all it takes is one lover, my dear, and your problem is over.”
“It was too soon, Vanessa. I was still in mourning, if you’ll recall.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with it. I hope you don’t think I waited a year after the earl passed on to take a lover. Goodness, no. A woman has needs every bit as strong as a man’s.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Vanessa grinned at that prim tone. “No, you wouldn’t—but you will. Or are you getting nervous again?”
“Not at all,” Jocelyn said, and meant it, though it was one thing to talk about and something else again to actually do. “It’s time to find out what all the fuss is about. Just knowing how it’s done isn’t enough anymore to satisfy my curiosity. But it can’t be just any man.”
“No, of course not. A mild attraction isn’t enough for the first time. You have to be knocked off your feet at the very least.”
“I’ve been looking,” Jocelyn said defensively.
“I know you have, dear. Obviously those dark, swarthy men of Mexico just weren’t your cup of tea. If only you had made this decision sooner, before you met someone like Charles, whom you were seriously considering for marriage.”
“But how could I know I would want to get married again?”
“I warned you these things just happen. No one plans on falling in love.”
“Still, I honestly thought I wouldn’t marry. After all, I will have to give up a good deal of the freedom I’ve come to enjoy if I do.”
“With the right man that won’t matter at all.”
They had decided between them, on that long sea voyage from New York to Mexico, that now that marriage was a possibility for the future, Jocelyn had to get rid of her maidenhead. It was the only way she could keep Edward’s name from being blackened with ugly gossip. And after all, a widow had no business being a virgin. That she was one at twenty-two was nothing to be proud of, not when it was the last thing anyone would expect her to be.
Her virginity had at last become a hindrance, and as Vanessa had said, something she should have seen to long ago. Her options now were limited. Having a doctor do it was one. But the thought of instruments being poked inside her to cut her membrane left her shuddering with distaste. The only other option was to take a lover, someone not in her social sphere, someone who had never heard of Edward, and especially someone she wasn’t likely to ever encounter again when it was over. Whether she then returned to New York and Charles Abington the Third, or whether she met someone else suitable to her station and means, she could marry without worry. Edward’s affliction would never come to light.
Jocelyn was ready, had been ever since they had docked in Mexico. And Vanessa was wrong. She had found several Mexicans quite attractive. Unfortunately, her interest was not returned, or if it was, she was too inexperienced to have read the subtle signs. She was not at all adept at flirting.
It wasn’t going to be easy, this matter of finding a lover. Besides being so inexperienced, she had Mr. Longnose to consider, and being unable to stay in any one place long enough to develop a relationship to the point where she could entice a man into her bed. She supposed she should hope to be pursued again, as she had been in the Middle East, and on the East Coast of America. Some countries bred men more aggressive than others, or at least more bold in their desires. She could use a little of that boldness now, boldness she had heretofore considered sheer arrogance and audacity.
Recalling the bloodhound who was still dogging their trail, Jocelyn said, “I wasn’t brooding about Charles, you know. In fact, it’s been quite some time since I’ve even thought of him. Do you think I mightn’t have been as fond of him as I supposed?”
“My dear, you really hadn’t known him long enough. They say some loves are rather instantaneous, though I’ve never experienced one of those myself. Most love takes time to grow. We might have spent several months in New York, but you didn’t even meet the man until three weeks before we were forced to leave. I find the fact that you were interested at all a very good sign, since you have tended to ignore men for the most part these past years. Now…tell me why our persistent friend the Longnose is troubling you. You can’t seriously think he’s discovered our whereabouts this soon, not after all that zigzagging we did across Mexico?”
Jocelyn had to smile at Vanessa’s assurance that there were only two things she could possibly brood about. “No, I don’t see how he could have known we sailed south, when we could just as well have returned to Europe.”
“We don’t know how he found us in New York either, but he did. I’m beginning to wonder if he hasn’t got one of our people in his pay.”
Green eyes flared with alarm, for if Jocelyn couldn’t trust the people she depended on, then she was in serious trouble. “No! I won’t believe that.”
“I don’t mean any of your escort, my dear. But you know the crew keeps changing on the Jocel. In just about every port, the captain loses a number of men he has to replace each time. There were six new men on the trip from New Orleans to New York, and another ten when we sailed to Mexico. And what with the telegraph being used in more and more countries, if Longnose has access to inside information as to our whereabouts, it wouldn’t take him long to get it.”
Surprisingly, the implications of that reasoning didn’t cause fear so much as anger. Blast the man! She had only been worrying that he might locate the ship in California before they got there. Now it was conceivable that he might know where they were at this very moment, or at least where they were heading. The only thing in their favor was that he didn’t have a ship at his command to make following them easy.
“Well, that just settled the matter of where we’re going,” Jocelyn said in a tight voice. “It won’t be to California.”
Vanessa raised a brow. “I was only speculating, my dear.”
“I know. But if it’s true, it would certainly explain why he’s constantly been able to find us, even when we’ve left the ship to travel overland, and that just to throw him off the scent. I swear, Vanessa, I’ve really just about reached my limit. It was bad enough when Longnose was just trying to kidnap me, to return me to England. But since I’ve turned twenty-one, he has twice tried to kill me. Perhaps it’s time I accepted the challenge.”
“I hesitate to ask what you mean by that.”
“I don’t know what I mean, but I’ll think of something,” Jocelyn assured her.
Chapter Four
“I don’ like the idear of killin’ no woman, Dewane.”
“Wha’d’ya care? It ain’t as if’n ya’d ever get a chance at ’er yerself, Clydell. An’ she’s a fur’ner, jes’ like hisself thar. Look at ’im, calm an’ patient as ya please. He don’ dress like us, don’ act like us, don’ talk like us. An’ he claims she’s English too. So wha’d’ya care?”
Clydell did spare a glance for the foreigner. Tall, slim, dressed in those fancy Eastern duds—or were they fancy English duds?—and a good ten years older than any one of them. The man was so out of place he stood out like a nose wart. And clean, even after sleeping out with the rest of them on the bluff last night. How did he stay so clean?
“Still…” Clydell started again, only to glance back and catch his brother’s narrowed gaze.
“Look, he got us outta Mexico, did’n he, when we thought fer sure we’d never scrape up enuf ta get back over the border? I don’ mind tellin’ ya I’m right glad ta be back whar a man can spit an’ piss without givin’ offense. We owe him, Clydell, ain’t no two ways ’round it. An’ ya don’ see none o’ these other boys gripin’, do ya? It’s jes’ a job, fer Gawd’s sake!”
When Dewane took that tone, his younger brother knew it was time to shut up. Dewan
e could be pressed only so far to explain why they were doing something. Robbing stages hadn’t been so bad; neither had rustling a little cattle. And of course raising hell and picking a fight or two was normal whenever they hit a town. Clydell might have complained some about that bank job, but he’d done it anyway. That job had brought a posse after them that wouldn’t let up.
They’d been chased into Mexico, where they were safe at last, or thought so, until a lousy band of hill bandits had left them with barely their lives and not a cent to their names. The Englishman had been a godsend, coming along when they were at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, working just for bread and board in a dirty little cantina where they didn’t even understand the lingo. The months had passed by, and Clydell had come to think he’d be dying down there.
He really shouldn’t complain or think twice about it. Dewane was right as usual. Those four boys they picked up in Bisbee, two of them ex-rustling partners they’d known in New Mexico, hadn’t even blinked when told what needed doing. Clydell was the only one who felt it just wasn’t right, killing a woman. And the way it had been decided she’d be killed, that kind of made him sick to his stomach. Of course, it might not work out that way, and thank God he wasn’t one of the two assigned to go after her if the boulder didn’t manage to smash her to bits. A piece of lead was a much cleaner way to go if someone had to go. But he was one of the four who would be shoving that boulder over the bluff, which was why he groaned inwardly when the Mexican, who had been stationed farther back in the hills to watch for the victim’s arrival, showed up to say it wouldn’t be long now.
Elliot Steele opened his pocket watch to check the time. It was nearly noon. The duchess was late—as usual. But then she always managed to do something to disturb his well-laid plans. Why he should think this time would be any different, he didn’t know. But the hour, fortunately, was of no importance. There was only one trail and she was on it. There was no place else she could go except forward, directly into his trap.
How many times had he said that before, and yet she was still going about her merry way. The girl had the luck of the Gods. How else could she have escaped his traps time and again?
Elliot was good at his line of work, or had thought he was, until the Duke of Eaton had hired him. He had made a small fortune over the years working for the gentry in whatever capacity was necessary, no matter how unsavory, so he had been good at what he did. And what Maurice Fleming wanted done had been so simple. Just find the girl and return her to England, where he would then have complete control over her and her money, which was all Fleming had wanted.
Elliot had contacts in other countries, men in the same line of work. And he knew how to go about hiring the kind of men who came cheap and didn’t ask questions about what they were told to do. The job should have taken no more than a few months, just long enough to find out where the Jocel came to port. And yet for nearly two years, the length of time the duke continued to pay all of Elliot’s expenses, his men had only once gotten their hands on her.
It was preposterous, because she was so easy to locate wherever she went—if not her ship, then her large entourage of coaches and wagons and mounted guards. It was not a caravan that could pass unnoticed, and she never tried to conceal it or change it or leave it behind. Her coach alone was the finest made, large, bright teal blue, and pulled by six high-stepping mares all a matched gray in color. She might as well have the ducal crest emblazoned on the doors, the vehicle was so memorable.
Yet no matter how many times he was able to locate her, it was never an easy matter to actually get to her. In point of fact, her small army of servants and guards made it frustratingly difficult, and she was never, ever, very far from them. The one time his men had been able to steal her away, she had been found and rescued the very same day, with his four men dying and not one of hers even wounded.
But those days were over. Now that the girl had come of age, Fleming would no longer have an easy time of manipulating the courts to give him control of her. He no longer wanted her, was no longer paying Elliot’s expenses to find her, and Elliot had earned nothing for all his time, trouble, and frustration before he was dismissed. Two years he had wasted with nothing to show for it. He was not a man to accept that with a shrug of nonchalance. Not by any means.
His purpose now was twofold. He was going to kill that red-haired bitch for the pleasure of it, but also for all the feelings of incompetence she had made him feel, and for the ruin of the reputation he had built up, of being a man who could be counted on to see a job done quickly and without mistakes. And when he informed the duke that it was done, and that he had seen to it that she left no will, that Fleming could now claim her wealth simply by being her only relative, Elliot would finally be compensated.
He didn’t care how long it took or how much of his own money it cost, he would see it done. And killing her was much easier than trying to abduct her. It could be done from afar. It could be done in any number of ways. That he had twice attempted it and twice failed only proved she had not lost her luck yet.
Even the bloody countries she chose to cross were more often than not to her advantage. Mexico had been ideal for his purposes, or so he thought; huge, sparsely populated outside its cities, miles and miles of nothing but wildnerness where a massacre could go unreported for days, weeks. And the duchess conveniently set up camp in the middle of nowhere time and again. It was the perfect opportunity to attack in force, to hire an army to match hers. And hiring the army would have been easy and cheap—if it were for any other purpose. But getting a Mexican to agree to kill a woman was nearly impossible. He had tried and tried, and was turned down every time. She had beaten him again without doing a thing, simply through the character of the Mexican people.
Then he had found Dewane and Clydell Owen, two down-on-their-luck Americans who had that look Elliot always recognized as being available and willing for anything. He had sent them north across the border, and they had come up with four others just like themselves, as well as a likely spot for an ambush. They were to meet up in the mining town of Bisbee, which he had finally located yesterday. He had spent the remainder of the day riding back and forth over the narrow mule track below, looking for the ideal spot for what he had in mind.
The spot wasn’t as perfect as he could have hoped for: nearly out of the mountains, and with the slope that the trail cut across extending on down to the bottom. Trees were in this area, at least below the trail on the lower slope, not in any great abundance, but enough to stop a rolling coach if the boulder should do no more than knock the vehicle off the track. That wasn’t likely to happen. With as steep a drop as there was directly below the boulder, and with the path wide at that point, the boulder was almost guaranteed to drop hard and go no farther.
If there had been time, he would have moved the bloody big rock to a better spot on the trail, where it would have wedged itself between two slopes and been impossible to move, making the trail impassable for horse or coach. He might have let the duchess pass through first if that were the case, simply for the pleasure of killing her with his own hands. But as it was now, if the boulder didn’t do as it was supposed to and land directly on the lead coach, the trail would still be blocked enough to keep the rest of the escort trapped behind the boulder, with Elliot’s men providing gunfire to hold them there for a while. As long as the duchess was on the opposite side of the boulder, the two men he had prepared for that contingency could sneak down and take care of her without a problem.
They could just hear the horses approach now, coming slowly down the trail. “How many lead riders did you count?” Elliot asked the Mexican.
“Six, senor.”
Elliot nodded. He should have known her guards wouldn’t break habit just because the trail was narrow and not what they were used to. Six always rode ahead, and six behind the coach. It was just as well there was room below on that ledge for the lead riders to maneuver past the coach when the Mexican started the shooting, to draw
their attention to the back of the train. There was little that could be done if they didn’t move back to investigate, for it was doubtful all six could be picked off before they had a chance to find cover. And if the coach did escape the boulder, that would leave too many guards to still protect it.
“Go back to your position,” Elliot ordered the man, “and wait for the signal to begin.”
Dewane watched him go before sneering, “Ya ain’t tol’ the Mex she’s ta die, have ya?”
Elliot stared coldly at the older Owen brother. It was his policy to explain himself as little a possible to his hirelings, and he saw no reason now to mention his experiences with the Mexicans and that he wasn’t taking any chances with the one he had hired to guide the duchess away from the main roads so she would be forced to come this way.
“Quite right,” was all he said, and that was enough.
These men were leery of him and that was as it should be. They shared a camaraderie of nationality from which he stood apart, which was as he would want it even if their differences did not enter into it. When you employed men as cold-blooded and merciless as yourself, a separateness had to be maintained so there was never any question of who was in control.
Elliot turned to watch the Mexican hurrying along the upper ledge to his assigned position. This spot really was ideal. With two ledges, the upper one concealed from below, it was absolutely perfect for ambush. There was even a path leading down the other side of the bluff to where their horses were hidden. And those below could not give chase even if they wanted to, because the two separate trails didn’t meet until they reached the bottom of the mountain on this side. The path leading down the other side of the bluff met the foothills on the western face of the mountain, but horses couldn’t maneuver up or down it.