The Irish Devil (16 page)

Viola blushed at the possibilities his deep voice evoked.

An hour later, William and Evans escorted Viola through the depot. The men who saw them paused to touch their hats to her, then returned to their duties. They behaved exactly as they had before she started sleeping with William, as if it was nothing unusual to see her leave an unmarried man’s house in the early morning. Something inside Viola relaxed almost imperceptibly at their easy acceptance of her.

Everything else was a pleasant bustle: the wagons custom-made by Murphy & Sons of St. Louis to meet Donovan & Sons’ famously high expectations, the mules bred for Donovan & Sons’ demand for speed and stamina, even the teamsters joking as they returned from their regular target practice. She’d heard gossip for years about the firm’s high requirements and the almost military demand for discipline. Meeting those standards was what kept Donovan & Sons in business, delivering freight to even the riskiest parts of the West.

“Mr. Donovan.” Lowell, one of the teamsters, appeared beside them. He touched his hat to Viola but his attention was entirely on William. “Can you settle a wager for me?”

“Another bet, Lowell? What is it this time?” William’s voice was indulgent and patient.

Viola’s mouth twitched. Lowell’s interest in betting on anything was famous, even here on the frontier where everyone, both men and women, gambled.

“How many strokes with a whip would you need to cut a newspaper into pieces? I said six, but Harrison said four.”

“Do you want me to demonstrate here and now?”

“Yes, sir.” Lowell had the appearance of a puppy about to wag its tail.

“With your help, of course. Very well.”

Lowell took a deep breath, then nodded. “Yes, sir.” He stepped into the middle of the yard and shook out a single sheet of newspaper, his movements only slightly rushed. The other men gathered around, staying well back from Lowell.

“Wait for me on the porch, would you, Mrs. Ross?”

Viola nodded and moved to the better vantage point. She’d heard gossip of William’s skill before, that he could take a fly off a horse’s ear and similar feats. But she’d never seen him in action.

William shook out his whip casually. Viola’s knees weakened at the elegance of the movement, the restrained power of the whip in his strong hand. It was a deadly weapon but none of the men seemed afraid of it.

He flicked it several times, keeping it close to the ground. “Will you count, Evans?”

“My pleasure.” Evans stepped up next to Viola.

Lowell faced William, the newspaper stretched between his hands. William took a step forward, cracking the whip as he did so, but the teamster didn’t flinch. The newspaper split cleanly in half.

The sound of the whip ran through Viola’s bones.

“One.” Evans’s voice was slightly bored.

Lowell held a remaining half sheet between his hands. Another crack and another piece of newspaper fell. Viola gripped the rail harder as arousal shimmered within her.

“Two.”

“Three.” Lowell was completely calm, his breathing unhurried, as he stretched smaller and smaller pieces between his hands.

“Four.”

William was as serene as when he’d returned from Mass.

“Five.”

Her breasts were as swollen and aching as if William had been suckling them.

“Six.”

The only sound in the depot was Harrison’s faint muttering.

“Seven.”

Lowell glanced at William, who nodded. His confidence in the man with the whip couldn’t have been more obvious, even though the remaining piece was less than an inch long.

Viola held her breath, ignoring the fiery lances jolting her breasts and womb.

“Eight.”

Lowell let the last shred of newspaper fall. Cheers went up and money exchanged hands. Lowell strutted like a rooster.

William stretched a bit and smiled quietly as he coiled his bullwhip.

Viola wondered if a whip could be used in carnal play.

Evans disappeared with a murmured farewell, leaving William and Viola to enter the office alone. He settled her at the clerk’s smaller desk, now covered by neat stacks of tally sheets. It was fairly self-explanatory work, but he gave her a solid explanation while she waited patiently.

“Crampton’s gear should suit you,” William murmured, and opened a drawer.

Viola blinked. What sort of things could that finicky little man possibly have to interest her? She laughed when William produced a leather apron, an eyeshade, and cuff protectors. “Is that how he does it?” she exclaimed.

“Be so incredibly clean all the time? Oh yes, and he fights Apaches the same way.”

Viola considered the results of wearing Crampton’s protective gear in the window’s reflection, and chuckled again. Her mother or Juliet would swoon in horror before appearing in public like this. On the other hand, her beautiful new dress should stay quite presentable. “Sarah’s cleanliness standards should be satisfied, if not her fashion sense,” she remarked. “She has very strict standards, you know.”

“We’ll make sure she doesn’t see you then. Her disapproval is something best avoided.”

Viola cocked an eye at him but didn’t ask how he’d learned that. Perhaps they’d be friendly enough to exchange such confidences in the three months they had left together.

Soon she was up to her elbows in paperwork, humming the Stephen Foster tune about the Swanee River while William worked at the other desk. Emboldened by the comfortable silence, she raised a popular conversational topic.

“William, do you think about railroads often?”

“As much as anyone else, I reckon. Why?”

“Do you worry they’ll take your business away from you?”

“No, never that.”

Viola blinked in surprise. Most teamsters, even riverboat captains, were convinced railroads would take over everything. “Why not?”

“Railroads can’t, and won’t, go everywhere. There’ll always be business hauling freight to everyplace else.”

Viola nodded, understanding the strategy. It’d work for a teamster, although it might not for a riverboat. Railroads satisfied more predictable schedules than a river allowed. They also served the same large settlements as riverboats, making them more of a threat.

“Also, there will always be a business hauling high-risk cargo,” William continued, in his slightly guttural California drawl. “Donovan & Sons regularly escorts special freight on railroads, for example.”

“And the higher the risk, the higher the profit,” Viola said slowly.

“Exactly.” William finished writing and came over to her. “Here you are, sweetheart. These are receipts for payment of Ross’s debts, plus a letter of credit drawn on my bank in San Francisco. It’s good anywhere in North America and most of Europe. Plus some coins to jingle in your pocket.”

Viola nodded silently, staring at the slips of paper in her hand as William placed a handful of money on the blotter. He’d written the letter of credit for the full thousand dollars, rather than the fraction left after paying Edward’s bills. Freedom and a new life lay before her.

She sprang up and hugged him, tears sparkling in her eyes. “Thank you,” she choked out. “You didn’t have to do this, not pay me the full sum in the beginning.”

He held her close and kissed the top of her head. “My pleasure, sweetheart.”

They remained like that for a long minute before she sniffled. He released her immediately and handed her a handkerchief.

“Are you always this generous in business?” Viola asked as she wiped her eyes.

William snorted. “Not often called generous, sweetheart. Honest, yes. But sometimes worse.”

“No wonder your men love you,” Viola went on, disregarding his modesty. She’d heard too much about him in this small town that he and Lennox dominated.

He spluttered. “Love? Sweetheart, who the devil are you speaking of? Teamsters don’t love their boss.”

She was still laughing at the look on his face when a knock sounded. “Mr. Donovan?”

William shrugged and went to the door. “What is it, Lowell?”

“Begging your pardon, sir. Ma’am. We’re having some difficulty lashing down the colonel’s personal effects. Could you please take a look?”

“Five minutes, Lowell.” He shut the door and leaned against it, studying Viola. She looked back at him quizzically.

“Ever considered playing games in the office, sweetheart? Carnal games?”

“What?!” Viola squeaked. With a guilty glance at the window, she lowered her voice. “William, what on earth makes you think such a thing would be possible? It would be entirely outside the normal course of behavior in a business setting.”

“Ever meet an impertinent clerk? Perhaps she receives her just desserts from her manager in a sensual fashion. All just for play, of course, like a pageant.”

Viola was speechless. Carnal punishment? In the office? Her breasts heated at the thought.

“Have you ever been in a pageant, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” Viola whispered, her nipples hard and aching now.

William’s eyes rested on her for an appreciative moment. “Good. Then think on it while I’m gone.”

He clapped on his hat and departed with a quick salute to Viola. It was a few minutes before she could return to adding up gunpowder barrels.

Shortly, another polite knock followed by a diffident, and very deep, voice interrupted her. “Mrs. Ross?”

“Come in.” She smiled tentatively as Hank Carson, the blacksmith, entered. He was a very respectable man, with a wife and children back in Santa Fe and a legendary knack for finding a church wherever he went. What would this Methodist deacon think of her liaison with William Donovan?

“I fixed the big desk lamp, Mrs. Ross.” He produced an elegant student lamp, gleaming bright in the filtered sunlight. “There was a hole in the stem, right here, that I mended. Perhaps you can use it while you’re down here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carson. That’s very kind of you.”

He set the lamp on her desk, careful to align it with the stretch of leather blotter. Then he stepped back and looked her in the eyes. Viola’s pulse thudded in her throat.

“I’ve been elected by the boys to talk to you, Mrs. Ross.”

“Yes?” Viola held her breath.

“You’re a member of the Donovan family now, Mrs. Ross, and we take that very seriously. If there’s ever anything one of us can do for you, you just holler and we’ll all come running.”

Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. “Thank you, Mr. Carson. Please extend my sincerest appreciation to the other men, as well. I cannot begin to express how safe you’ve made me feel.”

Carson nodded. “I’ll do that, ma’am. There is one other matter, if you don’t mind. If anyone in this town should treat you with less than the proper respect due a lady of quality, you just let me know. I’ll be glad to give them a lesson in manners straightaway.”

Joy bubbled up in Viola, so bright and vivid it came out as tears. She blinked hard and managed a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Carson. I will keep your offer in mind. But Mr. Donovan does show me every courtesy.”

“Mr. Donovan is a gentleman, even if he is Irish born and bred.” He nodded again to her. “Good day, Mrs. Ross.”

“Good day to you, Mr. Carson.”

Viola returned to adding up the number of gunpowder barrels with a considerably lighter heart. At least someone in the community accepted her actions.

And Donovan & Sons were notoriously loyal to their own, closer than blood ties could be. Her mother, for example, had set little stock in blood ties.

Viola hummed an old Latin Christmas carol as she and the other two women walked up to the house’s back door. She always used the servants’ entrance whenever she went out with Molly and Brigid O’Byrne. Christmas morning Mass, her first Catholic church service, had been just as beautiful as the two Irish girls had promised. She’d enjoyed the lavish service and had even understood some of the priest’s sonorous phrases, thanks to studying Latin with Hal all those years ago.

She gave thanks yet again that Hal and Father were well, on this fourth Christmas of the war. Her mother had never been arrested either, despite her occasional trips into Kentucky and her lavish hospitality for Union military men.

Viola couldn’t count the number of times she’d headed the conversation away from military matters at one of her mother’s dinner parties. She’d always been ignored at social functions before, when all the attention focused on her mother or Juliet. But when she’d caught her mother coaxing detail after detail about the gunboats’ overhaul from Mr. Pook, the shipyards’ foreman, she’d promptly interrupted. After that terrifying dinner party in 1861, she’d made sure to be present whenever her mother was around Union military men.

But now with Grant’s army surrounding Richmond and Sherman’s capture of Savannah, surely the war was almost over. She could relax without worrying about her mother’s loyalties. Father and Hal would come home soon and they’d be a family again.

A flash of light caught her eye from the mud beside the path. Viola stooped to pick it up. An officer’s button. She cleaned it as best she could with her mittened hands and studied it in the thin winter sunlight.